Tom nods, seemingly unable to talk.

“What did she tell you about her?” you ask.

Tom’s voice comes out flat, like he’s talking to no one. “She said she was kind, that she asked Shirley to go with her.” He looks over you to me, and our eyes meet. “She said the woman was Death, but not someone to be afraid of. The woman said she needed Shirley to do her a favor.”

Your voice is gentle now, and I feel pride rising in me. But that pride freezes after what you say next.

“Today, when she pulled me under, she said that you know what that feels like, putting someone below the water.”

Tom stands. His limbs are rigid, his jaw clenched. “That’s enough for now.”

“Tom,” you say, “secrets are heavy things. They’ll drag you under if you don’t let them go.”

He turns and walks through the kitchen, through the darkness, disappearing in the direction of his bedroom.

I stand up and walk over to the couch, sit down beside you, and don’t say a thing. I have no idea what to say. I have no idea what it is that I just witnessed.

You turn to me with sadness in your eyes. “There are too many secrets in this house,” you whisper. “Too many secrets.”

She’s Gone

I scrounge up some dinner for you and me from the kitchen. We eat without talking, and the house feels empty. After finishing, we walk together slowly back through the winding hall to your bedroom.

“Are you okay?” I ask as we push open the door.

You look up at me with weariness in your eyes, but you smile through it. “I’m okay.”

Your eyes are hazy, and instinctively I feel your forehead.

“You feel warm,” I say. “Are you sick?”

You shrug and crawl into bed, pulling the covers under your chin and sighing. “Just tired.”

You fall asleep in moments, and I’m upset with myself for letting Tom question you so soon after you nearly drowned. But I also smile slightly, thinking that he got much, much more in return. It wasn’t fair, really, him going into that conversation with you—he had no way of knowing how you can turn a chat on its head, how you can know things you should never know. I guess I’m used to it by now, or as used to it as one might become. But Tom found it disarming, and understandably so.

I go to each of the tall windows and double-check the locks. I stack the three books neatly on the table. I sit in the chair and look out the window, but it’s dark, and all I can see is a reflection of this room: me, the books, the bed, the small ridge in the blankets that is you, now asleep.

The longer I sit there, the more I think about what you said.

There are too many secrets in this house.

I remember the photographs in the book and the one I took back to my room. I would like to see those photos of Mary again, but I’m not sure I should leave you. I walk over to the bed and stare down at you, waiting for you to move, waiting for you to wake up, but you are so deep in sleep that your breathing seems like something being done to you, not something you are doing. I reach down and gently nudge your hair from your face, tuck it in behind your ear, and leave the room.