“Did the police take a witness statement? From the girl who survived?”
“That’s Cadence. I heard she was down at one of the smaller houses all evening. Doesn’t know what happened at the big house.”
The story chills me—those kids dying so young. “Did you know about this fire?” I ask the driver.
“Everybody does,” he says. “Here on the island.”
“Did you know the family?”
He shakes his head.
—
“Strawberry!” barks thedriver, pulling to the shoulder of the road.
We’ve stopped before a metal mailbox. It is painted with a strawberry.
I climb out as the driver gets my bags from the back. He holds out his hand for the fare.
I hand it over. He looks at me for a beat.
“I’m not tipping you,” I say. “I paid you an extra fifteen up front.”
“Fine,” he says. “Have a good day,Miss.”
He slams his door as he gets back in the driver’s seat, then revs the engine and is gone.
I stand in brilliant sunshine. The road is lined with emerald bushes and stone walls. There’s a field on one side where a pair of glossy chestnut oxen stand, morose.
South Road runs parallel to the sea. My father’s email says to take the driveway that bears his name, after the fourth mailbox past the strawberry.
Lugging my duffel and backpack, I walk the shoulder of the road. Dirt driveways stretch off here and there, winding south, toward the ocean, or north, into the center of the island. Some are labeled with discreet wooden signs:Davenport, Rothstein, Taylor, Robertson.Some have street names:Clamshell Drive, Evergreen Lane.
I pass three mailboxes. Then a fourth.
My back aches. I have hardly slept. But I keep on, up a hill. A single car speeds past me.
My nearly dead phone pings with a text from Holland Terhune:I have family junk to deal with in Edgartown next couple days, but when I get back YOU ARE COMING OVER. Winnie thinks you’re hot. Even though you had just puked! Do you like girls?
I type back:Just as friends, yes to coming over.But I can’t think about Holland and Winnie and their house party. I’m about to meet my father, if I can ever find his place.
When I reach the peak of the hill, I can see the ocean. I can smell it, too, a scent of salt and mystery in the wind. At maybe a quarter mile from the fourth mailbox, there is an unmarked stone driveway that stretches beneath ancient trees toward the sea. Between the stones grow sprigs of grass, but I can tell the stones have been laid carefully. Dark against light form an initial as they go along the curving drive:K.
ThenI.N.G.
Kingsley. He has memorialized himself in everlasting stone.
I turn into the driveway, lugging my duffel and still shaky from being sick. The path curves and doubles back on itself, easing down the hill toward the ocean. Then the view becomes obscured by trees that arc over the drive, many of them reaching their arms down close enough for me to touch. Overgrown.
I’ve left South Road far behind when an enormous dog, lean and shaggy, appears in the driveway. She is the same deep gray as the stones beneath her feet.
She stands before me, her head higher than my waist, her legs strangely long. A wolfhound, maybe? She wears no collar.
She growls, then lets out a low bark.
I stop.
The dog barks again. Louder, and this time continuously. Like she doesn’t want me to go any farther.
