SEEK SHELTER NOW.
Rain patters against the roof in a soft staccato and runs down my window in rivulets, blurring the night outside. The day’s storms have calmed into a steady downpour with the occasional flicker of lightning and the distant rumble of thunder.
The festival has been postponed until tomorrow. The rain is supposed to continue through the night. Power crews are still out, clearing away the debris. There wasn’t a tornado—just a dodgy funnel cloud. But the winds were strong enough to tear down tree limbs and damage power lines.
I slip a long-sleeved thermal over my head and tug my hair free, exhaustion settling into my bones. It’s as though I’ve run a mental marathon, and still, I can’t turn off my brain.
If only there were a switch.
Something to stop the thoughts.
I remove the skeleton key from around my neck and open the bottom drawer of my desk. I set the key on top of Simon’s journal, which sits on top of the shoebox filled with keepsakes, which sits on top of the book my mother read to me on my birthday. I remove Enoch’s worn copy ofTheGreat Gatsby, which reminds me of my mother now, too. Daisy Buchanan to Simons’ Dorian Gray. Maybe reading will help quiet my mind. Maybe losing myself in a story my mother once loved will lull me into peaceful, dreamless sleep.
I turn off the light, turn on my bedside lamp, and crawl beneath the covers. I open the book and flip through the musty pages when something falls loose—a pair of photographs pressed together face-to-face.
I sit up and take them in hand.
The one on top has been labeled in a slanted scrawl.
1927, me and Reuben.
I flip it over.
In black and white, three people sit at a poker table. A very young man, perhaps yet a boy, with a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He leans back in a velvet-upholstered chair too large for him, his posture cocky but not quite comfortable.
And beside him …
My heart begins to pound.
A man who isnota boy, sharply dressed in a pinstripe suit, drink in hand. A woman with a feathered headband and a fringed dress sits on his lap. He smiles at the camera—a familiar wicked grin—like he can see through the lens.
Like he can see through time.
Like he can see me.
My heart pounds harder.
It slams against my sternum as I flip to thesecond photo. This one is square with a thick, white border—an early polaroid. On the bottom, written in the same slanted scrawl:
Frank Vandenberg, 1960.
This is a candid shot.
Frank Vandenberg didn’t know he was being photographed. But his face is captured clearly as he stands on the edge of a familiar terrace, a cigarette between his lips. His posture is elegant. His eyes, detached. And his face?—
My blood runs cold.
Here they are.
The photographs Jude and I couldn’t find when we searched Enoch’s trunk. They’ve been here this whole time, tucked insideThe Great Gatsby. Daniel sent them to his brother in a letter, asking if he was going mad. And here is why.
Reuben and Frank don’t just bear a strong resemblance.
Reuben and Frank are identical.
One and the same.
My hand curls around my throat, as though the gesture might help me breathe. But my lungs won’t cooperate. I stare at these photos, mouth open, throat dry.
