The late autumn air had turned from cool to cold, and Jenny shivered even as the fire in front of her cast her shadow on the wall of trees and brush that ringed the clearing. She stood rooted to the spot; she was terrified, but the instructions had been clear. Against the dark night the light of the fire was almost blinding, and she didn't see the cloaked figures approaching from the opposite side of the clearing until their hands were inches from her exposed skin. She started and screamed, but all at once a hand was at her mouth, there was a crack behind her, and a sharp pain brought her to her knees. The woods were silent for a moment more. Then, over the crackle of the fire and the rustle of the leaves, she heard a voice inside her head--a voice that wasn't hers. "Remember your vows, sister." Jenny relaxed, as though compelled, and yielded herself to the ordeal.
***
Three months earlier, Jenny had emerged, bedraggled and overpacked, from a local bus in front of an old Victorian house on a bluff overlooking the Georgia Strait. The bus wasn't supposed to stop for another quarter mile, but the driver had taken pity on her--and after all, she was the only passenger. Under other circumstances, the house might have seemed eerie, with its spindly porch columns, weathered shingles, and spiraled turret. But on a warm August afternoon, with a cheery breeze bringing the smell of the sapphire blue water over the tan beach grass, she felt renewed.
Her body could use some renewing, too. Since waking up and kissing her parents goodbye, Jenny had flown from Maryland clear across the country to Seattle, stopping aptly at Midway, then taken an interminable "express" bus ride to the sleepy downtown of Port Gladstone, Washington. From there she had waited with her suitcases for the local bus--it came every two hours--and bumped along another forty-five minutes before the kindly driver dropped her off at the house.
Hearing the bus, a woman in a sun dress ran out to greet her. "Jenny!"
The embrace was constricting, and Jenny gasped for breath. "Auntie Heather! It's so good to finally see you!" Heather Giles was not, strictly speaking, Jenny's aunt, but she was the nearest thing. Growing up, Heather was the old friend of Jenny's mom, Sarah Martin, whose place was cemented, even as other friends came and went. Jenny and Heather had only met twice before--once, when Heather and her family came to visit for Christmas when Heather was eight, and again when Jenny was fifteen and Heather swooped Sarah away for a long weekend in New York. But Sarah and Heather kept so close, with long phone calls evolving into Facebook comments evolving into Zoom chats, it felt like they'd been neighbors all along.
No one had ever explained to Jenny how Heather and Sarah had met. Heather was younger--significantly so--and had had kids early: at 38, she had one son starting his junior year at the University of Washington, and another who'd just left for his first quarter at Berkeley. Aaron Giles, Heather's husband, seemed like he'd always been around--in any event Jenny didn't remember a wedding, and there was never any suggestion the boys weren't his.
In a sense, the boys--or really their absence--were the reason Jenny was there. Jenny was 18, the same age as Tristan, Heather's younger son, and she had been admitted to the undergraduate program at the Northwest Marine Institute, a small marine biology research station clustered among evergreens on the Washington coast. By happenstance, NMI was just a rickety bicycle ride down the road from the Giles's house--and as there were no dorms in any event, and Heather's nest was newly empty, the mothers spoke and the decision was made.
Heather breezily lifted the largest suitcase and put a hand on Jenny's shoulder, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. "You'll hate this, but look at you! You're all grown up! Now, come on in--you'll get Tristan's bedroom."
With that, Jenny was ushered into the house and up a staircase, the time-worn treads creaking under her feet. All the bedrooms were on the second floor, above the kitchen, living room, and dining room. Heather and Aaron slept in the turret room, surrounded by windows on three sides, and the boys' rooms occupied opposite corners at the back of the house. They finally made it to the room. Heather gave Jenny another excited hug and floated out of the room, and Jenny flopped down over the comforter and fell asleep.
A couple of hours later, Jenny awoke to the smell of seared salmon and the sight of Heather's face peeking through the door. "Honey, she's up!" Heather called down the stairs. Turning back to Jenny, she said, "Dinner's ready, babe--want to come down?"
Over dinner, Jenny took in more of her surroundings--and her hosts. Aaron was just as young as Heather, with flecks of gray just starting to infiltrate the dark blond stubble on his high-cheekboned face. Aaron did something on the Navy base--some civilian thing, maybe science--and was a trim 6'1. Heather was about 5'4, and her features were darker, her skin tan from the summer sun and her straight hair dark brown verging on black. She was clearly fit--muscular, even--but comfortably softened around the edges. "She is a mom, after all," Jenny thought.
The conversation over dinner was easy and light. Jenny asked about the house--it turned out it had been built in 1896 by Archibald Philips, a logger-turned-sea captain who built giant oceangoing rafts of Northwest timber and steered them down the Pacific coast to California. Philips had retired in the house, and it stayed in his family until his reclusive son died without an heir in the 1960s. Heather and Aaron bought it when they moved to Port Gladstone for Aaron's job after college--the commute was long, and the house showed its age, but the price had been reasonable and they woke up every morning with the ocean out their window.
Heather and Aaron had questions for Jenny, too: how she had gotten interested in marine biology (she liked animals, swimming, and AP Bio), how she'd even found out about NMI ("It's famous!"), whether she was leaving a boyfriend back in Maryland ("No way, José."). By nine o'clock, Jenny was ready for bed in earnest.
School started the next morning, and quickly all three of them were swept into a routine. Jenny had classes on Mondays and Tuesdays and field work at the station on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with Friday and the weekend free to do homework and explore. Heather had stayed home while the boys were young and in their teen years had managed to write a novel; she spent most of her mornings in the living room with her laptop, working on her second one. Aaron seemed to work normal hours, pulling out in his well-loved Toyota truck around eight thirty and coming home around six. Late August was the hottest part of the year, and the warm weather held into the first few weeks of September.
The Friday after Labor Day, Jenny slept in and awoke to find that Aaron had already left the house. Heather was downstairs, engrossed in her work, and Jenny lay in bed for half an hour listening to music with headphones, not wanting to disturb her. Eventually Jenny felt fully awake, and a little bored, and she took the opportunity to explore. Stepping out of her room, she padded across the hall and poked open the door to the turret room. The Giles's king bed faced the door with built-in benches along the windowsills on either side. To her left as she stepped in, back into the body of the house, there was an en-suite bathroom; to the right, a closet with slatted folding doors.
Jenny had just decided she wasn't above a quick peek into the medicine cabinet when she heard a loud creak over the music in her headphones. Gasping "oh shit!," she dove out of the bathroom and looked for an instant at the door. Just then, there was another creak--even louder this time--and she decided she couldn't risk it. She dove into the closet and pulled the door closed just as the bedroom door flew open.
Jenny stopped her music and wriggled around to peer out through one of the narrow gaps between the slats in the closet door. She saw that Aaron had entered first--she must not have heard his truck pulling in. They seemed to be having a playful argument.
"You didn't properly say goodbye before you left," Heather said, poking Aaron playfully in the chest.
