Natalie put everything away in the trunk of her SUV, used a hand sanitizer, brushed her fingers through her hair, and grabbed the bouquet of marigolds from the backseat. Just in time.
Grace Lockhart drove her Mini Cooper through the cemetery gates, while Grace’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Ellie, waved at her aunt through the windshield.
Natalie smiled and waved back.
They got out of the Mini Cooper with their bouquets and silver helium balloons, and Natalie opened her arms wide. Hugs and kisses all around.
“Hi, Aunt Natalie.”
“How’s it going, kiddo?”
“Pretty good, thanks.”
“Hey, sis.” Grace was an exceptionally pretty divorcée who hadn’t aged a day since high school. She had luminous blue eyes and a halo of golden Botticelli hair. She came across as placid, almost complacent, as if nothing fazed her, but Natalie knew a deeper truth. Grace was a natural-born worrier, the type of person who couldn’t prevent everyday problems from weighing heavily on her. She was sensitive to a fault, although you wouldn’t know it to look at her. She was a biology teacher at the local high school, and she’d divorced her hedge-fund-manager husband six years ago, when Ellie was nine. Ellie bore the scars of the divorce on her sweet, sad face.
“Sorry we’re late,” Grace said absently, checking her phone. “Ellie had a thing after school.”
“I was with my friends,” Ellie clarified.
“Sorry … what I meant.”
“Mom, where’s your head today? Put that thing away.”
“Pot. Kettle.” Grace smiled and finished checking her text messages.
“You told me to put my phone away,” Ellie reminded her.
“Just a second.”
“Sheesh. Pot. Kettle.” Ellie was a stunner, an avid book-reader and the world’s biggest cynic. Her lovely, skeptical eyes were a waxy blue. She’d dyed her naturally blond hair raven black in order to distance herself from her mother, but otherwise she was the spitting image of Grace. Ellie was born during a hurricane. The gale-force winds had swept in from the southwest, shaking the traffic lights and fanning the suffocating rains. Lately, she reminded Natalie of a hurricane, with her escalating moods and fiery defiance of her mother’s rules.
“Are we all set?” Natalie asked.
“Yeah,” Grace said, putting her phone away. “Let’s go.”
They found Willow’s grave and placed their flowers at the base of the headstone, while Ellie handed out the balloons—one each. Every year, they performed the same simple yet heartfelt ceremony. First, they took turns telling Willow what had transpired since her last deathiversary; then they said a silent prayer; finally they released their balloons.
“Ellie, you go first,” Grace said. “I’ll go next, and Natalie, you’re last.”
“Wow, you’re like a well-mannered bulldozer,” Natalie joked.
Ellie giggled. “Mom’s used to ordering her students around.”
“I don’t order anyone around,” Grace protested.
“Then why are you rushing us?”
“Because I hate graveyards,” Grace admitted with a shudder.
“You always do this,” Ellie protested softly. “Every year, you come up with some excuse to leave early.”
“No, I don’t.” Grace blushed. “Do I?”
Ellie turned to Natalie and asked, “Was she always this superstitious?”
“Grace is the most superstitious person I know.”
“It’s like … if I spill a grain of salt,” Ellie said with a derisive snort, “she’ll toss a pinch over her shoulder. If we come across a ladder or a black cat, she’ll walk in the other direction. It’s crazy.”
“Go ahead and mock your mother. I can take it.” Grace rolled her eyes. “Honey, you’re up,” she coached her daughter.
Ellie shuffled her feet. She was rail-thin, with an upturned nose, and today she was dressed all in black—black nail polish, black boots, a black lace blouse, black jeans. She was growing out her bangs, and you could see her sly eyes through a curtain of hair, the suggestion of mischief in her adolescent mouth. “Okay, well, um … Aunt Willow, I’ve been wondering lately … what it must feel like to lie underground, year after year, while everyone who visits your grave is so sad … all that negative karma must drive you nuts. And so I want you to know I’m feeling happy for you today, instead of sad, because you’re beyond all the bogus BS.”
“Ellie,” Grace said.
“Well, she is,” she insisted. “She’s moved on, and we haven’t. We’re still wallowing in the past. Meanwhile, she’s out there, flowing free with the wind and the water and…”
Grace put a hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “Honey, just tell your poor aunt what happened since her last deathiversary,” she pleaded. “C’mon, you know the drill. You’ve had all year to think about this.”
Ellie glanced at Natalie, who refused to take sides. With a sigh, she said, “All right. I got straight As again this year, just like last year. Probably because I’m so good at regurgitating whatever my teachers tell me and sitting quietly for hours, like a good little conformist. I’m an upstanding member of the Honor Society who does what she’s told … basically I’m Pavlov’s dog. Mom thinks I’m a genius. She’s my helicopter mommy.”
Grace gasped. “Good grief. Where on earth did you come up with that?”
“What?” Ellie said.
Grace turned to Natalie. “Am I a helicopter mommy?”
Natalie felt the surprise in the pit of her stomach. This child knew herself. She seemed so utterly self-possessed, so very much her own person, that Natalie felt a little lost by comparison.
“Well, it’s the truth,” Ellie said obstinately. “School is mostly bogus. Anyone can get straight As. It’s all about obedience and rote memory.”
Grace grew disheartened. Her posture wilted. She lived off Burke Guzman’s alimony payments, but teaching was her passion. “Can we talk about this later, honey?”
Ellie nodded and said, “Anyway, I’ve never met you, Aunt Willow, but I hope you’ve found peace. Perfect peace.” She smiled softly. “Okay, Mom. Your turn.”
Grace didn’t bat an eye, she just launched into a recitation of last year’s activities, hitting all the highlights—two weeks in Martha’s Vineyard; a weekend in Boston to check out Harvard and MIT; Christmas in Bermuda. They were thinking of Harvard or Yale, maybe Columbia or Princeton. Ellie was in the top one percent of her class and doing great. Everything was great. Great, great, great. It was seven minutes and counting before she ran out of brag.
Then came Natalie’s turn. She never knew exactly what to say in these situations, since she preferred to grieve in private, like her father, Joey.
“Well, let’s see,” she said. “Zack got a job offer, and I didn’t feel like moving to Seattle, so we decided to separate. Test the waters.” That wasn’t the whole truth. Zack Stadler, Natalie’s boyfriend of three years, had left her after a bitter fight during which unforgivable things were said. Zack hated that there was a gun in the house, whereas Natalie had grown up with a gun in the house. Zack hated the autopsy photos she occasionally left out on her desk, whereas Natalie had grown up with autopsy photos on her father’s desk. Zack really didn’t want a cop for a girlfriend, although he’d initially been fascinated by her uniform, her bulletproof vest, her duty belt, her handcuffs, her police baton, her tactical boots, and of course the gun and extra magazines. But once the sex got old, their relationship died. During their final year together, Zack seemed to be fuming underneath the surface, repressing his resentment, which he took out on Natalie by fucking her from behind, always turning her over so he wouldn’t have to look at her indifferent face. Zack wanted prestige, he wanted status, he wanted much more than a town like Burning Lake could offer. And so, eight months ago, he’d packed his belongings and relocated to Seattle, where he went to work for a promising e-zine that covered the art scene. Natalie didn’t feel bitter or heartsick about it, so much as empty. They used to mock other cardboard couples. In the end, they began to mock each other.
Now Grace and Ellie were watching her closely. She ignored the looks of sympathy and talked about her job, some of the domestic abuse cases she’d solved, some of the brutal men she’d put away.
When she was done, they all held hands, said a silent prayer, and released the balloons, which slithered into the fog like jellyfish.
“Mom, I’m going to take pictures of the graves,” Ellie said.
“Sure, go ahead.” Once the sisters were alone together, Grace said, “Wow. Twenty years.”
Natalie nodded. “Hard to believe.”
Twenty years ago, Willow Lockhart had been savagely murdered by a jealous boyfriend behind the Hadleys’ old barn. Stabbed twenty-seven times. When Natalie’s mother heard the news, she screamed until her voice wore out. Sixteen-year-old Grace ran upstairs and vomited in the bathtub. Joey collapsed on the sofa, tears streaming down his face and dripping off his chin, like a drooling baby’s. Ten-year-old Natalie punched her fist through the mesh screen door and sprained her wrist. Days of mourning followed brutal loneliness. Her parents’ fights late at night. Phone calls from the media.
Now Natalie couldn’t help but feel that their grief had diminished over time, like a fading newspaper obituary. Every year, they stood in this same spot, summoning up the old heartbreak, but the loss wasn’t half as sharp or bitter as it had once been. Today felt more like an obligation. Like something to check off the to-do list.
“She’s growing up so fast,” Grace said of her daughter, who was traipsing among the weathered fieldstones, snapping pictures. “It’s a little scary.”
“She’s a good kid,” Natalie reassured her. “You raised her right.”
“One minute she’s my adorable little girl, and the next thing I know, she’s screaming at me like a banshee. Everything’s always my fault. She wants to get as far away from me as humanly possible.” Grace kept a careful eye on Ellie, who was taking pictures of a half-melted candle in front of a particularly decrepit grave. “Last night, for instance, she texted me IN ALL CAPS from the other room. And I told her—you need to come in here and talk to me face-to-face. I need to see you in real life.”
“She’s just testing the limits.”
“Fifteen, right? I guess it’s normal,” Grace said with a tired, proud smile. “She reminds me of you at that age.”
“Yeah?”
“Totally.”
Not really, Natalie thought. Grace couldn’t have remembered, because she had been six years older and living away from home by the time Natalie turned fifteen. Everything about being a teenager was difficult. Fifteen was a confusing, in-between age for a girl. You weren’t a child anymore, but you weren’t a full-grown woman yet. Life wasn’t rainbows-and-kittens anymore. The clouds weren’t made of cotton candy, other kids could be cruel, boys were suddenly interested, and it was up to you to navigate your way through this mess called adolescence, where your hormones kept pushing you toward spontaneous combustion.
“Anyway, she’s acing all her classes. Blowing away the competition. My little brainiac.” A damp gust made a play for Grace’s golden hair. She patted it down and said, “Did you check out that dating app I sent you?”
“God, no.” Natalie laughed. “Lol.”
Her sister’s pale forehead crimped with worry. “Eight months is a long enough time to waste on a broken relationship, Natalie. You should go out there and mix it up.”
“Mix things up?” Natalie winced. “What is this, the nineties?”
“I’m serious. I started dating a few months after the divorce.”
“Grace, you’ve been dating your entire life.”
She smiled and shrugged. “I can’t help it if I’m not as picky as you.”
To the left of Willow’s grave were Joey’s and Deborah’s plots. To the right of Willow’s grave were two empty plots reserved for Natalie and Grace. Neither one of them wanted to be buried here. Grace rubbed her shivering arms and said, “We should really sell those stupid plots, don’t you think?”
Natalie nodded. “Yeah, it’s probably time.”
“Just scatter my ashes somewhere pretty,” Grace said. “Better for the planet that way. Less creepy than being buried here for all eternity. No offense, Mom and Dad.” Her phone buzzed. She checked the number. “It’s Burke,” she said anxiously. “I have to take this. He wants to increase visitation rights, but then he shouldn’t have signed the divorce agreement, right?” Grace’s ex-husband, Burke Guzman, lived in Manhattan and was never around, so it fell on Grace’s shoulders to raise their only child. “I don’t want Ellie to overhear this. I’ll wait for you in the car, okay?”
“Sure. It’s going to rain soon anyway. We’ll be down shortly.”
Grace headed down the hill. “Burke?”
After a moment, Ellie looked up and noticed her mother was gone. She pocketed her phone, walked over to Natalie, and said, “You were in a coven once, weren’t you, Aunt Natalie?”
“Yeah, sure. We all were, for a short period of time.”
She tilted her head. “Why’d you quit?”
“The coven?” Natalie hesitated. “It got pretty dark.”
“How dark?” Ellie asked, her face tensing with interest.
“My friends and I decided to stop. We moved on to other things.”
“Your friends … including the girl who disappeared?”
“Bella. Yes. Only she didn’t disappear,” Natalie explained. “She ran off to California on the eve of our high school graduation.”
Ellie tugged on her earlobe. “Did you ever see her again?”
“No. In fact, I never heard from her again.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Then how do you know she’s alive?”
“She sent a bunch of postcards to her parents. No return address. I don’t think she wanted to be found.”
“Why not?”
“Long story,” Natalie said. Because her father was sexually abusing her, she thought, the old anger simmering just underneath the surface. “How did you find out about that?”
“Mom mentioned it once or twice,” Ellie explained. “How dark did it get? In the coven?”
Natalie smiled warmly at her. “Where are these questions coming from, Ellie?”
“I’m just curious,” the girl replied with deeper interest than mere curiosity.
Natalie nodded and said, “Bella and I thought it would be fun to explore Wicca, so we chose our witch names and slept under a full moon, you know … the whole nine yards. Black lipstick, astrology, Elvira streaks in our black hair. It was scary fun … until it wasn’t. I’m guessing you’re asking me about this now because you’re in a coven?”
Ellie’s pretty blue eyes widened. “How’d you guess?”
“Gee, I dunno.” Natalie smiled warmly at her. “Maybe it’s the hair that clued me in. Or the all-black outfit. Or the reference to wind, water, earth, and fire.”
Storm clouds were rolling in. Ellie kicked at the grass clippings. “Mom hates anything witchy. She says she saw a ghost once during a séance, and it scared the bejeezus out of her. She says that’s how she became so superstitious, because of the coven. She won’t even let me get a tattoo. All my friends have them. It’s no big deal.”
Natalie shook her head. “Are you kidding me? It’s a huge deal.”
“India has one. Why can’t I?”
Sixteen-year-old India Cochran was Ellie’s best friend—a natural beauty with almond-shaped eyes and raven black hair, and just like the rest of Ellie’s friends, a high achiever. Honor Society, debating team, class secretary two years in a row. “Since when did India get a tattoo?”
“Last summer. Besides,” Ellie stubbornly went on, “Mom’s got a tat over her left boob, which makes her a hypocrite.”
“When you’re young, all adults seem like hypocrites.”
“Seem like?”
Natalie smiled indulgently. “Does Grace know you’re in a coven?”
Ellie’s face flushed. “No. And please don’t tell her, Aunt Natalie.”
“I won’t. But you should talk to her about it. She might surprise you.”
“Trust me.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “She’ll be furious.”
“Look, your mom hasn’t had an easy life. It may appear easy on the surface, but Grace is very sensitive. She cares a lot. Maybe too much. She only wants what’s best for you.”
Ellie glanced skyward. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Shoot.”
“What happened to you and Zack?”
Natalie heaved a sigh—her niece was all over the place tonight. “A relationship can swallow you up. At first it was exhilarating, but after a while, it felt claustrophobic.”
“Why?”
“Zack had to have an explanation for everything. He knew everything there was to know. He had to win every argument. And I let him, because it was too exhausting not to. After a while, we stopped communicating. And that’s death to coupledom.”
“What a horse’s ass,” Ellie muttered, the color rising in her cheeks.
Natalie tucked her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “We were just wrong for each other, Ellie. It took us both a while to figure that out. But I’m much happier now.”
“How come?”
“Dodged a bullet.”
With a loud clap of thunder, the sky opened up, and it began to pour. A flat-out torrent. They’d forgotten their umbrellas, so they ran down the access road together.
Grace waved at them from inside the Mini Cooper while Ellie hugged her aunt good-bye and hopped in the car, little loops of hair sticking to her pale face.
Grace rolled down her window and said, “Next time, Natalie, I promise, we’ll have dinner afterwards. Like a pro-pah deathiversary.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Natalie said, knowing next time would be no different. She watched as the Mini Cooper backed down the crumbling road toward the cemetery gates. Soon the taillights disappeared into the fog.
Drenched to the skin, Natalie got in her car, started the engine, and turned on the wipers. The rain made ever-changing streaks of amethyst on the glass. She could feel the fury of the storm as it approached from the south, could feel it booming through the hills and darkening the air, stirring the trees and driving the birds to seek shelter—how did they hang on?
She switched on her high beams and studied the fractal intricacy of the yellow foxtail growing by the side of the road. Twenty years ago today, Willow was stabbed to death by a self-proclaimed rebel who liked to dress all in black—black T-shirt, black denim jeans, black Chucks, jet-black hair. Natalie used to think Justin Fowler was cool. Now he wore prison orange and was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.
You never got over it.
Rest in peace, Willow. Same time next year.