DECEMBER 18, 1999
Jane Pyre understands only basic German, but anyone would have known that the young man wearing the Marvel Boys shirt, standing behind her in the car rental agency line at Berlin Tegel Airport, has recognized her—despite her cap and sunglasses—and called her a piece of shit. She resists the urge to give him the finger in case someone takes a photo and she ends up in a tabloid. No more of that.
“Fräulein?”
Jane steps up to the counter and hands her ID and credit card over to the clerk, who calls up the booking file for Janet Ribeiro without a flicker of recognition. Soon, she’s walking away from the desk with the keys to her rental car.
The German farmhouse she purchased has a name: Asche-Aussicht. The real estate agent told her it meant “Ash Lookout.” Jane likes that. I’m not a phoenix from the ash, I’m a ghost, I’m a gash, and soon I’ll be— The lyrics to a potential new song stream into her mind, unbidden; she presses her hand to her forehead as if trying to stanch blood flow. The last melody she ever wrote is a constant earworm. It would have been a good song, she knows. But there had been no words back then to add to it, just the haunting, nameless tune. I’ll be the stardust on your pillow / the sand that burns your eyes / When the hit of morning comes / waking lonely your surprise… Jane shakes her head and the words disperse.
She dumps her luggage into the trunk of a dark-blue BMW 3 Series, gets in, turns on the ignition, and is immediately assailed by the sound of a gravel-voiced DJ saying her dead husband’s name. Jane hears German words like legendäre musiker and frowns. She hates it when people talk about him. Which, she supposes, is like saying she hates the wind. There’s nothing she can do about the fact that, even five years after he disappeared (died, Jane reminds herself; he is dead, not just missing), Elijah Hart is still a worldwide obsession.
The DJ is talking to a caller now, and Jane feels a stab of jealousy at the easy tone of their voices as they discuss her husband. Everyone seems to think they know the details, the truth of their love story, their rise to dizzying fame, their equally spectacular crash. But only Jane knows what really happened, and all her secrets have crystallized inside her like mosquitos in amber. What would it be like, she wonders, to call into a radio station and just start talking?
But Jane would never.
A song begins. It’s “My Life or Yours,” their most popular song. His voice rises, reverberates, touches her core the way it always did—but with this song, she can hardly bear it. She struggles to focus on the road. Jane has grown used to meandering California highways and the traffic that comes alongside the spectacular views. But here, cars shoot past at top speed and she feels vulnerable. Then the song ends and the voice of a caller unsettles her even more. A young woman, her tone uncertain, halting, says a few words before slamming down her receiver so hard Jane winces. She takes one hand off the wheel and spins the dial away from the station.
Elijah always said finding the right music was the key to solving anything, and although she knows this isn’t actually true, she still channel surfs hopefully. Eventually she lands on heavy metal. It’s not her favorite genre, but she’s suddenly certain Elijah would say it was the perfect type of music for driving into unfamiliar territory. It almost makes her happy to feel so sure of this—as if he’s there in the passenger seat, playing with the tuning dial himself.
She misses him so much. It never goes away.
The roundabouts are confusing, the German signs unfamiliar, but the chaos of the music does indeed help. Soon, the frenzy of the highway is behind her and Jane is winding her way past farms and fallow fields. Here is her exit: an unpaved road, black mountains in the distance, a glimpse of a lake with flat waters mirroring the sky that, for just a moment, flashes her brain back to images of black sand, divers and helicopters, a much stormier body of water.
Focus. The road.
Tall, slender trees wave from the gravel shoulder. The song on the metal station switches, and she recognizes the band: it’s La Dure, the French punk-metal band the Lightning Bottles opened for the first time they were in Europe. Right here, in Germany. It takes her breath away a little, to hear the lead singer’s voice—Maxime. So different from Elijah’s, not even close to as good, but it’s also joyous, full of mischief and adventure. Jane always liked it.
At the crest of a hill, she stops thinking about Maxime’s voice, because she has spotted the farmhouse she’s only previously seen in photos. But something is wrong. There’s another roof—a neighbor. Jane frowns. A close neighbor. Hadn’t she carefully explained to the estate agent that she wanted to live somewhere very remote, that the possibility of not seeing another person for weeks on end was perfectly fine with her?
The gravel under her tires pops like broken glass as she pulls up in front of her new house. The faded concrete exterior is covered in creeping vines that have browned and crisped in the December air. A wooden terrace on the second story is constructed of wood aged to a pleasant patina. Ash trees are everywhere, as expected. There is the decrepit barn, and beyond that, a field laid out like a threadbare green carpet. Then everything disappears into fog.
Jane turns off the engine, opens the car door—and thinks she hears the drum solo from the Lightning Bottles’ song “Watching Us” somewhere in the distance. She can’t be sure it’s real; her music follows her everywhere. After such a long car ride, her knee aches. It’s the scar from an old injury that plagues her every day, still burns incessantly—much like her grief. She wishes she could say she’s gotten used to either.
She unloads her luggage from the car into the front vestibule of the farmhouse, then comes back outside to look around. In the distant valley, past the field, lies a village that must be Woolf. A gray concrete observation tower seems to stare at her from the field with curious, broken-window eyes. And then—the back of Jane’s neck prickles. It feels like a warning. Someone is watching you. She looks toward the neighboring house but doesn’t see anyone there. Maybe it’s abandoned. She can hope. It looks neglected, though not entirely so. No one is watching, she tells herself. This feeling of being observed is simply one she carries, always, the way, on holidays, survivors of war hear missiles and gunfire instead of fireworks.
A gust of wind blows her hat from her head, her sunglasses fall off, and Jane swears under her breath, then gathers up her things and heads for the house, fast. You’re stomping, the ghost of Elijah whispers in her ear. She suddenly imagines herself gray-haired and time-faded, wearing a gabardine raincoat and hiking boots, tramping through the somber landscape. She could get a walking stick. Wear strange hats. Scare any children who might happen by. Jane, Elijah whispers again. That’s not you. You’ll never disappear the way I did. She tries to ignore the voice. The ghost of Elijah is not always a welcome thing. He never seems to want the same things she does.
Inside the farmhouse, Jane looks around and decides she likes it. Especially the kitchen. The walls are painted white with the barest hint of pewter. Black countertops are set off by stainless steel appliances. Everything is new and fresh and reminds her of nothing, nowhere. Jane and Elijah’s homes in LA were beachy and bohemian. Candles dripping down wine bottles, instruments everywhere. His family’s home in Seattle had oak cabinets, homey clutter, vinyl albums spilled across the living room floor. A happy place, but only if you squinted, covered one eye, didn’t look too closely. This place is a blank canvas, and that’s good.
Her telephone rings; it’s black plastic with a rotary dial, mounted to a wall near a window. Ring. Ring. Ring. And then the person hangs up and calls again. This means it’s Petra, her manager, using the code they agreed upon so Jane will pick up.
“Hey.”
“All settled in? You doing okay?”
Jane can’t help but smile. “I’ve been here about five minutes. I’m fine, so far.”
“Remind me again why you’re doing this?”
“Because I’m finished,” Jane says. “I’m exhausted.”
“You’re twenty-seven years old—”
“I’m a widow and a has-been with a trick knee.”
“Oh, stop.” But Petra’s tone is as gentle as ever. “You think the world is going to forget about you, but it won’t, no matter how much you want it to.” She pauses, perhaps waiting for Jane to agree. “Anyway,” Petra continues when Jane stays silent. “I’m calling with a little good news, actually. It’s about Kim Beard’s latest attempt at an appeal.” Kim Beard is Elijah’s former best friend, his ex-bandmate. A lot of people hate Jane, but Kim probably hates her most. For the better part of a decade, he has claimed the Lightning Bottles stole some of the lyrics for “My Life or Yours” from him. He has sued, lost, appealed, lost again.
“Frivolous and vexatious, given the history,” Petra says. “It won’t go ahead. And if he tries to sue you again, it will be considered harassment. It’s over.”
“I’m sure he’ll find a way,” Jane says, unable to garner any joy from this news. She knows this particular feud will never end.
“The last Marvel Boys album was a flop. Maybe he’s running out of money for lawyers.”
“Okay, great,” Jane says, trying to inject some happiness into her voice for Petra’s sake. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Just keep answering the phone when I call, okay? Otherwise, I’m showing up at your door. It’s Christmastime. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m fine. And I’m sure Ramona will have something to say about you coming to Europe, considering you have a newborn at home. How is he?” Jane welcomes the topic switch, anticipates the way Petra’s voice will change when she talks about her son.
“He’s perfect. Overwhelming. He doesn’t seem to require sleep. I could use a few nights incognito at a rural farmhouse, frankly.”
“You can come visit in the new year,” Jane allows. “As long as you don’t try to convince me to come back.”
“No promises.”
Jane wonders, not for the first time, what she did to deserve Petra, not just as a manager but also as a friend. In her worst moments, when she’s certain she deserves all the vitriol sent her way, she reminds herself that Petra, a genuinely good person, cares about her. “Listen, I already miss you too,” she says. “But I was running out of ideas for disguises when we met for lunch. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, drew the wrong sort of attention.”
As Petra laughs, Jane feels the back of her neck prickle again, the way it did outside, earlier. She turns toward the kitchen window—and fights back a gasp when she sees someone really is out there: a teenage girl, half-hidden in the trees, spying on Jane through a pair of binoculars. “What the hell,” she mutters.
“Everything alright, Jane?”
The girl has dropped the binoculars and squeezed her eyes shut. Jane steps closer to the window to peer out at her. Her hair is pale and fluffy, soft-looking, like dandelion seed or the inside of a milkweed pod. She is so close, Jane can see a light purple dusting of acne scars marring her chin. She has a strange sort of half smile on her face.
“Hello? You okay?”
Jane backs away from the window. She can’t tell Petra about this—she’ll be on the next plane to Berlin. And the girl looks as harmless as it’s possible for anyone hiding outside a window with binoculars to look. Jane just needs to get rid of her—then deal with her dismay. This farmhouse isn’t isolated at all. Jane will need to find somewhere else.
“I have a lot of unpacking to do, that’s all. I should go. We’ll talk another time.” Jane hangs up and returns to the window, presses her face to the glass. The girl is gone—but are those shoes peeking out from under a cedar bush, just a few feet away from the window?
Jane pulls her combat boots on and goes outside, moving along the edges of ash trees and unruly cedars until she sees her, barely concealed, trembling.
“Just come out,” Jane says. “Come on. I know you’re there.”
The girl steps forward, brushing twigs from her pale hair. Her curious, attentive eyes are the purple-blue of a forget-me-not. She’s not wearing a coat; the skin on her arms is mottled with cold, furred with gooseflesh.
“Is it really you?” She speaks in English, but with a German accent. There’s something familiar about the girl’s voice.
“No,” Jane says unconvincingly.
“It is you.” The girl’s eyes grow wide with excitement. “You’re Jane Pyre. I can’t believe it! In my town, of all places. Why?”
“None of your business.”
Now the girl rolls her eyes—and Jane hears her mother’s voice. If the wind changes and you’re making that face, Janet, your beautiful features will be stuck that way forever. Do you want to lose your looks?
“You always say that to people: ‘None of your business.’ ”
“Please, just get off my property or I’ll call the police.”
“Oh, come on.”
Jane turns and starts to walk away.
“Wait! I need to talk to you!”
Jane doesn’t stop.
“Really?” the girl shouts. Jane speeds up. “You’re not going to bother to listen to what I have to say to you?”
“Nope!” Jane calls over her shoulder.
“You’re as bad as everyone says you are!” the girl shouts—and it’s as if she actually expected something different from Jane. “You never deserved him! It’s your fault he’s gone! You didn’t take care of him! You were the only one who could, and you didn’t!”
This hurts, actually. Jane wasn’t prepared for this, not today. She speeds up again, making mental calculations as she does. She can drive back to Berlin, get a hotel room, call the estate agent. Scratch that, she’ll find a new one, someone who can procure her the sort of property she wanted in the first place. An actual hideaway. A little privacy, for fuck’s sake.
“Why won’t you listen to me; what’s wrong with you? Why are you like this?”
Jane is almost at her front door now.
“If he had never met you, things would be different! The world would be a better place! He would still be here! You should have just left him alone! You should be gone, not him! You’re a horrible person!”
Jane opens the door, closes it, locks the dead bolt, lets her body slide to the floor, presses her back against the door and her hands against her ears. But it doesn’t matter, she can still hear the words. You should have left him alone! Jane closes her eyes and tries to imagine choosing a different path. If he had never met you, things would be different!
It’s no use. She can’t. There was no other way. In Jane Pyre’s world, all roads led to Elijah Hart.