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Chapter Text

The house on the cliff was not haunted.

This had, of course, been the matter of great debate for as long as the house on the cliff had stood on the cliff, but nevertheless, the house was (more or less) ghost-free – and this was what the real estate agent had cheerfully informed the young couple who had come to look at the creaky old three-storey house all those years ago.

“A summer home,” the wife had said, dreamily wandering through the dusty halls, one hand tracing the wallpaper, the other resting on her swelling stomach.

“A place to hide out,” the man had said, eyeing the length of the driveway from the gate hanging off of its hinges, hidden away from the main road back into town, to the faded blue front door of the Cliff House.

(That was what the house was called. Not particularly imaginative, but then, there was only the one cliff, and only the one house.)

The baby did not say anything. The baby was tucked away in his car seat, left at the foot of the rickety stairs while the young couple inspected the bedrooms, the linen cupboards, the turret room and the attics. The baby had been fast asleep until the clatter of his father coming down the creaking staircase, the softer footsteps of his mother behind him, the mingling exuberant laughter they shared, woke him.

The real estate agent did not particularly like children, babies even less – it was only that they were always remarkably sticky. She preferred teenagers, who could at least be counted on to entertain themselves. Still, she liked the look of this baby, as she watched him blink awake, yawn tremendously, study his surroundings with a focus that surprised her. But then, she didn’t know much about babies. Did he even have object permanence?

The man had stopped before the car seat, unbuckled his son and swept him up before the real estate agent could blink. “Well, boy, I’ll be spending your inheritance on this shithole. Behold!” His delight in himself, in his pregnant wife, in the child drifting back to sleep in his arms, strengthened his Irish accent, cut through the dust of the sunlit air, floated into every room of the Cliff House and filled it up to its corners.

“Oh, love, you’ll have to make his inheritance first,” his wife had laughed, a tinkling, bell-like sound, as she carefully took the child into her own arms, where he promptly fell back asleep on her shoulder.

Ghosts were complicated things. The real estate agent, who had spent decades walking through homes, wading through the accumulation of scents and sounds and memories that came from living in a space, considered herself an expert on the subject, theorized that that was all there was to a haunting: memories that stuck fast to the linoleum, tucked themselves inside the patterns on the wallpaper, and refused to let go.

She’d known, standing there in the front hallway of the Cliff House that sunlit afternoon, that if this house did not have its ghosts before, this family in front of her would make their own haunting out of the place.

But then, she’d already made her commission.

.

“Shit,” Matthew said.

He considered the effect of the word as it sliced through the cold night air. He did not think it quite matched the situation at hand.

“Damn,” he experimented, but felt unsatisfied. He wondered what his brothers would say. “Fuck. God damn Jesus and Mary. Motherfuck. Gee wiz. Golly. Yikes!”

He felt somewhat better.

Not a whole lot better, considering that the body of Colin Greenmantle was still splayed out before his feet, and the blood of Colin Greenmantle was soaking into his new shoes, and the brains of Colin Greenmantle were splattered across his car windshield.

Matthew was not having a very good night.

But still. He did feel a little better after running through his arsenal of swear words and curses that he’d collected from his brothers and his father and on one memorable occasion, Richard Gansey the Third in reaction to a particularly eye-watering Fair Isle sweater Matthew had worn in his presence. (“Gracious!”)

Matthew, having had his fill of inspecting the assortment of blood and guts that had once been Colin Greenmantle, had once been the black magic crime boss who’d had his father killed, had, until approximately five minutes ago, been threatening Matthew (and by extension, his brothers) with menace and exotic weaponry, and sat back inside of his car.

Fortunately, his luridly pink Starbucks was only half-finished. Matthew sipped thoughtfully, tapping through a Spotify playlist and idly scrolling Instagram, and wondered what his brothers would do.

Ronan, he figured, would not be sitting still. Ronan would probably be freaking out, maybe committing arson, almost certainly going on a bender that would end in his membership to the nearest cult and/or Catholic church.

Matthew crossed Ronan off the list; Ronan had always been the brother who hated blood the most.

Declan, though, Declan had more to offer in this situation (the situation being that Matthew had committed – murder? Manslaughter? Declan would know).

Here was the problem: Matthew was technically still mad at Declan.

Here was the other problem: Matthew had a dead body on his hands (and shoes, and hood).

Matthew had come perilously close to failing math multiple times over, had in fact only made it through with the grace of God and the sweat, blood and tears of Declan, but he could do this math.

He called Declan.

It was 2 am.

Declan picked up immediately.

“Matthew?”

“I need help.”

.

This was why Matthew was mad at Declan:

Matthew was adopted.

(No, that wasn’t right. It started with a story that his father had told the brothers, years and years ago, before his father had found himself missing several pieces of skull and brain matter on the driveway of their family farm, before his mother had, by way of an overdose on prescription pills, drifted out of the reach of the brothers entirely. Their father had been halfway tipsy, halfway drunk, and their mother had been flickering in and out like a candle on a birthday cake, and the brothers had been terribly young, when Matthew thought about it now.

The story their father told them had gone like this:

Once a very long time ago, or not that long ago, time is complicated in stories and also in real life, remember that boys, the years will go like nothing at all and then bam! You don’t know where they’ve slipped off to. Actually, now that I think on it, time is like women. Can’t trust them.

            My love…

Yes, love, yes I will tell the story. Once a very long while ago, there was a king! And he was very handsome, I can tell you that, quite the ladies man, he was basically a rockstar – see, yes, I knew you would laugh – and this king was very good at a lot of things, such as. Such as…

            Singing?

He could sing! Like an angel. And he made a mean omelette, when he had to, but why did he have to when he had a beautiful queen who could do it better, I ask you.

            A queen?

Yes, that’s right. A beautiful golden-haired queen, and men came from miles around the land to catch a glimpse of her ankles. Yes, Ronan, ankles. It was a different time. And he loved the queen. He loved her very much.

            Dad?

Oh, right, yes. But it turns out, plot twist, that she was evil and conniving and a complete cunt. Are you shocked? No, you shouldn’t be. You should’ve seen this coming. The queen left and the king was all alone. Completely alone. And then he died.

            Dad?

Okay, okay, stop jumping on the bed. The king, and I did not tell you this before because it is a secret, the king was a wizard. All the best kings are. And he took a strand of golden hair from the hairbrush of the queen, and he took a perfect blue rose from the castle conservatory, and he plucked all the petals and ground down the strand of hair. He pricked his finger – see, he had a scar just like this one on my thumb – and let the blood drip onto his wizard’s mixture and suddenly, a great wind swept up the dust he had made of hair and blood and petal, and it swept around him and blinded him and when he had blinked the dust out of his eyes, the queen stood before him again.

            She came back?

That’s what the king thought, but when he went to embrace her, he realized that she was someone else entirely. A new queen, just as beautiful, just as golden, but better because she loved him and she would never ever leave him. And she bore him sons, and the king’s magic was known across the land, and that, oh terrible sons of mine, is how the story ends.

It hadn’t been one of his father’s finest stories, and Matthew remembered now, with the clarity of 21 years of life behind him, as well as the memories of his own hangovers, that his father had been closer to black-out drunk than mildly tipsy. Matthew hadn’t liked the story, but Ronan had. His mother had.

Declan had not.

Matthew had found Declan the next day, at the very edge of their father’s property, poking suspiciously at the vines of wild roses that grew over the dilapidated fences marking the boundary between the farm and the forest.

Blue roses, Matthew had said, and Declan had startled, grabbing onto the nearest rose in his surprise. When he’d whirled around to face Matthew, Declan had had a rose clenched in one bleeding hand.

What? Declan had demanded, softer now that he saw that it was Matthew, in the company of Snowball, the farm cat, and Mr Bear, Matthew’s stuffed teddy bear.

Blue roses, that’s what dad said he made mom out of, and Declan had shaken his head vehemently.

It wasn’t right to make her a copy, Declan had said, and I don’t think it's fair that she can’t leave, and then he’d shepherded Matthew (and Snowball, and Mr Bear) back to the farmhouse, where in quick succession he had swabbed and wrapped his palm, made Matthew a grilled cheese sandwich and put Mr Bear in the laundry, and that had been the end of it, until many years later when one thing had led to another and it all came out: how Ronan had been a remarkably precocious toddler who’d pulled a baby out of a rosebush, how that baby had been Matthew, how Declan had been the one to carefully put band-aids on the scratches the thorns had left on Ronan’s hands and Matthew’s little legs, and how their parents had pretended their whole lives that Matthew was theirs, was human at all.

But it was easier to say that Matthew was adopted.)

.

“Watch your end, watch your end,” Declan hissed across the length of the bodybag they’d stuffed the various pieces of Colin Greenmantle into as they stumbled gracelessly around the old Cliff House to the fallow orchard that had once, many summers and various dead parents ago, been their kingdom.

“I am!” Matthew whinged, although to be fair, he had been lagging. He didn’t think it was fair that Colin Greenmantle should be so heavy when he was in pieces. (Matthew had driven over him several times to make sure the killing took.) Surely all the blood they’d left in the alley would’ve lightened the load.

Matthew felt resentful.

“I feel resentful,” he said, because he’d taken a psychology course last year that talked about I statements and expressing your emotions healthily.

Declan snorted. “Me too. Possibly because I am covering up a murder that you committed. We’ve all got problems. Colin Greenmantle, for example, probably feels resentful that his head is no longer connected to his torso.”

This was a fair point.

“Colin Greenmantle is a shitbag fartmonger,” Matthew wheezed out.

“That is. A fair point,” Declan conceded, “Also he is very thoroughly dead. He isn’t anything anymore.”

.

This was why Colin Greenmantle was very thoroughly dead:

Matthew had stumbled out of the campus library at 2 am, bleary eyed and feeling like something had died in his mouth. He had not been studying; he had fallen asleep in a study room and woken up to a completely melted and warm Pink Drink, condensation rings on his astronomy seminar textbook.

He had gotten into his yellow Volkswagen and yawned all the way to the off-campus apartment he shared with a handful of roommates he liked well enough, in the way that he generally liked people, and also really hated, because he couldn’t stand dirty dishes in sinks or the mess that four guys created. He’d parked in the alley. He’d been thinking about how Declan would’ve chided him for driving while barely awake, he’d been thinking about calling Declan, he missed Declan, and then he had gotten out of his car and met Colin Greenmantle, who had promptly begun to be menacing, in a sort of glamorous, artificially white toothed sort of way.

Matthew hadn’t really been listening, but he understood the gist: something something Greywaren something something kill you slowly and make your brothers watch something something or better yet, I’ll kill your brothers and make you watch.

It was at this point that Matthew had punched Colin Greenmantle in the face, gotten back into his car, driven Colin Greenmantle over, and then backed up a few times to do it again.

Matthew was quite pleased by the driving prowess he’d shown; he wished Declan had been there to see it; he wished one of his multiple driving instructors had been there to see it.

And then he had called Declan.

And then Declan had shown up, frowned ferociously, and taken control. While Declan had been busy breaking into the building superintendent’s office to steal the security tapes of the alley, he’d set Matthew to the task of getting started on removing Colin Greenmantle from his windshield and transferring him to a bodybag.

Why do you have a bodybag in your trunk, Matthew had asked, reasonably, and Declan had snapped, Fucking supply and demand.

It was 4 am by the time the alley, Matthew’s car, and Matthew’s shoes were sufficiently rid of Greenmantle’s visceral effects to Declan’s satisfaction.

It was 5 am by the time they had driven out of Washington, DC, in Declan’s car, with (more or less) a body in the trunk.

It was 6 am when they stopped to stock up on pastries and coffee and assorted snacks.

It was 7 am when they stopped at a 24/7 Walmart to buy a listless potted rosebush, some shovels, a bag of fertilizer, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, disinfectant wipes to replenish the supply in Declan’s trunk, and more snacks.

It was 9 am by the time they drove into the seaside town of the summers of their youth.

It was 10 am by the time they finished burying Colin Greenmantle on the rolling property of the isolated house on the cliff that their father had bought when Declan was a baby and Ronan was growing in their mother’s stomach and Matthew was not even a glimmer in Ronan’s eye, the house they had spent wild and unsupervised summers in, the house that Matthew had inherited.

Burying him here had been Matthew’s idea.

Planting a rosebush on top of him had been Declan’s.

.

“Should we say something?” Matthew asked, leaning on his shovel and feeling, for the first time in his life, the full ache of his young bones.

“Jesus, like what? A full eulogy?” Declan snapped, the jagged edge of his words at odds with the care with which he was patting soil around the freshly planted rosebush. It was a pitiful thing, limp and drooping, and Matthew suspected that Declan had felt bad for it.

“I don’t know! It’s my first time doing vehicular manslaughter” – because Declan had googled it while they’d been in the coffee shop drive thru – “and I would feel better, probably, if we were like, holy about it!”

Matthew was under some strain.

Declan stood up, briskly dusting dirt off his knees. “Fine. Whatever.”

And, to Matthew’s delight, Declan closed his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to intone sarcastically: “Mother Mary, I apologize for being covered in grave dirt. And for general sinning. But we would like to call upon you to show mercy on Matthew, who has finals coming up and who has clearly not studied. And also on his car, the transmission of which is probably fucked up. And on this rosebush, which looks like it is going to keel over and shrivel up any moment now.”

Matthew considered this; as sermons went, not particularly touching. But he did feel better.

Declan opened one eye and hissed at Matthew, “Anything else you want me to throw in while I’ve got her?”

Matthew thought for a moment, and then said mournfully, “I lost my airpods.”

Declan sighed deeply, and said solemnly: “And also, if you run into St Anthony, please ask him to send his blessings down on Matthew’s airpods.”

Declan paused, and then added in a softer voice: “And if you see our mother, please say hello. Thank you.”

Matthew swallowed. “Amen.”

It was a very sunny day.

.

That had been that, really, and Matthew had scraped through his finals by the skin of his teeth, and Declan had gone back to work, and Colin Greenmantle had stayed very thoroughly dead.

Matthew was not worried about being caught; he knew Declan would’ve covered it up completely.

Matthew was not worried about God being disappointed in him; there had been extenuating circumstances, and anyway, he’d taken a religion seminar this semester and knew that the God of the Old Testament was very into the whole eye for an eye deal.

Matthew kept hanging out with his friends (who he did not really like), he kept going to church with his brothers, he kept visiting Ronan on the family farm and ineffectually helping to feed the cows.

He kept wandering through his life.

It was all he’d done, really, since graduating high school, starting college and moving into dorms. He’d been taking courses that he liked the titles of, failing at his leisure, sleeping in the back of lecture halls, joining clubs and leaving clubs, making friends and lovers who all seemed to like him much more than he liked them.

During the days of that summer after he buried Colin Greenmantle, Matthew was sort of working for a professor who’d taken a shine to him, if dozing peacefully in the campus archives could be considered work (it was); at night he dreamt of the Cliff House.

He dreamt he was walking down the hallways, not as they’d been when they’d buried the body behind it, but as the house had been when they were young.

As children, their father had installed his wife and children (if you counted Matthew) in the Cliff House at the start of each summer, promptly leaving at the drop of a hat for business (unspecified). He would drop in and out of their lives, as he did throughout the year, and the brothers had run wild over the rolling, isolated property, climbing and falling out of trees, beach combing, diving, biking into town to buy snacks, trying and failing at fishing.

Sometimes Declan would leave for a few days, a week, for what their mother had said were summer camps and what Matthew now knew were to join their father on business trips.

It was possible that Declan did not share Matthew’s love for the Cliff House; probably that was why he had agreed to bury Colin Greenmantle there.

.

It was one of those unbearably long and hot days of August when Matthew gave up and gave in, driving the five hours from DC to the Cliff House, stopping only for a remarkably frothy and expensive drink at Starbucks in town before driving up to the old house.

Declan’s Volvo was parked in front of the house.

Matthew felt something relax in his chest; he had not realized how strained and unsettled he’d been feeling all summer, since the morning they’d killed and buried Colin Greenmantle (in that order).

It was a large property, spanning around the house on the cliff, but the garden beside the house had been their mother’s favourite; it was where she had spent hours each day planting and planning and tending with a focused care she did not generally extend to her children.

Their father had gotten himself killed before they'd made the trip to spend the summer at the Cliff House. Ronan had found the body. Declan had called the police. Declan had pushed Ronan into the shower and washed their father’s blood off of him. Declan had planned the funeral. Declan had called the lawyer and explained their father’s will to Matthew.

Their mother had walked out of the house in the middle of the night and driven by herself to the Cliff House one week after the funeral.

Their mother had, in the time it took for the brothers to catch up to her, ripped up the garden with her bare hands until there had been nothing left growing in the ground. Until there had been nothing left to salvage.

Ronan had found her in the garden, sitting blankly in a field of torn up petals, and Matthew had held her, and Declan had carefully washed and wrapped her hands.

A week later, their mother had swallowed prescription pills until there was nothing left to salvage.

It was Matthew’s house now. Matthew’s garden.

.

The rosebush had grown.

It had been two months, and the rosebush had grown.

Matthew poked at it, earning a thorn in his finger for his troubles. He could not in good conscious call this wall of lush roses the size of his head a bush.

What had been a mostly-dead rosebush planted haphazardly over a freshly dug grave only two months ago now looked like it had been growing for – for centuries. The air in the garden was heady with rose scent, thick enough to taste, fireflies and bees humming lazily around Matthew’s head.

The garden was filled with roses, fat green vines, an explosion of red and orange and pink and cream and purple.

“I checked. No blue.” Declan said from where he sat smoking on the swinging shaded bench, tapping his cigarette ash into his empty coffee cup.

Matthew had taken a seminar on stress management in freshman year. He thought about it now, and tried deep breathing.

Every breath tasted like roses.

“This is.” Matthew started. Stopped.

Declan hummed in agreement.

“Is this Greenmantle? Is he really good plant food, or something?”

Declan shuddered. “What an image. Thank you for that.”

Matthew threw his hands up, sloshing some of his drink onto a nearby rose the size of a small child’s head. The rose did not seem perturbed by the caffeinated assault; Matthew wondered if he might’ve accelerated its growth, somehow. He continued doggedly, “I don’t see you with any bright ideas!”

Declan shrugged, taking a last drag on his cigarette, leaning his head back and blowing smoke out into the air. Matthew watched it dissipate from across the garden, because Declan had forbade him from coming closer, because second-hand smoke inhalation, because even though Matthew was biologically closer to this mammoth freak Walmart rosebush than to Declan, his brother was worried about his lung health.

“I think,” Declan said slowly, “That we did some kind of magic that day.”

“Magic,” Matthew repeated. It was not at all what he had expected Declan to say. What had he expected? Something about science and genomes. Matthew had taken a botany course; he’d failed it but he knew about chlorophyll and photosynthesis.

Declan stubbed out his cigarette into his coffee cup and beckoned Matthew over to the bench.

The brothers, oldest and youngest, half-brother and rose-brother, sat side by side on the bench where their mother had once sat reading while children ran wild around her, only one of whom had actually been hers.

The garden was growing.

From here, Matthew could understand what Declan meant.

The rosebush was growing in a spiral, the heart of which was Colin Greenmantle’s grave. Rows and rows of roses, circling their father’s killer, keeping him in. Trapping him.

“Magic,” Matthew said.

The garden was full of it; the air hummed with it.

The brothers sat quietly for a very long time.

.

“We need to keep an eye on this,” Declan said. “No one’s allowed on this property, but who knows if town kids come up here to smoke or hook up. This is suspicious.”

Matthew agreed.

Here was the problem: Declan worked for a government agency in Washington, DC.

Here was the problem: Matthew went to Georgetown, in Washington, DC.

Here was the problem: Ronan was not going to be told about this; the brothers had decided immediately on this.

Declan said, carefully, like he thought Matthew might interrupt him: “I might start working remotely.”

Matthew breathed out; he hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.

Declan glanced at him swiftly, looked away. “With your permission, of course. It’s your house.”

It was Matthew’s house. Matthew’s garden. Matthew’s murder, basically.

But it was also Declan’s rosebush.

It was their childhood.

Matthew said: “I might transfer to the college here.”

“You have too many credits at Georgetown. They wouldn’t let you switch.”

Matthew waved his hand. “They’d let me, I’m charming. And if they get weird, I’ll sic you on them.”

Declan breathed out slowly. “You don’t have to. You have a life. Friends. School. Work.”

Declan had all these things too.

Matthew said, airily, “I’m tired of my roommates.”

What he meant was that he missed living with Declan, missed the quiet order that Declan brought to their lives, missed the environmentally friendly detergent Declan used.

Matthew continued: “And, I’m worried you’ll go full yellow wallpaper up here alone.” (Matthew had taken a seminar on short stories last year.)

Declan pressed his lips together, obviously trying not to smile. He said blandly, “Honestly, I have always felt a great kinship with Bluebeard’s wives.”

.

The real estate agent was retired now, spent most of her days sitting on her porch and reading Victorian bodice-ripper romance novels. When she saw the moving van go past her house, up towards the winding road the led to the house on the cliff she thought: ghosts.

People had a tendency to bring their ghosts with them wherever they went.

Chapter Text

“You know, I don’t usually do this on a first date,” Jordan said conversationally.

Declan Lynch raised an eyebrow at her. “Hold people at gunpoint?”

“Hold, be held. It’s really very intimate when you think about it. And you? Do this sort of thing often?”

Jordan took her gun off safety to punctuate her statement.

Declan Lynch looked unimpressed by her theatrics, his gun steadily pointed at hers, his pose unyielding. “You could say that I’m easy.”

Despite herself, Jordan was pleased. Her day was looking up.

.

Jordan was born with thorns growing out of her palms.

(No – wait – that was Hennessy.)

.

It had taken months of strategic googling, whispered questions, sweet talking and illicit bargains to get Jordan to where she was today. A hint dropped in the ear of a redhead with a penchant for mortgage fraud here, a Lucia Fairchild Fuller miniature palmed off to a balding man knee deep in a hedge fund there, a promise here, a lie there, and Jordan had followed, carefully, not always quietly, the unravelling threads of Colin Greenmantle’s spiderweb to her last lead: Declan Lynch’s LinkedIn profile.

It did not bode well.

A communications professional – whatever – at – whatever – government agency – Georgetown – no profile photo – an endless list of volunteer organizations and jazzy political internships – whatever – and “Well deserved!” comments – whatever – and Jordan did not give a shit, except that Declan Lynch was the last thread she had left to pull.

So.

Declan Lynch’s LinkedIn profile had led her to a Twitter account belonging to Matthew Lynch which had in turn led her to a Twitch stream by Matthew Lynch which had brought her to a TikTok account belonging to Matthew Lynch which had then resulted in a screencap of a “Welcome to…” town sign and a route charted on Google Maps (4 hours by car, 3 hours in Jordan’s car).

So.

Local bar, local gossip lubricated by egregious flirting and drinks paid for with a credit card that did not have her name on it: two brothers, one of whom had immediately charmed every single food delivery driver in town into and then out of his bed, the other of whom had immediately locked into psychological warfare with the local town council, the roses they gave away for free by the armful.

Twisting road, old house on a cliff.

So.

She was going to pull on a thread and see what came lose.

The only problem was the roses.

.

Hennessy was born with her fists clenched around a perfect, thorned rose.

(Or had that been Jordan?)

.

The roses were everywhere.

Jordan had to park her car at the base of the road leading up the cliff, behind a silver Volvo with a worn down bike leaning against it. Road was putting it generously; rose bushes had encroached upon it to the point that the house at the top of the hill looked like a Klimt farmhouse, more amalgamation than reality.

She picked her way through the narrow clear path left between the roses on either side, huge, fantastical things that seemed to stretch towards her, dewdropped petals quivering as she passed.

(She wondered if they recognized her.)

She felt heady and surreal by the time she made it to the house, skipping the front door, barricaded by a rose bush laden with sworls of orange and white, for a side door. The scent was overpowering, the colours leaving imprints on the backs of her eyelids whenever she closed them. Side door, and she almost gave the game away by laughing in delight – a half-open, half-shut farmdoor, the kind she’d sort of thought only existing in pioneer movies.

Declan Lynch had made it easy for her.

She reached in and unlatched the door, slipped inside.

Abruptly, the assault of colours receded, although the fragrance of roses still permeated her skin.

(Maybe it was coming from her.)

The kitchen was quiet. Faded white and yellow tiles. Worn wood countertops and cupboards. Fliers and cat-shaped magnets on the fridge. A breakfast nook with a round table covered in papers, bench stacked with soft cushions.

Jordan stepped closer, raised an eyebrow when she realized the breakfast table was covered in coupons and takeout menus. She picked up a Free massage!, shuffled through sushi, oyster, ice cream sundae specials, Buy One Get Ones and, oddly, a post-it note reading IOU FREE ROOF REPAIR. Declan Lynch’s paperwork was a sight to behold.

And then – “We’re closed.”

She spun around, gun pulled out of the back of her jeans and pointed at Declan Lynch. And his gun.

Declan Lynch was not going to make this easy for her.

.

Hennessy had never liked to admit it, but she’d inherited a lot from Bill Dower.

Her curl pattern.

Her affinity for the sleek machinery of a car, of fingers wrapped around a stick shift, of tight turns and sharp curves.

Her need to collect, although where Hennessy collected lovers and stolen knick knacks and criminal charges and trivia facts, Bill Dower collected mistresses and ex-wives and funeral speeches and cars.

Her ability to amp up a room until every body angled towards her like roses to the sun.

(Jordan had inherited all of these things from Hennessy.)

Bill Dower’s speech at J.H. Hennessy’s wake had been three minutes long and had contained no less than three car crash analogies. It had rather been like watching a car crash in real time, Jordan had thought, in her place in the front row, in her role as Grieving Daughter.

Grieving Daughter had been a bit part in the theatre production of J.H. Hennessy’s death, so Jordan didn’t bother putting too much effort into her role; no one was looking at her.

“It was always physics, of course. Jay was a shooting star, a car on black ice. It was her time to crash. Some things can’t be helped.”

Grieving Widower was a role Bill Dower had not been suited to, a role that he shed within days and only resurrected when it helped him get laid.

Father of Grieving Daughter was a role Bill Dower had been, if possible, even worse suited to – or perhaps he’d been perfect, in that he’d handed Hennessy (and therefore Jordan) a black AmEx and told her she’d probably be suited to a Toyota for her first car. (Hennessy had been 13.) (Hennessy had then promptly convinced the high school quarterback to take her out driving, during which occasion Hennessy had hijacked his Tesla and had returned it only after she’d crashed it into a ditch.) (Hennessy had not gone back to high school.)

It had been one of those nights when Hennessy’s skin was pulsing electric and Bill Dower was loudly expiating on his grief at losing his beautiful car crash of a wife so young to his awestruck lover downstairs, something about love and soulmates and finding love again and oh yes and can I pour you another one? and wasn’t it just wonderful, how people could find each other.

Hennessy and Jordan had been swapping wine back and forth as they peeked through the stair bannisters, the fine vintage bottle precarious between their loose fingers, rim glistening with the lip gloss they shared and it had been a good night, just Jordan and Hennessy, and then Hennessy had felt unbearable.

She’d dragged Jordan up, not bothering to be quiet, pulled an awful still life painting off of the wall, and pulled them into their room, flinging the doors to their balcony wide open.

Hennessy had scraped the finely milled powder out of Jordan’s favourite blush compact. She’d gracelessly torn each oil painted rose out of the painting she’d taken from the wall, burned them down with a lighter she’d pocketed after an affair with Jordan’s history teacher.

Rose ashes in the bowl of the compact. Wine flavoured with strawberry lip gloss poured over, stirred in with blood pricked with a safety pin from one polish-chipped finger. Hennessy standing under the waning moon and daring Jordan to comment on the glisten in her eyes, the electric pulses skipping under her skin, from rose tattoo to rose tattoo.

“A tattoo that changes shape,” Hennessy said.

“Hair made of fire,” Hennessy said.

“The blood of a killer,” Hennessy said.

“An inventor,” Hennessy said.

“A time traveller,” Hennessy said.

“A knife,” Hennessy said.

Wine, blood, ashes, flung into the moonlight and carried away by the rose-scented wind.

“There,” Hennessy had said, satisfied, tipsy.

“Love doesn’t exist. And now I won’t ever fall in love,” Hennessy had said, decisively.

“Don’t you get it? I’ve invented a soulmate who can’t exist,” Hennessy had said, pleadingly.

Jordan had not said: But what about me?

.

“Pho tonight?”

Matthew perked up, and then drooped visibly. “From that place on Main? I can’t. I don’t want to make feel Angela feel awkward.”

Declan sighed, deeply, endlessly. “You need to stop doing this. We’re running out of places to order from.”

Matthew thought this was hypocritical. “That’s Hippocratic. I was at the record store today and that town councillor literally crossed the street when he saw me.”

He was treated to Classic Declan Frown #4 (That’s None of Your Business And Furthermore It Has Nothing To Do With You And In Fact You Should Never Mention It Again).

“That’s not even remotely the same. For one thing, I’m not sleeping with him. Anymore. For another thing, it’s your fault that we’re even in this mess,” Declan snapped, and he was not entirely wrong.

The mess being that Matthew had apparently violated local business laws. The mess possibly also being that Matthew had apparently started a cult. The mess potentially also referring to the corpse they’d buried in the backyard.

“That’s not my fault!” Matthew whined, “I just wanted to start a hiking group, I didn’t know they were going to get like, biblical about it!”

Declan rolled his eyes and Matthew thought it was marvellous they didn’t get stuck. “I ask one thing of you. Two things. Don’t join a cult. Don’t start a cult. It really is not difficult.”

Matthew groaned, sliding down his seat and landing on the floor. “You don’t tell Ronan not to join a cult. Or start one.”

“Ronan,” Declan said crisply, “is a lost cause.”

And then, because Declan tried his best to give credit where it was due, “And Ronan would never start a cult.”

“Whatever,” Matthew whined into the rug, “I always knew he was your favourite.”

.

(It turned out that accepted coupons and IOUs and in one case, a six week old kitten, in exchange for heirloom quality roses constituted a barter trade which constituted a business which resulted in Matthew getting audited by the local government which resulted in Declan giving Matthew the stink eye while forging their taxes.

“I have an actual job, you know.”)

.

Hennessy had gotten into the wreckage left in the wake of J.H. Hennessy and sped towards her own inevitable crash; Jordan had gotten in the passenger seat.

Some days, when Hennessy wasn’t in another lover’s bed, in someone else’s car, in the backroom of someone else’s black market hand off, they’d slept curled up around each other, vines and tangled legs.

Some days, Jordan had woken up with her arms around Hennessy, her face pressed into the crook of her neck.

Some days, Hennessy had woken up with roses growing out of her skin, stems and vines and petals slick with blood.

Most days, Hennessy did not sleep.

.

“Well,” Jordan said, grinning her huge dazzling Hennessy grin, “now that I’ve shown you mine and you’ve shown me yours, we can get down to business.”

But she didn’t lower her gun.

Neither did Declan.

She fished around the inner pocket of her leather jacket, pulled out a badge. “FBI. I have some questions to ask you.”

Declan cocked his head, his gun. “That’s not regulation hardware. But that badge is a very good fake.”

Jordan tried not to smile. “You got me.”

She pulled out another ID from her back pocket. “Interpol. Undercover.”

Declan Lynch shook his head. “Try again.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow, pulled out a wallet and a badge tucked inside. “Journalist. New York Times.”

Declan hummed. “No.”

Jordan, at last, put her gun down. Put it back on safety. Shoved it into her jeans. Declan, after a moment, followed suit.

She sorted through her wallet, pulling out ID card after ID card.

Declan, bemused: “Do you want some coffee while you figure that out?”

Yes, she would.

.

Ten badges and ID cards spread out on the kitchen island between them. Ten names. Ten faces that she’d worn and taken off. Ten identities that had gotten her what she wanted when she wanted it, except for in Declan Lynch’s kitchen.

Hands around his mug of coffee (black, no cream, no sugar), Declan inspected the array of names in front of him, frowning intently.

June. Trinity. Brooklyn. Madox. Octavia. Jay. Alba. Farrah. Hennessy.

Declan picked up a card, carefully, precisely. Jordan wondered if it was still warm from where it had lain against her skin in her bra. His fingers brushed the edges of the student ID card, worn where she’d pulled it out to sign into the art school’s work spaces.

Declan studied the card.

Jordan felt an electric thrumming coursing through her. She didn’t know whether to stay or to run, but she kind of wanted to see what would happen next.

Declan said: “So. Jordan. What brings you to town?”

She could feel the grin spreading across her face, slow, unstoppable. Fuck, she thought, fuck.

“Beside the roses?” She quipped, “I hear they’re breaking all the gardening hearts.”

Declan smiled, looking away and out through the window at the explosive spray of roses threatening to come in.

“You can take as many as you’d like,” he said, “But I don’t think you’re here for that.”

“No,” she agreed.

Time ticked by in the kitchen. Declan asked if she’d like another cup.

“I’m looking for someone,” Jordan said, instead of answering yes.

Declan raised an eyebrow, didn’t ask. Jordan found that she liked that.

“I’d like to know,” she said, “If you’ve heard from Colin Greenmantle recently.”

.

“You said she could stay here?” Matthew knew that Declan was going to crack someday.

“Obviously not, we aren’t zoned as a B&B,” and Matthew thought Declan was being willfully insane but Declan continued on sanguinely, as if he wasn’t being insane on purpose, “and she’s staying at the inn in town.”

“And you’re not worried,” Matthew said, mustering every ounce of suspicion he could.

“About what?” and Matthew knew Declan was doing this just to annoy him. He thought maybe this might be revenge for when Matthew had borrowed Declan’s model plane and promptly dropped it from a hayloft when he was 6. Or maybe it was revenge for when Matthew had accepted that kitten from that little kid in exchange for roses for Mother’s Day and now Declan was followed around by a little calico cat all the time. Or maybe it was revenge for when they’d shared a dorm in high school and Matthew had walked in on Declan and Ashley #2 in a very sweaty position.

Matthew waved his hands for emphasis. “The woman investigating the disappearance of the dude we killed? And literally buried under a magical garden in our backyard?”

Declan, finally, looked up from his laptop. “She didn’t seem the type to go digging for body parts. And Greenmantle is. Technically. Only missing. So she isn’t exactly looking for his corpse. Just leads on him.”

“Yeah, leads that lead to our backyard. Where he is buried.” Matthew had never once been the sensible one in his relationship with his eldest brother. He was ambivalent about the feeling now.

Declan had gotten sucked back into his laptop, focusing on emails instead of their impending reveal as the villains from Scooby Doo.

Matthew waved his hands in front of Declan’s face, snapping his fingers, “She didn’t seem the type? What type did she seem like?”

And his suspicions were confirmed when Declan blinked at him and immediately began to look very bland indeed.

“I knew it,” Matthew hissed with the unerring instincts of a youngest sibling, “I flipping knew it. And you gave me a hard time about Peter.”

Declan frowned at him (a variant on Declan Frown #7, You’ve Called Me Out On Behaviour I Do Not Wish To Address), and snapped, “I just need to know how much she suspects. It’s not a big deal. And because of Peter, I can’t order from that Japanese place anymore. So.”

Matthew, riding high on his moral victory, patted Declan magnanimously on the head. “Now you can branch out and try new places! Did you read that eating disorder brochure I left on the fridge for you? I got it from school!”

Declan put his head in his hands, which Matthew took as a no.

.

The Gray Man liked small towns. He liked the revitalized main streets, with their hopeful new facades. He liked the outdoor patios of cafes. He liked the thematic inns. He particularly enjoyed the independent bookstores with puns in their names.

He wasn’t planning to be in this town long enough to enjoy what it had to offer.

.

Jordan wasn’t sure if she had left Hennessy, or if Hennessy had left her.

This was how it had started: bodies and mechanical wreckage, Jordan faced with the reality of their lives, and Hennessy refusing to look.

This was how it had started: Hennessy amped up, Jordan leaning her head against the window, waiting for the Game to start.

This was how it had started: Jordan in black, the blood from thin scratches beading up under the wool of her funeral dress.

This was how it had started: Hennessy had pulled Jordan out of the clawing thorns of her own mind and told her to go to her mother’s funeral in her stead.

This was how it had started: one of them had walked away first.

Jordan had walked away to art school in Paris, where she’d dressed the part and smoked the clove cigarettes and taken home the lovers and nodded at the art critiques.

Hennessy had walked away to Boston, to fairy markets and illicit deals and auctions for art and worse.

Jordan had walked towards blank canvases that she was too paralyzed to leave a mark on.

Hennessy had walked towards Colin Greenmantle’s spiderweb.

Jordan had gotten stuck.

Hennessy had gotten caught.

Where was she now? Jordan could not go a moment without picturing Hennessy dead in a bathtub while Colin Greenmantle drank and laughed with men of excess, or Colin Greenmantle dead in a bathtub while Hennessy tried to wash the blood from underneath her fingernails. Hennessy dead. Hennessy hurting. Hennessy alone. Hennessy without Jordan.

And here was Jordan: in a small American town, in a small American bed and breakfast, absurdly pleased with herself after spending an afternoon in the company of Declan Lynch. She hadn’t planned it; she’d seen him across the street being followed by a variation of him that was, somehow, miraculously, blonder than he was on social media. Matthew Lynch had eyed her and then Declan when she’d invited herself to lunch with them, but then warmed up enough to show her the kitten that was napping in Declan’s messenger bag, and Jordan had felt absurdly pleased.

Jordan had suggested a restaurant they were passing by, but both brothers had said No at the same time that she caught sight of a waiter ducking behind the counter inside, blatantly not wanting to be seen.

“That’s John!” Matthew had said cheerfully, “We dated a little bit but now we’re just friends. But I don’t want him to feel awkward!”

Behind Matthew, Declan had rolled his eyes, and Jordan had felt absurdly pleased.

By the time they’d been served at the diner the brothers had deemed safe to eat at, Matthew had explained to Jordan, in detail, how he wasn’t actually a tax evader, it was just that he hadn’t known that he was a business and that he was supposed to pay taxes, and after all, they were just trading things, like in the pioneer days, or like in his anthropology seminar when they’d discussed non-monetary cultures, and also, the tax thing was probably not the reason that Declan had gone to war with the town council because there was also the complaints he had about the stop sign on Elm street, so that was probably why it was so awkward that he used to kind of date one of the councillors.

Jordan had, of course, inspected the headshot of the aforementioned councillor on the town website. “DILF-y for sure,” Jordan had said approvingly, and Declan had laughed despite himself, and Jordan had felt absurdly pleased.

Hennessy had not been seen in any of her or Greenmantle’s usual haunts since Greenmantle had disappeared off the face of the earth. Jordan had been tearing the world apart looking for her for months, but what was she doing right now, when she was as close as she’d been to finding Greenmantle? Finding Hennessy? Thinking about Declan Lynch.

Almost as if she’d bidden him, Jordan suddenly heard, as clearly as if he’d been standing next to hear, Declan Lynch’s voice, as despairing as she could imagine it.

He said: Matthew.

.

The Gray Man was, on the whole, pleased with the way his quest was shaping up. Strange house on a seaside cliff. Someone to look for. His mileage fully funded.

He’d also been pleased with the Arthuriana section in the local bookstore, leaving with several new pieces for his future reading.

He was less pleased, however, at the way the rose bushes surrounding the Lynch house seemed to have a mind of their own, which was to say, a hive mind with the singular thought: Attack.

He made it to the house, despite the branches and thorns in his way, somewhat worse for the wear, mentally and physically. This was probably the reason that he chose to kick the front door in, rather than taking a more diplomatic route, like a window or a backdoor.

The front hallway was strewn with rotting petals, the wallpaper peeling and revealing decaying plant matter behind it. Behind a half-open door behind the hall, he could hear muffled noises, and he followed the noise with his gun into the kitchen.

Maggots.

The Gray Man had time to register a body on the floor, golden hair, surrounded by rotting branches and a larval mass of maggots, and another body, moving fast by the kitchen island.

Declan Lynch, breathing hard, shot up from the floor to his knees, pointing a gun in one hand and what the Gray Man belatedly registered as a crème brulee torch in the other.

“Get out,” Declan Lynch said, with a steely calm despite the horror of his house.

The Gray Man had been threatened with several weapons in his career, most notably of which had been the missile launcher he’d been hired to retrieve.

The Gray Man had never been threatened with a crème brulee torch before. He was rather pleased by it.

He said, matching Declan Lynch’s calm: “I’m looking for Colin Greenmantle.”

“He’s dead,” said the body on the floor, which the Gray Man now recategorized as a young man, spitting out rotting leaves.

Declan Lynch said: “Colin Greenmantle is gone. There is nothing left to look for. Get out of my fucking house.”

The Gray Man felt a gun press against his back. “Very clear instructions. You should try it.”

The Gray Man turned his head, recognized the face, then realized he recognized nothing at all.

“Fair enough,” he said, and got out of the fucking house.

.

Jordan knew what the expression had been on the Gray Man’s face, the shift of recognition – surprise – recategorization. She wondered if she and Hennessy were still identical.

Jordan put down her gun long enough to help Declan as he got Matthew sitting upright, coughing out maggots. She said: “He’s dead?”

Declan nodded, “As dead as can be. We buried him in the backyard.”

Matthew, laughing somehow, “And then he got back up.”

Jordan squeezed her eyes shut. Greenmantle dead. Greenmantle had been dead the whole time. And Declan Lynch had not recognized her.

But the Gray Man had.

She ran out of the ruined kitchen, down the narrow road, the rose bushes moving out of her way to give her space.

“You know me,” she yelled, and the Gray Man stopped and turned to look at her.

“No,” the Gray Man said, “I don’t think I do.”

She said: “But you recognize me. You’ve seen me before.”

The Gray Man said: “No, I don’t think that I have.”

Jordan said, “Please.”

Jordan said, “Where am I?”

The Gray Man said, “The last time that I saw a girl who looked like you, she was at an airport in the company of Piper Greenmantle as she left the country after transferring the ownership of all of Colin Greenmantle’s financial assets to herself.”

Fuck, Jordan thought, I’ve been tracking the wrong Greenmantle.

The Gray Man said, “I hope that this helps you. But I think I’ve outstayed my welcome,” and he nodded behind her, where Declan Lynch was training his gun steadily on the Gray Man.

Jordan nodded, recalibrating. Piper Greenmantle.

Declan trained his gun on the Gray Man until he was out of sight, until they heard the sound of a car starting up and driving away.

Putting his gun down, Declan turned to look at her. Jordan looked back.

Declan said: “Last I heard, Piper Greenmantle was in San Lorenzo. Non-extradition.”

Jordan closed her eyes, overwhelmed. Demons and Hennessy and Declan Lynch and maggots. She felt Declan reach out, brush a piece of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear.

He said, softly into the rose-scent of the night: “I have to make sure Matthew’s okay.”

Jordan nodded.

As he turned away from her to leave, to go back into the wreckage of his house, of his brother, Jordan reached out to grab his wrist, bringing it to her lips and pressing a quick kiss against it to say goodbye.

He did not ask if she would come back.

.

Ronan was being deeply unhelpful.

Declan had assigned him incredibly simple tasks: Find a bible. Light all the candles you can find. Buy those matcha flavoured gummy worms Matthew likes so much.

Instead of doing, for example, a single one of the incredibly simple and straightforward tasks Declan had asked him to do, Ronan was standing in front of Declan and talking very loudly while Declan was trying to draw a pentagram on the kitchen floor with chalk. (He had found the chalk in the front closet; apparently, Matthew had traded a bouquet of roses for sidewalk chalk.)

“ – I knew you were going to go full Mysteries of Udolpho up here but the demon shit is new, I didn’t know you were into seances and shit,” Ronan was saying and Declan gave up on his pentagram and just traced a circle around Matthew. Matthew, who was very helpfully lying flat and still on the ground like Declan had asked him to.

Declan stood up, brusquely brushing chalk and dust off of his pants. (He hadn’t had time, after pulling up all of the kitchen and hallway tiles to get rid of the decaying remnants of Colin Greenmantle, to replace the flooring.) “Matthew’s possessed. We’re doing an exorcism.”

Ronan, miraculously, was struck silent. He gaped at Declan.

“Mary mother of fuck?” Ronan said, eloquently.

Matthew, seriously, from his position on the floor: “I’m possessed.”

Ronan now gaped at Matthew.

Several seconds slipped past.

Ronan at last gathered himself enough to say, “Possessed by what?”

“I think it’s technically sort of a demonic possession. By Colin Greenmantle,” Matthew said, pondering the question. Declan toed at Matthew’s side, and Matthew sat up to drink the green juice Declan handed him.

Ronan, slowly, deliberately: “Colin Greenmantle.”

Matthew nodded, cheerful despite the gauntness of his face. “I think because I killed him.”

“You killed Colin Greenmantle.”

Matthew sipped thoughtfully at his green juice, “Yeah, it was my bad.”

Ronan, for possibly the first time in their lives, looked at Declan for help. “What the absolute fuck.”

Declan sighed, took the empty glass from his youngest brother. “Matthew, could you –”

The walls began to bleed; the lightbulbs Declan had just replaced flickered and then burst, raining glass over the brothers, the wind screeched, the rose bushes around the house began to beat at the walls, fat vines pushing through windows, and maggots began to crawl over Matthew’s face.

Ronan scrambled back, and then towards Matthew, and Declan felt his heart tug fiercely, painfully. Declan said, “Matthew.”

The haunting stopped.

Matthew breathed out, unevenly, as Ronan patted his face, his shoulders, trying to staunch a wound he couldn’t see. Declan said, sourly, “I just put new bulbs in” at the same time that Ronan said, “We need to get Adam” and Matthew said No and almost set the whole thing off again.

Matthew said, shakily but fiercely: “I can’t explain it. Adam’s like, earth and soil and growing things. And Greenmantle is – he’s rot. He’s bad. It would hurt Adam. We can’t bring Adam.”

For the second time in their lives, Ronan looked at Declan for help. Declan nodded.

“So,” he said brusquely, trying to get them back on track, “Exorcism. I looked up exorcists near us but they were all booked up until after New Years. Which is. Anyway.”

He held up the bible Ronan had brought, soft and worn cover, Aurora Lynch’s name fading in the top right corner of the first page.

Ronan helped Declan light the candles.

.

San Lorenzo was vaguely Italian, vaguely Mediterranean, or maybe it was Jordan who was vague. Her heartbeat pulsed in time, Hennessy Hennessy Hennessy, and she’d tried and failed to figure out what she would say the entire flight over.

Piper Greenmantle’s private house, private beach, private guard, private art collection, private chef, private mistress.

Jordan swept in, and no one stopped her, because her face was familiar.

In the end, she closed her eyes and let her body follow the path back to her beginning.

Hennessy was in a bathtub.

She was not dead.

She was, however, covered in blood.

This is because she was trying and failing to give herself a stick and poke tattoo on her leg.

Jordan looked at Hennessy; Hennessy looked at Jordan.

“You left,” she said.

“You left me,” she said.

“You left me behind,” she said.

“You left me alone,” she said.

“You found me,” she said.

.

Declan looked like his stomach hurt, Matthew thought, and then thought that was unfair, because Declan’s stomach hurt all the time.

Declan looked at Matthew; Matthew looked at Declan.

Softly, Declan asked: “Are you ready?”

Matthew, not trusting himself to speak, nodded.

Declan nodded, squared his shoulders, nodded again. He leaned forward, over the chalk and candle circle, and brushed the hair back from Matthew’s forehead. This was something he’d done so often, for as long as Matthew could remember, that Matthew sometimes dreamt of it. The press of Declan’s fingers, the comforting weight of his hand.

“Okay,” Declan said, and looked down at the bible in his hands.

Moments passed them by.

Declan, coming to some sort of decision, put the bible down. He sat down cross-legged beside Matthew, on the other side of the circle, and then on his side, facing Matthew. Ronan, on Matthew’s other side, does the same, and suddenly they’re children again, waiting for sleep to come.

Declan says: “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do –” and Matthew began to smile, for what felt like the first time in a very long time.

Matthew said: “You have to do the voices.”

Declan said, “I’m reciting from memory, I’m not doing the voices.”

Ronan, on Matthew’s other side, holding Matthew’s hand, said: “You fucking have to do the voices. There’s no point otherwise.”

And Declan sighed very deeply before continuing on: “ – once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it –”

And Declan did the voices, telling stories until only the brothers Lynch were left in the kitchen of their parent’s old house.

.

The roses weren’t gone, but they’d pulled back from the road leading to the house. Jordan trailed her fingers over the edges of the a purple flower as she passed it by, realizing that while she’s always known where she came from, she’s starting to have a better idea of where she’s going.

The house looked better than she had left it, with the sounds of industry coming from the kitchen. She poked her head in long enough to see Matthew, radiant and tugging ineffectually at a floorboard, accompanied by what looks like Declan Lynch after being cast in Fight Club.

“Jordan!” Matthew said, and Jordan thinks, yes, that’s me. “This is Ronan, who has to be nice because of how you threatened a guy for me.”

Ronan bared his teeth at her; she bared hers back.

Matthew continued sanguinely, “And Declan’s outside somewhere because I banished him.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow at him. Matthew, the unrepentant king: “He kept telling us to lift with our knees, not our back, which makes no sense.”

Jordan, amused: “Is he right, though?”

Matthew, wrinkling his nose: “Probably.”

Jordan laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

.

Declan Lynch stood barefoot on the beach, staring out towards the water. Jordan studied the set of his shoulders, the wind-tousled hair, thinking, I would like to paint this.

Leaving her shoes beside his, memorizing the sight of their shoes together on the rocks, Jordan padded over to him. He doesn’t turn to look at her, but she sees him hide a smile as she makes her way to him.

“So,” she said.

“So,” he agreed.

Declan had not asked if she would come back; if he had, the answer might not have been yes. But it probably would have been. Jordan finds that she’d really like to see where this will lead.

Declan asked: “Did you find who you were looking for?”

Jordan thought about her wallet with a single driver’s licence, her passport in her glove compartment, her student ID card, all with the same name on it.

Jordan said: “Yes. I did.”