Page 27 of These Secret Years

I still feel connected to it in a way I can’t name. It inspires me with the beat up wood floors and the reflections from the lake. The thick layer of dust everywhere reassures me that no one’s been here in a while, but there’s the slightest sense of intrusion. Not quite a violation, but a twinge of unease that offsets the peace I used to feel whenever I came here.

Weirdly, I don’t hate it. I am, after all, alone, and no one would even know where to look for me. Being lost in the woods is another dream I have more and more lately, and while it might should like a nightmare to anyone else, it’s one of my dreams that makes me feel safest. This house comes up in those dreams a lot, too.

Still, knowing I could get caught keeps a low buzz of adrenaline humming in my blood. Ideas race wildly through my head, and I’m thinking opera, or a dark, tragic ballet. I’m also imagining a thriller on a film screen scored with carefully placed silences and swells.

If I ever manage to be as prolific as my own imagination, I’ll go down in history, provided I’m as good at this as I’ve been led to believe.

I’m doing the thing I do when I’m learning a new instrument—playing a song on my phone that I attempt to replicate with my mouth and hands on the oboe. I start simple, then gradually progress as I get more comfortable with how to make the instrument do what I want it to. The battle for me with most new instruments isn’t the sounds that I make come out of it. That’s the easy part. For me, it’s learning how to hold it comfortably. Adjusting my body to the thing. Once I have that figured out, I’m generally at a moderate difficulty level in terms of the songs I’m able to play. Today, I achieve that level in the late afternoon.

I’m in the zone, finding my way through a Wagner piece when my skin prickles with a bizarre awareness. My spine stiffens. I lower the mouthpiece and glance over my shoulder, nearly pissing myself at the sight of the large man leaning against the doorframe.

Of course, I recognize him instantly, and the fear of being caught quickly goes from a chill to a melting heat that clings to my skin like hot wax. “Hi.”

Knight Winters is in a black t-shirt, long black gym shorts, and white sneakers. He’s got a gun in his hand, resting against his thigh, one long finger on the barrel, not the trigger.

“Wow,” he says, his voice flat, his face blank.

I lick my lips. They’re still vibrating from the oboe. Picking up my phone, I stop the music, plunging the room into near silence.

This guy hasn’t looked at me for more than half a second since last September, but he’s staring now. Staring so hard that I want to shrink even more than I already have. Quite literally. I know down to the ounce how much weight I’ve lost. I know skinny doesn’t look good on me. I know my hair is long and my tattoos are strange. I know how large my eyes have gotten and how my face has sunken in beneath my cheekbones. How my features look harsh and almost clownish now.

I know what he’s staring at—this in between thing I’ve become.

“Is the gun necessary?” I ask to draw his attention away from me while I try to make myself not care what he thinks about me again. I got pretty good at it last fall. It should feel like flexing a muscle, which I still have a few of.

He does something to the weapon that makes a light clicking noise, then he puts it in his shorts pocket. His gaze doesn’t leave me, though. “So, this is your place?”

“Not mine…” I say quickly.

“Oh, no. I know. My mom’s company owns the property, but the place you mentioned, right?”

“You remember that?” I barely remember telling him that.

His voice comes out deeper. More knowing. “Well…yeah.”

“I’ll go. It might take me a few minutes but⁠—”

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeat, already disassembling the oboe. “You show up with a gun, I’m trespassing, I assume that involves a call to the police or something.”

He huffs. “I’m not gonna call the police. And you don’t need to go.”

“Well, I can’t stay.”

“I’m alone,” he says, his hands up to signal his harmlessness. “It’s just me. You don’t have to go anywhere.”

I don’t know what the fuck he expects me to do. Keep butchering the oboe while he does what? Checks on the property? Yeah…no. “Just give me a few minutes.”

“I think about you, you know?”

Those words stop me cold. I freeze halfway to the oboe case and fight the urge to look at him. When I come up with nothing to say, I unstick myself and crouch down to put away my instrument.

When I don’t speak, he does. “I wasn’t intending to go no contact with you. But I wondered, did you mean to do that with me?”

I frown, but my face is hidden by my hair. “What did you intend?”

“I don’t know.”