Cackle E-Book

Rachel Harrison

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 407

Beschreibung

Winner of the Ladies of Horror Fiction Award for Best Novel, this is a deliciously dark feminist tale of witches, bad ex-boyfriends, good coffee and friendly spiders. All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her long-time boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching job that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. Her new home is picturesque and perfect. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is lovely too, minus the oddly persistent spider infestation. Then Annie meets Sophie. Beautiful, charming, magnetic Sophie, who takes a special interest in Annie, who wants to be her friend. More importantly, she wants Annie to stop apologizing and start living for herself. That's how Sophie lives. Annie can't help but gravitate toward the self-possessed Sophie, wanting to spend more and more time with her, despite the fact that the rest of the town seems… a little afraid of her. And, okay. Sophie's appearance is uncanny and ageless, her mansion in the middle of the woods feels a little unearthly, and she does seem to wield a certain power… but she couldn't be… could she?

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Fortune

The Arrival

Bird Noises

Charming New Friend

New Day with Pancakes

A Coincidence

Honesty

Convenient, Inconvenient

The Picture

Bad Reaction

Hope Is Stupid

Bone to Pick

Ralph

Interlude

Resolutions

Valentine’s

Developments

Some Deception

Toil & Trouble

Happily Ever After

Let’s Pretend It Never Happened

It’s My Party

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

PRAISE FOR CACKLE

“Wry, dark, and deliciously witchy. I loved every page of this gripping feminist tale.”

Alexis Henderson, author of The Year of the Witching

“Cackle is an all-too-relatable story about finding your inner strength even when you’re at rock bottom, tackling the realities of post-break-up life with levity and charm. This book is an absolute delight, and everyone needs a friend like Sophie.”

Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Witch’s Heart

“Reading Cackle was like stumbling upon a candy cottage in a dark wood: utterly surprising, deceptively delightful, and a little bit scary, too. I gobbled it up in a weekend, cackling all the while.”

emily m. danforth, author of Plain Bad Heroines and The Miseducation of Cameron Post

“Cackle delivers a lesson that every woman needs to hear: embrace your inner witch! Sweet, sinister, and 100 percent delightful.”

Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger and The Deep

“This witty page-turner put its spell on me! Cackle is a charming and very contemporary story about self-realization—a gal-pal Addams Family, in the best way. Clever and massively enjoyable.”

Zoje Stage, USA Today and internationally bestselling author of Baby Teeth and Getaway

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Cackle

Print edition ISBN: 9781803361451

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361468

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2022

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Rachel Harrison 2022.

Published by arrangement with the Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Rachel Harrison asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For you! You’re real magic.

Fortune

The sky is a strange color. Not quite red but too violent to be orange. I search for the sun, imagine it tired and bitter, slouching away after another long shift. I find it hovering over New Jersey. Poor sun.

“Annie,” Nadia whines behind me, “you’re bumming me out.”

“Sorry,” I say. I contort my mouth into what I think is a smile, but Nadia winces at the sight of it, so I’m guessing the attempt is unsuccessful.

“Girl,” she says, “pull it together! It’s your birthday.”

I groan.

“All right, all right,” she says, roping her arm around me. “Let’s get you wasted.”

We dodge the bags of trash reclining on every curb, avoid the rogue dog turds swarming with flies, unashamed in the middle of the sidewalk. When I first moved to New York City twelve years ago, starry-eyed and energetic, a college freshman, it didn’t seem so dirty. I can’t tell if it was because I was young then, charmed by the skyline, always looking up, or if it used to be cleaner.

“Here,” Nadia says, putting her hands on my shoulders and ushering me into a random bar. It’s almost chic. Draped-bead chandeliers hang from a high ceiling. The place is crowded with couches and mismatched armchairs, stuffing sneaking out through straining seams. Nadia directs me to two stools in the corner where the counter disappears into the wall.

“Perfect,” she purrs. She’s wearing a low-cut leopard-print jumpsuit, which at first I thought was a smidge much, but now that we’ve received immediate attention from the bartender, I’m beginning to appreciate her strategic fashion choice.

She orders us vodka lemonades and tequila shots.

I’ve been out with Nadia only once before, at a karaoke fundraiser for our school that was near torture. She performed an earnest cover of Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.” I sat squirming in the corner, anticipating a flood of secondhand embarrassment, but the crowd was surprisingly into it.

I watch her now, as she sticks her pink acrylics into the bowl of assorted nuts on the bar. She tilts her head to the side, searching for a specific nut, exposing her long, delicate neck. Her hair is dark and thick and falls down past her shoulders, curving like a chain of crescent moons. She’s got false lashes that are in a constant flutter.

She teaches biology. She’s good at it, too. At school, she doesn’t wear a lick of makeup. All the students whisper about how she’s the hottest teacher.

It doesn’t matter how old you get. A superlative will always be insulting when it’s awarded to anyone but you.

The bartender drops the shots in front of us. They’re accompanied by a tiny plate with two lime wedges and a crusty saltshaker.

Nadia lifts up one of the shots. “To you. And your new job. Oh, and fuck your ex.”

She takes her shot.

I take mine, too. The mention of Sam is like an ice pick to the sternum. I begin to count the bottles of liquor lined up behind the bar. Are there enough? In this bar? In this city? In the tristate area? How much will it take?

“It’s all happening,” Nadia says, snapping her fingers as our cocktails arrive. “New job. New city.”

“It’s not a city,” I say. “It’s a small town no one’s ever heard of.”

“Yeah,” she says, and pauses to aggressively suck the remaining juice from her lime wedge. “But that’s how all romance movies start. You’re going to move to this, like, small-ass town and meet some brooding lumberjack, and he’s going to be named Lucien and have a six-pack even though he’s a low-key alcoholic. He’ll live in a trailer and have a tragic past. It’ll be great.”

“Sounds great,” I say, my voice flat.

She nudges me. “Oh, come on, Annie. Loosen up! Have some fun. It’s your birthday!”

I wish she would stop reminding me of that.

I hadn’t planned on spending my thirtieth birthday with a coworker I barely know who just ate a bar cashew out of her cleavage, or drinking a vodka cocktail that’s going down smooth as battery acid. Admittedly, it’s not the worst. It’s just not what I had envisioned.

I saw myself with Sam. On vacation somewhere. Butchering the French language while attempting to order food at a café in Montmartre, in the shadow of the Sacré-Coeur. Or in London contemplating the paintings at the Tate Modern and having cream tea, then smuggling back Cadbury bars in our suitcases. Or a simple weekend trip to the Hudson Valley or Mystic, somewhere we could take the train to and get a nice hotel room with a big tub and laze around in those cozy robes.

“Okay,” she says. “What is it? Is it him? Are you thinking about him? Is it thirty? Because thirty is not old, okay?”

She’s twenty-seven.

“It’s all of it,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was nice of you to come out with me.”

She raises an expertly shaped eyebrow. “I told you all year we should go out. You were, like, not about it. Look, I don’t know you that well. But I know you’re not a super-social person. And it’s easy not to be social when you, like, have a person at home who’s there all the time. What I’m saying is, basically, maybe this is a good thing for you. You can get out there. Meet new people. Live your life.”

“I guess,” I say. Unfortunately for me, “getting out there” and “meeting new people” are among my least favorite things. I’ve forgotten how. The years since college have eroded my social skills, and I’m shy to begin with. I prefer the couch. I prefer familiarity.

I prefer Sam.

“Here,” she says. She reaches out for a small tea light candle and lifts it up, the yellow flame spasming, the wick decaying. “Make a wish.”

“You’re serious?” I ask her. In this moment, I do regret not going out with Nadia sooner. I bet she’s a good friend. She seems like one of those people who are born knowing exactly who they are. Her entire personality written in the stars, set in concrete.

“Yes,” she says. “Quick! Before it burns out!”

I close my eyes and think.

*   *   *

We leave a collection of glasses sweating on the bar, along with a wad of crumpled bills and enough rinds to generously zest a pie. We stagger out into the June night, the air thick, sticky and sweet as syrup. It’s going to be a hot summer. For the first time, I’m sincerely relieved to be leaving the city. I won’t miss the humidity, thighs sticking to the seats on the subway, everyone grumpy and perspiring, any amount of deodorant rendered inadequate.

Nadia is on a quest for her favorite pizza slice. It’s at some hole-in-the-wall place in the West Village she used to frequent during her “partying days.” If her partying days are behind her, I’m a little curious what they were like, because right now she’s saying hello to strangers in a truly horrendous British accent while somehow balancing on the tallest heels I’ve ever seen. On a cracked asymmetrical sidewalk. While drunk!

This must be a practiced skill.

I scamper behind her, the bumbling sidekick in a pair of practical flats.

“It used to be right here, I swear,” she says as we stand on a side street at the foot of a domestic brownstone. She sighs, and it’s interrupted by a single faint hiccup. We’re far too drunk for this.

“We should call it,” I say.

“It’s ten o’clock,” she says.

I’m assuming by her horrified expression that she thinks ten o’clock is early. I’m of a different opinion. Ten o’clock is bedtime.

“Okay?”

“We’re not giving up on pizza,” she says, and hurries down the block, faster than expected, considering her shoes.

I follow her, breaking into a light jog as she disappears around the corner.

“Nadia?”

She’s hopping up and down, one set of fingers stuffed in her mouth, while another finger points down the street.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“Look!” she squeals. “We’re going.”

I turn my murky drunken gaze in the direction she’s pointing. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to focus on what’s there. A neon sign floating in a glass window. A crystal ball.

“No,” I say.

She seizes my wrist. “We’re getting our palms read.”

“Nope.”

She’s laughing. I’m not quite sure why, but she’s got a fun laugh. It’s loud and melodic.

“Please, please, please! It’s probably extra accurate to get read on your birthday.”

“Accurate,” I repeat. Now I’m laughing. I’m laughing so hard I can barely stand; I’m hunched like a wilting flower, arms limp.

“It’ll be fun,” she says.

“Famous last words.”

“Annie. Puh-leeeeasssse.” In the orangey glow from the streetlamp, her eyes look crazed and inhuman.

“Okay,” I say. “But if this goes poorly, I’ll do nothing about it and suffer in silence.”

“Yay!” she says, clapping and twirling around. The light from the lamp streaks through her black hair, and it looks like lightning threading a dark night sky.

She reaches out for my hand and I give it to her. She swings it back and forth, taking my arm with it. The closer we get, the more I regret agreeing to this. My apprehension quickly mutates into dread. The dread elbows around my chest like a stranger with somewhere to be. By the time we’re standing at the door, engulfed in the neon haze from the crystal ball, I’m certain I do not want to do this. Above the crystal ball, there’s another neon sign, on but barely functioning, sputtering and pale, that reads PSYCHIC.

It’s literally a bad sign.

But it’s too late to object. Nadia is already pushing open the door. A bell chimes somewhere above us.

Thick curls of smoke writhe across the room. It smells of incense and antiques, like basement furniture. The smoke stings my eyes and monopolizes my lungs. I try, unsuccessfully, to stifle a series of awkward coughs.

“Hello, hello,” says a disembodied voice. A woman emerges from behind a velvet curtain. She’s short and covered in scarves. Her hair is in a chaotic bun. She’s older. The deep wrinkles on her forehead remind me of the small, illegible script on historical documents. A constitution or peace treaty.

“Hiiiiii,” Nadia sings. “We’re here for readings.”

“Yes,” the woman says. “Welcome. My name is Atlas.”

She looks more like a Linda to me.

“What kind of readings?” she asks us. “I do a fifteen-minute tarot, half an hour, and a full hour. Ten-minute palm. I could also do birth charts, chakras, numerology.”

“Palm,” Nadia says. She turns to me for my approval.

“Sure,” I say.

“Okay,” Atlas says, smiling at us. She’s got a gold tooth. I wonder if it’s real. “Who’s first?”

“She is,” I say, pushing Nadia forward.

She doesn’t mind. “Me!” she says, swaying her hips back and forth.

“All right, here we go,” Atlas says, lifting the curtain for Nadia. They both disappear behind it, leaving me alone.

I wasn’t aware that a palm reading was a private affair.

The smoke has dispersed, revealing a room of excess. Congested bookcases. Ceramic figurines perched on crooked shelves. The walls are busy with a variety of charts and maps and the signs of the zodiac, various celestial bodies.

I eye the door. I could leave. I could bail. Nadia might get mad, but that doesn’t really matter. We’re not close, and I’m about to move hours away. We’ll probably never see each other again after tonight.

I shouldn’t. If it weren’t for her, I’d be sitting at home alone on my birthday. My alternate plan was to cry in the fetal position while listening to “Landslide” on repeat.

I can stick it out.

There’s a soft noise, like the hum of an invisible bird. Then a sudden ding that sends my shoulders knocking against my ears. I turn around, searching for the source, and find an intricate clock mounted high on the wall. I need to tilt my head back to see its face. Faces. It has two, both enclosed in a tower of carved wood. Despite being pretty tall, I need to stand on my tiptoes to examine further.

The bottom face tells time, but I can’t read the top. It’s strange and complex, with multiple cogs and golden hands moving in all different directions over a kaleidoscope of colors. Green, orange, yellow, blue, pink. The longer I stare, the more the colors blend together, like in a mood ring. It’s purple now. There must be some kind of liquid inside. Mercury? As it morphs, I can almost make out a shape. What’s maybe a flower.

“Oooh, cool clock!” Nadia says, popping up behind me. “Your turn.”

“What’d she say?” I ask her.

“That I’m going to be filthy rich!” she says. “Just kidding. I’ll tell you after.”

“Through there?” I point to the curtain.

“Yup!”

I lift the curtain back and duck underneath it. There’s a short hallway that widens into a circular room. In the center is a round table draped in layers of silky fabric. It’s slightly askew on a stack of Persian rugs. Two mismatched wooden chairs are tucked underneath. One of them is occupied by Atlas, who is shuffling a deck of tarot cards.

“Please, have a seat,” she says, gesturing to the other chair.

I’m ready to get this over with. I step onto the rugs and seat myself in the chair. I wonder how many people have sat in it before me and what brought them here. A pushy friend. Spontaneity. Curiosity. Desperation.

Maybe I’m letting my cynicism deprive me of a positive experience. Even if this is nonsense, won’t it be a comfort to hear about a future, any future, that could possibly be mine? To temporarily escape the pain of the present and be reminded that one day this will be behind me? That I won’t wake up every day feeling like my chest is full of stones. That I won’t be constantly thinking about Sam or about everything I might have done to prevent myself from ending up where I am now.

Maybe there’s someone or something in my future worth moving toward. A dangling carrot.

Atlas sets the deck of cards aside. She reaches for my hand and I give it to her. She takes a deep breath, her heavily lined eyes closing. They stay closed for a long time. Too long.

Should I be closing my eyes?

Her eyes open. I wish they were still closed. They’re gloomy and awful. She’s grimacing.

“You have dark energy,” she says.

“Sorry,” I say, because what else?

She unfolds my hand. She squints. She shakes her head.

She pulls my hand closer. Since my hand is connected to my arm, which is connected to the rest of me, something she doesn’t seem to realize, my entire body jerks forward, my ribs slamming against the table.

She leans over and turns on a table lamp. I recognize it. It’s from IKEA. I imagine Atlas roaming around IKEA in all of her scarves, letting the spirits guide her. It takes the edge off of my current situation.

Atlas is examining my palm like it’s an unexpected medical bill. Like the insurance actually isn’t going to cover it.

I did not anticipate this. I’m too afraid to ask her what the problem is, so I sit silently, studying the cuticles on my free hand.

She’s shaking her head and making a noise like she’s chastising me. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

I can’t believe this is happening, but at the same time, of course this is happening. I relent.

I ask, “What is it?”

Her brow is furrowed so deeply I can no longer see her eyes. She’s making no effort to look at me. She’s too busy with my hand.

“It is your birthday?” she asks me.

Nadia must have told her.

“Yeah,” I say.

She sighs, then folds my hand and returns it to me, pushing it back across the table.

“Happy birthday,” she says. She looks up at me finally, and her eyes are bulging. She’s clearly upset about something.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

She hesitates. Swallows. Adjusts her choker, a series of stars on a thin silver chain.

“Your life, your future, your fate . . . it’s shrouded in uncertainty. I sense a darkness. It’s all I can see,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” I say. I wipe my hand on my jeans. It grew sweaty during its time in her too-firm grasp. “That’s okay. It’s fine.”

I wait for her to wish me well or offer me an aura cleanse or specifics about a short life line, something. But she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. She remains in her chair with a look that’s equal parts sour and distressed. I can’t tell if she feels sorry for me, or if she’s about to chase me out of here with a vial of holy water and a crucifix.

I nod at her, muttering a quick thanks as I hurry away, out through the velvet curtain. On the other side, Nadia stands in front of one of the bookshelves with her hands on her hips.

She’s surprised to see me.

“That was fast,” she says. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I’m shrouded in darkness.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. Can we go?”

Nadia is fun, sweet and bubbly as Coca-Cola, but she’s not so happy-go-lucky she can’t tell when something’s wrong. She says, “Yeah, let’s go.”

As we turn to leave, I catch Atlas poking her head through the curtains. Her face is drained of color. It floats before the dark velvet like an ominous moon.

I look at Nadia, wide eyes asking, Are you seeing this?

She clutches my wrist as confirmation.

We bolt for the door. When we’re outside, we don’t slow down. We speed up. We don’t stop. We run for two blocks, until we’re out of breath.

“I mean,” she says, “really?”

“She looked at my hand like this,” I say, doing my best impression, “and then was like, ‘Happy birthday.’”

“So weird,” Nadia says.

“Yeah, happy birthday to me and my dark energy.”

“She told me I’m going to marry the love of my life at twenty-eight. That’s next year! I’m not even dating anyone I’m that into right now. She said his name won’t be his name—whatever that means. I’m going to have one son and move somewhere warm, like Florida or California.”

“Sounds nice. Except the Florida part.”

“What’s wrong with Florida?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Never mind.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That was supposed to be fun.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “Let’s just forget it ever happened.”

As we walk, I listen to the sound of her heels click-clacking on the gum-spotted city sidewalk. I listen to drunk strangers in loud conversation. I listen to the distant scream of sirens, the throbbing bass escaping from bars whenever the bouncers open the doors for shrill young girls in skintight dresses flashing their IDs.

The emotional scaffolding that I put up earlier today in preparation for this night out is beginning to come down. I feel old and sad and hopeless. The psychic didn’t help, but it’s not her fault. My future is dark.

Leaving the city after twelve years, leaving my apartment, the one I shared with Sam, my now ex-boyfriend but still best friend. I can’t afford to stay. I can barely afford to leave.

I had no choice but to take the teaching position upstate. I’m going to be living alone in a small town where I don’t know anyone. I had never even heard of Rowan before. When that psychic looked into my future, she probably saw a lot of streaming services and microwavable dinners and crying, and I don’t know . . . probably cats.

I guess I like cats all right.

“Don’t let her get to you,” Nadia says.

“It’s not that.”

“What is it?”

“I’m thirty. Thirty years old. Single . . .”

Nadia clutches her chest. “The scandal.”

“There’s a stigma. The spinster. I didn’t picture . . . I don’t know. Never mind.”

“It’s not like that anymore. Everyone talks about how your thirties are so great. Like, you spend your twenties figuring out who you are, and then you can enjoy your thirties.”

“I know,” I tell her. “That’s what makes it worse. I don’t have anything figured out.”

“Don’t assume everything is going to be bad, Annie. Have some faith.”

She spins around and puts her arms up.

She’s found it. The pizzeria. We’re here.

She leads me inside and we each get greasy slices of pepperoni. We eat them off of flaccid paper plates while sitting on the curb, sipping from the same can of Diet Coke.

When we’re done, Nadia calls a car for me. She tells me, “Everything is gonna be great, Annie. You’re gonna be great. If life gives you any trouble, punch it in the face. You got this.”

She blows me kisses and closes the door.

I cry because I miss her already, because of the friendship we could have had.

The driver turns the music up to drown me out.

*   *   *

When I get home, the futon is pulled out for me, made up with sheets and blankets and two pillows, one with a silk case. Sam is asleep in the bed we used to share. We’ve been alternating bed and futon, futon and bed. It was hard at first, but I’m used to it now.

That’s a lie. It’s still hard. I hate it.

I take my shoes off but don’t bother to change into the pajamas he laid out for me on the coffee table, along with a glass of water and a lone birthday cupcake. There’s a card, too. I open the envelope, swatting aside the false hope that inside it will be a change of heart.

The card has a T. rex wearing a party hat on the front and inside it reads Hope your birthday is Dino-mite!

I laugh because it’s funny, and because it’s 100 percent Sam. I set the card back down on the coffee table, eat the frosting off of the cupcake, close my eyes and fall right asleep.

*   *   *

I wake up to discover a small spray of vomit across my pillow. I remove the case and wash it in the bathroom sink, then hang it over the shower rod to dry. I brush my teeth and take three Advils instead of the recommended dose of two, because I’m hard like that.

I’ve stumbled into the living room, ready to go back to sleep, when I hear rustling in the kitchen. Sam is in there, standing at the counter making coffee. His hair is crazy, as usual. I always tell him he looks like a mad scientist emerging from the lab after an experiment has gone awry.

He takes it as a compliment.

“Morning,” he says. “You were talking in your sleep again.”

“What’d I say? Anything interesting?”

“Something about who killed JFK, the identity of the second shooter. Don’t know. Wasn’t really paying attention. You want coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

“How was last night?”

“Pretty fun,” I say. “Except she dragged me to a psychic who said I have dark energy.”

“Ah,” he says. “Well, I guess you’re fucked, then.”

“Totally fucked.”

He pours my coffee first, adds two packets of Stevia and only a splash of half-and-half. Exactly how I like it. He pushes my mug across the counter.

“What’d you do last night?” I ask him. It’s a casual question, a standard conversation starter. But there’s a brief flicker of suspicion that passes across his face. He thinks I’m fishing. He thinks I’m asking, Where were you last night? Whom were you with?

I wasn’t, but now his reaction has me wondering.

“Nothing too exciting,” he says. “Worked late. Made spaghetti. Then, you know . . . my vigilante stuff. Mask, cape, gadgets, catching bad guys, fighting crime.”

“Right, right.”

“Then got some bodega snacks, watched the Cooking Channel and went to bed.”

“Combos and Oreos?”

“Famous Amos.”

“Close. I was close.”

“Yeah,” he says. He’s looking elsewhere. He seems particularly fascinated by a certain point on the ceiling.

“All right,” I say. “Well, I’m just going to be hanging today. So . . .”

“I’ll be out of your hair,” he says. He inhales deeply, squints into his coffee. He’s pondering something. “You want eggs? I was going to make eggs.”

“Fancy Cooking Channel eggs?”

“No,” he says. “Just regular eggs.”

“Then okay,” I say. “Sure.”

I sit at the table and watch him take the eggs out of the fridge, butter the skillet, break the eggs into a bowl, whisk them. We’ve had so many mornings identical to this one. The same silly banter, the streams of sunlight coming through the window creating the same lattice patterns across the kitchen floor.

I replay the conversation. Us sitting on opposite sides of the couch on a lazy, rainy afternoon in late April, a nineties sitcom muted on the TV, me hugging a pillow, him playing with the fringes on the throw blanket.

“I guess I just don’t feel the way I know I should,” he’d said. I honestly can’t even remember how marriage came up, which, in retrospect, is likely because I’d been bringing it up too much. Working it into conversations where it didn’t belong. Dropping hint after not-so-subtle hint. This one just happened to be the one too many.

“Oh,” I said. What was most shocking to me about that moment was that it wasn’t shocking at all. I didn’t know it was coming, so how had I known it was coming?

“I don’t want to have this conversation,” he said, pinching the skin at the bridge of his nose, like he always does when he’s upset. “I really don’t. But we can’t keep avoiding it.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I’ve been feeling, for a while, that we’re more like friends,” he said. “It’s just . . . do . . . do we love each other anymore?”

I couldn’t answer the question. Any words I could hope to speak drowned in my throat. Words like “yes” and “of course” and “always.”

“That came out wrong,” he said. “I meant, are we in love? Because I feel like the spark we used to have, it’s just fizzled. Over time. It fizzled. And now we’re basically roommates. Roommates who have sex, sometimes.”

The way he stressed the “sometimes.” It was decimating.

“Do you think we could work on it?” I asked, my voice anemic. “We could . . . I could try.”

He sighed. “It’s on me. I should have brought it up sooner. I was scared. I didn’t want to lose you. As a friend. You’re my best friend.”

Eventually, I said the only thing I could think to say. “You’re my best friend, too.”

“We’re good as friends,” he said. “That’s our dynamic. That’s how it’s been, for a long time. And I just think it’s for the best. We can’t keep pretending our relationship is something it’s not. We can’t force it anymore.”

I stuttered.

“And if we’re just friends, if we see what it’s like to just be friends, we’ll know,” he said. “We’ll know either way, right?”

I couldn’t stand the embarrassment of arguing. I couldn’t bring myself to beg for him to want me, to love me the way that I loved him. And I couldn’t risk losing him altogether. I had to keep him in my life, even if it was just as a friend. He was my world. I needed him. I still do.

I nodded, and that was the end.

He’s currently presenting me with a plate of perfectly fluffy yellow eggs. He sits across from me and raises his mug. I raise mine, and we clink.

“Gesundheit,” he says.

“Gesundheit,” I say, my insides twisting with ache.

What if I’d said something different? That afternoon in April. Would it have changed anything? Or would we still be here drinking coffee, biding our time before the paths of our lives split?

*   *   *

A few weeks later, I kneel in my closet beside an open suitcase. All of my clothes smell like him. The void goes on and on, like a magician pulling scarves out of a hat.

The Arrival

It’s early morning, and a generous fog sheathes this stretch of highway. I can hear my things bouncing around in the back, the slide of cardboard, the rattle of the zippers on my suitcase. Something clinking. I look forward to unpacking. Should be a fun surprise to see what has leaked, what has broken.

I’ve been driving around in silence like a serial killer because every song that comes on feels like a bad omen, either too sad or too optimistic.

I make quick eye contact with myself in the rearview mirror. Maybe I should have gotten a facial before leaving the city. Had an aesthetician extract the bad energy from my pores. Exfoliate the past away.

There are some things you can pay for that will greatly improve your appearance, your circumstances. I can’t afford most of those things. But I can afford McDonald’s.

I pull into a drive-through and get a greasy breakfast sandwich and a coffee that tastes like dessert. I eat in the parking lot, watching the sun rise, the hint of a blue day prodding the soft lavender dawn. I watch as the fog tumbles away, fading between the distant trees and houses, leaving behind an ordinary wet morning.

It’s good to drive again. There’s something elating about being behind the wheel of your own car. It’s an unbridled freedom. Granted, this car is a 2006 Toyota Camry with 130 thousand miles on it, but . . . it drives. And it’s brought me here, to this McDonald’s somewhere upstate, somewhere closer to where I’m going than to where I came from.

I leave the used, grease-spotted napkins in a pile on the passenger’s seat and drive on, listening only to the shift of my things, the sound of my life rearranging itself.

*   *   *

It’s a white clapboard house with a steeply pitched roof and a leaning redbrick chimney. The windows are tall and narrow, wedged inside thick white trim, each with its own flower box. The lawn is neat and green.

It’s dreamy.

I pull up to the end of the driveway, park and get out of the car. I shake out my legs. They’re stiff from the drive or because I’m thirty now. Hard to say.

There’s a door toward the back of the house and beside it a squat ceramic frog. As advertised. Lynn, the woman renting me the top-floor apartment, is out of town for work. She told me she’d leave the keys in the frog. I lean down to lift him up. He’s oddly lifelike. My mind ribbits just to mess with me.

“You’re not real,” I tell Mr. Frog. He looks back at me with his painted black eyes, indignant.

I remove his head and reach inside for the keys. They’re attached to a gold key ring with a daisy charm. I reassemble the frog and place him gently back on the ground.

“Thank you, sir,” I tell him.

I unlock the door. The stairs run parallel to the side of the house. Three-quarters of the way up, there’s a small landing, and the stairs veer right. It’s more disorienting than it should be, maybe because of how narrow the stairs are or how stuffy it is without any windows, any circulation of air. It’s got that distinct attic smell, like mothballs, like untreated wood.

There’s a lone lightbulb glowing weakly above me.

A few steps up from the landing is the door to my apartment, to my new home. I take a deep, nervous breath.

“Here we go.”

Inside, it’s bright and clean. Even nicer than in the pictures, which is a welcome surprise. There are built-in bookcases. A small fireplace, a comfy-looking couch. In the bedroom, there are a queen-sized bed, a double dresser, a full-length mirror and a petite writing desk with a swivel chair. There’s a large window with a built-in bench that faces out to the front yard and, beyond it, the street. Maple Street. According to the map, Maple angles into Main Street a little farther down. Still, I doubt there will be a lot of traffic in front of the house. It’s a sleepy place. I crack the window and listen for cars. There’s only the soft chorus of nature. Gently rustling leaves, the faint whistle of birdsong.

The air smells so clean. I sit on the naked mattress and breathe it in.

The mattress is pretty comfortable. It’s firm, not the memory foam cloud Sam and I shared, but it’s better than the pullout. I’m grateful this apartment came furnished. Any furniture I had was actually Sam’s, or it was so cheap it was falling apart and wouldn’t have survived the journey.

Back in the living room, there’s a door sandwiched between the bedroom on the left and the front door on the right. It leads to a tiny bathroom, barely big enough to turn around in. Tub, sink, toilet.

There’s a mirror above the sink. I press it and it swings open toward me, revealing an empty medicine cabinet. I leave it open, mirror to the wall. I absolutely do not need to see what I look like right now.

I leave the bathroom and explore the rest of the apartment. At the back, there’s a small dining area with a round midcentury table-and-chair set. There are two windows, and between them is a tall reedy plant I apologize to in advance. I’ve got a poor track record with plants. It’s not neglect; if anything, it’s overattentiveness. I obsessively water, readjust, ask how they’re feeling, if they need anything. Maybe more sunlight? I exhaust them to death.

I’ve got dirt on my hands.

I wonder if that’s what happened to my relationship. Did I exhaust Sam? His love for me?

Or was it the opposite? Did I not give him the same love and attention I give to houseplants?

I sigh, position myself inside the left window and rest my head against the glass. It’s cool, and it relaxes me immediately.

I look out to the backyard. It gets lovely shade, surrounded on all sides by dense woods. I watch the leaves gleam in the afternoon sun, shimmy in the breeze.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket.

Sam texted. He wrote, Get there okay?

I reply, Yes. Picked up a few hitchhikers. Seem pretty nice. Making a pit stop at their human farm. Never been to one. Could be fun!

I regret it immediately after I hit SEND. Human farm?

I’m trying too hard to maintain our banter, or at least some semblance of normalcy in our relationship. I want to keep it stable, as if it’s a volatile chemical. I’m afraid if there’s any change too drastic, it’ll either disintegrate or explode.

I return my gaze to the woods. They’re so lush. I’m not used to being surrounded by this much nature. It’s calming, I think. Maybe just a little bit terrifying? I can’t shake the feeling the woods are looking back at me, sizing me up just the same as I am them.

I step back from the window.

There’s a little kitchen off of the dining space. Pink linoleum flooring, old wooden cabinets with a fresh coat of white paint to match the rest of the apartment. The appliances are old, the fridge snoring in the corner, but I don’t mind. On the counter, there’s a pretty bouquet of flowers in a mason jar vase. Pink carnations, baby’s breath, purple aster and deep burgundy roses. There’s another flower, big and purple, but I’m not sure what it is. I lean down to smell it and immediately sneeze.

I apologize to the now snot-covered petals.

Next to the flowers is a note from Lynn.

Welcome, Annie! Call if you need anything!

It’s such a sweet gesture, I could cry. I take a slow breath and set my palms flat on the counter.

I see him.

A tiny black spider ambling just beyond my fingertips. He is not hurried. He is small and smooth, his legs are long and he lifts them high as he goes, almost like in a little march.

“Buddy,” I say.

I find a glass to catch him under. I slide Lynn’s note underneath the spider. I walk over to the window, unlock it and pull it open. It takes some effort, the window stiff and stubborn.

“All right, guy,” I tell the spider. I release him, carefully, onto the ledge outside. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

He’s not. He continues his march toward the siding. I close the window.

I spend the next few hours lugging my stuff up from the car and unpacking. I hang clothes in the closet. I make up the bed with my new bedding, wrestle with the top sheet. I put my books on the shelves, arranging them alphabetically, only to change my mind and rearrange by color and then again by which books I think would be friends. I find another spider on one of the shelves. I catch him under the same glass. I take him downstairs and set him free on the driveway.

“Go find your friends,” I tell him as I get my last bag out of the trunk.

I unpack my shampoo and conditioner and bodywash, set them on the ledge of the tub. I put my lotions and potions inside the mirror cabinet. Toothpaste and sunscreen and various moisturizers and a new citrusy perfume I’m trying out. It makes me smell like a new person. The person I’m trying to be. It’s aspirational perfume.

I wash my hands, splash some water on my face.

When I look up, there’s a spider. Yet another spider. This one is much bigger. He’s a different shape. He has a distinct head and body. The same long, spindly legs. He’s slinking along the edge of the sink. I think he’s attempting to be stealthy. He extends his legs far ahead, staying low.

“I see you,” I tell him. “You’re coming with me.”

I have to fetch the glass from the kitchen, where it’s drying facedown on the dish rack after two thorough cleanings.

“This is my house,” I tell him as I usher him onto the windowsill. “It’s not your house. That’s your house.”

I point to the woods. He doesn’t move. I close the window, leaving him to figure it out on his own.

By the time I finish unpacking, the sun dips below the trees, and I make a lap around the apartment, flipping on every lamp, every light switch. I didn’t realize earlier that there are no curtains. No blinds. I’m in a fishbowl.

I check my phone. A response from Sam: Ha ha. Call me later, if you want.

I call him immediately.

“You stop at McDonald’s or Wendy’s?” he asks.

“McDonald’s.”

“Left to your own devices. We’ve been over this. Wendy’s is far superior.”

“I like McDonald’s. I was raised on McDonald’s,” I say. “Cut me some slack.”

“You want that cut thin, thick or cubed?”

Maybe this is hard for him, too. Harder than he anticipated. Not having me home. We’ve cohabitated for so many years in that space. My not being there must be strange for him.

“How’s the place?” he asks.

“Good. Pictures weren’t fakes, so that’s a relief. It’s a nice apartment. Very bright. I’ll need to get some curtains, though. It was fine during the day but it’s kind of creepy now.”

I walk over to the front window and peer outside. A car is coming down the street. The speed limit on Maple is twenty-five, but this car must be going under that. It’s crawling.

The car’s interior light is on, and I can see people inside. Two in the front, one in the back. They’re far away. Blurred by the distance and distorted by the glass. But I think they’re looking at me. I squint.

Yeah. They’re not in profile, not facing the road ahead. They’re turned toward me; their eyes are on me. I feel the hot grip of their stares.

“Annie?” Sam asks. “You there?”

“Yep,” I say. I stand back from the window. The car passes, the red glow of its taillights retreating into the silky darkness of the August night.

“Sorry,” I say. I shuffle into the bedroom and spread myself across the mattress. “I’m here.”

“I’ll, uh, actually I’ll let you go,” he says.

“Oh. Okay.”

“Wanted to make sure you got there in one piece.”

“Let me double-check,” I say. I do. I check. I feel around my body. Is it all here? “Yep. One piece.”

He laughs. It’s his laugh lite. His this is amusing but not genuinely funny laugh.

“Night, Annie.”

“Good night, Sam.”

He hangs up before me. I hear it. That horrible disconnecting noise.

I roll over onto my stomach. It’s strange. Sam and I have been sleeping separately for months, and I’m still not used to it. I want to be, but I’m not. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to sleeping alone or if, from now on, I’ll go to bed huddled up to one side, waiting in vain for warmth beside me.

It’s so easy to adjust when you’re newly in love, when you’re all gooey, soft and malleable as an infant’s skull. You make so much space in your life and in your heart, and when the person you love leaves, you’re all stretched out. There’s so much room inside me that I don’t know what to do with, space I don’t know how to fill. I’ve been waiting for it to shrivel up, for me to take my former shape, to be how I was before I met him, but it’s not happening.

It’s been so long; I don’t even remember who I was before him.

*   *   *

On Main Street in Rowan, there’s a sign that reads WELCOME TO ROWAN, AMERICA’S BEST-KEPT SECRET.

I can’t even scoff, can’t even roll my eyes at the pure Velveeta cheesiness. All I can do is nod in agreement as I drive through town for the first time. It’s so quaint it makes my insides warm, and I can feel them churn with instant affection. That new-crush endorphin surge. I bet there are little hearts where my eyes used to be.

The short stretch of Main Street is lined with shops, each one more whimsical than the last. They’re all different colors: pale yellow, neon pink, deep teal, muted beige. They vary in style. Some have that classic general store vibe. Colonial boxes, windows with distinct muntin bars, front-sloped roofs and gabled dormers. A few of the shops look like they’ve been transported from a small village in Europe, like they’re made of gingerbread. Others are right out of a Norman Rockwell townscape. Perfect rectangles with vibrant red bricks and decorative cornice molding.

There are petite manicured trees interspersed with flowery bushes along the sidewalks. The lampposts are beautiful Victorian relics. Black cast iron. Flowerpots drape from their arms, all filled with yellow daisies.

I half expect a bunch of adorable children clad in matching outfits to pop out of the bushes and start harmonizing while performing a choreographed dance. Townsfolk in suspenders to emerge from the shops, burst out of the doors and windows to bid me bonjour.

I spot a few people out and about. There’s a woman in a linen dress and a wide-brimmed sun hat walking her dachshund. There’s a tall man in a polo shirt and cargo shorts carrying cups of labelless take-out coffee.

They both seem happy.

Past the rows of shops there are a few lonelier buildings set back from the road. An old geezer of a place with intimidating columns and a gilded eagle on top, probably a bank or municipal something or other. There’s a retro train car diner, the most delightful one I’ve ever seen. A bit farther down the road, there’s a small pond, and behind it, secluded in the trees, is a little stone church with an arched door and a steeple.

My phone yells at me to make a right at the stoplight. I do, and that’s it. That’s Rowan.

There’s another sign; this one reads NOW LEAVING ROWAN. KEEP OUR SECRET.

If the town weren’t so precious, the sign might be off-putting. But I don’t know. It works for me. I get it.

My cheeks ache, trying to resist my giddy smile.

I’m in on the secret!

I roll the windows down. The occasional breeze carries a faint cinnamony smell.

I think about what brought me here. Sam and me breaking up. Not being able to afford to stay in New York City without him. Getting sad and panicky. Crying. In the shower. On the subway. In Starbucks. I was crying into a venti caramel consolation latte when I ran into Matt, an old classmate of mine from NYU. I told him about the breakup, in perhaps more detail than necessary. I said I needed a change of scenery and, more important, a new job. He took pity on me. He knew someone who knew someone who knew about this opening.

I didn’t really have any other options. Or I was just too dejected and lazy to go looking for them.

When I did my initial Google search, I didn’t look for Rowan. I looked for Aster. Aster neighbors Rowan to the north. It’s significantly bigger and—I can see now—entirely less charming. There are strip malls, chain stores. An Applebee’s.

I stumbled across Rowan only by chance, on a random housing site during my desperate hunt for a cheap apartment. It’s a longer commute, a little over half an hour to Aster High, but I got over it pretty quickly once I put it into perspective. Thirtyish minutes alone in my car versus the horrific, often sticky variables of a subway ride. I told myself it wouldn’t be so bad, and I was right. It isn’t.

And I’m grateful now that I’m not in Aster. I’m grateful to be in Rowan, despite having to get up earlier and spend more money on gas. The town is so picturesque, so idyllic, it’s nudged me somewhere closer to the realm of hope for my future here. Somewhere almost adjacent to excitement.

*   *   *

Aster High School is a sweatbox. After a long orientation, an AP English teacher named Roberta escorts me to my classroom in the basement. It’s small and windowless and smells of mildew. But I wasn’t expecting Xanadu. I have a back closet for books and two big, slick new whiteboards. Exciting stuff.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Roberta says, already out the door. I hear her loafers squeak down the hall.

I spend the rest of the day cleaning, gradually getting dustier and dustier until I’m filthy and the classroom is . . . looking