The only time he ever spoke about any of it was when he was questioned by the police and the fire marshal about working at June Reid’s the day before the wedding. They came to the door of his house that night and he sat in the kitchen and told them the same thing Ethan and Charlie told them. That Luke had them do what he usually had them do for New Yorkers like June Reid: pick up twigs and sticks, pull weeds from the sidewalk, and edge the flower beds. The only difference was that Luke paid everyone in advance that day and double their regular twelve bucks an hour. As he was handing out their cash, he asked them to do twice as good a job as usual. You guys are good, but today I need great. Silas told the police officers that Luke had said this, but they didn’t seem interested. They kept asking about Luke’s mood, whether he seemed drunk or high or upset when they saw him last. Silas said he seemed like he always seemed. A little stressed-out, busy, but fine. He told them that he and the other guys showed up at June Reid’s place around two that day, and Luke worked alongside them for the first couple hours. He rode the John Deere, mowing the front and back lawns, while Ethan, Charlie, and Silas did everything else. Around four o’clock, Luke said he had errands to run, so he left them to finish working until six thirty, after which Charlie and Ethan piled into Ethan’s old Saab and Silas rode his bike down Indian Pond Road to his house, which was less than a mile away.
What none of them told the cops was that not long after Luke left, the three of them booked across the field behind the house to the trails that led to the Unification Church property, what kids in town called the Moon because, as everyone knew, the Unification Church was just another name for the Moonies. They did not say that they had sprinted to the Moon and took turns pulling from Silas’s bong. They also did not say that it turned out all three had a stash, so they mixed a little from each into the bowl and smoked what Charlie called, sarcastically, a wedding salad. They lost track of time on the Moon, and when they got back it was almost six. After Silas ditched his yellow knapsack inside the stone shed outside the kitchen, the three of them rushed through the rest of the work and left before dark. By then, the driveway was packed with cars and the house was full for the rehearsal dinner, so they took off without saying anything to Luke, who they assumed was pissed that they were nowhere to be seen when he returned. They also didn’t want him to clock that they were high. Before leaving, Silas remembers, he saw Lydia inside the screened porch. She was sitting with June on the wicker sofa, laughing, small candles all around them flickering on tables holding flowers and food. He cannot remember anything more about seeing these two women, but he remembers clearly the sweet smell of freshly cut lawn, the sound of tent fabric slapping the air, and the first streaks of sunset painting the sky pink. These were the seconds before he left for home, and he has replayed each one a million times.
It is hard to believe the woman on the porch that night in May is the same one walking with grim purpose ahead of him now, bundled in a purple fleece, trudging across Herrick Road to Upper Main Street. Not once since that night has he seen her smile or heard her laugh.
Silas slows down to let a gap expand between them. He wonders if Lydia even knows who he is. He’d worked for Luke on and off for three summers and on weekends in the fall and spring. He wonders if she saw him that day at June Reid’s. He remembers standing by the stone shed and rushing away when he heard Luke’s voice coming from the kitchen. He remembers running toward the driveway and flying on his bike along the green cornfields that stretch from the edge of June Reid’s property past the church where June’s daughter was getting married the next day. He slowed down when he came upon Indian Pond, reflecting the red-and-purple sunset stretching above him. He remembers fireflies blinking from the brush and woods on both sides of the road as he pedaled. He remembers stopping to crawl down the rocky slope to the water’s edge to take a leak, the wild sky and the surface of the pond still as glass until his piss sent it rippling. The effect was trippy and especially so since he was still high. At one point the clouds shifted and above him spread what looked like a great dragon with wings as wide as the world. Silas stumbled back from the lake as the creature came into view: jaws jagged with teeth and blasting fire, smoke curling from its snout, magnificent wings expanding in scales of cloud, its gigantic tail twisting past the horizon. It was a spectacular beast, its eyes the only visible blue, long slits that appeared to widen as its head turned slowly toward Silas where he sat against the bank, dazzled and afraid.
All these months later, he had forgotten about the dragon and how, for a few terrifying seconds, he believed it was real. He’d forgotten that it was dark by the time he found his way up the bank to the road, and how at first he could not find his bike. He thinks about those moments when he stumbled in the dark before finding his bike, which had fallen down next to the tree he’d leaned it against earlier. He wishes he could return to that stumbling. To that perfectly blind minute before he knew anything. Not where his bike was. Not what would happen later that night, or the next morning. Not that a full moon would soon rise and light the whole valley. Or that later, after everyone in his family had gone to sleep, he’d scramble back onto his bike to pedal furiously down this same road, counting on the light of the moon to guide his way to June Reid’s house.
Without noticing, he has quickened his pace and closed the gap between him and Lydia. After crossing Herrick onto the sidewalk that runs the length of Upper Main Street, he forgets he’s supposed to remain hidden. What had only minutes before been at least three or four car lengths has now collapsed to only a few yards. When he realizes how close he is, he knows he should slow his pace to a quiet halt and bank left down one of the driveways out of sight. But he’s never been this close before. He thinks he can hear her breathing. The air is cold, but he can see perspiration beading on the back of her neck. She has taken off her fleece and he can see patches of skin through the sweat-soaked cloth of her white T-shirt. His eyes move from one patch of almost exposed skin to another. He leans closer. His shoe scuffs the pavement, scrapes loudly against the loose sand, and for the first time he can see her register his presence. His other foot accidently kicks a twig that hits the back of her ankle and she stops abruptly, turns around. He freezes. She is inches away.
June
After the maze of rock-strewn, erosion-destroyed dirt roads leading away from Bowman Lake, the smooth asphalt of Route 93 south of Kalispell is a relief. When she sees the sign for Butte, she drifts toward the exit for Interstate 90 and, later, takes another exit when she sees the sign for Salt Lake City. A few miles into Idaho she can feel the wagon pulling to the left. It gets worse, so she gets off at the next exit, and by the time she finds a Texaco she can barely keep the car moving in a straight line. The kids at the register have no idea how to change a tire. The place is more of a grocery store that happens to sell gas than a gas station where anyone knows anything about cars. She waits for someone to pull in who looks like they know what to do. Soon, an older guy with a thick head of white hair and closely trimmed beard, wearing a red flannel shirt, backs his truck up to a pump. When she asks him if he knows how to change a tire, the amused look on his face makes it clear she’s picked the right guy. He puts out his hand and says, Brody Cook reporting for duty. She shakes his hand but says nothing. All right then, he says, still cheerful. He smiles and finishes pumping and paying for his gas. After he pulls his truck away from the pumps and parks next to the Subaru, he asks where she keeps the spare and she says she isn’t sure the wagon has one. One of two places, he says, heads or tails? He looks at her expectantly and she has no idea how to respond. Okay, let’s try heads. He pops the hood and after one quick look around the engine says, Tails it is. When he steps to the back of the wagon and opens the hatch, she hears him ask where she’d like him to put the bags. He asks again. When she doesn’t answer, he walks around the car with a suitcase in one hand and a duffel bag in the other and puts them down on the asphalt. I’ll leave you in charge of these, he says before returning to extract the spare tire from under the panel beneath the rug.