Chapter 6: Bed and Floor (Jasper)

She stared at that map a long time.

Then she did something I didn’t expect—she didn’t scream that I had to take her there immediately. She folded the map, tucked it into the inner pocket of her coat, and looked up at me.

“Not tonight.” She said.

I was taken aback. “What?”

“High tide tonight. You said it yourself. The sea cave floods at high tide. And—” she nodded at the window. “This fog. You can’t see three feet in the woods. If we go now, we’re not finding evidence. We’re delivering them two new bodies.”

I stared at her.

“You’re a librarian.” I said.

“That’s right.”

“How do you know the tide times.”

“I have a Black Reef Coast Tide Tables on my shelf, 1998 edition. Nobody’s ever checked it out.” She paused. “I did.”

I almost laughed again. This time I didn’t hold it in.

It was the first time I’d laughed since I was seventeen. A small one, out through the nose. She saw it, and something in her eyes softened.

“The bed’s yours.” I said. “I’ll take the floor.”

“This is your cabin.”

“I’ve slept under trees on night patrol.”

She didn’t argue further. I opened the stove, added two logs. Firelight on her profile. She took off her wet coat and draped it over the chair, underneath a pilled gray sweater. She was so tired she could barely stand, but she still took the bound volume out of her bag first, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and pressed it under her pillow.

She was protecting that book more tightly than she’d protect her wallet.

I lay on the floor, listening to the rain. She turned over on the bed.

“Jasper.” She called quietly.

“Yeah.”

“You were seventeen. Why were you behind the records building?”

I was quiet a long time. The stove popped occasionally.

“My mom was a cleaner at the records building back then.” I said. “I used to meet her after school. When I got there, she’d already left. I saw those three men through the back window.”

“Why didn’t you say anything.”

“Because the next day.” I said. “My mom’s pickup was rear-ended on the highway to Portland. The other driver was drunk. They paid our family out. My mom never walked a night road alone again.” I paused. “It wasn’t drunk driving. I know it. My mom knows it.”

In the dark, she didn’t speak.

After a long time, she said softly: “So you’ve been silent for eighteen years.”

“Eighteen years.”

“Tired?”

I looked up at the roof rafters. Rain outside.

“Tired.” I said.

She reached over from the bed and, in the dark, found my hand. She didn’t hold it. She just laid her fingers on the back of my hand, as if checking that I was real.

Then she pulled back, turned over, and said: “Sleep. Tomorrow we go to that sea cave.”

I lay on the floor, her warmth lingering on the back of my hand.

I knew that from this moment, some things could never go back.