Page 62 of The Someday Daughter
“Do you believe in this stuff?” Sadie asks, looking over at her. Their eyes meet, and in the flicker of candlelight the way they smile at one another feels like a mirror. It occurs to me that I’m not the only one who’s grown closer to Camilla this summer.
“In another plane beyond our mortal world?” Mom says, leaning sideways to nudge her shoulder into Sadie’s. “Sure.”
“I guess I more meant the premeditation of it,” Sadie says. “That someone in the great beyond might know our futures before we do.”
“Like fate’s a book everyone gets to read when they die,” Cleo says. Mick angles his phone to catch her face in the candlelight. “And only us mortals have to learn the story as it comes.”
“I’m not sure.” My mother looks at me, smiling. “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in imagining that, though, is there?”
“It’s kind of comforting,” Silas says. He’s running a hand over Puddles’s wrinkly head, her eyes closed under his palm. “That someone knows how the story goes, even though it’s going to be what it’s going to be.”
“Why do you always say that?” Finally, like a magnet catching by inevitable force, Silas looks at me. Everyone else does, too. “‘It’ll be what it’ll be.’ It takes away our freedom of choice. Leaves us no agency at all.”
“Oh,” he says flatly, “you’re talking to me now?”
The silence that drops over us is like the power going out at the theater: unnatural. A strange break in the order of things. Sadie stares at Silas but he doesn’t look away from me. It feels like he’s punched me in the throat, though I know I deserve it.
My mother opens her mouth, but before she can get any words out there’s a crash from outside. The plywood has come loose from one of the windows—it wrenches and slams with the wind, letting in rain that lashes the glass.
“I’ll fix it,” Silas mutters. He drops Puddles into Cleo’s lap and before anyone has time to react he’s turning away, moving into the pooled darkness toward the office door.
“Wait, what?” My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else—someone shaken and unsure. Nashville Audrey. “Silas, wait.” I’ve stood up before I realize I’m doing it. “I’ll come, too.”
40
I catch up to Silas in the foyer, where it’s so dark that the tip of my nose brushes his shoulder blade before I orient myself enough to rear backward.
“You can’t go out there,” I say, and he turns so abruptly that his phone flashlight slices into my eyes. I wince.
“I can’t?” He turns back immediately, keeps walking. I scramble for my own phone and hit the flashlight to follow him. Ethan’s text is still there on the screen:Not sure if you’ll have service to see this, but my flight’s canceled.
“If the wind was strong enough to rip off the plywood, it’s strong enough to hurt you.”
The entryway is all marble floors, thunder reverberating from smooth surfaces. With the windows boarded up, it’s pitch-black.
“And if I don’t get the plywood nailed back in that corner, the window could break.”
“So it breaks,” I say, but he’s still moving away from me. Slipping his sneakers on, reaching for the hammer and a box of nails on the entryway table.
“Silas,” I say, and he doesn’t look at me. Just shoves the box into his back pants pocket, grabs the utility flashlight sitting next toit. When he reaches for the front door I take another step toward him. “Silas,stop—”
“You stop,” he says, finally looking at me. He wrenches open the door and rain gusts in, startling and cold on my face. “Go back to the office.”
He steps through the door, and when he yanks it shut behind him I promptly pull it open again.
“I’m serious!” I shout, the storm gobbling up my voice. It’s apocalyptic out here—I can barely see the black back of his shirt in the drive of the rain.
Silas whirls around, hair already soaked through and sticking to his forehead. “So am I!” He waves at my legs. “You don’t even have shoes on!”
I look down at my feet: pale in the grass, already dotted with dirt. I hadn’t even noticed—every single part of me is drenched. I look back up at him. “I don’t care.”
“Great,” he says loudly. “Nowyou don’t care about being barefoot outside.” He waves a hand through the rain. “Just go back.”
Silas turns and makes for the window. The plywood’s come loose in the bottom right corner, ripped right from the nail, and with each gust of wind it slams violently into the side of the house.
I follow him, yelling above the thunder. “Why are you so mad at me?” I’ve never been this wet in my life; when I breathe it feels like I’m drinking.
“I’m not mad at you.” He crouches in front of the window without looking at me. His jeans are soaked and stuck to him; he struggles to get the nails out of his pocket.
