Some Quiet Place

don’t quite fit me now, since she was taller than I am—and I have a new destination. There’s a map in my lap, and the route to Gig Harbor, Washington, is highlighted. Where I’ll find the stone house I grew up in, where Mom cooked breakfast every morning, where Landon and I were homeschooled, where we grew into our Elements.
    It’s raining again. There’s been a steady downpour ever since the illusion broke. Trees speed by. It’s easier to focus on them than on the reflection staring back at me from the glass. After thirteen years I’ve grown used to the blond hair and blue eyes. These dark curls and brown irises are disconcerting, to say the least. No one would recognize me now—not Maggie, not even Joshua.
    Joshua. I swallow, trying to shove down the feeling that swells up. He served his purpose. You will need that boy in the end. Joshua needed to love me, so that one Emotion could break through my defenses. In the end it wasn’t death or terror that shattered them. It was someone else’s love. How poetic.
    It takes me a day and a half to get there. Since I’d never left Gig Harbor before Nightmare came, I don’t recognize the signs or the landmarks. But I follow the directions I got from Google Maps, and as soon as I take a right onto the last dirt road, I know. That’s the driveway, up ahead. I’m here. This is the place. There’s a mailbox in the ditch, no name on the side of it since Mom was always paranoid about someone finding us.
    She turned out to be right.
    The clouds have broken up just a little, enough that a few rays of sun touch the ground in sporadic splotches. I’m stiff, holding my breath as if I’m about to drive off the cliff into the ocean. Nothing yet … just the woods on either side and the overgrown road. No one has been back here in a long, long time. It feels like it’s all been waiting for someone.
    Waiting for me. I roll down the window and let the humid air in. Smelling like salt and wind, it toys with my curls as I listen to the sound of the gravel under the car. The crunch of rocks and dirt makes me think of Elizabeth’s life in Edson. All that’s missing is a slamming screen door …
    The house comes into view.
    It’s lonely. It’s old. No one has bothered to chop away the tangle of vines climbing up its side. The shingles are rotting and falling off. One of the windows is broken, and the front door is wide open. It’s different and it’s the same.
    My head feels light, too light, and I remember that I’m holding my breath. I let it out in an audible whoosh . So many memories, so much pain. I can almost hear Landon’s voice, reading aloud, or Mom’s gentle tenor as she firmly instructs us to sit at the table and work on our math for an hour.
    I expected to feel … happy, maybe. Or at least whole. But all I feel is empty. After everything, after all the years and the pain and the pretending, I expected more.
    It doesn’t matter, though. What matters is that I’m finally home.
    Everything is still here. Landon’s textbooks, Mom’s cookbooks. I found one of my old sundresses in a drawer—the one I was wearing in all the dreams. I remember Mom hugging me once when I had it on. Her scent has long since faded from the material, but I haven’t taken it off since discovering it, despite the cold. I like to pretend I can still smell a hint of her lavender shampoo.
    I drift through the long grasses and trees of the woods that Landon and I loved. Since our father never took an interest in us—we were two among dozens he’s probably fathered, since Life can’t be contained—we used this place to feel closer to him. His presence is palpable here. He didn’t play a domestic role for us, but the trees emanate his very essence. Not that I care anymore, now that I see the truth for what it is. He slept with my mom and abandoned her. Moved on. Left us. He has to know we exist. His blood runs through our veins. But even when Landon was dying, when I was dying, the only one Life apparently cared enough to save was our mother.
    There was one person who did save me, though, every single time without fail. And I abandoned him . I know that’s why he’s staying away. He thinks I don’t want him. When I became Elizabeth and left Fear in another lifetime, it was the ultimate betrayal. And how ironic that he fell in love with her. Does he hold any feelings for Rebecca, anymore? Or has my deceit obliterated any remnants of that love? Thinking of him adds to the pain,