Chapter 23

Another Saturday, another play date at Jacob’s house. The boys have spent the week geeking out on FaceTime about their new figurines and the upcoming Rainbow Dave event. Jessica has tuned most of it out. They’ve never been to a live gaming event before and she can hardly imagine what it entails, but at least the anticipation is keeping Gavin busy with something he can share with a friend. And while her trepidation about Rainblocks has not faded, she’s put it on the back burner for now, grateful that Gavin has something to look forward to in this time of oppressive dread.

When Gavin asks if he can go to Jacob’s house on the weekend, Jessica is quick to consent. In the days that follow, she’s not sure which of them has a harder time waiting for the weekend to arrive. Jacob spends most summer days at one camp or another (Jessica envies Lucy’s high salary marketing job; she and Matt could never afford to piece together a whole summer of day camps for Gavin) so the soonest Gavin can visit is Saturday. She plans to set aside a good half-hour of this coveted private time for an honest-to-goodness breakdown, complete with screaming and possibly punching the shit out of a pillow.

But when Saturday arrives, after dropping Gavin off, the breakdown doesn’t come. She’s been holding it in for weeks, knowing that on some level this psychotic restraint is a firewall against feelings from which she might not recover if she indulges them. She could cry from sheer stress alone, but finds, when she looks for it, that she’s forbidden herself anything resembling grief in the absence of confirmation.

Matt’s status is still Whereabouts Unknown. Lucy asked her about it during the handoff while the boys were horsing around and wrestling in the living room, and Jessica told her just that, prompting the former military wife to shoot a glance at the boys and tilt her head toward the dining room where they could talk in private. But Jessica had nothing to add over tea and cinnamon scones served at the polished walnut table.

“You think I’m a gossip, don’t you?” Lucy had asked. “You can talk to me, you know. You need someone to talk to. And none of it leaves this room. You don’t have to worry about Jacob spilling something to Gavin that he overheard me telling Marcus. That won’t happen.”

“I appreciate that,” Jessica said. “But honestly, I’m in limbo. Waiting for more information. I’m holding out hope, but it’s torture, not knowing.” She slid the teacup and saucer across the dark wood, placing it at arm’s length after only a sip.

Lucy asked if the tea was okay.

“It’s fine, I just… The last thing I need is caffeine right now. I feel sick to my stomach all the time. Agitated and jittery, like I need to figure out how I’m going to live without him, how I’m going to get Gavin through it, but I can’t. I can’t do any of that until I know for sure. As long as we don’t know, there’s hope. But I’m afraid to hope.”

“What does your heart tell you? About whether or not he’s alive.”

Jessica sighed. “I don’t know. I wish I did, but this isn’t some Lifetime Christmas movie.”

Back home, where she finally has the space to let it all out, she looks at the liquor cabinet and thinks maybe popping a cork would help open the floodgates. But she knows better. Thinking back on the conversation, Jessica tries to extract the emotional balm of solidarity and commiseration her friend intended, but it’s hard to find. Is that something to do with the nature of their friendship? Or is it more to do with Lucy’s status as a former military wife? Rationally, Jessica knows that as a police officer, Marcus could still lose his life on the job—God forbid. Lucy could still find herself having to explain such a tragic loss to Jacob. Jessica knows there’s no real reason to envy Lucy as someone who dodged that bullet the day her husband decided not to re-enlist, someone on the other side of a great divide. But there it is; she does anyway. She may not be indulging many feelings right now, but she’s going to let herself have that one.

Restless, she passes on opening a bottle of wine and instead busies herself picking up the clutter around the house, doing the dishes, letting the warm water on her hands and the mindless work lull her into an almost meditative state as she ruminates on what else she can get done while Gavin is out.

There’s no shortage of chores. Grocery shopping is overdue. And the dog, edgier than ever in response to her own restless energy, could use a proper walk. Then, of course, there’s work to catch up on, an article to write for the VA that got sidetracked when she couldn’t focus. But when her mind circles around for the third time to the possibility of meeting up with Andy, she turns off the water, dries her hands, and picks up her phone.

Her finger hovers over his contact for a moment before she sets the phone down and admonishes herself because there’s no one else there to do it.

“What are you doing? Why are you calling? Because you’re lonely?”

She taps her foot on the floor for a seven count, then picks the phone back up and taps the contact.

“Hey, Andy, it’s Jessica Ritter. Gavin’s mom? I’m okay. There’s been a new development.”

* * *

They meet about twenty minutes from Jessica’s house at Winnekenni Castle, a sprawling conservation area overlooking Kenoza Lake in Haverhill. When Andy pulls into the gravel lot, he sees Jessica walking her dog around the perimeter on a leash. He recognizes her white Range Rover and parks beside it. She gives him a smile and a wave while the dog addresses him with a couple of happy barks of recognition, tail swishing in the dust.

Jessica nods at Andy’s elderly Toyota Corolla. “Do you know your engine’s making a knocking sound?”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get that looked at.”

Jessica frowns. “I wouldn’t put it off if I were you. Sounds like it could be the bearings. You don’t want to wait until you throw a rod.”

“What happens then?”

She appraises the car from nose to tail. “You buy a new car?”

Andy scratches the back of his neck and winces. “I’ve been putting it off because I don’t know if I can afford a repair, never mind a new car.” He’s only been teaching at Sanders Elementary for a couple of years. Most of his meager salary goes toward paying off his college loans. He might take on a car loan if he felt he had job security, but the administration has been struggling to scrape together a budget for next year, leaving enrichment programs like technology and music squirming under the knife.

“Is the check engine light on?” Jessica asks.

Andy shrugs. “Yeah, but it usually is.”

She gives him a wide-eyed look and playfully punches his shoulder. “Andy. Take the damned thing’s advice already and get it checked. You don’t ignore error messages on computers, do you?”

“Cars are not my forte. Honestly, there could be anything under that hood. A dog on a wheel? I have no idea.” He goes down on one knee and scratches Cooper’s head. The dog licks his chin. “How do you know so much about cars? I thought you were a writer.”

“My dad was a mechanic. I grew up around engines for little while, picked a few things up. I’ll get you the name of someone you can trust to check it out.”

“Your dad?”

Jessica scoffs. “No. We don’t talk anymore. Last I checked he was in California with his new family, but that was a long time ago. Anyway… I’m definitely paying you a consulting fee so you can get that looked at.”

He tries to wave this away. “I’m not helping you for money. I like Gavin. And it makes me feel like I have a purpose over the summer. The school doesn’t really appreciate my cyber safety mission, but if I can help you and Gavin, at least that’s something. Besides, your husband is overseas serving his country. Anyone who can lend you a hand should.”

Something flashes across her face at this last comment, something he can’t quite read, a cloud across her sunshine. But then she brightens again and says, “I’m paying you anyway. No argument. When’s the last time you changed the oil?”

He gives her a comically nervous smile.

“Promise me you’ll at least do that right away?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come on, let’s walk.”

Jessica makes for the trail and Andy falls into step beside her. When they’ve left the parking lot behind, she lets some slack out of the retractable leash, allowing Cooper to rove from side to side, sniffing and weaving and pausing to target various weeds and trees with shots of urine—territorial “likes” to his favorite posts on the canine social network. It isn’t the hottest day they’ve had lately, but the dog’s tongue is hanging out in no time. A little mileage goes a long way on stubby legs.

“You said there was a new development,” Andy says. “Has something else happened in the game? Or are you keeping Gavin’s tablet disconnected from your Wi-Fi, like we talked about?”

“I was keeping him off-line…”

“What changed?”

She takes a deeper breath than the shallow incline of the trail requires and says, “Not to make excuses, but Matt went missing in Afghanistan two weeks ago, and in the aftermath, it’s just been easier to let Gavin have his connection back. Just for a little bit each day to comfort him, and only when I’m with him.”

Andy stops walking. “Hold up. Your husband is missing?”

“Yeah. I got a phone call, and nothing’s been the same since. It’s weird. They don’t send soldiers to deliver the news in person for this kind of status. Anyway, it’s been hard enough to hold it together and get us through the day without enforcing new rules. And honestly, all my previous fears suddenly seem insignificant compared to this.”

She goes a few paces farther up the trail and turns to look back at him. He’s stopped in his tracks to process the news. He feels crushed for her.

“Jessica. I’m so sorry. That must be horrible for you. Is Gavin okay? Are you? Sorry, that’s stupid. Of course you’re not.”

She walks back to him, reaches for his hand, and gives it a little tug. “Come on. I’m coping. And honestly, it’ll do me good if we don’t have to talk about it.”

He continues up the trail behind her, watching the happy meandering Corgi, the dog blissfully ignorant that his master might be dead on the other side of the world. “So, uh… new development. Not that? Something about the game?”

“Right. Something weird did happen in that game, right? When you came over? It wasn’t just me being paranoid and dragging you along for the ride?”

He shakes his head. “I saw those messages on Gavin’s tablet. They worried me. Still do.”

She makes eye contact for a second as they walk. Sunlight sparkles off the surface of the lake, tracing white lace over the green leaves. “So much has happened since then,” she says, “I think I just needed to hear you say it again.”

“So, what else happened? More vanishing chat messages?”

She tells him about the contest, the figurines the boys received in the mail, and the show Rainbow Dave is doing in Boston.

“It’s some kind of live gaming event at the Berklee Performance Center on August seventeenth. He’s so excited about it. And after what happened with Matt, I couldn’t say no. I just couldn’t tell him no.”

“Sure. How did he even find out he won?”

“He follows Dave’s YouTube show, Scream Time. Dave said winners would get a notification, so Gavin begged me to connect the tablet to the internet again. I let him, not thinking he’d actually win. But… do you think it’s safe? Do you think whoever was sending those creepy messages might be there? I still can’t really believe it was Dave himself. But someone using the game as a platform to reach kids and then using an event like this to get near them?”

Andy sighs. He was not expecting this turn of events. “Maybe. I mean, I think you’re asking the right questions. But you’re not sending him alone, right? You’ll be with him.”

“Of course. Just like I haven’t let him online without looking over his shoulder. I made him take down the blanket fort, too.”

“Good. I think with a public event, if you’re not sending him into the men’s room alone, it’s probably okay…”

“But?”

“Huh?”

“You look like there’s a but. Like it’s probably okay, but…”

Andy tugs at his t-shirt and gives it a ventilating shake. He’s sweating from the hike, acutely aware of how little exercise he gets. He’s also not sure he wants to burden her with what he’s learned since they last spoke. He settles for saying, “I still have a weird feeling about that game. I know it’s hard to detach Gavin from it because he’s such a fan, and you’re probably right about Dave, he’s probably harmless. But I’d feel better if Gavin lost interest in it and moved on to the next thing.”

“Did you find something? You said you were going to poke around.”

“I did. You want to find a place to sit down for a bit?”

“The castle’s at the top of the hill, but it’s probably crawling with kids this time of day. How about over there? That boulder and fallen tree.”

“Perfect.”

Settled in the shade beside the trail, Jessica roots through her small backpack and pours water from her bottle into a collapsible bowl for Cooper. Even at their first meeting, where she showed up in yoga pants and sneakers, with her fiery hair in a ponytail, Jessica struck Andy as an athletic, energetic woman. Attractive, too, with her pretty hazel eyes. But today she looks hollowed out, her movements muted, like she’s steeling herself against an impending blow. And of course she is. Her husband is missing in a war zone. The assertive and curious young mother he met weeks ago has aged visibly in that time. She was already shouldering parental anxieties on her own, but now she must be living in a perpetual purgatory, waiting for the bad news to come. She can’t be sleeping well.

On the drive to Haverhill, his head was brimming with the research he’d gathered to share with her. But now that they’ve come to it, he’s reticent. Her burden of fear is too great. He doesn’t think he can bear to add to it.

Jessica offers Andy her water bottle. “Want a sip?” He didn’t bring his own, and when he hesitates, she says, “I’m not worried about germs.”

Andy takes a slug and passes the bottle back to her. “This is good for me,” he says, looking around the glade. “Fresh air. I don’t get much.”

A beat of silence passes.

“So, what did you find out about Rainblocks?” Jessica asks.

He bobs his head like a man trying to choose his words carefully. Finally, he says, “Enough to take what we saw that day seriously, even if my research took me down some rabbit holes that probably aren’t worth worrying about.”

“Andy? Living with a soldier has honed my ability to sense when I’m being handled with kid gloves in the face of some awful possibility. What did you find?”

“That’s just it. You’re already living with an awful possibility. I don’t need to add to that with speculation.”

“Spill it.”

“Okay. I investigated two avenues to see if either one turned up anything suspicious. The first was research of Rainbow Dave’s known associates. Not his fellow celebrity YouTubers, but the engineers, designers, and programmers he would have relied on to create the game. I figured if someone was going to install a back channel for shady outreach to kids, it might be somebody like that. Now, there aren’t comprehensive credits in the game, just the names of a couple of development studios. I started with those and got nowhere. But then I checked out Dave’s book, the Rainblocks graphic novel. Do you know it? Does Gavin have a copy?”

“Top of his birthday list last year. Can’t say I’ve read it. Should I?”

“No, but I used the acknowledgments page to make a list of people who helped him develop the game, then tracked a few of them down. Mostly, he refers to them by their goofy usernames. A couple of those were searchable, and there was a guy named Len Lemarchand who seems to have been a kind of mentor to Dave. He runs an arcade on Long Island.”

“That’s where Dave lives, right?”

“Right.”

“Let me guess: does this Len have a criminal record?”

“No. He’s something of a local legend in the New York gaming community. Socially challenged, by most accounts, but probably clean and good-hearted. Anyway, I emailed him through the arcade web site. Haven’t heard back yet, but I still hope I might.”

“What did you say in the email?”

“I tried to play to his sympathies. He made a heap of money on Apple stocks early on. After fulfilling his lifelong dream of buying an arcade, he put the rest into a foundation for cyber bullying awareness.”

“Your kind of guy. How did you learn that?”

“Profile piece in Newsday. Say what you like about the internet, but it’s great being able to search local papers.”

“Until it puts them all out of business,” she says with a wry grin.

“Yeah. Well, anyway, it’s been a few days, but I think he might actually respond to a teacher with concerns in that area.”

“What was the other avenue? You said there were two?”

Andy bobs his head, reluctant. “Keep in mind that this may seem more alarming but it’s also inconclusive. This is the speculative part, okay?”

Jessica rolls her hand, prompting him.

“I looked into what I guess you’d call the mythology of the game. Names used by Dave and his design team for the characters, bosses, minions, and realms. Some of it is a direct rip-off of Minecraft, with almost the same terminology for weapons and resources and stuff. But one name turned up some interesting connections: Choronzon.”

“I’ve heard Gavin chattering about that with Jacob. Isn’t it, like, the big bad guy?”

“On the surface, yes. But the game has a twist. If you play far enough, he, or it, turns out to be an ally, and eventually the god of the game. By the time you finish playing, you feel like you started out on the wrong side.”

“I thought you couldn’t get past certain parts. You said you thought they were blocking you as an adult.”

“True. I’ve pieced this together from message boards. Anyway, the name, Choronzon, has a history that comes from occultism.”

“You mean, like, black magic? I don’t believe in that stuff, but people who do kinda scare me.”

“The name first appears in the journals of the Elizabethan astrologer and court sorcerer, Dr. John Dee. Not to get too deep into it, but he devised what he considered a method of communicating with angels and possibly demons with the help of a medium, who may have been a con man, or possibly a schizophrenic, or both. A guy named Edward Kelley. Queen Elizabeth considered Dr. Dee a trusted advisor. He made important contributions to maritime navigation and cryptography and was also a respected mathematician. But in those days, there wasn’t much difference between occultism and scientific enquiry.”

“What does this have to do with video games?”

“Hang in there. Dee and Kelley discovered what they considered an angelic language over the course of a series of sessions in which Dee would perform incantations and Kelley would enter a trance state by staring at what they called the ‘shew stone.’ These were elaborate ceremonies, fairly Catholic from what I can tell. The stone is currently on display in the British Museum. Staring into this crystal, Kelley would see an angel pointing at letters with a rod. They transcribed the alphabet and learned the language, which is known as Enochian—from the biblical prophet, Enoch. The result was a set of ‘keys’ or evocations in the language of the angels. Some modern occultists still consider the angelic keys too dangerous to recite or study because they’re supposed to open up portals to dangerous entities.

“Fast-forward to 1909. British magician Aleister Crowley goes on a retreat to the North African desert, near an oasis town in Algeria called Bou Saâda. There he uses the Enochian keys as a catalyst for a series of apocalyptic visions that he later documents in a book called The Vision and the Voice. And get this: at the climax of the whole ordeal, he invokes what he calls the Lord of Chaos and Dissolution, whose number is 333: Choronzon. Crowley was apparently possessed by Choronzon and went psycho. Attacked his assistant until the man drove him back into the magic circle at dagger point… Crazy stuff, huh?”

“I guess. But just because a bunch of video game geeks adopted some occult lore, does that mean they really believe it? Don’t they use Cthulhu in their games, too? Gavin says that’s a science fiction monster.”

Andy nods, impressed by her skepticism. “Fair point. They might have just thought it was a cool sounding name. And I’m not trying to scare you, I swear. Sorry, once I start researching a thing, I go all the way down the rabbit hole. I don’t know why I’m even telling you all this.”

“Because there’s more. Isn’t there?”

“Yeah. The first references to Choronzon I found turned up in some chatter about a digital urban legend called ‘the mote’ that peaked a few months ago and then petered out. But the mentions that unnerved me most were buried in news stories that had nothing to do with the gaming community.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know if anyone else has made these connections yet, and I’m a little reluctant to share them, honestly. It’s entirely possible I’m finding a pattern because I’m looking for it, mistaking coincidence for conspiracy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do you remember the mass shooter incident in California about six months ago?”

“Which one?”

Andy utters a bitter laugh. “Right? Vietnamese computer science major murdered his professor and eight of his classmates before the police took him down?”

“I must’ve missed that one. It sounds horrible to say it, but I’ve had to start tuning some of them out. For my mental health.”

“I don’t blame you. Well, one of the crime scene photos turned up on a site I found searching the dark web for Choronzon. The killer drew a symbol on the classroom whiteboard right before going on his rampage: three connected triangles. Turns out that’s a symbol for the Lord of Chaos. I don’t understand the numerology, but I guess it ties back into that 333 thing.”

“The killer was a computer nerd?”

“Yeah. I’m sure the police searched his hard drives, but I couldn’t find anything in the news articles that suggested they found a connection to occultism or terrorism. It was chalked up to the usual stuff when the shooter is a young man who isn’t a Muslim—mental illness and girl problems. But then I found those three triangles again, in an image search, this time spray-painted on a wall in Fallujah. The symbol was partial because most of the wall had been blown to rubble by a marketplace suicide bomber. I don’t know if the bomber painted it or not, but after seeing it on the blood-spattered whiteboard in that California classroom, it gave me chills to see it again halfway around the world. I mean, we’re not talking about a symbol with universal recognition. This is more like a counterculture thing going viral.”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

Cooper perks up and lunges at the limit of his leash, barking at something up the trail. Jessica reins him in. A second later the sound of sneakers pounding the dirt reaches them and a female jogger in sunglasses and neon Under Armour passes by. She slows her pace slightly at the sight of them, then, as if sensing she’s come upon some kind of intimate moment, picks it up again and vanishes beyond the low, leafy tree limbs.

Andy considers telling Jessica the rest—that he also found the symbol on the website of a North Carolina defense contractor called Zax. There was no information about what they manufacture, just a black web page with the triple triangle in dark gray, almost invisible. A handful of semi-covert government agencies were listed as clients: Prism, NSA, DOD, and SPECTRA. But a secure log-in was required to get past the splash page, so he doesn’t have more to offer. And if he did, he might keep it to himself. Before hearing the news about her husband, it felt like they were playing some kind of exciting spy game together, solving a puzzle to protect children. But really, all he has is theories, and he’s surer every minute that they won’t do her any good.

Jessica twists the cap off her bottle and takes a swig of water.

“So, what do you make of it all? What does it mean, this symbol and everything?”

He shakes his head. “I wish I knew. It feels like I caught a glimpse of a pattern that’s supposed to stay hidden, supposed to blend into the background noise of the news, except to people who know what they’re looking for. And I can’t say that I do. There are some crazy theories about the symbol and the name, but… there are crazy theories about everything on the web. I’m sorry I bothered you with it, Jess. You have enough on your mind right now. I’ll let you know if I hear back from this guy Len, but I think you should just focus on concrete things you can do to keep Gavin safe. Like not letting him out of your sight at that Scream Time event.”

“Okay.” She tucks the bottle back into her bag, straightens her spine, and says, “Listen, I hate to ask, but if I can get an extra ticket, would you be willing to go with us?”

“I don’t know how much use I’d be away from a computer.”

Jessica shrugs. “You mentioned not sending him to the men’s room alone… And you might notice something I wouldn’t. Will you?”

“If it’s okay with your friend and the boys? Sure. You bet.”

* * *

Back at Lucy’s house, Jessica considers waiting in the driveway and beeping the horn so she doesn’t have to endure the sympathy or wave away any more beverages, but she knows that would be rude. There is no sound of the boys playing in the backyard, so she climbs the porch stairs, her calves aching in a not unpleasant way from the hike. Opening the unlocked door to announce herself, she senses the agitated energy in the house, like a faint trace of burned food on the air. Voices chatter from the dining room. Excited? Irritated? An argument?

Lucy, who apparently didn’t hear her calling hello as she entered, shifts instantly from an expression of exasperation to relief at the sight of Jessica. “You’re here. Thank God.”

“What’s going on?” The two boys and Lucy are seated at the table. Plates littered with potato chip crumbs lay forgotten between them. In contrast, Gavin’s iPad is arranged with ceremonial prominence on a placemat between Lucy’s prim hands. Even with the cover closed, the device is the focus of everyone’s attention. The argument has gone silent at the sight of Jessica, and she knows that whatever they’ve been debating will be decided by her now that she’s here.

“They haven’t been on the devices all day,” Lucy says, a preemptive defense. “I tossed them outside with the soccer ball this morning and only let them play Rainblocks for a little while after lunch.” Gavin squirms while she talks. Jessica can tell that he would have burst out with what he wants to say by now if it wasn’t Lucy talking. “Gavin saw something on his screen that upset him.” Lucy’s words are careful, deliberate, and Gavin can’t wait any longer. He cuts in, his eyes wild, desperate for his mother to know, to believe.

“Not what I saw, what I heard. I heard Daddy’s voice. He was talking to me through FaceTime. I know it was him, it was his voice, it was him.”

Without even thinking, Jessica swipes the iPad from the table and flips it open. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Lucy is at a loss for words, her mouth moving, unsure of what to say. Then it comes, “I don’t want to give you false hope, Jess. We don’t know what he heard.”

“I heard my Dad.” Gavin’s voice has steel in it and Jessica knows she should correct him for his tone, but her trembling fingers are typing the pass code for the second time while part of her mind registers Lucy’s skepticism. Then she’s opening the video chat app and reading the list of recent calls. It’s the usual list of Gavin’s friends, mostly Jacob. Matt’s username isn’t at the top—she has to scroll back to the night when he read Gavin a bedtime story to find him at all.

“I don’t see his name. Was it FaceTime or Skype?” Gavin doesn’t even have Skype installed on the tablet. And besides, if Matt had a chance to call home after everything that’s happened, why would he call Gavin first? He wouldn’t. He would call her. None of this makes sense. And now that she’s grilling him, Gavin looks embarrassed. Lucy stares at the empty placemat between her hands. She doesn’t want to call him a liar, Jessica realizes.

“I wasn’t on FaceTime. We were playing Rainblocks and my tablet glitched out, but it looked like FaceTime was breaking in on the game, like when they do breaking news on TV, and I couldn’t see the face, it was too glitchy, but I heard him, and it was Daddy. I know it was. He said my name.”

“What else did he say?”

“Just my name, and I answered, but he couldn’t hear me. He said it… two times? Maybe three, and then it froze and went back to the game.”

“Did you hear it, too, Jake?” Jessica feels that asking for a witness is a betrayal, but she has to. Caught in the high beams of both mothers, Jacob only shrugs. “I guess? I don’t know what it said. Like, I heard a voice, but I don’t know if it was your name.” He looks at Gavin uncomfortably. “Maybe it was a Rainbow Dave video that got jammed up.” Something unspoken passes between the boys. “You know, a prerecorded message that just sounded like your name to you.”

This seems to calm Gavin. Calculations are running in his mind, but what they are, Jessica can only guess. If it was a personal message from Dave—or from whoever has used the private chat channel in the game before—the boys would have kept it a secret. Of that she has little doubt. Whatever Gavin heard, he truly believes it was Matt. But she can see that Jacob’s explanation is a soothing temptation, because he doesn’t want to believe what he heard.

When the two of them are alone on the highway, Jessica’s eyes fixed on the road, Gavin speaks his fear from the backseat. He states it plainly, his voice monotone, and her skin crawls as if scurrying away from the words. Maybe it’s easier for him to get it out while their only eye contact is through the mirror.

“It’s just like when Daddy’s grandma called him, after she died.”

The car wobbles in its lane. A horn blares. Jessica overcorrects, then steadies the wheel in her hands. “He told you that story? Jesus.”

“He said she sounded like she was talking underwater.”

She glances at him, but he’s looking out the window at the trees flashing by. “Did it sound that way?” Her voice, barely audible over the drone of the road, is tremulous. “Like someone underwater?”

Gavin’s brow furrows. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever heard somebody talking underwater. Do you think he’s dead?”

She glances at the iPad on the seat beside her where Gavin can’t mess with it while she’s driving, where he can’t make this any crazier while their lives are in her hands. “I think Jacob is right. I think you miss Daddy so much… you want to hear his voice so badly… Your mind played a trick on you. That’s what I think.”