Page 57 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

JASPER, PRESENT DAY

Jasper felt the Frisbee whizzing by his head before he saw it.

It flew past as a brief flash of neon in his periphery. At first, he thought it might be the goldfinch that sometimes visited his bird feeder, or even one of those strange tricks of light that seemed to interfere with his vision more and more these days, but it was accompanied by an overly loud, overly obvious shout of, “Aw, Gummy Bear! Look what you made me do.”

He set aside his book with a sigh.The Haunting of Hill Housewas just as grotesque as he remembered, but he was having a hard time buying into the terror of it the way he had as a kid—for a kid he’d definitely been the first time he’d read it. Nineteen years of age might technically qualify one as an adult, but he’d been a fool to think that he was anything like this Eleanor character.

Was I melodramatic and prone to long, depressed walks in the moonlight?Of course.

Did all reason and rationality flee as soon as darkness fell?Obviously.

Would I drive my car into a tree in a last-ditch effort to flee the inevitable?That part he wasn’t so sure about anymore.

In the growing light of dawn, with more than sixty years of hard living at his back and two kids curled up in sleeping bags on the floor of his house, it was hard to remember those feelings. He and Catherine had been so young at the time, caught up in a love affair as brief as it was ill-conceived, that they hadn’t stopped to think about the long-term ramifications. Back then, if someone had asked him if theirs had been a love worth dying over, he’d have responded with an unequivocal yes.

These days, however…

“Psst, Jasper. Jasper, are you awake?”

“Of course I’m awake,” he said as he unfolded himself from the chair. He cast a quick look around the yard and found the Frisbee embedded in a currant bush. Grabbing it, he stalked over to the fence. “What are you doing up so early?”

He knew the answer to that question as soon as he caught sight of Chloe’s face. She looked as though she’d slept all of five minutes the night before, her wild flame of hair swept up on top of her head and her freckles standing out from the pale anxiety of her face. She’d thrown a tattered robe over her tank top and pajama shorts, but it didn’t provide nearly enough protection against the early morning chill. Already, the fall dew was starting to crystallize into frost, her breath coming out in short, billowing puffs.

“I thought we decided you weren’t going to play with that dog in the yard anymore,” he said, his tone rough with concern.

She ignored both this comment and the dog himself, who was so uninterested in playing fetch that he’d sprawled himself out by his empty food dish instead.

“Are they okay?” she asked.

He didn’t have to pretend to know who she was talking about. “What, are you afraid I killed them in their sleep and buried them out back? Because I don’t think you realize how long it would take to dig a grave of that size.”

She laughed. It was an uncanny sound, almost frantic, as if was escaping of its own free will. “Do you know, a few weeks ago, I’d have said yes?” She tilted her head toward one of Jasper’s favorite flower beds. It was where he planted his annuals—a complete waste of space and effort, but somehow all the more beautiful because of how short a time they had on this planet. “For a while there, I thought that might be the grave of your long-lost Catherine.”

The name rolled off her tongue so easily that Jasper felt himself growing weak in the knees.

“But that can’t be, can it?” she asked, watching him. “Her grave, I mean?”

Her question sounded and felt like a rhetorical one, but the pause lingered so long afterward that Jasper had to say something. “No,” he agreed slowly. “It can’t be.”

“What year did you say she died, again?”

This seemed strangely like a challenge. “I didn’t.”

A light flipped on inside the house behind Chloe, at which point she gave a small jump. “Oh, God. She’s up. Quick—can I come over?”

Jasper splayed his hands helplessly. She had to know that when he’d allowed her brother and sister to stay, he’d also opened his doors to her. His doors, his home, his whole blasted life—he’d gone sixty years keeping them tightly sealed, only to find that his barriers were made of nothing but hot air.

“Are you sure you should leave Noodle alone?” he asked as Chloe came dashing around the shrubbery. He caught a glimpse of her grimace before she managed to tamp it down.

“Noodle’s the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. He’s the one who called her. Ravenna.Mom.”

That surprised Jasper, but not for the reasons Chloe would have expected. From some of the things the boy had let fall, it was clear that he saw more of Chloe’s struggles than the other two kids combined. Theanxiety over money, the way she fought like a tiger against anyone who said a word against her family, her determination to stand on her own two feet no matter what the cost… Jasper had seen those struggles, too, though it hadn’t been his place to intervene.

“He’s only trying to help you,” Jasper said.

Chloe cast him that curious look again. It was different from the way she usually looked at him, which was warily and with a light sprinkling of contempt. This was more puzzled than anything else, as if she was trying to see something that lay just beyond the surface.

“Does that mean you encouraged him?” she asked. “Noodle talked to you about making that call?”