Page 61 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

Vivi stooped to pick up the fallen paintings, studying them up close. There were the better-known ones:MoonbathersandTerrible FeastandAzure Sails. Their familiarity soothed her eye, even as they unnerved her.Lý’s whole oeuvre, replicated in exquisite detail in a tiny shed in the Wisconsin woods. What would the artist have made of this transposition of his work? Like a repeating motif, copies ofBlue Mirrorappearedin the midst of the other paintings, the lone portrait, the instigator of their madcap journey.

Calla may have thought she was leaving the mystery behind, but it was clear that the mystery would never leave her.

Beyond the shed, a fence lay in disrepair, its post scattered at an oblique angle. Once, that fence had hemmed the border of their imagination.Tu?nnever went into the woods, and so, it had become a boundary like so many other boundaries of transgression—liminal yet potent, able to delineate between permissibility and its wilder, less known sister, possibility. Leaping that fence had always felt like breaking an invisible barrier. On one side, worry and smallness; on the other, a luminous continent sprawling to meet their eager feet.

There was a movement in the woods. Just a twitch of shadow. A deer, a swooping kestrel, wind stirring a loose tree limb. Vivi told herself it was nothing.

But she ran to the fence, jumping over its fallen post, letting her feet retrace the paths through the clearing of the past. And in the running, she felt an unrestrained glee that managed to overtake every hesitation burrowed in her chest. A crackle of leaves underfoot, the stink of mulch returning to earth, her legs pushing her into the jack pines with the effortless instinct of a body doing what it was trained to do.

Chapter 19

“Found you.”

Calla was floating in the creek, fully clothed, her arms crossed on her chest, like Dalí’s watercolor Ophelia. Her eyes were closed, her lips pale.

She didn’t stir when she replied. “I wasn’t hiding.”

“You shouldn’t be out here alone. Especially when you can’t swim.”

“It’s three feet deep.”

“People drown in bathtubs all the time.”

“Is that true?”

“I don’t know, someone told me that once.” Kneeling a few feet away from her sister, Vivi said, “I saw the paintings in the shed. They’re good, Button. Really good.”

“The best things I’ve done, and they don’t even belong to me.”

After a moment, Calla stood and shook her hair out. She was right; the water only reached her hip. She wafted to the bank and hoisted herself onto a rock. She was wearing one of Vivi’s vintage tees, left behind when Vivi went to Rathmore. Fleetwood Mac, “Sisters of the Moon.” Sopping wet now, hanging from Calla’s frame like an ancient oracle’s beard. Calla wrung the edge of the shirt, squeezing out the dirty water.

Vivi pushed down her urge to complain about the borrowed shirt and sank down on the damp grass next to her. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry forwhat happened afterEnmeshment. It was the biggest mistake of my life. And you’re right. I should have been the one to tell you.”

Calla’s arm was puckered in goose pimples. Droplets of water still clung to the fine hairs there. It was September in Wisconsin, and there was a boreal sting in the wind, just the smallest admonishment of fall. She shivered. Vivi passed her coat over and Calla shrugged it onto her wet shoulders. They sat for a few moments, flicking at the creek with their feet.

“Say something, Calla. You can yell at me. You can push me into the water. Just—don’tlookat me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t know me.”

Finally, Calla sighed. “I do know you. That’s what makes it so hard. That night after the show. I was going to leave, but then I had the cab turn around. I don’t know why. I felt bad about how it all went down. Maybe I just wanted you. And then I glanced in the alley and I saw you kissing him. Or he was kissing you.”

“Both,” Vivi said miserably.

Calla shot her a sharp look. There was, maybe, a bit of admiration in it. Vivi wondered if Calla expected deflection.

“I figured. It was weird; I’d dreaded the moment for so long that you’d think I’d be immune to surprise. It was inevitable really. You and him. The star-crossed lovers.”

“It wasn’t like that. I walked away from him. I knew it was wrong, Calla, I did. It never happened again.”

“I know that too. Iseeyou, Vivi. I see what you’re capable of, and I know you’re not capable of hurting me on purpose. But you did. God, did you both wreck me.” Calla pressed her lips together. They were chapped like mountain ridges. “The worst part was your silence. I waited and waited, thinking each time you called thatthatwould be the moment when you pulled the curtain down between us. But you talked about stupid things, the museum, gossip from Rathmore, things I didn’t give a shit about, and never anything I did. I think I would have forgiven you if you’d just told me.”

“I was afraid to lose you.”

Calla gave her a wry smile.

“Please forgive me,” Vivi said. “Or don’t. But don’t shut me out, Button. I can’t keep losing you.”