Page 7 of What Happens at Nightfall

“I didn’t think I should leave him there,” Jess said breathlessly, clutching her sweater tighter around her.

“No. I mean, yes.” The man dragged his attention away from his son, who was rapidly disappearing up a flight of stairs. “You probably need to be let out, don’t you? I’ll just get my gate key . . .”

Behind him, the foyer glowed golden and inviting, the light from stained glass fixtures glinting off polished woodwork. At Jess’s back she could hear the rustle of dead leaves, like someone creeping up behind her through the dark cemetery. Her fingers closed tightly around the useless dead rectangle of her cell phone.

“I hate asking, but do you mind if I use your charger for a second?” Jess blurted out, holding up the dead phone. She really did need to call Kimmy. Kimmy was probably frantic, worrying about her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to turn back around and see what might be behind her. A bear scrabbling on a marble base; an urn with wings. “I need to call my friend and tell her I won’t be coming back to the tour.”

“Of course, come in. Your tour is probably over by now. They lock the gates—”

“—at seven. I heard.” The man gave the door an expert kick. The thick oak slammed into place, shutting out whatever was behind them. In the dark. In the night. Jess stuck out a hand. “Jess Waters.”

“Adam Chervinsky.” His palm was warm and calloused and blissfully alive. Jess had never thought of being alive as a distinguishing factor before, but she’d also never been locked in an enormous graveyard. “Come this way. There’s a charger in the kitchen you can use. And then I’ll let you out the gate.”

Jess followed him to the back of the house, away from the front door and the wilderness of tombs and monuments behind them. K-pop blasted out as the arborist pushed open a swinging door into a brightly lit kitchen. Jess ducked under his arm, feeling like Dorothy going from black and white to Technicolor. Or from Edward Gorey to Martha Stewart.

The walls were a bright white, the cabinets a warm cherry, with matching accents in the cheerfully tiled backsplash. Under a faux Tiffany fixture, a round wooden table was set for dinner, with corded table mats under stoneware in a vaguely Provençal pattern, bright colors bursting with olives and vines. Red, yellow, and green apples jostled for space in a wicker basket at the center of the table. At the far side of the room, an old white ring binder sat on the counter, spilling out yellowing pages of recipes. Bright red cherry tomatoes peeked out of a fluffy profusion of purple and green lettuce spilling out over the top of a classic wooden salad bowl.

Plants dotted the windowsills. Jess recognized parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, as well as oregano and two kinds of basil. She could smell the oregano, mingled with onion and butter, coming from the stove, where a tall woman in leggings and a T-shirt stirred in time to the tunes of Jess’s goddaughter’s favorite K-pop band.

“Hey, Alexa, stop, please,” called Adam the Arborist.

Blackpink cut off. The woman turned, spoon aloft. “Dad. The person left stirring the chicken gets to pick the music.” Not a woman but a teenager, in the lanky phase Jess had never grown tall enough to achieve. Her eyebrows went up at the sight of Jess. “Hi.”

Jess raised a hand. “Hi. I’m just borrowing your charger for a minute.”

“Charge away.” The girl gave Jess a thorough once-over. “What are your feelings about chicken?”

Jess wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “Cooked or live?”

“Melinda.” The arborist inserted himself physically between them, reaching across the counter to yank a charger out of a phone. The screen, roused from slumber, flashed a picture of the girl at the stove and the boy from under the tree, both considerably younger, in hiking shorts, sticking out their tongues at the camera. “Charger. Here. You can use this one. You said you found Ben under a tree?”

Jess fumbled the charger into place. “According to him it’s not a tree. It’s a rhode-something?”

“Rhododendron,” said the girl at the stove.

“It’s a genus of over a thousand species of plants in the heath family. This particular shrub is a Catawba rhododendron. Rhododendron catawbiense. They usually run about six to ten feet, but they can grow as high as twenty. Ours is one of the bigger specimens,” Adam said proudly.

“That’s because it feeds on the dead,” said the girl, Melinda, straight-faced. “It’s like super fertilizer.”

“Brat,” said Adam fondly. It felt like a well-worn exchange, as cozy as the smell of chicken from the skillet and the table set for three. Adam smiled at Jess. “Ignore her. We don’t use the dead to feed the plants. That’s an urban legend.”

“There did seem to be a grave under it,” Jess said cautiously.

“There are a couple of monuments under there.” The arborist leaned back against the counter, stretching his shoulders back, making the letters on his shirt strain across his chest. “When Ben was little, he liked to use that rhododendron as his clubhouse. I always meant to ask Cal—Cal Kowalski, our resident historian—exactly whose graves Ben was hanging out with in there. He’d spend hours there. But that was years ago. Before—”

The wooden spoon clattered to the floor. Melinda cursed and dove for it.

“Throw it in the dishwasher,” Adam said. His voice was strangely flat.

He lifted his hands, rubbing his temples with his fingers, the gesture effectively hiding his face. There was no ring on his left hand.

Maybe gardeners just didn’t wear rings.

A table set for three. Not for four.

Not her business, Jess reminded herself. She’d just charge her phone and be out of here and never see them again.

“Anyway.” Adam cleared his throat. “I haven’t seen Ben hanging out under that rhododendron for years.”