Page 6 of Such a Quiet Place
CHAPTER 2
IT’S FAIR TO SAYthat no one here had loved Brandon and Fiona Truett.
On the surface, everything was fine. We smiled, we waved. But we didn’t really socialize with them.
Brandon was the head of admissions at the College of Lake Hollow, where many of us worked, and he believed vigorously in a separation between work and relationships. He was standoffish, and judgmental of the rest of us who did not adhere to his personal code of conduct, and kind of an asshole. Fiona was standoffish by proxy, judgmental by proxy, an asshole by proxy.
We liked them more in hindsight. In sympathy.
Their house had been unoccupied since the day they were found. It belonged to the bank now, but no one was offering, and so it sat—empty, haunting. A constant reminder.
In the months after, the yard had run wild and overgrown until we coordinated a schedule to keep up appearances, like we did after Charlotte Brock’s accident and knee surgery. We did not have altruistic intentions; we were not such good people. But we cared enough about our own status not to let the property go to hell, bringing us all down with it. We were all dependent on one another here.
The neighborhood of Hollow’s Edge hugged a finger of Lake Hollow, a semicircle of fifty closely packed homes oriented toward the water, half-moon courts set off from two main roads. The development had been completed about five years earlier, and many of the homes were occupied by their original owners. They were similarly designed and modestly priced; there weren’t large industries in the area to commute for. Most of us in Lake Hollow worked for the college, or Lake Hollow Prep, or the public education system.
We were highly educated, though not highly compensated. But we had this: the view, the convenience of a suburb, and the ambience of our own private stretch of nature—you could hear it coming alive at night, down by the water. And the summer: Administrative positions required year-round employment, but the rest had the expanse of mid-June to mid-August for themselves. Two-plus months of unstructured, unaccountable hours. Though I technically had a year-round position at the college, the days turned flexible in the summer, the hours more like a suggestion than a requirement.
There were other, more exclusive subdivisions on the opposite side of the lake, closer to the college: larger homes, more established communities, with lake access and boat docks. Our neighborhood didn’t officially have direct access, though there was a cleared path through the wooded area across from the Wellmans’ home, a gently sloping path where people dragged kayaks and canoes. A strip of plywood atop the rougher section, to ease anything over the roots without damage.
There weren’t many young children here yet, the neighborhood self-selecting based on its facilities. The lack of playground. The pool with no lifeguard. The proximity to the lake. All hidden dangers that parents could see. We were mostly young professionals, upwardly mobile, still establishing ourselves.
Aidan and I had fit right in. We’d been welcomed into the fold as soon as we’d unloaded our things, fresh out of the large academic setting of Boston University, where we’d first met, enamored with the possibilities of the life we would build for ourselves here. We’d both grown up near the water—me, a mile from a stretch of cape where I’d learned to fish and sail and keep time by the tides; him, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, where he’d developed an affinity for biology and boating. We’d felt a pull here, a faint familiarity, like there was something in it that recognized us, too.
Five years later, I could name every family on the street as I walked to the pool, as I followed Ruby.
I thought about stopping at Mac’s house on the corner to make sure he’d gotten my message, but it remained dark, the blinds tilted shut. In fact, the stretch of road behind me and in front of me remained still, unnaturally silent, only the cicadas starting up again in the trees, calling out to one another. I was used to hearing my neighbors.
Our backyards collided, high white fences in a grid, granting the illusion of privacy. We couldn’t see one another, but we could hear everything, though we pretended we couldn’t. Everyone was reduced to a caricature of themselves on the other side of the fence, winnowed down to their most defining features. Sometimes you could see colors moving through the thin slats, the movement of a person, when you thought you were alone.
On a typical weekend morning around this time, most people were up, working on house projects or reading in their backyards. Others would ride their bikes around the lake into downtown, or go for a walk before the heat really kicked in.
But on this particular Saturday, the neighborhood appeared quiet.Sleepyis what the news reports once called us, as if we were collectively lazy, oblivious to the danger among us.
In truth, summers here were always dangerous. In their luxury. In their sleepiness. With their lack of structure and sudden influx of time. Time to notice the things we were too busy for during the rest of the year. Time to fixate. Time to make a change.
Anything taken to an extreme was dangerous. Here, in the summer, there was nowhere to hide—not from others and not from yourself.
On the surface, Hollow’s Edge could still give the illusion of a quiet little neighborhood, but that was a lie. Even if it had been true at one time, the reality was a very different thing now. One thing I could say for sure: We had all awakened.
THE POOL WAS NOTcrowded, for which I was grateful. Ruby had already claimed a blue lounge chair, setting herself up by the pool steps. But she had my key, and I couldn’t get in without calling her attention.
Chase, thankfully, wasn’t here. Neither was Mac.
There was a man in the far corner, a dark hat pulled low over sunglasses, chair angled directly toward the sun, tanned arms resting beside his pale torso. Preston Seaver. Mac’s younger brother. I wasn’t surprised; he could usually be found at the pool on the weekend, probably on a mission to even out his tan. Preston worked in security at the college during the week and always seemed to know what was happening, in and out of work—and he was usually all too willing to share.
Preston Seaver, who had told the police how one time, when Ruby and Mac were fighting, someone had broken into their home and smashed some dishes, establishing a pattern. Preston, who now held me at arm’s length, like I was not to be trusted.
But it was a mutual distrust, and I wasn’t sure which of ours was the strongest. The way he’d turned on Ruby so fast.I warnedmy brother,he’d told them. As if he had always sensed some menace lurking in her, threatening to emerge.
Sometimes, when he looked at me, I wondered if he saw in me something untoward. Something worth warning his brother about, too.
Now he remained perfectly still, but I couldn’t tell whether he’d noticed Ruby or was sleeping. They had never gotten along, not even before. Preston believed Ruby was full of herself; Ruby believed Preston was irrelevant, an unfortunate extension of Mac’s existence. Even before, they could circle each other without interacting. It was a skill, but it worked only by joint agreement, some sort of pact they had entered into together.
Margo Wellman had noticed Ruby, though. She had the baby in the pool, and every few seconds she sneaked a glance—but she didn’t change her own plans. She was pulling the baby—a toddler now—in a yellow float, in lazy circles.
I stood at the gated entrance, not wanting to call Ruby’s name—not wanting to declare an allegiance, disrupt the balance—when she approached the edge of the pool, crouching down. “Is this your little one?” she asked Margo.
Margo didn’t move any closer, but she didn’t retreat, either. She was just out of reach of Ruby, and she pulled the float subconsciously closer. “Yes, this is Nicholas.” Nicholas had the same curly red hair as his mother, fine and wispy but undeniably hers. Margo had her hair tied up in a bun on top of her head to keep dry, though tendrils had come loose and clung to her neck, waterlogged.
