The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (10 best books of all time TXT) 📗

someone stumble from the alcove of a building, her blonde curls rumpled, blinking at the sky. I see another, dwarfed by the swirling shadows around her. And when they see each other, they meet in the middle.

I’m too far away to hear them. I don’t need to. The way Christie grabs near-frantic at Cassie’s face, her hair, the way Cassie nods, her lips forming the same words over and over, the way they fall into the hug, inevitable as gravity—that’s everything I need to know.

It’s a while before they notice me.

I think I’m smiling as I wave them over. And even from a distance, I can see their mouths hanging open.

The sun is rising on another new year. One full year since I lost Gaby.

And somehow, here I am.

Thirty THE RETURN

“IT’S NORMAL.”

For the first time since I’ve met him—but possibly not the last—I’d like to take Maurice by his thoughtful, empathetic shoulders and shake him, just a little. “Seriously,” I say.

“Seriously,” he says. “Completely normal.”

“I wanted—” I have just enough sense left that I remember where I am, turn my head a little away from the street where the crowds have started to mill back into Lotus Valley. “I wanted to kill him.”

“Of course you did,” he says. “From what you’ve told me, I’d be surprised if you didn’t want to kill him just a little.”

“Maurice,” I say, plaintive.

His laughter echoes through the phone speaker. It’s making my head spin, just a little. But also, I think I really worried him. So I can deal with him laughing at me a little. “I don’t mean to tease you. But, Rose—having the thought doesn’t make it more likely to happen.”

I let out a long, slow breath. It’s what I know now—intellectually, at least—to be true. Hearing him say it knocks something out of me.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” I say, softer.

“Imagining hurting someone—that’s not the same thing as wanting to,” he says gently. “Intrusive thoughts feed off each other, especially when they’re distressing. Remember what I said before? If you told yourself not to think about polar bears, the first thing you’d do is think about a polar bear.”

“Yeah, you said that,” I shoot back. “And yet I’m still thinking about gutting Nick Lansbury in Flora Summer’s kitchen. Where’s this polar bear I was promised?”

I think better of that about two seconds later. “Um,” I say. “That was—”

“Joking about it is good, Rose,” he says. And I hear the smile there. “You can’t control your own thoughts. But you can find ways to neutralize them, or turn them on their head. That’s something we can work on together.”

“Oh,” I say. It sounds—not simple, exactly. But more straightforward than I imagined. “That would be nice.”

“And . . .” He hesitates. “It sounds like you’ve been worrying quite a lot about how you might have changed, this past year.”

There’s a silence. I don’t realize he’s waiting for me to speak until he says my name again.

“Yeah,” I say faintly. I was distracted for a moment. Because in the little alcove between the two shops across the street, the scenery has slowly but surely begun to change.

“I can see you sooner than Thursday, if you like,” he says. “When will you be home?”

In the alcove, shimmering like the surface of water, is a glimpse into a bedroom. Mine. I’m sitting on my bed, my knees pulled up to my chest, my shoulders shivering. And across from me, concern and love and a hint of Biblical anger written into her face, is Gaby.

Not anger at me, of course. Anger at whoever it was who made me cry. I can’t tell, looking at it, who that might’ve been, when this might’ve been. All I can look at is her face.

“No, it’s—Thursday’s good,” I say, in a voice outside of myself. “I’m going to have a lot to say, so. I need to think of the best way to say it.”

“You are heading home, though,” he says. His tone suggested I better be heading home.

I laugh again, around that concave feeling in my gut. In the alcove, Gaby scoots closer to me, takes my face in both her hands.

Oh, Rosie, I hear her whisper. She presses a kiss to my hair. Oh, honey. It’s okay. It’s okay.

“In a couple of hours,” I say faintly.

“Drive safely,” he says. And then, after a pause: “Thank you for telling me, Rose.”

I blink. And my bedroom, and me, and Gaby—we’re all gone.

I wrap my free arm around the curve of my waist. There’s something inside of my throat, something jagged and stuck that hurts worse than I could have imagined. But I can still feel her hands on my arms, my cheeks, my forehead. And they’re warm.

“Thank you for listening, Maurice,” I say. And I hang up.

I cross the street, maneuvering around the steady stream of people making their way back into town. The first few don’t notice me. I wonder if to most of them, I’ll be this distant, cryptic thing, the strange girl who brought upheaval and a brush with disaster to their sleepy town. But then fingers brush my arm.

“I saw her,” someone whispers. “Thank you.”

I turn. And Adrienne, her eyes wet and smiling, winks at me.

“Your next coffee’s on me,” she says. And then she keeps walking.

A few more call to me as they walk past. “Be well, kid,” says Ace Martin. “Thanks, or whatever,” says Loreen. “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,” whisper the creatures from the theater as they sail overhead, drifting back home.

And looking around, in the maze of confused and weary faces, I see the awe and gratitude and overwhelming pain. All across Lotus Valley, even up to the high ground of the hills, the past became the present for one night. And for them, it was gone.

I step out of the way and leave the street clear for everyone to pass, to carry everything they’ve seen over the past several hours back to their homes. I move, instead, into the