When she led Aunt Eliza down the path, the air smelled of petrichor: earth and rain.

  “I’m amazed we didn’t get more flooding over here.” Eliza stepped carefully, avoiding the path’s muddy edges. This way had started to know June, to clear for her. There were no more logs, no more low-hanging branches threatening to scrape her face and catch in her hair. The path spilled them out into the garden.

  Eliza came to a hard squelching stop at the boundary of the cemetery. She gaped, like what she was seeing was the end of a sentence she’d been only half listening to. Now she was drawn up short, eyes shimmering with sheer amazement.

  The garden hadn’t died but had flourished, and it was nothing like what June had planned, full of strange meandering paths the flowers had forged, spirals that trailed off into nothing, and several arteries that pointed to the fig tree. A jacket of white blossoms covered jasmine vines, still clinging to stone and bark. Small white flowers grew like lamb wool along the ground, and a vine that crawled up the side of a nearby cedar suddenly blinked awake with purple blossoms. Lush azaleas, a sweep of leafy rhododendrons, the dark green foliage of hardy shrubs that would take care of themselves without her help. Hydrangeas flowered their best and brightest in the sunny spots, huge creamy clusters that looked strong enough to bloom into winter.

  The storm hadn’t totally spared her little plot; water had pooled halfway up the clearing, settling around the angel’s feet. Hyssop stalks were up to their chins in the water but refused to bow to it. The fig tree and its ripe little fruits stood, shivering, and most of the snowdrops had been completely uprooted, drifting forlornly among the lily pads.

  And that was the largest change. The lily pads were huge and thick. June could have sat on one. She could have lain down on some of the verdant rafts. Eliza knelt to examine a bed of soft clovers—several seemed to have four leaves—and brushed her way through a patch of larkspurs and candytufts that whispered against her fingers as she passed.

  Look, they said, look how we’ve grown.

  The petunias had gathered in, turning their faces to the water as if to gossip with each other. She toed her shoes off amid a cluster of black-eyed Susans, walking down curlicue paths lined with traveler’s-joy, white heather, bright orange blossoms, and resilient, pocked prickly pears.

  “June, baby,” Aunt Eliza breathed. “What on earth did you think you needed that man’s help for when you made all this?”

  June felt tears warming in her eyes. “Maybe we should build a little gazebo,” she said. “People from the church can come sit out here, give the residents some company.” It could be unfinished wood so honeysuckle could climb into it and moss could hide in the eaves.

  When she reached the edge of the water, she stepped onto a lily pad, spongy under her bare feet. It trembled, but it didn’t sink. It held.

  “Lord, help.” Eliza took a step after her, careful but fearless in her faith. She beamed at June. “This is a miracle. An honest-to-God miracle.”

  They stepped to the next, again to the next, and the next. They stretched from the size of tires to the size of coffee tables, and then—

  Then one that must have been six feet across. She hadn’t known lily pads could grow that big. June and Eliza sank to their knees and then to their backs. Cool water soaked June’s shirt, her shorts, from where it had pooled on the lily pad. It didn’t sink but held her, and she felt breathless with delight and gratitude.

  Aunt Eliza laughed suddenly. “You know, your great-granddaddy was quite the gardener himself, along with tending that old church.” She sighed, shutting her eyes in contentment. “He couldn’t keep still a day in his life, pouring himself into the people and things that mattered.” She reached for June’s hand, pressing their palms together. “That energy you’ve got, I think maybe he had a little of it too.”

  And suddenly June felt she could tell her anything. She could talk about the girls she had left and the ones who had left her or how often she had to forgive Dad for raising cats better than his own daughter. She could have talked to her about the very first morning she woke up with poppies growing from her hair, her head thick with their elusive scent of dreams. She had followed the bud to that gentle place where it became a part of her, where they felt especially fragile, incongruous and easily dislodged, and she had been so, so proud—until Mom had come with scissors, cut the poppies out, and ordered her not to talk about it to anyone because Mom loved her and was afraid. June could talk about how flowers were changing into powerful trees and the truth of the docks. She could talk about Lark, and the tentative way her heart had started to bloom pink and rose again, and the box that drew them together, one last wrong June still hoped could be fixed.

  But there was no rush. In a minute. June smiled at the sky and kept her aunt’s hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After the storm, the shoreline was littered with treasures from below: Old bottles, pairs of glasses, china dolls, and cutlery, all rusted and muddy. A few chalkboards that looked like they came from a school; the waterlogged leather-bound covers of hymnals, their pages long since disintegrated; shoes with empty eyelets, their laces a long-ago banquet for the fish. But that wasn’t all that washed up. Several old bodies in yellowed clothes had been found on the shores near the dam. Laid out in almost a perfect line in the reeds, they were mistaken for mannequins at first. A baffled coroner from Little Rock could only guess some natural phenomenon, perhaps the cold at the bottom of the lake had preserved them, all dating back to the building of the dam, all likely drowning victims. But everyone knew what she didn’t say: they shouldn’t have been there at all, in land doomed for flooding, and they certainly shouldn’t have been preserved all this time, waiting to be found.

  Once the lukewarm investigations of law enforcement concluded, with no family to claim them, Mitch had the idea to bury them in the cemetery, and June’s aunt, Eliza, held a tiny ceremony as they were interred safely in June’s garden.

  It had been a small service, just Lark’s family, June and Eliza, and Cassie and her brother, Bolt. In the name of laying the people to rest, June’s garden was nearly demolished, flowers sacrificed to fresh dirt plots.

  “It’s all torn up,” Lark said, dismayed.

  June smiled. She had satisfaction in her eyes and soil under her fingernails, reeling Lark in to kiss her knuckles. “It’ll grow back. You’ll see.”

  It was days later now, days that had passed as gently as a light breeze around Lark as she spun here and there, trying to finish everything she needed to do. Plans had been made, hasty, heady plans. For Lark, it was time to get going.

  “Mitch—do you have any more of those licorice life jackets?” Lark shouted, stuffing Rice Krispies into her army jacket. The worn-out old garment hung to her knees. It was the jacket she always wore to the movies, oversize, full of pockets to tuck snacks in. Perfect for road trip preparation.

  Mitch poked his head out of the inventory room. “What I’ve got is on the table. Try the box turtles. Paula makes good caramel.”

  Lark tucked a family of chocolate turtles into an interior pocket, along with several slabs of the raspberry fudge. Valerie was in the restaurant, cooking up a storm to cope with her feelings about Lark’s departure. At this rate, the Explorer would have a trunk full of fried chicken.

  “Got your driving playlist ready?” Mitch asked, tucking her under his arm for an almost-painful squeeze.

  Lark grinned at him. “All Memphis groups.”

  Valerie appeared in the door with Diego, three plastic bags full of food weighing her down. She’d already delivered a breakfast large enough to feed the multitude to Lark’s cabin that morning, where she’d been staying during the last week of the houseboat cleanup. She sat out at the rickety little table to eat eggs Benedict. The lake had sparkled, the early morning sunlight casting the opposite bank in a prism of rose tones as she sipped her coffee. It was so easy to forget the truth below. People who benefited from it would always be sure to forget.

  Earlier, she’d walked up to Cassie’s property from the Grand Destiny. Cassie seemed a bit flummoxed, as always, by the surprise, but then she was happy, pouring Lark a glass of peach tea from a pitcher hand painted long ago. They sat and looked down at the lake together. “Mitch told me you were leaving,” Cassie said.

  “It’s time for me to go,” Lark replied. They’d sat together like this most evenings of Lark’s last week, finishing up with the telescopes while Cassie told her the whole story in low tones. Of the woman they’d seen together at the houseboat graveyard, of her pearls and her treasure.

  “That reminds me.” Lark dug in her purse, pulling out the mother-of-pearl binoculars she’d marked for Cassie, too precious to sell, too marvelous to give up to a stranger. “I can never thank you enough for all you’ve done for me. But—I want you to have these.”

  Cassie’s eyes were very wide and bashful, as if she didn’t receive presents all too often. “Write to me,” she insisted. “I always thought it would be nice to have a pen pal, and I don’t like texting.”

  Lark chuckled. “You got it. We need some way for you to tell me where all the spyglasses end up.”

  Cassie had given her a long wordless embrace, the binoculars still tucked between them against her chest.

  Now Lark’s family walked her out to the Explorer, Diego giving Lark’s shoulder a quick pat. Mitch had taken the bags of lunch from Valerie, who didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, hovering restlessly. “Don’t forget,” she sniffed. “The realtor said she put the signs behind the deck chairs.”

  “I know.” Lark turned and wrapped her arms around her aunt. “Love you. Thank you for everything.”

  For once, Aunt Valerie melted like butter. “I love you too. You’re an awfully brave girl.”

  Lark waved goodbye to them in her rearview mirror. Diego took Valerie’s hand. Lark turned a corner, and the Grand Destiny disappeared in the trees.

  The lights were finally back on at E Dock, and a few neighbors waved to her as she passed them. She didn’t make a fuss, just said hello and didn’t mention leaving. She walked around to the back deck of the Big Dipper first and climbed over the railing to gaze out at the cove.

  She scanned the familiar vista, the memories inlaid in it. She needed no spyglass to see them play out in shadow theater before her eyes. There where she’d pushed Gil Preston out of a paddleboat for giving her a wet willy. There where her Girl Scout troop had made s’mores and told ghost stories of the lost souls in the town under the lake. There where she and Mommy had set their pet (for a day) minnow, Buddy Holly, free. He lived in a baby pool for three hours until Lark thought his tiny eyes seemed sad. There where her father had washed her hair in the lake, smushing suds into her cheeks, dunking her until she spluttered. Her uproarious laughter. His.

  There where she’d seen a mermaid diving.

  Lark dipped her foot in the warm water a final time, heart aching. She would remember it just like this. All of it. Her childhood and happiness and loss, and alongside it the older histories of buried loves and lost places and deep pain. This land was both; it was all. The lake and the town below were both real, pressed together. Lark had needed the spyglasses to see the way the histories were layered like a spiraling shell. Now she would just have to learn to hold both past and present together on her own and try to go on. Not every old hurt could be healed. People, like water, had a way of flowing imperfectly on.

  Inside, the boat was quiet, scrubbed, preparing itself for something entirely new. She and Aunt Valerie had completed the job as a team, with Diego helping fix the damage to the hull. With the collection finally gone and the cobwebs dispelled, the place felt a little bare and just a little eager, like a first day of school, long anticipated. The Big Dipper might be somewhat nostalgic in its decor, but the realtors had assured Lark that, somehow, this was still a seller’s market. This hook, quietly dipped, had already received several bites from weekender-hopefuls. Apparently, the roots, the lore, all of it, was turning into fodder for oblivious tourists and conspiracy theorists. It was just about enough to make anyone a cynic.

  Lark had to scrub at her eyes a bit as she rooted behind the deck chairs. She took the FOR SALE signs left by the realtor for her and propped them in the front windows of the Big Dipper. “Goodbye,” she murmured to the boat, gathering the last of the boxes. In them were photos from the walls, one VCR tape of home movies, her mother’s chimes from the front porch. A whole history easily carried away. She locked up and patted the railing. The hum of things remembered surrounded her. She stood in the shadow of all those roots, June’s love, for just a moment longer. But she didn’t stay long, and once she was in the Explorer, she didn’t look back. There was one more stop to make.

  Back behind the church, the path was easy to spot. It had been worn down with repeated footsteps, and it was inviting, opening to her easily, like it remembered her. It curved like a snake, back and forth once, and suddenly, Lark was hit by the colors.

  It had been mere days since she was last here, but the garden was already restored. Pale blue cabbage roses the size of her head bent from where they had climbed an awning likely dragged from Cassie’s yard of garden sculptures. The lake curled on the far edge, trickling into a small stream, and lily pads spilled into the cove like the train of a long green dress. Lark had never known they could be so huge. The headstones and grave markers were resplendent among clouds of white blossoms and something wild and purple that dripped from a pair of trees. Wisteria? There were vines winding everywhere and flowers so deep and thick, the graveyard would put any arboretum to shame. Spiders spun glassy webs, and there would be lightning bugs every night. Golden honeysuckle strayed nearby.

  June had remade all this.

  At first Lark didn’t even see her. She blended so well with the flowers because there were more in her hair, bright yellow petals. But there she was, in a patch of bright purple berry bushes.

  “Yes, you know how I feel about you taking over this corner. Only if you don’t choke out my little irises. I like them. They came from Great-Grandad Hiram’s seeds I found in a hymnal. Don’t you pout over it.”

  “This is amazing,” Lark called, gazing up at a stone angel who wore billowing tangles of white jasmine. The smell was loud, heady, outrageous. “You’re amazing.”

  June jumped, whipping around. She dropped the pair of clippers she’d been holding and grinned. “I told you they’d grow back.”

  Lark rolled her eyes, smiling. “I don’t know how I’m still surprised after all I’ve seen you do.”

  “You’ll have plenty of time to get used to me.” June smiled. Stray clippings stuck out of random pockets, and a sprig of jasmine was tucked behind her ear. The day after the Fourth, Lark had told June the ending of the box’s tale. June had listened, tears slipping down her cheeks at the end, and been silent for a long moment.

  Then, she stood and clipped a handful of flowers free from a nearby planting, white blossoms with scarlet droplets on the insides of their petals, before gathering them in a bouquet with some twine she’d been using to build a trellis for blush-pink climbing roses. “Alstroemeria,” she said, handing one to Lark. The rest, she took to the edge of the shallow water and set to float off between the lily pads. It could have been an apology or an offering. June didn’t say, and Lark didn’t ask, just brushed the tender petals against her cheek.

  “I was thinking about the girl and her box this morning while I was sprucing up the graves again. Catfish.” June brushed dirt off her gloves, removed them, and tucked them into the waistband of her shorts. “Was that her nickname or something? Did Cassie give it to her?”

  “Catfish?” Why hadn’t she asked this? “I’m not—”

  June grabbed her hand, twined their fingers, and tugged her through the garden, down one of the meandering paths, and through a patch of clover before bringing her to a stop near a clean white stone surrounded by poppies. “Funny thing, graveyards. You come across all kinds of people here.” She turned, giving Lark a nervous, flitting look, and pointed down at a gravestone under the paws of the lion statue, a little cloud of purple flowers growing around its feet.

  In letters impeccably carved, the headstone’s face bore a name already half weathered away by age. “What do you think?” June murmured. “Could that be her?”

  Lark ran her fingertips over the pocked surface of the stone. “Catfish.”

  Katarina Fischer, 1919–1937.

  EPILOGUE

  The middle of July began to roast, and Cassie’s poor RV was broiling hot even with all her portable fans on. Mitch sweated miserably no matter where they went, and so when even the mornings became steamy, Cassie rolled over to face him and his unhappy pout.

  She trailed a finger down his cheek to wake him up. He chuffed drowsily and nuzzled into her. He was such a bear in the morning.

  “Let’s go swimming today,” she said.

  That woke him up. He propped up on an elbow in surprise. “You—Cassie. My Cassie. You want to go swimming?”

  “Yes.” She kissed his nose. “I don’t have a suit, so I’ll wear your shirt.” Then his forehead. “You can wear your boxers.” The corner of his eye. “I have sunscreen in the double-wide, and I will get it for us on the condition that there is coffee in the pot when I return.” Valerie had always said “man hands coffee” was best, and though she stood by her own, Cassie would give it a try. She sat up, stretching, feeling the greasy, unavoidable mats that formed in her hair after a night curled up with another person. “Yes,” she agreed with herself. “Let’s go swimming today.”