However many minutes later, the cathedral doors opened.

  “Game’s over,” Peter said quietly.

  Voices exploded into the cathedral, ricocheting off the stone, so loud and wrong-sounding that Jessica winced. She scooted out from under the pew but stayed sitting on the tile floor.

  “Holy fuck!” Jenny cried out when she saw Jessica. “There you are. We were seriously about to leave without you.”

  Everyone was there, including John. Jessica gave him a bland smile.

  Peter stood. “I just found her. Just like, a minute ago.”

  “Well, good.” Jenny threw up her hands. “Game over. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  John asked Jenny to wait while he walked Jessica to her door. During the ride back, John had said nothing about how Jessica had ignored him in the church when his feet had been inches from her face. Instead, he’d just sat in the back seat of the Buick, with his arm slung across Jessica’s shoulders, and shot the shit with Jenny. Was her brother still dating that girl? Did he like his new job? That’s cool. That’s cool.

  It wasn’t until Jessica was reaching for her keys that John finally spoke.

  “Were you thanking Peter Rojas for saving you the other day?”

  Jessica froze, her fingers grazing the door knob. “I . . . What?”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” John leaned in. Jessica felt the heat of his breath, oily and unwanted. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about that?”

  “There’s nothing to find out about,” Jessica replied. “My car needed a jump, and he helped me out.”

  “You should’ve told me.”

  Jessica was all of a sudden very, very tired. It was late, and she thought that maybe the lack of sleep was making her hallucinate. There were fireflies in the yard. They flashed and dimmed, flashed and dimmed—in a rhythm, in time with one another. Like a song.

  “You shouldn’t hide things from me,” John added.

  Jessica was so worn out she thought maybe John was right. She could stand to be more open. It would hurt: to crack open her chest and pour out what little was there. But she was feeling bold, deliriously optimistic.

  Jessica spun around. “Have you ever heard me sing?”

  She went on before John could interrupt: “Before my sister died, I used to sing. I was in choir and pageants and stuff. I was really good. My teachers would tell me I was a natural.”

  Jessica mustered a smile, and in that bizarre, hopeful moment, she believed in the impossible. John had never heard her sing, not really. The only times he would’ve had the chance were in the car, along with the radio, or if she was listening to something on her headphones and thought she was alone.

  John had glitter-gold eyes. He was beautiful when he wanted to be. A couple of nights ago, she’d asked him to fly away with her. It wasn’t too, too hard to imagine them together in their little studio apartment. They wouldn’t have furniture, but they would have each other. He would listen to her sing.

  John said nothing, and Jessica realized he didn’t know how to answer. She’d made a mistake. She’d wanted to give him a sliver of something rare and good about herself, and, instead, she’d backed him into a corner. She wanted her rare goodness to be a gift, but her timing was all fucked up.

  Jessica knew her timing was all fucked up because John finally replied by asking, “Are you making fun of me?”

  “What?” Jessica balked. “No. No.”

  “John!” Jenny called out from the idling Buick. “John. Let’s go!”

  John held up his hand, silently commanding Jenny to wait. His gaze remained pinned on Jessica.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about what happened with the car?” he asked, steering the conversation back. “With Peter?”

  “Nothing happened with Peter,” Jessica insisted. “You know I wouldn’t do that to you. My battery was dead, and I needed help.”

  Help. The word tasted like shame, bitter like ash ground between her molars. She looked across the street at Hector’s. Peter’s truck wasn’t there. There were no lights in the upstairs window. In her yard, the fireflies had stopped flashing.

  John reached out and grabbed Jessica’s wrist. He knew how to do it so it looked like a gesture of affection. He pressed his long fingers into her pulse point, then past it to where the tendons scraped against the bone.

  Jessica winced, grinding her teeth. She didn’t want to give in. She didn’t need to apologize for this. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

  John pressed harder.

  “I’m sorry,” Jessica gasped. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be mad. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the Buick, but Jenny was looking down, focused on her phone. Then she glanced to the house, to her upstairs window. Something—a fuzzy flicker of darkness behind the curtain—had caught her eye. It was barely there, then gone.

  “Please,” Jessica said. “I’m sorry, and I’m very tired.”

  John released his fingers, and then brought Jessica’s wrist up to his lips. This was what mothers did: kiss away the hurt. He was disgusting. Jessica was ashamed that she’d ever wanted to give anything of herself to him. Her nails were so close to his face. She could tear across his skin, into his eye.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  John made his way across the yard and climbed into Jenny’s car. Jessica could still feel the slickness of his saliva on her wrist. It felt like a violation, like she could wash and wash and the spit would always be there.

  Minutes later, Jessica was standing in the rising steam of her shower, letting the water run through her hair. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow pass on the other side of the clear plastic curtain. Assuming it was just Iridian coming in to borrow a shirt or something, Jessica closed her eyes and dipped her head back. She liked to run the water as hot as possible for as long as she could, liked the challenge of standing beneath it until the feeling on her skin went from scalding to soothing. She’d started humming another old song from the pharmacy’s playlist when she got the sense that something was . . . off. Her voice wasn’t echoing in the same way. It felt like the space—the shower, the entire bathroom—had gotten smaller.

  Jessica opened her eyes, and there, in front of her face, through the veil of steam and on the other side of the curtain, was a hand. Its dark palm was facing her. Its fingers were spread. The hand was so clear, Jessica could see the blurry swoop of a lifeline and the horizontal slashes on skin that marked the division between each individual finger bone. The hand pressed inward against the plastic, stretching it tight. Jessica jolted back, nearly losing her balance against the slick surface of the tub. She caught herself by smacking a wet hand against the tile. Then she did the only thing she could think to do: She stared straight at the hand and pushed her own hand against it. It was solid and fleshy. Jessica let out a garbled cry, then ripped back the shower curtain. There was no one. Nothing there.

  Dripping wet and gulping down desperate breaths, Jessica grabbed a towel, ran into her bedroom, and then dashed down the hall to her sisters’ room. Iridian was asleep in her bed. Jessica started to call out Rosa’s name, but then clapped a hand over her mouth and collapsed back against the wall.

  “Shit,” she mumbled. “Holy shit.”

  She gripped the towel tighter around her chest.

  “You’re fine,” she told herself. “Everything’s fine.”

  Jessica found her balance on two shaky legs and went back into her bedroom, leaving behind her a trail of wet footprints. In the bathroom, she turned off the water in the shower, dried herself off completely, changed into a fresh pair of underwear and a shirt to sleep in, and started brushing out her long hair. It was all normal. Totally normal. The bristles of her brush caught on a knot. Jessica yanked and yanked, bringing tears to her eyes and snapping the strands from her scalp. She tried humming to herself again, but it was nothing, just a bunch of nonsense notes.

  “You’re fine,” she told her reflection. “Everything’s fine.”

  She braved a look back at the shower curtain, and saw, there in the condensation, the outline of a hand, perfectly centered, with beads of moisture dripping from its edges.

  She dove toward the toilet and threw up.

  Rosa

  (Wednesday, June 12th)

  On Wednesday morning, Rosa decided to search for the hyena in shifts. She left the house early and was heading back in the middle of the day to use the bathroom and refill her thermos when she felt the shift in the wind.

  The day had been bright and hot and humid, but then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t. The entire eastern sky was dark, the color of pigeon feathers. That dark sky pushed a wall of cool wind right into Rosa, blowing back her unbound hair and the fabric of her long dress, blowing back the leaves on the trees. Rain was coming.

  Rosa took off into a jog, ignoring how the jolting movement caused the stiff leather of her shoes to scrape against her heels. The thermos in her backpack bounced hard against her spine. The pigeon-colored sky was now all around. The wind was blowing so hard that loose leaves and bits of trash were tumbling down the street. A cup from a fast-food restaurant skittered and spun on the asphalt. The dogs in the neighborhood—both inside houses and out in yards—took up yipping and howling. The rain started to fall, leaving circles the size of checkers on the concrete sidewalk. The drops were so big, they felt like pennies when they hit the top of Rosa’s head.

  When Rosa rounded the corner, she saw Jessica’s car a little ways down, parked in front of their house. Wednesdays were her days off from the pharmacy. Despite the rain, Jessica’s arm was hanging out her driver’s-side window, and her middle finger was tapping against the door.

  Rosa got closer, approaching the car from the back. There was a jolt of movement, and it took her a split second to process what she’d seen: John had reached over and taken hold of Jessica by the neck. Jessica’s hand, the one that was extended out the window, tensed and then smacked the outside of her car door. Jessica’s head jerked to the side, like she was trying to pull it away.

  Rosa gasped, froze briefly, and then started running. When she reached the car, she could see John gripping Jessica’s chin. Her sister’s neck looked painfully twisted, and she shouted something—stop or off—at which point Rosa whacked her palm against the closed passenger-side window. John immediately released Jessica and spun around.

  “What’s going on?” Rosa demanded through the glass.

  “Nothing.” John’s voice was muffled. “We were just talking.”

  “Yeah.” Rosa glanced at her sister, who was staring straight through the windshield, her jaw clenched. “Looks like it.”

  John opened his door so quickly that Rosa nearly tripped over her own feet as she backed away.

  “I’m walking home,” he said. “See you later, Jess. Later, Rosa.”

  Neither sister responded. Rosa watched John make his way down the sidewalk, slouched forward against the rain and with his hands in his pockets. She looked at the street, then over to Hector’s house. The front door was open, and just the storm door was closed. A single lamp was glowing in the depths of the darkened living room. She looked up to the second-floor window and what she knew was Hector Garcia’s room. A light was on in there, too. A shadow passed behind the curtain. Hector and his friends were there, watching. They thought they were protectors, which was a silly thing all boys thought.

  Jessica kept sitting in her car, staring through the rain-blurred windshield. Only after John had turned down a side street a block away did she finally get out and head toward the house. She passed right by Rosa as if she wasn’t there.

  “I don’t like him,” Rosa called after her. “Has he done this before? Why haven’t you told any—”

  “Don’t start,” Jessica snapped. “He’s just in a bad mood.”

  “He’s always in a bad mood, Jessie.”

  They stopped together at the front door, under the shelter of the awning. Rosa could see the pink marks on Jessica’s skin from where John’s fingertips had dug in. This wasn’t the first time Rosa had told her sister how she felt about John, and it wasn’t the first time Jessica had gotten defensive about it. If Rosa pushed, Jessica would tell her that she had no idea what it was like to be in a relationship, that Rosa shouldn’t dare act like she knew what went on between a girl and a guy in love because Rosa hadn’t even been kissed yet or had anyone touch her. That last part, about the kissing and the touching, wasn’t true, but Rosa never said anything about it. She had the right to her own secrets.

  Still, though. This was different. Rosa had always known that John was mean and that Jessica always jumped when he said jump, but this was the first time she’d seen evidence of him touching her sister in an aggressive way. Had there been signs? Had she missed them?

  “Don’t tell Dad,” Jessica said, as she unlocked the front door.

  “Alright.” Rosa’s heart broke a little. “Of course. If that’s what you want.”

  “I’ve been telling him I want to leave,” Jessica said. “That’s why he’s in a bad mood.”

  “Leave him?” Rosa asked, startled. “Like, break up with him?”

  “No.” Jessica paused. “Like, leave San Antonio.”

  “Oh.” Rosa shook a drop of rain from the tip of her nose. “Where would you go?”

  Jessica shrugged. She looked tired. Her mascara was flaking off. There were little specks of black around her eyes, and her lipstick was smudged. There was a blur of dark red on her jaw, from where John had pulled the color away from her mouth.

  “Austin, maybe? Maybe the Valley to stay with Aunt Francine. Anywhere but here. I asked him to come with me, but he doesn’t want to.”

  “You should go by yourself,” Rosa told Jessica. “If that’s what you want to do.”

  “It’s not that easy.” Jessica pulled her key from the door and faltered, like that little flick of her wrist had exhausted her completely. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Jessica turned, and Rosa wondered if her sister’s weary appearance was due to something more than what had just happened with John. It seemed like an older weariness, like one that had tidily tucked itself inside her. Rosa didn’t ask Are you okay? or Did something happen? because it was clear that something had happened and Jessica was not okay.

  “Do you think . . . ?” Jessica crinkled her nose, like she did when she was uncomfortable but didn’t want anyone to know she was uncomfortable. “Do you think there’s something wrong with the house?”

  Rosa didn’t know how to respond. All sorts of things were wrong with the house. Pick a room, pick a cabinet in a room. Open the door, and there were reminders of dead women. Look at the floor, look at the wall. There were scuffs and scratches of lives lived. Was it possible for a house to be abandoned and still have four people living in it?

  “What do you mean?” Rosa asked.

  Jessica’s teeth dragged across her bottom lip, pulling the color off even more. There was something wrong, something really wrong.

  “Nothing,” Jessica replied. She opened the door. “Forget I said anything.”

  Rosa knew it was a lie, but what could she do? It was impossible to force the rain to stop falling. It was just as impossible to force the truth out of her sister when she was determined to keep it locked up tight.

  Rosa was a searcher, though. She was determined and had ways of finding things.

  Iridian

  (Wednesday, June 12th)

  Iridian’s notebook was down at her feet, open and with the pages spread wide. She must’ve kicked it there while she’d been napping. She fumbled in her blankets, trying to find her pen, but it wouldn’t have been the first time one of them had been lost for days in the folds of fabric or wedged tight in the space between her bed and the wall.

  It was raining outside, pretty hard from the sound of it. Iridian could hear the whoosh of wind and the drums of drops against the windows and the roof. It wasn’t night, just the middle of the afternoon according to the clock on her nightstand, but her entire room was in shades of gray. It was dreary and wonderful. She would’ve stayed in bed for hours more if she hadn’t needed a glass of water.

  Iridian stepped into the hall and then stopped. The hall, the house—everything—smelled like oranges. The air conditioner clicked on and blew out orange-scented air. She closed her eyes and could picture herself back at Francine’s place in South Texas, out in the dry air and the orange trees. She took another step and yelped as the bare sole of her right foot landed on something hard and thin. She looked down, and there it was: her pen. It must’ve gotten caught up in her waistband and then fallen out as she walked from her room. As she bent to pick it up, a mark on the wall—scrawled there in blue ink on the white paint, just an inch or so from the baseboard—caught her eye. It started off as a series of broken lines—light tick marks—but then those marks started to merge with curves and loops. The loops turned into letters. The letters formed words. The ink became darker, the lines thicker, as if the hand holding the pen had become more sure of itself.

  I want him I want him to want me

  A hard breath burst from Iridian’s lungs.

  “Ana,” she whispered.

  Those words were Iridian’s words—from the story she’d just been working on. The writing, though—especially the letter a’s, handwritten in the typed-out style, with the little umbrella-curl on top—was Ana’s, without a doubt.

  Iridian didn’t know how long she waited for her sisters to come home—minutes? an hour? She also didn’t really remember going downstairs. Mostly she remembered sitting on the couch, her spine too straight, and being haunted by the smell of oranges—so strong it was making her sick.