she saw Knox and say something beatifically kind. If she were naked, she might not scramble for Cash’s jeans to hide herself with but instead open her arms to Knox, and laugh a knowing laugh when Knox lay her head against the new breasts, the shocking little flesh cones that Charlotte had shown her, lifting up the recently purchased bra that left red marks where its seams had been. She could be naked, Knox thought. They both could be. She kept moving but more slowly now, unsure of what she wanted.
When the gates came into sight she began to stamp in the loose sneakers as she walked. Thwock. Thwock. Thwock.
She stopped after a few paces to listen and, hearing nothing, stamped again.
Then she made for the hedge, a dense wall of boxwood that was taller than she by at least a foot. At the farthest end there was a hollowed-out place that Knox remembered as she drew closer to it. Her father complained about it sometimes: a dead cave of twigs just visible from the road. It needed to be dug up, replaced. Knox moved nearer, took a deep breath, and whispered, “Charlotte?”
Silence.
“Hey. Hello?”
She peered in, and looked away immediately. She had seen a flash of something silver: A zipper? A hook? It had been on the ground, detached from any body. Knox hummed to herself for a moment, then turned to look again. There was a bracelet, their mother’s, lying in the twiggy, tamped-down grass. Nothing else. Knox knelt to pick it up, then shuffled on her knees into the hedge cave and sat cross-legged, the big coat insulating her backside and legs from the cold ground. She turned the bracelet in her hands; Charlotte must have borrowed it. Surely without asking. It was heavy, made of thick links and fastened with a turquoise beaded clasp; she never wore it, their mother, but she never threw it away, either. Other things got removed from the suede-covered jewelry box she kept on her bureau, costumey things that had outlived their outfits and uses, but not this.
The dawn grew brighter. Knox slipped the bracelet into a pocket of the coat and started to get up, wondering whether or not she should keep looking for her sister. What would Charlotte say if she were found? If Knox could find her asleep, somewhere hidden, and carry her back to bed, things might be different. The coat stuck to her skin in places, making her feel the parameters and sweat of her body as she emerged from the little cave, dragging branches against one another as she pushed out.
“Hallo,” someone called. Knox stopped where she was, as if stillness could make her invisible.
“Hallo,” someone called again, louder.
Knox looked up. Gary, the night watchman, stood about five feet from her, swinging the heavy flashlight he carried in one hand, and fingering the collar of his shirt with the other. He looked washed in the thin light, his clothes and face pale.
“I—,” Knox began.
Gary squinted at her. He had one of those faces that a life lived at night must make. A face that made it hard to tell what a person was thinking, behind the lines and hard skin. “Better get on home,” he said. “Right?”
“Um.” Knox said, “I’m sorry. I was—”
“Okay,” Gary said. “You get on home.”
Knox felt the blood rise, flushing her neck and face. She backed up a step or two, keeping her eyes away from Gary’s, then lurched into an awkward half run up the hill, heading straight for the house. She imagined Gary watching her and thought she should slow down, appear calmer—but that would mean allowing him to watch her for a longer time; she wanted nothing but to be out of his sight. She dodged the nettle piles that showed up inky in the light, like little cacti. She sucked in breath as the incline got steeper. Stride. Pant. Stride. Was he laughing, behind her? At the office parties her father held twice a year Gary usually stood, laughing, in a corner, drink in hand. It wasn’t a nice laugh, wasn’t meant for others to join in. She knew this. People would be surprised at what she knew about them, from watching.
Knox stumbled past the old locust with the hollow in it, the one Charlotte used to make her stick her hand in, daring her to risk squirrel bite or the spooky brush of fungus that grazed the bottom. She didn’t stop moving until she reached the edge