THE DASHBOARD CLOCK read 11:32 when we finally pulled up in front of Jeremey's house. My hands shook uncontrollably as I reached for the door. Jeremey got out first, and I followed behind him, the wind howling through the trees as we headed up to the house. I expected him to sit down on the porch for a while, but he went right inside.
"Jeremey," I called, grabbing the door and slipping in before it could swing shut. I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about anything, but I felt like I needed to talk about something. The chase, Joshua, what I saw in the basement... It all weighed so heavily on my mind, pounding to get out.
"Let's just go to sleep, Harper," Jeremey said, pausing in the living room but not turning to face me. His hands clenched into two tight fists at his sides.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.
"We'll talk about it in the morning." He muttered something else under his breath that I couldn't understand. His head hung low, like there was something weighing on him too, more than the adrenaline and fear from the chase. "I need to sleep on this, okay?"
"Okay," I said quietly.
Jeremey sighed, and then he shuffled off towards his room, shutting the door behind himself. He'd slept in that same room since he was a kid. He could have moved to his parents' room—it was bigger and had a nicer view of the backyard—but he never did. The door to it was always shut. I assumed no one had been in there in years.
• • •
I hardly slept that night. Every time I started to drift off, visions haunted my half-asleep mind. Visions of a basement, and of a crate, and of a hand. And then visions of the girl from my dreams running through the forest, and myself chasing her, but always being a bit too far behind.
• • •
I woke up the next morning still completely exhausted. I knew I must have slept at least a little, because I couldn't remember when the hazy daylight started shining in, casting its ghost on the floor. Accepting the fact that I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep, I pulled myself off the couch and headed over to the window. I peeked through the blinds, out into another dim and cloudy day.
I considered heading out for a smoke, but decided on showering and brushing my teeth first. I still had dirt and grit under my fingernails, and something about the idea of cleaning everything from last night away seemed appealing.
After I showered and put on a pair of comparably clean clothes, I found my cigarettes and lighter on the coffee table and headed out to the porch.
"Hey Harper," Jeremey said as I swung the door open.
I nearly jumped—startled and still on edge from the previous night. "Shit, man. Didn't realize you were out here."
Jeremey didn't say anything in response, so I made my way over to the chair next to him and sat down. I took out a cigarette and offered him one, but he shook his head. I lit mine and started smoking.
"What time is it?" I asked.
Jeremey pulled his phone out of his pocket and set it down face up on the glass end table, pressing the home button. "8:46."
"Don't think I've been up this early in ages." I tried to laugh, but it came out more like a nervous cough. "How long have you been out here?"
"Since the sun came up. I couldn't sleep." He avoided eye contact with me, staring across the street instead.
"Don't you have to get to work soon?" I asked.
"No point to it," Jeremey said. "No one really to sell to anymore anyway."
"Huh," I said.
Jeremey shrugged.
I finished my cigarette and went to light another.
"Maybe cool it for a few, Harper," Jeremey told me, holding his hand out as if to say take it easy. He made eye contact with me for the first time all morning. "It's not even nine yet. You don't need to start chain smoking already. You're going to be fine."
Jeremey had never told me not to smoke before, so I was shocked enough that I actually listened. I took the unlit cigarette out of my mouth and put it away.
"I've been thinking about the wind," Jeremey said slowly, turning his gaze away from me and back to the tree across the street.
"Yeah?"
"Did you notice anything weird about it while we were at the farm house last night?"
I thought for a second. I'd been so distracted by other things, I hadn't been thinking about it. "I don't know, it was really strong I guess?"
"Yeah, it was." Jeremey nodded his head, not really agreeing or disagreeing with me. "But I've been thinking about something else," he started again. "Which way does it blow?"
I looked across the street, at the dogwood tree in the yard in front of the up-for-sale house. "Left," I replied. "It blows to the left."
"So north," Jeremey corrected me. "Does it always blow that way, Harper?" He made eye contact with me again.
I stared across the street, trying to remember if I'd ever seen the tree blowing in the opposite direction. "Yes," I finally decided. "It always blows north. So... it's coming from the south?"
Jeremey shook his head. "Are you sure it always blows north?"
"Yeah, the tree always leans in that direction." I pointed across the street.
"Right," Jeremey agreed slowly. "But what about when you are at the gas station? What direction does it blow when you are there?"
I thought hard. I thought about the green and blue flags that clung to the wires in the parking lot. I thought about the way the trash tumbled down the street. "Left," I finally said.
"When you look out of the gas station shop window?"
I nodded.
"So east," Jeremey told me. "It blows to the east."
He let that sink in for a minute. I couldn't understand it. How could the wind be blowing in different directions in different parts of town?
Jeremey took a piece of worn paper out of his pocket and slowly unfolded it on the table. It was a map—a map of Millstone. The paper had faded to an aged yellow, the corners were torn, and the fold creases were worn away to almost nothing. It had to be at least twenty years old. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen a physical map in ages, or at least not one of the pin-prick of a town that was Millstone.
"So here," Jeremey began, pointing to Cornwall Drive where the house was, "the wind blows towards the north." He pulled a pencil out of his pocket and sketched a small arrow pointing north on top of the house. He moved his finger up to the location of the gas station, at the northern edge of Millstone. "And here," he tapped on the location, "it blows to the east." He drew another small arrow over the top of the gas station pointing east.
We stared at the map in silence for a few seconds. Finally, Jeremey began again. "What about here?" he asked, moving his finger to another location, the bottom of the map where the high school was. "What direction does it blow here?"
I ran my hand back through my hair and let a breath out through my teeth. I didn't know. I shrugged.
"West," Jeremey said, drawing an arrow on top of the high school. "The flag always flies to the west."
A shiver ran down my spine, but I didn't know why. "What does it mean?" I finally asked.
Jeremey paused for a minute before he continued. "I noticed something about the wind while we were at the farm house last night," he began. "At first I thought it was just blowing like crazy, all sorts of directions, but as we walked around that house, Harper, it followed us."
My eyes shot wide. It still wasn't clicking, but something about Jeremey's words made goose bumps breakout across my entire body.
"Look at where Clay Road is on this map," Jeremey tapped on the location of the farm house with the pencil. It was east of us, but south of the gas station and north of the school. "The wind moves around it, Harper!" He drew a half circle through the school, the house, and the gas station. "It moves like a cyclone!"