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WINTER SOLSTICE PARTY

13

The equinoxes and solstices were just a front. When they’d started this family tradition over a century ago, they used celestial cycles as an excuse to throw the parties. It wasn’t unheard of to celebrate the mark of a new season, not back then. In fact, it made perfect sense to the family at Hemlock Hill. For eons, people partook in pagan rituals and ceremonies, offering sacrifices to strengthen the bond between humanity and nature. And what was the point of a garden party if not for exactly that purpose?

Germanic tribes decorated fir trees to bring in the winter. In England, wickerwork figures were constructed and burned in effigy during fall harvest. And at Hemlock Hill, rich society folk relished any excuse to dance under a full moon, around a bonfire, hair loose and feet bare. These days people didn’t care what the parties were for, they just wanted to be there. The events used to be Mr. Hargrove’s purview, with well-to-do professionals in a classy cocktail party setting, but he’d let his responsibility—to his family and to the garden—fall by the wayside. Now it was up to the Hargrove kids. Which meant the parties were a teenage wasteland.

Hart lay in the center of it.

He didn’t normally actively participate in feeding the garden, but it felt good, there was no denying it. The chill in the air didn’t matter, and he rolled up his sleeves to make the process easier. This way, the garden wouldn’t need to sneak up under the cuffs of his pant legs or the hem of his shirt. If he stayed very still, Hart could feel the Velcro-like barbs on the grass hooking into his skin. A reverse intravenous high, where nothing infused him, but something leached out. The microscopic hairs on the underside of the blades drained him of all thoughts and worries, leaving only an emptiness. And emptiness, actually—the absence of everything—was all it took to feel a modicum of peace. No sense of how cold it was; or thoughts of wishes not working; or memories of dead girlfriends. Hart’s eyes fluttered shut as he floated to a blissful nothingness. All anyone had to do was touch the grass to feel it. What a gift the garden parties were. The people here didn’t know how lucky they—

Someone tripped over Hart’s foot, tearing him out of the void and back into the cacophony of the party. “Oops,” the girl giggled.

Hart sat up to help her, every movement ripping him from the grass. He stood. It wasn’t the right time to play dead, anyway. And he could find other ways to obliterate all thoughts and feelings. There was a bottle in his fist, and he brought it to his lips. Bourbon sloshed inside Hart’s mouth, coating his teeth, stinging the inside of his cheeks, and leaving a bitter trail down his throat. He smacked his lips together as he looked around at the crowd. No sign of Lowell, but every other teenager in Meadow Falls seemed to be at Hemlock Pond. Too many people at what was supposed to be an “exclusive Hemlock Hill garden party,” and it was his own doing. Hart had invited everyone in school through a quick, typo-ridden email blast. All these infuriatingly happy people.

Hart couldn’t muster anything but vague disdain for everybody here.

He held up his bottle to toast them.

A silent toast, just in his mind, thanking them for coming. The garden needed to be replenished. The more the merrier.

Hart took another swig of bourbon, trying to drown out the sounds of revelry around him. But there was one sound that made the bottle go limp in his hand. A splash. And the unmistakable glee in his sister’s voice as she yelled, “JUMP!”

Hart turned just in time to see something shoot down into the pond. The graceful weeping hemlock bent and swayed as people slithered along its branches, up the bark like ants on logs. The climb itself was treacherous, not to mention the fall. Not to mention the temperature of the water. Hart tossed his drink into the grass and marched over to the base of the tree.

“JUMP!” Heather shouted, hands cupped around her mouth. She was never happier than when she was guiding clueless people to their potential demise, but her laughter tapered off when she noticed her twin brother.

She put her hand out like a shield. “Now, Hart, don’t get mad,” she said in a tone that told Hart she wasn’t at all worried about him getting mad. “It’s not that high of a jump. Everyone will make it out alive.”

Another body fell into the pond. Fell because Heather hadn’t demanded they jump, which meant they’d lost their grip. At this, Heather’s cheeks turned slightly red, though there was no telling if it was because she was embarrassed by the incident or thrilled by it. “Everyone will probably make it out alive,” she amended.

“Me, get mad?” Hart asked. “About kids jumping ten feet off our one-hundred-year-old tree into forty-degree water?”

“That’s a lot of numbers,” Heather murmured.

“Why would I get mad?” Hart asked in a voice that was too loud. He pulled out the pruners that were always in his holster. Someone in the gathering crowd gasped while Heather flashed a toothy grin, apparently excited to see her brother acting so out of character.

“You want to destroy the hemlock?” Hart asked. “Let me help.”

He walked over to the trunk, stepping on the roots that peeked out gray from the ground like a giant zombie’s knuckles, so that he could get a good stance, and stabbed the sharp steel blades of his pruners into the bark. “None of this matters,” he called to no one and everyone over his shoulder. “I’m just going to turn back time anyway, right? None of this fucking matters anyway.”

“I thought Heather was supposed to be the crazy twin,” someone muttered behind him.

Hart kept carving, though his messy scratches didn’t look like any letter in the alphabet. He could sense all the eyes watching him, could feel the buildup of a collective held breath. One hushed voice reached him, saying, “I think it’s because his girlfriend just died.”

Hearing that was the only thing that made Hart loosen his grip on the gardening tool. He lowered it and pressed his forehead to the gray trunk, going still except for his rapid breathing. When he finally turned around, everyone was watching him, but it was his sister’s gaze that he settled on. All the delight had seeped out of her face, and for once she was the one who seemed horrified by her twin’s actions.

Hart knew that grief had wrecked Heather. Now it had its claws in him, too. He stepped off the bulging roots, nearly stumbling on the woven curves as he glanced at the hack job he’d carved into his beloved hemlock. “What did I do?” he muttered under his breath.

He bent his head low, shoving past the crowd until he was away from Hemlock Pond and in the darkened woods.