Page 39 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Chapter Thirty-Two

All at once, between one bite of a roll and the next, Mariah crashed.

It was as if someone had pulled a plug in her toe, and all the buoyancy and energy that had held her up through the day drained instantly from her body.

She dropped the bun on her plate and fell back against the seat, almost dizzy with exhaustion.

“Even you can’t take another bite?” Veronica teased.

“I guess.” She touched her forehead where sweat had broken out. “I need to go back to the hotel. Like five minutes ago.”

“Oh! Okay.” Veronica was on her feet in two seconds. “Let me just pay the check, and we’re out of here.”

Henry helped Mariah out to the curb. She leaned on him, feeling as if she couldn’t breathe properly, pressing a hand to her diaphragm. A sense of danger wound through her brain, alert alert alert . “Am I having a panic attack? I don’t know what happened.”

Henry raised a hand for a taxi. “Maybe the backfires. They were pretty loud.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The motorcycle that backfired about six times outside the window? The yelling?”

She looked at him blankly, feeling a ripple of warning, a rustling she pushed away. “Maybe I was in the ladies’ room.”

“Hmm. Maybe so.” He opened the taxi door and stood outside waiting for Veronica. She bustled out, the scarf flying, and Mariah, still gripping her chest, was suddenly grateful for her. For both of them, coming on this trip with her.

When they started driving, the panic started to ebb, and by the time they got back to the hotel, her only lingering symptom was exhaustion.

Veronica helped Mariah settle in, making sure that she had water and small snacks—“not that any of us can eat another bite for three days”—and Mariah waited until she was gone to strip to her underwear and T-shirt, throwing her bra in the corner.

From her bag, she took out the book on mediumship, and pulled the curtains as if someone might see her reading it.

But she couldn’t focus. Every time she thought she was calming down, her heart skittered anew, or her nerves jumped all at once for no reason.

She got on TikTok and scrolled until she found one of the mediums she followed doing a live reading.

She was a Black woman in her fifties, wearing a white hairband, her braids flowing backward over her plump shoulders.

Candles flickered beside her, and her voice was calm and quiet. “I’m seeing an older gentleman ...”

Mariah’s heart, which had been alternating intense pounding with fluttering, fell into a steady, even beat. Her limbs, exhausted by the day and her own rigidness, softened. Within moments, she was asleep.

Away.