Page 1 of Violent Little Thing

Blue Hour

ADONIS

T he sun is gone but darkness has yet to completely cloak what daylight illuminated. It’s the blue hue over the graveyard that pulls me out of my car and onto the worn ground leading to my grandfather’s headstone.

Humidity dots my forehead with sweat after sitting in my air-conditioned office all day, and the thick fog plaguing Wildwood for the past week makes the path in front of me murky at best. But I don’t need light to get where I’m going.

Forty-two steps.

I’ve walked this exact path enough times that I can get there with my eyes closed.

Rolling the stem of the singular red rose between my fingertips, I silently tally the steps in my head.

On step thirty-five, my stride falters by the light post when I see a figure crouched over a plot a few rows down from my grandfather’s grave, picking at the overgrown grass with bare hands.

The dense cover of fog mutes the glow of the lamppost, but it still has a haloing effect on the woman busy at work.

She’s oblivious to my curious gaze and that just makes me watch her harder, the last seven paces of my journey forgotten.

Long, dark hair is gathered loosely at her nape, held back with a red ribbon tied in a bow that looks like it’s one strong breeze away from unraveling.

A pair of flimsy sandals cover her small feet, and my eyes linger on the hem of her skirt before skating over the rest of her slight frame.

Maybe it’s the absence of the sun, but her brown skin looks ashen, and I don’t like that I can clearly see the outline of her backbone or her protruding shoulder blades through her shirt.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I force my thoughts away from criticism and accept maybe it’s grief that’s stolen pieces of her. This is a graveyard.

With those thoughts pushed aside, I redirect my attention to her handiwork when I hear the distinct rustling of plastic.

The woman sits back on her heels, admiring her efforts. A barely audible sigh floats in the air and I find myself still stuck in place, fixated on the plot of land in front of her.

Instead of a headstone, a plastic-wrapped bouquet of white calla lilies now rests where one should be, the price sticker from the grocery store still visible.

$39.99 .

I’m not a conversational person, so I don’t know why my lips part to ask the back of her a question. “How long has it been?”

With zero urgency, she turns to look at me over her shoulder and I’m not prepared for the bewitching pull of her stare or the question that falls from her lips.

“You can see me?” she deadpans on a whisper, her face stoic while mine falls in a frown.

A second later, soft laughter tumbles out of her and something like relief pushes away my unease. “Funny,” I mutter dryly.

“You should see your face.” She pushes to her feet and joins me on the worn path, staring up at me. “Relax, I’m not a ghost. Not yet at least.” She mumbles the last part, but the air is still enough for me to catch every word.

Delicate fingers find a wisp of errant hair and she shoves it away from her face.

She smells like grass. And strawberries. Two scents I’ve always associated with summer. Warmth tries to crowd out the ice in my chest, but I ignore it.

Smelling like my favorite season, the stranger stares at me with one brow hiked as if she’s trying to decide if my question is worth answering.

“Two months.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say quietly, coming up empty when I try to search my brain for something less robotic.

The only acknowledgment the woman gives me is a cluck of her tongue before eyeing the rose in my hand.

She doesn’t say anything before she grabs hold of her narrow waist and lifts her eyes back to my face. Cloudy, brown irises hold me hostage, latching onto me like an anchor and holding me in place.

An odd sensation prickles my skin when she simply continues to stare at me, so I clear my throat and ask another question. “You live out here?”

I’m almost positive she doesn’t. I might not be the friendliest neighbor, but of the six houses aside from mine on this street, I can match a face with every address. There’s no way I saw her before and don’t remember.

And since the graveyard is housed within the gates of the neighborhood, my curiosity persists.

“No.” An irritated huff escapes her before she can help it.

“My father was a very presumptuous man. He figured by the time he was in the dirt, he’d be rich enough to own a home in this neighborhood.

So, he bought a plot out here years ago.

” She shrugs, sending the thin shirt climbing up her torso before she pulls it back down.

“Funny because if it wasn’t for his gambling addiction, maybe he could have bought the damn house. ”

My brow wrinkles at her use of the word presumptuous and the acid soaking her tone when “father” rolled off her tongue.

“Anyway, I’m glad we never moved here,” she continues. “This neighborhood was always creepy to me.”

Amused, I rock back on my heels and mindlessly twist the stem still clutched between my pointer finger and thumb.

“Creepy?” I echo.

The woman in front of me releases a whoosh of strawberry-scented air and I notice her tongue is red. What candy had she eaten before coming here? Had she bought it at the grocery store with the flowers?

“Yeah, creepy ,” she emphasizes with an emphatic nod.

More of her hair slips free and frames her face, the shorter strands in front kissing her soft cheekbones.

“All the houses are old, and I heard the man who lives in the mansion on top of the hill is mean as a snake. Everybody’s scared of him, and rumor has it he’s responsible for at least two people vanishing without a trace last year. ”

“Yeah?” My lips want to smile but the stern look on her face keeps me from letting it bloom.

“ Yeah . I don’t want a neighbor like him. Imagine accidentally walking on his grass and then you come up missing.”

Muffling a snicker, I hum and wait for her to tell me more.

“Have you met him?”

Running my free hand over my jaw, I bend the truth. “Nah, never seen him.”

“Well, just don’t piss him off.”

Without pausing to catch her breath, she moves on to other topics. And I can’t stop listening to her. Can’t stop wanting to know everything rolling around in her head.

She keeps talking but never introduces herself or asks for my name.

Not when she asks me if I’ve seen a show called Paradise . And not when she tells me about a book she read that reminded her of the show.

The woman doesn’t come up for air, and I find that I don’t mind listening to post-apocalyptic Cliffs-notes when they come from someone as excited as her.

She speaks like she’s racing an invisible clock, not used to a captive audience and trying to get everything in her head out before her time is up.

Fascination is the only way I can describe what she makes me feel.

I can’t walk away. Can’t look away from the animated production she’s putting on with every inflection of her airy voice and every wild gesture of her hands.

As strange and one-sided as this interaction is, I don’t want it to end.

She commands all my attention. I don’t remember the last time that’s happened.

When the conversation finally lulls for more than a breath, she twists at the waist to study the darkness drenching the graveyard. “Fuck. What time is it?”

Ignoring the watch on my wrist, I pull my phone out of my pocket, wondering where hers is before I recite the time on my screen.

“8:45.”

Then she folds her arms across her chest and asks point-blank, “Can I have a hundred dollars?”

Instead of saying no, I answer her question with a question. “Why?”

“Because I need it.”

“How do I know you’ll pay me back?”

“I never said I plan to pay you back,” she volleys in return, not missing a beat.

Laughter rumbles in my chest and I shake my head.

Little by little, a smirk flirts with her lips, leading me to believe the question was just a test. A test for what?

I don’t know. But then she looks around, noting the graveyard is submerged in hazy darkness now and slowly backs away from me, creating a chasm after standing close for so long we were almost breathing the same air.

“Bye. I’ll see you around.”

She doesn’t give me time to respond to her abrupt departure.

Unable to tear my eyes away, I watch until she turns into a wobbly dot in the fog, frowning when she walks right up to the closed iron gates of the community and veers slightly left.

Bending, she slips her feet out of her sandals and pitches them over the stone wall beside the gate. Then, with more ease and agility than I expect, she hoists herself over the narrow, flat surface of the wall and disappears into the night.

“What the hell?”

As much as I try to write it off as a fluke, I can’t shake the encounter.

Not when I finally make it to my grandfather’s tombstone and not when I get back behind the wheel to drive to the back of the neighborhood.

I drive until I reach the top of the hill, slowing to a crawl when my tires hit the paved driveway. I can’t help but snicker lowly at the stranger’s words.

Creepy. Everybody’s scared of him. Mean as a snake.

Never before has a stranger’s opinion of me fazed me, but hearing those words fall from her mouth was pure comedy.

As I press the button to open my garage, I mumble lowly, “Odd woman.”

That night, her departing words tumble around in my mind as I go through the motions of eating dinner and getting ready for bed.

Bye. I’ll see you around.

I don’t see her around.

In fact, a whole year passes before I see her again.