THE KEY WAS UNDER the flowerpot, a galvanized water bucket I’d painted white with green trim to match the house. All the pansies in it were dead. I lifted the bucket, and a clot of centipedes writhed in the damp ring on the boards of the well cover. They slithered over each other, the legs a blur, spilling down the cracks between the wooden planks covering the well, dropping into the water below. Their weightless bodies hitting the surface soundlessly. Not even a distant plink.
Everything was very still. There was no wind. It was dead quiet. The tide was out, and the waves were listless, as thin as paper, creeping up over the sand in jagged lines of flaring silver, until they sank into the sand, staining it dark.
I’d driven the car over the long grass up near the back door. Nobody ever used the front door, and it was nailed shut. The baby was asleep in the car seat. She’d slept the whole drive, and I knew it meant she would be awake all night, screaming, starving. It seemed she could never get enough milk.
There was a hurricane coming, but Ray was dealing with another media-relations disaster. He was supposed to come with us, I’d packed his bag and the cooler with a stew we could heat over a propane camping stove, his favourite gin, a bag of ice, and a few limes, as well as
