The Crystal Grid

Chapter One

Dahlia stared at the grocery store conveyor belt as it carried a Campbell's soup can and a few oranges forward. The monotonous hum of the machine and EZ-Rock playing over the speakers lulled her into a haze as she rang each item through. Oranges, fifty-nine cents, soup, one dollar and twenty-five cents. The numbers were burned into her mind like hot stamps. She had been working at the store for four years, since she was fourteen. With each passing year the days felt longer and longer, until her weeks became a blur of small change, inky receipts and raw chicken, all strung together by noisy plastic bags.

She had never intended to stay this long. It had begun as a temporary gig, a way to pay for drinks on the weekend and greasy late-night meals at the diner. College had been the plan, getting out of Turnerville a non-negotiable. Her room had been filled with brochures full of stately stone buildings surrounded by fir trees and chipper-looking students toting stylish messengers bags and steaming cups of coffee, their smiles bursting through the page, "enroll here, Dahlia! You'll be one of us!" It wasn't clear when or where her plan had failed. She had lost her way somewhere between the meager paychecks and a boyfriend who thought D.H. Lawrence was a personal injury law firm in town. Slowly, leather book bags and lecture notes faded from her consciousness as bonfires in the bush and Saturday morning shifts became her reality. The brochures found their way into the trash can, only to be replaced by old concert tickets and liquor store receipts.

"I think you're in a rut," Dahlia's father had said that morning as she tied her apron around her waist. Paul Green was a retired professor of classical mythology at the nearest college. He had been watching his daughter, peeking over the morning paper with bespectacled eyes. "I mean really, Dahlia, I thought you were working on college applications. You graduated high school over a year ago."

Had Paul only known just how complacent she had become, he would have taken away her phone, locked her in her bedroom, anything to avoid ending up with a daughter without a degree. Everyone in his family tree had gone to college and he wasn't going to let Dahlia become the exception. But she was good at hiding things. She had told him she was taking a year off to travel, volunteer. It was a rite of passage; all her friends were doing it. And besides, she hadn't known what she wanted to study—enrolling then would have been a waste of time. This was what she had told him, and it had worked for a while. But Paul was becoming suspicious. The application dates loomed, and Dahlia still came home on Sunday mornings, parched and streaked with eyeliner.

"Dad, I'm almost done! You can look them over later," she had said, taking one final look in the mirror before leaving for work. Furrowing his brow and focusing on the sports section, Paul had said nothing more.

The sight of her ex passing through the produce aisle snapped Dahlia out of her rumination on the morning's conversation with her father. That was one good thing about the job: the work was so mindless that she could slip into autopilot to daydream without messing something up. It was only when she saw someone she knew—which happened a lot in such a small town—that she would be jolted from her reverie. Ringing through her elementary school teacher's Jell-o cups or a high school acquaintance's weekend beer was one thing, but this stung. She hadn't seen Miles since he took her for a ride in his black Kia to tell her he didn't love her anymore. He had sat silently as she cried, offering her a wrinkled tissue from his glove compartment before leaving her in the cloud of dust raised by his tires.

Now she eyed him with the same curiosity that first drew her in, although this time it was piqued for a different reason altogether. He had gained weight, a fact of which she happily took note. A bushy beard had taken up residence on the lower half of his face, apparently migrating south from his head. Dahlia was surprised that he would show up to her store at all, considering his appearance. Smiling, Miles sauntered over—to her counter, no less—carrying a six pack of beer, a package of red cups and a couple of bags of potato chips.

"Hey," he said as he placed his items on the belt.

"Hey," Dahlia replied, keeping her eyes on the bright red light of the scanner. "Having a party?"

"What?" he looked up from his phone. "Oh, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, Matt's birthday, so I'm having a little get-together in my garage," he massaged his neck with the one hand that wasn't mid-text.

Dahlia didn't wait for an invite. She watched as the automatic doors parted for him and he fished for his car keys in his pocket. As she served the next customer (pistachio ice cream, iced tea, chicken breasts and rice cakes), she let her mind wander back to the day they had become official. Two weeks after they had graduated, Alie Jensen had held a bonfire on her family's property. The house was acres away from the fire pit, which was nestled in the middle of a clearing in the trees. They had been sitting on a log by the fire, surrounded by their entire graduating class.

Dahlia and Miles had been texting back and forth for weeks. She had noticed his blue eyes, he had admired her toned legs.

"Wanna go for a walk?" He had asked as the fire crackled and sputtered.

"Sure," Dahlia had replied, leaving her red solo cup at the foot of the log.

They hadn't walked far; just distant enough to be hidden from the cackling girls and swaying boys. He had hugged her, his warm breath tickling her neck and shoulders. It had been a sticky July night, so Dahlia had worn a racerback tank top and cutoff jean shorts.

"Will you be my girlfriend?" He had asked while his face was turned the other way. She hadn't heard him.

"What?"

He had asked again, this time slurring his words as he hugged her tighter. Dahlia had laughed at him at first, but after a few minutes she had said 'okay' and they had rolled around in the tall grass, giggling and kissing like children.

That had been her first real date, Dahlia realized as she rang through a stick of butter.

There was a lull in customers, so she walked outside for her break. It was late October and damp, rust-colored leaves were scattered about the parking lot. She pulled a granola bar out of her bag and sat down on the curb to eat it.

Sal's Fine Foods was at the corner of Main and Broadview across from the cemetery. As she chewed her snack, Dahlia eyed the plot of land dotted with gravestones, trees and tombs. The graveyard was on a hill, at the top of which stood a strong, stone church with a pointed steeple. A little to the left of the church was a massive mausoleum with elegant columns and green vines growing on its sides and roof. The door looked like it had been sealed shut for centuries.

Dahlia stared at it until she started to get creeped out, which didn't take long. She tossed the granola bar wrapper in the trash can before she returned to the store to finish her shift.

The rest of her day was filled with the slow chug of the belt, screaming children begging for Skittles and Kit-Kats and not much else. There wasn't even anything left to daydream about. Finally, after what felt like years, the clock on the wall above Sal's office showed five o'clock. Dahlia gave her last customer of the day her receipt and rushed outside to the parking lot to drive home.

During the short drive home, she thought about Miles. Why had he been so intent on staring at his phone? And why would he have come to her counter when there were two other perfectly good ones at the store? Waiting in a two-person line certainly would have been worth it if it meant avoiding her, she thought. Had he no shame?

Just when she was beginning to formulate a few theories about Miles—he must be dating that new senior—Dahlia spotted something moving on one side of the empty highway: a black cat was just about to run across the road. She braked just in time to catch a glance of the creature, its eyes burning amber as it halted in fear. Before she had time to think about how odd the cat's eyes were, it had run back into the forest, disappearing into the black night.