The House Above the Sea

20.

Neo's scarcely through the front door when he hears a throng of ardent voices floating in from the kitchen. Cautious, he lightens his steps, slipping his house key deep in his pocket and starting forward with measured, silent strides.

"I just don't understand," Joey's saying, the distress in his voice barely masked, if at all. "It's been sitting there for all these years. What's the sense in tearing it down now?"

"I don't know," replies the gravelly, insouciant voice of Uncle Duke. "I've heard from the local architecture firm we work with that they're putting up some sorta tower."

A prickle goes down the back of Neo's neck. There's a breath of pause before Aunt Vivian says: "A tower? What sort of tower?"

"No idea. Cable, probably. Have you noticed how shitty the signals are out here?"

"Duke," Aunt Viv snaps. "Come on. Not in front of the baby."

"But August?" Joey muses, and there's a squeak, presumably as he drags a barstool out from beneath the counter. Neo doesn't know whether to be charmed or frightened by the overwhelming concern in his cousin's voice. Maybe it's different, Neo thinks: hearing about Kit versus seeing him, interacting with him. The stakes always seem so much higher when the loss is something tangible.

"That's just so soon," Joey goes on. "And without Kit's—"

Neo realizes the prickle down his neck was not a prickle, but an ant, and lets out a startled cry as he smacks it away. The voices in the kitchen go silent.

"Neo?" Uncle Duke says as Neo rounds the corner, wearing a sheepish grin. "I didn't know you were back. What were you screaming about?"

"It wasn't a scream, it was just..." Neo sighs, slumping his shoulders. "It was an ant."

One of Uncle Duke's eyebrows rises, but thankfully Neo is rescued when Joey jumps to his feet, with an exuberance likely left over from an earlier basketball practice. Sweat stains his tank top darker below his arms, his hair frizzy with humidity. "So? Did it work? The note?"

"Duh," says Neo, allowing himself one prideful grin. "Of course it worked; it was my idea. I told her to come see him this weekend."

"This weekend?" Now Joey frowns, dubious. "Why not right away? Like, tonight?"

"Kit hasn't seen his sister since he was twelve," Neo explains, and even as he does, he's still wondering if he's right. "I think he needs a second to prepare himself, and gather his thoughts and stuff like that."

Joey harrumphs, easing back down to his seat.

Neo, bemused, smirks at his cousin."Stop being impatient, Joey. I know what I'm doing."

"Well, have you told Kit yet?"

"No, but I will. Later."

Joey's eyes go narrow. "Don't you think—?"

"Actually, Neo, this came for you," Aunt Viv interrupts, and both of them glance up in her direction. She sets baby Olivia down in her high chair for a moment, then reaches to retrieve a pale turquoise envelope that was sitting on the counter. She hands it to him, and Neo squints down at it, finding his name written across the front in nearly flawless cursive.

Neo's heart seizes inside his chest. There's only one person he knows who can write in cursive so perfectly.

Joey says, wary, "Neo?"

Except Neo barely hears him, as if he's seeing the world through a blurry tunnel. He cradles the envelope close to his chest, and turns for the stairs. "One second," he calls over his shoulder. "Just one second!"

He reads it once, then reads it again, then reads it a third time.

Neo,

I'm sorry I didn't write earlier, I just wasn't feeling well enough. Still, I think about you every passing second. I miss you so, so much.

I'm doing okay in here. The staff is very kind to me and I've even made a few friends. I think you would like this guy I met, Robert? He's a young kid, college student, I think. Though it's his third or fourth time in rehab he tells me all the time, "I just can't give up!" I admire him for that. Also, he loves stargazing. Sounds a lot like someone else I know. :)

But that's enough about me. How is it in Hawaii? Your father took me once and I've been trying to get back ever since. I always wanted to learn how to surf there. Have you tried?

I know your Aunt Vivian and Uncle Duke are taking wonderful care of you, and hopefully Joey isn't driving you too crazy, either!

We'll be together again soon, I promise. Be good and stay out of trouble for me, okay? I love you to pieces.

Love,

Mom

The letter is written on a Dollar Store brand sheet of paper, a rainbow printed in its corner, three sharp, horizontal creases folded into it. The words loop and curl together in a splendid maelstrom of black ink, and Neo memorizes every single one. She's okay, he thinks. She's really okay.

Neo rifles through Joey's drawers until he recovers a few sheets of wrinkled looseleaf paper, snags a pen from the plastic cup on the desk. He knows exactly what he wants to say, exactly what he needs her to know: that nothing and everything has changed, that he loves her, too, that as much as she might miss him, he misses her worlds more. He wants to tell her about this boy he met, a boy named Kit who had everything taken away from him, and yet remains, steady, an evergreen tree unshaken by even the most prolonged of glacial winters.

Yet when he sets pen to paper, the page remains blank.

Maybe it's that he doesn't know where to start, or where to stop. Maybe, even, he's afraid of the words that will flow out of him. Whatever the reason, Neo just can't write.

He folds up his mother's letter with a dismal exhale, curling himself onto his bed instead. Though the sun is high in the sky, a warm ray of light against his shoulders, he's passed out asleep in moments.

The sudden sound of splintering of glass drags Neo awake again. He sits up, dazed, to find the moon high and the street encased in a dark, quiet calm. How long was he asleep? He frowns at Joey's dozing form, his cousin's covers, as always pulled all the way up to his neck. Shuddering with unease, Neo gets to his feet, the floor cold against his bare toes. He can hear himself breathing, a careful countermelody to the chirruping crickets just outside the window, the call of tropical birds somewhere near or somewhere far.

Mopping sweat from the nape of his neck, Neo peeks out into the hall. It's dark, almost pitch black if not for the sliver of moonlight lighting on the newly shattered hall mirror.

The shudder of unease threatens to rise toward panic, instead. Just who—or what—broke that mirror? Does he even want to know?

Neo allows himself one deep breath, blowing his curls out of his eyes, before he starts forward again.

The mirror is beyond saving. It isn't just one linear crack, but thousands of radial ones, fanning out from the center as if done in by a single punch. There is no blood caught on the shards, none on the floor. Neo steps back, wary of his bare feet and the dust of glass along the floor. A lovely and bizarre mess.

That's when Neo sees it: a pale, amorphous blur at first, like a smudge upon the glass. He leans forward, squinting at it with sleep-bleary eyes, until it resolves itself into a face. Pale hair, a long, slender nose, sunken eyes burning with a rage so intense Neo's almost drowning in it.

He lets out a startled yelp, but stifles it, slamming his hands over his mouth. When he looks up again, his heart pounding within his chest, the figure is gone.

Neo staggers away from the mirror, leaning against the far wall instead, lowering himself to a crouch until he can catch his breath.

What was that? he asks himself, but he shakes his head.

He knows who that man was, and he's pretty sure he knows why he was here.