Finn

After Calla leaves, I lock the door.

I don’t know why.

No one in this house knocks often enough for a lock to matter. Calla considers doors a polite suggestion, and

Mom has never met a boundary she couldn’t nurture her way across.

Still, the click helps my nerves settle.

I sit on the edge of my bed and pull out my phone.

The photograph fills the screen.

Calla took better ones with her camera, of course. She documented the paper from every angle as though preparing evidence for a trial, but I took one with my phone while she was adjusting the light.

I needed my own copy.

Now the page glows against the darkness of my room.

Serva me, servabo te.

The words repeat until they overlap.

Serva me, servabo te.

Some lines are measured and neat. Others slope upward, crowding the ones above them. Near the bottom, the letters have been driven so deeply into the paper that I can see their impressions even in the photograph.

My hand does that when I’m angry.

Or afraid.

I zoom in.

Serva me.

Save me.

Servabo te.

And I’ll save you.

I know what the words mean.

I have no idea what they mean.

Who is saving who?

The repetition makes it impossible to tell where the plea ends and the promise begins. Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe there is no difference.

I drag the photograph toward the bottom of the screen.

The paper is stained there, the fibers darkened by cave water and mud. Beneath the final line, something faint presses through the grime.

A circle, perhaps.

Or part of one.

I enlarge it until the image breaks apart beneath my fingers.

There is definitely an impression in the paper. A small-embossed mark near the bottom edge, too damaged to make out. A logo maybe.

I stare at it until it becomes meaningless. It’s just part of the paper.

I return to the handwriting.

Mine.

Not similar to mine.

Not close enough to be mistaken for mine.

Mine.

I throw the phone onto the bed.

It lands faceup, the photograph still glowing.

I turn it facedown.

The room becomes dark again.

For almost a minute, I sit without moving.

Then I get up.

Sleep is not coming.

My night is now my day.

Fortunately, almost everything in the greenhouse thrives at night.

I cross the lawn in a sweatshirt and jeans, carrying a flashlight in one. The rain has stopped, but water still slips from the trees in slow, heavy drops.

The greenhouse stands at the far edge of Mom’s garden.

In daylight, it looks harmless. Old glass panes, white-painted framing, ivy creeping along one side. At night, with the trees gathered behind it and the roof shining faintly with rain, it looks almost otherworldly.

I unlock the door.

The familiar smell meets me first like a warm hug.

Damp soil. Green leaves. Mineral-rich water. The faint sweetness of flowers that should not be touched. Earthy humidity.

I switch on the work lights.

Rows of plants emerge from the darkness.

Belladonna occupies the back corner, its purple flowers drooping like small bells. Foxglove rises from wide pots along the eastern wall. Monkshood, oleander, lily of the valley. Hemlock grows in a raised bed beneath a warning sign Calla made for me two summers ago.

FINN’S BAD DECISIONS. DO NOT EAT.

She drew a skull beneath it wearing sunglasses.

I’ve kept the sign longer than some of the plants.

People assume I grow poisonous things because I’m morbid.

They aren’t entirely wrong.

But poison is only a matter of circumstance. Dosage. Preparation. Exposure. Foxglove can stop a heart or help regulate one. Belladonna has been medicine, cosmetic, weapon, and superstition. Oleander blooms beautifully without caring what it can do to anyone foolish enough to consume it.

There is comfort in that honesty.

Everything in this greenhouse can kill me, and nothing here pretends to be harmless.

I pull on gloves and begin checking the soil.

The work is repetitive. Predictable. I remove a dead leaf from the belladonna. Turn one of the foxglove pots toward the light. Mist the plants that prefer humidity.

For ten minutes, I am only a person tending things that need him.

Then something squeaks against the glass.

My hand stops above the monkshood.

The sound comes again.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Like the drag of a wet fingertip.

I turn.

Condensation has filmed the western panes, turning the garden outside into a dark blur.

At first, I see nothing.

Then the light catches the marks.

Four letters have been traced through the fog.

SERVA

I don’t move.

Water gathers along the bottom of the final letter and begins to run.

“Calla?”

My voice sounds too loud beneath the glass roof.

No one answers.

I cross the greenhouse slowly. The word is written at eye level. From this side, the letters are backward.

Someone wrote it from outside.

I reach for the door and stop with my hand on the latch.

Calla wouldn’t have done this. The sensible response would be to return to the house. Wake Dad. Bring every light we own.

Instead, I step outside.

Night air slaps my face.

I sweep the flashlight across the garden.

Empty beds. Wet stone. The pale curve of the path leading back toward the house.

“Hello?”

A branch moves near the tree line.

I aim the light at it.

An owl.

The beam passes over trunks, ferns, and rain-dark leaves. No person. No retreating footsteps. No shadow slipping between the trees.

I circle the greenhouse.

The ground beneath the marked pane is soft enough to hold an impression, but the grass and mud have already been disturbed by days of rain and everyone trampling around the property.

I find nothing that resembles a fresh print.

When I reach the door again, I look through the glass.

The word is still there.

Backward from this side.

Waiting.

I go inside and lock the door.

As though that has ever stopped anything.

I stand in front of the pane.

“Save who?”

The greenhouse offers only the soft mechanical hum of the lights.

I raise one gloved hand and touch the glass.

The letters are beginning to blur. Condensation beads inside their strokes, slowly filling the spaces where the finger cleared them.

I should take a photograph.

My phone is upstairs.

Of course it is.

I step toward the workbench, looking for the tablet I sometimes use to track the plants.

The squeak comes again.

Behind me.

I turn so quickly that my hip strikes the corner of the bench.

Beneath the first word, two new letters cut through the fog.

My breath catches.

Serva me.

Save me.

The full phrase from the paper continues in my head automatically.

Servabo te. And I’ll save you.

But that part isn’t written on the glass.

“Who are you?”

The lights flicker.

Once.

Then steady.

A drop of water runs through the S. Another cuts through the M. The condensation begins reclaiming both words, softening their edges until the letters lose their shape.

I move closer.

“No.”

I wipe at the glass with my sleeve, trying to preserve something I have already destroyed by touching it.

The fog smears beneath the fabric.

Within seconds, the words are gone.

The greenhouse door opens behind me.

I spin around.

Mom stands in the doorway with one hand pressed to her chest.

“Jesus, Finn.”

“Jesus, Mom.”

We stare at each other.

She is wearing boots beneath her nightgown and one of Dad’s old cardigans over it. Her hair falls loose around her shoulders, and she carries two mugs of tea.

“Why are you wandering around outside in the middle of the night?” I ask her.

“It isn’t the middle of the night. It’s barely eleven.”

“I slept all day.”

“Me too.”

“Yes.” She holds out one of the mugs. “Which is why I assumed you might be awake.”

I look back at the window.

Condensation covers it in one unbroken sheet. If I didn’t know where the words had been, I could not find the place.

“What are you looking at?” Mom asks.

“Nothing.”

The mug warms my hands.

Mom closes the door and looks around the greenhouse. Her gaze moves over each row, calm and familiar.

“You always did like beautiful things with bad intentions,” she says.

“They don’t have intentions.”

“That’s what makes them safer than people.”

She sets her tea on the workbench and walks toward the foxglove.

“Don’t touch that.”

“I know what foxglove is, Finn.”

“I know.”

“I taught you what foxglove is.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t forget.”

She gives me a look over her shoulder.

I take off the gloves and place them beside the sink.

“How did you know?” I ask suddenly, and before I’ve really thought it out.

“Know what?”

“When you got sick.”

The question stops her.

For a moment, she says nothing.

Then she picks up her mug and sits on the wooden stool beside the workbench.

“I’m not sick, Finn.”

“Ok. How did you decide that your mind was playing tricks on you?”

She pauses, and in the light of the moon, her face looks very delicate.

“Sometimes I just knew,” she says softly.

“And the rest of the time?”

“The rest of the time, I thought everyone else was wrong.”

She says it without flinching.

I look down at my tea.

“How could you tell the difference?”

“Often, I couldn’t. Sometimes, I still can’t.”

“That’s encouraging.”

“You asked for the truth, not encouragement.”

I lean against the bench across from her.

“What does it feel like?”

“Which part?”

“Not knowing.”

Mom considers the question.

“It feels like being certain,” she says. “That’s what makes it so frightening afterward. Because I don’t experience those moments as confusion. I experience them as clarity.”

The greenhouse feels colder.

“And when do you realize?”

“Sometimes there is evidence. Sometimes Dad helps me understand what happened. Sometimes enough time passes that I can see the cracks in what I thought was true.”

Her gaze settles on me.

“And sometimes I simply have to accept that I might never know.”

I look toward the western pane.

Reality usually leaves evidence…except when it dissolves into condensation seconds before someone else

walks through the door.

“Is it genetic?” I ask.

“Bipolar disorder?”

“Any of it.”

Her face softens.

“It can be.”

“I’m almost the age you were.”

“I know.”

“What if it’s already started?”

She doesn’t tell me I’m being ridiculous.

She doesn’t laugh or dismiss the question or promise something she cannot know.

“Has something happened?” she asks. “Why are you asking me these questions, Finn?”

The words on the glass rise in my mind.

Serva me.

The crow on the stairs.

Finn.

The voice on the roof.

Jump.

“No. Nothing has happened.”

The lie comes easily now.

Mom watches me.

I wait for her to challenge it. She doesn’t.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says. “But don’t lie to yourself simply because you’re afraid someone won’t believe you.”

My grip tightens around the mug.

“What if I don’t believe me?”

“Then start with what you know.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“That isn’t true.”

“You sound very confident for someone who just admitted certainty can be dangerous.”

“Wisdom is irritating like that.”

Despite myself, I smile.

She pats the stool beside her. I sit. For a while, neither of us speaks.

Rainwater slips from the roof in slow drops, and somewhere beneath the benches, the old irrigation pipe knocks softly.

Mom rests her head against my shoulder.

“You are not me,” she says.

I look down at her.

“You aren’t doomed to repeat my life,” she says. “But there are worse things you could become than like me.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Most of the time.”

She slips her hand into mine.

Her fingers are warm.

“When you were little, you used to follow me everywhere,” she says. “You’d sit on the greenhouse floor and ask which plants could kill you.”

“I was thorough.”

“You were exhausting.”

“I’ve maintained that quality.”

“Yes, you have. It’s loveable.”

She smiles against my shoulder.

For the first time since I saw the page, my chest loosens.

Just a bit.

“Finn, you can come to me at any time, and tell me anything. I will never judge and I will hold your confidence unless a situation is dangerous. Can you promise me that you’ll come to me when you need to?”

I hate that my eyes burn. I nod.

“Yeah. I will.”

Mom finishes her tea and stands.

“Good. Come on,” she says. “Show me what needs doing.”

“It’s late.”

“We slept all day. And apparently, my son needs supervision.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“Company from your beloved mother, then.”

She pulls on gloves.

I show her which plants need turning and which soil needs checking. She listens seriously, as though I haven’t repeated these instructions every summer since I began the collection.

We work without speaking much.

Mother and son, awake in the middle of the night, surrounded by beautiful, poisonous things.

Mom hums beneath her breath.

I keep glancing toward the fogged window.

The words do not return.

But I know what I saw.

Or I think I do.

For tonight, that will have to be enough.

Calla and Finn, walking to cove with flashlights .png

After spending half the night with me in the Greenhouse, Mom makes enough breakfast to sustain a logging camp.

Eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, toast, a bowl of strawberries, and something involving oats that no one has touched.

“Happy Friday, everyone,” she says, with a wave of a spatula.

Dad watches her carry another plate to the table.

“Honey, sit down,” he says.

“I’m not an invalid, Phillip,” she says, trailing a hand along his shoulders.

Calla enters the kitchen and Mom sets a plate between us.

“What happened in here?” Calla asks, looking around at the mess.

“Your mother has made a breakfast feast.”

Mom hands her a fork. “Eat.”

Calla sits beside me.

Dare is across the table wearing one of Dad’s shirts and a pair of my jeans. The shirt is a little too loose through the waist, and the jeans are slightly too short. He has rolled the cuffs above his ankles as though the choice were intentional.

It almost works.

Almost.

He waits until Mom finally sits before clearing his throat.

“There is something I’d like to say.”

I look up from my potatoes. “That sounds ominous.”

Dare ignores me and looks at Mom and Dad.

“You’ve been extraordinarily kind.”

Mom’s expression softens.

“You took me into your home,” he continues. “You’ve fed me, clothed me, arranged medical care, and spent a considerable amount of time trying to determine who I am.”

“You were injured,” Dad says.

“I was a complete stranger.”

“You still are,” I point out.

Calla kicks my shin beneath the table.

I kick her back.

“Regardless,” Dare says, “you were under no obligation to continue helping once I ceased being half-dead.”

“You remain alarmingly pale. We’re still not sure if you’re alive.”

Dare glances at me. “Thank you, Finn.”

“Anytime.”

Mom reaches across the table and rests her hand near his, not quite touching.

“You don’t owe us anything.”

“With respect, I feel like I do.”

The words are courteous. The tone beneath them is not flexible.

Dad hears it too.

Dare sits a little straighter.

“I have no money. Or access to any, if it exists. But there must be work I can do on the property. I’d like to make myself useful while I’m here.”

“You’re recovering,” Mom says.

“I’m quite recovered.”

Dad’s gaze shifts to the fading bruises along Dare’s temple. “You’re recovering.”

Dare considers arguing. He is apparently developing survival instincts.

“Fair enough,” he says. “But there must be something that won’t interfere with my recovery.”

“There’s always work,” Dad says.

“Phillip.”

“Nothing strenuous.” He looks at Dare. “The grounds need constant maintenance. The chapel needs repairs. The steps to the beach are too old. The north fence has been losing an argument with the weather for ten years.”

“I can do that.”

“Do you know how?”

Dare looks down at his hands.

“I suppose we’ll find out.”

He knows how to ride a motorcycle even though he cannot picture it. Maybe he knows how to use tools.

Repair a fence. Build a wall.

Maybe there is an entire person living inside him, communicating only through instinct.

I wonder what that would feel like.

Dad nods once. “We’ll find something appropriate.”

Relief moves across Dare’s face.

Not gratitude. He was already grateful.

Dignity.

I understand that better than I want to.

Mom studies his clothes.

“There is another matter.”

Dare follows her gaze. “Is there?”

“You need clothes of your own.”

“I have clothes.”

“You have Phillip’s shirt and Finn’s trousers.”

Dare looks down. “I thought I carried them rather well.”

“You do,” Calla says.

The room goes quiet.

She freezes with her fork halfway to her mouth.

“The clothes,” she adds. “He carries the clothes well.”

I turn slowly toward her.

“Don’t,” she warns.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Your face has.”

Dare’s mouth twitches.

Mom looks delighted.

Dad looks as though he would like to return to discussing structural repairs.

“I don’t want anyone buying things for me,” Dare says. “You’ve done enough already.”

“You can’t keep rotating between the men in this family,” Mom tells him. “They’re both tall but you’re an inch or two taller.”

“I don’t mind,” he says. “Truly.”

I put down my fork. “You’re wearing my jeans.”

“Yes.”

“They’re too short.”

“That sounds like a problem with your legs.”

Calla laughs into her coffee.

Dad rubs one hand over his face.

“You need your own clothes,” I tell him. “I’d like mine back.”

“Consider the clothes an advance,” Dad tells Dare. “You can work off the expense if that makes you more comfortable.”

“It does.”

“It shouldn’t,” Mom says. “But apparently I’m outnumbered by proud men.”

“You have Calla,” I say.

“Calla is worse than all of you.”

“True,” I agree.

Mom points her fork at me. “You can take him into town.”

“Why me?”

“Because Phillip is working, Calla is preparing for Mack, and I’m under house arrest.”

“You are resting,” Dad says.

“Under supervision.”

I push my plate away.

Dare looks at me. “You needn’t trouble yourself.”

“There’s no trouble. I’ve always wanted to help an amnesiac British man select trousers.”

His brow lifts. “I’m touched.”

“You shouldn’t be. I’m charging for mileage.”

Astoria is wearing its usual expression.

Gray sky. Wet streets. Gulls circling overhead with the confidence of creatures that know no one will ever hold them accountable.

I park downtown beneath a row of old brick buildings. The Columbia is visible between them, wide beneath the clouds.

Dare climbs out and looks toward the river.

“Well?” I ask.

“It’s a river.”

“Excellent. The fingerprints may have failed, but we’re making progress.”

He shuts the door.

The first shop is too expensive.

Dare picks up a dark wool jacket, turns over the price tag, and sets it down so carefully it might explode.

“I’m not letting your father pay that.”

“You’re working it off.”

“I’d have to rebuild the chapel.”

“It could use the attention.”

“No.”

The second shop sells a mixture of new clothing and secondhand pieces that tourists buy to look as though they have always lived near the sea.

Dare lifts a plaid flannel shirt from a rack.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think it has committed no crime worthy of execution.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“It’s a plea for mercy.”

I put it back.

He chooses dark jeans, two plain T-shirts, a charcoal jumper (his word, not mine), and a black jacket with clean lines and no visible logo.

“You dress like a well-funded burglar,” I tell him.

“I’m borrowing money from a mortician. I’m not well-funded.”

“But you’re not disputing the burglar.”

“I don’t possess enough information yet to decide.”

He finds a pair of boots and sits to try them on.

“They fit?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I’d hoped footwear might restore my memory.”

“You joke, but the ocean did reject you without shoes. They may be significant.”

He looks up at me.

“You’re very odd.”

“Yes. My father is a mortician.”

While the clerk folds the clothes, Dare reaches automatically toward his back pocket.

His hand stops.

“What?” I ask.

“I expected something to be there.”

“A wallet?”

“Maybe, but…”

He tries the motion again.

His fingers hover over the empty pocket.

“No,” he says slowly. “Gloves.”

“Gloves?”

He nods, then closes his eyes.

“Black,” he says. “Leather. Worn at the left thumb.”

“You remember them?”

“I can feel the seam.”

He rubs his thumb against the side of his index finger.

“That’s something.”

He looks down at his hand.

“Yeah.”

The clerk returns with the bag, and the moment passes.

The motorcycle appears as we leave the shop.

I hear it before I see it, the engine rising above traffic as it turns onto the wet street.

Dare stops dead on the pavement.

His head turns.

A black motorcycle moves through the intersection, the rider leaning slightly as the light changes.

“Bonneville,” Dare says.

“What?”

“A Triumph Bonneville. Twelve hundred.”

I look at him.

The motorcycle disappears beyond a delivery truck.

“You know that?”

“The rider changed gears too early.”

“You could tell from here?”

“Yes.”

The certainty in his voice is immediate.

Instinctive.

His right hand has closed as if around a throttle.

“Mine was black,” he says.

“Your motorcycle?”

His forehead creases.

“Yes, I think so.”

“You can see it?”

“No.” Frustration sharpens the word. “I know the weight of it. The vibration through the grips. I know how the engine sounds when it’s cold.”

He closes his eyes.

“What else?”

“Wet road.”

I wait.

“Leather gloves.” His fingers tighten. “Wind getting through the collar of my jacket.”

“What road?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you alone?”

His eyes open.

“I don’t know.”

The motorcycle’s engine fades into the distance.

Dare’s hand slowly relaxes.

“That’s more than damaged gloves,” I say.

“It still isn’t a name.”

“No.”

“Or a home.”

“No.”

“Or any indication of how I ended up in your ocean.”

“We don’t own the ocean.”

“You behave as though you do.”

A voice speaks close to my shoulder.

He followed you. He’s watching…watching…watching.

I turn.

People move along the pavement behind us. A woman pushes a stroller beneath a clear plastic cover. Two

men in rain jackets stand outside a coffee shop. An elderly man waits at the corner with a paper cup in one hand.

No one is looking at me. No one spoke to me.

“What is it?” Dare asks.

“Nothing.”

The word comes too quickly.

His gaze shifts over the people behind us.

“Did someone say something?”

“No.”

I start walking.

After a moment, he follows.

We take our coffee to the river.

A cargo ship moves slowly through the Columbia, enormous and silent at this distance. Gulls crowd the railing.

Somewhere farther along the waterfront, sea lions bark at one another with the fury of drunken football fans.

Dare leans against the rail and looks across the water.

“Anything?” I ask.

“Water.”

“You’re very good at identifying geographical features.”

“I may have been a cartographer.”

“With a motorcycle.”

“An adventurous cartographer.”

I drink my coffee.

For several minutes, we watch the ship.

“You like my sister,” I say.

Dare doesn’t look at me. “That was subtle.”

“I’ve never seen the point.”

“No,” he says. “I don’t imagine you have.”

“That wasn’t a denial.”

“It wasn’t intended as one. I’m not a liar. Or at least, I don’t think I am.”

His honesty catches me off guard.

“You don’t know who you are.”

“I’m aware.”

“You could already have someone.”

That turns his head.

“A wife,” I say. “A girlfriend. Someone waiting for you to come home.”

“Yes.”

“Does that bother you?”

“More than you might imagine.”

He looks back toward the river.

“I could be married,” he says. “I could have children. Parents who believe I’m dead. There could be someone

waking every morning and wondering where I am.”

His voice remains controlled.

His grip on the coffee cup does not.

“And yet,” he continues, “I feel nothing. No face. No name. Not even the shape of an absence where they ought to be.”

“You can’t miss what you don’t remember.”

“That doesn’t absolve me of belonging to it.”

There is more decency in that answer than I wanted.

It would be easier if he were careless. Easier if I could dislike him.

“If you hurt Calla—”

“You’ll kill me?”

“No. She’ll kill you. I’ll help conceal the body.”

His mouth curves.

“Comforting.”

“She trusts you.”

The smile disappears.

“I know.”

“She doesn’t trust easily.”

“I know that too.”

“Then be careful.”

“With her?”

“With… everything.”

He studies me for a long moment.

“I am trying to be.”

I believe him.

That may be a problem.

“You’ve questioned me rather thoroughly,” he says.

“You’re welcome.”

“Is it my turn?”

“No.”

“Why did you come home?”

“Because we graduated college.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

I look toward the river.

The cargo ship has nearly reached the bridge.

“Our lease ended. Calla wanted to come back for the summer.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Did you want to come back?”

I run my thumb around the cardboard rim of my cup.

“I wanted to want to.”

Dare waits.

I hate people who know how to use silence.

“I love my family,” I say. “But I finished college, moved out of our apartment, and came back to my childhood bedroom. It feels like someone hit pause while I wasn’t looking.”

“At least you know where home is.”

“Knowing where it is and knowing whether you still belong there aren’t always the same thing.”

The words come out before I can reconsider them.

Dare nods as though I’ve confirmed something.

My phone vibrates.

A message from Mack.

Leaving around six. Tell Calla I’ll be there by ten.

A second message appears.

Try to look less haunted before I arrive.

Dare watches me.

“What?”

“You’ve checked the time repeatedly.”