Adrien doesn’t bother asking if we’ve heard.
“I’ve already checked the contract for the rental cars. They don’t allow drop-offs more than ten hours away from the originating destination.” She sighs. “And there aren’t any hotels in Rollowong. The closest one is in Jagged Rock.”
“Where?” I ask softly. But I already know what she’s going to say. The twist of fate lodges like a knife between my ribs.
“The Inn.”
***
We stop on the way at a grocery store right outside of town, grabbing wilted premade salads for lunch and stocking up on supplies that are mostly alcoholic in nature. We try to ignore the sideways glances and cold remarks from the teenage cashier, evidently the sole employee in the shop, before filing back into our cars.
The asphalt sizzles as we enter Jagged Rock. I’m instantly transported back in time—not to a decade ago when we were last here,but even further. Everything about this place seems like it’s stuck in the wrong century. Squat one- and two-story buildings line the road, mostly in neutral colors, aside from one large building with a wraparound porch that’s painted a faded salmon pink. A clock tower lies at the far end of the street, and the omnipresent red dirt skitters across the road. I feel a pinch in my heart as I take in the number of boarded-up buildings. Graffiti patterns the various shuttered businesses, which outnumber their open counterparts nearly three to one.
I’m expecting it, prepared for it after all, but even so, my breath catches in my throat as it comes into view at the very end of Main Street. The Inn itself is largely unimpressive, a nondescript two-level building. But it’s the mountain that rises up behind it, its tip ascending into the sky like a spindly finger, that brings everything crashing back.
That’s what surprised me most when I first came out here. My mind always associated the desert with vast expanses of sandy flats. But the Outback is a different animal entirely. The bush covers everything, worn down in spots by pathways and eroded by wind, but thriving and dense in others, with no apparent rhyme or reason to its patterns. And just when you think bushland is the only thing the eye can see, the rocky brunt of a hill that the locals refer to as “Big Beulah” bursts out of the ground without warning, dominating everything surrounding it.
“He would have loved it here,” Ellery says quietly from the front seat.
I don’t need to ask who she’s referring to. I know. Tomas.
“He would have,” Declan says lightly, resting his hand on hers.
I picture him then, his smile so big it took over the whole lower half of his face, chocolate brown eyes always eager behind his glasses. So curious, so innocent.
A sadness lodges deep in my stomach, mixed with the longing for what we had back then, back before it all went so wrong.
The car jolts as Declan turns onto the path that leads to the Inn’s parking lot, transitioning from smooth pavement to unpaved dirt. And within moments, we’re back. Kyan pulls in next to us, and we empty out of the cars, all of us unusually quiet, taking it in. The memories.
The life that ended here.
“Want to take bets if Randy’s still here?” Kyan asks, cracking a smile and propelling us towards the building.
No one answers. I completely wiped Randy, the Inn’s owner, from my memories. But I know the bet’s a solid one. Jagged Rock isn’t a place most people leave.
Phoebe included.My mind leaps to the thought before I can stop it.
A bell chimes above our head as I follow Adrien into the Inn’s lobby, and the smell hits me instantly. A mix of dust, of rooms that desperately need to be aired out, and an underlying sourness. A scent that involuntarily lifts my nostril.
“Hmm,” I hear Josh murmur. “No Randy, no anyone.”
I look around, taking in the faded carpet, the peeling wallpaper, nothing apparently changed in the ten years we’ve been gone. My gaze lands on the front desk, the top a mess of peeling wood, the rickety computer chair behind it unoccupied.
“Maybe it’s no longer in business,” Declan poses. It’s not an unreasonable thought. It doesn’t look like this place has welcomed a single guest in the decade since we left.
I take in the wall behind the desk, the various cubbyholes, each of which is filled with a key—one per room. I scan the twenty cubbyholes before stopping on the middle row. One cubby sits empty, its key nowhere to be found.
I clear my throat. “Well, it looks…”
Slam.
The noise explodes like a gunshot through the small enclosed space and we all jump in unison, the thought lodging in my throat.
We turn towards the source of the sound. A door just steps away from the front desk—one I don’t remember having noticed all those years ago—ricochets against the wall, and in its wake stands a familiar lanky man, his dark hair slicked back from his face into a low ponytail that hangs to his shoulders.
“Well, looky here. Most business this place has seen in years.” And then his smile slips. “Wait. I remember you.”
“Hi, Randy,” Kyan says. “We stayed with you a few years back, the group from Hamilton College?”
