Page 29 of A Sea of Unspoken Things
The places Icouldhear him were in the entries that meandered from the default voice of the scientist. He sometimes rambled into more than just what he saw in a way that felt almost strange. Two notebooks in, I was picking up on a pattern that suggested that the longer Johnny observed his subjects, the more attached he appeared to get. His handwriting became increasingly illegible as he teased out his theories about how the birds might be related to one another, or how theyseemedto him. Every few reports, it almost sounded like he was talking about the feelings, struggles, and circumstances of people, not animals.
Thatwas Johnny. That was Johnny through and through. And it was nowhere more apparent than in his recorded observations of Subject 44. The owl in Trentham Gorge.
The entries began officially on October 11, 2022, when Johnny first documented the subject. Only a few entries in, it was apparent that the bird had been an elusive one. There were fewer negatives in Johnny’s files for the owl than any other, which meant he hadn’t had much luck when he went out to get photographs. Most of the entries in the field notes revealed that Johnny had been fixated on the owl’s defective foot, taking detailed notes on 44’s health, mobility, and any other perceived areas of concern he wanted to compare notes on.
His visits to the gorge were spread out over the next two years, and unlike the other subjects, 44 was spotted fewer than half of those times. That explained the lack of film.
I unearthed the contact sheet for the roll I’d developed, setting it beside the laptop. If he was in Trentham Gorge on November 10, the date that had been written on the canister, then Johnny was a few weeks past the designated CAS observation window.
Knowing Johnny, the looming project deadline might explain why he’d been out there that day, and he’d obviously had his camera then. He’d probably been trying to get more images before he had to submit everything to Quinn. Why he hadn’t even finished the roll of film he was shooting, I didn’t know. Maybe a storm had blown in or something else unexpected had forced him back to town. But two days later, he would return to the gorge. This time, without his camera. Or his notebook.
I stared at the open page, trying to make sense of it, but the flicker of movement in my peripheral vision interrupted the thought. My gaze lifted to the booth across the diner—Johnny’s booth. But it wasn’t empty anymore.
The blurred, shadowed shape sharpened more with each second. A head of dark hair. A set of square shoulders. As each detail solidified, it was harder and harder to deny what I was seeing. It was him. It was Johnny. Slowly materializing before my very eyes.
He sat with his back to me, his elbows on the table and his attention cast to the window. I felt cold suddenly, my throat closing. The lights of the diner seemed to dim, the sounds quieting around me as I stared at the back of his head, waiting for him to turn around. Like at any moment, he would feel my gaze on him.
“No rest for the wicked.”
I jumped when Sadie appeared at the edge of the table, a pot of steaming coffee in each hand. She followed my gaze to the empty corner booth I’d been staring at with a faintly puzzled look.
When I blinked, Johnny was gone.
“You all right, James?”
I could hear my own breath loud in my ears, the cold on my skin replaced by a sheen of sweat. “I’m fine,” I choked.
Sadie’s expression was shifting now. She eyed my empty coffee cup. “Should we switch to decaf?”
I glanced at the clock, rubbing at my temples. It was already almost fivep.m.“God, I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“You’ve been sitting here for hours.” She turned to shout at Ben, who was standing behind the counter. “Get her some soup, Ben. A slice of cornbread, too.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to—”
She ignored me. “The eggs you had this morning are only going to take you so far. And the longer you sit here without eating, the more anxious it makes me.”
That warmth and tenderness wasn’t something I’d expect from the old Sadie. She’d always been defensive, like she needed to prove something. And maybe she did, with Johnny. With a guy like that, I wondered if it was possible to ever feel good enough. But now, there was a warmth in Sadie’s eyes, and I wondered if it was a characteristic that came from motherhood.
“I wanted to say thank you, actually. For sending Ben over yesterday. That was really…sweet.”
“No problem.” Sadie filled my coffee cup just as the door to the diner opened, making the bell jingle.
Rhett Walker stepped inside, making me go stiff. He pushed the hood of his jacket down, revealing a head of wild dark hair, and his mustache twitched as his icy gaze scanned the diner.
I impulsively glanced down at his hands, half expecting them to still be covered in blood. But now, they were clean.
“Hey there, Rhett.” Sadie lifted one of the coffeepots in greeting, and he grunted in return. When his eyes landed on me, he stopped short.
I tried to smile. “Hi, Mr. Walker.”
But he just stared at me, those glassy eyes not breaking from mine.The rigid set of his jaw was turning more severe by the second. When he finally spoke, his voice was like crushed stone.
“Better keep that grim away from my property line.”
My brow creased. “What?”
It took a few seconds for me to make the connection. He was talking about Smoke. Calling him a grim—a specter or a haunting spirit. The reference made my blood run cold again.