The End of the Day by Bill Clegg

Author:Bill Clegg [Clegg, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781476798226
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Published: 2020-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

Jackie

The dip in the driveway of her parents’ old house as she turns off Undermountain Road scrapes the muffler just as it has her whole life. She steers her car to the right of the garage and slows to a stop in the space between the garbage bin and the woods, exactly where she’d parked in high school and after, when she came to visit with Amy and Rick, and thirteen years ago when she came to take away the last boxes of her parents’ belongings after they died. No one has lived here since, so she’s not worried about trespassing. Still, being back feels strange, and the dark house and moonlit lawn have the eerie wrongness of a nightmare.

It was Dana who bought Jackie’s parents’ house from her even though the lawyer representing the buyer said it was an investment group from the city. The name of the company on the closing papers—Calliope Holdings, LLC—gave her away. Calliope was the queen of the fairies she and Dana had told stories about when they were children. Her survival, and the whole fairy world’s survival, they’d believed, depended on at least one of the jewels she’d disguised as a river stone being discovered before the end of each summer. It was visible only in the light of a setting sun and could only be seen by a girl.

It wasn’t until Jackie sat down in the realtor’s office to sign the closing papers that she saw the name of the buyer and when she did she recoiled as if she’d seen a ghost. She asked for another day to decide and seriously considered not going through with the sale. But she still owed money on her second mortgage and looking ahead, between her social security and 401k, there was very little room for unexpected expenses. Rick and Amy were barely able to keep it together financially, so she couldn’t count on them to take care of her. The next morning she added one hundred thousand dollars to the figure they’d agreed on and drove to the real estate agent’s office in Wells and told her to call the lawyer. With the proceeds from the house, Jackie was able to pay off her debts and put enough away to stop worrying whether or not she’d be able to retire. Her only regret was that Dana had gotten what she’d wanted.

The moon is three-quarters full and the dirt road between her old house and Edgeweather has a dull glow that she remembers from summer nights staying out late with Dana, sneaking along the tree line and pretending not to hear Ada and Maria’s calls for them to come home. Jackie was a girl who did her homework, brushed her teeth before bed, and followed the rules. But with Dana, in those years between eight and seventeen, she allowed herself, on occasion, to be defiant. The rebellions were little more than staying out past dark, but over time each little transgression helped Jackie understand that

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