NOTE from the Gardener:
The name of this story is inspired by a song of the same name by Dodie, which played on repeat during its writing. Thank you to
Miss Ladybug
for her wonderful first-draft reading and editing.
The Kedah night clung to Samara, like a coat of thick, wet paint. It was a combination of the sweltering, almost underwater moisture in the air around her, and the beads of sweat which had broken loose from around her forehead and now made long, damp tracks down either side of her cheeks and hairline toward her linen blouse.
She wanted to sleep, but she didn't. Couldn't. She knew that the moment her body touched the sheets of her pull-out bed, they would be soaked through with sweat. In Chicago, where she came from, the rain usually meant a breaking of the heat; at the very least, a lessening, a dissipation. Not here, in Malaysia. She had booked an air-bnb in the Kota Kuala Muda region for three weeks, of which she had only passed ten days. It was removed from any of the main areas, down a long trail that vaguely followed the shore from where the Merbok River flowed out through the countryside, separating Merbok from its larger neighbour in Sungai Petani, out to meet the enormous, tidal-washed Straits of Malacca.
No--here, the heat was a constant, hated companion. The electrical whirring of fans did nothing to it, only washing the sluggish air in waves around her. Anything in the house made of wood; walls, bookshelves, cupboard, were all so swollen with moisture that their lined edges wept. It looked as if the house were crying, or sweating. In that way, it matched Samara perfectly. Raising one hand to the bottom of her throat, she scratched at the pool of sweat that had formed there, between the peaks of her shirt collar. Her nails, cut short as they were, stung hollowly as they left red lines against her sweat-slick skin.
She should burn the letter. Even the thought of lighting a fire was enough to make her already queasy stomach turn over, but she swallowed against the nausea of it. She should burn the letter. It had been sent a week ago, and arrived yesterday. She had recognized the handwriting on its front immediately, the careful lines now slightly smudged and hazy. She had read the letter, once quickly--already knowing what it would say, and the second time slowly, lingering in the mixture of disappointment and hurt. Then she had slipped the letter back into its envelope. The paper had grown soft during the humid day, and folded like cloth between her fingers.
Dear Sam
, the letter began,
I know you won't be happy with this. I've been offered a full-time position at the University and there's interviews for it that need to be done. I would love to come join you in Malaysia. Maybe next time? I know you've been planning this for us for ages and I'm really sorry. I'm really really sorry. We'll chat when you get home. Last time, I promise. --Vee
She glanced away from the still-closed letter. She'd read it so many times, that day, that she thought she could recite it with her eyes closed. It wasn't fair, she knew. The whole thing wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for her to be left stranded on a foreign island, it wasn't fair for Veronica to have cancelled, and it wasn't fair of her to feel the deep, burning tightness of resentment at the bottom of her stomach. The first couple of times, she hadn't--it had only been the lighter pang of disappointment. But too many letters, too many apologies, too much absence, now built like bile at the back of her throat.
Too many. She stared out into the darkness beyond her veranda, feeling the slight sway of the wooden swing beneath her as she set the letter down on the slats. It was suspended to the unstable roof with two lengths of rope. If the whole thing were to split in the center and come collapsing down over Samara, in that moment, she wasn't sure that she would care. The only thing to hold back the overwhelming darkness were two halos of light, which came from the globed bulbs beside either door. They wavered unsteadily, like lights underwater. Every so often, the shadow of a larger bug made one flicker. She could hear the flick and patter as they did a jumping dance over the slightly smoky glass. Smaller insects burned themselves on the sixty-watt bulbs. She couldn't see them now, in the dimmer light beneath the glow, but she knew that in the morning she'd find the husks of them; crisped and curled, laying on the heat-warped boards. The tiny forms of mosquitos and mayflies broken by the iridescent, gasoline-like carapaces of jewel beetles.
For another long moment she sat there, unmoving. Only one thumb disturbed her stillness, pulling at the top corner of the envelope until it had gone nearly round and bent. No--she wouldn't burn the letter. Like everything else around here, it deserved to be drowned. Picking herself up from the swinging bench, feeling it bump against the back of her knees, Samara pulled her phone from her back pocket and replaced it with the letter. It was only a ten minute walk to the water. She knew it wouldn't, of course, but some small thought at the back of Samara's mind hoped that the letter might make it all the way back to Chicago. That Veronica might find it, the writing illegible but for a few streaks of black on the waterlogged white, washed up on a trash-littered beach. Just enough left for her to recognize it as her own.
It was where it belonged. There, or at the very bottom of the ocean. Raising her phone, Samara clicked the flashlight icon. Immediately, the night became brighter--only in a single line in front of her. Immediately, small bugs began to flick around her hand, searching for the source of this new streak of daylight. Her shoed feet crunched slightly on the gravel that had been strewn over the dirt path in front of her house, as she searched for the small roadway that led down to the water.
She found it a moment later. Around her, the night was alive with noise. The chirping of insects, the calls of night-birds, the sound of her footsteps and that of her breathing. In the trees to her right, far off, something
cooed
. But mostly, it was the heat that made noise. Most people don't realize, until they've experience it, that it does that. Like a low, steady thrum behind the back of her ears, inside of her skull--like the lowest string of a bass guitar being pulled. An insistent, throbbing noise that became pressure over time.
She wasn't as young as she'd once been, but a lifetime of hiking and swimming had kept Samara in a shape that most people would have found enviable. Beneath the green linen of her pants and the lighter, white-grey linen of her summer blouse, her limbs were long and limber. Not thin, the way she had been when she was younger, but like rope. Finely woven and strong. A sweep of blonde hair hung behind her, tied in place by an elastic band. It swung from one shoulder to another as she walked through the darkness, following the beam of her flashlight. Next month, she'd be thirty-six.
It was the music, which first caught her attention. Almost too low to hear, but rising gradually the closer she came to the rusted gate at the end of the pathway. Tinny. Played from a small speaker, dissipating quickly into the openness of the night around it. She could also hear the sound of water, splashing against rocks. Not like waves; too uneven for that, too... living. Not the sound of water, but the sound of something in it.
There was something
more
strange than the music, though; more than the fact that somebody was playing it, shortly before midnight, at what she had assumed was a perpetually empty beach. It was American. She recognized the notes of
Bon Jovi
's
Never Say Goodbye
, drifting through the humid air.
Ducking under the chain-locked gate, Samara moved slowly toward the edge of the water. Here, the hanging trees pulled back and the grass rose for a moment before descending steeply down to a long, narrow stretch of beach. It was untended, more rock than sand, and shallow. She found the source of the music, before the person who had placed it there. A grey plastic speaker, propped between two rocks. A small black circle sat on top of it. Samara recognized it immediately, as something that she used to keep in her car; a disc case.
Who the hell is still listening to music on CDs
? She wondered.
She barely noticed the stack of clothes laying on the sandy grass beside it.
Her question was answered a moment later. Small rocks scattered under the bottom of her feet, sand squelching, as she made her way to the shoreline. In this area, more rocky than others, the shore dipped down steeply to make a half-bowl in the side of the shoreline. As she breathed, Samara could smell the salt from the water. It tingled against the openings of her nose. Even here, there was no breeze to be felt, and the heat eased only slightly.
