Chapter 1
It was warm that morning. Warmer than yesterday, than the weeks, the months before. Spring settled quiet atop Wolf Trap, gradual enough to be missed if you didn’t pay attention. Sky regaining a bluish hue, tinting the gray. Bright. Cool winds. The birds had migrated back, settling into the trees around Will’s property. Buster darted after one, paws splashing through wet patches of melting snow, muddying his fur. Winston followed, then the others, a mad pursuit, some with their paws braced against the tree, barking up at a sparrow.
It didn’t feel as good as it should have, having his dogs back. Will sat on the stairs of his porch, elbows on knees, head in tired hands. Eyelids heavy from too much sleep. A fevered chill stuck to his skin. He squinted up towards the sky, estimating that he had slept until about noon. A tiny pang of guilt that his dogs had to wait so long. Winston had tried to wake him a few times, an eager lick at the side of his face. Each time he’d rolled over, faced the other direction.
Alana wasn’t coming today, Will decided, nodding once to himself. Bones cracking as he stood. It was probably for the best.
She had taken to coming to his house every other Friday morning. Busy work schedule, she claimed, otherwise she’d come more often. She was up for Chilton’s old position and had a lot of “board meetings to attend.” The words sounded flat and awkward coming out of her mouth. Both she & Will knew it, but neither said anything. Will couldn’t complain. Her visits were, admittedly, needed. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since the end of the trial, and as good as they were, his dogs were hardly a substitute for human interaction.
The visits were sweet, at first. She’d show up in the early morning, sometimes with coffee, breakfast. Walk for a while with him, his dogs. She’d ask about his visits with Jack, insisting to Will ‘He shouldn’t make you talk about him if you don’t want to.’
Alana never said his name. Will often found himself amused by the way she danced around it, as if it might set him off.
She would skip an “every other Friday” or two here and there, claiming meetings, illness. At first he missed her absence, but then, when she’d show up on a Saturday with an unusual air of obligation, Will began to resent Alana’s presence. Her questions about how well he was eating, how much he was drinking, how he was feeling. No more walks in the woods, smiles on their faces as the dogs ran circles around them. Now it was… a meeting. Something in a calendar, something she made up if she missed. Impersonal. Ingeuine.
It might have just been the isolation getting to him. But one afternoon Alana brought a well-intentioned casserole, and Will noticed the way her face changed when he joked that he was not “Hannibal Lecter’s widow” and she could “stop taking care of me like I am.”
That was over a month ago. Alana hadn’t been by since.
Will walked down off his porch, mud squelching under his shoes. He bent down, and patted Henry as he trotted by. Body stiff, each movement a dull ache. It was nice, in a way, to know he didn’t have to prepare for company today. No need to perform, to show that he was sane, that he was coping. He thought, momentarily, of giving Alana a call, telling her that she needn’t visit at all anymore. Realized, quickly, that that would likely prompt a visit, and decided against it.
He swallowed something bitter. Meandered further and further away from his house, dogs running circles around him.
The sun grew warmer overhead as the day crawled on. Cloudless blue, snow turning to slush, flooding the fields. He was grateful when they reached the cover of the trees, branches shielding the ground from sun, and he could again walk through unmelted snow. He whistled for his dogs when some strayed too far, but most of them knew the way, yards in front of him, sniffing along the ground as they walked.
The stream was flowing. Will heard the gentle static of bubbling water as they approached. Patches of ice still clung to the shore here and there, water flowing fast around them. Buster jumped in, then promptly out, shaking vigorously.
“Too cold?”
Buster stood, pawing at Will’s leg. He sat on the fallen log where he usually did whenever he came to this spot, scooping Buster up into his arms. He held him to his chest, wet fur soaking his clothes, piercing cold.
The sun slid across the sky and a patch of light found Will, warming the top of his head, his shoulders. Harley and Zoe wrestled in a patch of snow. Ellie used her paw to splash at a stick drifting near the shore.
This was where he came to be happy. He should be happy.
He’d sit and watch the way the light bounced off rushing water, when days went right and he wanted to savor them, to revel in fleeting contentment. When days went wrong, and he needed a moment away, to himself, to think, the tranquil drone of the stream muted the rest of the world.
Everything seemed muted now. He felt, all at once, heavy and light. As if he might float away or be sucked into the crushing earth. Will hung above his body, staring down at himself, a second out of sync with reality. His fingers ran over the scar where Buster’s fur didn’t grow anymore.
Somehow, in some twisted way, this was all Hannibal’s fault.
The fact that this, right now, what was once considered “normal life” was more of an “after,” was his fault. Will hated how much it all still affected him. Hated, every day, how he felt like a dead man, haunting the grounds, the house, where he lost his mind.
Will scowled. No. Stood up.
He would not allow Hannibal into his head. Not here. This was a place Hannibal was not allowed to touch.
Spring settled in and stuck. Will hated the warmer days. The cold gave him an excuse to stay indoors, but now the sun burnt through his flimsy rationalizations, shone a harsh light on his state of mind. He spent his days crafting lures and not fishing. Reading. Drinking. Mostly drinking, waiting for the lengthened days to end, the daylight to leave him be.
Jack called as the sun set one evening, asking in monotone how Will had been doing, rushing through awkward pleasantries before telling Will that two young couples had been found mutilated in Delaware. Something in Will’s chest cracked, and he laughed as he hung up the phone.
Jack didn’t call again.
His house, his bones, grew dusty. Everything that was once comforting and familiar felt strange. Wrong. An unnamed emptiness. He tried, for a while, to blame it on the lack of human contact. Went on one date with a woman and decided, no, that wasn’t it, and decided not to contact her again. Drank himself to sleep.
The dogs woke Will up the next morning, chorus of frantic barks sharp and painful in his ears, head spinning as he sat up, squinting out his window. He spotted the black car in his driveway at the same moment as he heard a knock on his door. No doubt they’d already seen him, so he stood, walked to the door, pajamas and dark circles.
Margot Verger regarded the sight of him with raised eyebrows. The dogs rushed around her, bounding towards the field.
“Did I wake you?”
Soft features and sharp angles, a high black collar, a dark leather bag. Will blinked a few times, not sure if he was awake.
“What are you doing here, Margot?”
She shifted the weight of the bag on her shoulder. “Alana sent me.”
Will’s eyebrows shot up. “Did she?”
Margot cleared her throat quietly. “Yes.” Moving as if she meant to enter. Will stood in the doorway, not intentionally blocking her, but not letting her inside. He moved only when she asked, in slow and measured syllables,
“Are you going to invite me inside?”
Will nodded once, curt. Stepped to the side. Eyed his dogs and closed the door.
Margot stood, stiff and awkward on the threshold, not quite sure where to move. A prickling heat rose in Will’s cheeks, noticing, for the first time in weeks, the state of his house.
“Uh,” he moved quick and awkward, snatching a coat off one of his chairs, moving a pile of books off another. “Here, sorry, I haven’t… I didn’t know you were coming.”
Margot nodded, not really listening. “Whiskey?”
“Asking or offering?”
“Asking.”
Will ran a hand through his hair, head pounding beneath his palm. “I don’t know, it’s…” he realized, halfway through the sentence, that he didn’t have the slightest idea what time it was. “…morning.”
Margot’s eyes widened. “It’s afternoon.” Glanced at his bed, the disheveled state of it. “Did you just wake up?”
The words hung in the air and Will had no answer to them, the shock of her visit turning quick to annoyance. He ignored her, walking to the kitchen, fetching two glasses and a bottle. “If Alana was this concerned about me, she could have called herself.”
Margot cast a thoughtful glance upwards. “True.” Will poured two sizeable glasses, extended one to Margot who took it with silent fingers. “I’ll admit that I’m not… entirely here on her behalf.”
She looked to Will, eyes on his face, as if she were studying what impact, if any, the words had. Will responded by gesturing to the chair beside her. She sat slow, placing her bag with unnecessary care next to it on the floor. Her eyes were on her glass, tilting back and forth, both palms wrapped around it. Will tossed back half of his drink. Waited for Margot to speak, to clarify. A few moments of uncomfortable silence ticked by before Will got impatient.
“Why are you here, Margot.” Flat. Defensive.
“You want me to cut right to the chase?” Margot spoke over her glass, bottom lip pressed against the rim.
“I’ve done away with pleasantries nowadays.”
Margot smiled. “Fair enough.” Continued, knowingly, with blatant pleasantries. “How are you? I never saw you at the trial, I was only there for my own testimony.”
Will sniffed, eyes on his whiskey. Margot knew perfectly well how he was, sleeping until the afternoon, unkempt hair and wrinkled pajama pants, empty bottle of whiskey on the floor beside the bed. “I’m coping.”
Margot seemed satisfied with this answer. “We all are, in our own ways.” Sipped. “I’m coping, every day, with what happened at the farm. After Alana and I released Hannibal.”
Will’s eyes closed of their own volition, an unconscious reaction. He exhaled, forced them open.
“I feel a lot of guilt for that.” Slender fingers, bloodred nails tapping against the glass. “But Hannibal saved your life. And turned himself in, so… I don’t ever find myself feeling too poorly about it.”
Will had apparently lost all conscious control of his expression. He felt his lips pulled into a smile. It was nice having someone not dance around him, never mentioning what happened, as if he were frail and would break at the sheer memory.
“I don’t feel any guilt over what happened to my brother.”
The smile fell from Will’s face. Margot’s was stone. Unreadable.
Will prompted, an eyebrow raised. “Happened?”
Margot’s expression matched his. “What I did to my brother.” A short, amused exhale at Will’s correction. She sipped once more. “There’s going to be an heir. Hannibal helped assure that. And now with Mason out of the picture, I can move on with my life.”
Will tilted his glass back in one swift movement, finishing his drink.
Margot pursed her lips, spending a moment in thought before continuing.
“I got my closure…” the stress on specific syllables gave her sentence a particular meaning. Will leaned forward in his chair, spoke again to correct her.
“Yes, and I got mine.”
Margot tilted her head. “Did you?”
Will held the empty glass tight in his fingers. Defensive. He didn’t know about what. “Yes. He’s put away, he’s going to be... away, forever. That was always the end goal.”
“And you feel good about that,” a question in the form of a statement. “Right? You feel like you can move on?”
Will did nothing to hide his scowl. The appreciation for her honesty began to wan, annoyance again taking hold, tainting his words as they left his mouth. “Why are you here, Margot?”
Her eyes were in her lap. She finished her drink. ”There’s something I still haven’t quite found… closure on. Alana and I talked about this, since we’re going to-”
She stopped. Deliberated. Continued. “She thinks telling you would help.”
Will sat back in his chair. “Why would you think I’d be able to help you?”
“It’s about you.” She grew visibly uncomfortable now, spine straightening. She placed her glass on the table next to the chair. “Us, actually…. Our baby.”
Will frowned, the memory unexpectedly unpleasant. “What about it?”
“There’s… no easy or delicate way to put this, so I’m just going to say it.” Margot placed her hands on her knees, squeezing. “When Mason did… what he did to me, he terminated the pregnancy. He didn’t terminate the fetus.”
Will blinked. Mind not quite there yet.
Margot breathed. In, out. Steadying. Continued, speaking a bit faster, as though the quicker the explanation the less painful it would be. “He took the baby and implanted it in a surrogate. It lived to term. It didn’t live long after that.”
Will stopped breathing.
Margot bit down on her lip. “He... Mason. He left the baby in a pig for me to find. That night.”
A heavy exhale. “Christ.”
Will pressed into his eyes with the pads of his fingers, blackening out the world. Rubbed his palm over his face. Too much. This was too much all at once. His own voice sounded far off, muffled by the deafening pounding of his heart against his ribs. He tried, frantic, to force horrific images out of his head, bombarding him from all sides. Wondering if the reality was as gruesome as what he pictured. Knowing that, with Mason as mastermind, it likely was.
“Jesus, Margot, I… I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Other than the initial… act, you haven’t done anything.”
Will looked up, met Margot’s gaze. She kept her emotions well guarded behind a blank expression, patient, studying Will’s face just as intensely as he studied hers, neither completely able to understand the other. Still, there was a calm, comfortable sense of understanding that permeated the horror. Will latched onto it, basked in it for a few moments and allowed it to fill him up, tried to use it to drown the sense of crushing dread he felt in the pit of his stomach.
Will blinked. Margot mirrored. Both waiting for the other to speak.
“Then why… why tell me?” Will, sitting forward. Elbows on knees. “If I had such a small role, why come here and tell me this?”
Margot nodded to herself, eyes on a spot on the wall over Will’s shoulder. She settled on her words, spoke them confident and clear. “You were… close with Alana, and every time she came to talk to you, it felt like we were keeping some horrible secret.”
Will chewed the inside of his cheek. Margot continued.
“It was hanging over my head. I need to move on, Will. I’ll never forget him but I need to let go of my grief.”
Will’s breath caught on something in his throat. His eyes stung.
“Him?”
Margot’s guard splintered, face softening.
“A boy?”
She spoke in a whisper. “Yes. ”
Will shuddered with his inhale. “God…”
“There’s something else.”
Will felt every muscle in his body tense at once. His eyes locked onto Margot’s hands as they reached for the bag she’d placed on the ground next to her, tracking every minor movement. She pulled it up onto her lap, undoing the latches, slow and deliberate. Produced, from within it, an impossibly tiny container.
An urn.
Will’s lungs filled to burst.
“I had him cremated.” Margot’s words met his ears through a filter of buzzing static. Eyes locked onto the container, sleek black stone, pale fingers wrapped around it. “I couldn’t stand the thought of a tiny casket, so… I have half his ashes at the estate, and…” She trailed off into silence.
Will realized. Looked back up at Margot. “No, Margot that’s… that’s too much.”
“Will,”
“I can’t just-“
“Will, please.” Her words loud and sudden. She took a breath, eyes closed. “It’s… important to me. It feels right that you have them.”
Will’s lips slightly parted. Exasperated. Overwhelmed. Margot extended it, in one hand, to him.
He took it. It was heavier than expected, smooth, cold.
Small. So, so incredibly small.
“You can keep them, or, if you have somewhere you’d like to spread them, you can…”
She trailed off when she realized Will wasn’t listening. He rolled the urn around in his hands, feeling everything he’d ever felt all at once. At his core, an unnamed, white hot… something. Searing, buried under the other emotions pouring into him, over him.
Squeezed his eyes. Shook his head.
“Thank you, Margot.”
She looked, at least, for a moment, content. “I’m moving on, Will. Not forgetting, but moving on. Living my life. You should too. At least… try. Alana worries about you.”
Will swallowed the bitter response at the front of his throat. “I will.”
Margot stood, picking up her bag. “It was nice to see you, Will.”
“Thank you for coming by, Margot.”
She nodded, once, the air in the room suddenly thick, and moved towards the door. One hand on the handle before Will interrupted her.
“Do you ever…” Will wanted to stop the words. He wanted to, so desperately, but they came all the same, stumbling into the air. “...miss… him?” Too pleading, too obvious. Margot looked at Will in a way that made him want to shrink into himself.
“Mason?” Pity in her expression like spit on Will’s cheek. “No, I don’t.”
Margot stepped out the door without another word, Will standing in the empty space she left behind, the unnamed something burning a hole through his intestines, melting his bones.
The dogs accompanied him on his walk. Blissfully unaware of the heavy cloud that hung overhead, making Will cold in the warm dusk. The ground was firm, now, stalks killed by the snow breaking the earth and reaching for the sun. Sky shades of dull orange, dark blue hanging over the trees in the distance. Winston trotting at his side.
The stream didn’t look as dull as it had a few weeks ago. Glistening current reflecting the sunset splashed overhead, framed by bright green on either side. He didn’t think of his shoes, his clothes as he waded in. Forgetting, when a shiver shot through his body, how cold the water actually was, despite the warmth of the night. He looked up, eyes on two violently pink clouds that floated by.
It was inappropriately beautiful. He waded further into the quiet of the stream. Sun warmed black stone in his palms.
It was one of the worst feelings, finding out he was going to be a father. Never in his life had he felt such intense panic, a wild and desperate need to put a stop to it. Eventually, panic faded to an ache, a want that he had felt only in passing before, whenever he dreamed of Abigail. A want that nearly broke him when the baby was taken away. A want, he prayed, for the sake of the world, he would never feel again. The children Will imagined himself begetting had no place on this earth.
Will felt it now, rushing around his limbs, warming his skin, his muscles against the cold of the stream. He blinked down at the urn, tried and failed to stop thinking of what ifs. Swallowed.
It was better this way. But the want followed him home all the same, sticking to his skin, tugging at his dreams.