The old cemetery was on one of the steepest roads outside of Sidwell. It hadn’t been used since 1901, when a new cemetery was built a little closer to town. We hiked up and finally made it. It was a hot day and the sky was a fragile cloud-streaked blue. The grass was so tall it reached past our knees. There were blackbirds wheeling above us, screaming at us as if we didn’t belong, doing their best to chase us away. I hadn’t yet told Julia about Colin Montgomery. I just didn’t want to share him with anyone. Not yet. But whenever I kept a secret from someone it built a wall between us, and now it was happening with Julia. She chatted away, but I stayed quiet, deep in my own thoughts. It was easy enough to do. This was a place where silence felt right. The cemetery was surrounded by a rusty iron fence. But the gate wasn’t locked and was easy to push open. We put our hands against the metal, and in seconds, we were inside. Several members of the Fowler family had been buried here, along with the ancestors of many townspeople whose names I recognized: the great-grandparents of Mr.
