17 & Gone (27 page)

twigs, scraped raw in places, as heavy

as a sack of bricks.

“I tried,” I said.

She kept staring.

I sat on the end of my bed and

watched her in the vanity mirror. It was

easier than looking directly at her.

Talking to her reflection came easier,

too.

“I told them,” I said. “I told them you

didn’t run away. That’s what you wanted

me to say, right? But, Abby, I don’t

know if they believed me. And that

Cassidy girl from the summer? Don’t

even ask me what she said. I went down

there and I told them . . . I don’t know

what else to do.”

I tried to keep my voice down, so my

mom wouldn’t hear, but why wouldn’t

Abby say something? Anything? Why

wouldn’t she blink or nod or give me a

sign?

If she told me what to do next—where

to go, what to look for—all of this could

be over by morning. Any one of the girls

could give me a little push like that if

she wanted. I mean, if that’s why they

contacted me, why wouldn’t they do the

simplest, quickest thing? It made me

question them, and myself, and all of

this. It made me wonder about the

dreams and the house that contained

them. Either I was meant to stay outside

and help, or I was meant to join them

inside and never get out. This dark

thread of tightrope between the two

options couldn’t keep me upright for

long.

Abby, though. Abby was different.

She would be the one to give me her

secret and let me unravel the answers.

Why else stare at me like that?

I took in all her details in the mirror:

the mud spatter and the pieces of road

and nature melded to her skin. The

center hole in her throat had a faint

glow, like she’d taken my pendant and

swallowed it. Her lips were a thin, grim

line, closed to air and words.

“It would help if you told me,” I said.

“What happened when you were walking

back from Luke’s house?”

I watched as she turned slowly, in

small, jerky increments, until the back of

her body was what faced the mirror and

the front of her faced away from me.

I hadn’t done what she wanted. I’d

visited her grandparents—I’d done that

—but maybe I should have said more.

Maybe I’d been a coward. Maybe I

knew how her grandmother would have

responded

if

I’d

told

her

the

disconnected

spirit

of

her

lost

granddaughter

was

communicating

through me, a complete stranger, from

some open gateway between this world

and the next. And that I didn’t know what

this meant about where she was now,

and I didn’t know what that meant for

where she could be found in the future. I

barely knew how to explain it myself.

Really, that would have gone over

well.

I was going to say this when Abby

suggested writing the letter. She’d turned

her body deliberately, and I saw what

she was facing now: the open notebook

on my desk, the pen pointed to the page.

When I sat down at the desk, she came

closer, and when I picked up the pen she

was at my elbow, smoke-gray breath

singeing my skin.

I couldn’t mimic her handwriting, and

this wasn’t a session of automatic

writing in which I sealed my eyes,

cleared my mind, and let the barest touch

of her ghostly hand guide my own. I

simply wrote down what she wanted to

say for her, because she couldn’t hold

the pen and write it herself.

For the return address, I used the one

on Dorsett Road. I borrowed an

envelope and a stamp from my mom’s

desk in the kitchen downstairs, and then I

carried the letter up to my room to mail

from a public post office box in the

morning.

But as I was pulling the covers to my

chin and curling up to go to sleep, I felt

her still there in the room, as if I could

do more even than that, as if I should be

trolling the back roads in my van, calling

out her name, pasting her poster on every

telephone pole, visiting the police

station every day until they reclassified

her case as possible foul play. I thought

of Fiona Burke, who I felt sure was

observing from a perch somewhere in

the shadows, and I thought of how I’d

never wondered what happened to her,

before this winter, and how I should

have. How heartless it was for a girl to

be forgotten and buried before there was

even anything of her to put in the ground.

I wouldn’t let that happen now, again.

Not to Abby Sinclair.

—
41
—

FRIDAY
was Deena’s eighteenth

birthday party at her boyfriend’s house.

It was also the night I lost any control I

had over this. If I’d ever been in control.

First the noise. Not all in my head this

time—also in the room around me. It

was a raucous party as Deena had been

hoping. All the activity didn’t drown out

the insistent whispering in my head but

drew it out, made it frantic. So much

seemed to be happening, and there I was

in the midst of it, sitting on a sagging

plaid couch with a spiked jug of

cranberry juice. I was a part of things in

the way any piece of furniture would be.

I’d forgotten anyone could see me and

flinched when two girls from school

came up asking if I was still into Jamie.

“Wait, is Jamie here?” I said. “Have

you seen him?”

They said he was around somewhere,

or I thought that’s what they said, but

before I could ask why, they’d moved

away and somehow taken my jug, the

one between my knees that I’d been

lifting up, again and again, to my mouth.

It was here that the party turned from

me. I became completely detached from

it as if a scissor had poked through the

page and removed me from the scene.

I realized two things: One, that

cranberry juice Deena left me with sure

had a lot of vodka mixed up in it. And

two, none of these people would notice

if I went missing.

Flash, I’m gone, and they’d keep

partying.

It could happen to me here, at this

party, at right that very moment: There’d

be a girl in my spot on the couch and

then no girl taking up space on the plaid

cushion. The seat would stay open for a

minute or two before someone snagged

it. And that would be the last of me.

I checked to see what clothes would

be listed on my Missing poster: black

boots; black cargo pants; ugly flannel

shirt I forgot I even had on; under that, a

V-neck gray shirt with a rip in the

shoulder; black tank top underneath it

all. Would anyone remember any of

those details when asked?

That was when I noticed it, the

pendant, how it wasn’t tucked under all

the layers of my clothes the way I liked

it to be. It had been pulled out, and I

hadn’t noticed. It was hanging down

over my chest. Glowing a milky, fizzy

white.

I stood up. I grabbed my coat. Of

course no one stopped me. I took a step

toward the door, and everything went on

just as it was.

It was when I was pushing through the

crowd to get to that door and to the front

porch and then past the porch to where I

parked my van outside. It was right then.

The shadows. I noticed them at the edges

of the room, down by the floor, near the

heating vents, and up by the ceiling,

where the stucco met the plain white

walls.

These

shadows

formed

themselves into thin tendrils, like

fingers. And the fingers grew, coiling

into long, snakelike arms. Reaching. I

knew if I got close, they could grab me.

Maybe this was what each of the girls

saw before her time came. One of the

shadows was directly over my head

now. It could let go at any moment. It

could drop and take me down with it.

No one else could see them. Everyone

from the party was oblivious: Chugging

cups from the keg. Smoking up in the

corner. Dancing to bad music on the

worn rug. Making out against the wall.

Picking a fight near the windows.

Ordinary things on an ordinary night—

and Happy Birthday, Deena, you made it

—all while something terrible was

coming for me, about to swallow me and

make me gone.

It couldn’t be my time yet. Could it? I

had people to help, girls to unearth and

keep track of, girls who needed me out

here, alive. Didn’t I? I had to leave this

house. I knew how hot the shadowy

hands would be, from the fire, how their

grip would singe through my flannel shirt

and my cotton shirt beneath it and even

the shirt beneath that, to what’s left,

which was my skin.

Once they touch your skin, you’re

theirs.

—
42
—

I
was facedown in the snow, and there

was a boot planted before my eyes.

Something damp was in my mouth, but it

wasn’t a tongue. It was the sopping-wet

finger of my own glove. I think I

might’ve been sucking on it.

I pulled out the finger, spit out some

lint, and looked up. The sole of the boot

had a red stripe, and ice and snow were

crusted into the laces. There was another

boot exactly like it beside the first, and

far up above both the boots was a set of

shoulders and, above that, a head. The

head was shaking with laughter.

Then he reached out a hand, stretching

out his arm so it was close enough to be

grabbed by mine. “C’mon, let me help

you up.”

This wasn’t Jamie, but it was a guy I

knew. Really, it was a guy I’d talked to

only recently, a guy I wouldn’t have

known if not for knowing the girls.

“You’re plastered,” Luke Castro said

—Abby Sinclair’s Luke. He grinned

when he said it, and I couldn’t see his

face to tell if this was all a joke to him

or if he really cared.

“No,” I mumbled, “it’s not that.”

Because it wasn’t. It wasn’t the spiked

cranberry juice that made me run out of

Karl’s house—or if it was that, it was

only partly that. I remembered the

shadows, targeting me and descending

fast.

“Sure,” he said sarcastically. “You’re

perfectly sober. Sure.”

“I’m fine,” I said, and I shook off his

hand and stood up on my own. I

wobbled and tried to hide it. “Are you a

friend of Karl’s or something?”

“You asked me that already,” he said.

Wait. I did?

“Tell me again,” I said. “Tell me

again you didn’t do anything to her.” I

was back in our first conversation,

asking after Abby Sinclair, and it took

him a few moments to get there himself,

even though I was the one who’d so

obviously been drinking.

“I didn’t.
Do
anything. To her,” he

said.

We were off to the side of the house,

away from the windows, like we meant

to sneak over here for a reason. Did I?

Did I find Luke at some point and lead

him out here? Did I do anything

embarrassing? Did I say something

stupid? Did he hurt Abby and all along I

didn’t know it? Did anyone see us go out

here? How many of those things did I

say out loud?

There was a motion sensor and not a

regular light, which I didn’t realize until

it flicked off and dropped us into

darkness. I couldn’t see the puff of

breath trailing from his mouth, though I

could feel it, since his face was so close

to mine. He smelled the way I remember

Abby remembering he smelled—or else

it was the way he’d smelled when I

made that visit to his house weeks

before. Her memories were cutting into

mine, lifting up out of nowhere and

confusing me.

She thought I’d been ignoring her. And