Mine (10 page)

“It wasn’t that good.”

“You were in the water. You couldn’t see it.”

She smiled. “True.”

He broke his candy bar in two and held out the half still in the wrapper. “Um, would, um, you like some?”

“Uh, sure. Thanks.” She took it and broke off a small piece, then tried to hand back the rest.

“You keep it. I don’t need a whole bar anyway.”

Before she could insist, he hurried away.

This was that wrapper. She had carefully folded it that night and stuck it into the space between the boards because she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away. It had a kind of power.

She rubbed her thumb over the surface.

“Joel,” she whispered
. That was his name. Why did I forget?

As she stepped down from the bed frame, she felt a sudden urge to go back outside, almost as if a thin rope were tied around her waist, tugging her.

Miiiinnnneeee.

A whisper.

The wind in the trees sounding like a voice.

Heading for the doorway, she refolded the candy wrapper and slipped it into her pocket.

She could hear the guys in one of the cabins but didn’t join them. Instead, she followed the tug of the invisible rope back to the path. A few minutes later, she was passing the stables and entering the off-limits area of the woods.

She had no recollection of ever going this way before, and yet she knew she had. It wasn’t anything she saw that caused her to realize this. It was a feeling, a sense of certainty.

Where she was going and why, she didn’t know. But she couldn’t stop, nor did she want to. A feeling of calm accompanied the tug, giving her a sense that everything was okay.

Miiiinnnneeee
, the wind said again, like a finger brushing against her skin.

If there was an actual path she was following, she couldn’t see it. It was the invisible cord that guided her, pulling gently but insistently forward even as the forest pressed in around her like a cloak.

The ghost of a thought that she should be scared passed through her mind, and was just as quickly ushered away. It was like home waited for her ahead, and the sooner she got there, the better things would be.

After a while a fence appeared, high and topped with barbed wire. Not much farther down she spotted a sign hanging on it. She felt no need to read it, though. She’d done that before.

When? She couldn’t remember.

What it said? Not important.

The pull of the rope was all she needed.

Not far beyond the sign, she came upon a haphazard pile of branches and tree trunks and garbage and rocks pressing up against the fence.

She remembered this, too, didn’t she? The mound of debris?

Yes, but…it was changed. Larger than before, and…and…wider.

Miiiinnnneeee.

The invisible rope tugged her around the rubble to where she suddenly knew she’d find a hole in the fence. But when she reached the other side, she saw the hole was no more. In its place sat a ton of additional deadwood and junk.

The rope yanked at her, wanting her to walk through the fence as if the hole were still there.

Miiiinnnneeee!

Panic growing, she scrambled onto the pile and tried to climb over the debris. But it was too steep, and every attempt ended with her slipping and having to start again.

“No, no, no,” she whispered.

She kept at it. Up a few feet and down again.

“No.”

Up and down.

“No.”

Up and down.

“No. No. No.”

T
WENTY-FOUR

W
HEN LEAH OPENED
her eyes, she found herself looking at the back of the driver’s seat of Terry’s truck, the road
thump-thumping
below her.

“Leah?” Todd’s voice.

She turned her head and realized she was lying in his lap. She quickly sat up. “How did…how did I get here?”

“We carried you back after we found you.”

Her brow furrowed. “Carried me?”

Juko looked back from the front passenger seat. “How do you feel?”

“My legs sting a little.”

“That’s not surprising,” Todd said. “You scraped yourself up pretty bad.”

“I what?”

“How’s your head?” Juko asked.

“My head? My head’s fine. What happened?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Terry said from the driver’s seat.

“After we checked out the cabins, we went to get you but you were gone,” Todd told her.

She grimaced. She’d been in her old cabin, number six. She hadn’t gone anywhere.

“Good thing you weren’t trying to hide,” Todd said. “Your trail was pretty easy to follow.”

“My trail?”

“We found you in the woods lying next to a pile of dead trees. We tried to wake you up but…”

She couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. In the woods? No, she had been in cabin six. She’d been looking around, she’d found…

She jammed her hand into her pocket and felt the folded Hershey’s wrapper. She almost pulled it out but didn’t want to explain it to the others.

“What were you doing out there?” Todd asked.

That was the question of the hour.

She didn’t know what the answer was, but had no doubt the side trip was connected to all the other issues she’d been dealing with since the last time she was at the camp. That was something else she wasn’t going to share, so she said, “We used to go on hikes in the woods.”

“You just decided to go on a hike alone, then?” Juko asked.

“Just a short one,” she lied. Or assumed she did.

 “You should probably lie back down,” Juko said. “You might have a concussion or something.”

Ignoring him, she looked out the window. “Where are we?”

“About ten minutes from camp,” Terry said. “As soon as we get there, we’ll get you to Nurse Dixon so she can take a look at you.”

“Pull over,” she said.

“What?”

“Pull over. Now.”

“Are you going to throw up?”

“Pull over!”

Terry swung the truck onto the shoulder and hit the brakes.

Leah hopped out, the other three following.

“If you’re going to puke,” Terry said as he came around the front, “try not to get any on my ride.”

“Real sensitive there, Terry,” Todd said.

“Hey, I’m only trying to—”

“I’m
not
going to throw up,” Leah said. “I feel fine.”

Terry looked confused. “Then why did you want to stop?”

“Do any of you have water?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Todd said. He climbed into the truck, returned with a bottle, and handed it to her.

She took a deep, long drink. As freaked out as she was about her missing time, it was something she could figure out later. Right now, she needed to control the situation.

She looked at the three boys. “Listen very carefully. What happened today stays between us. As far as anyone else is concerned, we never went to Camp Red Hawk and you didn’t find me unconscious.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Juko said. “What if—”

Eyes narrowing, she said, “No what-ifs. We stopped by the store and then we went on a hike. We walked through some bushes and that’s where I got scraped up. The day was nice but otherwise uneventful.
Nothing
unusual happened. Got it?”

“But what if you
do
have a concussion?” Todd asked.

“I don’t,” she said.

“You’re not a doctor. You can’t know that.”

Except she could. Other than the cuts, she knew her body was in perfect condition.

She turned to give Todd a dose of her ire, but the genuine look of concern on his face caused her to soften a bit. “I’m not hurt. I promise.” It looked like he was going to say something else, so she held up a hand to stop him. “If it turns out I’m wrong, then we’ll say I tripped and didn’t think anything of it at the time. Okay?”

He looked less than convinced.

“You need to believe me. I
am
fine.”

He hesitated a moment longer before nodding.

She knew he didn’t buy it, but she was also sure he would do as she asked, so she returned her attention to the other two. “And you guys?”

A look of discomfort passed across Terry’s face and then he shrugged. “Yeah. Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“I’m serious. When we get back into the truck, we don’t talk about this
ever
again. And that means even between you guys. Understand?”

He threw up his hands in surrender. “I said okay already.”

“I’m not so sure,” Juko said.

She took a breath. “If you see any signs that something might be wrong with me, you can let Nurse Dixon know. Okay?”

“I guess,” he said, grimacing. “One problem, though. We did tell a couple of people we were going to Red Hawk.”

“Then tell them we changed our plans,” she said.

“I guess we can do that.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The rest of the drive back was made in silence. Nurse Dixon bought the story of the bushes and the hike, and treated Leah’s scratches while warning her she needed to be more careful next time. There was no mention of Leah being too young to have left camp without permission.

For the remainder of Leah’s time at Cedar Woods, Terry and Juko did all they could to avoid her. Even Todd minimized his interactions with Leah, his crush on her as over as the one she’d been developing for him.

When she returned home the first week of August, her parents did their best to hide their relief that she was back.

“How was it?” they asked.

“Fine.”

“What did you do?”

“Worked a lot.”

“Did anything exciting happen?”

A pause. “Not really.”

T
WENTY-FIVE

Joel

F
OR THE FIRST
time since the incident involving Justin the previous summer, Joel woke to the pain of injury. It occurred two weeks before his and his mother’s relocation to California. She was coming with him because, in her words, “you’re far too young to be on your own.” Once again, the event was preceded by the dream of the fuzzy faces and the dark tunnel filled with wind.

Unlike with his toe, however, he didn’t yell when he woke to find himself in pain. This time, a stinging red blotch marked his hand. Sure enough, the irritated spot and the pain soon faded.

Forty minutes later, he was in the kitchen, grabbing a bagel out of the toaster. When he turned toward the table, he bumped into the fresh mug of coffee his mother was carrying. The scalding liquid sloshed over the lip and splashed on her hand.

She sucked in a breath, rushed over to the sink, and plunged her hand into a stream of cold water.

“Are you okay?” he asked, moving in next to her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you were there.”

“You have to watch where you’re going, sweetie,” she said, wincing.

In a broader sense that might have been true, but when Joel saw the exact same red mark on his mom’s hand that he’d seen on his own not an hour before, he was sure he couldn’t have done anything to prevent this accident.

It happened again three days before the move. On that morning, he woke to find his jaw throbbing and tender to the touch. Though he had no mirror handy to check, he knew there was a bruise, too. If he had the dream this time, though, he didn’t remember it.

In both his mother’s case and Justin’s, the injuries had been the result of accidents caused by Joel. Thinking he couldn’t be a catalyst if he avoided contact with everyone, he stayed in bed until after his father left for work. Unfortunately his mom was home, after having already worked her last day at the local Coldwell Banker real estate office before her transfer to one of the company’s branches in Palo Alto. To minimize his interaction with her, he dressed, grabbed his bag, and hurried from his room to the front door, yelling that he needed to go to the library and would be back later. As far as he could tell, she was still uninjured as he stepped outside.

In truth, he had no intention of going to the library. There would be dozens of people there, and far too many chances to cause someone harm. He decided he’d ride around and hoped no one would pay him any attention.

When he spotted the old dirt road that ran into the wilderness behind the Strickland Country Club, he realized it would be the perfect place to pass the day without unintentionally causing injury to anyone.

At Old Kitta Hill, he dismounted and pushed his bike up to the boulders on the west side, where he found a shaded spot he could sit in and read one of the books he’d brought.

He enjoyed an hour of blissful solitude wrapped in a text on theoretical physics, and was so engrossed in the data of a particle accelerator test that he barely noticed the panicked yelp echo over the hill. When it happened a second time, he looked up.

He worked his way to the summit of the hill, where he heard a rustle drift up from the other side, followed by someone pleading, “Don’t!”

He weaved his way through the trees toward the sounds. Three quarters of the way down, the gentle slope ended at a vertical drop of approximately twenty feet. Peering over the edge, he saw the back of a man’s head.

He quietly moved sideways until he had a better view. The man was kneeling on the chest of another guy, his hand pressed over the prone man’s mouth.

Both were dressed in ratty clothes, and looked as if they hadn’t taken showers in months. When the kneeling man’s head turned enough to reveal his profile, Joel realized he’d seen him before, hanging out in various area parking lots, sometimes begging, sometimes digging through the trash, but more often than not passed out.

The man snarled at the guy on the ground. “Where’d you leave it?”

The prone man’s response was garbled by his assaulter’s hand.

“Goddammit, where is it?”

Whatever the guy said next was clearly not what the man on top wanted to hear. The aggressor reached around his back and pulled a knife from under his shirt.

Silently, Joel hurried to the bottom of the slope and moved in behind the man, just out of range.