fourteen

I stood outside of Ella’s door and tried to breathe.

But forcing breath into my lungs pinched, like they were already filled up and sagging with lead, and my whole body was too heavy for even one more breath of air.

When Grant drove me home yesterday, I’d tried to listen to everything he said about working in the police station, how he could go through any files he wanted, how he’d found out that Catie Spencer had gotten arrested for a DUI right out of high school. But mostly I just heard the timbre of his voice, the way it rolled over the vowels like honey smothering biscuits. And his scent made the whole car fill up with soap and wet earth. He smelled clean and dirty at the same time.

But I did remember one thing he said to me.

When we pulled into the driveway, Grant turned to me and shifted his seat belt. “When you go into her room, look back the furthest you can,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean that you might find clues from when you knew her when she was little, and other ones from when she was older. And then you can kind of stitch them together. That’s how most investigations work. The successful ones, at least.” He turned again and stared out the windshield. “It’s strange, but I think most people know what’s going to happen to their lives, right from the beginning.”

I thought about what Grant had said as I touched Ella’s doorknob.

Had I known what was going to happen to my life, right from the beginning?

In a way, I guess I always had. I’d always told Ella that I was going to move to New York one day, that I’d have to leave her but I’d come back to visit sometimes.

I’d kept my promise. I’d come back. She was the one who didn’t stay.

I clutched the knob and reminded myself why I was here.

I was here to find Ella.

I had to start in her room.

I sucked in a breath and pushed the door open.

When I opened my eyes, my heart slowed and my body relaxed. I don’t know what I’d expected to find, but it definitely wasn’t anything like this.

Paper stars and lightning bolts pinwheeled on their wires above me, just like they used to every time I’d barged through Ella’s door. Rainbow twinkle lights still slithered around the window, and Ella’s gnarled afghan still sat in a ball in the middle of her bed. It was like I’d stepped through a time warp and was magically fifteen again, like I hadn’t drunk vodka on the corners of Manhattan, like I spent my free time drawing in my sketchbook in the cornfield.

But there were things that were different, too.

Between the prints and drawings of dresses I’d given Ella, a bunch of new pictures had cropped up on the walls. Some of them were replicas of what I’d drawn, except with quivering lines and dress models with crooked smiles. Drawing was never Ella’s thing.

There were other things, too. There was a map of Amble tacked to her corkboard, its edges yellow and fraying. And next to that was a photo of Ella and a boy with shaggy blond hair that curled around his ears, and eyelids that drooped over his eyes like he was sleepy. He was looking at the camera out of the corner of his eye while he kissed her temple. Ella still had the same twinkle in her eye that I remembered, but her smile was different. It wasn’t a real smile with teeth. What was left of her lips pressed together in a line, with the corners turned up just a hitch. A shiny pink scar tore across her face and crawled down her neck. My stomach lurched.

Something pinged at the back of my brain and I remembered: Ella’s infectious giggle and mittens pressed against her lips and a boy—this boy—whispering in her ear the night of the party. The night she was attacked.

I ran my finger over Ella’s scarred mouth. What words did she say to him about that night? What words could she say to him?

I opened my palm and stared at the scar that cut across my own skin. We’d both got our scars from someone else: mine from Rae’s selfishness, and hers from my mistake. It always seems to work out like that, anyway; all the scars we get are because someone hurt us enough to give them to us.

Across from Ella’s bed was another corkboard, one that I recognized from my old room. This one had a picture of a few stone-colored buildings, with block letters that read Welcome to Madison, Wisconsin! And around the postcard, Ella had pinned a dozen knitted birds just like the one she’d given me. They were all different colors—some chocolate, and some a splattering of reds and purples, and another that was black. But none of them were periwinkle.

I turned and looked around the room. It reeked of Ella, down to the half-painted wall behind her headboard, because she’d probably changed her mind halfway through. But none of it felt any more special than it had two years ago. Everything seemed zipped up tight, like Ella’s knitted birds and faded photos would never tell me where she was.

I left and the door clicked shut behind me.

Grant had said to start from the beginning, but it was hard to know where the beginning was when everything orbited around you in circles.

I moved down the hallway and hopped over the loose floorboard that always creaked. The last thing I wanted was for Dad to think I was creeping around Ella’s room looking for evidence of wolves. It’d be just one more reason for him to make a case to Mom to buy me a one-way ticket back to New York.

I lay down on my bed and stared up at the faded ceiling. How was I supposed to find a girl who hadn’t left any clues behind? No other notes, no messages.

There was a part of me that wondered whether Ella would have told me about her trouble with the wolves even if she could. After all, I was in New York and hadn’t been invited back to visit. But if the wolves were still watching her, hunting her, Ella would have wanted to tell someone. Or at least, someone who believed her. But Rae was missing and I was absent, and she was stuck here, alone and scared for her life.

I sat up in bed and moved my hands over my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ell,” I choked. “I’m listening now.”

I waited. But, of course, nothing happened. Ella was too far from Amble to hear me anymore. I smashed the heels of my palms into my eyes to force back the tears collecting there.

When I opened my eyes, I was looking at my old jewelry box.

Something tingled in my chest, and Ella’s face flashed in my mind. I saw her standing in front of me, breath hot and curdling in the cold, her eyes filled with moonlight. I’m gonna go through your jewelry, she’d said. And your makeup. Yeah, definitely your makeup.

But didn’t I check my jewelry box and makeup kit the next morning? I remembered seeing all of my necklaces carefully in a row, and all of my rings propped up in their holders and just knowing, right then, that Ella had never come home.

I pulled open the drawers anyway and looked. There was all of my old jewelry, well, most of it anyway. I recognized the dusty hole where my pearl ring used to live. That one had always been Ella’s favorite, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I found it under a rug or tucked in a drawer in her bedroom. Or maybe even on her finger now, wherever she was. I knew it was there the morning after the incident.

I pulled out the drawers again and dug through the rows of beads and silver, but I didn’t find anything there. I sighed, defeated. I stuffed the tangle of necklaces back into the bottom drawer and tried to shove it closed. The jewelry box shifted, and something purple and old poked out from beneath it. I grabbed it.

A purple, canvas diary, with dirt smudges around the edges, stared at me.

I blew on my hands. It felt like I was holding a handful of ice, and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I curled my fingers up to my lips.

It was a notebook. Ella’s notebook.

And it was in my room, under my jewelry box.

There was only one reason why Ella would have put it here. She’d wanted me to find it.

And no one else.

I took a deep breath and pulled my hands away from my face. My heart roared in my ears as I picked up the book and flipped it open.

Ella’s loopy handwriting scrawled across the page. It read,

These are The Diaries of Ella Graham: Part Two.