Lucinda sat on the edge of her bed and rocked, eyes squeezed shut. Wishing wishing wishing. Wishing school wasn’t canceled, because it would mean Sally was home. But school was still canceled, to allow every grown-up and older student to look for Sally.
Lucinda was so stupid.
She had been so sure Sally wasn’t missing and that all the grown-ups were being silly, worrying so much. Lucinda had been wrong, and now she couldn’t even think the word missing without emptying her heart. Each second Sally was gone, Lucinda felt more scared, and lonely. And guilty. She hadn’t told her dad about the man in the woods and wondered if she should have.
She shivered thinking about it.
But . . . A secret was a secret.
And if she told her dad, she’d have to tell him she’d been in the woods where she was never ever supposed to go. He’d be so super mad. And if Sally came back, Sally would be super mad that Lucinda had given up their secrets and ruined their hideout.
Lucinda held the shard of soapstone from Sally’s bedroom in her palm as she gazed out her window, shut her eyes to feel the warmth of the sun through the glass. Her dad was out there somewhere, leading a search.
Lucinda opened her eyes at a noise.
Her mom stood in her doorway. She was having trouble putting her coat on after coming home to take a long nap and make a zillion sandwiches she’d had Lucinda pack in a cardboard box earlier, for the searchers. She tugged a hat over her ears, her coat crooked. She’d buttoned it wrong. She looked dazed, a sleepwalker. She did not seem like herself or look like herself. None of the grown-ups looked like themselves anymore. They looked like sick twins of themselves, their eyes red and lost, faces pale, hair a mess. Maybe it was good. Maybe it meant the grown-ups were working so hard to find Sally that they did not have time for sleeping or eating. Her dad sure didn’t have time.
“You buttoned your coat wrong,” Lucinda said.
Lucinda’s mom stared at Lucinda as if she didn’t know who she was. “What?” she said. Even her voice wasn’t her own voice. It was all scratchy and raw.
“Your coat,” Lucinda said. “It’s buttoned wrong.” She tried to put a sunny sound in her voice. But it didn’t work. It sounded flat and fake and stupid. She was just as fake as everyone else.
Her mom glanced down at her crooked coat and shrugged.
A knock came on the foyer door downstairs, and she disappeared from the doorway.
Lucinda slipped the soapstone in her pocket and sneaked to the top of the stairs to see her mom greet a woman who’d come to watch Lucinda while Lucinda’s mom went back out to search.
Lucinda did not want to be home alone with a stranger. She did not want her mom to go. She did not want any of this. She wanted things back the way they were before, when everyone was who they really were. Including herself.
The woman, cheeks reddened from the cold, plucked off her silly furry earmuffs, her cat-eye glasses fogging up. She sniffled and wiped her leaking nose onto the arm of her parka, took off the parka, and slung it on the peg by the door. It took Lucinda a second to see that the woman was a friend of her mom’s who worked at the post office. Her hair was collected in a ponytail and she didn’t have on her usual purple eye makeup. On her slight frame her rumpled sweatpants and sweatshirt sagged. Even from the top of the stairs, Lucinda could smell the woman, a weird sour smell like that of a load of wet clothes left too long in the washer.
Lucinda’s mom picked up the box of sandwiches and slipped past the woman and out the door, saying, “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Then she was gone.
The woman sat at the card table in the living room and sorted puzzle pieces Lucinda’s mom had dumped out but never started to organize or assemble.
“Want to help?” the woman said. “Puzzles keep our minds busy.” She peered up. When she smiled, it looked as if her face might shatter to bits.
Lucinda didn’t feel like doing a silly puzzle. She scuffed off to her room and sat on the edge of her bed and looked out the backyard window again.
In the yard, the tire swing at the edge of the woods twisted from its tree branch in the breeze. Lucinda’s dad had put up the swing two summers ago, after Lucinda’s adoption was final. The swing looked as sad and lonesome as Lucinda felt.
Lucinda and Sally had played on the swing every day that summer, spinning on it until they thought they’d throw up. It was the best thing ever.
They never played on it anymore. Sally had said they were too big for it, even though Lucinda had still wanted to play on it. Now, Lucinda felt sorry for the swing. Even though it was dumb to feel bad for a hunk of rubber that couldn’t feel anything. But she felt sorry for not playing on it just to prove she was big, even though her dad always said, Don’t be in a hurry to be big. You spend the rest of your life wishing you were little again.
She did not know what he meant. Who would ever want to be little? She and Sally had worlds to discover, treasures to unearth. Yet she did not feel so big now. Did not want to be big. She wanted to crawl into bed between her parents and snuggle in, safe and warm. Except both of them were out in the cold, searching for her friend as if she were lost treasure herself.
Out the window, past the woods, rose a hill where Sally and Lucinda liked to sled. The hill was super steep, and Lucinda and Sally weren’t supposed to sled there. Their parents said a boy had been killed years ago when he hit a tree. Lucinda and Sally agreed the story was made up, like the story of the bottomless talcum mine shafts in the Big Woods.
Dark shapes crawled like bugs over the hill. The searchers. They inched across the hill in a line. What if Sally wasn’t found? What was Lucinda supposed to do then? She’d never make another friend like Sally, could never sit next to Sally’s desk without Sally at it beside her. What would the school do with Sally’s desk and chair? Would they just let some other kid sit there? They couldn’t do that. It was Sally’s desk. Would they leave it empty? Would they take the chair away to leave a big hole like the one in Lucinda’s belly? Lucinda couldn’t stand the thought of it. Just couldn’t. She had to do something. She had to find her friend.
For the zillionth time, she wondered if she should tell her dad about the pit and the man in the woods. Maybe Sally was in the woods. In the pit. Hiding. Maybe she’d gone there to hide. Or . . . maybe . . . she’d been taken to the pit. Lucinda didn’t know if Mrs. B. was with Sally or not, but maybe it was worth checking the pit.
Tell your dad, a voice said.
No. She couldn’t. Not yet. She’d go and check the pit herself. Somehow. If she found anything, she’d tell her dad. Right away. If she didn’t, she would keep her secret, as Sally would want.
We could slip out your window now, the voice said. Drop onto the garage roof and onto the back porch. Sneak through the woods, make our way along the creek, to the covered bridge, then up into the woods.
But how would she get back in the house without being seen by the woman downstairs? Even if she tiptoed in through the back sliding door she’d get caught. And what if her mom or dad found out she was gone? She didn’t want to worry them. Not now. She wanted to be good; yet she wanted to find Sally more.
Maybe, the voice said, we could sneak out at night.
She knew the way. She had a good flashlight. She could do it and not ever get caught, and maybe help. Maybe find Sally.
Tonight, the voice said, we’ll go tonight.