66. Bummer

I finally get an invitation the first week in March. It reminds me of the bad old days when I was first here and kept finding random thing after random thing in my locker. The notes. The gun. The clipping from the magazine that was once in Jocelyn’s locker, with the Robert Frost poem underneath it.

Still don’t know where that came from.

Maybe my long-lost son will show up saying he sent it to me from the future.

This time it’s a yellow note with a day, time, and directions in handwriting:

Sunday 10 a.m.

North on Sable ten minutes. Look for logging trail on left by tree cut in half. Head down it until you reach the barn.

The last word gives me goose bumps.

Barn.

I think of the place Jocelyn led me to, where she was hiding Midnight.

Did she tell them about this place? Or is it commonly known?

I know—well, I’m about 99 percent sure—that this is from Mr. Meiners.

This is the group he’s meeting with.

I crumple up the note. I know how to get to that barn without directions.

“I have some bad news,” Kelsey tells me.

This is one of the rare days she’s wearing her glasses. They’re a different pair than when I first met her, a stylish pair, and I love them on her. She wears them when she doesn’t have time to put in her contacts or the lenses are bothering her for some reason.

“You failed a test?”

I’m joking, because Kelsey is a straight-A student. She gives a mild laugh.

“We’re going to see my brother next week.”

Next week is spring break, and Kelsey had said that they might be visiting her brother at the University of South Carolina. Making a family trip out of it. She even asked if I wanted to come along, but I said no.

I mean, even if things are okay, there’s the reality of everything. Like Mom. And, well, yeah, everything else.

“That’s okay,” I say. “I’m heading to Cancun, so I’ll be busy.”

“Could you take me?”

“I’d love to. I’m riding my bike there.”

“Is that even possible?” she asks.

“Well, maybe technically, but I don’t know. Either the bike or my butt would give out before we’d make it.”

This gets a pretty big laugh out of her.

“The week will go by fast. I’m going to try and get my license. Can you believe it?”

“I can’t believe you’ve been driving your motorcycle all this time without getting a ticket.”

“Do they give tickets around here?”

She shrugs, and I know she’s the last person around who’d ever get a ticket.

“I’m bummed.”

I put an arm around her and squeeze her tight. Kelsey is tall and still growing, it seems, but she has such a slender waist. Sometimes she seems so easy to break, like a long, thin glass vase sitting at the edge of a kitchen counter.

“I’m really going to miss you,” she says.

“I know. It will be tragic for everybody.”

“You’re in a weird mood today.”

“No, this is the real me. I’m just not freaking out about anything.”

“Any more word on college?”

The warning bell rings for class, so we start heading toward the classrooms. I usually walk Kelsey to her class after lunch.

“Not really,” I say, giving her a soft nudge. “And you’re not my mom.”

“Well, you need someone responsible taking care of things for you.”

“Is that a proposal?”

She smiles and says she’ll see me later, then heads into her classroom.

The thought of spring break actually bums me out now too. I didn’t want to tell her because I want her to have a fun time. But I wanted Kelsey around.

Now I’ll just have—well—

Don’t think about it.

Yeah. I don’t want to break my mood.

I know something’s going to do that for me any day now.

Any day now.