CHAPTER 5

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ELENA HAD SEEN it in a documentary once; an entire city rising up out of the desert, surrounded by nothing but sand. It seemed impossible. That’s how the school looked in that moment. It was hard to comprehend.

Army vehicles fronted the entrance and soldiers stood scanning the area like hungry eagles watching the river. Metal fencing enclosed the playing fields. Inside, groups of people sat, paced or just stood and stared. Overnight, the military must have scooped the townspeople up and dumped them in clumps behind the high fence while guarding the only exit. Were they all captured by the curse, or protected from it? In that moment, she didn’t care. She just wanted to see her family.

Elena took up her own perch on the grassy slope overlooking the school. She lay beside a dead ponderosa pine and watched the soldiers coming and going. She fidgeted with the tree bark that fell like puzzle pieces around its trunk, trying to figure out how everything had fallen apart so quickly since the night before.

She needed to get closer. She couldn’t see whether her family were behind the fence. She scrambled down the slope on hands and knees hoping the tall clumps of grass would disguise her. Sagebrush roots, rocks and clusters of prickly pear cactus tore at her palms and shins.

Familiar faces came into view. The grocery store manager was chatting animatedly with one of Elena’s former teachers. She recognized some of the little kids chasing each other around the perimeter, colliding and giggling. She inched closer. Her elderly neighbour, Mrs. Dubov, sat alone on a bench. Chief John’s son Terry towered above the other boys at the basketball hoop. Terry was one of Rob’s teammates and the best player in the school but Elena couldn’t spot her brother on the court. She slammed her knee into a rock and bit her lip to stop herself from screaming.

Some families were clustered together. The Clarks and the Toews, who were good friends, and the Wrights, Nadeaus and Powells who were neighbours on Logan’s street. There were a couple of large groups of Native families, too, but Elena didn’t know their surnames.

Finally, she saw them. Their figures were unmistakable; Rob taller even with his shoulders hunched, wearing the blue plaid shirt she’d seen him in the night before, and Mamma with her big shades shielding her eyes, holding his arm as they stood. Elena wanted to jump up and run to them and wave and hug them all at once. But it was just Mamma and Rob. No sign of Dad. Elena swallowed the lump in her throat and tried not to think of Brandon’s burnt skin.

She shuffled a little closer, then a little more, and two big hands scooped her out of the dirt like she weighed nothing. She let out a little scream.

“It’s alright, Elena. You’re safe with me.”

The soldier didn’t look scary. He was young with very short hair and bright white teeth like the actors on TV, and he had a dimple in the middle of his chin. He took her by the hand and led her away from Mamma and Rob. They hadn’t seen her; no one had, but she didn’t try and shout for their attention. It happened so quickly she didn’t know what to do except go with him.

As they approached the entrance to the school, he bent down to talk to her. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?”

Elena kept her mouth shut. She didn’t know anything about him, not even his name, and yet somehow he knew hers.

“Your family is safe. They’re inside. I’ll take you to them.”

He pulled forward, but she dug her heels in.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“To keep you all safe.”

“From what?”

“The curse,” she imagined him whispering cruelly. She wanted to take back her question in case it really was all her fault.

“Let’s talk about that inside.”

“How did you get here so fast?”

“We’re the army. It’s our job to get places quickly in an emergency.”

“What’s the emergency?”

The soldier gently tugged her hand.

“Come on. Let’s get you back to your mom. She’s going to be so relieved to see you.”

She wanted to see Mamma more than anything. The soldier opened the main doors. Reluctantly, she stepped inside and followed him down the long hallways.

Yapping and barking echoed through the back of the building; a few people were walking their leashed dogs beyond the open fire escape. The soldier gave her a reassuring smile and told her he had a pug named Sam. Then he thumped on a door marked Principal’s Office and Elena panicked. She was in trouble. They were going to ask her about what she’d done. She would have to tell them about the curse.

An older, uniformed man opened the door. His red cheeks popped out of his big round face and words came out of his mouth with such force Elena couldn’t imagine him trying to whisper.

“Come in, Elena. My name’s David. I’m in charge of the evacuation.”

“Where’s my mom?” she asked timidly.

“We’re going to have a quick chat and then we’ll take you to her.”

Elena heard him but was busy trying to puzzle out why the principal’s office seemed so small. She sensed the big man with the big voice was taking up extra space. She turned around, but the young soldier filled the space behind her. “David” took the principal’s leather chair and told Elena to sit opposite him. The young soldier closed the door and crossed his arms.

“Where did you go last night, Elena?” David asked.

She hesitated. She didn’t know them but they had little red Maple Leaf flags on their shoulders. Soldiers were supposed to help people.

“I got lost so I slept in a barn.”

David looked puzzled.

“How did you get lost?”

“I was scared. I ran away and my mom will be really mad so can I see her now?”

“You can very soon. Where is this barn?”

“At the top of Douglas Street, where the houses end.”

David glanced at the other soldier in a way that meant something, but Elena didn’t know what.

“Who looked after you all night?” he said.

“No one.”

“But you weren’t out there on your own all night, were you? Someone must have been there with you.”

Elena shook her head.

“What about your dad?” he boomed.

“I don’t know where he is.”

David leaned forward. “Are you sure?”

“Do you know where he is?” Elena asked.

David shot the soldier a look and then refocused on Elena. “If you see him, or if you have any idea where he might have gone, it’s very important that you tell us.”

“Did he get hurt at the mill?”

“That is a possibility. He might need medical treatment. Where do you think he would have gone if he was in trouble?”

“He would’ve come home,” Elena said earnestly. “Mamma would’ve helped him.”

David and the other soldier exchanged glances again. They had a secret language of looks.

“What happened at the mill?” she asked.

“There was an explosion. We’re keeping everyone at the school as a precaution because the fire’s still active.”

David stared silently at Elena as if that would persuade her to tell him more. She didn’t have anything else to say. She just wanted to see Mamma. Finally, David stood.

“Alright. Let’s get you to your mom.”

Mamma rushed across the room and smothered her, tears dropping on her head, and Elena was glad until it was too much and she needed to breathe. She apologized and promised never to do anything like that again. Mamma said she would never be given the opportunity.

Rob pushed in and hugged her. “I wasn’t worried. I knew you’d come back.”

She didn’t believe him. He worried about things almost as much as Mamma did; he was just better at pretending otherwise.

They walked across the shiny gym floor to the spot Mamma and Rob had established for themselves near the stage. The air was sweaty and stale, and there were even more people in here than there had been outside. Tables had been set up along one wall with blankets and water and boxes of supplies.

“Your dad’s missing,” Mamma told her gently, “but they’ll find him, so try not to worry. He probably just got disoriented, like you did.”

“Why are there soldiers here?”

“Sometimes they help out in emergencies.”

That explanation seemed to be good enough for Mamma.

Ken smiled at Elena from a corner of the stage where he sat with his girlfriend, but he didn’t come up and hug her like he normally would. Maybe he was feeling sad because Dad wasn’t with them.

She went up to him and gave him a hug and said: “It’s okay. He’ll be home soon.” Ken’s eyes watered and he said he needed to go outside to get some air.

It was loud in the gym. Sounds echoed and people had to speak up to talk over each other. Classroom chairs scraped across the floor. Babies wailed. A few kids had managed to evacuate with their Game Boys, colourful slap bracelets, bouncy balls or collectable POGs and Elena watched them enviously. Mamma wouldn’t let her wander, not even to find friends, so she settled beside her and did her best to discreetly tap into other conversations, leaning this way and that as voices caught her attention.

Most of the chatter revolved around what had gone on the night before: the thoughts that had rushed through their minds when they first heard the bang; how they’d tried to contact people who worked at the mill; gossip about people absent from the school.

It became clear to Elena that her dad wasn’t the only one missing. Others were also worried about family members and friends. But Dad’s story was different. These people were afraid that their loved ones had been trapped inside the mill. If the soldier she’d overheard was right, Dad had gone missing after getting out.

When Elena complained of hunger, Mamma led her to a row of tables at the far side of the gym laden with juice boxes, coffee, cookies and fruit, and a sign that said the items had been donated by the grocery store. Beside them were strips of dried salmon bagged in plastic with another sign that read “Donated by the Sampson family.” Elena grabbed a cookie and rushed back towards the stage, trying not to think of the salmon she’d seen jump out of the water by the cemetery, or everything that had gone wrong since then.

As the minutes and hours ticked by, people approached Mamma and whispered kind words about Dad. They already knew he was one of the missing workers. Everybody knew everyone’s business in Stapleton.

“I’m Brandon’s mom.” She had his broad face and kind eyes and her voice shook as she spoke. “I just wanted to thank you for helping him.”

Mamma invited her to join them on the floor and they sat together for a few minutes, the two moms with their heads together talking too closely and quietly for Elena to hear, but she saw their tears before they swept them away. Elena refused to be sad. Brandon was getting his arm fixed at the hospital and Dad would be home soon.

When Mary approached, Elena assumed she wanted to talk to Mamma, too, but she lowered herself gently beside Elena while complaining she’d never be able to get up again. Mary looked as though she’d been awake all night. Most people probably had been.

“I came to apologize to you, Elena.”

“For what?”

“Frank told me about your ghost hunt. I thought you and Logan were going to turn the Chinese cemetery into a playground, so I asked Frank to scare you away.”

Elena tried to process what Mary had said. The eerie wail that had lifted the hairs on her arm, white eyes bursting out of the shadows. The body with the long neck. Frank had tricked them. There was no ghost in the cemetery. No curse.

“But the mill ...”

“... Just bad timing,” Mary muttered. “I heard you ran away after the explosion.”

Elena didn’t confirm or deny it. It was too embarrassing.

“Hungry ghosts aren’t real. They’re just a myth.”

Elena glared at her defiantly. “I know. I’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re not.”

Just a big stupid joke. Logan probably wouldn’t ever speak to her again. She hadn’t seen him at the school yet but she was forbidden to wander through the throngs to look for him. She hoped he’d understand. He needed to know it wasn’t her fault.

By nightfall, everyone was sent home. The young soldier who had lifted her out of the long grass and escorted her to the principal’s office wheeled her bike over and told her in a serious voice not to wander off again.

The fire was contained, they heard, but the road in and out of town, the one that ran by the mill, was still blocked and strictly off limits to anyone who might be thinking about investigating the damage for themselves. No one could leave town until the firefighters and the military said it was safe.

“They’re looking for Dad,” Elena said.

Mamma had made dinner for the three of them. Rob pushed a strip of beef around his plate, sulking. Mamma patted Elena’s hand. “Of course they are. Don’t worry. They’ll find him.”

That wasn’t what Elena meant. She meant they’re looking for him. In a bad way, like they did on Mamma’s cop shows.

“Did he do something wrong?”

Rob glowered at her. Mamma put her fork down. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you know something, Elena?”

Elena shook her head. Mamma didn’t eat anything else.

Mamma went outside after dinner. She stood under the willow tree and stared out across the river. Mamma never just stood there like that, arms crossed, for such a long time. Once in a while, her arms would let go of her body so she could dry her eyes.

Elena kept an eye on her from the kitchen window and whispered to God. “Bring Dad home quickly please. We need him. Amen.”

God didn’t whisper back.