“Take your seats, please, ladies. We have two items of business this morning,” Mr. Mueller gobbles, standing at the front of the class. “Frank and Cray, please report to the principal’s office.”
Cray doesn’t look at any of us. He just gets up and walks toward the door, wordlessly taking the hall pass Mr. Mueller holds out to him.
Frank makes a big deal out of getting up slowly and stretching, and then leans over to Thea and whispers, “No worries, babe, right?”
She smiles back at him. “No worries.”
“Franklin!” Mr. Mueller says loudly, interrupting Frank’s suave move-in-for-a-kiss moment. “To the office. Now.”
Frank winks at Pilar and me. We both give him the finger.
He leans down to Ben and whispers, “Next time. I promise.” Which makes Mr. Mueller yell at him again. As soon as Frank’s out of the room, we all look over at Thea.
“You going to tell us what that’s about?”
Thea rearranges her books on her desk, unable to hide her smirk.
“Where were you last night?” MayBe asks in her soft voice. “My mom thought you were coming home. We set a place for you.”
“Sorry,” Thea says, glancing at MayBe. “We got caught up.”
“You’ll find out,” Thea says, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.
“Thea …” MayBe looks like she might cry. “What are you up to?”
Ben listens to all of this without turning around. He keeps his arms crossed in front of him, his legs stretched out, staring straight ahead. I can tell he’s pissed.
“New girl!” Pilar whispers. “Oh my God, she looks like she’s in elementary school.”
The new girl has her red hair pulled into two braided pigtails that curl under her earlobes. It’s a hairstyle that no one in the eleventh grade has worn for at least seven years, but something about it suits her. With her flowered shirt tucked neatly into her corduroys, there’s something carefully sweet about the way she’s dressed, right down to the hand-drawn hearts on her sneakers.
The whole class watches as she hands a note to Mr. Mueller and stands watching him read it.
“She’s nervous,” I hear MayBe whisper next to me. “Look how pale she is.”
“I don’t think she’s gotten her boobies yet,” Thea whispers back.
Mr. Mueller’s glare silences our hushed laughter.
“Class,” Mr. Mueller says, standing. “Our second item of business has just arrived. This is Catherine Ritter, she—”
“You can call me Cate,” the girl says cheerfully, before turning bright red and saying to Mr. Mueller, “Oh, sorry, you go ahead.”
He gives her a flat smile and starts again. “This is Cate and she comes to our mountain from …” He smiles at Cate expectantly.
She looks blankly at him for a second before saying, “Oh! My turn?” She giggles nervously and says to the class, “I’m from back east.”
Mr. Mueller keeps looking at her, waiting for more.
“Can I sit down now, please?” Cate asks. “I’m just really nervous,” she whispers to Mr. Mueller.
“Oh. Yes, of course,” Mr. Mueller says. “Welcome to Paradise—”
Cate flinches at the indignant chorus of “Pine Mountain!” and slips into the empty seat next to me.
“That was mortifying,” she whispers.
“You did fine,” I say. “I’m Dylan.”
“Cate,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”
She looks closely at me for a second, but before she can say anything else, I say, “This is my best friend, Pilar,” leaning back so Pilar can give Cate a barely perceptible nod.
“Charmed,” Pilar says flatly.
“And that’s MayBe, and that’s Thea,” I say, pointing to my friends. “And that’s Ben.” Ben still doesn’t turn around, he just nods, still facing ahead.
“Hi!” Thea and MayBe say at the same time. “So, where are you living?” Thea asks.
“Well, we’re staying by the lake in an apartment for now. But we’re building a place up on the ridge.”
“Are you in those Lakeview apartments?” Pilar asks.
Cate nods. “Why?”
“None of us have ever been inside them,” I say quickly, before Pilar can answer.
“Frank’s dad’s been inside,” Thea says. “He’s the facilities manager there. Says they’re all right. Overpriced.”
“They put the best beach on the lake behind gates when they built those apartments,” Pilar says. “You have to live there to get in now.”
“Oh,” Cate says brightly. “Well, if we’re still there in the summer, you guys should come swimming!”
“Not really the point,” Pilar says.
“But thanks,” I say.
“Yeah, thanks,” MayBe and Thea say together.
Frank and Cray miss the first three periods of school, and by the time they walk down the hall, silent and grinning, having been dropped off back at school by Deputy Pesquera, the whole school knows they’re the ones who put Super Glue in the locks of the tractors and construction office trailers in the Willows development by the lake.
The boys, Ben included—looking less pissed off than he was this morning—stop by our lunch table long enough for Frank to play tonsil hockey with Thea, and for Cray to lean over and whisper in my ear, “Pesquera says hello.” I flinch away from him, pretending I didn’t hear. He follows Ben and Frank to their lunch table, turning once to look back at me.
“There she is!”
“Don’t point at her!” MayBe squeals, grabbing Thea’s arm to keep her from pointing at Cate, who’s working her way through the lunch line.
“What?” Thea asks, pointing with her other hand.
“You’re such a brat,” MayBe says, pinning Thea’s hands by sitting in her lap, before bucking right back out of it. “No pinching!”
“Dylan, you’re nice to strangers. You call her over here,” Thea says.
I look at Pilar.
“You don’t need my permission,” she says. “Call that little tweety bird right over.”
“Call her over here!” Thea says.
“Do it,” MayBe says.
“Okay,” I say, standing. “I’ll do it.”
I start to walk toward the lunch line and see Cate coming straight at us. I turn to the table and whisper, “She’s coming over!”
“Sit!” MayBe says, pulling down on my arm. “Act natural.”
I sit, and when Cate comes walking over, we’re all smiling at her like idiots. Even Pilar’s smirk is only half wicked. She cocks her head to the side. “You guys don’t have new kids very often, do you?”
The long silence that follows is broken by MayBe crowing, “Like, never! You’re the first new girl in three years! Will you sit with us? I promise we’re not evil or anything.” She pats the empty seat next to her and says solemnly, “We’re good people.”
“Do you remember our names?” Thea asks as Cate sits down.
“Um, I think so,” Cate says, pointing at each of us in turn. “You’re Thea, then Dylan, Pilar, and MayBe, right? MayBe—is that short for something?”
“No,” MayBe says quickly, half-burying her head in the cotton tote bag she brought her lunch in. She starts pulling things out, and I see that there’s enough for Thea, too.
“Yes, it is,” Thea says. “MayBe, tell her what your name is short for.”
“Yeah, MayBe,” I say, “tell her what it stands for.”
“Wait,” Cate says, her voice getting louder. “Wait a minute. I know you!” She points to MayBe and shouts, “MoonBaby Goddess Gift Water Fairy!”
“Holy crap!” Pilar says, laughing. “How did she know that?”
“I love your shampoo!” Cate squeals, sticking her head right under MayBe’s nose. “Here! Smell!”
MayBe sniffs. “Morning Honeydew?”
“Yes!” Cate says. “It’s my favorite. I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to MoonBaby. You look just like you do on the labels! Except, um, you’re not a baby.”
MayBe’s mom and dad used to own this organic beauty products company called Open Earth. They started it the summer they were living with just-born MayBe in a teepee on the land they were building their solar-powered dome house on. They started out making Mountain Berry Bath Soap and selling it out in front of Sheboa’s grocery and by the snack bar at the town beach, walking the long distance to either place from their teepee, with MayBe curled in a handmade cotton sling strapped to her dad’s back. It was her little pie face on the label, above the carefully written words “Made with Love,” and you couldn’t tell if that referred to MayBe, or the soap, or both. When fall came and the weather turned, Mrs. Sheboa started selling the soaps inside the grocery store, letting all the money from what sold—and whatever else the Sheboas could spare—go into a standing house account so MayBe’s parents could buy food. That winter they finished the dome house and started making all different kinds of soap, and the business totally took off. More and more soaps and shampoos, all with MayBe’s face on the label, all with cute little stories about her little hippie family and their life on the mountain.
“They sold the company, you know,” Pilar says, the laughter gone from her voice, her studied calmness returned.
“What?” Cate’s brow wrinkles for a second.
“My parents sold the company,” MayBe says, with a look at Pilar. “Five years ago.”
“Your Morning Honeydew is fresh from an industrial park in the flatlands. In Taluga. You probably passed it on your way up the mountain,” Pilar says, patting Cate’s hand. “Sorry.”
“That’s so sad!” Cate says. “I used to make my dad read me the stories on the labels while he gave me a bath. I loved the one about how when you were two, you discovered the recipe for the Blueberry Body Wash by putting blueberries and soy milk in the bathtub and splashing around because you were trying to make a smoothie. I used to pretend I was a part of your family.” Cate blushes and presses her fingers to her lips. “Oh, sorry, is that weird?”
“I still pretend that!” Thea laughs.
“I can’t believe it’s not true anymore,” Cate says.
“It’s not like I told you there’s no such thing as Santa,” Pilar says. “I think you’ll get over it.”
Cate just looks at her, biting her lower lip.
“Wait, you do know about Santa, don’t you?” Pilar says.
I turn to her. “Professor, stop trying to make the new kid cry.”
“She’s fine!” Pilar says, motioning to Cate. “She can take—Oh, crap, she’s crying.”
Cate practically slaps away the fat tear that’s rolling down her face. “I’m not crying,” she says.
“Why would you do that?” MayBe says to Pilar, using the hem of her flannel skirt to dab at the tear on Cate’s cheek. “She probably thought we were normal people for a whole five minutes.”
“I’m fine, really,” Cate says, pulling out of MayBe’s reach.
“She’s bound to find out sooner or later,” Pilar says dryly.
“Would you knock it off?” I say loudly. “Seriously, Professor, take it down a notch. She knows you’re the one with the biting sense of humor. She gets it, all right?”
It takes me a second to realize that all motion at the lunch table has stopped.
“Wow, Dylan,” Thea says, “you really showed some emotion there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
Thea shrugs. “It’s like the red-hot rage melted your icy exterior.”
“I’m not icy,” I say, actually hurt. “I’m … reserved.” I look to Pilar for help.
“I can’t believe you Professored me in anger,” she says.
“Well, you’re the one who broke the new kid!” I say loudly.
“Oh, gosh, please stop fighting,” Cate pleads.
“Who’s fighting?” Pilar asks, looking at Cate as though she’s just noticed her sitting there.
“We’re not fighting,” I agree. “We’re trying to impress you with our witty banter.”
“Oh,” Cate says, “but isn’t witty banter supposed to be, you know, witty?”
Pilar clutches at her chest and collapses against me. “You don’t think we’re funny?”
“But our genius sense of comic timing is all we have!” I yelp.
Thea rolls her eyes and says to Cate, “I bet you thought, being the new kid, you’d get to be the center of attention for more than half a second.”
“Yeah, Pilar,” I say, pushing her off me, “stop hogging the spotlight and pay some attention to the new kid.”
Pilar sighs and stage-whispers, “Like how?”
“I don’t know, ask her a question or something. Show some interest.”
“Fine,” Pilar says, turning quickly toward Cate. “Would you rather be eaten alive by rats or pushed out of a plane without a parachute?”
Cate chooses no parachute, since then she would at least experience what it’s like to fly before she dies. Thanks to Pilar, we also find out that Cate would rather eat live worms than live termites, would eat her own big toe if it was the only way to avoid starvation, and would rather have the runs than be throwing up. She’s a good sport about the whole thing, making us laugh with her questions like, “Could I add some slug guts to the worms before I eat them?”
Eventually Pilar pauses long enough for Thea and MayBe to ask some questions too, except theirs are more along the lines of where are you from (Massachusetts), do you have brothers and sisters (no, just lots of cousins), did you have a boyfriend back home (they broke up before she moved), and can Thea please, please do your hair because you’ve got such a cute face and those double braids do nothing for you (“I know it looks dumb. It’s just the way my dad’s done my hair on the first day of school for years and years. It’s a tradition”).
“Um, Dylan?” Cate’s standing next to my locker, holding her books close to her chest. “I think I’m on your bus today.”
“Actually, you can take any bus. They all pass through the village. That’s where your place is, right? That gated community right outside the village? By the Willows?”
She nods a long time before she can find her voice. “Um, yes, but I’m actually not going home. My dad’s with the surveyors up on the back of the land we’re building on. That lady, Fran, in the front office said it was up at the dead end by your house. She said I could take the bus to the dead end at the top of your road. That’s where my dad is. I’m supposed to meet him there.”
She looks like she might throw up. God, I was such an ass to her yesterday.
“Oh, okay,” I say, smiling. “It’s bus number three. Meet me here after last class; we’ll go together.”
“Cool. See you then,” she says, walking off to class.
“See you.”
“It’s like an after-school special on how to make new friends,” Pilar says behind me. I turn around. “You guys are like, what, BFFs now?” she asks.
“Yes, Pilar, she and I are Best Friends Forever because my twelve years of friendship with you means nothing to me.”
Pilar studies the end of her braid.
“Pilar, you goober, I’m joking.”
It takes me a second to realize that she’s not walking with me. I take three steps backward till I’m standing next to her.
“It’s just been a while, you know?” she says. “Since we’ve had anyone new. Tell her that I’m not, like, an ogre or something. Tell her it’s not on purpose. I just get mean when I get nervous.” Pilar groans. “She’s just so darn cherubic, I feel like I’m going to sully her with my … What’d you call it? Biting sense of humor.”
“I think as long as you don’t bite her for real, you’ll be okay.”
“So you’ve lived up here your whole life?” Cate asks, as the bus pulls out of the driveway and onto Lakeshore Drive. We’re sitting near the back.
“Yep. Well, almost. Since I was maybe a week old. Pilar was born up here, though. She was the first baby to be born in the new hospital. I think they, like, bronzed her incubator or something.”
“Wait, new hospital? I thought the new hospital wasn’t built yet? At least that’s what it said in the handy-dandy Paradise Mountain Welcome Brochure.”
I groan. “It’s not Paradise Mountain yet.”
She smiles at me. “You still call it Pine Mountain! I love that. I will too, then. So, what about the hospital?”
“They’re building a new new one. I guess it’s good; it’ll be bigger, have more services, and a whole section for old people who can’t live at home,” I say. “I bet they throw out Pilar’s bronzed incubator.”
I give Cate a history lesson in the two minutes it takes to drive through the village.
“So the Sheboas just up and moved?”
“Sort of. They moved over to Baker’s Creek, on the other side of the mountain. There’s, like, nothing over there, but they opened a grocery store anyway. People say Baker’s is like what this side used to be before all the development.”
“What were you doing there yesterday?” Cate asks when we pass by the police station.
“Picking something up for my mom,” I say quickly. “What about you?”
“Same thing, picking something up. A dog license application for our mutt, Newman. He farts a lot, but I let him sleep in bed with me anyway.”
The bus slows and turns onto my road.
“You live with your mom and dad?” she asks.
“My mom. My dad’s not around.”
“Neither’s my mom,” she says. “She’s been getting her rest for the past ten years.”
I have no idea what to say to this, so I stutter something like, “Oh m-my God.”
“Oh, she’s not dead!” Cate says quickly. “She’s in the hospital. And your dad?”
“Just not around.”
“Gotcha. I don’t like to talk about my mom, either. Are there any actual houses up here?” she says, looking out the window at the dense groves of trees covering both sides of the road.
“Just two. That’s Ben’s house,” I say, pointing to the end of Ben’s driveway peeking out through the trees. “Mine’s right up here.”
“And the dead end?”
“Is just a little farther up. Dottie can drop you off. Or,” I say, my stomach jumping, “do you want to come in for a snack before you go see your dad? I can walk you up after, if you want.”
“I would love to!”
Before we’re even through the front door Cate announces right off that she loves my house.
“It’s adorable,” she says, standing in the middle of our cramped living room.
“It’s tiny,” I answer, turning on the light. It’s getting dark. Winter dark, but no winter snow. “It was a logger’s cabin. My parents added stuff—the kitchen and the two bedrooms upstairs, and the porch and the bathrooms, but it’s mostly the same size as when they bought it.”
“I love that, though!” Cate says. “It’s like you have everything you need right here.” I follow her gaze to the woodstove in the fireplace, to the old wooden-legged couch that faces it, and the faded rugs covering the wide-pine floors. She bursts out laughing when she sees the flat-screen TV we have mounted above the fireplace.
“Come see the kitchen,” I say. “We have a microwave, too.”
“You’re funny,” she says, before announcing that she loves our cracked oak table, the old-fashioned white stove my mom rescued from the dump, and the last of the fall flowers that are sticking out of a dented metal pitcher in the kitchen.
We’re standing on the foggy back deck, its triangle tip jutting out over the tops of the trees barely visible in the mist, when it starts to rain again.
“You should call your dad and see if you can just stay here till he’s done up there,” I say when we’re back inside.
Cate calls her dad, and it turns out he’s giving up because of the rain. He agrees to come back and pick her up later on. We hear him beep his horn when he drives by.
“Don’t worry,” she says, “it’s still going to be just you and Ben on this road. Our driveway is going to be clear on the other side of the ridge. But maybe we can build a trail from my house to yours! It would run just a mile or so; we could meet up in the middle for campouts!”
I tell her I think it’s a really good idea, and make us some hot chocolate and microwave brownies.
It’s Cate’s idea for me to show her pictures of everyone from when we were kids. We sit on the rug in front of the woodstove, which I took the liberty of lighting because our house is absolutely freezing, even in the early days of this no-snow winter. We lean against the couch, a pile of photo albums in front of us. I reach for the album labeled FIRST GRADE, but Cate touches my hand and says, “Wait. Start with kindergarten.” She pulls the heavy green album labeled KINDERGARTEN off the bookshelf next to the fireplace where I’d left it, and hands it to me.
“Okay.” I take the book and open it to the first page. Our class picture.
“Is that you?” she asks right away, pointing to where I sat in the front row.
I nod. “And there’s Pilar and MayBe and Thea.”
“You guys are so cute!” she crows, taking the album into her own lap and bending over it to look more closely. “Okay, who is everyone else?”
I run my fingers across the rows, telling her people’s names and whether or not they still live on the mountain. When I get to Clarence I just say his name, and move onto Frank, who sat next to him.
“Wait, what’s his story?” Cate asks.
“Who, Frank?” I ask, shrugging. “He’s all right. He used to eat all the paste during craft time.”
“Gross, but no, the kid next to Frank. You said his name was Clarence?”
I look at her.
“You said that, right?” she says quickly. “His name is Clarence?”
“You were right the first time,” I answer. “Was. His name was Clarence.”
“You mean he moved away?”
“Nobody’s told you about this?”
“About what? You’re freaking me out a little, here,” she says, laughing nervously.
I wish Pilar were here. She’d know how to handle this. She’d just say it, matter-of-factly. “Clarence was killed, when we were in kindergarten.”
Cate watches me as I say it, and color drains out of her face. “Who would do something like that?” she asks.
“They don’t know. They never caught the guy who did it.”
“Oh my God,” she moans, “that’s so scary. So, he’s still out there?”
“It depends who you ask,” I say, leaning over to look at the photos. “Deputy Pesquera thinks the Drifter—that’s what the kids call the guy who killed Clarence—she thinks he just drifted right off the mountain. Some people think he’s still up here, though, waiting.”
“What do you think?”
“I think he’s long gone,” I say, with more confidence than I feel.
“Did Clarence always wear his glasses?” she asks quietly, leaning so close her nose is almost touching the photograph.
I nod.
She looks at me with wet eyes and sniffs. “Why does that make it even sadder?” She laughs a little, shaking her head. “Little kidsize plastic glasses. Jesus.”
“They were green,” I say, “and in the sun they would make his cheeks green too.”
“He looks like a frog,” she says, smiling.
“We called him Frogger,” I answer.
“Well,” she says, carefully closing the album. “That’s just about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”
“I know,” I say.
“You must have been really scared when it happened. Do you remember it?”
I shrug. “Yeah, but … it’s not something we talk about up here. I think people would just rather forget it ever happened.”
“But you don’t forget, right? You can’t ever forget something like that. Especially because this year would be … what? The eleventh anniversary?”
“I guess so. The first week of December.”
“What’s this?” Cate asks, opening to the back of the album.
“We had these made,” I say, pulling out a carefully folded T-shirt that’s slipped against the back cover, “for the one-year memorial.” The T-shirt is green, Clarence’s favorite color. On it is the school picture of Clarence, and written underneath is We Miss Our Friend.
“Were you ever this small?” Cate asks, holding up the tiny shirt.
I take it back from her and refold it.
“Want to see first grade?” I ask, opening another album.
“Sure, but can I use your bathroom first?”
“Yep. It’s at the top of the stairs.”
I reshelve the KINDERGARTEN book while Cate’s upstairs. I hear a flush and then, “Your room’s so cute!”
I’m kind of annoyed. My room’s a total wreck, and I wasn’t really expecting anyone but my mom to see my collection of underwear spanning the floor. I stand at the bottom of the stairs and look up as the light from my bedroom spills into the upstairs hallway.
“Thanks,” I say, starting up the stairs. “Are you coming back down?”
She pokes her head around the corner. “I have stars on my ceiling too!”
She goes back into my room, and when I get to the top of the stairs and turn to follow her, I see her standing by my bureau, holding a small photograph. I freeze. She holds the photograph up to me.
“This is that little girl from the news, right? The one who got killed in the desert. Why do you have this?”
I step quickly forward and grab Tessa’s photograph away from her and stuff it into my pocket, crumpling it as I do.
“Did you know her?” Cate asks. “Did you know that little girl?”
“No,” I answer.
“Then why …” Cate stops talking, her face pales. “I don’t understand. Why do you have her picture?”
I am calmer than I thought I would be. I always pictured that this moment would happen with Pilar, and that it would be deafening in its noise. Confessing, yelling, crying, questioning. Sometimes I think we would just cling to each other after, and she would tell me she forgave me for never telling her, and that nothing in our friendship would change. Most of the time, though, I picture her walking away from me, and never looking back.
This is the moment, but it’s the wrong moment. I know that I can stop it. I know that I can think of an excuse that will explain the bent photograph in my pocket. I know that I can make this better. I don’t, though, because suddenly I know that if I don’t tell someone, if I don’t say this out loud, I am going to die.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I say finally.
“Tell anyone what?”
“What I’m about to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“The first time it happened was with Clarence …”
It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would. I don’t feel any relief, I feel only sick. Cate is sitting on the braided rug, leaning against my bed. I am across from her, sitting against my bureau. I look at the clock on the nightstand. She’s been quiet for three minutes.
“Cate?”
She looks at me, almost helplessly. “And you never see them alive?” she asks. Again.
I shake my head. “I only see them after it’s happened.”
She goes silent again. “What good is that?” she asks, the bite in her voice making me reel back. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This is all just too messed up.”
“I know,” I say.
“How many times?” she asks. “How many times have you … seen something?”
“Maybe eight,” I say. “Not once a year, but pretty close.”
“And all those kids, was it ever the Drifter that did it?” It’s so weird, hearing a stranger use his name.
“Never.”
“I think,” she says, getting unsteadily to her feet, “I’m going to wait outside for my dad.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, standing.
She shakes her head. “Yes. No.” She shrugs and almost laughs. “I don’t know. Is this what you tell all the new kids?” She walks toward the bedroom door, and I step in front of her.
“Nobody else knows about this, Cate. Just my mom and Deputy Pesquera and Sheriff Dean. They can’t know that I told you. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”
We both jump when my mom opens the front door downstairs.
“It got cold!” Mom says, and I hear her stamping the rain off her feet onto the doormat. “Please remember,” she calls up the stairs, “to turn the porch light on so your poor mother doesn’t trip and break her neck.”
Cate and I haven’t moved.
“I won’t tell,” Cate finally says. “Can I please go now?”
“Oh,” I say, realizing I’m still blocking her path, and I move out of her way. “Yeah.”
“And who’s this?” Mom asks when Cate starts down the steps.
“I’m Cate,” she says, and I wonder if my mom can hear her forced brightness. “I just started at the high school today.”
“Nice to meet you, Cate,” Mom says, shaking Cate’s outstretched hand. Cate moves past her down the stairs.
“My dad’s coming to pick me up,” she says. “I’m just going to wait outside.”
“Nonsense,” Mom says, with a disapproving look at me where I’m sitting at the top of the steps. “It’s freezing out. You can stay in until he comes.”
Outside, a car horn beeps.
“That’s him,” Cate says to my mom, before looking up at me. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dylan. Thanks for having me over.”
“Let me come outside and say hello,” Mom says, putting on her coat again.
“Oh, gosh, maybe next time,” Cate says quickly, grabbing her coat and book bag. “He’s in a really big rush tonight. It was nice meeting you! Oh, sorry,” she says, waiting till my mom moves out of the way before she opens up the door.
“You too,” Mom says, holding the door open so Cate can’t close it. I walk downstairs and see Mom step onto the front porch and wave to Cate’s dad.
“Well, she’s just cute as a button,” Mom says, coming back inside. “She just started today?”
“Mm-hm. She’s from back east.” I start putting the photo albums back on the bookshelf.
“You guys were looking at pictures?” Mom asks.
I don’t answer, just finish putting away the books.
“Did you tell her about Clarence?” she asks, eyeing the KINDERGARTEN book.
I shrug. “I mentioned it.”
“And that’s all you mentioned?” she asks sharply.
I glare at her. “Yes, that’s all I mentioned.”
“Good,” she says, smiling. “You still look tired. I want you in bed early tonight. I’m going to get changed.”
The phone rings when Mom is halfway upstairs. “I’ll get it,” she says. I hear her saying, “Hello, Ruby. No, she has homework to do,” before she closes the door to her bedroom.
I open up the kindergarten photo album again. I lift the clear plastic sheet covering the photographs, and unpeel Clarence’s walletsize image from the page. Then I put the album back on the shelf.
Upstairs, I close my bedroom door and sit on the braided rug, leaning against my bed, right where Cate sat not even an hour ago. Like reenacting a crime, I think. I reach over to my nightstand and pull a small white envelope from the drawer.
The seven photographs are slippery in my fingers. I stack them together, like playing cards.
The first picture was cut out of a larger group photograph. The very top of the girl Angela’s head is covered by someone’s hairy and suntanned arm. Her dad’s, I think. They are at a summertime party, a picnic by a lake. Angela’s cheeks are sunburned, and she’s laughing like she’s being tickled. It was so quick with Angela, I wasn’t sure at first I’d even really had a vision. But it kept coming, like a quick pulse that I had to work to slow down until I could see what was happening. It helped her parents to know that it was quick for her, that she didn’t understand what was happening, that she didn’t even have the chance to be afraid.
The memories of the kids in the next two pictures always run together for me, because their deaths happened only months apart, and because the two kids looked sort of alike. What happened to them couldn’t have been more different, though. With Noah, the first one, I kept smelling something burning. I was eleven and just barely allowed to boil my own water for hot chocolate, so that whole Saturday I kept checking the stove, thinking maybe that I’d left a burner on that morning. Mom finally grabbed me, literally grabbed my arm on my bazillionth trip to the stove, and asked me what was going on. She didn’t smell anything burning, she assured me. But the burning smell was starting to drive me crazy. I smelled it even when I held my nose closed. It wasn’t till that night that I saw him. By that time, he didn’t look like he did in his picture. He didn’t look like anything anymore. Fiona happened just a few months later, and she looked just like herself, except lying crooked at the bottom of a well her parents didn’t even know was in their backyard.
Morgan. She had fat earlobes that she wore heart earrings in; she had a mole on her left cheek, and eyebrows that seemed too thick for a five-year-old. Like me, I remember thinking. They found her at the neighbor’s house, once they figured out I was describing what Morgan’s house looked like from his bedroom window.
Then came Tim. Not Timmy, I remember his mom saying on the news, Tim. I don’t like to think about what happened to him. I saw too much red.
The next picture is of Wesley and his neatly parted hair. When it happened I was nine, he was six. In the picture he has a toothy, wide-mouthed smile and a pudgy little face. He was the one I could feel drowning as I sat with my mom and dad in church one Sunday. My dad started whacking me on the back, because I was turning blue while the pastor was announcing the date for that year’s summer social. Mom carried me into the bathroom, sitting me on the sink and rubbing my arms up and down until I was breathing again. They said what happened to Wesley wasn’t exactly murder, but I think it was. I think his sister knew she held him under for just a little too long.
My dad found my mom in the church bathroom, when she was trying to get me to breathe again. He wanted to call for an ambulance, but she wouldn’t let him. She said, She’s okay, Marty, shell be okay. I remember my dad looking at me in a way he never had before. I was saying, The boy can’t breathe. Let him out of the water, Mommy, he can’t breathe. I could see my own distorted reflection in the metal paper-towel holder, my chin stretched out, my eyes black holes. I still think that’s what he saw. I still think that maybe that’s what I really look like. A monster. He said, She has it, doesn’t she? And then, three days later, he was gone.
The last picture is the same picture of Clarence that I just took from the photo album. The one from the envelope is more faded, but the one from the album is curved from being peeled off the adhesive. I place one of the Clarence pictures on one knee, and the picture of Tessa, smoothed out, on the other. You can’t tell, from looking at the pictures, that they are linked forever now. I think, I am linked to them too. My stomach clenches when I think of the fourth figure, linked to all of us, no matter how hard I may try to sever the invisible tendon tying us all together.
That night, when I dream of the desert, I try again and again to turn around, finding myself either facing in the same direction or unable to move at all. The footsteps get closer and closer, but there is never a cold hand on my shoulder or a hard shove sending me into the hole. The fear is too much. Wake up, wake up, wake up. I do.