“Dylan?”
It’s been so long since Pilar’s called me on the phone, it takes me a second to recognize her voice. It’s Sunday afternoon; I haven’t seen her all weekend.
“Hey, Pilar! How are you feeling?”
“Can you come over?” she asks, her voice leaden.
“What’s wrong?”
“Can you come over?” she asks again.
“Sure, let me just ask my mom.”
“Tell her you have to, just for a couple hours.”
“Okay. I’ll be over soon.”
“Are you sure she’s home?” Mom asks when we get there. All the lights are off. “It’s Pilar, Mom. She’s saving electricity.”
“Oh. Don’t let her read in that light. She’ll go blind.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her.”
“Lock the door behind you.”
I don’t knock, just let myself in. Pilar is sitting on the couch in the dusky light, Grace asleep beside her, her head resting in Pilar’s lap. I sit down, rubbing Grace’s little feet.
“Hi, Professor,” I say softly.
“I keep falling asleep,” Pilar says.
“Okay.”
“I keep falling asleep, and I can’t fall asleep.”
“Okay.”
“What do you think it’s doing to all of us?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, it can’t be good, right?” She gives a harsh laugh. “It can’t be good for us to live through this. Do you think it’s, like, messing us up? How can we ever be happy knowing these things are happening? How can you live a normal life when you’ve seen these things? I think it might have done something to me, Dylan. I think that little kid down the hill—I think it did something to me.” She looks at Grace. “I keep falling asleep,” she says, “and I can’t. I can’t fall asleep. You have to sit here, Dylan. You have to sit here and promise me you won’t fall asleep. If I sleep now, I can be awake tonight. You have to sit here with us, Dylan.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t fall asleep.”
“Okay,” I say.
“You’re the only one I trust, Dylan. You’ll stay awake, right? When I wake up, I won’t be so crazy. I just need some sleep.”
“Okay.”
“You know what tomorrow is, right?”
“What?”
“Eleven years. Can you believe it? It seems like yesterday.”
“Stop saying …” Her eyes close, and then she shakes her head, opening them again. “I think I love Gracie more than my mom does, don’t you? My mom says she does—”
“I think Grade’s the most-loved kid on this mountain.”
“Clarence was loved and it didn’t matter at all,” she says, sitting back against the couch cushion. “The Drifter still got him.”
“Pilar?”
Her eyes close again. “Hm?”
“I have something to tell you.”
“I have something to tell you,” Pilar says back, opening her eyes and blinking heavily. I don’t know what to do. She’s so scared. And I don’t want to scare her more.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“I love you, too, Professor,” she says.
She sleeps like that, sitting straight up, facing me. The sun goes all the way down and I count the stones of the fireplace in the darkness. When the clock strikes five thirty, I carefully get off the couch and go into the kitchen, lighting a candle so I won’t wake Pilar. There’s tofu thawing on the counter, a printout of a recipe beside it.
“Okay,” I say aloud. “I can do this.”
By six o’clock I’ve impressed myself by cooking up a passable stir-fry. Grace woke up a few minutes ago, and has been sitting sleepily at the counter, eating the oat cereal I laid out for her, and coloring. Pilar’s parents’ car lights sweep across the room. I switch the kitchen light on and walk over to the couch.
“Hey, Pilar?” I say. “My mom’s coming soon. Do you want to get up?”
She gasps. “I’m up.”
“Okay.”
“Turn on the light,” she says. I do. Her house looks so much more alive in the light. She rubs her eyes, squeezing my hand. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.” She gets up. “You cooked? Oh, Dylan, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I say. “Taste it first.”
She walks over to the stove and takes a spoonful. “It’s good!” she says, adding about fifteen more herbs. “Thank you,” she says.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Totally. I just needed sleep.”
A car horn beeps outside.
“That’s my mom. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yep,” she says. She hugs me lightly, and laughs. “I slept away all my strength.”
In the driveway my mom and Pilar’s parents are standing close together with crossed arms, talking. They stop when I come outside.
We all look like a bunch of zombies at school the next day. I can tell that nobody else is sleeping either. At lunch we eat mostly in silence. It takes me a while to realize everyone else at our table has stopped chewing. I look up and see MayBe and Thea are looking at Pilar. And Pilar is staring right at Cate.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Cate looks up from her pudding. “What?”
“What the fuck,” Pilar says, standing up, “is that?”
Cate looks behind her. “What?”
“Where did you get that?” Pilar’s voice is shaking.
“What?” Gate asks again, her voice faltering.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Pilar yells, lunging over the table and grabbing at the zipper of Cate’s sweatshirt. Pilar yanks it down, hard.
We recoil, all of us moving our chairs back away from Cate.
“Jesus, Cate,” MayBe says. “Why would you do that?”
Cate pulls away from Pilar, zipping up her sweatshirt. It’s too late, though. We all saw it. Over her long-sleeved white T-shirt is the green T-shirt we wore on the first anniversary of Clarence’s death. She’s cut down the sides of the collar to fit it over her head, and I’m guessing she cut off the sleeves, too. She must have taken it from the back of my photo album.
“Sick.” Thea hisses the word at Cate.
“Why would you do that, Cate? Why would you wear that?” MayBe is pleading.
“If I lived here,” Cate says finally, “I would remember what today is.” Her chin is jutted out. She looks like a stubborn little kid.
Pilar looks at me. “Did you give her that shirt?”
I shake my head. I still can’t believe this is happening.
“Listen, princess,” Pilar spits, “we’re not in the habit of picking each other’s scabs here. And even if we don’t say out loud what day it is today, you bet we remember. We’re the ones who were there. You need to quit your morbid fascination with this, little girl. You need to grow up and leave it alone.”
“Like you guys? Grow up and pretend it didn’t happen? Eleven years ago today!”
Cate levels her gaze at me. It’s too late for me to stand up and away from her reach when she grabs my collar and yanks it down, hard. With her other hand she reaches and digs her nails into the Band-Aid on my chest. She rips it off, leaving red half-moons from her nails.
Pilar grabs Cate’s arm. “What the hell are you doing?”
Cate doesn’t answer, she just wrenches her arm free and shoves the Band-Aid in Pilar’s face. The three photographs—Tessa and Clarence and Brian—are stuck to the edges. “See, Dylan remembers. At least she has a heart. Not like the rest of you.”
She drops the Band-Aid onto the lunch table and walks away.
We all stay standing, staring at the wrinkled Band-Aid and bent pictures lying upside down on the lunch table.
MayBe finally reaches forward and picks up the small bundle. She hands it to me.
“Dylan,” Pilar says, “what the hell is going on with you two?”
“I’m just …,” I say.
“Do you guys have some sort of—” MayBe falters. “Are you guys making some sort of cult or something? Around the Drifter?”
“No!” I say. “How could you ask that?”
“Because you’ve both freaking us out, dude!” Thea says loudly. “God, what are you doing?”
I’m so tired. I sit back down at the lunch table.
“I’m lying to you,” I say, a sob working its way up my throat. “I’ve always lied to you.”
“About what?” Pilar asks, sitting next to me.
I shake my head, crying harder. MayBe hands me a napkin.
“Don’t make me tell you here,” I say, sobbing. “I can’t tell you.”
“After school, then,” Thea says sharply. “You can tell us what the hell’s been going on with you.”
“We’ll take the bus to the village,” MayBe says.
Pilar nods in agreement, never taking her eyes off me.
But Pilar isn’t there when we get on the bus. We ask Dottie to wait for her, and she does, but Pilar just doesn’t come.
“Maybe she went home?” MayBe asks.
“Maybe she didn’t care about your big secret,” Thea says. “You still going to tell us?”
We’re all squeezed into one seat, me sandwiched between them. Thea snorts. “You’re not going to tell us, are you?”
“Where’d Cate go, anyway?” MayBe asks.
“She went home sick,” I answer. I saw her in the nurse’s office, where I went for an aspirin after lunch.
“And where’s Frank and Ben and Cray?” MayBe asks.
“Who knows,” Thea answers, a smirk flickering over her face.
We get off the bus in the village.
“Where to?” Thea asks. “Where’s the best place to tell a secret around here?”
“This way,” I say, and step into the narrow alley I use to get to the police station. I walk halfway down and stop.
MayBe bumps into me, and Thea into her.
“What, this is it?” Thea asks.
I nod, turning around to face them; the space is just barely wide enough.
“Very dramatic,” Thea says, crossing her arms.
“Thea, be nice,” MayBe says.
“So, what is it? What’s your big lie?” Thea asks, smirking.
I look from MayBe to Thea, wishing Pilar were here. It’d be easier to say it to her, I think. I don’t even know how to say it.
“I see … dead kids.”
Thea laughs. “Like in that movie? The ‘I see dead people’ movie?”
“I love that movie,” MayBe says. “It’s a classic.”
“So,” Thea says, “where do you see these dead kids? And do they know they’re dead? Or are they waiting for that creepy-looking psychic kid to let them in on the secret?”
Even MayBe’s laughing a little now, and I can hear in both of their laughter how much they want what I’m saying to not be true. How much they want me to laugh with them, to tell them I’m joking, and that my big secret is actually that I’m adopted or that Cate’s my long-lost sister.
“Remember when Clarence died,” I start, and their laughter fizzles, “and I went to the nurse because I threw up?”
They both nod.
“I threw up because I had a …” I clear my throat. “A vision. Of Clarence.”
“A vision?” MayBe asks, her face pale.
“What sort of vision?” Thea asks.
“I saw him lying in the snow. I saw where the Drifter had left him.”
“Bullshit,” Thea says, popping the word like bubble gum. “You’re as sick as your new friend.”
“Dylan, why are you saying this?” MayBe asks. “Why would you say something like that?”
“He was lying in the snow, and he didn’t have any boots, and he didn’t have his glasses, and he didn’t have his hat.”
“We know all of that,” Thea says. “We saw it on the news.”
“Where was I the night they found that little girl Tessa’s body in Salvation?”
“How the hell should I know?” Thea asks.
“Where were you?” MayBe asks. “You left school early.”
“I was there. With Deputy Pesquera. I left school because I’d had a—”
“A vision?” Thea asks with mock excitement.
“Yes.”
“So, what? You and Pesquera drove down to Salvation and helped them dig up that little girl?”
“Thea,” MayBe says softly.
“What? That’s what she’s saying. Right, Dylan? You go down there with a shovel and do some digging? Or,” she says, laughing and tapping her forehead, “do you use your super mind powers to dig the hole?”
“You were in school the next day, though,” MayBe says.
“We got back late, after three a.m. I didn’t want to stay home from school the next day.”
Thea stops laughing. “Wait. What?”
“We got back in the middle of the night.”
She leans against the alley wall and studies her fingernails. “You see anybody on your way—”
“Frank and Cray,” I say quickly, “painting the Willows sign.”
Thea snorts. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Wait,” MayBe says. “Is that how you knew about Clarence’s house? About him dying there, not in the woods? Is that why you freaked out?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who the Drifter is?” Thea asks.
“No.”
“Some psychic,” she scoffs. “I don’t believe you.”
“What number am I thinking of?” she asks quickly, laughing.
“Five,” I answer.
“Lucky,” she says, laughing nervously.
“Four hundred and seventeen,” I say, stepping toward her.
She swallows a laugh.
“Thirty-nine.” I move closer. “Fourteen, twenty-one, zero, zero, zero, stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking.”
My nose is almost touching hers now.
“Stop it,” Thea whispers. “Please stop it.”
I step back.
“Was she right?” MayBe asks Thea. “Did she guess right?”
“Is that why you made us sing that stupid song?” Thea asks.
“What song?”
“Drifter, Drifter’s coming for you,” Thea sings in a little-girl falsetto.
“We all sang that song,” I say quickly.
“Yeah, because you made us,” she says sharply. “You always were a freaky kid.”
“It’s true, Dylan,” MayBe says. “You made up that song and made us sing it over and over and over again. It kind of creeped us all out.”
“Wha…” I shake my head, confused, thinking back to the summer under my back porch, making up the song … And then I remember. I lined them up, the three of them—Pilar, Thea, and MayBe against the wall under the porch. We’d just had Popsicles and were chewing on the sticks, our lips orange and purple and green. I said, You have to help me remember. And then I taught them the song.
“So we helped you remember that stupid song,” Thea says. “Now what?” She levels her eyes at me and sings, “First snow’s coming and he’s coming back.” She glances up as the first flakes of winter start to fall. When she looks back at me, she’s gone pale. “I used to think he controlled the weather,” she says, her eyes tearing. “I thought he was the one who made it snow.”
“Does Cate know?” MayBe asks.
I nod, and Thea swears under her breath.
Even MayBe can’t hide the angry disappointment in her voice. “You told Cate, and not us? Not even Pilar?”
“I was afraid,” I say helplessly. “And with Cate … it sort of just came out.”
It’s a weak excuse, and I know it. I just don’t know how else to explain.
“Is that why she’s so obsessed with Clarence?” Thea asks.
“She won’t stop asking about him,” I say quietly. “She keeps making me tell her …”
“Making you?” Thea interrupts. “She not making you do anything. You told her, all on your own.”
“I know.” I lean heavily against the wall, tipping back my head so the snow falls and melts on my cheeks.
“You have to tell Pilar,” MayBe says, the gentleness returned to her voice.
“I know. I will. I’ll tell her tonight.”
“Make this right, Dylan,” Thea says.
We sit in silence outside of Mountain Candy, waiting for Thea’s mom to come pick us up.
“It’s pretty,” MayBe says, cautious about breaking the silence. We are looking out at the snow falling, the colored lights, and the way-festive decorations that now have completely taken over the village. “I love Christmas up here.”
“Me too,” Thea and I both say at the same time. She gives me a nudge with her elbow and smiles. “Jinx, buy me a Coke.”
“Next year we’ll be seniors, so we get to ride on Santa’s fire engine in the parade,” MayBe says, smiling.
“And peg little kids in the head with bubble gum and candy canes.” Thea laughs.
I laugh too.
“Dude,” Thea says, “I can’t believe you’re a freaking psychic.”
“I know,” I groan. “Weird, right?”
“Weird ain’t the half of it,” Thea says, smiling at me. “I’m glad you told us, Dylan.”
“Me too,” MayBe says. “And there’s Thea’s mom.”
“They’ll find him, you know,” Thea says as we stand, jutting her chin out. “The Drifter’s toast. Pesquera will track him down and shoot off his gunnysack if he so much as looks at this mountain again.”
“Sheriff Dean should have found him the first time,” I say. We’re standing outside of the car; none of us has opened a door yet.
“He did his best, don’t you think, though?” MayBe asks. “He did all he could.”
“Dylan’s right, it wasn’t enough. Pesquera, though,” Thea says. “There’s a lady you can hang your hope on.” Thea’s mom honks the horn.
“Will you call us after you tell Pilar?” MayBe asks, opening the car door. “So we know that we all know?”
“Sure I will,” I answer.
The radio is on in the car, but none of us sing. It’s not an angry ride home. The quiet is actually nice, with just the radio and the sound of the windshield wipers to keep it company.
Mom’s sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea when I get home. I get a mug of my own and use the leftover hot water to make a cup of instant hot chocolate. I sit across the table from her.
“How was school today?” she asks.
“Kind of … terrible.”
“How so?”
I shake my head. “It just was.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I do. More than anything. But not yet. Not before I talk to Pilar. “Maybe tomorrow?”
Mom nods. “Tomorrow, then.”
We drink our tea and cocoa in silence, and later on eat a quiet dinner in front of the TV.
I go up to my room early and try Pilar again. She didn’t answer her cell phone before dinner, and even though I know it’ll probably piss off her mom, I call on their house line this time.
“It’s nine thirty. Is this an emergency?”
“No, Mrs. Alvarez. I’m just trying to reach Pilar. Is she in?”
“Pilar doesn’t take calls after eight on school nights. Who is this?”
I know she knows it’s me. They have caller ID. “It’s Dylan, Mrs. Alvarez. How are you?”
“Fine. Dylan, please don’t call this late again.”
“Will you please tell Pilar I called?”
“Yes. Good night.”