Six Years Ago
I STOOD AT THE FRONT GATES OF THE REFORMATORY. Waiting. It felt strange to be there out in the open, instead of hiding in the tall grass around the back side. I pressed the button to announce myself and, in a trembling voice, spoke into the black box. “Skylar Gardner here for Piper Gardner.”
“Relation?” The disembodied voice crackled through the speaker.
“Sister,” I said, although they already know. It wasn’t a question asked to gain information; it was a reminder of who was in charge.
“Discharge papers?”
I looked down at my empty hands, as if the papers might have magically appeared. “Sorry, I didn’t get anything,” I finally answered.
I waited, but there was no response. My mouth was dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. What if they didn’t let you out? What would I do then?
For the millionth time, I wished that you hadn’t fought with Ms. Van Nuys. She was just a dumb newcomer, so who really cared if she gave daily lectures on how every kid in town should be tagged and monitored? Yes, I got that you were pissed, but you could’ve just stopped after calling her an idiot. That would have been enough for most people. But not you. You had to take it even further and tell her to do herself a favor and either leave Gardnerville or jump out a window.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a day later you actually made her jump out a window. She was on the first floor, so she wasn’t hurt, but Daddy still had to ooze a whole lot of charm to keep you out of the reformatory. And then after all that, you walked up to the reformatory, pressed this very same intercom button, and said, “My name is Piper Gardner and I’d like to commit myself for two weeks.” I stood at your side, dumbfounded and hoping they’d send you home with a sharp warning about messing with things you didn’t understand. But, of course, they didn’t. Instead the gates opened up. I tugged at your hand, begging you not to do it. You pulled away. “See you in two weeks,” you said to me with a brave smile, and then you disappeared inside the reformatory for the first time.
I pressed the button once more. “Hello?”
A long moment passed. I reached toward the button, ready to push it again.
“WAIT.” The command blasted out. I snatched my hand back.
I didn’t have a watch, but it was a long time before anything else happened, and when it did, it happened all at once. A buzzer shrieked, the front door swung open, and then, at last, you stepped out into the sunlight. I tried to see past you, to the interior of the reformatory and your home for the last two weeks, but it was pitch-black inside.
Everything about you sagged. Your shoulders and neck bent forward, giving way to the weight of your head, which hung at such a low angle you seemed to be studying your own belly button. Instead of walking, you shuffled along, not lifting your feet but sliding them through the dusty yard.
“Piper,” I called out. “Piper!”
You didn’t look up. Maybe you didn’t hear me. Maybe you were angry. Or lost in your own thoughts. I couldn’t bear for it to be anything else. I couldn’t stand to think they broke you in only fourteen days.
At last, you reached the gate, and after several long moments of making you wait in front of it—never looking up, not even seeming to notice me only inches away on the other side—someone inside deigned to buzz it open.
A few more shuffling steps brought you to my side, while behind you, the gate slammed shut once more.
I stared at you, waiting, wanting to follow your lead. You drooped like the bouquets of roses Dad sometimes bought for Mom, which she held on to for so long that they began to rot.
“C’mon,” I said, slipping my hand into yours. It took only a gentle tug to get you moving alongside me down the hill. “Chance is waiting at the bottom. He wouldn’t come any closer, that chicken dog.” You knew this already, but I needed to fill the silence. “Ms. Van Nuys is okay. If you were worried.”
I didn’t add that Ms. Van Nuys had also left town, but not before she visited us. She stood in the doorway of our house screaming at Mom and Dad, while I hid in the stairwell, hugging Chance close to keep him from barking and giving me away. “Your daughter is a menace. She should be locked up permanently.”
I waited for our parents to say something. To defend you and your strange powers. But they were silent. I wanted to step forward then, but I was afraid she might recognize me. That would only bring more trouble. The day before Ms. Van Nuys jumped, you and I had seen her in Al’s Grocery, pushing her little cart through the store with her nose in the air, probably annoyed that it wasn’t like the big grocery stores she was used to. “Touch her and tell her something awful about herself,” you’d said. I didn’t have to ask why. You’d already told me about your ongoing feud with Ms. Van Nuys. The worst of it wasn’t the stuff about tagging and monitoring. No, what you could never forgive was Ms. Van Nuys saying that she’d seen dozens of girls like you during her teaching career and, despite your notions to the contrary, you were nothing special. Even now, thinking about it, I felt the same outrage I did the first time you told me. Holding on to that outrage, I marched toward Ms. Van Nuys and wrapped my fingers around her arm, forcing her to stop.
“You came here because your baby died and your husband couldn’t stand to look at you anymore,” I told her.
I felt her skin prickle and go cold beneath my fingers. And then I ran. I had hoped never to see her again, but there she was at our house, demanding in her screechy voice, “Well? Don’t you have anything to say?”
I knew the exact moment Dad unleashed his smile on her. There was this strange high-pitched titter from Ms. Van Nuys. Then in his Mr. Smooth voice I heard Dad say, “It’s a good thing you were only on the first floor.”
Instead of slapping him, Ms. Van Nuys tittered again.
“I heard you’re leaving town. I’m real sorry about that. How about I walk you over to the train station? I’m sure you could use an extra hand to help carry your things.”
“Oh. Why . . . thank you,” Ms. Van Nuys answered in a breathy voice. Mom said nothing. She never did, not even when Dad walked out the door arm in arm with Ms. Van Nuys. Neither of us was surprised when he didn’t come home that night, or when we heard that Ms. Van Nuys had waited to take the train out the following week.
Now, as we walked home, I made myself be patient and wait for you to talk to me, instead of reaching into your head to find out for myself. About halfway down the hill, where it curves and the reformatory becomes hidden from view, you skidded to a stop.
“Sky,” you said, grabbing my other hand. At last, your eyes met mine. They were shining. Radiant. Burning with a victorious light. “I was right, Sky. It’s a terrible place. Worse than we ever imagined.”
“Are you okay?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Silly.” You gave me a little shake. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I figured out what I’m meant to do. What we’re meant to do. The reformatory began with the Gardners and it will end with us too.”
I said nothing. For years you had said the reformatory was our destiny, and I’d believed you. I’d thought you meant doing time. Getting drained. But this . . . this was a different plan entirely.
“Sky, you’re with me, right?”
I hesitated. Taking down the reformatory was about as impossible as shooting the sun from the sky, but that wasn’t the problem. If you had wanted it, I believed you could have shot down the sun, the moon, and a couple of stars too—you’d collect the whole set. The problem was imagining Gardnerville without the reformatory. How would our town even work?
“Sky?” You interrupted my thoughts, wanting an answer. I must have looked as panicked as I felt. A part of me was afraid that I’d agree and you would pull a pack of dynamite from your pocket, and then rush back up the hill, ready to blow the whole thing to kingdom come.
“I need this, Sky. It’s what I was meant to do.” You shook your head, correcting yourself. “No, it’s what we were meant to do.”
Piper, you never really needed powers to make others do your will. Not with me, at least.
And that was why there was never any choice to make.
“Yes, of course I’m with you,” I said. “Always.”