Long Lost

by Jacqueline West

  “Are you a stray? Or do you belong here?”

  The dog pawed at the earth.

  Fiona lowered her voice and tried once more. “Hey. Is your name Pixie?”

  At this, the dog looked up. Its gold-brown eyes met hers. Its bristly nose quivered.

  Fiona stood like a stone, letting the rain pummel her.

  It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be the same Pixie. The same curly brown dog that had lived here, with Evelyn and Margaret, more than a hundred years ago.

  Fiona crouched. “Come here, Pixie,” she whispered.

  Now the dog padded closer. But when Fiona reached out to touch him, she felt nothing but a stir in the cold, damp air.

  A matching cold, damp feeling swirled through Fiona’s stomach.

  The dog turned away again, pawing harder at the roots of the tree.

  Like he was looking for something.

  In Fiona’s head, a match touched a wick. She grabbed the trowel.

  The dog hopped sideways, watching, as Fiona began to dig.

  The ground was spongy with rain. As Fiona dug, the drops fell faster, the hole around her trowel pooling with rainwater. Soon the dirt turned to mud. Cold grit stuck between her fingers, and wet strands of hair pasted themselves to her face.

  The dog gave an impatient whimper.

  Flickers of lightning bleached the air. Thunder banged again, so close now that it made Fiona jump.

  This was ridiculous. What was she doing, crouching under a giant tree during a thunderstorm, gripping a metal tool, taking direction from a dog? Fiona’s shoulders sagged. She yanked the trowel out of the mud.

  And below it, deep in the muddy hole, something glinted.

  Fiona shoved the trowel beneath the glinting thing. It popped to the surface. Fiona grabbed it, letting the pouring rain help wash the mud away.

  Underneath was the gleam of mother-of-pearl.

  It was coated with dirt and rust, but that didn’t matter. Fiona knew what this was.

  She was holding Hazel’s—Evelyn’s—pocketknife.

  “I knew it,” said a voice from behind her.

  There was another bang of thunder.

  Fiona scrambled around, nearly falling on her backside. Standing a few feet away, holding a broad green umbrella, was the round-faced blond boy.

  He nodded toward the knife in Fiona’s hand. “I knew it still had to be here somewhere.” He squinted through the rain. “How did you know where to look?”

  “I . . . ,” Fiona began. “The dog was . . .”

  She pointed. But the curly brown dog had vanished.

  “Oh, you mean Pixie,” said the boy.

  Fiona swallowed. “You know about Pixie?”

  “Sure,” said the boy. “Of course I know about him.” He gave Fiona a steady stare. “I’m Charlie Hobbes.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The wet world around Fiona seemed to tilt sideways.

  “Charlie Hobbes,” she whispered. “The one who buried the knife here in the first place.”

  “Well, not that Charlie Hobbes,” said the boy, like Fiona had just declared that one plus one equals eleven. “I’m obviously not a hundred and twenty years old. That Charlie Hobbes was my great-grandpa.”

  “Oh.” Fiona let out a tight breath. Cautiously, she reached out with the tip of the trowel and tapped the boy on the arm. It left a streak of mud on his sleeve.

  “I’m alive,” he said calmly. “But that dog isn’t. I mean, not anymore.”

  “But I saw . . . ,” Fiona began. She stopped there. Her arms felt suddenly very heavy, and she couldn’t quite remember how to move them.

  “I know,” said the boy. He glanced up at the rumbling sky. “We should talk somewhere else. Come on. I know where we can go.”

  He walked away quickly. Fiona couldn’t think of anything to do except grab her bag and stumble after him.

  The Perch Diner had white beadboard walls and linoleum floors. Rows of blue booths ran along each side, and a counter covered with pie stands stood in between. The scents of coffee, bacon, and cinnamon grabbed Fiona by the nose as she followed Charlie Hobbes through the door.

  The Perch Diner. She’d heard that name somewhere before.

  “I have a coupon for free oatmeal here,” Fiona said aloud.

  Charlie Hobbes was folding up his umbrella. He gave her a slightly puzzled look. “I don’t really like oatmeal.”

  “Yeah,” said Fiona awkwardly. “Me neither.”

  Charlie led the way to a booth. There were several other people in the diner, all of them much older, scattered around in singles or pairs. They gave Charlie little nods as he passed by. Then their eyes moved to Fiona, and she could feel them evaluating her, trying to place her, realizing that she didn’t belong.

  Their murmurs followed her across the room.

  “. . . into the Putnams’ old place, down on Lane’s End,” she heard one old man say. “One daughter’s a big-time skater. Thinks she’s going to get to the Olympics or something.”

  There was a laugh—not a nice one—in response. Fiona had to fight to keep from turning back and snapping that Arden was going to get to the Olympics. These people had learned the facts about her family somehow. But then they had twisted them all around.

  Charlie sat down in a blue booth. Fiona slid onto the vinyl seat across from him, tugging off the hood of her raincoat. The warm air felt good on her clammy skin. Before she could ask him any questions, or even decide which one to ask first, a large white woman bustled over from behind the counter.

  “Hey, sweetie.” She plunked down a mug of cocoa in front of Charlie. The tag pinned to her apron read JUDY. “Who’s your friend?”

  Fiona’s brain snagged on the word “friend.” Was that what she and this boy were? Friends?

  “This is Fiona Crane,” Charlie answered. “Her family just moved here. They live down Lane’s End Road.”

  “Ah. So you bought the Putnams’ old house,” said Judy. Her voice was loud and warm, but her face was hard to read. “Heard they’d sold to a family from western Mass. Welcome to Lost Lake.”

  “This is my grandma,” Charlie told Fiona. “She runs this place.”

  “Hi,” Fiona managed.

  “Cocoa for you too?” asked Judy.

  “Sure.” Fiona halted, reaching into her pocket. “But I don’t have any—”

  Judy was already striding away.

  “Don’t worry. You won’t have to pay for it.” Charlie leaned forward. “The knife,” he said, in a lower voice. “Can we look at it?”

  After making sure none of the nearby people were watching, Fiona dug the dirty lump out of her raincoat pocket. Charlie made a mat of paper napkins on the tabletop. Fiona set the lump down, and they both craned over it, rubbing it with more napkins until the mud was gone and the mother-of-pearl handle glinted softly in the light.

  “Yep. That is definitely Evelyn’s knife,” said Charlie.

  Fiona stared into his face. “You’re the one who left me the note, aren’t you?” she asked. “You told me to keep digging.”

  “I knew you were trying to figure out what really happened, just like me,” he answered. “I saw you with the book. I heard you asking questions. I thought maybe we could help each other.”

  “The Lost One?” Fiona whispered. “You’ve read it too?”

  “A few weeks ago,” Charlie answered. “I’ve read part of every section in the library, and all of some sections. I found it when I was looking through the geology books. At first I pulled it out because I knew it didn’t belong there. Then I read a little of it, and I realized it was about Lost Lake and the girls in the story had to be the Chisholms. I tried to check it out, but Ms. Miranda wouldn’t let me, because she said it wasn’t supposed to circulate at all. So then I snuck it home with me. But it disappeared. Right off the desk in my bedroom.” His intent green eyes stared into hers. “Three days later, I found it back at the library again.”

  “What?” Fiona breathed. “You—”

>   Abruptly, Charlie sat up, tossing a napkin over the pocketknife.

  Judy marched up to the table. She set down another mug of cocoa and two giant cinnamon buns, winked at Charlie, and marched off again.

  “Thanks, Grandma!” Charlie called after her.

  “How did the book get back to the library?” Fiona whispered, once Judy was out of earshot.

  “Well, I didn’t return it. My family didn’t return it. I knew that something strange was going on with that book, so I’ve been trying to keep track of it ever since.”

  “The same thing happened to me when I took the book home,” Fiona breathed.

  Charlie nodded, looking unsurprised.

  Fiona wrapped one chilly hand around the cocoa mug. This boy had read the story. And, unlike Ms. Miranda, he seemed ready to believe that there was something hidden within it. Something he might help her find. “You said you know everything about this town.”

  Charlie nodded confidently. “I do.”

  “Then what really happened to Evelyn Chisholm?”

  Charlie took a sip of cocoa. “That’s the one thing I don’t know.”

  Fiona lifted her own mug. Anybody who said there was only one thing he didn’t know was almost definitely wrong.

  “I know basically everything about this town,” Charlie amended. “I know all the places and all the people. My family has been here forever. My grandpa and my great-grandpa were both named Charles Hobbes, and they both worked for the Chisholms. They’ve both passed on now. But my great-grandpa always said that Evelyn didn’t die of an illness. He said something else happened, and the Chisholm family covered it up.”

  As hard as Fiona tried to focus on his words, the smell of cinnamon bun kept dragging her mind in another direction. “So . . . what happened?” she asked, through a giant mouthful.

  “He wasn’t sure.” Charlie cut his own cinnamon bun into bite-sized pieces. “He just said she disappeared.”

  “Hey,” said Fiona, swallowing so fast she nearly choked. “Do you think your great-grandpa wrote the book?”

  “No.” Charlie shook his head hard. “He grew up with the Chisholms. He was practically part of the family. He hated all the gossip about them. Plus, he wasn’t really the book type.” Charlie shrugged. “I’m the outlier in my family in that way.”

  Fiona took another huge bite. “Then who did write it?”

  “Whoever did it was really angry at the Chisholms. Because that book is obviously cursed.”

  Fiona frowned. “Cursed?”

  “Don’t you know about curses?” Charlie gave her a look. “The book is cursed to remain at the library. It can’t leave, not for long. Just like a ghost can’t leave the place it haunts. And it doesn’t even have an ending. It’s stuck. Cursed.”

  Fiona gave Charlie a look of her own.

  This boy was odder than she’d thought. He might even be a kook, which was what her mom and dad called people who believed in unscientific things. Still, it was nice to sit in a booth in a warm diner, drinking cocoa and trying to solve a puzzle with a . . . well, not a friend. But something not one hundred miles away.

  “Ms. Miranda said those stories are just rumors,” said Fiona at last. “She says Evelyn died of pneumonia or something, and people just spread gossip and conspiracy theories because that’s what people in small towns do.”

  “Ms. Miranda isn’t from here,” said Charlie, as though this explained everything.

  “Okay. Then . . .” Fiona took another gulp of cocoa, hoping not to sound like a kook herself. “Do you think the Searcher might be real?”

  “Of course I do,” said Charlie. “I’m from here.”

  “Plus there’s the dog. The one that might be Pixie.”

  Charlie frowned. “Who else would it be?”

  They were definitely in kook territory now. “You mean . . . you believe in ghosts?”

  “Ghosts are just parts of the past that haven’t stopped happening,” said Charlie. “Things that are unfinished. Like if you disappeared, and no one ever found you.”

  No one ever found you. The words lingered like a scar in Fiona’s mind.

  What Charlie was saying made a strange kind of sense. Fiona believed in history, after all—in the traces that the past could leave behind. Traces like Evelyn Rose Chisholm.

  “Ms. Miranda said the story wasn’t true,” said Fiona slowly. “But there’s so much of it that is true. Margaret and Evelyn and your great-grandpa. Parson’s Bridge. Evelyn’s knife. Pixie.”

  “I know.” Charlie nodded. “I think the whole story is true. I think the book is just waiting for someone to unlock the ending.”

  “But . . .” Fiona tapped her fork on her plate, thinking hard. “But Evelyn didn’t disappear, like the book says. She died. There was a funeral. She has a gravestone in the cemetery.”

  Charlie nodded. “I know. I’ve seen it. It doesn’t mean she’s actually buried there.”

  “No,” said Fiona, craning forward. “I just remembered. There’s something weird about the stone.”

  “I know,” said Charlie again. “I’ve seen it.”

  “You say that a lot,” Fiona exploded.

  “Say what?”

  “‘I know’!”

  “I know.” Charlie cracked a smile—the first one she had seen him wear. “I’m an obnoxious know-it-all. Everybody says so.”

  “Oh.” Fiona gave him a smaller smile back. “Well. At least you know.”

  They both sipped their cocoa.

  “What were you saying?” Charlie asked. “About the gravestone?”

  “All the other Chisholm stones have dates, but there are no dates on Evelyn’s. What if that’s because they lied about her death? About when and how it happened?”

  “That’s a good theory. Or maybe there’s no date because she was never buried at all.”

  Fiona tipped her head to the side. “You’ve thought about this already, haven’t you?”

  “A little.” The expression on Charlie’s face was less confident now. It was almost shy. “But it’s nice to have someone to talk to about it. Finally.”

  Fiona scraped up a streak of icing with her fork. “Okay. Assuming The Lost One is true, how do we find the ending?”

  “I know,” said Charlie eagerly. “Well—I might know. We should search Evelyn’s bedroom.”

  “You know about Evelyn’s bedroom?”

  “Of course I know about Evelyn’s bedroom.”

  “Because you’re from here?”

  “No. Because I’m a know-it-all.” Charlie flashed her another smile. “Let’s go.”

  “Just a second,” Fiona murmured as she and Charlie Hobbes stepped through the library’s double doors. “When I went up to Evelyn’s room before, I got kicked out by one of the librarians who works up there. We should find out if she’s up there right now.”

  Charlie nodded. “You should tell Ms. Miranda that you have a question for that other librarian. If she’s here, they’ll call her down, and if she isn’t, we can sneak up right now.”

  “Yes,” said Fiona. “Exactly.” It was a little irritating, working with someone who knew everything already, but it did save a lot of explaining time.

  They hurried toward the circulation desk.

  Ms. Miranda looked up at them. Her dark hair was swept into an extra-elaborate heap this morning, with two tiny paper airplanes landing in its whorls. She gave a widening smile.

  “Good morning, Fiona. And how’s it going, Charlie? You two have met?”

  “Good morning,” Fiona answered. “We were just wondering . . . you know that librarian who works on the third floor?”

  Ms. Miranda’s eyebrows quirked. “On the third floor?”

  “Yes. I had a question for her. About something we talked about the other day,” Fiona improvised, hoping her voice sounded steadier on the outside than it did from within.

  Ms. Miranda’s eyebrows drew closer together. “There’s no one on the library staff who works on the third floor. It’s just
archives,” she said. “What did she look like?”

  “She was tall. Like . . . taller than you. She had curly gray hair. White skin. Big shoulders. She was wearing a long dress.”

  Charlie gave Fiona a poke in the back. Fiona ignored it, because Ms. Miranda and her eyebrows were still staring straight at her.

  “I don’t know who that would be.” Ms. Miranda turned to Mr. Owens, who was sorting books at the other end of the desk. “Do you, James?”

  “She definitely worked here,” Fiona pushed on. “She knew all about the library. She told me what rooms I couldn’t go in.”

  Charlie gave her another annoying poke. “I know who it was,” he hissed into her ear. “It’s all right,” he added loudly, grabbing Fiona’s arm. “We’ll figure things out ourselves.”

  Before Fiona could argue, he steered her around the corner of the new arrivals shelf.

  “I know who it was,” Charlie whispered again, once they were hidden from view.

  “So?” Fiona whispered back. “Just knowing who—”

  “Really tall,” Charlie interrupted. “Big shoulders. Long dress.”

  “Long dress,” Fiona repeated. “What?”

  Charlie stared at her. “Mrs. Rawlins.”

  Fiona let out a breath through her nose. “Mrs. Rawlins must have died a long time ago.”

  “Exactly.”

  “This woman wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t even like a ghost. She was solid. She talked to me. She was a real person.”

  “She was a real person.” Charlie’s eyes glowed like stained glass lamps. “She’s part of a story without an ending. So she’s stuck here too.”

  Fiona took another exasperated nose-breath. “Let’s just sneak up to the third floor,” she whispered. “If she stops us, you’ll see that she’s real, and if she doesn’t, we can visit Evelyn’s room. Come on.”

  The third-floor hallway was even more hushed and dim than on Fiona’s first visit. The rainy day outside the windows sent only a faint gray haze through the windows, and the dampness in the air seemed to muffle every sound.

  They stopped before the last door in the hallway. Gently Fiona turned the knob.

  At first glance, Evelyn’s bedroom looked just as it had before. Fiona and Charlie stood on the threshold, gazing around at the lace curtains, the cluttered vanity, the books and treasures still waiting for an owner who had never come back.