Frozen Beauty

by Lexa Hillyer

  Right, but sending her son away to the home of obscure relatives (because her first husband had split, her parents were dead, now her brother was dead too, and she didn’t even speak to either of her sisters) was totally healthy. Even Uncle Liam (great-uncle, technically) and Aunt Diane had dished out plenty of BS about wanting to “reconnect.” Sure, if by reconnect they’d meant take on a free house servant.

  He was sick of it. It wasn’t that mowing the lawn or cleaning out the garage or doing minor car repairs was so horrible in and of itself, it was just the fakery behind it all that pissed him off. It was fine if no one wanted him, but the pretending killed him. And anyway, he was just along for the ride. He hadn’t asked to be taken in. And he’d be fine when he was gone.

  It had to be better when you were on your own. No one to disappoint. No one to disappoint you.

  Rain fell quietly on the attic roof—tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick. Outside, the leaves, just starting to fall, would be matted down into the grass. Someone would have to rake them after the storm, into sodden, heavy piles, to be bagged and set on the street. It was the first bad weather they’d had in Devil’s Lake since he’d moved here in August.

  He sighed, picking up the Cubs hat his dad had given him way, way forever ago. He stared at the faded C. He wasn’t sure whether wearing it would fly in these parts or if he’d get the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of jacked-up Tigers bros.

  He scanned the attic room to see if there was anything he’d forgotten—not that he had much stuff to begin with. It was a mistake to even come here. He should’ve taken off on his own before it ever came to this—moving to a new town, trying to start over at a new school, meeting a whole new set of people with their own histories and expectations and assumptions. In the city there were always a million people everywhere and a million things going on, constant lights and honking horns and angry landlords and distractions. But out here in Devil’s Lake, it was dead silent at night, and he hated it. Hated how alone it made him feel, all that quiet. All that haunted, swaying grass on the side of the roads—made him want to flick a lighter to it and set the whole town aflame.

  For some reason, this made him think of the Malloy girl.

  It was true, he didn’t have to be such a dick to her. She was a redhead, he’d noticed, just like his last girlfriend, Sari, pronounced like “sorry,” which she hadn’t been when she’d taken off, too. He didn’t really know anything about this redhead other than what he’d overheard in gym the other day—some douche lacrosse player saying he wanted to bang all three Malloy sisters and one of his bonehead friends saying he didn’t even have a chance with one. Apparently, the redhead had a couple of older sisters who were just as hot as her. Patrick actually knew that the oldest one came by on her volunteer route, leaving groceries. Supposedly she was super smart, advanced classes and all that. He hadn’t interacted with her, though. He’d been standing in the shower when she drove up the last time, savoring the hot water, which there always seemed to be a shortage of back at his mom’s apartment, so he didn’t even see the supposed beauty in the flesh.

  Patrick had pretty much tuned the jocks out after that one conversation, sticking to the corner of the weight-training room where he could focus on push-ups and sit-ups and other workouts that didn’t involve fancy machines covered in other people’s B.O.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about—or think about—girls. He liked them and the things he had occasionally been given the opportunity to do with them behind closed doors and in the back seats of cars, but he wasn’t into the whole culture of conquest bragging. It just reminded him of the crap boyfriends his mom used to bring around, and generally grossed him out.

  And maybe he’d been rude earlier, to the Malloy girl, but he had to keep her at bay. She had no idea what she was walking into with him. And her asking him out . . . for a friend? He cracked a small smile. Then he shook his head. That had to be self-serving too, in some way. He wondered what she really wanted from him, who she’d been trying to impress, or make jealous.

  Anyway, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be around long enough to find out.

  He tossed in the cap and started zipping the bag closed. The piece-of-shit zipper got jammed and he had to fuss with it, which was when he heard the creak on the attic steps, stopped what he was doing, and shoved the duffel bag beneath the bed. He stood up quickly, banging his head against a low rafter just as Diane entered the room.

  He rubbed his head and plopped down on the bed. Already he felt bad, seeing his great-aunt, frail and bent over like that, winded just from climbing the stairs. She’d probably called up to him and he hadn’t heard over the sound of the rain.

  “How was school?” she asked, brushing wispy white hair away from her temple and carefully tucking it in to some invisible hairpin. The stray lock flopped down again as soon as she let go.

  He shrugged.

  “Well, I guess that’s better than awful, isn’t it,” she said, more a statement than a question.

  Either way, he didn’t have a response. He hated the shame that sweltered him like a sweaty sheet in summertime whenever his great-aunt tried to converse with him. She’d never had any kids of her own. Why would she want to start dealing with a teenager now, especially one with “behavioral problems”? Which, by the way, was a highly hyperbolic term for having gotten into a total of one ill-advised fight. It wasn’t like he’d gone out looking for it even.

  “So,” she said. “I’m making pierogi.” She paused, then added, “It would be nice if you’d help with the potatoes.”

  She waited there until he followed her back down the stairs, the packed duffel sagging in the back of his mind like an unkept promise.

  Later on, with the steam from boiling dumplings rising around their heads, carrying the warm smell of leek and starch, and Uncle Liam in a cheerful, semilucid mood, and the rain falling steadily outside, Patrick almost regretted his plans to leave here. He thought again of the sodden leaves filling up the yard. Who would clear them up when he was gone?

  They were sitting around the dining room table and his great-uncle was talking about a paper he was working on for the university—something about cannibalistic ogres. He recalled his uncle used to teach a course or two on folklore and fairy tales, but he’d never really thought about how gruesome the stories could be.

  “What do you think, Tom?” he asked suddenly.

  Patrick did a double take, but Diane gave him a quick look he didn’t quite get. “Sorry, what?”

  “I could really use help organizing them, Tom. The notes are all over the place,” Liam said.

  Diane folded her napkin and got up to clear the dishes. “That’s all right, dear. We’ll discuss the paper tomorrow.”

  In the kitchen, she told Patrick not to mind. “He’ll forget what he said.”

  “Who’s Tom?”

  “I have no idea,” Diane replied. “Probably a former student.” Her arm shook as she wiped down one of the plates.

  “Let me do that,” Patrick said, taking the plate and dish towel.

  Diane beamed at him. “We’re so happy to have you with us, Patrick. You’ve grown into such a good young man.”

  “It’s no problem,” he said, trying to avoid looking into her eyes.

  “Don’t let Liam’s ramblings bother you,” she went on. “He used to be quite successful, you know. His second book sold in six different countries.”

  Patrick nodded.

  “He used to buy me presents—mostly jewelry, sometimes other artifacts, vases, that sort of thing—from every city he visited on tour,” she added, a hazy look passing over her face. She laughed a little and shrugged. “Thousands of dollars’ worth of mementos, probably. Ironic, a little bit, don’t you think?”

  Patrick didn’t answer. He was thinking about the expensive objects she mentioned. The jewelry and vases. Thousands of dollars could get a person far. A lot farther than empty pockets. He squirted more soap than necessary into a glass and let it
fill with water from the faucet, watching it foam over.

  “Anyway,” Diane continued, “he knows he’s doing it. Sometimes. He’ll realize it. Calls it dream chasing. I thought that was a nice way of putting it, don’t you,” she said—another statement question.

  “Ogres who eat human flesh? Some dreams.” Patrick shut off the faucet.

  Diane looked at him funny, and it took him a moment to understand her surprise—it was more than he’d said the entire time he’d lived with them. He too felt surprised. He never thought of himself as a quiet person. Just seemed like lately he was the one who was caught in a series of bad dreams. No ogres, maybe. But other sorts of monsters.

  “Not all the stories are bad. There are good fairies who grant wishes,” Diane said, almost to herself, as though she didn’t mean for him to hear.

  But he had. And once again, his mind turned to the Malloy girl, with hair like pale fire.

  HOOKED

  BY KATHERINE MALLOY

  The fishermen’s lines fly over the water,

  making me think of hunger and desire

  —each an intrinsic part of the other—

  driving the fish to the end of the wire

  on which its own death winks, silvery and hooked,

  and on which somebody’s survival may depend.

  I lie on the shore, gazing at my notebook—

  the lines of poems draw me toward their end:

  full of sentiments that lack completion,

  and holding hidden longing, long unmet—

  while in the strong arms of the fishermen

  I see your hands, that haven’t touched me yet.

  But who’s been baited and who’s the lure?

  Who will give in first and ask for more?

  Chapter Seven

  Now

  FEBRUARY 7

  HERE WERE TESSA’S LEADS. Okay, her one lead:

  Patrick Donovan was reported missing. Had been gone since Friday night. At least, that was according to Boyd. She didn’t know what to think of that fact. She hadn’t really gotten to know Patrick in the months he’d lived in Devil’s Lake.

  It was suspicious, though, wasn’t it?

  It was something.

  She stepped through the back door into her house, feeling the tiny weight of the engagement ring in her pocket. It was quiet—everyone would be coming home soon from the service, but somehow she’d gotten here first. Casseroles and fruit salads slouched on the counter in shrink-wrap, waiting for concerned visitors and distant family members to expose and devour them. The thought of it—all that potato salad and pity—sent a violent wave of nausea through her.

  She ran up the stairs and barely made it to the hall bathroom before puking her guts out.

  She kneeled on the floor for a few minutes, then got up and ran the faucet, hot. As the mirror fogged, she felt herself disappearing. She tried to conjure another memory of Kit, tried to make her be here.

  What happened? she wanted to say. Come back.

  Her hands shook. She decided to take a shower to clear her head, stripping off her clothes in a stiff puddle on the floor, but in the shower sat Kit’s mango-scented conditioner like a little statue and she was driven by some insane compulsion to open it and then the smell poured over and through her and she found she was shaking even harder.

  Tears didn’t come, though.

  It scared her, this lack of tears. She’d cried that first morning, or thought she had, but then it had all dried up—too fast. The sadness had evaporated and left her a husk.

  She washed her hair and let the water run down her face until she learned how to breathe again.

  She could hear the front door opening and closing. So they were home. More people would be arriving soon, too.

  She looked at her hands, tried to concentrate. She was desperate to help Boyd. She knew it wasn’t him—it couldn’t have been him. He wouldn’t hurt Kit. He’d spent his whole life protecting her, protecting all of them, like he said. She’d known that he was innocent from the first moment Lilly accused him of doing it, had been shocked and outraged and confused by Lilly’s stricken, sincere conviction.

  But Lilly wouldn’t lie, either. Well, sure, maybe about whether she’d finished her homework or eaten the last cookie, but not about something like this. She adored Boyd just as much as Tessa and Kit did. Tessa believed that Lilly must have really seen him out there on the road. She wouldn’t just make that up, and her story was way too specific to be false: she’d been staying over at Mel’s house, had snuck out that night and seen the truck parked with its lights still on, had forged her way up the road on foot to see what was going on, had witnessed Boyd and Kit arguing, had decided it was none of her business and fled, telling no one, until it was too late.

  Maybe it was Boyd who had lied—about being out on the road in the middle of the night with Kit—to cover his ass, to seem less suspicious. Maybe he had been out there with her, but then he’d left, and then, that was when the terrible thing had occurred. After Boyd abandoned Kit out there, in the storm, alone.

  Her heart raced. But why would he do that?

  And that didn’t explain why his truck had been left there, too.

  Also, his fingerprints had been everywhere.

  And he had no alibi. Said he was home studying for a quiz when they both knew the quiz had been Thursday and this all happened on a Saturday.

  But then, what about Patrick Donovan?

  These contradictions toggled around in Tessa’s head, growing louder than ever, as if someone had actually reached inside her brain and yanked up the volume.

  The water had gone cold. She shut off the faucet, reached for a towel. Kit’s bathrobe still hung on the back of the door. She grabbed that and, tenderly, slipped into it. It was so soft. It smelled so familiar, wrapped around her, like an embrace.

  For a second, there it was: the grief, a little gremlin strangling her from the inside, screaming silently along her throat, making her head go hot.

  She suddenly forgot everything.

  What was she doing, standing here, dripping wet?

  Oh yes, she’d just taken a shower.

  What day was it?

  Tuesday.

  Why wasn’t she at school?

  Because today was Kit’s funeral.

  Kit’s funeral.

  She had run away instead of giving her stupid speech.

  She had found a ring in the woods.

  Boyd had called, begging for help.

  She wanted to believe him, had to believe him—when she’d heard his voice on the phone minutes ago, the old Boyd, the Boyd she’d known her whole life, had come back to her in an instant, and all the doubts had blown away like dandelion seeds.

  But then, in the silence of her thoughts afterward, in the constellations of facts and details that had emerged, what was she supposed to believe . . . that it was all a wild coincidence? That he was maybe lying but only about some parts and not others?

  Tessa was a logical person, and when all the evidence said one thing, you were supposed to believe it: the boy obsessed with all three of them. The boy who had the most access to them all. The boy whose truck her body had been found in. The boy whose father struggled with money and drinking, who had a chip on his shoulder, who nobody thought was going anywhere. The boy with no mother. The boy who’d never been loved right, never been taught right.

  Then again.

  Ever since freshman year, Tessa had planned to become a science major someday, and nearly all the great scientists she’d learned about in school had been widely disbelieved in their time. Sometimes, she knew, the truth was bizarre: that the earth was round and not flat, even though we experience it as flat. That we move around the sun, even though we can’t feel ourselves moving. That space is full of black holes that are not really holes at all, because instead of being empty, they are the densest form of matter. Science teems with seeming contradictions, full of theories that go against all instinct. The ancient, animal part of our brains
only wants to believe what is right in front of us, what’s immediate, what we can touch. As a scientist, you have to learn to shut off the animal brain and listen to the abstract, the euphoric, the wildly imaginative only-human part, the part that dreamed up string theory and smartphones and wheels on suitcases and the idea that every person accused of a crime remains innocent until proven guilty.

  You have to believe in what you can’t see.

  Her breathing came back again and she turned the knob, hurrying out into the hall and ducking into her bedroom before anyone could catch her and drag her downstairs into the mourning festivities, the condolences and wilting condiments and half hugs. She began shakily getting dressed—old sweats, a thick sweater, her wet hair in a knot over her head.

  What—were you supposed to dress up to honor death? Didn’t that seem backward, to show respect for something everyone agrees to hate?

  She pulled the ring out of her jeans pocket and stared at it again. A modest sapphire cut into a little teardrop and surrounded by tiny diamonds. Definitely an engagement ring. Not the kind of thing someone just forgets about or tosses aside.

  She slipped it onto her finger.

  For the first time since early Saturday morning, she felt a tingle of her old, real self, waking up. She was no detective, but she was good at testing hypotheses. She would solve this.

  She knew she couldn’t save Kit. It was the absoluteness that felt the worst, like a coil around her throat, growing tauter and tauter, unable to ever release.

  But she wouldn’t focus on that part. Even looking that straight in the eye—accepting death—no. She wasn’t ready to look grief in the face. It would be like giving up, like walking into a grave and opening her mouth as dirt fell in.

  For now, there was one thing she could do, though.

  She could save Boyd.

  She might be the only person who could. She might be the only one who would.

  Still, it took some conniving for Tessa to get to the police station that evening. She thought about asking her mom point-blank to drive her over, but her mom had already decided in her mind that Boyd was guilty. Her eyes were ringed in red and she was barely holding it together. She’d already overboiled the pasta into a starchy swamp and they’d mostly just stared at the leftovers from earlier, unable to stomach much food anyway. All the distant relatives had gone as swiftly as they’d come, and her mom looked like she was ready to pass out face-first on the couch.