One Was Lost

by Natalie D. Richards

  I could have lost him. God, I could have lost him before I know what it means to have him in my life.

  You could still lose him if you don’t move.

  My feet lurch forward, and a sob rips through me that startles him awake. He is OK. He’s alive. Still with me.

  Concern creases his features in an instant, his eyes straying from my tears to my elbow to the warm trickle I feel leaking down my knee.

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “We have—” I’m beyond breathless. Forcing words out in chunks while I scan the trees for danger. “Go. Have to go.” Another shaky breath, my good hand tugging at his shirt. “Mr. Walker.”

  His eyes go wide. “Mr. Walker’s here?”

  “Yes.” I touch his arm, tears dripping off my chin. I’m crying? When did that happen? It doesn’t matter. I can’t talk. Can’t think, so I’ll explain while we go. I pull him again. Trucks weigh less than Lucas. Mountains maybe. “It’s not him. Help’s coming, but—”

  But we need to go. We need to go before we are found.

  Thankfully, Lucas doesn’t require much explaining. He scoots around, grabbing the trunk of the tree. He groans, and I push him up like a piece of furniture, using shoulders and knees and urging him off the ground.

  He bumps his bad shoulder and lets out a cry that cleaves my insides in two. Lucas slumps against the tree, and I stroke his back, still watching. I want to apologize, want to tell him what I know, but I am choked on terror and tears, and we just need to go. If we’re on the quad, we are fast. We can run.

  I pull him off the tree, and he swallows down most of the next groan, eyes drifting as he forces himself through one step and then another. He stops all of a sudden, pale face going paler, until he’s sheet white.

  “Do you have the keys?” he asks.

  “What keys?” I follow his gaze to the quad, and there are no keys in the ignition. Did I pocket them? God, how could I not know this? How could I flake out about this?

  I pat my pockets, front and back, and swear, digging in each one to be sure, but I don’t have the keys. I don’t remember taking them out of the quad. I search the ground and look around. Nothing.

  “Oh my God, Lucas. I left them in the quad. They should be there.”

  “It’s OK,” he says. “Just breathe.”

  Oh, I’m breathing all right. I’m gulping air so fast and hard that my cheeks feel fuzzy and my vision is graying at the edges. I reach for a tree and slow down.

  I just need to think. The keys have to be here. I just need to open my eyes and look. I take a slow breath, and something shuffles ahead of me in the trees.

  Wait.

  My eyes pop open, and Lucas shifts behind me. He’s behind me.

  “I saw something up there,” I whisper.

  Lucas goes stone-still, and we both search the trees beyond the quad. The rain is falling harder now, heavy drops plopping into my hair, onto my shoulders. Another shuffle, and my eyes catch on a shadow.

  There’s a flicker of movement behind the quad. The jangling sound of keys that sends my heart into freefall.

  My face goes cold as the shadow emerges, stretching into an arm. A hand. My throat cinches shut as fingers wrap around the trunk of a baby maple. I catch a glimpse of purple nails and one charred, bloody stump.

  A stump where Ms. Brighton’s finger should be.

  Chapter 32

  “It’s her,” I say, still breathless. Panting out every word. “Ms. Brighton is Hannah’s stepsister. She did this to us.”

  Ms. Brighton’s mud-dyed shirt is stained with things I can’t look at. Her smile twists, and my head swims. Spins.

  “Do you see how the forest brings the rain again?” she asks. “It was my sacrifices. I pledged my devotion, and look what the forest gave me.”

  It’s a little kid voice, shrill with delight. Like the one I heard in the valley. God, it’s really her. Even after reading Ms. Brighton’s name on Hannah’s memorial card, I couldn’t quite swallow this. Now I have no choice, and the truth is going down like fishhooks.

  “Your finger,” I say. “That’s a sacrifice?”

  She inclines her head. “And the deer.”

  “You’re alive,” Lucas says, a bit of wonder in his face.

  I bump my back into him to hold him away from her because he doesn’t know. He hasn’t put all the pieces together yet, but I have. Lucas and Madison didn’t see Ms. Brighton’s body, and neither did we. She killed a deer and skinned it. That’s what we saw.

  Lucas moves, and I snag his arm to hold him back. She is not here to save us.

  “I can’t believe you’re alive,” he says again, obviously confused. He’s probably in shock.

  “I’m full of lives,” she says. “We are all full of lives. Do you feel yours now? The past stays with us, even when we wish it would go.”

  She scowls and is transformed. Her quirky crystal earrings dangle like broken teeth. The streaks on her hand-dyed shirt look more like blood than earth, and that mouth that once smiled so easily now gapes like a maw.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Lucas asks. He shifts on his feet, tries to move past me.

  I pull at the back of his shirt. “Lucas, don’t.”

  Ms. Brighton laughs. I can see black grime caked under her nails and marker stains on her fingers. The rain is sending filth running down her arms and legs in murky rivulets.

  “Let him come, Hannah. Let the forest find its justice.”

  “I’m not Hannah.”

  “But you were last time. You were Hannah, and he was Brodie. I’ve waited for the forest to show me who defiled you all those years ago. And it did, darling. It did.”

  Darling. The word sends snakes slithering in my chest. She lifts a hand, and I spot a flash of metal in her fingers. A knife. Old-looking, with an antler handle. That’s what she used to cut her own finger off.

  I take a step back, and Lucas comes with me, stumbling.

  “What is this?” he asks. “Who cut off her finger?”

  I can practically feel him trying to wrap his brain around what’s unfolding in front of us.

  “She cut it off herself,” I say, swiping rain out of my face. “She did this, Lucas. All of it, for some twisted version of justice for Hannah. She thinks we’re the reincarnation of those four kids. That’s what the papers were about. I’m Hannah and you’re Brodie.”

  Ms. Brighton is moving around the quad. “I don’t think it. Look at yourself, Sera. Look how you love to direct the tragedies, the plays where someone dies at the end. Look how you know to avoid men. You know who you really are.”

  “Holy shit, she’s crazy,” Lucas says.

  I don’t respond because I’m trying to find a way out. The path that leads down to Mr. Walker is beside me, but that’s a dead end. She’s by the quad, trapping us from the direction we came. The only way out is to go on ahead, to just run up the cliff side and hope to God we find a way around the mountain and to the road.

  “I’ll rush her,” Lucas says.

  “You’re barely standing! We have to go up the cliff side.”

  “We don’t know if we can get through up there,” he says, but he’s already moving because it’s the only way. The only chance unless we want to run headfirst into Ms. Brighton or climb down into the alcove with Mr. Walker.

  Ms. Brighton is getting closer and picking up speed. There’s a stone ledge to our right and a sharp incline to the left, covered in brambles and briars. We’re still in that damn channel we were trapped in on the quad. And we’ve got to break out because she’s gaining.

  I cry out for help, though there’s no one to hear us but Mr. Walker. Mr. Walker, who was innocent all this time and who might have to hear us die when he gave everything he had trying to save us.

  Lucas kicks a fallen log into her path, but she’s goin
g to catch up. She’s already closing the distance. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet.

  “Help!” I scream. Like there’s someone to help.

  Something pop-hisses, and the gray sky tinges red. I gulp a breath and look over to track the spark of light in the sky. Ms. Brighton stops. It’s coming from down in the alcove—Mr. Walker fired the flare gun.

  Mr. Walker.

  In my mind, I hear him tell me to run. Run, Sera.

  I do, one hand against the stone and every breath burning hotter. My feet shift for purchase. The incline isn’t as harsh now on the left, but the undergrowth is blanket-thick, spun of thorns. Impossible choices everywhere.

  I have to find a way through because this stone will lead to a cliff, and if we can’t find a hole, a thin spot—no. No, we have to find it. We will.

  My legs wobble, and Lucas groans. I glance over my shoulder, hoping Ms. Brighton took the bait with Mr. Walker’s flare. No dice. It stalled her, but not for long. She’s heading our way, and she’ll gain on us. Lucas just isn’t moving fast enough.

  “Wait!” I say, lifting a hand. There’s no way to outrun her and nothing within reach that looks like a weapon. There has to be something I can use, but all I can think of is Hannah. How do I use that?

  “I don’t understand,” I cry, trying to play the part she chose for me. “I could die again! Do you want me to die again?”

  “You’re already dead, Hannah! You were brought back to this place, and I promise you this time, it will be right. Your soul can finally be with the spirits of your people.”

  My chest squeezes. Oh God. That stuff about the Cherokee spirits—those weren’t ghost stories to her. She twisted bits and pieces into her own warped version of reality. She was warning us. There’s no logic I can appeal to here.

  But I can still play my role. And I can change my lines.

  “I could live again in this body,” I say, laying it on thick. If being Hannah gives me power, I’ll take it. “We could be sisters again.”

  She makes a wounded noise. Shakes her head. “You belong to the forest, darling,” she says. She’s crying now, and I recognize those sobs. I heard them in the forest before we got the newspapers. She was trying to get me away from Lucas. “These trees revealed your killer. He will be punished. You will be delivered.”

  He’ll be punished? She’s going to kill Lucas. The certainty of it rocks me.

  Ms. Brighton stalks forward with that knife, and I feel like there should be thunder, but there isn’t. No wind. No lightning. Just the steady patter of early autumn rain and her eyes, wide and pale and brimming with conviction.

  We’re moving again, but Lucas is going slowly, groaning with every step. We hit a clump of trees, branches shaking more water onto our heads as we squeeze past. There is no break in the thorns on the other side. We are still pinned between underbrush and the mountainside. And the woman who will kill us both.

  My throat tightens and my chest throbs. We’re in serious trouble. The cliff is closer now, and Ms. Brighton is almost in striking distance. We have to go faster.

  Lucas trips, goes down on one knee with a grunt. Ms. Brighton takes her chance, lunging through a sheet of hard rain. He kicks out, screaming in pain, but his foot connects with something. Her knee? Her stomach? I don’t know, but she slams into the ground back first, feet rolling up. I see her filthy hiking boots in the air, and I’m pulling Lucas to his feet. It’s so hard. So hard.

  “It’s OK, Hannah,” she says, hearing my cry. “It’s almost over, and you’ll be free.”

  “I am free! Lucas didn’t hurt me!”

  She lunges again, and I kick this time, catching her injured hand. She yowls, and the knife skitters. We have to move. Move!

  We run. Lucas is too slow, but we try. We pull-scramble-rush along the rain-soaked stone, looking for a way out. A way through. Please, please, let there be a way because I know we are close to the edge of this mountain, and it might as well be the edge of the world.

  “Hannah.” Ms. Brighton’s close again. I hear the drag of her blade against the face of the mountain. “Your spirit will be free like your ancestors when I end this. Let him go.”

  “You’ve got to run,” Lucas tells me. He sounds like he’s in agony. He is in agony.

  It’s not even worth a response, so I dig my fingers into his good shoulder and steer him on. My feet slip sideways, and I look down in horror. The rain is turning the soil to wet clay. It’s slipping under my soles worse here, sending every step in the wrong direction.

  “Sera?”

  Lucas’s voice sends chills through my spine. I look up, and dread turns my limbs to ice. End of the road. Fifteen feet ahead, the stone drops off, and the trees thin. There is gray sky and the promise of a fall we will not walk away from. We take our chances climbing down a cliff in the rain, or we face the tangle of thorns, hoping to get to the forest on the other side. Or Ms. Brighton.

  Ms. Brighton slips too, crying out. She’s already too close again. We have to choose.

  The thorns it is. I reach ruthlessly, pushing some of the briar away. Thorns puncture my good palm like needles, and when I tug it loose, three more limbs snake over my back, tangling in my shirt, my hair. I rip myself free with a cry.

  Ms. Brighton goes down, but she’ll get back up. She’ll be here in seconds.

  “We’re trapped,” Lucas says.

  “I know.”

  We inch back closer to the cliff. I eye the cliff, the thorns, and then the woman with the braids who wants to end a boy who never hurt me. Ms. Brighton barrels toward us, and I pick up the heavy stick Lucas is kicking my way.

  Ms. Brighton raises the knife, and I brace myself. This is how it ends.

  “I’ll make this right, Hannah,” she says to me.

  She lunges but not at me. It’s at Lucas. I slam the stick at her arm. She dodges until it is only a graze. The momentum spins me around and sends her staggering back. But she’ll come again.

  Lucas tries to strike, but he topples sideways. He’s going to fall, and she’s going to kill him. And then I see a plan so bad it is almost no plan. It is the only thing.

  Ms. Brighton moves in, and Lucas kicks again, groaning, because it must hurt. Everything must be hurting him now. His balance is off, and he sways heavily to the left. Toward the thorns.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. And then I shove him with everything I’ve got.

  It doesn’t take as much force as it should. He crashes into the thorns, and I choke on my sob. Lucas the tall. Lucas the mighty. But the bigger you are, the harder you fall, and Lucas goes down like a small building, crashing through the thorns with a symphony of screams that cuts my soul to pieces.

  Chapter 33

  “No,” Ms. Brighton says, the word choked and almost lost on Lucas’s groans. She says it again, louder, because my bet paid off. It worked. He’s buried in those thorns. It’s like the worst cocoon and the best.

  Because she can’t get to him without me getting to her.

  Lucas is on the ground, groaning. Everything but his feet is tangled in thorns. My stomach rolls at his pained cries. I did that. But he’s still alive, and she can’t get to him in there.

  Ms. Brighton snags one of his boots, and I shove her with everything I’ve got. “Leave him alone!” She recoils, and I kick at his boots, tears streaming. “Pull your feet in! Pull them in!” I yell at Lucas.

  Ms. Brighton turns on me. Chills steamroll my insides. It’s my turn now.

  “I waited for the one who led you away, darling,” she says, knife raised, her eyes darting so that I’m not sure what she’s aiming for—me or Lucas? “You will be safe from him now.”

  She lunges for the thorns, stabs at his leg. I don’t know who screams louder, me or him.

  I plow into her with everything I’ve got. She flies backward, and I go down hard on my knees. The rain is sending r
ivers of mud down the ground beneath me. Ms. Brighton struggles to her feet, but her knife has spun backward. Closer to the cliff.

  Ms. Brighton rushes for it. “Let go of your desire for this boy! He is what ruined you!”

  My desire for this boy?

  Oh God. She thinks he’s guilty because I kissed him? My desire did this. I followed my heart, and it might kill him.

  No. Ms. Brighton might kill him.

  She has the knife. She’s on the edge of the cliff and rising like the sea.

  I run at her like a crazy person. If I keep her away from Lucas, there is a chance. Someone might come. With the flares and the emergency call, someone will come.

  Ms. Brighton tries to push past me, but I snag a fistful of her hair and haul her back. We both stumble. I slam into the side wall, and she scrabbles backward. Closer to the cliff.

  Everything is slick. I slide down onto one hip, but she skitters back, trying to hold her footing, searching for something to grab. She’s dangerously close to the edge.

  Please. Please.

  For one second, one breathless instant, I think she’ll go over. Then her good hand catches a tree. Her eyes meet mine, and I can already see the smile spreading on her lips. She’s found an opening in the thorns.

  I scramble up, elbows and butt and feet, and nothing works right. I am cold and wet and shaking so badly. She’s four feet away from him. Lifting the knife—

  “Help me!” I cry to her, stretching out my hand. Pleading with my eyes. This plan is as crazy as my last, just a random impulse to keep her away. To keep Lucas safe.

  I make sure she can see me because my face is my only weapon—the face that reminds her of her long-dead sister and me of my absent mother. Right now, I hope I look like them both. I plead with my eyes and soften my mouth and hope.

  She turns to me, so I twist onto my side, clutching a hip that doesn’t hurt at all. “I can’t get up. My leg. It won’t move.”

  “Hannah?” Her voice warbles, part cold and part madness.