I stop at the kitchen door. “I thought Rose’s mom wasn’t working today,” I say.
“No, she is. Nana’s got an appointment with her in half an hour.”
Rose is lying to me. She’s not home bonding with her mother, being force-fed scones. Why is Rose lying?
“It’s only going to get worse,” Mom says softly. The hairs on my arms stand up.
“What?”
“I said, have you seen my purse?” Mom says, snapping out of it. “I swear I’m getting as bad as your nana—I can’t seem to find anything anymore.”
But there’s something—a little twist to her mouth, a little crinkle to her eyes—that gives me shivers. I can’t seem to find anything anymore.
Hazel
Wednesday, May 10th
Lost: Black-and-white kitten; two bruised mandarins
I’m riding home from work late on Wednesday with some groceries Mags has given us when I come across a wishing tree, hung with ribbon and trinket offerings. These trees are said to spring from holy wells. The roots drink the water and bless the branches. When the offerings blow away, the wishes are granted.
I have so many wishes, I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d stop and make one, but it’s lashing rain and I want to get home, be dry, drink the whiskey I stuffed into my boot at the liquor store this morning. Those are my only real wishes right now. Apart from Ivy. And maybe Ivy already sees through me.
I have secrets. I tell lies. I drink too much and I steal things sometimes. One day my freckled skin will go scaly and everyone will see what a monster I can be.
This rain is heavy and my glasses are blurred by raindrops. I make out something skittering across the bumpy road in front of me, scurrying in the mud. Then my tires are slipping, and I have to brake by slamming both my feet on the ground. In the middle of the road, a small cat cowers.
I drop my bike where I stand and go to pet the tiny creature, but an enormous clap of thunder strikes and the kitten darts away under a fence and into the field at the other side of the road.
I swear under my breath and check out my bike for damage from the skid. That’s when I notice something caught between the spokes of my back wheel. I pull it out. It’s a shoe—flat, thin, and silver; one of those cheap ballet flats that you can crumple in your hand like a slipper. It’s scuffed at the toes. I drew it a few days ago in charcoal on the page as if I knew it. This makes no sense. Did you lose something last night? Ivy asked that day. It looks like lots of people have lost something. I stick the shoe in one of my shopping bags so I can show it to Ivy, or maybe ask Mags if she thinks there might be something kinda weird going on.
A few of the groceries have exploded out of the bags, and I have to slop through the mud to find them. A can of baked beans, two rolling mandarins, a now-soggy loaf of bread. They lead me like a trail of crumbs to the gate at the edge of the next field.
I pick up the bread and hop over the gate to see if I can find the kitten. I make little kissy kitten noises with my mouth. The rain pours. The wind blows. If I was a cat, I’d be holed up in the middle of a bush right now, sheltered and licking myself dry. Three magpies on a nearby tree watch me. I caw loudly to warn them off, but I close my mouth when I see the girl.
She’s shadowy, standing by the biggest tree beside the fence at the edge of the field. I can’t see her face because she’s turned slightly away from me. She’s wearing a tight little sundress whose colors—purple, maybe, or bloody red—have faded to gray by the dim light of a rainy evening. Her hair is long, red and tangled, curlier than mine. She’s holding a cigarette. Something about the way she’s standing makes me think that she doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Without noticing me staring, she turns and walks away. She follows the fence to the edge of the field and disappears around the bend in the road ahead.
When I’m sure she’s gone, I walk to the spot where she was standing. The muddy grass is covered in her footprints and when I look down I notice something half buried there. When I tug on it, I unearth a notebook. It’s small and red, covered in mud, damp and dripping. It’s kept shut by a thick black rubber band and bulges as if there are things stuck between the pages. The ribbon lolls like a tongue through the middle of it, marking a page.
I snap off the rubber band and pull at the ribbon to open the notebook and something falls out. I pick it up out of the mud and place it on the fence post with trembling fingers.
It’s a big bronze key. I recognize it right away and my heart skips three beats while I hold my breath. I see this key eighty times a day. It’s been inked on my skin for the last three years.
I roll up the sleeve of my sweater and line up my wrist with the key on the fence post. It’s rusty-looking but not rusted; the handle you grasp between finger and thumb large and round, almost heart-shaped if you look close enough, the gap filled with curls and circles. I trace the shapes with my finger hovering just above the key. I know the design by heart.
I haven’t seen the real key in three years. I thought I never would again.
When I pick up the key, I almost believe something’ll happen. A thunderclap, an earthquake, an omen. But it’s just a key, and I’m alone in an empty field.
Olive
Wednesday, May 10th
Lost: Phone signal
Rose doesn’t come to school on Wednesday. She messages vaguely in telegram-speak about exam stress, but everyone’s worrying about exams, and not coming to school certainly isn’t going to help. I know that’s not what’s wrong. I just don’t know what is.
After school, I tell Emily to go home without me so that I can head over to Rose’s.
“Mom’s going to kill you,” Emily says as I’m about to pedal away. “You’re still supposed to be grounded, you know.”
“If you knew your best friend was so stressed, she couldn’t come to school, you’d go to her, too. Even if you were grounded.”
Emily gives me a measured look. Finally she rolls her eyes and says, “Fine. I’ll tell Mom you’re doing an extra math class this evening. Just remember to stick to the story tonight or I’ll get in trouble, too.”
“You’re a star.” I give my sister a relieved grin.
At Rose’s, nobody answers the door. She doesn’t answer her phone either. I stick a note in her letter box that says: HOPE YOU’RE OK STOP CALL ME STOP OLIVE.
Since I’ve already got an alibi, I decide to look for my bracelet on the way home, starting with the field where the bonfire was built. I must have lost my bracelet there; it hasn’t shown up anywhere else. But there’s nothing in the pile of soot and charred wood or the crumbling hay bales or the grass where I woke up, where the scruffy blond boy was sleeping.
The clouds get darker overhead and it starts to drizzle.
My search takes me on a slow loop all around the field, from the small copse of trees where I saw the beautiful curly-haired boy to the fence at the opposite edge of the field along which I searched for Rose that morning.
At the farthest corner, I nearly walk into a rosebush I’m certain wasn’t there before. I stop and stare at it. No roses were growing in this field on Saturday night. I tug at a branch, but the bush is rooted in place. Not for the first time this week I wonder if I might be losing my mind just a little bit.
Mostly, though, my mind is occupied with Rose and her sudden silence. Maybe that’s why I’m misremembering rosebushes. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve done something wrong. Maybe I said something to Rose at the party, the memory of it lost like the rest of that night. Maybe I did something stupid and she’s only pretending she can’t remember because she doesn’t want to tell me. I almost lost her friendship once over some ill-thought-out kisses and we vowed never to let that happen again, but it turns out there are plenty of other ways you can lose a friend.
When the rain intensifies, I grab my bike and begin to ride home. I’ve just kicked off when my tires b
ump over something sharp on the road and I lose control, swerving into the fence between the field and the road. I jump off the saddle and swear. My back tire is punctured. To add insult to injury, the sky above me opens and the rain becomes a downpour. I button up the denim jacket I sort-of stole after the party and shiver.
The rain pours down in fat, cold drops. I take out my phone. It says, Check connection. Network signal lost.
Something catches my eye from across the road and while I wait for my phone signal to reappear I cross over to look closer. It’s a wishing tree. It’s more a shrub than a tree, actually, but there are rags and ribbons and rosaries wound around the branches, and coins and Mass cards wedged in among the leaves. There are other things, too: a tiny bronze Buddha statue; a plastic-beaded bracelet; a child’s shoe; a faded photograph. The rain tinkles on the trinkets, makes eerie music on the empty road. I don’t know why anyone would think tying an offering to the branch of a tree could ever make a wish come true.
I check my phone again. Still no signal. I just need shelter until the rain eases off. Oak Road is close by. There’d be plenty of shelter behind the boiler houses or in the storm-drain tunnel at the edge of the development. I check my phone one last time and hurry in the opposite direction.
Five minutes later I’m leaning my bike against the flat-topped wall that rings Oak Road when I see a boy. He’s standing in the weed-tangled driveway of the house right in front of me, staring at me like a deer in the headlights. Not just any boy. Frayed sweater, skinny jeans, black-framed glasses, curly brown hair under a flat cap. It’s the boy I saw the morning after the party.
The wind picks up, snatches leaves and stones and sends them skittering along the ground between us. The rain lashes. Somewhere in the not-so-distant distance thunder growls. The boy looks up at the darkening sky. I raise my head to the rain and look up, too, and there’s a fork of lightning—a trident, thin and brilliant, above us. Automatically, I start counting. Me and this boy alone in the middle of a ghost town in the oncoming storm, silent countdown in my head.
When the thunder sounds again—is it closer this time?—I finally say something. “Is it supposed to be a mile for every second between the thunder and the lightning?” I ask. “Although that hardly sounds scientific.”
The boy laughs, but his reply is drowned out by yet more thunder. At this point, the world is more water than air. I cover my left ear with a cupped hand so my hearing aid won’t get wet.
“What are you looking for?” he asks.
How does he know I was looking for something? “My bike got a flat tire,” I tell him, shouting over the noise of the weather. “And then the sky decided to turn into Niagara Falls. I’m not having the best day ever.”
The boy gives me an appraising look.
“I was going to shelter in the storm-drain tunnel,” I go on. “To wait out the rain. What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” the boy says.
“You what?”
He shrugs and says with a smile, “Unorthodox, I know.”
I blink. I know which house he lives in. It was his voice I must have heard on Monday, his light I saw in the cracks between the wooden boards.
“D’you wanna come in for a bit?” He gestures behind him. “Wait out the rain? I promise I’m not an ax-murderer or anything.”
“That’s exactly the kind of thing an ax-murderer would say.”
“My sister lives here, too,” he says. “And our friend. Who is also a girl. You don’t have to come in. I mean, you can shelter in the tunnel like you said, if you prefer. I won’t take it personally.”
I purse my lips at the concrete tunnel. The wind whips my hair around my face. “Okay,” I tell him. “I’ll take my chances with you. But no funny business.”
He gives a surprised laugh and I blush to the soles of my feet.
“I mean no ax-murdering,” I clarify quickly. “Or murdering of any sort.”
He beckons for me to follow him. “You’re perfectly safe with me,” he says, and for some reason my mom’s face flashes into my mind. Her blank eyes at the breakfast table when I came home from the party. He’s trouble. He’s lost a lot and so will you. Stay away from him, or you’ll lose everything.
I shake my head to dispel the thought and I follow the boy across the mud and sodden weeds of the development. I can’t remember the last time I did something like this without Rose. I can’t remember the last time I met someone new on my own.
“I’m Olive, by the way,” I tell the boy.
He grins and says, “Olive. Like the tree.”
“That’s right,” I say, even though most people would think of the fruit first.
“I’m Rowan,” he says then.
I grin right back at him. “Like the tree.”
“Exactly.”
I follow Rowan to the empty house that has a rusty number five on it. He moves the planks of wood to one side and shoulders open the door.
Inside the house the radio is on, or maybe a television, but I can’t see evidence of either in the dim light. The floor is dirty, mud-tracked, and our footsteps echo. Above us, it sounds like someone might be singing. I twist my head to try and see up the stairs. The banister is thick and gleaming, the steps bare wood. Everything empty and echoey and old-new.
I follow Rowan into the kitchen, which is slightly brighter than the hall because the windows are unboarded and the sliding French-style doors let in whatever light is left in the storm. Which, admittedly, isn’t much.
Rowan goes around the kitchen lighting the candles and lanterns on every surface. I suppose there wouldn’t be electricity in a development full of empty houses. The music I’m hearing is coming from a little windup radio, the kind you take on camping trips when you’re a kid.
And it must be a bit like camping, living here. The fitted marble counters lining three of the room’s four walls are covered with tins and packets of food, and a few plates and bowls and mismatched mugs—all of them chipped, some clearly only held together by glue and good luck. A tiny fridge of the kind you see in films of college dorm rooms stands in the empty space designed to fit a proper fridge. It’s attached by a cable to a small generator. A gas camping stove sits on one of the counters. On it is a huge, heavy, cast-iron kettle that stands out starkly from its surroundings. The sink beside the back door is filled with dirty dishes.
In the middle of the room there is a big old camping table surrounded by chairs in various states of disrepair. An open box of chocolates sits in the middle of the table with empty wrappers scattered all around it. Nothing is left inside the box but the orange ones and the red ones.
Rowan leans against the kitchen door, watching me stare at his unconventional home. He has a silver Zippo lighter in his right hand and is flicking it open and shut, open, shut, in a movement so practiced, he must do it several hundred times a day. He’s wearing an expression that looks something like recognition.
“I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” he says.
“Oh,” I say, and I blush for some reason. “Yeah. No, not really. I saw you at the party on Saturday. Or Sunday morning rather. Just briefly. I was looking for my friend and you were over at the edge of the field.” I obviously don’t mention how much I’ve been thinking about that brief encounter since.
“No,” he says thoughtfully. “That’s not it. You sure we haven’t met before?”
I laugh and look around the candle-and-lantern-lit kitchen again. “No way,” I tell him. “I’d definitely remember you.” Then I shut my mouth and blush again because, of all the ridiculous things to do, of course I’d tell a boy I’ve just met he’s memorable. Why not just throw myself right at him while I’m at it?
“No, I could swear—” Rowan starts to say, but is interrupted by the front door opening with a bang.
Because he didn’t close the kitchen door behind us when we came in, I
can see straight down the hall to the tall, curly-haired girl who storms inside, completely drenched by the rain. She slams the door behind her and dumps her heavy-looking shopping bags unceremoniously by the stairs. Then she kicks off her shoes, peels off her dripping sweater and her sopping socks, followed by her damp black shirt and her trousers that are wet and muddy to the knees, leaving the lot in a heap on the floor in front of the door. She shakes her hair out of her face, picks up the shopping bags, and tramps down into the kitchen in her underwear. I have to pinch myself so I’ll stop staring.
Rowan nearly chokes.
“Jesus, Hazel, put some clothes on,” he says. “That’s not a sight I need to see at any hour of the day.”
Hazel casually drops her shopping bags on the kitchen table and gives Rowan the finger before tying her wet hair out of her face with a rubber band from around her wrist. She wipes her glasses dry with a dirty tea towel. “It’s raining,” she says, somewhat unnecessarily.
“Yeah. And most people generally opt to put more clothes on when that’s the case.”
Hazel turns and sees me.
“Who’s this?” she asks.
“I found her,” says Rowan. “Right by the gate.”
“I only wanted to get out of the rain,” I tell them.
I am standing in my own little puddle. The ends of my hair drip onto my shoulders, pat-pat-pat. I keep my eyes on the puddle to avoid staring at the tattoo Hazel has just under the cup of her bra.
Hazel looks from me to Rowan and back again. “You’re wearing my jacket,” she says.
I look down at the rain-drenched denim. “This is yours?” Weird coincidence. “I found it the morning after the town party.” I shrug it off and hand it to her. “I ate all your gum,” I add. “Sorry.”
Hazel laughs. “That’s okay.”
Rowan is still staring at me like he’s trying to figure me out. “I’m sure the party isn’t where I know you from, though,” he says.
Spellbook of the Lost and Found Page 7
