A Girl Called Dust

by V. B. Marlowe

  Paige ripped open a pack of Starburst she had snuck onto the counter while Gerdy rang us up. “It’ll show her you’re strong. Somebody she can’t mess with. She only bothers you because she thinks you’re weak.”

  Well, maybe I was. My little sister had just defended me.

  I’d picked up some mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers from Gerdy’s since all I had to do was throw them in the oven. Cooking wasn’t my forte. The three of us sat around the kitchen table, and I told the girls we were still following Mom’s rule of no cell phones during dinner. Surprisingly, they didn’t fight me on it.

  After listening to Paige and Quinn debate about what God-awful name some celebrity had given their baby, I needed to ask them an important question. “Guys, I have to ask you something that might sound a little weird.”

  Quinn dipped a chicken finger in barbeque sauce. “Sure. Shoot.”

  “Do you ever hear me making strange noises at night?”

  Both girls nodded. “Yep,” Quinn replied. “You wake me up all the time.”

  “You howl like a werewolf. Sometimes you bark,” Paige added.

  My faced warmed with embarrassment. “How come you guys never said anything about it?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Mom and Dad said we could never bring it up. Dad said if we did, we would lose our allowance forever.”

  Paige pulled her hair around her neck and squeezed it tight. “Mom said if we ever told anyone outside of this house, she would shave our heads. You know she’d really do it. We can’t even tell Grandma.”

  My throat tightened. I couldn’t believe everyone in my family had been keeping that secret from me. How was it they’d all known this horrible thing about me that I’d only learned a few days ago? Why was I the last one to learn things about me? It wasn’t fair. “Are there any other secrets you need to tell me about myself?”

  They looked at each other and shook their heads. “No.”

  Was there more? Did I do other things I didn’t know about? I couldn’t tell if they were lying or not, so I let it go.

  I watched my sisters as they continued to eat as if we were having an ordinary conversation. “What . . . what do you guys think about what I do? I mean, it’s weird, right?”

  Paige took a giant gulp of grape soda and let out a deep burp, something she only dared to do because Mom was gone. “It’s okay. We’re family. That means we love you even if you’re crazy.”

  That was probably the nicest thing Paige had ever said to me.

  I cleaned up what was left of dinner, and the girls disappeared to Paige’s room. Down in the basement, I got back to work on my dress. Even with so many options for things to do on a Friday night, there was nothing else I would rather be doing. I was almost done with the sleeves. I turned on the tape player, and the sounds of Boy George and the Culture Club filled the basement. Listening to Karma Chameleon, I went into my zone. After about thirty minutes, I heard what I thought sounded like a squeal. I stopped sewing to listen and decided it was probably just my sisters goofing around.

  I did a few more stitches when I heard another scream and Quinn shrieking my name even over the music. Annoyed, figuring she and Paige were probably fighting over something stupid, I dragged myself up the basement stairs, into the house, and to Paige’s bedroom.

  “What? I was working.”

  Paige’s window was shattered, and glass covered the floor. Quinn stood there hugging herself and shivering as a cool blast of air filled the room.

  “Quinn, what happened?”

  Quinn shook her head as if trying to make sense of the situation. “He took her. A man . . . or something. He came in and took Paige.”

  That didn’t make any sense. Things like strangers coming into a house and kidnapping someone happened on TV, not in real life. Not to us. “Quinn, are you serious, or are you guys playing a trick on me?” I waited for Paige to jump out of the closet laughing her ass off.

  “I’m not playing. Look at the window!”

  I moved over to the window, glass crunching beneath my boots, trying to accept the grim reality. The window had been broken from the outside. Paige was gone. “Which way did they go?” I turned back to Quinn, who shook her head. “You can’t follow them.”

  I grabbed my sister’s shoulders and shook her. Every second counted for Paige. “Quinn, which way?”

  She pointed one shaky finger to the ceiling. “You can’t follow them. They flew away.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “What?”

  “The man, he had wings like a giant bat.”

  Clearly Quinn was too afraid to think straight. I got on my phone and dialed 9-1-1 before going out into the backyard. I saw nothing that suggested an intruder had been there. The gates were closed. There were no footprints. No crushed plants or flowers. How had the man come and gone through a second-story window while carrying a girl who was surely struggling to break free? Was Quinn telling the truth?

  I didn’t get the opportunity to ask her any more questions about what she’d seen because Quinn shut down after that. She wouldn’t speak or even make eye contact with anyone. I called Mom, but she didn’t answer, so I called Grandma, who arrived shortly after the cops.

  Grandma sat on the couch crying hysterically while holding a checked-out Quinn. My sister looked like she had frozen in time. An ambulance was called for her. They wanted to take her to the hospital to make sure she was all right. Grandma was going with her, while I went to the police station on my own to answer some questions. I wished my parents were there, but what could I possibly say to them? While I was in charge, Paige had mysteriously disappeared. It felt like it was all my fault even though I knew it wasn’t.

  At the station, I was taken into a white room surrounded with glass windows. The only things in the room were a wooden table and three chairs—two on one side of the table and one on the other.

  After a minute, Officer Putney came in and sat in front of me. I couldn’t say I was happy to see him. I knew he was still giving me the side-eye from the whole Fletcher–bus incident. He thought I was crazy.

  Officer Putney folded his hands in front of him. “Can I get you anything, Arden?”

  “Just find my sister.”

  “We have the whole precinct and the ones that surround us looking for her. We’ve issued an Amber Alert even though we don’t have any information about a vehicle.”

  That’s because they’d flown away, according to Quinn.

  I took a deep breath and formulated my thoughts. I had to do and say just the right things. I’d watched enough cop shows to know that detectives were watching me on the other side of those windows, judging my facial expressions and body language.

  Officer Putney flipped open a notepad. “Can you tell me again what happened?”

  I sighed then caught myself. I didn’t want to seem frustrated, but I’d already told him the story, and he should have been out there helping them look for Paige.

  “I was sewing in the basement. I heard the girls screaming from upstairs in Paige’s room. By the time I got there, the window was broken and Paige was gone. When I asked Quinn what happened, she told me a man with wings came in, grabbed Paige, and then flew away. That’s all I can tell you.”

  Officer Putney made some scribbles on his pad while looking at me then closed it and put his pen down. I wondered how he could do that—write without looking, like Scarlett. Was his writing legible? I hoped so because this was important.

  “Some interesting things happen to you, don’t they, Arden?”

  “What?”

  Officer Putney sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. Not a good sign. “Well, first you claim to see a boy get hit by a bus. Then you stumble upon poor Mrs. Chin’s body in the woods. Now, your sister has been taken by a flying man.”

  I gulped. Yeah, that sounded bad, but the first two things had totally been Fletcher’s fault. He ran in front of that bus and then lied about it, and he was the one who’d found Mrs. Chin and brou
ght me to her. As for Paige, I was only repeating what Quinn had told me, so he shouldn’t have been looking at me as if I had two heads.

  “I guess,” was all I could think to say.

  “This flying man. Can you describe his wings? Did he have feathers too?” Officer Putney asked, not bothering to hide his smirk.

  I wanted to smack him. “I don’t know. I told you a hundred times that I didn’t see him. Quinn did. Ask her.”

  “Unfortunately, your little sister’s still not talking or responding to anything.”

  Poor Quinn. I felt like I should have been with her, but then I thought about Paige. We had no idea where she was or what this mystery man was doing with her.

  Officer Putney tapped his pen on the table. “One sister missing and one in shock. What exactly happened in that house tonight?”

  Taking deep breaths, I tried to remember what I’d learned in speech class about staying calm and not being defensive. I remembered nothing. “For the millionth time, we ate. I cleaned up. My sisters went upstairs to hang out, and I was in the basement sewing. That’s all.” This was a nightmare, and I needed it to be over. “Have you spoken to my parents?”

  Putney shook his head. “We haven’t been able to get in contact with either one. We’re trying.”

  Something was wrong. Were my parents okay? A lump rose in my throat. They needed to be there. Mom would have already flipped out and had every officer in the state looking for Paige.

  Officer Putney looked me up and down as if he wanted to say something else. “Your house is still a crime scene for the time being, so you’ll be going home with your grandmother. You can sit in the waiting room until she comes for you. If you think of anything you haven’t told me, don’t hesitate to call.”

  I nodded. A younger officer led me to the waiting room, where I called Fletcher.

  “Fletcher—” I said as soon as he picked up.

  “I know. I’m watching the news now.”

  I looked up at the TV that hung from the ceiling of the waiting room. The eleven o’clock news was on, and although it was on mute, my sister’s picture flashed across the screen along with several other pictures from her Instagram account. That was fast.

  I watched the newscaster’s mouth move, but I didn’t want to hear what she was saying. Was she telling everyone I’d said my sister was taken away by the flying man? Even though it had been initially Quinn’s statement, I was the one who had repeated it to the police. They would think I was crazy.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sure they’ll find her,” Fletcher said. I’d almost forgotten that I was talking to him.

  “Fletch, Quinn said the man who took her flew away with Paige. Why would she say that? That’s crazy, right?”

  Fletcher was silent for a minute. He wasn’t talking because he’d rather be silent than lie to me. “Fletch, that’s crazy, right?”

  “Arden, I have to go. I know they’re going to find Paige. Don’t worry. I’ll come over tomorrow.”

  His mother yelled something in the background. She didn’t sound happy. I thought I could make out the words “their fault.” What was she talking about?

  “Fletcher, what do you know that you’re not telling me?” One thing I did know about Fletcher Whitelock was how to tell when he was keeping secrets. Still silence. “Fletch, come on. This is my little sister.”

  “Arden, I have to go. I promise, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he hung up. I called him five times after that, but he wouldn’t answer.

  It was after midnight when Grandma and I got to her house. They’d wanted to keep Quinn overnight for observation, and she still hadn’t uttered one word.

  Grandma didn’t sleep that night. She alternated between pacing the living room crying or calling Mom and Dad’s cells screaming at them for being unavailable. I couldn’t blame her because I was just as angry. What were they doing? Whenever Dad went away on business, he’d always return our calls within the hour even if it were for something stupid like Paige and Quinn arguing about whose turn it was to take out the trash. And Mom, where the hell was she? Was she okay?

  I spent the night curled up on the couch, thinking about Paige. I tried to imagine how scared and alone she must have felt at that moment. I would have traded places with her in a heartbeat.

  Chapter Fourteen

  An accidental overdose of the wrong medication

  A doctor screw-up in surgery

  A serial killer posing as a nurse

  The uncontrollable outbreak of some vicious disease

  Electrocution by heart defibrillator

  The beef stroganoff from the cafeteria

  The thoughts wouldn’t stop coming. For places of healing, hospitals were crazy dangerous.

  Saturday was a blur. Grandma and I spent the morning in the hospital with Quinn. There was nothing else to be done, so they were going to discharge her soon, promising us that she would talk again when she was ready. In other words, there was nothing medically wrong with her, it was all mental. She was simply choosing not to talk. In the meantime, Quinn stared straight ahead, barely even blinking and completely shutting us out of her little world.

  Fletcher came by with a small vase of yellow roses. “My mother made me bring these,” he announced as he set them on the table beside Quinn’s bed.

  “Thanks, Fletcher, but you shouldn’t say that when you’re giving someone a gift,” I explained.

  “Oh. Right.”

  I didn’t want him to think the flowers were unappreciated. “It was nice of you, though. Quinn likes yellow.”

  Grandma left us alone to make a visit to the cafeteria. She promised to bring me something back, but I begged her not to. I imagined that hospital food was worse than school cafeteria food.

  Fletcher sat in a chair on the other side of Quinn’s bed and stared at her. “She’s afraid of what she saw.”

  “You believe her? That a man flew away with Paige?”

  Fletcher nodded. “I guess. Why would she make that up?”

  “She’s ten and she was scared. Maybe she just thought she saw the guy flying away.” But that part still bothered me. How had he done it? There was no evidence anywhere in the house. No footprints or fingerprints. Had he simply flown in and flown out with Paige? Why Paige? What did he want with her?

  Fletcher stared at me, gripping the arms of his chair as if he were afraid of something.

  “Fletch, you’re scaring me.”

  He continued to watch me with the same level of intensity. “Arden, I’m going to tell you something. When I tell you this, you can’t freak out. If you do, I’ll never tell you anything again no matter how many times you ask. My mom doesn’t want me to tell you, but you’re my friend and I have to.”

  What did this have to do with Fletcher’s mom, and what did she know about me?

  “I won’t freak out,” I promised, even though I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t. “Please, whatever it is. Tell me.”

  “I told you your mom and dad weren’t your parents. I know you didn’t believe me, but you should ask them. Really ask them. Don’t let them brush it off. Make them tell you the truth. You have a right to know. You should have known a long time ago. It wasn’t a man who took your sister. It was a boy. Our age, but he’s big, so I can see why Quinn thought it was a man. His job is to collect people like you. That’s why he came to your house last night.”

  “People like me. What does that mean?”

  “It’s not my place to tell you, and that’s not even the point right now. The point is he came for you, but he made a mistake and took the wrong girl. He’ll realize his mistake soon if he hasn’t already, and he’ll come for you, Arden.”

  Shivers crept up and down my spine. I hadn’t slept the night before, and I knew I would never sleep again with the prospect of some winged boy coming into my house to take me away, even though I didn’t believe it.

  “Shut up, Fletcher. You’re just trying to scare me, and it’s not funny.”

  “I mean it, Arden. There’
s nothing you or your parents can do. You can’t stop them. You can’t hide from them. They have a right to take you because you belong with them and not your parents. You’re in the wrong place. They have to make things right.”

  All the times I’d asked Fletcher to tell me what was going on, I hadn’t expected a cockamamie story like this. Even though he was giving me information, he wasn’t telling me anything. My parents were my parents. They had to be. And what was I? What was he talking about?

  Quinn stared straight ahead at the wall. I wondered if she could hear us.

  Everything that had been going on almost made me forget about something else. “Hey, how could you do that to Ms. Melcher? What’s wrong with you?”

  Fletcher sighed and looked down at his lap. “I told you I was trying to help her. It’s not my fault they didn’t want to listen.”

  “You were trying to help her by scaring her and telling her over and over that she’s going to die? Who does that? Now I’m all alone at school, and it sucks.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  He was right. I didn’t. I folded my arms across my chest. “I want you to leave now.”

  Fletcher didn’t argue or give us a second glance. He stood from the chair and left the room.

  Mom came home Sunday night just as she said she would—well, not really home, but to Grandma’s. Officer Putney promised we’d be let back into our own house in a day or so.

  “Where were you?” Grandma demanded as soon as Mom came through the door. The whole scene was weird. Grandma was talking to Mom like she was a teenager, and Mom looked like she was afraid of getting in trouble.

  Mom hugged me and kissed both my cheeks. “Me and a couple of friends decided to take a spur-of-the-moment girls’ trip. There’s this new spa in Langston. They don’t allow cell phones or any type of technology. I had to turn in my phone when I checked in.”

  She was so lying, but Grandma seemed satisfied with her answer. Mom would never take a spontaneous trip like that, and she would never be without her phone. If she were just going to a spa with some friends, why hadn’t she just said so when I spoke to her on Friday evening?