by Liana Liu
I know it’s impossible. She can’t possibly see me. And yet . . .
In a low and solemn voice, the reporter says, “The Morison family, the family that seemed to have it all, now appears to have lost everything.”
Then the girl smiles, revealing a row of small, sharp teeth. Familiar teeth. My breath sticks in my throat. Fear creeps into my chest. It’s Eleanor. And she’s holding my missing ballerina figurine.
2
SEVERAL DAYS LATER, I AM LYING ON THE COUCH, STARING AT the TV, when the doorbell buzzes. I don’t get up. My mother is at work. My brother is at work. It’s early afternoon on a weekday. I cannot imagine who it could be. Nor do I care. But then there is a metallic clatter: the sound of a key rattling in the sticky lock. I jump up just as the door opens and my brother comes inside.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were working.” I smooth back my hair and yank my pajamas into place. No one is supposed to see me like this. When my family comes home in the evening, I am always cleaned and combed and dressed. No one is supposed to know I spent all day doing nothing.
“I got out early. Why didn’t you answer the door?” Andy says.
“I was busy,” I say.
“Busy?” My brother glances pointedly from my disheveled hair to my disheveled pajamas to the disheveled couch to the soap opera on the television.
“Busy.” I shut off the TV and move toward the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” He follows me.
“I’m going to read.”
“What are you reading?”
“A book.” I turn around to shut the door.
“Hey, don’t be like that.” He stands in the doorway so I can’t shut the door.
“Like what?” I say.
“You haven’t been yourself since you got back. What’s going on?”
“Myself? What do you know about who I am? You’ve barely been around the past couple of years, so why do you think you know anything about me?”
“I’m your brother. I know exactly who you are, Little Miss Perfect. And this? This isn’t you. So what’s wrong with you?”
I stare at him.
And then I explode.
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?” I say. “You think you can just come home and everything is forgiven? The favorite child, with your stupid job and your plans to go to school, and taking Mom out to dinner? Well, guess what. I see right through you. And when you disappear again, I know I’ll have to pick up the pieces. Again. I’m used to it. But don’t you dare think that I want it this way, that I only care about being a nice girl, a good daughter. I have to do these things because you’re busy doing whatever you want. So while you’re out in the world, you should remember that I’m stuck here, taking care of everything, because of you.”
I’m shocked by what I’m saying, but I’m too angry to care, too angry to stop, too angry to look where I’m going, so I keep going—right into a ditch:
“Because you left,” I say. “Just like Dad.”
My brother flushes. His cheeks, his forehead, his nose, his chin, his whole face gets very red. I wait for him to lose his temper and scream at me. Once he’s done screaming, he will stomp away. Then I can go into the bedroom, shut the door behind me, and be alone. All I want is to be alone.
But he doesn’t scream at me. Instead he says, in a low voice, the last thing I expect him to say. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” I’m certain I must have misheard.
Andy steps back from the doorway and goes over to the living-room couch.
I don’t remember my brother ever apologizing to me before. Even when something was undeniably his fault, like when I was seven and he was ten and he dropped my thermos and the cover broke and he claimed the broken cover is what made him drop it in the first place. He never apologized.
So I’m flustered. That’s why instead of going into the bedroom, I follow him to the couch. He sits down. I stand next to him, staring at him. “Andy?”
“Sit down or go away,” he says. “Don’t hover.”
I sit down. “I didn’t mean what I said.”
“Sounded like you meant it.”
“Okay, I meant some of it. But it’s not your fault. For leaving.”
“No?”
“No.”
My brother shrugs, idly scratches his arm, still not looking at me.
And I realize he’s hurt. I’ve actually hurt him. It’s what I wanted to do, but I never thought it was possible—I never thought my brother cared enough about me to let anything I said or did bother him.
But maybe I was wrong. I’ve been wrong about so many things lately.
“Andy,” I say, grabbing his scratching fingers. “It’s not your fault. Things haven’t been easy for you either. I know that. And anyway, you’re not like him. You came back.”
My brother pulls his hand from my hand. The physical contact seems to make him uncomfortable. But then he flops back into the couch cushions, visibly relaxing.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he says.
“Anyway,” he adds, a moment later, “what’s your deal? Doris is worried about you. She said you’ve been ignoring her calls. She thinks you’re depressed.”
“Doris isn’t a doctor yet. She shouldn’t try to diagnose me.”
“Whoa.” Andy laughs. “I think I like this new mean you.”
“It’s not mean. I’m just being honest.” I pause. Then I ask, carefully, casually, “What’s going on with you and Doris, anyway?”
“Nothing. We’re friends.” His expression stiffens into expressionlessness, but his expressionlessness gives it away: my brother, like so many boys before him, has been kindly rejected by Doris Chang. I feel an unexpected pang of sympathy for him.
And so I change the subject. “Maybe I am kind of depressed,” I admit.
“Because of what happened to the guy you worked for?”
“Yeah.”
“But that guy’s a crook. He stole millions from his investors and broke all sorts of other laws. He deserves to go to jail,” says my brother, who has gone to jail.
I nod. It’s true. Because even if it was Eleanor Arrow I saw on the television that day—and I can’t help thinking it was, that she had returned to watch the family’s downfall—the fact is that whatever Eleanor may or may not have done, it was ultimately Jeffrey Morison’s actions that led to his ruin.
After reading numerous newspaper articles, I put the story together. Lorraine had been caught giving Jeffrey confidential information. That was what the phone conversation I overhead was actually about. Then once the authorities began investigating, they discovered evidence of fraud and the misappropriation of funds. That’s why the family had rushed back to the city: not because of old Mr. Morison’s health—which was, as far as I knew, fine—but because the police had shown up to take Jeffrey in for questioning.
“So why are you so upset?” my brother asks.
Yes, why have I spent the past few days on the couch while the television wailed with soap opera drama? Why haven’t I answered Doris’s calls or responded to Ms. Baldwin’s recent email that said she had good news for me? Why have I been behaving so unlike myself?
“I feel bad for his family. They’re losing everything,” I say. The apartment, the cars, the jewelry, the house on Arrow Island—all of it would be sold to repay investors.
“Okay, so they’re poor now. Welcome to the club.”
“It’s not just that. Their lives have been ruined.”
My brother shrugs. “Not necessarily. Maybe they’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.” I think of Ella. I think of her as I last saw her, her face pale and sad and small, as their front door swung closed between us.
“Have you talked to them?”
I shake my head. “Vanessa thinks I’m a bad influence.”
“Are you kidding? Is she crazy? Wait . . . are you crying?” Andy looks panicked.
“No. Maybe. A little. I’m sorry. I don’t know w
hat’s wrong with me.” I pull a tissue from the box on the table and dab my eyes, my nose.
“Nothing’s wrong with you. But stop crying.”
“A week ago I was with them in their house, doing everything together. And now it’s like it never happened. This sounds so selfish, considering what they’re going through, but I really thought my life was going to be different. Yet here I am, back at home, and nothing has changed. Nothing is ever going to change.”
“No, things are always changing.”
“Not for me. Unless I go . . .” I stop.
“Go where?” my brother asks.
My fingers clamp across my mouth. I hadn’t realized I had been thinking about it, much less considering it. “Waltman College,” I say, words muffled by my fingers.
“What are you talking about?”
I drop my hand and tell him about applying to Waltman, getting accepted, and turning down their offer. I tell him about Ms. Baldwin and her emails. Then I say, “But of course I can’t go, no matter how much financial aid they give me. It’s so far away and it’s too short notice and even if it wasn’t, I still couldn’t go. I have to email Ms. Baldwin and tell her.”
“You haven’t emailed her back?”
“Not yet.”
“You have to go.”
“I know. I’ll go email her right now.” I stand and walk toward the bedroom.
“No. I mean you have to go to Waltman,” he says.
I stop. I turn around. “I can’t. What will Mom do?”
“I’m home now. I’ll help out.”
My first reaction is to not believe him. Then I decide to try something different. I decide to trust my brother. But . . . there are still too many obstacles. “I can’t. I’ve got everything planned out for the fall. I’ve enrolled in classes and ordered textbooks and I have my tutoring students lined up,” I say.
“If you don’t go, you’ll be the one keeping yourself stuck here.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s—”
He cuts me off. “You’re not like him either,” he says. “You’ll come back.”
I stare at him. I keep staring even after he swivels around on the couch, picks up the remote control, and turns on the TV. He flips through the channels to a baseball game. He looks at me again. “Mèimei, you’re wrong about nothing changing this summer,” he says. “You’ve changed.”
Then he turns back to the television. The batter swings and hits the baseball with a sharp crack. It flies high, then drops fast. Foul ball. My brother curses enthusiastically, punching his fist up in the air. And I laugh aloud.
He’s right. I must have changed—if I’m actually thinking my brother is right about anything. And if that can happen, who knows what else is possible?
AFTER
SHE HAUNTS ME. SHE VISITS MY DREAMS AND I WAKE UP ANXIOUS. She slips into my thoughts and distracts me from my work. She lingers in my memories. My shark mind keeps moving, searching for some kind of plan, any action I might take. But I know there’s nothing I can do to help her, at least for now. For now, I can only hope that Ella is okay.
In the meantime, I keep busy with classes and friends and a work-study job at the college library. Plus all the other everyday stuff. Like checking my mail. “Hi! I have a package,” I tell the guy behind the desk.
He brings over a box. “Careful, it’s much heavier than it looks,” he warns.
I’m not surprised. It’s one of those flat-rate boxes that cost the same price to send no matter how much it weighs—so I’m sure my mother stuffed anything and everything she could fit in there. The cardboard bulges in all directions. I haul it up to my dorm room.
“What’s that?” asks my roommate, Carly. She’s an art major from the Midwest. She has short bleached hair and wears lots of black and black eyeliner and looks terribly tough, but is extremely nice in a way that reminds me a little of Doris.
“My mom sent me a care package.”
“All right! What’s in it?”
“Let’s see.”
My mother was painstaking with the packing tape, so it requires a pair of scissors and some violent yanking to open the box. Then I take out the items, one by one, and show them to Carly. A carton of my favorite sesame cookies. A bag of loose tea. A vial of herbal medicine. A bottle of chili-garlic hot sauce. Socks. A new wool scarf. A pair of slippers. A pillowcase. Another pillowcase. A can of chicken soup. A can opener. Two sets of chopsticks. A fleece blanket. Some books I asked her to send. My sweatshirt I asked her to send. More socks. A tube of lotion. A pot of hand cream.
“Wow, how’d she fit all that in there?” asks Carly.
“My mom is a master of organization,” I tell her.
“Nice.” She puts on her coat and her backpack. “Okay, I’m off to class. I’ll meet you at the library at four? Also, I heard there’s a party on the third floor tonight.”
“Perfect! See you later!” I smile at her as she goes.
Then I turn back to the box. At the very bottom, there’s an envelope. I pull it out and examine it with curiosity. It’s addressed to me—to my home address—and stamped and mailed, but there is no return address. The handwriting is unfamiliar: wide and angular, slightly sloppy.
I open the envelope. There are two sheets of paper inside: one large and folded, one small and torn. I look at the small torn one first. It’s a note written in the same slightly sloppy handwriting as my address on the envelope.
Ella asked me to send this to you. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch, but I’ve been busy. Maybe one day I’ll be less busy. I really hope so. Anyway, I’m sure you’re having fun and making trouble wherever you are. Swim safely.
—Henry
His note makes me so sad. Not because I care about him or miss him or wish things could have turned out differently—though I do care and miss and wish. But mostly I’m sad because I can sense his sadness in everything he wrote and everything he left out. Especially everything he left out.
I set the small torn paper down on my desk and pick up Ella’s letter. For a moment I just hold the folded sheet like a prayer between my palms. Part of me doesn’t even want to read what she wrote—I’m already so sad. But when I unfold the paper, I discover it isn’t a letter at all. It’s a drawing.
Ella and I are in the pink bedroom, a version of the pink bedroom that is actually more like a meadow than a room. The flowers on the quilt have spread to the floor and there’s no wall behind us, just the blazing sun and a sky that’s a beautiful shade of blue. But when I look closer, I see that it’s actually not a single shade of blue, but many, maybe five, maybe ten, maybe a hundred, maybe all the blue shades in a thousand-pencil colored pencil set, maybe all the blue shades in the world, blended together on this one piece of paper, to make this one drawing of us. We’re smiling. And I smile. In the corner is written: “Best regards, Ella.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Kristen Pettit, Elizabeth Lynch, everyone who worked on this book at HarperTeen, and my agents, Sarah Burnes and Logan Garrison Savits. Thanks to Jonah Sirott, Maria Van Horn, Claire Stanford, Aurvi Sharma, and Sara Culver for all their help. My heartfelt gratitude to the MacDowell Colony, Playa, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for taking such good care of me while I wrote and ate and wrote (and ate). And, as always, thank you to my family—I love you!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Maria Van Horn
LIANA LIU was born and raised in New York City and lives there still. She received her MFA in fiction writing from the University of Minnesota.
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BOOKS B
Y LIANA LIU
The Memory Key
Shadow Girl
CREDITS
Cover art by Yuschav Arly
Cover design and hand lettering by Michelle Taormina
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
SHADOW GIRL. Copyright © 2017 by Liana Liu. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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ISBN 978-0-06-230667-8
EPub Edition © November 2017 ISBN 9780062306692
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