The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett

by Chelsea Sedoti

  “Will they catch him?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “The person who killed her.”

  Rush got a weird look on his face. “I thought you knew.”

  Did I know? Did I know something I was forgetting? “Tell me.”

  “There’s no one to catch,” he said carefully.

  “So she got lost.”

  “Hawthorn, Lizzie killed herself.”

  Time stopped. The air in my room went still. For a fleeting moment, I thought my brother was joking. “What? No. That has to be a mistake.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “How do they know?”

  “I don’t think we should talk about this right now.” He reached out to hold my hand.

  I pulled back.

  “How, Rush?”

  He sighed. “They found her hanging from a tree.”

  My mind raced. “But…no. Someone could have made it look like—”

  “They have ways to tell, Hawthorn. I didn’t want to believe it either, but they’re sure.”

  I lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. Lizzie Lovett went into the woods to commit suicide. She was not a werewolf. She was dead, and she was never coming back, and it was because that’s the way she’d wanted it.

  I kept returning to that night with Lizzie and Enzo in their tent. They whisper and laugh and talk about the future as if it’s still going to happen. He falls asleep. But she’s awake. She watches him. She knows she won’t see him again. Had she known from the start, when they planned their camping trip? Or was it a spur of the moment decision? How could she do it? How could she get up and walk out of the tent and leave everything behind?

  “You’ll never know the answers, Hawthorn,” Sundog said later that night. He’d pulled my desk chair next to my bed and was sitting there as if he was keeping vigil over me, as if I were in a hospital, as if I were the one dying.

  “She had everything, Sundog. How could she walk away?”

  “You only know the part of the story people want you to see.”

  But it still didn’t make sense. Nothing did. This was Lizzie Lovett. People loved her. She was a cheerleader. Cheerleaders didn’t kill themselves. At least they didn’t in the world I used to live in. Now, all the rules were reversed. Nothing was off limits.

  On the day of the funeral, my mom tried to get me out of bed.

  “You could wear your navy-blue dress with the gold buttons,” she suggested. “What do you think?”

  “Will they have the coffin open?” I asked.

  My mom hesitated on her way to my closet. “She was in the woods a long time, honey.”

  “Was she just a skeleton then?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “How tall was the tree that she hanged herself from? Could the animals on the ground get her?”

  “I don’t think you should think about that, Hawthorn.”

  “Why?” I asked, getting annoyed. It wasn’t my mom’s job to police my thoughts.

  “It’s not respectful.”

  “I’m pretty sure Lizzie’s past the point of being offended.”

  My mom crossed the room and sat on the chair next to my bed. “I am being patient with you. I know this is a shock. I’m allowing you to stay in bed and miss a few days of school. But I won’t put up with that attitude. Understood?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Now, are you wearing the navy dress or something else?”

  “I’m not going to the funeral.”

  “You’re not? Don’t you think you should?”

  “No.” I rolled onto my side, away from her. I stared at the wall.

  “Funerals help people get closure. Going could help you move on.”

  I didn’t want closure though. Moving on was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend I lived in a world where Lizzie Lovett still existed.

  • • •

  Except, you know, I couldn’t spend the rest of my life in bed. I had to get up eventually. The day after the funeral, before anyone else was awake, I went to the end of the driveway and got the newspaper.

  Lizzie’s funeral was on the front page. With pictures. The coffin was closed, but a huge photo of Lizzie sat on top of it. Flowers were everywhere. Enzo was pictured in a suit, the same suit he was supposed to wear to take me to the homecoming dance. He was standing next to Lizzie’s mom, part of the family. Not the killer some people had suspected.

  I read the article a few times. It talked about the night Lizzie went missing. It talked about how she was found by two hikers, which was nothing more than luck. Like Rush had told me, her body wasn’t far from where the search parties had trampled through the woods. Lizzie’s mom had been interviewed. She said Lizzie was a happy girl, and there was no reason to suspect she’d been contemplating suicide. The end of the article shared a list of suicidal warning signs, even though Lizzie apparently hadn’t had any. It gave a number to call if you or anyone you knew was having suicidal thoughts.

  Lizzie went into the woods with a rope in her bag, knowing that rope would be the last thing she ever felt. Lizzie made the choice to leave her life. Was she scared? Did she hesitate? At any moment, did she wish to take the whole thing back?

  I put the newspaper down on the kitchen table. I stood there, in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out what came next. Everything I’d done in the past few months was about Lizzie. About finding a werewolf. But Lizzie was dead. So now what? I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what to think about.

  I crossed the kitchen and picked up the phone. It was early, but what did it matter anymore?

  Enzo answered on the second ring. He sounded alert. He wasn’t sleeping either.

  “It’s me.”

  “Hawthorn. Hey.”

  “Sorry I didn’t call sooner.” But even as I was saying it, I realized he hadn’t called me either.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been pretty busy.”

  “Look,” I said, “maybe we weren’t completely wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “Do you know about warging? Say Lizzie wanted to throw us off her trail, right? So she kills herself, but a second before she dies, she throws her spirit into the body of a wolf or some other animal that’s nearby. You see?”

  There was a long silence, expanding the distance between us. Then Enzo sighed deeply. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “We can’t do this anymore, kid.”

  “It doesn’t need to be over,” I said, hating the desperation in my voice.

  “Yes, it does.”

  I could have tried to convince him. I could have told him he was wrong, that life was a wheel, not a straight line. It kept going and going, and nothing was ever really over. I could have told him that Lizzie was dead, but we weren’t. But I didn’t. I knew the harder I tried to convince him, the worse the sick feeling inside of me would get. It was hurt and hate and sorrow and every other bad emotion rolled into one terrible mass that churned in my stomach.

  So I didn’t say anything at all. I took the phone away from my ear and placed it gently on the receiver, all the while thinking, So this is how my and Enzo’s story ends.

  Chapter 32

  Another Good-bye

  After a tragedy, you’re expected to go back to normal life. I found that out pretty fast after Lizzie’s funeral. Everyone went from treating me really carefully to not being so patient. It was apparently time for me to move on. To get over it. To let it go. So I pretended to.

  I thought my first day back to school would be pretty bad, what with everyone talking about Lizzie. But no one was. I was surprised, and then I remembered I’d been out sick for almost a week. The other kids had already talked about it. They had already moved on.

/>   No one was awful to me, which was somewhat surprising. No one made jokes or said anything about how there were no werewolves after all. The only comment anyone made was when Mychelle Adler turned around in first period and asked, “How’s your boyfriend taking Lizzie’s death?”

  I ignored her.

  “I noticed you weren’t with him at the funeral. Is he sick of you already?”

  I pretended that I couldn’t hear her. I pretended she was speaking some foreign language that I couldn’t understand. I pretended that I didn’t care what she was saying.

  “Maybe he decided being alone was better than being with you.”

  Maybe he had.

  I sat on the back steps during lunch but didn’t eat. Food wasn’t really interesting anymore, not even junk food. My mom kept telling me I was so skinny, I couldn’t afford to lose weight. But I sort of liked that idea. Maybe I would waste away a little more every day until I disappeared entirely.

  When the gym door opened and Emily stepped out, I didn’t react. My senses were dulled. I felt medicated.

  “Hey,” Emily said.

  “Hi.”

  She sat down in her old place, like we’d gone back in time.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “I know it must have been a shock to you.”

  “One I deserved, right? I spent months running around and talking about werewolves while Lizzie was rotting in the woods.”

  “You didn’t know,” Emily said.

  “But I should have taken it more seriously. I should have known that someone going missing isn’t a game. That’s how I treated it. You know, like Lizzie went missing just for my amusement.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself,” Emily said quietly.

  I shrugged.

  “Look, Hawthorn. I know things have been a little off between us. But we’ve been friends our whole lives. A couple weeks of not hanging out doesn’t change that. If you want to talk, I’m here for you.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Maybe we could still hang out. We could go to a movie. Or maybe watch them light the town Christmas tree in a couple weeks. Remember how we used to do that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Think about it at least.”

  I told her I would. But I didn’t want to think about anything.

  • • •

  My parents didn’t want me to work at the Sunshine Café anymore, but I wasn’t ready to quit. I couldn’t sever that connection with Lizzie quite yet.

  Christa talked about Lizzie a lot, and I listened but didn’t give much of a response. I’d already caused enough trouble by making speculations about Lizzie’s life. One night, when Christa was saying how she just couldn’t believe Lizzie was dead, how she never figured Lizzie was the kind of girl who’d kill herself, Vernon looked up and said, “Doncha know Lizzie’s a woof?”

  I was startled and almost started to cry. Vernon had been paying attention to me after all. Even though it seemed like a silly thing to get so emotional about, I was grateful. “No, Vernon. I only thought she was. Thanks for listening though.”

  I watched the door a lot during my shifts. Part of me thought it would swing open, and the little bell would jingle, and Enzo would be standing there in his leather jacket, asking me what time I got off work, if I could leave early. But he never showed up. I knew I needed to stop waiting for him. Life wasn’t a fairy tale. Enzo wasn’t my prince. It was time for me to get it together. I had to deal with it and get a grip. So I tried to keep my heart from racing when I heard the bell ring. I tried to pretend I was just another waitress doing her job.

  • • •

  It was a Tuesday in the middle of November when I pulled into my driveway after school and saw that the caravan was on the move. Tents were wrapped up and being carried from the backyard. One of the more capable hippie guys was checking the oil in the cars.

  I walked up to Sundog, who was supervising.

  “You’re leaving,” I said.

  “There’s snow predicted this weekend.”

  “But…” I didn’t have any way to finish the thought. There were no buts. Their camping gear wasn’t meant for the cold. So instead, I settled for the truth. “I don’t want you to go.”

  Sundog smiled. “Young Hawthorn, when we first pulled into town, the only thing you wanted was for us to leave.”

  “Things change.”

  “I know. I hope that’s a lesson to you.”

  “Can I talk to you alone?” I asked, suddenly feeling exposed on the front lawn, the rest of the caravan milling around us.

  We went around the side of the house where it was quieter and no one was watching us.

  “Give me a name,” I said.

  “A name?”

  “A spirit name. Like you gave my mom when she was my age.”

  Sundog laughed, and that dark twisting started in my gut again.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked. “I’m not as special as one of the members of your commune?”

  “Hawthorn, you already have your name. You got your spirit name at birth. Most people aren’t so lucky.”

  “So Hawthorn is my spirit name,” I said flatly. “After a tree my parents had sex under.”

  “Do you know about the hawthorn tree? They’re tough, sturdy. They can outlast storms. Hawthorn trees provide food and shelter for animals and insects. They nourish the world around them. It’s a name anyone would be honored to have.”

  “Take me with you,” I said suddenly. “Please.”

  If Sundog was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, he seemed to consider it seriously. I wanted him to say yes. I wanted him to take me to the desert, where the sun would dry my tears. I wanted him to whisk me away to some magical land where we would travel and have adventures, and everything would be OK.

  But of course, it didn’t happen like that. Fairy tales aren’t real.

  “Hawthorn, running from your demons only gives them more power.”

  “Yeah,” I said and sighed. “Got it.”

  I started to walk toward the back door, but he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Your werewolf girl—she ran. You’re meant for more than that.”

  I turned away so he wouldn’t see my eyes fill with tears. I’d never believed in the mystical healing stuff the hippies went on about, but I did know Sundog had the power to make me feel good about myself. I knew how lonely I’d be with him gone.

  Back in the front yard, I found Timothy Leary sitting patiently near a stack of luggage, as if she knew it was time to leave. I picked her up and nuzzled her. I thought about asking if I could keep her, but Sundog would probably say something about how animals couldn’t be kept.

  I helped the hippies load up the last of their belongings, then hugged Journey and Calliope and CJ good-bye. When Sundog bowed to me, I bowed back.

  Then my mom and I stood on the lawn and watched the caravan pull away from the curb. My mom waved to them. I wiped at my eyes and hoped she didn’t notice. Before rounding the corner and leaving my life, Sundog honked the horn of the big old bus.

  I sniffed. Mom put her arm around me and said, “I’m going to miss them too.”

  When the last car in the caravan was out of sight, I walked around the house to the backyard. The grass was trampled flat where the tents had been set up. The remains of the last bonfire were still there, cold now. A long scarf lay forgotten on the ground. The yard looked lonely.

  I lay down on the cold, matted grass and closed my eyes. I was surprised how quickly endings came. One day, the yard is filled with talking and laughter; the next, it’s abandoned. One day, a young girl is full of life; the next, she’s dead.

  Why did Lizzie want to die? That’s what I didn’t get. How could someone like Lizzie, someone who had all the
best things in life handed to her, want to kill herself? And if Lizzie Lovett couldn’t find a reason why life was worth living, what hope did the rest of us have? What hope did I have?

  Chapter 33

  Hanged

  By Thanksgiving, it seemed like no one cared about Lizzie anymore. Not my family. Not the kids at school. Not the police or reporters. The mystery of her disappearance had been solved, and no one was interested in the mystery of her suicide.

  Except for me. And, I assumed, Lizzie’s family. And probably Enzo. I thought about calling him to ask. I wanted to connect with someone else who was desperate for answers. She hadn’t left a suicide note. Did that mean her decision was spontaneous? Or did she just feel like she had nothing to say? In Lizzie’s mind, had she already tied up loose ends?

  That’s what I thought about while the rest of my family enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner. My mom made a real turkey, which was how I knew she was still really worried about me. I wasn’t hungry though. I pushed my food around on my plate while everyone else acted as if everything were normal.

  “I really appreciate you inviting me over,” Connor said to my mom.

  “We wouldn’t have you eating Thanksgiving dinner on your own,” my mom said, making it clear that she disapproved of Connor’s parents going out of town without him. Despite her aversion to social conventions, my mom was really big on family holidays.

  The rest of the conversation was boring. My dad kept saying how great everything tasted, and Rush shoveled turkey in his mouth like he thought my mom might snatch it away, shout, “Just kidding,” and run to get the Tofurky.

  The whole holiday made me feel hateful. I wanted to throw my plate across the room just to get their attention. I wanted them to remember that Lizzie was dead, and turkey and forced conversation wouldn’t change that.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about how Lizzie would have looked hanging in the woods. Did she even look like Lizzie anymore? I wanted to track down the hikers who found her so I could ask them exactly what it had been like to find her, but their names weren’t in the news. Probably so they wouldn’t have to talk to people like me.