Pretend She's Here

by Luanne Rice

  “Who’s Uncle Jim?”

  “Mom’s imaginary brother who’s an imaginary doctor. He cleared you to start school.”

  I shook my head. Nothing surprised me anymore.

  “I’ll be right next door. That’s the middle school,” Chloe said, pointing at a low modern brick building across the parking lot. “We share the cafeteria, so depending on which period you get lunch, I might see you then.”

  “Don’t worry, Chloe. I’ve got her back,” Carole said. I jumped hearing her voice. Had she been listening? No, she’d just circled back to walk me inside.

  Chloe surprised me by giving me a quick, hard hug. Then she ran away, and I walked with Carole into Royston High.

  I missed first period to fill out papers in the office, see the nurse, and make sure the Porters had sent in my medical records and immunization forms—filled out by James Renard, MD. Uncle Jim. I met the principal, Mrs. Amanda Morton, a small woman with wavy brown hair and friendly gray-blue eyes that reminded me of my mother’s. She wore a green tweed dress and one of those gold necklaces with birthstone charms, each representing a child. Mrs. Morton’s had three; my mother’s necklace had seven.

  “I’ve seen your school transcripts,” Mrs. Morton said, “and I know you’ll have no problem catching up. If you need help, just ask. We’ll get you a tutor.”

  “Thank you,” I said, wondering what records she had seen, how the Porters had managed to fill the gap and concoct report cards from the year after Lizzie had died.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked. “We expected you at the start of school back in September, but your mother has been filling us in all along. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been so sick.”

  September? Wait—if the Porters were already telling the school about me back then, it meant they had been planning to kidnap me for months. Was that why Mrs. Porter had been in the marsh in August? No wonder it had felt so strange to see her. Had she been waiting for me? Planned to take me if I’d walked closer? Had the kidnap plot already begun? A gigantic chill came over me, and I couldn’t even speak.

  “Lizzie?” Mrs. Morton asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I managed to say.

  “I hope you’ll tell us about your travels,” she said. “They sound amazing! My family went to Paris last year. Did you go there?”

  “Um, yes,” I said.

  “Your mother tells me you’re quite a poet. Living abroad must have inspired you. It would be fantastic if you could share some of your experiences with the school.” She smiled and explained, “Each month we have a program where students present topics and speak about their experiences. Perhaps you would be willing to do one of the next presentations. It would be a unique way for us to get to know you. A poetry reading, coupled with some thoughts about what it was like to attend school in Europe?”

  Filled with panic, I could barely nod.

  She walked me to my second-period class. Our heels clicked on the polished floors.

  The walls were paneled in rich brown mahogany, carved with family crests and Latin mottos. There were no windows in the hall. The only light came from amber lamps on ornate brass sconces. All the classroom doors had intricately tooled doorknobs and stained glass windows, some set with crystal orbs. Beside each door was a painting of a cat—the same one in different poses. The plaster ceiling, at odd intervals, was inset with tiles of thistles and bundles of wheat. It felt spooky, more like a witches’ academy than a regular high school.

  I wanted so badly to be back home, in my own school, the bright, cheerful, familiar corridors of Black Hall High, with the Apiary, where I’d study and get mesmerized by the dance of the bees. I wanted to look up and see Bea and Patrick and all my friends nearby, to hope that Dan would appear.

  We walked past the library. Beside it, instead of a cat painting, was a gold-framed painting of a severe-looking, long-faced woman in a high-necked dress, her black hair held back in a tight bun and a cameo at her throat.

  “That’s Sarah Royston, for whom the town and this school were named,” Mrs. Morton said. “She owned a large paper mill in the 1800s. It was very unusual at that time for a woman to be so independent—wealthy and powerful in her own right. She has a very interesting story. I hope you’ll want to learn more about her.”

  “I do,” I said. I felt desperate to say something else, to beg for help, but what if Mrs. Morton didn’t believe me? She could call Mrs. Porter, and it would be all over. My chest nearly exploded, holding the words inside.

  “Here we go, this is your English class,” Mrs. Morton said, stopping beside a door whose painting had the cat sleeping.

  Just before we entered the room, I noticed Casey at the end of the hall, talking animatedly to the beautiful girl from his band. I held back, tempted to watch, but I had to follow Mrs. Morton inside.

  “Ms. LeBlanc, students, meet Lizzie Porter,” Mrs. Morton said in a loud voice. “She is new to Royston, and I know you will make her welcome.”

  Almost everyone smiled and applauded. I walked to a seat in back, shoulders hunched and my face bright red. Our principal in Black Hall would never have done that. He would have let the new students make their own way, take their time, not embarrassed them.

  The worst part was wearing Lizzie’s sleek black clothes. They made me look as if I cared too much about fashion, as if I held myself above everyone else. Is that how I’d felt about Lizzie, deep down, put off by her obsession with style that veered into vanity? With a shock I realized it was, at least partly.

  While Ms. LeBlanc talked about allegory in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, my mind took me back in time. I pictured Mrs. Porter sitting on the driftwood log. I saw the light glinting on her hair, the easy motion when she’d lifted her hand to wave to me. I smelled the marsh—that unmistakable low tide odor of mud and dead crabs and sea creatures exposed to the air. I felt the summer sun on my shoulders. Why had I pretended I hadn’t seen her? That was so unlike me. I’d thought it was because of her sorrow—of mine, too—over Lizzie. But maybe some ancient part of my brain had sensed danger. She’d been watching for me—now I was sure of it.

  Why else would she have told Mrs. Morton, all the way back in September, that her older daughter was traveling, would start school later in the year? And why did it make me feel even worse, even more scared, to know that taking me had been premeditated that far in advance?

  The world have seemed safe back then, but I’d been wrong. I’d thought I had control, choosing that path through the woods, but that had been an illusion. Even though I had dodged being kidnapped that summer day, Mrs. Porter’s plans were in motion.

  I started shaking. I forced myself to stop thinking of August. Instead my mind wandered to Casey, and I wondered what he and the girl had been talking about. His hand had been against the wall, his arm braced. She had been standing close to him, in the crook of his shoulder. It seemed obvious they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

  But something in their intensity had made me think they were arguing. Casey’s tall body looked tense, as if with anger or frustration. The girl had lightly tossed her long, magical red-gold hair. She wore a mid-calf white muslin dress. Although the scowl on her face hadn’t quite matched its radiant glow, it occurred to me Spenser’s title The Faerie Queene could very well apply to her.

  I tried to remember the lyrics Casey had sung to me. But my mind couldn’t find them, and eventually I began to concentrate on class. I heard Mrs. LeBlanc and the kids I didn’t know discussing the character Lady Una, the wizards Archimago and Busirane, the kidnapping of Amoretta, how Duessa had betrayed the Redcrosse Knight to the giant Orgoglio.

  Faerie Land was a strange world full of danger. But not as strange, I thought, not as dangerous, as the one I was living in. I sat in my chair shimmering. I felt like air, as if Emily had evaporated. I kept glancing out the tall leaded-glass windows, and twice I saw the minivan drive by slowly; Mrs. Porter’s head was swiveled toward the school, on alert for trouble.

 
; * * *

  When Chloe and I walked through the door after school, Mrs. Porter was waiting for us with hot cider and freshly baked gingerbread cookies. Chloe grabbed the snacks and went straight to her room. Mrs. Porter set a place at the kitchen table and gestured for me to sit.

  “Tell me about your first day,” she said. She looked eager, expectant, a little afraid of what I might say.

  “It was fine.” After English class, the day had gone by in a blur. I’d had history and French with Carole, the nice girl from the bus, but that was all I’d really managed to pay attention to.

  “Really?” Mrs. Porter asked. “Did you like it?” I could tell the question was genuine. She seemed to honestly care.

  “It’s … not that easy.”

  She nodded. “New schools never are.” She reached across the table and took my hand. We sat there for a minute before I pulled away.

  “What about questions? Was anyone too nosy?”

  “Mrs. Morton asked about Europe. She wants me to do a presentation about my time there, and I don’t even know where I’m supposed to have gone.”

  “I’ll give you the list,” Mrs. Porter said. “And you can memorize it.”

  “But I’ve never been there! I’ve never even left the country,” I said.

  “I have travel books in my room; I should have given them to you before. What else happened? Were there any other problems?”

  “Carole Dean wanted to give me her number. But I didn’t have a phone of my own. People will think that’s weird.”

  “Thought of that,” Mrs. Porter said, smiling. She went to the kitchen counter, opened a drawer, and pulled out Lizzie’s old iPhone. “This is for you.” She handed it to me. My mouth dropped open.

  “Thank you!” I said, shocked.

  “I’ve removed the battery and the SIM card,” she said. “You’ll have the phone itself, but you’ll have to pretend to enter numbers. When people call, you can say you’ve forgotten to charge it.”

  “Please,” I said. It was as if she’d given me the biggest hope, then smashed it to bits. My heart broke open, the words poured out. “Let me go home.”

  “You are home.”

  “Did this start in August?” I asked. “You saw me walking and called my name—is that when you first decided to take me?”

  “You thwarted me that day,” she said. “You should have come with me then. You could have started school in September, with the rest of your class, and avoided all this awkwardness. It would have been so much better.”

  “It would have been just as bad!” I said. “This is wrong. I can’t stay here, pretending to be Lizzie, Mrs. Porter. It’s a lie. And I miss my family so much.”

  With a deep sigh, full of what sounded like genuine regret, Mrs. Porter pushed her own phone across the table toward me and pressed PLAY. It was a video of the scene I’d viewed before: Mrs. Porter and my mother in the marsh—the same path I’d been walking in August—Seamus bounding along the path. I heard my mother’s voice. I saw the quick, surreptitious glint of the knife.

  “Do I have to continue to remind you?” Mrs. Porter asked. “I need you to be my daughter. I’ve told you. My heart is broken. Don’t break it again, please. I don’t know what I’d do if that happened. Well, yes—I am quite sure of what I’d do. And you know, too, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “There’s something else,” she said. “It’s very important. I don’t care if I get caught. It matters nothing to me—if I wind up in jail it will be worth it. That’s how serious I am. That is how determined I am to make this work. If you tell anyone, if I learn about your betrayal—and I will because I’m never far from you, even when you can’t see me … If you talk about this, I will go to Black Hall. Remember how we switched vans, the day you came with us?”

  Came with us. As if it had been voluntary.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’m resourceful. I won’t drive my own car. Look in the mirror—you know I’m good at crafting disguises. No one’s going to recognize me. You saw the shoe. This time I will get to Black Hall in a way you’ll never guess. Even if the police are looking for me, I will find your mother. It will be easy. She’s drinking again now.”

  “She’s not,” I whispered.

  “Don’t fool yourself. She doesn’t have the strength to stay sober after all this, I can guarantee you.”

  “You don’t know her,” I said.

  “No, you don’t know her,” she said. “She’s weak. And it will be easy to get her alone. Going into your house that night? Easiest thing I ever did. They slept right through it. Me? If my daughter were missing? I would never close my eyes again. Never.”

  I thought of the way she haunted the house, came into my room. Maybe she never slept. Maybe that was true.

  “Your mother won’t have the strength to fight back, and in spite of my disguise, I’ll make sure she knows it’s me. I’ll tell her you came to live with us because you couldn’t stand being in that house. If the police learn it’s me, no matter. I would rather be in prison than lose you.”

  I believed her. Sheer terror burned through me, singeing my veins. I felt as if my skin had been turned inside out, as if the air and her words were raking every one of my nerve endings.

  “Say it out loud,” she said. “Call me by the right name.”

  The word choked my throat. “Mom,” I said.

  “That’s my girl. That’s my Lizzie.” She hugged me, handed me a gingerbread cookie. “Enjoy your snack,” she said. “Then we’ll start right in on your European tour. We’ll have fun with it. It will be like a mother-daughter travelogue!”

  I couldn’t take a bite of the cookie. I just stared at it, watching my tears plop down and melt the crystalized sugar on top.

  * * *

  Mrs. Porter inserted the SIM card and battery into Lizzie’s phone long enough for me to text Carole at the number she’d written down for me. My thumbs were so happy to be texting for the first time in forever.

  Hey, it’s Lizzie. This is my number.

  * * *

  Thirty seconds later Carole wrote back.

  Carole: Yay! I was starting to think u didn’t want to be friends.

  Me: Haha of course I did I just have the world’s worst cell reception here.

  Carole: Because Maine.

  Me: Maine?

  Carole: Boonies.

  Me: Got it.

  Carole: U know it.

  “That’s enough,” Mrs. Porter said. “She has your number; that was the point. Now get off.”

  “We’re having a conversation; she’ll think it’s rude if I stop now,” I said, aching with how much I loved texting, how much I’d missed it, even if Mrs. Porter was standing right over my shoulder reading every word.

  “Tell her your mother is calling you,” she said.

  I hated writing that, using that word mother about Mrs. Porter. So I didn’t.

  Me: Sorry, got to go.

  Carole: Psssssshhhh whaaaattttt? Noooooo!

  Me: Lol talk later?

  Carole: Pce lve ltr

  Mrs. Porter held out her hand. She removed the SIM card and battery and handed the empty phone back to me.

  By early December the ground was covered with snow. Mrs. Porter had pulled Lizzie’s winter clothes from the attic, and every day I went to school wearing her long black cashmere coat and knee-high black leather boots. They weren’t warm enough for Maine, and there wasn’t enough room in them for thick socks. My toes were always frozen.

  On the two-month anniversary of the day since I’d been taken, I was sitting at the breakfast table, preparing for a history quiz and tuning out the TV droning with its cheerful morning shows.

  “Oh my God,” Mr. Porter said. “Ginnie …”

  We all looked up, and there I was on the screen. The show was doing a recap of how Emily Lonergan had gone missing eight weeks ago, how after that first email to her family there had been no more communication. Mr. Porter grabbed the remote and changed the
channel. But another show was doing a feature on how a parent’s addiction could turn a child into a runaway, how alcoholism could tear families apart. Other stations questioned whether Emily’s email had been genuine. Could it have been coerced or even fake?

  One of the shows ended with a video clip of me I hadn’t seen before, but I remembered the day exactly: Iggy had taken Patrick, me, and Bea to Gillette Castle, high on a cliff over the Connecticut River. William Gillette, an actor known for playing Sherlock Holmes, had built it in 1919, and named it Seventh Sister.

  “You’re the seventh kid in our family, and you’re our sister,” Iggy’s voice said as the camera captured me standing on the parapet, the ice-choked river winding behind me.

  “So it must be my castle!” I said. Bea entered the frame and jostled me. We walked through the heavy wood door into the hall, decorated with evergreens and red bows for Christmas.

  “What do you want for Christmas?” Iggy’s voice asked.

  “A white pony and for us all to be together,” I said. “As usual. Duh!”

  “Duh,” he said, and the clip shut off and went back to the sad-eyed, perfectly made-up newscaster.

  “With the holidays approaching,” the newscaster said into the microphone, “will there be another message from Emily? Or is the mystery of her disappearance something much more sinister?”

  “It’s time for you to send another email,” Mrs. Porter said as I started gathering my books for the school day.

  “An email is not enough!” Mr. Porter said. “Ginnie, this is falling apart. We can’t keep pretending …”

  “‘Pretending’? Don’t let me hear that word!” Mrs. Porter said, sounding truly anguished.

  “Okay, okay. But don’t you see?” he asked, walking over and trying to hug her. She shook him off. “I told you, if they start looking for her again, they could easily come here and question us. We have to think about that possibility, what we’ll have to do. Having her out in the world is disaster waiting to happen.”

  My shoulders were tense, brittle as glass. I was “her.” He spoke about me as if I wasn’t there, as if I was just a figment of their imaginations. What was the alternative to “out in the world”? Back in the dungeon? Or would they kill me, as Mrs. Porter said she’d do to my mother?