A Void the Size of the World

by Rachele Alpine

  I made it to the square, half expecting to find him waiting for me. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. He wasn’t there. I moved quickly, half running, half walking down the sidewalk. I dodged people as if they were an obstacle course. A friend of Mom’s recognized me and waved. I could tell by the way she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk that she wanted me to slow down and talk, but I rushed past with a smile and a quick apology.

  I finally found Johnson heading out of town, going back to the woods. A piece of blue ribbon tied around the edge of his cart flapped in the wind.

  “Johnson,” I yelled. He turned and I held my hands in the air, as if I were surrendering. I had nothing to hide. He was the only possibility for help, and I wanted him to see that I was there, open, free, and offering whatever I could to him. “I don’t know what else to do. I feel as if what happened to my sister was my fault. I drove her away that night, and I need to make it better.”

  His shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath. “I can’t help you.”

  “You were in the woods. She ran in your direction.”

  “Don’t you know when to stop? There are some things not worth knowing.”

  “Like what?”

  “You don’t want to know.” He turned from me and pushed his cart again.

  I ran in front of him. “What do you mean? You can’t just say something like that and then not finish it.”

  “Ask your father, little girl. I have no business saying anything else. You need to leave me alone.”

  I fell to the ground. I couldn’t leave him alone. My knees gave out, and my jeans scraped against the concrete as the pressure of it all pulled me down. The sobs came fast and heavy. I missed Abby with an ache so strong that it scared me.

  “Listen, you need to be quiet or half the town is going to be here circling the two of us. Come on, girl.”

  I swallowed and tried to silence everything that was swirling inside. “Please, I need to know the truth.”

  “I didn’t see anything; that’s what I told the police, and it’s the truth. But I heard something. A scream. I don’t mean when you kids are partying in the woods; I hear that all night long. This was different. It was high-pitched and long. It seemed to surround me; it went on and on. Then it stopped.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  Johnson paused. “I’ve heard that kind of scream before. In the war. It’s primal. It’s about survival.”

  I understood what he was telling me, even though I didn’t want to believe him. My heart throbbed. I felt like I was dying inside, but I stood up and stuck out my hand like I’d seen Dad do all the times we used to meet up with Johnson. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  He shook it, but didn’t let go. Instead, he wrapped his rough fingers around mine. It seemed he was finally ready to confess too. “That’s not the only thing I heard. There was a splash. A loud one. Usually I’ll find a rotted-out tree trunk or a huge branch in the water. This time, when I went to check, there was nothing. At least in the water.”

  “But the shore . . . ,” I said, still holding his hand.

  “The shore,” he repeated, and I was sure he was picturing the bank the way I’d seen it with the searchers. The footprints along the edge that slid into the water. He squeezed my hand and let go.

  I felt numb. “Thank you,” I told him, the words automatic on my lips.

  “It’s not easy to lose people. I couldn’t tell you how many men I lost in combat, but what I do know is that it never got any easier.”

  His words definitely didn’t help either. They pierced my chest. “No, sir, it doesn’t,” I said.

  “You’re a brave girl,” he told me, and I sucked my breath in.

  Was I?

  I could tell from the sadness in his eyes that in his mind, my sister wasn’t going to return.

  “I have to be,” I said.

  I left him there. I had found what I’d been searching for.

  82

  The rain caught up to me as I ran away from the center of town. Small drops at first, until the sky opened and poured.

  I was soaked in a matter of minutes. I turned to head home. Lightning flashed in the sky and a few cars drove past. Their wipers made rapid movements to fight off the rain, and the water warped the faces of the drivers who peered out at me.

  I ran through the grass on the edge of the road so a car wouldn’t hit me, my feet squishing in the puddles of mud.

  I stopped when I reached our field.

  For the first time since the circles had appeared, the field was empty. There were no people, no candles, no singing, and no hope. The rain had driven them away. Now it was nothing but an empty field with the faint reminder of circles within circles carved into the grass. They were almost gone now that the grass had grown back, filling the empty spaces. The field looked a lot like our field again.

  A normal field.

  A field that didn’t hold some kind of meaning or symbolism for our town.

  A field that reminded me a lot of my old life.

  My house was a blur in the distance; the lights in the windows were fuzzy in the slanting rain. Mom was probably in front of the computer, Collin in some tunnel deep in his sheets, and Dad at work.

  Instead of joining them inside, I walked to the barn where the tools were kept. My clothes clung to me, my hair stuck against my face, and I was freezing. My hands shook as I picked up one of the tools. It was an old blade attached to a wooden stick. Dad called it a sickle and used it to create paths in the woods for Collin and his friends to explore. It was a bit rusty, but when I brought it down against a bale of hay, it cut right through.

  I took it into the field.

  I couldn’t keep pretending Abby was going to return. It was time to stop believing the impossible. The police, Johnson, and Dad had all confirmed it. Abby wasn’t coming home.

  My body hummed with anticipation. As much as my family didn’t want to admit it, we needed to move forward.

  “Abby is gone!” I yelled into the storm. “She’s gone and she isn’t coming back!”

  I brought the blade down against the middle of one of the circles.

  “But we’re still here! We’re still living!”

  I sliced again.

  “And it’s not my fault!”

  I repeated this over and over as I sliced, the sickle moving back and forth.

  It took me more than an hour to destroy the field.

  I worked to cut the grass shorter and shorter, destroying any semblance of the circles that linked our town.

  I hacked at the weeds, grass, and flowers in each of the centers, making it all the same length so you couldn’t see any sort of shape.

  I went from circle to circle doing the same thing. I chopped down everything until the field was only that, a field.

  And the circles were gone.

  I didn’t stop. When the grass was sliced to the ground, I continued to cut. I hacked away at the field and the dirt and tried to uncover what used to lie beneath it.

  I cut deeper and deeper and searched for the world that should’ve existed.

  I cut until the field was nothing like what it used to be, until it was nothing but raw open earth.

  Then I threw the blade down and headed toward my family.

  83

  My entire body ached so bad that it was almost impossible to climb the steps of our front porch. I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my wet socks. I was a mess of mud, sweat, rain, and tears.

  Mom watched from the window. When she saw me, the curtain fell and she was gone.

  What was she thinking, now that I’d destroyed the fields?

  Our front porch was full of stuff from the Miracle Seekers: sleeping bags, baskets, lanterns, and other items that they must have stashed there when the skies opened. I pictured all of them coming back when the rain stopped and what they would think about the hacked-up field. Would they even return if the field didn’t exist anymore? Was th
e field what had kept everyone together, or had it been something more?

  To my surprise, Mom opened the front door and stood with a towel. “I figured you’d need one of these.”

  I took it and wrapped it around my shoulders, the warmth welcome on my cold skin.

  “I’m a mess,” I said.

  “I think,” she said slowly, as if deliberating over each and every word, “we’re all a bit of a mess.”

  “I can’t keep living like this. We can’t keep living like this.”

  “I know,” she said and her voice was tired. Resigned.

  “I miss who we used to be. We haven’t just lost Abby. We’ve lost one another.”

  I waited for her to deny everything, to make up some excuse or say something about the circles, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked ashamed. “I don’t even know how I let this happen.”

  “We need to remember who we were. Please,” I said, and it hurt that I was begging Mom to pay attention to me. But I needed her. I really did.

  “We will,” she said. “I promise.”

  I had to believe her. I needed to hold on to the belief that things would change.

  I gestured toward the field. “I’m sorry I destroyed everything.”

  She shook her head. “We should’ve mowed down those fields when the circles first appeared.”

  “Not just the fields,” I told her. “Everything. I did something awful.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Mom said, but she didn’t understand.

  “Tommy isn’t the one you should blame for the night Abby disappeared. I am.” I forced myself to meet her eyes. My sister deserved that. I wouldn’t be a coward anymore. “When we were at the bonfire, Abby found Tommy and me together. We were kissing. She saw us, got upset, and ran into the woods. We chased after her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mom asked. She reached out and brushed away a piece of hair that stuck to my wet face.

  “She was so upset, and it’s my fault. I did this to her. All this time you’ve been blaming Tommy, but it was me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Mom asked, and I imagined the disappointment that I was so afraid was there. But I faced it.

  “I was scared. I made her leave. How could I ever tell you and Dad that?”

  “Oh, honey, you didn’t make her leave,” Mom said gently. “It was an accident.”

  “Abby isn’t coming back,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I was asking a question or making a statement. “What the police found at the river . . .”

  “There’s a good chance she isn’t,” Mom finished, so I didn’t have to say anymore. It was the first time we’d acknowledged it to each other. The first time we’d tested out those words, and they felt strange and out of place, but also, they felt necessary.

  Mom wrapped her arms around me, ignoring how dirty and wet I was. She tightened her grip and held on tight. “We can’t forget who we are; Abby wouldn’t want that.”

  “I feel like she’s everywhere.” I buried myself into Mom’s warmth. I smelled her. The familiar scent that seemed to be missing all this time. It made me remember how we used to be. I closed my eyes and tried to picture our lives before we lost Abby. I smelled all of us and summers sitting together on the porch, winters around the family room table, and life. Our life that was and the life I still had. The world I knew was still here, changed, but mine, and I clung to Mom and I clung to life.

  84

  I took a shower and changed into dry clothes. When I walked back downstairs, Mom was in the kitchen stirring something on the stove.

  “I thought I’d make us some dinner.”

  I pulled the lid off a pot and a red sauce bubbled up.

  “You’re making actual food? That isn’t delivery or from a box?”

  “Hey, I can cook,” Mom said defensively, one hand on her hip. “Maybe I took a break for a while, but it’s about time to serve food to you and Collin that doesn’t sit on the shelf for months.”

  Mom was right; it was nice to have something that wasn’t from a can, and to eat it around the table together like we used to. Collin was so excited to have something this good for dinner that he had three helpings. I took my time, simply glad to be with my family.

  After I did the dishes, I pulled on a hoodie and found Mom in the living room. She was reading a magazine with the TV on low. Collin played on the floor with a bunch of his action heroes. The computer screen was dark.

  “I need to go and talk to Tommy,” I told her, and instead of fighting me like she usually did, she nodded.

  The rain had stopped, but it was damp outside. The air was cool, the chill of fall settling in. The field sat raw, opened, and destroyed. I walked down the road slowly, not quite sure what I was going to say, but I had to see him.

  He sat in his truck bed. Sparks blazed for a moment as he lit one match after another, letting each burn until he flicked it into the air and the flame fizzled out.

  I climbed up with him. He moved over on the plaid blanket he’d spread out to make room for me, as if he’d been expecting me to join him.

  I fought back tears as I took in what Kyle had done. Tommy’s face was a mess. His eyes swollen, cheek battered and bruised. His lip was split and scabbed over.

  “You didn’t deserve this,” I said. I reached out and gently touched a spot on his cheek that wasn’t wounded.

  “You can’t change the way people think,” he said.

  “I couldn’t walk away from you. Kyle was so angry, and what kind of person would—”

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain,” Tommy said. “Thank you. For everything.”

  “I told my mom the truth about that night. She said we’ll have to talk to the police, but it wasn’t our fault. What happened to Abby was an accident.”

  “She’s right. We couldn’t have predicted any of this.”

  Mom had said that no one had that kind of power, and it was true. We couldn’t take things away, and we couldn’t bring them back. No matter how much we searched or sat in the fields and wished for my sister to return, we’d never be able to make that happen. It was a cruel twist of fate the universe had played on us.

  “How’d we get to this point?” I asked. I thought about everything between Tommy and me, from the night I didn’t kiss him to the night that I did.

  And here I was again with Tommy. My Tommy. The boy I grew up with and loved. The boy whose hands I’d clasped when I was young, the two of us shrieking as we jumped into the freezing cold swimming pool together. The boy who’d protected me on the playground when the other boys took my lunch box, and wrapped his T-shirt around my arm to stop it from bleeding when the dog down the street bit me. This was the boy who’d captured my heart and still held it. The boy I had to let go.

  “I think if you want to go to New York, you should,” I told him.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said.

  But I wasn’t alone. I thought about Westing College and the day I’d spent there where I was able to be myself and nothing else. I thought about my future and where it might take me. What a world beyond my sister’s shadow could mean.

  “I’ll be fine. I’m strong,” I told him. “I’m Rhylee.”

  “You’ll always be Rhylee,” he said.

  I let his words fill me and the two of us sat in the silence and instead of being afraid of what wasn’t said in those moments, I felt at peace.

  “She isn’t coming home,” I finally said.

  Tommy nodded.

  “I miss her so bad,” I said.

  “So do I,” he answered softly.

  “But we’re still here,” I told him.

  His hand found mine, and I wrapped my fingers around his. The two of us sat there with nothing between us. Everything we wanted to say, everything we felt and our fears, right in front of us.

  I thought about what I’d lost and what I still had.

  I squeezed his hand and I was not Abby.

  I was Rhylee an
d I was living and it was okay.

  Author’s Note

  Rhylee called the suicide hotline as a way to cope with her sister’s disappearance. If you are experiencing your own feelings of hopelessness or despair, know that there are people willing to listen and help. You are important.

  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

  1-800-273-8255

  suicidepreventionlifeline.org (to chat with someone online)

  Acknowledgments

  Writing often feels like a solitary thing, but the truth is, the help and support an author has is amazing. The list of people I could thank for helping to get this book on the shelves is pretty close to the size of the world. I may not be able to thank everyone individually, but you’d better believe that I’ve felt your love and encouragement.

  This book started years ago as a tiny spark of a short story that demanded to be more. I couldn’t shake it, the characters lingering inside of me and haunting my thoughts. Slowly, slowly, the story of Rhylee, Abby, and Tommy unfolded. So thank you to the NEOMFA Writing Program, specifically Prof. Rahman’s Fiction Workshop class, where I first introduced the short story “Circles Within Circles.” Your feedback, conversation, and ideas about that first version began to shape it into the book that it is now.

  Thank you to my ever amazing, fabulous, and dedicated agent, Natalie Lakosil, who never, ever gave up on this book. You rock!

  A thousand thanks to my editor, Alyson Heller. I can’t even tell you how incredibly lucky I feel to have been able to work with you on this book. The story is so much better because of your insights, ideas, and enthusiasm. I’d like to “raise a glass” to you because you are “passionately smashing every expectation” for what an editor should be.

  I am so appreciative of everything the brilliant team at Simon Pulse has done. Thank you to Regina Flath for designing the amazing cover, along with Rebecca Vitkus, Katherine Devendorf, Catherine Hayden, Carolyn Swerdloff, Steve Scott, and Faye Bi. Each and every one of you has put your magic touch on this book, and it’s all the better for it.