He lets go of the wadded-up ball of paper scraps.
“You can have anything you want. There are things that you’re too young to even know that you want. You will have a long life before you. And you won’t fear anything, not the sunset or the sunrise or your last breath. Because you’ll know that in the end it doesn’t really matter.”
Marsh pauses, his eyes narrowing, his face growing dim. “Nobody’s on the other line, Chris. He left a long time ago.”
The server comes with our plates of food, and I see my hamburger and suddenly feel a bit nauseous. It takes everything in me to eat, but I do it quickly because I have no idea what to say.
Marsh grins, takes one of my fries since he is having a salad, eats it, and then laughs.
“Okay, fine, I take it back. You can’t have everything. When you get to my age, you’ll have to cut back, unless you want to be packing on the pounds. But there again, you’re taller than I am. It’s just unfair, everything you’ve been given. Just completely unfair.”
He takes another fry.
I want to dump the whole plate over his head and leave.
“There will be official things coming up, Chris,” Marsh says after a long and awkward silence. “Rituals. Things that I can’t say I care for, but that have been handed down for generations. All I did was have the sense to bring them back. Not because I believe in them, not really. They’re all for show. Like a royal wedding. You saw that, right? Did you?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say.
“For a second I was wondering if you’d lost your voice. Do you know someone said that the royal wedding cost around sixty million? When people are dying from not having food and water in this world. When the economy is taking a dive and people are looking for work. But they had to do it. Why? ’Cause it was symbolic. It was all for show. And I thought—when I finally came back here after getting my education and getting some experience—I thought I’d come back here to try and make a name for myself. But I wasn’t a Kinner. I was no Chris Buckley. But I could read and discover the history of this place. So that’s what I brought.”
“The rituals?”
Marsh nods.
“Staunch, of course, does whatever Kinner wants, but I was able to convince the old man to start these again. And somehow it worked.”
He looks at me as the realization dawns on me.
This is the man who killed Jocelyn.
“All I wanted to do was follow the yellow brick road. I discovered that the old man behind the mask—well, he’s the real deal, and you don’t mess with him. But his time is short, and there needs to be someone new. Someone in the lineage. The wonderful, glorious family line.”
Marsh curses, then takes another bite of his salad.
“But when the wizard is gone, Chris, that will just leave us. Staunch, too, but—well, that story is for another day. But there’ll just be the two of us. And I can help you out. I can worry about things you won’t have to worry about. All we have to do is play their game and go through the rituals and say what we believe, and that will be all. Got it?”
I look at Jeremiah Marsh’s face, which I’ve grown to hate.
“Got it?” he asks again.
“Yeah. Got it.”
I wonder if he can read my mind now.
I’m going to kill you, buddy. This time I’m going to wound you and make sure that you die.
If he wants to know who I am, I’ll call myself Dorothy.
And I’ll call him the Wicked Witch. Either of the East or the West.
Whichever one Dorothy ends up killing.
20. Sap
You there?
It’s easy to read Kelsey’s late-night text in the dark.
No, I joke.
Are you sleeping?
Yes. Now I’m sleep-texting.
Funny.
What’s up? I type.
Nothing.
Why aren’t you sleeping?
For a moment—a brief anxious moment—I worry that something has happened to her, all because of me, the special chosen boy …
Just can’t, is all she says.
Everything okay?
I miss you.
The three words surprise me.
I can’t sleep either. That’s becoming somewhat of the norm. I’m worried about what nightmares I’m going to have, what’s going to happen tonight and tomorrow. I’m worried about my mom and about others like Kelsey.
But Kelsey—
She misses me.
Sorry, she writes after I find myself at a loss for words.
Don’t be sorry. That was very sweet to say.
You seem to like the not-so-sweet girls.
I think of Jocelyn and Lily. Yeah, she’s got a point.
Sweet and sexy aren’t always the same thing.
But what I’d love to tell Kelsey is that she’s both.
Of course, I don’t and I won’t. I don’t want her to take it the wrong way.
I like you, is what I tell her.
But for how long?
Why are you worried about that?
Because summer isn’t very far away, she writes.
It sure is to me.
You might regret wanting me to stick around.
No I won’t, Kelsey texts.
You better get to sleep.
You too. Pleasant dreams.
Those only come when you’re around, I write and send.
I feel stupid seconds after, but Kelsey wishes me a good night and I guess it wasn’t that stupid. I don’t know.
Sometimes guys at school will show me dirty texts to some girl and it feels just silly and strange to me. I get it, sure, but I’d rather find someone like Kelsey to tell my real thoughts and feelings to. Sure, there are feelings there that I’d love to one day tell her, or even more, show her. Guy-girl stuff. I’d love for her to know that she really is something special.
But I guess the way to show that is to be a gentleman.
Now I’m sounding like Dad.
I remember him once telling me that. Maybe it’s his voice in my head. I don’t know.
Deep down I really think I’m a sap. It’s easy to hide it. But with Kelsey, for some reason I don’t want to hide it.
Which may or may not be a good thing.
21. Ridiculous Timing
You know how sometimes you’ll be walking toward someone in a crowd and they’re looking your way, but you know for a fact that they’re not really looking at you? Right? This happens after school on Wednesday as I’m walking out the glass doors, talking with Kelsey. We see a woman at the base of the stairs staring up at us. She’s wearing dress pants and a fancy leather jacket and is probably thirtysomething. She looks tough but attractive. She stands out, since very few African Americans work at Harrington.
Her dark eyes don’t seem to leave me, and I actually start to feel a bit nervous walking down to the parking lot.
“Chris Buckley?” she calls out.
I nod.
She comes up to us. “My name is Diane Banks. Do you have a few minutes?”
“I’ll call you later,” Kelsey tells me.
I nod at her and then glance at the woman. I know what she’s about to say.
It’s something to do with my mom. She relapsed. Or maybe she killed herself.
“I’m with the FBI,” Diane tells me.
I almost want to laugh as I wait for more.
“Can we go back into the school for a few minutes?”
“What’s this about?” I ask.
“I will explain inside.”
She’s no-nonsense, and she appears like a well-put-together business lady. Someone who fits downtown Chicago, not any place around Solitary.
We go back inside out of the cold, and for a minute I wonder if she’s going to lead me into Principal Harking’s office. Instead, she walks into the first unoccupied classroom and turns on the light.
“I just want a little privacy,” she says.
I slowly walk into the room, and she shuts the door.
“Chris, please, have a seat.”
“I can stand.”
She nods, then scans the room before taking out a card and giving it to me.
“That’s my card,” Diane says.
“Do you have a badge?”
“Do you need to see it?”
I think about it for a moment, then shrug. She reaches into her jacket and pulls out a wallet, then shows me a badge inside.
“Anybody can reproduce one of these,” she says. “Or can come up with a card. That’s my information on there—my cell phone where you can reach me.”
Her skin is flawless, like a model or something. I want to tell her she’s too good-looking to be an FBI agent.
Of course, I don’t.
“What’s this about?”
“I’m investigating the disappearance of Jocelyn Evans.”
It’s been just over a year since Jocelyn died.
Now someone shows up looking for her?
No way. I don’t buy this for a second.
“Do you know anything about her disappearance?”
I shake my head.
For a moment I think of Jared.
Liar.
Then I think of Lily.
Actress.
This lady is no more an FBI agent than some rising starlet in Hollywood working on a new ABC show.
“Chris, I have been in touch with someone who knows you. She’s the one who first alerted us to this case. Your friend Poe. Moved with her family to Charlotte.”
Her eyes are unflinching, and she doesn’t appear to be lying.
You have no idea who’s lying and who’s not.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know Ms. Graham?” a slightly irritated voice asks.
“No. I know Poe. Sure.”
“Have you been in touch with her recently?”
“No.”
“What about Jocelyn Evans? When was the last time you saw her?”
“Right after Christmas last year.”
“What happened?”
“She moved away with her aunt.”
“And when was the last time you spoke to her aunt?”
I shake my head. “When they came over to our cabin. Right before they left.”
Don’t say “disappeared” don’t you dare say that.
I’m not about to start talking to this lady, who is no FBI agent. She might be from the same place they got Lily.
I see the empty chairs surrounding the one I’m leaning on. Even now, so long after coming to this school, this place has a cold, lifeless feel to it. This school belongs in a horror movie, not some kid’s life.
“Your friend said you might not be cooperative.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Enough,” Diane Banks says. “Enough to get me here.”
Is that even your real name? Couldn’t you be a little more creative with your alias?
For the next ten minutes, she asks me questions that I barely answer. She soon realizes that she’s not going to get anything. Not from me.
“Chris, I am here to help.”
“Jocelyn moved a year ago,” I say. “And now you show up?”
I say this because whoever she is, I’m wanting her to know the timing sucks.
You’re too late.
“It took your friend a while to reach out to us. There are reasons why. And you know them.”
I have my arms folded and I’m just staring at her, not biting and not flinching.
“I’m going to be around for a while,” the woman tells me. “I’m staying at the Blackberry B and B.”
I laugh out loud. “Is that the one close to the downtown of Solitary?”
“Yes.”
“For real. You’re staying there.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” she asks.
Couldn’t you at least pick a better spot? Maybe somewhere different from where Lily stayed?
“It’s really the only place in the area,” Ms. “Diane Banks” says.
“Okay then,” I say.
“Chris, listen—if there are bad things going on in this town, you need to tell me. You need to let me help you.”
“I’m fine.”
She looks at me, but I’m not going to break.
You don’t know how strong this place is making me.
“Keep my card. You might need it.”
“Will do,” I say.
22. About Time
This week I start something monumental.
Driver’s ed.
And it reminds me of how much of a loser I really am. Because I’m surrounded by freshmen and sophomores. You can start taking that class when you’re fourteen and a half.
Nice.
I’ll be taking a two-hour after-school class twice a week for seven and a half weeks.
After those thirty hours of classroom time, which will bring me to the end of March, I’ll need six hours behind the wheel.
And then and only then will I be able to drive.
I do the math in my mind as I speed home on my motorcycle from the first class.
23. The Movie I’m In
That second week in January comes and goes with a strange nothingness. Nobody shows up at the cabin. Nobody calls me to tell me they’re coming home or being abducted. Nothing weird or sinister happens at the cabin, or school, or on the way from my cabin to school.
Nothing much happens, period.
Kelsey invites me over to her house on Friday night to watch a movie. I tell her great and request that it not be another Ryan Gosling flick. I can only take so much hunk per month. She laughs and tells me I can choose whatever movie I’d like. I’m not really that interested in watching a movie. I’m just glad to be hanging out with her.
And glad that I’m not alone in my cabin, listening to the wind outside.
I get to Kelsey’s around six. It’s already dark out, and I ring the doorbell, wondering who will answer the door. Kelsey greets me and welcomes me inside a house that smells like tomato sauce and pepperoni.
“We already got the pizza,” she says in a bashful way. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah. It’s great. Thanks.”
I’m reminded of past Friday nights back home. Usually I’d be at someone else’s house, hanging out, playing video games, or watching TV, and their parents would order pizza. We never did this much at our house because my dad was usually working and Mom usually had other things going on.
I suddenly realize that I don’t remember much of Mom and Dad at home in Illinois. Except, of course, after they’d made the decision to get a divorce.
Sometimes it feels like they divorced me.
Kelsey’s mom gives me a big smile and a bigger hug as I enter the kitchen behind Kelsey. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this welcomed or so warm at that cabin fifteen minutes away from here.
Too bad there’s not a direct tunnel connecting the two.
She asks me about school and my mom, and I talk as if I’m an ordinary kid talking about ordinary stuff. Of course I can’t tell her the truth.
Mom’s locked up in rehab so that I’ll do what I’m told and become the next leader of the Ghoulie Tribe of Solitary.
At first I think that tonight is going to be difficult, with a sit-down dinner and more conversation with her parents, but it truly is casual. Kelsey’s father is coming home lat
e, so dinner is grabbing a plate and some pizza and sitting in the family room watching television.
After an hour of this, I feel quite comfortable here.
Maybe I can spend the night. And the rest of the semester.
“You’re kinda quiet tonight,” Kelsey says as we’re watching a sitcom.
“So I’m usually really loud?”
“No. Everything okay?”
“Sure. Just—just don’t have anything big to say.”
“Okay.”
She’s leaning into me on the couch, and I don’t want her to move. I might move closer to her if we were alone, but I don’t want to get too close with her mom nearby and her dad coming home any minute.
“So what movie do you want to watch?” she eventually asks, as she grabs the remote and scans the options on their Dish network.
“Anything but horror,” I say, trying to be funny but not really joking.
I think my days of watching horror films are done.
Who needs to watch one when you’re living one?
“Comedy? Action? Hmm.”
She hmms the romance that she scrolls by.
“Let’s watch some epic love story,” I say.
“You call that epic?”
“Okay, not that, no.”
“What’s your definition of epic love story?”
“Oh, you know,” I say. “Big. Huge. Like, uh—”
“Epic?”
I poke her side, and she jumps. I’ve discovered that she’s very ticklish, and it’s cute to see her bounce like that.
“I don’t mean what’s your definition of the word,” Kelsey says. “What do you mean by an ‘epic’ love story?”
“You know, against the odds, real tragic. Involving faraway places and lots of violence.”
She laughs. “Lots of violence, huh?”
“Absolutely. An abusive parent. Lots of running.”
“What?”
I keep going, making it up as I talk. “One of the leads falling to their knees and saying ‘No’ real loud. Like ‘Noooooooooooooo.’”
“You should be a screenwriter,” Kelsey says.
“You think?”
“No.”
“It has to have big sweeping movie music. You know. Like Gone with the Wind.”
Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) Page 7
