The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  Was Mom here too? Were she and Dad like two sleep angels?

  I rolled over, still trying to force myself awake, feeling something gritty against my cheek, like a dishcloth or rag. It wasn’t a bedsheet, wasn’t my mother’s sweater either.

  A moment later, I heard it. A loud popping noise jolted me awake. My eyes snapped open. I turned over.

  And saw him—his broad chest, his thick arms.

  A black ski mask covered his face.

  A hot, sweltering heat flashed over my skin.

  He hovered by my bed, partially concealed by the dimness of the room. The light in the hallway was still on, as I’d left it.

  “Well, hello there, pretty girl.” His breath slithered like silverfish over my skin. “Feel like making a fairy tale?”

  I went to sit up, but he kept me pinned in place, one hand over my mouth, the other clamping down on my thigh. He pushed the cloth in deeper, using his finger. I could feel his knuckle against my teeth. I started to bite down, but more fabric filled my mouth, and I gagged.

  “Don’t panic,” his voice continued to slither. “If you just relax, everything will feel smooth like butter.”

  His eyes were pale blue, like the jogger’s at the park. Was it the same person? Were his fingers just as long? They were covered by thin black gloves. Were there light reflector stripes?

  “Do you like fairy tales, Terra?”

  Fairy tales? How did he know my name? Why would he ask me that?

  “What’s the matter? Has a cat got your tongue?” He stuck out his tongue—straight through the hole in his mask—and waggled it back and forth like a bright red dart.

  I reached outward, toward his face, not knowing how this happened when I’d followed all the rules and done everything right: called a friend, locked the door, brushed my teeth, didn’t go with strangers.

  Looked both ways.

  Used my instincts.

  Armed myself.

  Didn’t leave my drink unattended.

  But none of that mattered now, as he ground my head against the mattress; as his fingernails dug into the front of my neck.

  My arms dropped. A choking sound burst from my mouth. A mix of bile and purple punch shot into the back of my throat.

  “Do you know where that expression comes from?” he asked. “The cat having your tongue?” He started to explain—something about Egypt and tongue-eating cats.

  My mind grew foggy. The room was getting blurry. Still, I tried to fight back, drawing upward with my leg, wanting to knee him in the groin, flailing outward with my arms.

  He removed the rag—one quick pluck. My teeth clanged down, and I let out a wheeze. Something tasted sweet. Why did my tongue feel so lumpy?

  “Now, tell me the truth,” he said. “What do you think about fairy tales? Which one is your favorite? Tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine…”

  My heart pounded.

  “Want to give me a little hint?”

  Just then, I remembered. On my bedside table, I had a glass of water. I turned my head slightly and started to look over.

  But he grabbed my jaw and forced it open, stuffing something else into my mouth—something softer than before; bulkier, like sweatshirt material.

  Still, I reached a little farther.

  My fingers grazed the night table. Just a little bit more. I felt the surface of the glass. I searched for the rim. Why was he letting me? I just needed another inch as he continued to stuff—in, in, in, filling my cheeks, deep into my mouth …

  Was he poking my eyes?

  Was that water on my forehead?

  Drip, drip, drip. Like a baptism.

  My fingers curled over the rim of the glass. I got a good grip and swung outward, toward his head. The sound of glass shattering echoed inside my brain.

  Had I hit him? Did I stab him?

  The minty scent of mouthwash filled my senses, brought tears to my eyes. Was I still fighting? I could no longer tell.

  A patch of gray flashed in front of my vision. A picture of Hemingway, my calico cat that’d died ten years before, pressed inside my mind’s eye.

  Had a glass really broken?

  It was all too much to process: what my body parts were doing, what was really, truly happening.

  A blazing burst of light shot out inside my brain like the lights of a fire truck—bright red and blue flames, burning up my thoughts, painting splotches on the pavement.

  “Sleep now, sweet girl,” the voice said right at my ear as though he were nestled beside me. “There will be time for fairy tales later.”

  He continued to talk, telling me a story about a water well and a forest girl until eventually his voice melted like wax in a fire, just a puddle of muffled sounds.

  My consciousness melted too: a hot, dripping mess. I pictured the door in my bedroom, in my childhood house, four years before. Beyond it, I saw a pile of yellow ashes and clouds of maroon smoke, as though through the ray of my neighbor’s stained-glass sun.

  NOW

  7

  The following day, after my aunt leaves for work, I go outside to my mom’s old Subaru. It’d been parked on the street on the night of the fire. My aunt kept the car, assuming I might one day want to have it. I’m glad she did, because aside from fading memories, it’s one of the few things I have of hers.

  I unlock the door and crawl into the back. Mom’s yoga blanket is here—a thick wool one that smells like the lavender oil she used to carry home from her vinyasa classes. I drape it over me and pull my old bedroom doorknob from the pocket of my sweatshirt. The knob is from the house that burned. It’s discolored from the fire, but a star is still in the center of it, drawn with little-girl hands and a red Sharpie marker. Back when I was five, I believed that drawing the star there, in the center of the chrome, and coloring it in, would somehow magically create a keyhole. Needless to say, it didn’t work, and my parents were not amused. But I’m grateful for drawing it now, because weeks after the fire, when I went back to the scene, the star helped me recognize the knob from the heap of what remained of my childhood home.

  I open up the podcast app on my phone and play Star Up, the series my parents and I used to listen to on long car rides. It’s currently on its eighth season. With the blanket snuggled close, I curl up on the seat, with the doorknob pressed against my palm, where the burn mark used to be. And as I listen, I ask myself questions about the characters, like what Mom would say about Maisie’s choice to go off to boarding school, or what Dad would think about Thomas’s father’s drinking problem. Would it remind him of his own father?

  When I close my eyes, I can almost trick myself into believing that we’re just stopped at a gas station en route to New York City or the lake house in Maine, that Dad’s using the restroom, that Mom’s buying snacks—licorice sticks and pretzel rods. They’ll both be back in a few moments, I tell myself.

  I inhale a deep breath and try my best to hold on to these thoughts—to keep back the fire inside my head. But when the Star Up episode ends, reality creeps back and I remember who I am: someone who’s not at all ready to go back to being me. And so, I advance to the next episode, eager to get back to make-believe.

  NOW

  8

  JA Admin: Welcome, NightTerra. Remember the rules: no judgments, no swearing, no inappropriate remarks. This is a safe space for honesty and support.

  Paylee22: I tell my parents I’m fine because they don’t want to hear anything different. Yes, everything’s great, tra la la.

  Cobra-head43: Same here. My parents look at me like I might spontaneously combust, like at any second I’m going to come apart. When anything bad happens, they don’t share it with me because they don’t think I can handle it.

  TulipPrincess: At least your parents care about you. All my mother cares about is payback. She’s on a mission to take down the guy who screwed with me, a.k.a. her ex-boyfriend.

  Paylee22: Go, TulipPrincess’s mom!

  TulipPrincess: Not really. I wish she’d care as muc
h about me as she does about payback. I almost feel more alone now than I did when all that stuff was happening. How screwed up is that?!

  Cobra-head43: I’m really sorry.:(

  NightTerra: Yeah, me too.

  TulipPrincess: I think this is her way of getting over the guilt she feels about bringing that scumbag into our lives and ignoring the signs that something messed up was going on. In other words, it’s all about her—still, after everything. Her, her, her …

  Darwin12 has entered the chat room.

  LuluLeopard has left the chat room. There are currently 7 people in the chat room.

  JA Admin: Welcome, Darwin12. Remember the rules: no judgments, no swearing, no inappropriate remarks. This is a safe space for honesty and support.

  A message from Peyton pops up on my screen. Private chat? She and I have been using the private chat feature quite a bit. For one, they’re a lot less monitored. For another, not everyone wants to spill their guts in an open forum. We’ve hinted once or twice about going “off-site” to chat or FaceTime, but the Jane Anonymous administrators have a strict policy that forbids the swapping of personal information (aside from first names), stressing the layer of protection provided when chatting exclusively through a website.

  Are you still there??? Peyton asks.

  I type back Yes and click the private link she’s sent.

  NightTerra: Hey, I’m here.

  Paylee22: I’m seriously about to lose it.

  NightTerra: Why? What’s going on?

  Paylee22: I’ve already taken a dose of my just-in-case meds and eaten an entire box of Swiss Rolls.

  NightTerra:???

  Paylee22: I went out earlier.

  NightTerra: But that’s a good thing, right? Getting out of the house … Isn’t that what you want?

  Paylee22: What I want is to be able to go to a store and not end up with a full-on panic attack because of it.

  NightTerra: Tell me what happened.

  Paylee22: I needed more contact solution and my mom refused to get it for me. She gave me the whole tough-love routine: “Baby steps, Peyton. A trip to the store. It’s only two blocks over. I’ll even walk a block behind you if it makes you feel more confident blah, blah…”

  Paylee22: Anyway, I went to the store myself. And I felt like someone was following me the whole time. I kept seeing a patch of dark blue fabric out of the corner of my eye, like part of someone’s jacket.

  Paylee22: I ended up leaving, without buying anything, then had a panic attack outside, on the sidewalk.

  Paylee22: I seriously feel like he’s going to come back for me, like he’s waiting for just the right moment, when I least expect it.

  NightTerra: Wait. Slow down. Perspective, remember?

  NightTerra: Were you at a pharmacy? Because those places usually have way too many mirrors, which means way too many reflected images.

  Paylee22: Yes, a pharmacy.

  Paylee22: For real? Do you think that could be it?

  Paylee22: Omg, maybe you’re right.

  NightTerra: Deep breath.

  Paylee22: I’m being completely paranoid, aren’t I?

  NightTerra: I can relate to that. How do you think I know about reflected images in a pharmacy? #BeenThereDoneThat

  Paylee22: Damned triggers, right?

  NightTerra: An understatement.

  Paylee22: Thank you, once again, for talking me off the ledge.

  Paylee22: I can’t share this stuff with my parents. It hurts them too much. They just want me to be better. I can’t really blame them tho. I’d want me to be better too.

  NightTerra: You’ll get there.

  Paylee22: I try to look at things from their perspective. Parents who lost their son earlier than anyone ever should and then whose daughter went missing just eight months ago …

  Paylee22: A couple that stays together, probably because of me, because I’m still living in their house and they don’t want me to have to endure any more change …

  Paylee22: And then I think … Who am I to complain about drugstore visits or having to come out of my room?

  NightTerra: You can complain all you want to me.

  Paylee22: And that, my friend, means more to me than you’ll probably ever know. xo

  NightTerra: xoxo

  NightTerra: Has anyone ever doubted what happened to you?

  Paylee22: That I was taken, you mean?

  NightTerra: Yeah.

  Paylee22: Who would ever make that kind of thing up?!

  Paylee22: Plus, everyone knew I was telling the truth. For one, because I’m not a liar.

  Paylee22: For another, because they found the shed where I was being kept. It’d been dismantled by the time the investigators uncovered it, but still …

  NightTerra: Did they find any clues?

  Paylee22: Nothing that went anywhere and all leads fizzled out.

  NightTerra: After how much time?

  Paylee22: Just a couple of months, which almost felt as bad as getting taken. Now that I’m back home, with no physical scars, it’s as if the crime no longer matters.

  Paylee22: Why do you ask? Do people doubt your story?

  NightTerra: Pretty much everyone does. For all the reasons you said. I returned home, physically unscathed—for the most part, anyway. There wasn’t much proof.

  Paylee22: Except your word!!

  NightTerra: My word doesn’t hold much weight. The people close to me think I’m pretty messed up.

  Paylee22: Which is obviously why you’re always asking about your mental stability … All is beginning to make sense now. #TerraMysterySolved

  Paylee22: Does your aunt believe you, at least?

  NightTerra: She did at first but not anymore.

  NightTerra: Things would be so different if my parents were still here.

  Paylee22: I know. I’m sorry.:(

  Paylee22: Sometimes I wonder how you even deal.

  NightTerra: Obviously, not well.

  NightTerra: Remember how you said before that when you were held captive it felt like your brother was there with you somehow—his spirit, that is?

  Paylee22: Yeah …

  NightTerra: I feel like that with my father too, that he visits me in my dreams.

  Paylee22: I totally believe it, that stuff like that can happen.

  NightTerra: I wish it happened with my mother too, that she’d talk to me in my sleep.

  Paylee22: Can you talk to your aunt about her?

  NightTerra: Not really. She says it’s too hard reliving the past.

  NightTerra: For me, it’s too hard not reliving it—at least parts of it.

  Paylee22: I haven’t wanted to ask …

  NightTerra: But …

  Paylee22: Did you ever find out how the fire started?

  NightTerra: Faulty wiring, plus smoke detectors with dead batteries.

  Paylee22: It’s pretty amazing you got out.

  NightTerra: Most days I wish I hadn’t.

  Paylee22: You can’t blame yourself for surviving.

  NightTerra: I can and I do.

  Paylee22: I guess I do the same, punishing myself, I mean. Like, why Max? Why not me?

  Paylee22: I’m really grateful you survived, btw.

  NightTerra: Thanks for being there, Dr. P.

  Paylee22: I’m glad we found each other. Seriously, you have no idea.

  NightTerra: Yeah. Me too.

  NightTerra: It’d be great to meet one day.

  Paylee22: I’d like that too.

  Paylee22: Come to the Midwest!! You can stay with me and my depressed parents. How fun does that sound?!

  NightTerra: Where in the Midwest?

  Paylee22: A tiny, sleepy village-town outside Chicago, where barely anything happens … except abduction in broad daylight.

  NightTerra: I’m East Coast, just outside Boston.

  Paylee22: Chat later?

  NightTerra: Sounds good.

  Paylee22: xo

  NightTerra: xoxo

  I log
out and reach beneath my pillow. The kitchen scissors are still there—the serrated kind, with the jagged teeth. I chose them specifically, figuring if my aunt were to ever find them, I could say they’re for my one of my mixed media creations, that after cutting and pasting in bed one night, I must’ve accidentally forgotten to put them away.

  And the carving knife on my windowsill, tucked behind the curtain…? It’s just for my wood-whittling, I’d tell her.

  The duct tape around my windows? It’s because of the draft.

  The wasp repellent on my night table? It’s for the wood-boring bees I’ve seen flying outside my windows. There must be a nest somewhere, and I can’t take any chances. I’m highly allergic. Don’t you remember? Back in elementary school, when I got rushed to the hospital…?

  Fortunately—and unfortunately—my parents aren’t around to confirm the story.

  My aunt isn’t concerned enough to put two and two together.

  The authorities aren’t reliable; otherwise, I wouldn’t have to resort to such tactics, which also include a booby trap above the door; a collection of fire extinguishers, strategically placed around the room; and an artillery of art supplies for the primary purpose of trying to stay safe.

  Sometimes I remind myself of Crazy Sally—pretty shameful to think about it now, but that’s what we called her—a girl at the hospital during my first stint there, who wore pink party dresses claiming it was her birthday all but three days of the year. Sally used to set traps around her bed, complaining that each night, after she’d gone to sleep, someone would sneak into her room and snip off a lock of her hair. She’d usually blame one of the nurses for doing it, but sometimes she’d say it was a therapist or one of the custodians.

  So many mornings, she’d come tearing out of her room, desperate for a tape measure so that one of us could check the length of her hair, proving that some minuscule amount had been trimmed while she slept.

  “They take a little bit each night,” she’d say. “Just enough that I won’t notice. But I do notice. Don’t you see it too? Can’t you tell?” She’d grab the ends of the hair and shove them into our faces.