The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  But no one believed her. Sally’s hair always looked the same: a brown stringy mess that hit just above her shoulders. Still, she’d set cups of water over her door as a trap; sleep with balled-up tissue paper littered around her pillow, hoping the rustle might alert her to a “burglar”; and sprinkle peanut M&Ms all over the floor (because she didn’t have marbles), as if peanut M&Ms could ever make anyone slip.

  Everyone said she was certifiably nuts, including me. I’d giggle right along with the others as someone would measure Sally’s hair and agree that, yes, it did seem shorter (even though it didn’t). And, most definitely, she should wear a hat, because she’d probably be bald soon.

  I feel badly about it now—badly that I laughed, guilty for playing into Sally’s paranoia, and scared shitless that if Sally was supposedly the poster girl for “crazy,” then I must be “crazy” too.

  THEN

  9

  When I woke up again, I noticed right away: I was no longer in my room. I was surrounded by dirt walls, lying on a dirt floor.

  In a circular space.

  About six feet in diameter.

  I sat up, trying my best to process the whole scene, still dressed in the clothes I’d worn to bed: my dark blue sweatpants, my long-sleeved tee, and a pair of knitted socks. A smattering of dried-up leaves littered the ground, along with a handful of broken twigs.

  Where was I? What had happened?

  But just as fast as the questions hit, the memories hit too: the stranger in my room, his ski-masked face, the smell of mint …

  Somehow, I could still feel the cloth inside my mouth, though it was no longer there, and the ache in my jaw.

  Hadn’t I broken a glass too?

  Weren’t his fingers extra-long?

  His eyes were a pale shade of blue; those I remember, along with his tongue—the way it’d waggled back and forth out the hole of his mask.

  Where was he now?

  Why was I here?

  My body trembled. Still, I told myself, Just get a grip. Don’t lose it yet. You can figure this out.

  A spotlight dangled down, from a chain, enabling me to see; the dirt walls were at least twenty feet high. There were no doors or windows. No ladder to climb out.

  There appeared to be a ceiling at the top of the hole; it looked partially open like a lid of sorts. Out the other half, I spotted a patch of blue. Was that the sky? Were those tree branches?

  What was this place? A giant pit, dug into the earth? A root cellar? An old bunker?

  I stood up. In the stream of light, a couple of feet above my head, I saw that the wall had a brick-like pattern.

  Was this a water well?

  That’s when I remembered: all the questions about fairy tales … The ski-masked stranger had said something about a water well and a forest girl.

  Was I in the forest? Did I know where a well was?

  My head felt dizzy. I stumbled on my feet, literally spun around in circles, eventually noticing: the spotlight chain. It snaked through the opening in the ceiling, meaning anyone could easily pull it out, and close the lid, and let me die here.

  My body twitched like I’d been given a shock—over and over—as a warming sensation spread between my legs, spilling over my thighs. It took me a moment to realize I’d lost control, peed my pants. Tears filled my eyes.

  Don’t panic. Rule number four.

  Still, how much time had passed since the scene in my bedroom? Were the two things connected: being in the well and the guy hovered above my bed? As obvious as the answer was, I hadn’t wanted to believe it, because of what it would’ve meant—that he’d taken me, that he’d put me there.

  Chills ripped through my core as the pieces came together. I screamed at the pieces. The sound vibrated inside my ears. I pictured a hunter hearing my cries. I prayed a hiker might be somewhere nearby. I imagined a pack of search dogs sniffing their way to me.

  Where could there be a well? Was it anywhere near home? Had anyone seen what happened? A neighbor, maybe …

  Had my aunt gotten home from work yet? Did she check my room? And spot the signs of a struggle? Were the police already looking? But then I remembered: the text I’d sent to my aunt about staying the night with Jessie … and a shot of terror flooded through my veins.

  Would my aunt even know I was gone? Would anyone come looking?

  I ran my fingers over the ground and clawed at the walls, not even sure what I expected to find—a clue, a tool, an answer, a way out …

  That’s when I saw it.

  Angled against the wall, only partially concealed by a layer of dirt …

  An illustration of a little girl.

  I brushed the dirt away, revealing a children’s book cover. It looked old, circa nineteen-freaking-ancient, with cursive loopy letters that spelled out The Forest Girl and the Wishy Water Well. The girl in the picture wore a long blue dress and her hair in two braids. She carried a pail; water splashed out of it as she ran from a well in the middle of the woods. A worried expression hung on her face: bulging eyes, gaping mouth.

  With trembling fingers, I opened the cover.

  At the same moment, the light went out, stopping my heart. The sound of something solid and heavy, like the lid of a tomb sliding closed, came from above, sending panic through my bones.

  I screamed for help over and over again, until my throat turned to blades and each inhalation felt like a cut. How long did that take? Five hours? Five minutes? Until I could swear that blood was seeping out my mouth, dripping over my lip. I pictured the droplets drizzling onto the ground. Eventually, I folded forward and hugged the book like a friend.

  Was I really, truly here?

  Was this absolutely happening?

  A thirsting noise gasped from my mouth. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t get enough air. I cried like I’d never cried before—like a wounded animal left behind by its pack: a sound so shrill and pleading, I didn’t recognize it as mine, kept thinking that someone or something was in the well with me. Was that true? Was he here somehow?

  I sat up straight and kept my eyes wide, as if that would help me see in the dark.

  Don’t panic, Logic said. You need to hold it together—need to be so much smarter, so much stronger. But all I could manage to be in that moment was a pathetic forest girl in a dark water well.

  NOW

  10

  Having spent most of the night on the Jane site, I get up the following day, sometime after four p.m., and slip into the same pair of dark-washed jeans I wore on the night of the sorority party. I also pull on the same top (with the ruffled hem). My hair is the same too: down and wavy. My lips are colored mauve (Rosy Vixen), just like that night, to match the eye makeup I’d been wearing. And my vintage Gucci cross-body bag (circa 1980-something) is around my shoulder and hip, to complete the precise look.

  Into the purse, I stuff a pocketknife, my mini-can of wasp spray, and my own personal set of house keys—all things I should’ve had with me on the night of the party. The spray can shoot up to eight feet. The knife has a jagged edge. And the keys are because there’s no longer a spare set kept hidden outside the house. Rule number five on my parents’ list of survival tips: Go with your gut. Keeping house keys in a planter on the front stoop, as had been my aunt’s practice, always conflicted my gut, but before that night, I hadn’t done anything to change it.

  My aunt knocks on my open bedroom door, dressed in her pale green hospital scrubs. I hate seeing her wearing them, hate flashing back to my first stint in the hospital, after the fire—to how ripped open I felt, like a walking bundle of severed nerves. The nurse wore scrubs the exact same color. I remember pressing my face against them, feeling the sensation of thin starched cotton against my cheek as I cried so hard it felt that blood, rather than tears, was running from my eyes.

  “Going somewhere?” she asks.

  “A work thing,” I lie.

  “At the library? Dressed like that?”

  “It’s a social event. A book reading
.”

  “Are you going to take the Subaru? Or do you want a ride?”

  “I’m going to walk. It’s nice out.” Luckily, it is: mild for October, with clear skies and a setting sun.

  “You’re not planning on walking home in the dark, are you?”

  “Katherine said she’d drive me.” Another lie, but I know Aunt Dessa won’t check.

  Sometimes I wish I had a magical ring that could time-travel me back to that brief period, after the well, when Aunt Dessa believed my story, when she’d make mochaccinos with cocoa powder and ask me crossword puzzle riddles—the only time we’ve ever been close. We hadn’t even been close before the fire, when my mom was still alive. Though they’d once been inseparable, back when they were kids (according to my dad), my mom and Aunt Dessa never saw each other much.

  Then, after the fire, when my aunt began to piece together how the night had played out, things just got more distant: So, you heard your mom screaming, but you didn’t wake up? How is that even possible? And what does it even mean? You thought you were dreaming about your mother’s screaming? That makes no sense. I couldn’t exactly argue.

  I leave the house and head toward town. This isn’t the first time I’ve taken one of these jaunts. Maybe it’s my fourth … Or could it be my ninth? I’ve gone over the details of the night of the sorority party at least a million times in my head, wondering who he was and how he found me. Had he been at the Theta Epsilon house? Or did he pick me off the street? My hope is that retracing my steps, taking the same streets, and wearing the same clothes will somehow bring me closer to finding out.

  I assume he must’ve seen me snag the house key on the outside stoop, as I’d been talking to Felix; that he must’ve watched as I unlocked the door and went inside. The bigger questions: Had he been watching me even before that night? Had he been waiting for just the right moment? He knew my name, after all; though he could’ve seen it in my room, spelled in bubble letters over my desk.

  According to investigators, the person who took me left no traces of DNA, and yet I don’t recall any kind of protective suit.

  Just that ski mask.

  And those sleek, black gloves.

  I turn the corner, cross a main road, and proceed over the bridge, watching cars pass by. Swish, swish. My anxiety revs. I’ve never been in a car accident, but ever since I got back from the well, I haven’t wanted to drive any more than I absolutely have to, particularly long distances, and especially after dark.

  A man jogs in my direction—slim, medium height, and in his midtwenties. I meet his eyes, noticing how dark they look, nowhere close to blue. At the same moment, a car horn honks. I’m standing still, in the middle of the crosswalk.

  I scurry forward and proceed into town, crossing the grassy field where the runner and I collided on the night of the party. The police tried to locate that guy, checking surveillance cameras at local shops and restaurants, unable to find any trace of him, aside from my word, which quickly lost all credibility.

  The field is a smallish space, about the size of a basketball court, connecting two roads. I’ve been back here at least ten times, as if seeing it again—the grass, the trees, the rocky path that leads to the Lightning Bolt gas station—will reveal something new. But so far, it hasn’t.

  I move toward the path, just as I had that night, hearing a car door slam. I reach into my purse and wrap my hand around the wasp spray—just in case—as I approach the back of the gas station.

  A woman is filling her tires, having just exited her car. I let out a breath and cross the street, picturing the van that nearly hit me—its bright white lights. As I stand in front of Sandie’s Mini-Mart, the motor inside my chest begins to race. I run my palms over my forearms, still able to feel the scars—tangible proof. I really fell here.

  “Excuse me?” a male voice says.

  I turn to look. Someone’s standing there: a tall guy, with dark hair and tanned skin. He props his sunglasses atop his head, enabling me to see his pale blue eyes and thick, hooded lids.

  A gasping-sucking sound escapes out my mouth.

  The guy says something, but I don’t hear the words. My eyes are locked on his thin red lips and slight overbite. A darkish mole sits on his chin.

  Is it him? Could it be him?

  My mind flashes back, picturing the guy with the ski mask cramming a cloth into my mouth. Did he have an overbite? Or hooded eyelids? Would I have noticed?

  “Excuse me,” he says again, studying my face. “I’d like to get in.”

  I’m standing in the way, in front of the door handles. My heart hammers so hard inside my chest, I can feel it against my bones. It makes my lungs compress.

  The guy scoots around me and starts to go in, grabbing the handle, before letting it go.

  The door falls closed.

  He turns to me as I wheeze.

  “Terra?”

  I take out the spray.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I can’t respond, can’t seem to get enough breath.

  “You’re not okay.” He reaches for my forearm and starts to pull me away.

  “No!” I shout; the word bubbles up from somewhere inside me. I take a step back, losing his grip. I hold the wasp spray outward to keep him back.

  The guy raises his hands. People in the parking lot turn to look. A woman with a baby comes out of the store. She backs away when she sees me.

  “Terra?” the guy says, his hands still high. “Don’t you know me? Do you recognize me?”

  I picture the ski-masked face, the bright red tongue waggling out the hole … My arm shakes, holding the spray. I use my other hand to steady it, clutching the can like a gun, like the way you see on crime shows, with a wide-legged stance.

  “It’s me,” he says. “Connor Loggins … You used to live on my street. Bailey Road … Our parents were friends.”

  Bailey Road?

  The house that burned.

  “I’ve been away for a bit,” he says. “I was in college, then med school … I’m just finishing up my residency. Do you remember me at all? Connor Loggins,” he says again, louder this time as if that will make a difference.

  And maybe it does, because I do remember Connor. His bright green Jeep. His millions of gaming cards. The way he topped his pizza with ketchup and string beans. My parents once had dinner with his, in the Logginses’ backyard. But Connor was older than I was by at least ten years. We didn’t really have too much in common.

  “Do you remember my parents?” I ask him.

  “I do.” His face brightens. “Your dad let me borrow his drum pad and sticks when I wanted to learn.”

  Did my dad play the drums? Why don’t I know? What else can he tell me?

  “I heard you were having a rough time,” he continues, before I can ask. He takes a step closer. His hands extend to the spray can, the way you see in movies: the good guy tactfully maneuvering the gun from the villain’s hands.

  My face crumples as I let him. Why am I always the villain? Why do I never get to be the hero of my own story?

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I thought you were someone else.” Does he still have the drum pad? Would it be weird to ask for it back?

  “Don’t worry about it,” Connor says. He waves to the onlookers—a horde of people—telling everyone that everything’s fine. “Why don’t we sit down for a second?” He motions to a bench in front of the store.

  I move toward it. The fumes from a car heat my face. The smell of diesel fuel and something else—hairspray, maybe—fills my senses, makes my throat close up.

  “Is there anyone you want me to call?” He sits down beside me.

  I shake my head, just wanting him to go. “I have my own phone.” I pull it out and hold it up as proof.

  “I really think you should call your aunt. That’s who you’re living with, right?”

  “I’m fine, really.” I manage a full breath.

  “How about I call you a cab? My treat.”

  I clen
ch my teeth, unsure how things went so horribly wrong: Connor Loggins, from Bailey Road, with the ketchup-and-string-bean-smothered pizza … After the fire, his parents sent a $500 check to the local bank, where a relief fund had been set up. Did I ever send the Loggins family a thank-you note?

  “Well?” he asks.

  “Thank you,” I say, maybe a little too late. I stand up. My head feels woozy. I peer all around, checking my surroundings. Isn’t there a bus stop on the corner? Didn’t Detective Marshall mention that once, when she asked if I’d considered taking it home that night?

  I go to text my aunt.

  But I spot someone else first: Garret, the guy from the sorority party, the one who’d wanted to drive me home.

  He’s going into the store.

  “Terra?” Connor asks, still waiting for my reply.

  “My ride’s here,” I tell him.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” I nod, not sure of anything. Still, I head inside the store.

  Garret stands at the coffee station with his back toward me. Ever since that night, I’ve wanted to talk to him—to ask what he saw or who he knew. According to investigators, his alibi checked out. After the party, he and his roommates went to an all-night diner, ate platefuls of pancakes (the waitress can attest), then returned to their apartment.

  But what if investigators got the details wrong? What if the waitress had confused them with another group? Or might she have remembered them from a different night?

  I’ve spent so many shifts, working at the library, at the same college where I went to the sorority mixer, searching the faces of students, waiting to spot his. And now, here he is: same dark rumpled hair, same square black glasses.

  A loud crash sounds.

  My chest constricts.

  I turn to look, only to discover the crash was from me. A display of juice cans, taller than I am. At least twenty of the cans have toppled to the floor. One has busted open. Dark liquid comes shooting out, like a hose, spraying my legs, coloring the floor red. Contents under pressure, just like me.