The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  My heart caved in.

  My tears poured out.

  Had I said that? Or anything remotely close to it? Maybe once, after a talent show, when a group of us, Jessie included, sang an a cappella version of “Lean on Me.” We’d gotten a standing ovation. Everybody loved it. Maybe I’d said something about being famous then?

  I tried calling Felix again. Still no answer. “Please call me back,” I said at the beep, my voice all gravelly.

  I crawled beneath my bed with my bottle of maple syrup and the doorknob from my old bedroom, wishing I could go back in time to the night of the fire and have another chance. I wouldn’t have fled out the window, climbing down a neighbor’s ladder. I would’ve tried to save my parents instead of thinking solely of myself. But there are no do-overs in a crisis situation: rule number seven.

  It’s dark under my bed, but not nearly dark enough to erase all time and space—not dark like the bottom of a dark, dark well, with the light turned off and the lid closed tight.

  THEN

  17

  It wasn’t long after Jessie’s post that word began to spread about who I was: the daughter of parents who’d died in a house fire; a girl who’d spent months on the mental health floor of a hospital; a student at the school for emotionally disturbed kids … To those I knew—and others I didn’t—I was a liar, a loner, and an absolute loon.

  An anonymous former teacher told the local news I was “the kind of girl who sets little fires as a distraction, so you’ll never see the blazing inferno inside” me. Another no-name source said I moped the school halls like “a walking dead girl: there but not; present but absent. It was really kind of creepy.”

  A Facebook page for the town where I live had a whole thread devoted to me and my case. I made the mistake of reading the comments: people complaining what a waste of taxpayer money it was to investigate the fantastical claims of someone as confused and disoriented as I am.

  My aunt’s home became the one place I could escape from all the voices—until one night, sitting across from Aunt Dessa on the living room sofa, thinking we were going to discuss takeout options for our girls’ night in, I felt her staring at the side of my face.

  I looked up from a menu, focused on the gold pendants around her neck—the initials O and M—wishing more than anything that my mom were there. “Is everything okay?”

  She scooted in closer, took both of my hands, and asked the burning question: “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean, did you really get taken?”

  A match struck inside my heart, burning a thick, black hole. I gazed down at our clasped hands, noticing the trembling of my fingers. Did she feel it too?

  “Tell me the truth,” she continued. “Is it possible you might’ve spent those nights at a friend’s house, someone I don’t know? It wouldn’t have been the first time. Remember last summer, not to mention this past Christmas…”

  How could I have forgotten? The time I fell asleep in the back of my parents’ car, because Aunt Dessa wasn’t home and the house had felt too vacant. And then this past Christmas, not wanting to be alone, I escaped to Felix’s grandparents’ place. I hadn’t told my aunt, mostly because Aunt Dessa had to work on and off that weekend anyway, Christmas Day included, so what was the point in being “home”? It took two days for her to notice I wasn’t around. And eight additional hours for the police to find me.

  And so, flash forward to after I got home from the well, and there was no actual evidence I’d been abducted to begin with, my aunt began to doubt my story. I knew it too—could tell from the twitching of her lip and the narrowing of her eyes each time she asked me a question.

  In a last-ditch effort, I told her the story of my tooth—how, while I was in the well, a piece had broken off and I’d nearly choked swallowing it down. “Could you take me to the dentist?” I asked. Because x-rays didn’t lie. The dentist would be able to see.

  We drove into the city the following day. The hygienist sat me in the chair and took a bunch of x-rays.

  The dentist came in and inspected the photos.

  An assistant inserted a metal instrument into my mouth to keep my tongue from flailing, which was harder than I’d expected, because it flashed me back to the night I was taken, the cloth over my mouth, the poking and prodding …

  “Open up a little wider,” the dentist ordered, using her long, gloved fingers to pull my cheek back.

  I did as she said, pressing my eyes shut, noticing the trembling of my limbs.

  “How are you doing?” a nurse asked, giving my forearm a squeeze.

  I pictured a balloon inside my chest, filling up with air. Eventually, the balloon popped, and I let out a loud, retching gasp from the back of my throat.

  The dentist withdrew her fingers.

  The metal instrument was snatched away.

  The overhead light clicked off.

  “Are you okay?” someone asked.

  I reluctantly opened my eyes as the dentist stepped away. Could she read my mind? Was she giving me space?

  She checked and rechecked the x-ray pictures, enlarging them on the screen before coming to her conclusion: “There are no cracks or fractures that I can detect.”

  How was that even possible?

  “That’s a good thing,” the hygienist said, unclipping my bib. “Everything looks great.”

  “How come you don’t look happy?” The assistant frowned.

  “Maybe she wants to rinse,” another voice said.

  What I wanted was to curl up into a ball with my bottle of maple syrup and shut them all out. Being told I didn’t have a broken tooth—after the story I’d shared about getting it lodged in my throat—just made me look crazier.

  “That’s great news,” Aunt Dessa said, but her lip quivered when she said it. Had she been hoping for a fracture too … some outward sign, a shred of evidence to prove her only sister’s daughter wasn’t absolutely nuts?

  Investigators thought I was nuts too.

  “How is it you were able to get away without barely a scratch? And the scratches you did get—they were from a fall at the mini-mart, not from anything your perpetrator did. Not from the place where you were allegedly being kept.”

  “How about the dirt?” I argued. “I came back from the well covered in it. Plus, my palms were cut up … from the chain.”

  “Right. Yes. The medical report says there was evidence of a manual struggle.”

  Nothing more? “What does that even mean?”

  “There were no signs of breaking and entering. So, how do you propose the perpetrator was able to get in?”

  “Your aunt states she came home early from her shift that morning, just before four a.m.,” someone else said. “That would’ve put you alone in the house for less than two hours. Is it a coincidence the perpetrator knew when that short window of alone time was?”

  “Life can be a real bitch,” Dr. Mary said weeks later in her hospital office. A fleece blanket lay across her lap. It reminded me of the blanket I’d had in the well, distracting me. Why did she have it?

  Aunt Dessa was there too. We sat in a circle of seats for what was supposed to have been a “family meeting.” But that obviously wasn’t true, because Detective Marshall was there as well. Her face had a perma-scowl.

  Dr. Mary angled toward me, running her fingers over the pale gray fabric. Her voice was the physical equivalent of powdered sugar, nauseatingly sweet. “Maybe I shouldn’t be so crass as to use the b-word, but I don’t believe in sugarcoating. Say it like it is, right? Sometimes when we really need something, and the conscious mind isn’t making it happen, the subconscious one takes over. It finds a way; it may not always be an admirable way. But this isn’t about admiration, is it, Terra? It’s about survival, and you know what? We’re wired for it. You’re wired for it.”

  I peered at my aunt, hoping to snag her attention, but she wouldn’t look up from her lap; she just kept fiddling with t
he drawstrings on her pants: tie, untie, tie, untie. Why wasn’t she coming to my defense?

  “I’m not lying,” I told them. “I showed you the place where I was being kept.”

  “What you showed us was Hayberry Park,” the detective said. “Do you know how big it is?”

  Over a thousand acres. Hayberry is roughly four miles long and two miles wide. Some locals refer to it as the Land of the Lost, the perfect place to hide a body.

  “Do you know how many people get lost in all that space per year?” Detective Marshall asked.

  Eleven people last year—at least, according to the park rangers I’ve spoken to.

  “But not you,” she continued. “Despite a lack of food and water, which, by the way, we were unable to confirm because your medical exams looked good.”

  “I’m not lying,” I repeated.

  “No one’s accusing you of anything,” Dr. Mary said. “This is a safe space.” Perhaps the biggest lie of all.

  “There’s never been a single dwelling in Hayberry,” Detective Marshall persisted. “No cabins or shelters, not even a forest ranger station. Do you know what that means?”

  I did. I nodded. We’d been through this before. It meant there was no need for water wells.

  Detective Marshall scooched her chair closer, puncturing a hole in the circle. “The person who took you … You say he may have been a jogger you bumped into, but you’re just not sure … If you felt like you were being followed, why didn’t you call the police? You called your friend Felix that night, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But according to him, you never mentioned being followed, colliding with anyone, or nearly getting hit by a car. Is there a reason you never told him those things? Or that you’d texted your aunt earlier that night saying you’d be staying over at the sorority house? Did you have some other plan that you don’t want to tell us about now?”

  “I don’t … I just…”

  Dr. Mary continued to paw the blanket. “Do you need a moment?”

  “I took photos of the license plate,” I said to whomever would listen. “Of the van that almost hit me.”

  “Too bad your phone is now untraceable.”

  Too bad I had to sit there.

  Too bad no one believed me.

  Too bad I got taken at all.

  “I’m not lying,” I said yet again, still staring at the top of my aunt’s head. Why wouldn’t she look up?

  “Right now, I think you should focus on resting and recharging.” Dr. Mary leaned in closer. “What do you think?”

  Did it matter what I thought? “That sounds good,” I lied, sucking back tears.

  “I’m glad you think so.” She smiled.

  I stood up, more than ready to go. “So, are we done?”

  But my aunt wasn’t moving. And she still hadn’t spoken. She sat slouched in the seat, unable to look me in the eye, to tell me what everybody already knew: They wanted me to stay there. They wanted to lock me up again.

  “It’ll only be for a little while,” Dr. Mary said. “You’ll be able to rest and recoup.”

  I reluctantly agreed, hoping that doing so would fix things somehow. Penance for surviving the fire? Time away while proof of my crime surfaced? I’m not really sure. But saying yes seemed like the right thing to do. And so, I did.

  NOW

  18

  At work the following night, Katherine, the head librarian, places a steaming cup of coffee on the desk in front of me. “Still getting acclimated to working the zombie shift? This will help: straight black with a shot of espresso and a few droplets of garlic oil.”

  “Seriously?” I ask, curious about the garlic.

  She winks at me in lieu of an answer. The mug is winking too: a big bloodshot eye sits above the words Wake Up.

  “Thank you.” I sit up straighter.

  Katherine hired me despite my “bad-girl” reputation (her words, not mine), saying that my “three-dimensional backstory” was actually a bonus. To hell with the cookie-cutter caricature of the ho-hum librarian with glasses and a bun. She swiveled out from her desk, revealing Ruth Bader Ginsburg tattooed on one leg and a black version of Wonder Woman on the other. But the factor that really sealed the deal and earned me the job was my willingness to work the graveyard shift. And why not? Aunt Dessa is never home. And I don’t like being alone at night.

  Katherine rolls a cart full of book returns in my direction. “Feel like reshelving for a bit? Movement equals momentum.”

  “Sure.” I take a few sips, then grab the cart and spend the next full hour reshelving books. Most everything is on the main floor, but a handful of nonfiction titles belong upstairs. I check their call numbers, then take the elevator up a flight.

  The majority of tables are populated by groups of students, but there are also a handful of “singles” (as Katherine calls them), basically people working alone. I start to return the remaining books to their spots: a jumble of science titles. I grab one of the last books from the bottom rack, spotting the front cover right away. It features a picture of a water well with cobblestone walls.

  I blink hard, sure I must be seeing things.

  But I’m not.

  The title of the book is Water Wells and Septic Systems.

  I look up and peer around the room to see if anyone is watching. No one is. So, is it just a sick twist of fate, the universe playing games with me?

  I flip through the pages, searching for the cover shot. At last, I find it: a water well located on a farm in Roca, Nebraska, nowhere near the spot where I was being kept. The rest of the book is filled with diagrams of water channels and underground pipes, as well as photos of wind turbines and generators.

  I take a deep breath and return the book to its place on the shelf. I start to reach for the next title, but stop short.

  My eyes slam shut.

  My insides shake.

  I recheck the title. The Hiker’s Guide to Hayberry Park.

  I look up again. The room has gone hazy. A veil of gray casts down over my eyes, in front of my vision. At the same moment, my body lurches forward.

  What happened?

  Someone bumped me from behind: a girl texting on her phone. “Sorry,” she says, moving on her way.

  I count to five. Slowly, the images begin to fade back in. I scan the room: the shelves, the carrels, the singles and study groups. But nothing appears off. And no one’s looking this way, checking for my reaction.

  Only one more book remains on the cart. I take it, my fingers trembling. The cover of the book features an illustration of a girl wearing a long red dress and carrying a sparkling wand. She stands beside a dagger-wielding cat. The title reads The Beechwood Encyclopedia of Folklore and Fairy Tales.

  I try to open the cover, but the book slips from my grip and lands with a thud against the floor.

  Girls working at a nearby table snicker to themselves, peeking in my direction. One of them is the texting girl.

  I pick the book up and flip to the index, searching for The Forest Girl and the Wishy Water Well. I run my finger over the list of titles, unable to find it. Meanwhile, one of the girls in the group lets out a laugh. Did she do this? Do they know about me?

  I retrieve the water-well book from the shelf where I returned it, set it atop the others, and make my way to the group’s table.

  A dark-haired girl with bright green glasses looks up from her laptop screen. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I heard you laughing over here,” I tell them.

  “Yeah, because something was funny,” the texting girl says. “That’s usually what happens when one hears a joke. Are you the library police, here to slap us with a no-laughing fine?”

  I spread the books faceup on the table. “Are any of you familiar with these books?”

  “Excuse me?” Texting Girl says.

  “Can any of you explain them?” I ask.

  Another girl—with her hair in braids, just like Clara, the forest girl from the Wishy Water
Well—glances up from her textbook. “They look like books to me.”

  The texting girl uses her phone to shield her lips, so I can’t see what she’s mouthing. Moments later, another girl comes and takes her seat at the head of the table. Her baseball cap—with the college’s wolverine logo—partially obstructs her face, so I don’t notice right away …

  “OMG!” she shouts, noticing me too.

  It’s Jessie, from Emo, from the sorority mixer. From her social media post about my desire to be famous. I can still picture the accompanying photo: a snapshot of me doing a silly pageant wave, hamming it up for the camera at Emo’s annual spelling bee.

  “Do you guys know Terra?” she asks the others. “Remember that story last year, at the Theta Epsilon house? Terra is the one. So famous.”

  I can’t quite tell: Is she being sarcastic? Is she happy to see me? Her enthusiastic tone doesn’t match her words.

  “You go here now?” I ask her.

  “Well, yeah.” Her eyes bulge. “It seemed like a no-brainer. I mean, my sister still lives in the sorority house, so I can basically stay with her whenever I want to crash. The real surprise: I’m studying psychology. I know, right?” She laughs. “Coming from Emo and all … I figure I already have a lot of experience—literally. But how about you? Are you a student here too?”

  “I work here. Part-time. Shelving, returns, and stuff.”

  “Okay, that makes more sense. Because I heard you went back in.”

  Back in, as in locked up. I bite my lip.

  “I’m really sorry,” she keeps on going. “Totally rough. But onward and upward, right?”

  I bite harder as if that will make this all go away, transport me someplace else.

  “Terra?” Someone touches my shoulder from behind.

  My insides jump. I turn to look.

  Katherine’s there. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. I was just…” I go to take a breath; the words are caught in my throat. The air feels trapped in my lungs. I collect the books into a single stack: one, two, three.