The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  Is leaving reading material for victims a thing that predators do? The idea of that seems completely crazy. But so is the shrine that’s become my bed, with the sweater, the syrup, and my parents’ list of rules; I’ve written the rules on card stock and set them beside the doorknob from Bailey Road.

  I type Peyton’s name into the search box on my computer, along with the words missing woman and Chicago. Lots of missing-persons links pop up, but none with the name Peyton, and only a few seem to be from the greater Chicago area. Some of the links are for cases I’ve heard of—“famous” ones. Several of them involve younger kids, not even necessarily from the Midwest. But most of the stories seem to be over a year old, at least—nothing from the last eight months or even a year involving a twenty-four-year-old woman.

  I try another search, using the words shack, suburb of Chicago, cornfield, and missing woman found.

  A case in Northbrook, Illinois, keeps popping up, but it involves two girls—both thirty now—who’d been gone for ten years.

  Another well-known case in the Chicago area concerns an eight-year-old boy believed to have been taken by his father, who’s also missing.

  I click on a story involving a nineteen-year-old college student who disappeared while on a road trip with some friends. I start to scan for details, only to discover that the girl is still missing; it’s been eight years now.

  None of the cases I find mention a cornfield or a shed. So, what am I doing wrong? Was there not much written about Peyton’s case? Did it somehow get even less attention than mine? Is this what happens when you’re over eighteen and taken? No one really cares. Especially if you resurface with no visible wounds?

  I go to take a breath, but the tightening sensation has returned to my chest like shrink-wrap around my ribs. I reach for my bottle of pills and shake one onto my palm, over the phantom burn mark. I swallow the pill down, just as an alert jumps up on my screen: I have to be at work in an hour.

  Downstairs, Aunt Dessa is in the kitchen, standing over the stove. She takes a sip from her wineglass. Something must be bothering her; she almost never drinks. “I made a fresh pot of carrot-and-ginger soup.” She stirs the pot with her back toward me. “Would you like a cup?”

  “Maybe tomorrow. I have to work.”

  She takes another sip. “How’s that going?”

  “The library?”

  “Yes. Are you getting anything out of it?”

  “Well, I’m getting paid. It’s an actual job, not volunteering.”

  “I’m surprised you want anything to do with that place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I can’t imagine many victims going back to the scene of their alleged crimes to get a job, volunteer or otherwise.”

  “It’s a paid job,” I tell her again as if it even matters. “And this was the scene of my crime. He took me from this house.”

  Doesn’t she remember? Redecorating my room? Back when she believed me, when my crime wasn’t just alleged, she desperately tried to clean things up, to make everything look new. And so, while I stayed on the living room sofa, not even wanting to get up to pee, Aunt Dessa repainted the walls of my room—slate blue from the former yellow—and rearranged the furniture with the help of neighbors. In the end, the room was barely recognizable. Even the windows looked different: Velvet curtains replaced stark-white blinds. My bed was draped in purple satin instead of blue-and-white checks. Gone were the pale wood floors; they’d been refinished, stained a dark cocoa color.

  “Well?” she asked once the room had been finished. She stood beside me in the doorway. “What do you think?”

  I couldn’t really think. I could only feel—palpitations inside my heart, wooziness in my head, and unsteadiness on my feet. I liked what she’d done, but it didn’t change the fact that I didn’t want to move. I only wanted to curl up into a ball—if not on the living room sofa, then in the corner of the redecorated space.

  And so that’s what I did.

  For weeks on end.

  Not so much unlike when my parents died.

  “Do you have the night off?” I ask, assuming she does, given the wine.

  “I always take this night off.”

  This night? I peek at the wall calendar, only just remembering. Today would’ve been my mother’s birthday.

  “Did you forget?” she asks.

  “No. It’s just…” I’m more attuned to her death. On the anniversary of the night of the fire, I walk around like a ghost, half wishing I were one, thinking the powers that be—whichever god is true—made some horrible mistake by leaving me behind. “I remembered the date last week,” I tell her, “but somehow it fell off my radar today.”

  She continues to stir the pot, to take another sip, and then to refill her glass with sparkling pink, the same wine my mother drank on occasion; I recognize the rosy label. The soup is the same too, one of my mother’s favorites, made with only three ingredients, my mother used to boast.

  “I really, really miss her,” I say, my voice thickening with the words.

  Aunt Dessa swivels from the stove, finally making eye contact. The initials O and M dangle around her neck. After the fire, when we went back to the scene to try to salvage what remained, I remember her searching for my mother’s necklace, wanting to find the shiny gold pieces amid the piles of soot and ash.

  What I wouldn’t give to talk about my mother. But I look away instead, avoiding the blow of her stare, the potential bang of her blame.

  “Sometimes you remind me of her,” I venture, gazing toward her feet—sheepskin slippers. “Especially your voice.” I peek up into her face, waiting for her to say something similar, like that I have my mom’s smile, her bony fingers, or her pale ivory skin. But maybe she doesn’t see any traces of her sister in this person I’ve become.

  “Too bad you’re working tonight,” she says.

  “I could call out sick. Katherine would understand. We could go shopping for snacks and have a girls’ night in, just like old times.”

  “Maybe some other night.” She turns her back again to stir the soup.

  “Are you sure?” I persist. “It’ll probably be a slow night anyway.”

  “Some other time.” She grabs a thermos and fills it with the soup, then slides the container toward me, across the counter. “For your snack break.”

  I open my mouth to thank her, but she’s already turned away again, already taken her wineglass and headed into another room, further widening the gap between us.

  Once outside, I lock myself in the car and start the engine. My face feels hot, like I’ve just been slapped. I grab the yoga blanket and scream into the fabric—over and over again—hating myself, hating this life.

  When my lungs give way, I struggle to take a breath and look out the windows, almost expecting to have shaken the Earth, woken up the town. But the neighborhood appears just like any other day.

  No one’s looking this way.

  Not a single soul’s disturbed.

  I log on to Jane, hoping to find Peyton, but she isn’t in the chat room. I open up my JaneBox and type her a message:

  Hey, Peyton,

  I’m on my way to work. I hope you’ll be on later because I’d really like to talk to you. I’m sort of having a rough time. Plus, I want to hear more about the page and the book. I’m sorry I ended our last chat early. Xo.

  Love,

  Terra

  I click Send, feeling a smidge better. Because, though she may not be here for me in this moment, I know she will be soon.

  THEN

  25

  I’m not sure when it was, but at some point, when the light was off, and I lay faceup with the blanket bunched beneath my head, I saw a bright ball of light hovering at the top of the well: a fiery globe that rotated around and around, illuminating the brick. I blinked a bunch of times to check that I was awake. Because this couldn’t be real.

  Still, the globe remained: mesmerizing, especially as it began to grow in size, taki
ng up the entire space of the lid. A fusion of colors swirled inside it—red, blue, green, and yellow—eventually morphing it into what appeared to be a rainbow-colored bird, the kind of mystical shape-shifting creature I’d have imagined with Charley, freshman year.

  The bird lingered at the opening of the well, flapping its wings, casting bright strips of color over the dirt walls (the pictures I’d drawn of Clara and William). I raised my arms to see if the rainbow might reach my hands, but I was too far down.

  Could the bird see me?

  How was this even happening? It simply had to be a dream.

  Slowly, the bird began to float higher. The strips of color rose too, traveling up the walls, getting farther away. I wanted to go with them and tried to sit up, but I was frozen in place, unable to move.

  “Don’t go,” I tried to call, but no sound came out.

  I noticed then: The bird was holding something—a sticklike object—in its claws. A fallen branch? A magical wand?

  The bird hovered for several more seconds before flying away, taking all the light with it, leaving me in the dark, still paralyzed in place.

  Moments later, something landed against my chest, startling me awake. I sat up, feeling something topple into my lap. I picked it up, recognizing what it was: a sparerib. Bits of charcoal encrusted the top layer of skin. I pressed the sparerib to my nose, able to smell the meat: a sweet and spicy scent. My mouth watering, I brought it to my lips, half expecting it to disappear just as magically as it’d come. But instead I tasted the rib with my tongue—so unbelievably good. I tore into it with my teeth, barely stopping to chew. Thick hunks of charred meat pushed down my throat, plodded into my esophagus.

  I told myself to go slow, but I wanted more, and spent the next several minutes huddled on the ground, searching for any remaining shreds, even gnawing on the bone. I let out a mournful whine when there was nothing else left.

  Would more be coming? I looked up again, suckling the bone like a popsicle stick. Did the person who took me throw it down? Was it a way to tease me? Or keep me alive? Or what if it hadn’t been a person at all? What if it were a bird that dropped it? Could the deprivation of light cause some neurological response that produces a spectrum of color? Maybe something happens to the pupil upon the elevation of blood pressure …

  I had no idea.

  But I had the bone: my proof.

  If only I had that proof with me now.

  * * *

  Later, curled up against the wall with the troll doll and the fleece blanket, I told myself I wouldn’t fall asleep. I needed to keep on working, searching for more boulders. But I let my head rest down on the fairy-tale book anyway, imagining it as a pillow.

  Just five minutes, I promised myself.

  The spotlight was on. The rock I’d managed to pry from the wall sat within view. It’d left a six-inch gouge. I needed to dig more.

  But I felt so tired. My lids were so heavy. My bones and muscles ached.

  I stuck my fingers into my mouth and suckled the bloody tips; they tasted like salted chips. I pictured a plate of waffle fries from Gaga’s Grill, with the creamy dill sauce. My mouth ached for the sweet-and-sour taste coupled with the oily crunch of deep-fried potato. Meanwhile, I chewed at my waterlogged skin, remembering lunchtime with Felix at Iggy’s Market—the turkey-, stuffing-, and cranberry-layered sandwiches smothered with gravy, and the time the owner had us sample from a tray of recipes he’d been trying. And so we ate: hunks of garlic knotted butter rolls, gooey mac-’n’-cheese balls with bread crumb crust, filo dough–wrapped asparagus bundles, and four-cheese manicotti with plum tomato and basil sauce.

  My body quivered for food. I scooped up a handful of muck, like wet clay, imagining the brownie batter Mom and I used to make with the chocolate chunks. I tried to re-create the look, sprinkling bits of the drier dirt on the top of the heap like caramel drizzle. “Just one spoonful of batter,” Mom used to say. “Then they’re going in the oven.”

  I reached out to touch the walls, noticing how much they looked like chocolate too, dampened from the rain. I closed my eyes, willing them to morph into thick hunks of fudge. They felt slick, like glass, like the slabs of cheese at the gourmet shop in the center of town—the provolone, the Parmesan, the Jarlsberg, and the creamy pecorino … But when I opened my eyes again, there was only dirt.

  And only me.

  With no food and little energy.

  There’s no time for sleep now. My father’s voice played inside my ear. There’s so much you could do.

  He was right. I could toss the book upward again, so that someone might see it. I could also try yelling some more, stretching my vocal cords. My throat was feeling better, coated with rainwater. What I thirsted for now: sound that wasn’t mine—gunfire, whistles blowing, birds cawing, animals barking …

  Any kind of sound.

  Some type of noise.

  If only the troll doll made a squeak.

  I snatched a couple of rocks from the ground and knocked them together—knock, knock, knock—just to remind myself I could still hear, that my ears were continuing to work. I also tapped a rock against my teeth, radiating sound through my body, which felt enlivening at first, but I was still so tired.

  I snuggled the blanket. Just five minutes. My eyes burned with dirt. I let the lids fall closed.

  Don’t fall asleep, my father’s voice continued.

  I tried not to, and I told myself I wouldn’t. But before I knew it, I was back in my childhood bedroom on Bailey Road.

  Open up! Dad shouted.

  I dreamed that I was glued to the rug as the flames ate away the roof of the house.

  Terra? Mom’s voice.

  In my dream, I tried to call back, stretching my mouth wide. But no sound came out. My vocal cords seared, despite the rainwater. And the smell of burning leaves hung heavy in the air. I reached outward, toward my bedroom door, zeroing in on the Sharpie-drawn star.

  At the same moment, something slid between my fingertips.

  A piece of paper?

  A page from the fairy-tale book?

  I brought it to my nose. It smelled like campfire, like toasting marshmallows.

  A loud, cracking noise startled me awake. I sat up with a jolt. Were the rafters splitting? Was the ceiling caving in?

  No. Because I was still in the well, surrounded by dirt. There were no rafters, no wooden structure either.

  So, what was that sound? A tree falling over? Was someone chopping firewood nearby?

  Clenched in my hand was a piece of paper, but it wasn’t a page from The Forest Girl and the Wishy Water Well. This page was whiter; the corners seemed sharper. The texture was different too, matte rather than glossy.

  I turned it over, anticipating text or an image, but it was a blank sheet. Where had it come from? How did I get it? It hadn’t been here in the rain; it was as dry as the sparerib bone I could no longer find.

  A corner of the sheet was as black as the night sky, as though from a fire. I brought it up to my nose, able to smell smoke.

  I stood up. My pulse raced. Did the sheet of paper float down here by accident? I gazed toward the opening of the well. Were campers nearby? I inhaled the night air, desperate to see if I could smell fire. “Hello,” I called, but the word came out a gasp, barely audible enough to hear.

  Aside from the burn mark, the paper looked completely pristine—so bright, barely wrinkled. How was that even possible?

  Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the guy who’d taken me had burned the paper himself, then dropped it into the well just to let me know that I wasn’t a random pick—that I was the girl from the burning house who’d let my parents die.

  NOW

  26

  At the library, Katherine asks me to compile a list of out-of-the-box research tips. I get straight to work, happy to refocus, hoping to remember some of the skills I learned at Emo. Dr. Beckett used to have us do monthly trivia challenges, requiring us to dig deep into the archival abyss of public records and histor
ical documents, all in a long and laborious effort to find the answer to some seemingly impossible question.

  I start to take some notes, just as a bell dings. My insides jump. I look up.

  To my complete and utter shock, Garret’s standing there, behind the checkout desk.

  “Well, hello, stranger.” He grins. “So, it’s true.”

  “True?”

  “I heard you were working here.”

  I stand from the computer, reminded once again how blue his eyes are, like the color of the sea. What would they look like behind a ski mask? “I was wondering if you were still a student here.”

  “This is my last year. How about you? How have you been?”

  “I’m still trying to finish up high school.”

  “Oh, right.” He smirks. “Little did I know you weren’t in college when we met.”

  My face flashes hot. “Sorry about that.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m the one who should be apologizing. I never should’ve let you go off alone that night.”

  “As if I gave you much of a choice.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  Is there a reason he’s not saying anything about my juice can disaster at the convenience store? Should I mention it first? Before I can, he pushes a book toward me across the desk.

  “I’d like to check this out,” he says.

  The cover shows a shrouded figure standing on the fringe of a forest. I blink hard, sure I must be seeing things. But I’m not. The title, Girl Missing, stares up at me in big, bold lettering. Meanwhile, Garret is still smiling. The joke’s on me.

  “Why?” My voice shakes. “Did you leave those other books too?”

  “Other books?” His eyes go wide.

  “On the return rack the other day…”

  He takes a step back, holding up his hands as if I’m putting him under arrest. “I’m really sorry, but I have no idea…” His words stop there.