The Missing Season

by Gillian French

  The seat is padded, egg-shaped, covered in geometric-patterned fabric, obviously something she brought from home. I sink in until I’m looking at her from an odd half-reclining angle, one hand still gripping my backpack strap like a lifeline.

  She clasps her hands on the desk. Her pink sweater pattern involves pom-pom balls. “Let’s have a proper introduction. I’m Mrs. Macintyre, head of guidance.” She laughs. “I just like saying that. I’m the whole department.” She rests her elbow on the desk, chin on fist. “How are you settling in so far?”

  “Pretty well.” I shift my butt around, trying to scoot up.

  Mrs. Mac’s smile fixes, not sure how to take me—probably trying to figure out how much trouble I’m going to give her, if my epic hair fail is a cry for help, if I’ll be a daily-visit drama queen or just one of the faceless multitude who don’t need her at all. “Are your teachers helping you catch up on classwork? I know that you came to us a little late.” When you’ve had as many get-to-know-you meetings with guidance counselors as I have, that air of client-attorney privilege takes on a distinct aroma of bull. If I mentioned that, uh, actually, my teachers hardly seem to register that I’ve missed five solid weeks of the first quarter, she’d be scheduling a conference faster than you can say college brochure, which she has a nice collection of, fanned out on the blotter within easy reach.

  “Everything’s going good so far.” Bulletproof answer. Reassuring, without necessarily ruling out the possibility of us meeting again.

  A little movement of her chin, a quirk of her mouth. Translation: I’m a tough nut, but she likes a challenge. “Well. I just wanted to check in and let you know where I am. My door’s always open.” Except when it’s not? “Also . . . you should know that we recently lost a student. A sophomore. Gavin Cotswold.” She clears her throat. “There’s a good chance it was drug-related.” Shifts a pad of sticky notes three inches to the left. “So, don’t be surprised if things seem a bit off.” Her gaze returns to me. “Can we chat again in a couple weeks? I’d really like to get to know you better, Clara. Touch base about your plans for after graduation, that kind of thing. Sound okay?” I nod. My plans involve a state university, major undeclared. Right now, all I’m sure of is that I don’t want to work at a quickie mart for the rest of my life, and that Ma and Dad will kill me if I don’t put my grades to use. Ambition, thy name is Clarabelle. “Lovely.” She holds out a wicker basket, gives it a shake, like calling a cat for yum-yums.

  With effort, I lean forward. Inside are pin-back buttons featuring the PDHS Raging Elk. Hooves raised in combat, upper lip curled. Mrs. Mac smiles over the rim. “I think you’re really going to like it here.”

  They find me at lunch. I spot Trace immediately, table-hopping, eating everyone’s chocolate pudding. Bang onto a stool, talking while he shovels, plucking the plastic cups from every reachable tray, then moving on to the next empty seat before his victims know what hit them. He demolishes both freshman tables in under five minutes; by the time he reaches the upperclassmen, the pudding cups are piled and waiting for him. His “Yes. You are my people” rises above the cafeteria buzz to the rafters.

  The scrape of a tray touching down, and Bree and Sage sit across from me at the flotsam table. I pinpointed it easily on my first day: sparsely populated, large gaps between occupants, obviously the place where people wash up when the social current doesn’t pull them in any direction. Sage brings the hot-lunch tray, but Bree has nothing, sitting sideways on the stool with one knee bouncing in the aisle, keeping a watch on the room at large. Kincaid-watching.

  “Look at you, bringing your own.” Sage takes a bite of mystery meat potpie, points at my paper bag with her spork. “Bet you’ve got a little box of raisins in there.”

  “Right next to my Power Rangers thermos.” A bang as Trace reaches the far end of our table, palming a girl’s pudding cup with a “Hi,” not bothering to make small talk; everybody knows this table takes the path of least resistance. “You guys have this lunch period?” I ask.

  “Occasionally.” Bree looks at me. “Have you been sitting here alone every day?”

  “Didn’t know I had a choice.” Why haven’t I seen you? is the real question, and I’m not surprised when Bree doesn’t acknowledge the subtext, instead going back to staking out the double doors. I didn’t notice which door they came in, from which part of the school. Dropped in via the gym class ropes, maybe.

  Trace lands in the empty space beside me, the table vibrating with force. “S’up.”

  “I’m curious. Do you know how disgusting you are?” Bree swings around to tuck both legs under the table, pulling a can of diet soda and half a plastic-wrapped BLT from the à la carte counter out of her fleece pockets. “Because I can break it down into small words for you.”

  Trace gazes back. He looks marginally less crazy than he did in the streetlight glow last night, but apparently, he spent the morning drawing on the backs of his hands with a Sharpie. A smiley face with a scribble of hair and a soul patch stares at me from his knuckles. “Look who’s trying to ruin pudding day now. Little Miss Buzzkill. Is it my fault they hand that stuff out in shot glasses?”

  “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to ingest it by the pound, either.”

  Trace grins. “Hey, I’m a growing boy.” He reaches across the table, gathering Sage’s free hand into his. Fake out—his other hand goes for her pudding. Sage slaps it away faster than a cobra strike, making him suck air and shake out his fingers in pain.

  “Do I have ‘dumbass’ tattooed on my forehead?” Sage bangs her pudding cup down on the edge of the table, away from him, flips her hair over her shoulder. “Please.”

  He leans forward on his elbows. “Why are we over here? It’s lonely. This place is for sad people.”

  Sage nods to me. “Clarabelle exiled herself.”

  Trace seems to notice me for the first time, a smile beginning. “Oh, yeah. The girl who isn’t scared of the Mumbler.” Did I say that last night? “You better be careful, talking like that.” Hushed tone: “Has he come into your room yet?”

  I whisper, “Who?”

  “The man with the hands. The master of ceremonies. The candy man, dude, the Mumbler!” He laughs. “He listens, you know.” Taps the tunnel in his lobe. “Always has an ear to the ground.” Voice goes up, pastor-mode: “He shall bring every deed into judgment, every secret thing, whether it be good or bad.” People glance over, then turn back to their lunches, obviously used to him. “Today’s the fifteenth. Only sixteen more shopping days until he devours your soul. Will you be ready?”

  “I’ll get my affairs in order.”

  Trace flicks a look at the girls. “Still doesn’t believe.”

  Not easy, walking the line between being a good sport and nobody’s fool. “Guess I need more proof. Where’s your Mumbler expert today?” I suck at sounding casual. Bree gives me a sharp look.

  “Skipping, probably. Kincaid doesn’t really do school anymore.” Trace smacks the table with his palm, making me and my lunch bag jump. “Got it. Landon/Ivy.” You can hear the slash between their names. “They have proof. They knew Dabney Kirk.”

  “No. No-no-no.” Sage sits back. “Not that story. I’m eating here.”

  “Sorry. We’ve got to strike the fear of the Mumbler into Clarabelle. Otherwise . . . shit, she might not live to see November.” He stands. “Let’s move out. Cool table.”

  Bree almost manages to hide a smile behind her sandwich. “We do not sit at the cool table.”

  “Pffft, yeah, you do. If I’m there. Senior. King of the school!” Both fists in the air.

  Someone materializes on the extreme edge of my vision, a wavering line, so tall and thin he looks like a mirage. Brown tweedy suit, mustard tie, his face a mournful death’s-head. The teacher—make that Principal Crackenback, I see by his name tag—stops a few feet back from our table, hands clasped behind him. A yellow carnation protrudes from his buttonhole, incongruously fresh, like it’s worked its roots into his circ
ulatory system and is slowly sucking him dry. “Mr. Savage.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If we could keep it to a dull roar, please.”

  “Yeah.” Crackenback recedes to wherever he appeared from—I picture a tweed-lined spring-action casket—and Trace dissolves into laughter, leading us across the lunchroom.

  Sage checks back over her shoulder. “Crack’s going to come down on you one of these days.”

  “Never happen. He and I have an understanding. I don’t blow his cover, he doesn’t suspend me.” At our looks, Trace lowers his voice. “He’s El Chupacabra. Goat sucker?”

  Bree brushes Sage’s shoulder with her own, nodding at Trace. “And you’re seen with him. I ask you.”

  Trace gives up on them and faces me as we walk, hands in the pockets of his worn-out Carhartts. “Why do you think he looks like that? He’s starving. Hates what he is. Only feeds when he can’t stand it anymore.” A sigh. “Yep. Caught him in our back pasture one night. Like, in flagrante delicto. But I told him, look, man, we all got our stuff. I’m not here to judge.”

  At the cool table, we sit across from the two girls I mistook for identical twins the night before. Now I can see that they’re probably not even related. It’s their Tim Burton−esque makeup—white powder, eyeliner, red lips—and their matching outfits: black denim jackets with popped collars, buttons, and patches; band logo tees; boots visible beneath the table.

  When Trace asks his question, the twin with her hair twisted into a crown of little buns reaches into their shared sandwich bag of carrot and celery sticks. “Dabney?” She gazes at me as she chews. “Yeah. She’s dead.”

  Her twin swirls a celery stick in ranch dressing. Her hair’s trimmed close to her head, a smooth dark cap. “Four years ago, now.”

  “I thought it was five,” Bree says.

  The first girl, who I see by the dog tags around her neck is Landon, stares coolly back. “I oughta know. She lived next door to my cousin. We played Barbies when we were little.” Bree snorts. “Anyway. It was pretty harsh.”

  “Tell Clarabelle about the . . .” Trace draws his finger across his throat.

  “How about not.” Sage pushes her tray away, eyes squeezed shut.

  “She was walking home from a party,” Landon says. “Late. Autopsy showed her blood alcohol level was insane. More Orloff than plasma, you know?”

  Ivy: “Probably never knew what hit her.”

  “Only explanation, right? Hit-and-run. She lost it somewhere between Randall Road and Wright Way.” When I look blank, Landon gestures. “Her head.”

  That word again: lost. Like Gavin Cotswold. I laugh, but they don’t. “Lost it? Like it just fell off?”

  “Like severed. Not clean.”

  Ivy crunches through celery. “Ripped.”

  I watch their nearly twin faces, giving nothing away as they solemnly chew their roughage. “How?”

  “Cops said it was probably one of the logging trucks headed to the mill. They used to come and go twenty-four-seven. A chain or something could’ve whipped out and caught her under the chin without the driver even knowing.” Landon shrugs. “Or.”

  “Or.” Trace leans into me. “You know, they never found the head.”

  “Don’t say it like that. ‘The head.’ Like it didn’t belong to anyone.” Landon exhales through her nose. “Her parents had to bury her without it.”

  Now there’s an image. “So . . . it’s still in the woods somewhere?”

  Landon nods. “They brought in cadaver dogs and everything.” She twists her mouth to the side, laying her half-eaten carrot stick on a napkin and folding it carefully over. “Poor Dab.”

  Six

  ALONE AGAIN ON the bus ride home.

  I look up, waiting for the message under the overpass—Fear Him. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unsee it, unknow it. Trying not to care that Bree and Sage didn’t wait for me after school. Going to the skate park together once isn’t exactly a blood bond.

  Still. Damn it.

  Instead, the Terraces wait, slumbering beneath a low, cotton-batting sky, most everyone at work, little kids still at school. I start the hike to our unit—feels like I’m always walking uphill in this town, my quads in a permanent state of lactic acid buildup—when, at the crest ahead, the hoodies pop out between Units Eleven and Twelve on their bikes, swerving toward the center of the street.

  I dart to the left, knowing there’s a chance they saw me. Press up against the vinyl siding of Unit Six, straining to hear. Approaching voices, an occasional too-loud laugh, a shout of “Asshole!,” trying to shock some neighbor lady. If they’d seen me, they’d be on me by now.

  I peer around the edge of the building and watch Green Hood, wearing a pair of gold shutter shades, lead the pack down the hill, popping an occasional wheelie to the general amazement of no one.

  When I’m sure they’re really gone, I cut through the strip of backyards until I reach our stoop, rattling the doorknob before I remember that Mom’s not home. I have my key, but what’s inside—mostly bare walls, boxes of my books still waiting to be unpacked and shelved, nothing good in the fridge because it’s almost shopping day—doesn’t really call to me.

  But the woods. They call.

  Why can’t I take the trails to the skate park on my own? It doesn’t seem like you need an engraved invitation, and I wasted enough afternoons over the past year in Astley doing homework with the TV on for company, wondering what everybody else is up to. If Bree and Sage want a break from the welcome wagon, maybe I’ll snag myself a bench and start Kincaid surveillance. I leave my bag inside, then walk back down the hill.

  I pass the laundry building—a dryer’s whumping around off-balance inside, sneakers in a heavy-duty cycle—and hesitate at the entrance to the trail, remembering Dabney Kirk and her missing head. What it might be like to look down and see a skull, gone gray and porous from years in the elements, jaw unhinged, the molded pearls of some girl’s teeth poised around my foot as if to bite.

  I step gingerly after that, following the trail until I lose all sense of how long we walked last night before the girls guided me down the first turn to the park. Five minutes? Ten?

  I push on through the disorientation, the growing unease. There are bread crumbs here and there, signs of kids having passed this way—a hair elastic, a cigarette butt. I walk by the first blaze-orange tree marker, then a familiar pile of rusty bedsprings in the weeds, where somebody must’ve ditched an old mattress once upon a time. I’m on the path to the marsh.

  Eventually, I step out into the open. The tide is in. Shallow, murky water, islands of reeds and gone-to-seed cattails creating a piecework pattern over to the opposite wooded shore. As I look out, I notice a large, impossibly long-legged white bird on the shore below, still as a spear of birch. I watch it, willing it to move, prove to me it’s alive, but I get the feeling it could outlast an ice age.

  The murals are even more impressive in daylight, painted in broad strokes by a sure hand. Other, less talented artists have contributed standard graffiti, coating the granite in bright colors so alien to this muted place. I stop, get eye-to-eye with the jack-o’-lantern, running my fingertips over the razor-toothed smile.

  Instinct draws my gaze up to the top of the ledge. I spot him there, among the trees and brambles, hunkered down, his face like some brownie’s or woods elf’s, peering out from a mosaic of branches and leaves. Kincaid.

  I jerk back from the mural. He stands, holding a low branch for balance because he’s so close to the edge that bits of moss and earth crumble down to me.

  He takes the descent ledge by ledge, and I think of last night, slamming through the woods with Bree, how Kincaid always seemed to slip away from us, evaporate into laughter somewhere down the trail. How we could never seem to get a piece of him like we could the other boys.

  He hops the last four feet and walks over to me, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, looking taller than I remember, maybe emphasized by his lankiness and the mi
d-thigh length of his coat. “Found your way back alone, huh? Not easy to do.” He leans into the jack-o’-lantern’s face. “Makes you wonder about him, doesn’t it? The one who started this. Carrying paint and brushes all the way out here to paint for the trees.”

  “What makes you think it was a him?” A little surprised at how confrontational I sound.

  He laughs, glancing over, taking a quick study of me with those murky green eyes. “Sounds like you’ve got a theory.”

  “Maybe it was you.”

  A pause, then he gestures to something at the base of the rock, his arm winglike in the coat, flashing a worn satin lining. Below The Scream is a small date, written in the same green paint as the pot leaves: ’11. Which would’ve made Kincaid about nine years old. Clara Morrison, master of deductive reasoning.

  He walks away from me down the path, but his word carries back: “Egret.”

  Right. Big white bird. I follow. “I wasn’t sure if he was real at first.”

  “They’re good at that.” Kincaid stops beside his board and a woven Baja backpack left in the weeds. “Hold so still that the fish think they’re safe, swimming around a couple of tall reeds, not a pair of predator legs. They’re going, ‘Doo-doo-doo, it’s a normal day, eating shit smaller than we are,’ then”—with a snarl, whips his fingers down, cupped into a beak—“instant death. Nature’s cruel balancing act.” He gives this little laugh in the back of his throat.

  I watch as he takes a box of cold meds and a nearly empty bottle of soda from his bag, washing a couple capsules down. There’s more than congestion affecting the way he talks, though. It’s like he had a speech impediment as a kid, one he had to go to therapy for, one they could never quite break him of. A tendency to cluster words together, cram them into a space where they scarcely fit. “What’re you doing out here?” All laughter is gone from my voice.