The Missing Season

by Gillian French

  Their laughter’s infectious, as always, and it’s like their little difference of opinion over Landon on Monday never happened. Best friends forgive and forget pretty easily, I guess. But even as I lean against Sage, shoulder to shoulder, there’s no click. I don’t fit with them, not like before, walking the trails that night with jack-o’-lanterns in our arms and demon on our breath. Maybe secrets have changed my shape, made me different. I click with somebody else now, Bree’s boy. The one I’ve maybe stolen. And suddenly, it’s not so easy to laugh.

  Speak of the devil: Kincaid’s already there when we reach the dirt athletic field lot, sitting on the hood of Trace’s car, grinning as if in private conversation. He points at something in the distance.

  Way off beyond the baseball field, a pair of taillights glow, moving along at an uneven pace as the VW follows the grassy ridge along the woods’ edge.

  “What’re they doing?” Bree steps forward, arms folded tightly against the cold. “There’s no road there.”

  “I told him. . . .” Sage shakes her head. “They’re going to get stuck.”

  We watch as the VW pulls a lazy, difficult right, the headlights now on, giving a glimpse of trees as they seem to turn directly into the woods. And disappear.

  “Where’d they go?” I ask.

  The only answer I get is Kincaid’s laughter.

  When Trace and Moon reach us ten minutes later, it’s from out of the dark, the mask bouncing around Trace’s neck from its elasticized string. We pile into his car, all except for Kincaid, who shoves off down the hill in a slight crouch, tunneling into a speed that makes my heart rise in my throat, watching as he’s swallowed by the night. Wouldn’t be surprised if he makes the park before we do.

  As Trace backs out, Sage, riding shotgun, says, “Did you really do it? The last part?”

  Trace reaches into his pocket, pulls out a wrapper, shakes it. “Big enough to accommodate the larger man.”

  Sage places a hand over her grin. “Oh, my.”

  “What—?” Bree reaches forward, snatching it from him and holding it up under the dome light. The package reads Trustex Dual Color Orange & Black.

  She curses, flinging it away. “Oh my God! Trace! You are so disgusting!” The rest of us crack up. “I can’t believe you let me touch that!” Wiping her hand furiously on her jeans.

  “What? It’s just the wrapper.” He laughs as she lunges forward and pounds his shoulder, jolting his words: “It’s a—responsible—way—for two adults—”

  “You assclown! Now I’ve got freakin’ lube or whatever on me—”

  “No.” He holds up a hand. “I went for style, not comfort. We’re trying to make a statement here.”

  I laugh. “We are?”

  He’s quiet a second, taking care to come to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill, scanning his mirrors for cops lurking in turnarounds. “After four years of mind-numbing bullshit, I want PDHS to know exactly what it can do with its driveshaft.”

  It’s hard not to rehash every detail of the night when we get to the park, but caution demands it. Looks like I’m going to have to wait until the news hits tomorrow to find out what they actually did with Crackenback’s VW.

  It’s nearly eight o’clock now, so cold that almost nobody’s still at the park, just a few diehards who never seem to leave, Kincaid being one of them. Like that day Bree told me about, last summer, when he skated in the rain until he was soaked through, water streaming from his hair, then took off down that shortcut through the houses. He hasn’t stopped moving since he got here, and there’s a deliberateness to it, like he’s trying to keep warm.

  After Sage and Trace leave, Bree nudges me. “I’m calling it. Can’t feel my toes. Let’s go.” She springs up and down a bit to keep the blood flowing.

  I hesitate. “Actually, I think I’ll hang out for a while.”

  She looks at me. I’ve never done this, stayed without her. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “Not too bad. I’ll see you tomorrow, though.” It comes out sounding weird, like I’m throwing her a bone or something, and I force a laugh. “For the big Bug unveiling and everything.”

  She snorts, nods, and goes, crossing the park. Once she passes the picnic enclosure, her phone flashlight is the only thing I can see, heading toward the trails home. I feel like such an asshole, making her go alone.

  Even worse is the fact that I’m still excited for it to be just me and Kincaid, nobody left at the park now but one other couple doing their own thing, and some girls I don’t know sharing a cigarette. Kincaid’s gaze finds me, anchoring us as he does circuits, taking the half-pipe a couple times, then slows when he sees me walking toward the trees, turning on my own flashlight. I’m hearing Ivy’s words: Anything you don’t want an audience for, take it into the woods.

  He meets me there. It’s like no time has passed; we lock together, him covering my face and throat in kisses in a way that confirms everything, kills every doubt, but his hands are icy, startling. “Holy crap,” I say, “you need gloves.”

  “No, I don’t.” I jump as he glides his hands up under my shirt, across my back, hugging me to him, but it takes only a second for our temperatures to blend. It feels good to be able to give him some comfort, and we stay like that for a moment. The congestion’s still there, a slight rattle in his chest. I say, “Can I ask you something?”

  He doesn’t speak right away. “Probably.”

  “When did you figure out I liked you?”

  I can feel his smile in the dark. “A while ago.”

  “Smug bastard.” He laughs, and I don’t want to do this, ruin the moment, and expose Bree’s secrets, but I don’t see any other way. “Do you know Bree likes you, too?”

  A beat passes. “She does?”

  “Yeah.” I go slow, not wanting to open the vault door more than a crack, displaying all the details of how we obsessed over him, how he was almost all we talked about. “I feel bad. She doesn’t know—” I gesture between us. “I don’t know how to tell her.”

  He pulls back a little, looking down at me. “I never hooked up with her.”

  “Yeah, but she liked you first.”

  Another pause. A slight shrug. “Act like it’s no big and do what you want. She’ll get over it.”

  “Have you met Bree? Or, like, the world?” He snorts, pressing his face against my head. “No. I’ve got to suck it up and tell her. I mean, she put herself out there for me. She didn’t have to be so nice.” I hesitate. “I probably never would’ve even met you if she hadn’t asked me to come hang out.”

  “You would’ve.” He holds my chin. “Told you, Clarabelle. No mistakes.”

  “Uh-huh.” I stand on my tiptoes, kiss him. His beard’s coming in a little, right on the verge of scratchy. “Well. Grasshopper has to go home now.”

  “Sensei’s going to walk you.”

  On the trail, he hugs me to his side, and I slide my arm around his waist, as close as we’d be if we could spend the night together, share a bed. How amazing would that be, a whole night in the warm dark with him?

  “You really can’t stay out any later?” he asks.

  “Not without my parents killing me.” I catch his look—distracted, frowning slightly, and I’m not sure what it means, how the tone of things changed so quickly. “You better get back, too.” We’ve reached the fork in the path that leads to the Terraces, the stretch to the trailhead partially lit by the streetlight at the bus shelter. “Summer Street’s, like, halfway across town. I took you pretty far out of your way.” He shrugs. “Do you have a phone? You need a light.” I hold my phone out.

  He moves a step back from me. “Nah. I’m good. You’re going to miss that.”

  “I can survive one night without tweeting. Go ahead. I’ll get it back from you tomorrow.”

  When our kisses end, he presses his fingertips to my lips as his goodbye. I stand, watching him leave. “Hey.” Calling after him again, not ready for it to end. I hear his footsteps hesitate, waiting. “
Confess. When did you start liking me back?”

  “I’ve always liked you.” And that’s it. He goes.

  I could fly back to our unit on those words, and I practically do, my steps light, my nose already full of phony floral fabric-softener smell gusting from the vents of the laundry building.

  In time—how much, I’m not sure, but no more than a minute—I hear the other. The follower, mirroring my steps almost exactly, leaving enough of an overlap that I don’t register the sounds at first, just sense something off. I glance back. The woods are blackness.

  “That you?” I say. My voice too loud, alien.

  No answer. Kincaid would say something—he wouldn’t mess with me like this. I don’t think.

  Somewhere, in that inky tangle, a twig snaps.

  Panic snaps with it, spurring me forward, my walk turning to a run. The streetlight’s ahead, but it’s my dream become real—trapped in an endless moment of gut-sinking dread, the cold in my bones making me brittle, my skeleton turned to ice.

  When I burst out of the tree line, my breath explodes—I’ve been holding it all along—and it’s like I can feel the hands (impossible fingers, wriggling black snakes) stop just short of my shoulders and reduce to vapor as I spin, stumbling back, staring at the trail. No one.

  But the woods are alive with new sounds. Crackles and rustles, either from my own sprint or from something receding, moving away through the trees, now that I’m out of reach.

  I run the rest of the way home, pausing on our stoop to catch my breath so I don’t blow through the door looking like the devil’s on my heels.

  And it’s the second night I fall asleep with the lamp on, Kincaid’s jack-o’-lantern glowing with a look of infernal delight.

  Seventeen

  MY WORDS COME out, “Can we talk?”—so similar to how I approached Kincaid last night that it’s a physical stab in my chest, making me press my lips together, cringing inside.

  Bree gives me a skeptical look. “You okay?”

  She cares if I’m okay. I should be shot. Granted, she said it in her usual deadpan way, with a trace of distracted annoyance, but again: Bree doesn’t lie. She wouldn’t waste the words if she didn’t care. “Yeah. I just need to talk to you later.”

  We’re at the cool table this time, our usual lunchtime vibe disrupted by Trace’s unsinkable grin. “You better wipe that off your face,” Sage says, holding out one of her hot-lunch delicacies to him, a plastic cup of what’s supposed to be a trail mix but is mostly pale, unsalted peanuts and withered raisins. “Crack takes one look at you, he’s going to know something’s up. You’re never this happy at school.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s so funny.” He ducks his head, snorting laughter, something he’s been doing periodically since we sat down. Tries to compose himself, which only gets him laughing harder. He digs his fingers through the cup. “I only like those raisins covered in Elmer’s.”

  Nobody seems to know about the hidden Bug but us—none of the students, anyway. Trace checked out the window during gym class; the VW still isn’t back in the teachers’ lot. I guess the administration and the cops must be keeping it hush-hush while they search for it, figuring drama is exactly what we attention whores want. I lost some sleep over it last night, the dread of getting caught, though it wasn’t the only thing preying on my mind. Crackenback made it to work today anyway—I heard his rusty tones over the intercom this morning—and if the teachers’ gazes are a little sharper, it could also be due to the general unease laying over everyone like the thin fog from a February thaw.

  Everybody’s gossiping, not about the principal’s clunker getting stolen from school grounds last night, but about Ivy. The seven-day mark seems to have shaken everyone, the Lucky Number tearing through all those platitudes about runaways, kids hiding out somewhere nearby until they get too cold and hungry, then coming home, tail between their legs, desperate for mac and cheese and a free Wi-Fi connection. Word is, Ivy’s mom in West Virginia still hasn’t seen or heard from her. So that leaves darker explanations. Hitchhiking. Murder. Shallow burial in some interstate drainage ditch. We’ve all seen enough trash TV to know the score, and it’s chilling. Sickening. Thrilling.

  “About what?” Bree brings me back to the now, picking her sandwich into pieces as she watches me.

  I hesitate when I notice Sage watching me, too, her gaze intent, a faint line between her brows. A silent signal to change tactics? I’m so close to spilling everything in totally the wrong place and time that I can almost taste the words, and I sit back, as if from the edge of a precipice.

  Obviously, Sage knows about me and Kincaid. Trace must’ve told her, maybe gave her a heads-up that there was a nuclear detonation due any day now, and she might want to duck and cover. Kincaid isn’t here today—apparently not even hanging out with me can make school tolerable for more than a couple days. I could borrow somebody’s phone during break and text mine, hoping he’d answer, but that would open a can of worms I’m in no way ready to deal with. Besides, I know what he’d say if I told him about what I sensed last night, on the trail. More smoke, more flimflam.

  “Have you ever had anything weird happen to you on the trails?” I say to Bree, as if this was where I was going all the time. “The ones behind the Terraces?” My yogurt requires stirring. Vigorous stirring. “Seen any animals or anything?”

  “Squirrels.”

  “Deer,” Sage puts in. I think I hear relief in her voice.

  “You’ve seen deer out there?” Bree says.

  “No, but there are some. They come up from the marsh.” Sage surrenders her tray to Trace, who’s still grazing.

  I turn my spoon over. “Do deer ever, like . . . attack?”

  Trace chokes on another laugh as whispers ripple through the room, making all of us look up in the direction of the double doors that open onto the main hallway.

  Landon’s come in, walking through the tables, making heads come together so fast half the school will be sitting down to our next class with subdural hematomas. It’s obvious she’s been crying hard, her face puffy, splotches of red on each cheek, usually a sign that somebody’s just been released from Guidance. She doesn’t have lunch or a backpack with her. Her gaze is fixed unwaveringly on us.

  She lowers herself slowly onto the chair beside Sage, like a deep-sea diver navigating the dark, silent ocean bottom, the sights and sounds of the lunchroom only reaching her distantly, as whale song echoes.

  Silence falls over us, stiff, uncomfortable, drying up any thought of condolence. We all stare at the tabletop.

  Landon speaks flatly, not letting tears get in the way of what she needs to ask us: “Do you think she could have gone back?” I realize she’s trembling, a low-level shudder affecting even her knotted fists pressed against the table edge. “That night?”

  I meet eyes with Bree, then look to Trace. He’s the only one facing Landon, his expression serious, but not pitying, or pained, like mine. “Back where, dude?”

  “The marsh.” She takes a breath, releases it slowly, trying to keep control. “Maybe she went back”—sharp gesture—“after the fight, after she left home.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she thought she lost something. Maybe she just wanted to get away from people for a while.”

  “It would’ve been really dark,” Trace says.

  “Yeah, and she doesn’t know those trails. We’ve never been out there without everybody else. Maybe she got turned around, and”—she shakes her head helplessly—“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  No one speaks. Sage shifts in her seat. “Lan. Maybe you should ask to go home.”

  Landon bangs her palm down, then again, harder; all of us flinch. Gets to her feet, in motion again, no longer interested in us. “I’m going.” She walks around the end of the table. “I’m going to find her.”

  The cafeteria watches in stunned silence as she goes, shoving through the double doors with a teacher right on her he
els, Sage’s quiet “Now?” fading without response.

  I catch a ride with Trace after school. Nobody has much to say. The princess mask is nowhere to be seen, maybe hidden in the glove compartment, or under the seat.

  First, we pick up the bag of demons at D&M. It is Thirsty Thursday, after all.

  But when we reach the park, there’s no skating, no hanging around bullshitting while everybody gets their buzz on. Because you can hear her. Landon. She’s in the woods, not far off. Calling for Ivy.

  It’s horrible, like listening to some animal call for her young after a poacher has already done his damage. Kincaid’s here, and I keep my distance. He looks, but doesn’t approach, not with Bree so nearby. This sucks. I know what I need to do, but not how to do it—and that isn’t a good enough excuse for silence anymore. A friend would tell Bree the truth, straight up. Because I know from experience that if I was lost in the woods, Bree would go looking for me.

  Once the booze has been sold, Trace says, “I’m going to help her.”

  Most of us follow, pairing off in twos, which we all agree is the way we’ve seen people do it in the movies. Partner up, so nobody else gets lost.

  We find Landon on the trail to the marsh. She’s exhausted beyond crying, her face pale and drained, eyes deeply shadowed. She doesn’t speak when Trace asks, “Where have you looked?” instead gesturing vaguely in the direction we came from. That leaves a lot of woods, more than the eight or so of us can hope to cover, but we’re going anyway, into the marsh.

  Bree and I pair together without words, without a plan, dovetailing down a slope covered in knee-high water grass bleached to a dry, autumnal blond, following muddy flats where standing water rises over our sneakers.

  The others are already out of sight, their voices echoing back to us. Kincaid’s walking with Moon; last I saw, they were climbing the ridge above the murals, going to check out the woods that stretch that way, off toward the cemetery.

  “Gross.” Bree stops, shaking mud off her laces. “You know, I bet real search parties wear things like boots.”