The Missing Season

by Gillian French

  They’re walking the ceiling. Moths, at least half a dozen. The light sends them into motion, one dive-bombing me, driving me back against the door with a gasping curse.

  I dart out, slam the door, hearing them battling the bulb now—scritchscritchscritch-tickaticktick. I jump into bed, yank the comforter over my head, eyes wide in the soft, crumpled dark.

  It’s Saturday, and I’m scratchy from lack of sleep, from lying awake listening to the sound of insect bodies bouncing off a lightbulb, wondering if my nightmare somehow ripped a hole in reality to let those things in.

  I shower, inhale breakfast, then drag Ma’s vacuum cleaner into my room, grab the hose, and throw open the closet door, jabbing the nozzle to the ceiling before their tiny bug brains have a chance to register fight or flight.

  When it’s done, I think I stand a chance of sleeping in this room again.

  Ma comes out of the bathroom, does a double take at the door when she spots the vacuum. “Whoa.” She puts her hands up. “Sorry. Thought I saw you cleaning for a second there.”

  “Must’ve been all that acid in the sixties.”

  “Ha-ha. Don’t even joke about me being that old.” She leans on the doorframe. “I’m heading to Bangor. Groceries and stuff. Want to come?”

  “Nah. I’ve got plans.” With Kincaid.

  After lunch, I ask Dad if I can borrow his car, then head out, casting a look over at Bree’s window. No obvious signs of life. Faye’s Jeep is in the lot, so I’m guessing Bree’s probably hanging out in her room, avoiding her mom.

  You ride high in Dad’s Suburban, and it’s strange, looking down at the street from up here, seeing all our shortcuts and escape routes from a bird’s-eye perspective. Wonder if this is sort of how Kincaid feels most of the time, flying above the sidewalk on his board, rarely touching down.

  The dream left me spooked, begging for an analysis I’m not sure I want to make. But I’m sure I want to see him, make sure he’s okay, then finally get some answers.

  I check the park first—almost nobody around this time of day on a weekend, but plenty of cop cruisers parked along the curb. Out there in the marsh, searching for Ivy.

  I drive around for a while, thinking maybe I’ll find him skating down some random street. I end up in a neighborhood I recognize, the one with the old cemetery. I park the Suburban on the grassy shoulder, and continue through the stones on foot, stopping to read inscriptions, particularly the ancient ones made from black slate. Crazy to think about being dead and buried for almost two centuries longer than you lived.

  I didn’t plan to go into the woods, but I do. Gingerly at first, lots of stopping and listening, as if I might hear his footsteps far off, some hint that it’s worth braving this place again to find him. It’s quiet, peaceful. A bird sings, then falls silent.

  I choose a direction and go, moving fast, hands in my pockets, senses working overtime. Even in the daylight, it’s scary being here, but maybe I want to prove to myself that I can take on Kincaid’s demons, anything he can throw at me. And maybe I’m still trying to figure out what he sees in this place. It’s a good place to be alone. Like the egret, standing sentry.

  I walk until I reach the ledge above the murals, not straying as close to the edge as Kincaid did the day he smiled down at me. From here, you can see the view spreading out for miles, the boats of the searchers bobbing on the water like small colored specks, dragging the depths for Ivy’s body. I didn’t intend to watch this. I leave quickly, gaze on my steps as I follow the jagged circumference of the ledge, carved by some glacier millions of years ago.

  Maybe forty yards away, I step on something that crunches underfoot. A cellophane wrapper with a paperboard tray, the kind Twinkies or Devil Dogs come in. These woods are strewn with trash, but the next thing I see is the distinctive blue of a tarp, rumpled, just visible around the base of a lichen-spotted granite boulder.

  I round the rock, see how a piece of old cedar fence paneling has been propped up between the boulder and some trees to create a makeshift wall to block wind, the tarp there to shield from the rain. It’s a shelter. No blankets or newspapers on the ground as a cushion, but it’s been worn to dirt, as if the sleeper takes his bedroll with him each time he leaves.

  Twenty

  I WAIT AT the park until he shows, sitting on a bench where I can watch the street, refusing to budge when one of the girlfriends turns up with her boy. She glances at me, sits on the opposite bench, and makes herself busy with her phone, apparently acknowledging my right to take up space now.

  Kincaid appears, so far away that I’m not even sure if it’s him at first. He jumps off the sidewalk, coasts in the breakdown lane, then jumps back over the curb before repeating the whole process. Even with the skill involved, there’s a weird, unsteady rhythm to it, like he might lose control at any moment and bite pavement.

  He sees me and comes over, dropping down on the bench so close that our thighs touch. I’m aware of the other girlfriend watching us from the corner of her eye. “This, here?” He gestures to me, on the bench. “Prime example of kismet. I was just thinking about you.”

  Whiskey bristles the air between us. “Well. You’re . . . aromatic today.” I watch as he laughs, nodding slowly, like his head feels so light it might drift away. “Wasted, huh?”

  “Yes.” His own solemnity makes him laugh again.

  “It’s three o’clock.”

  “That late already? Shit.”

  “Any chance I could get some coffee into you? Maybe try to talk?” I can’t catch his gaze. “Kincaid?”

  He comes back to the moment. “Yeah. Definitely. Whatever.” Stretches, groans, rests back on the bench, eyes closed, feeling the thin autumn light on his face. “Wherever you want to go, Clarabelle.”

  We end up at Song’s. He kept his eyes closed during the ride in the Suburban, neither of us speaking, me glancing over at him now and then, wondering how to begin, thinking about those marks on the dirt, the impression of a sleeping body.

  Even at an off time on a Saturday, quite a few booths are taken as we seat ourselves in Song’s dining room. Kincaid opens the paper napkin and gets to work folding—first halves, then thirds. I watch him, the feeling of the nightmare coming over me again, shifting, unreal, like déjà vu. If he makes an origami moth, I might scream.

  Daisy appears eventually, holding menus to her chest as she watches Kincaid, engrossed in art, his face inches above his work. She glances at me. “I’m guessing this is one of those savant things.”

  “Can we have some coffee?”

  Kincaid looks up. “Tea. Please. For me.”

  When I change my order to ask for the same, Daisy goes, not bothering to leave the menus. She knows if we’re eating, it’s buffet. I found a couple loose dollars in the center console of the Suburban, and I have a little left over from the cash Ma gave me this week.

  After we get our food, I settle back into the booth and sip some tea. I understand the appeal, particularly for Kincaid; they lace it with so much sugar here that my body gets an instant buzz. The origami sits half-finished, creation unrealized. Time to wade in. “So. I’ve been thinking about the fortune you gave me. How you made me think you knew what it said before I even opened it. But you didn’t. You guessed. What are there, maybe three basic subjects? Love, money, fate. Right? When you asked me how I liked my fortune, you watched my reaction, then picked the one you thought would be most likely to bother me. Fate.”

  He eats an egg roll, hopefully sponging some of the demon from his system. “Says a lot about a person. Those three subjects. You’re already lucky in love.” I laugh. “Don’t give a shit about money. It’s just fate that gets you. Facing the unexpected.” He studies me. “Why?”

  I fold my arms on the table. “I guess because I’m scared of it. I hate the idea that we can’t control our own lives.”

  “Is that what the fortune said?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly.” I glance up, catch his intensity as he conducts a two-second post
mortem of my expression. My mouth moves in a reluctant smile, and I shake my head. “I’m giving you everything you need to play me, aren’t I?” His smile broadens, and he sits back against the booth, caught. He seems better now, back in the moment with me. That’s when I drive in my first nail: “Do you live on Lorimer Street?”

  Kincaid’s smile fades. His brows are still raised, eyes on me.

  “Down at the end? The brown house?” Nothing. “Nevers. That’s your last name, right?” He doesn’t speak.

  “Jesus, Kincaid. I just want to know you. Why do you make it so hard?” Shake of his head, his gaze finding the exit behind me. “You don’t go home sometimes, do you? You stay out all night.” I’ve got him, wings pinned to a board, but it doesn’t feel good, no payoff for making him feel this trapped. “I found your bed. Out in the marsh.”

  He holds still, but maybe I’m picking up some skills from him, because my answers are all there, in his silent exhalation, the set of his mouth. He wants out of here, away from me, and maybe I’m ruining what we have, but I can’t stop now. “You really sleep there? God. That’s crazy.” Silence. “Your parents don’t even care? Did they kick you out?”

  More silence. As good as a yes. “She doesn’t know.” Pause. “She doesn’t want to know.”

  She. No dad. I try to keep my voice level. “Is that what you meant, when you talked about being scared so much? You meant sleeping out there, alone. With nothing. How long have you been doing this?”

  He rubs the side of his head distractedly, one of his braids surfacing, the end coiling on his shoulder, fastened with a plain rubber elastic. “Since summer. It wasn’t bad, at first. Anyway. I’ve got what I need.” He touches his coat, where the inner pocket lies, heavy with whatever’s left of the bottle. “I sleep okay.”

  “Kincaid. That’s how people freeze to death. Can’t you stay with Trace, Moon, somebody?”

  He shrugs, looking out the window. “Sometimes I do. But it’s not like their families need another problem.”

  I exhale heavily, trying to control my frustration, not show how much it hurts, thinking of him alone in that makeshift shelter, just trying to get through till morning. “The night Ivy went back out there. Did you see her?”

  He leans on his elbows, rubbing his eyes with both hands. “See all kinds of things. Hear things. Half the time I never really know. . . .” I can fill in the rest: he doesn’t know what’s real, and what’s some bad dream brought on by too much fire demon to drive out the chill.

  “If you saw Ivy, we have to tell the cops.”

  “No. I mean . . . I don’t know. Maybe there was something.” Shuts his eyes, gives his head a slight shake, loosening a memory. “Like a light. But it was there, and then . . .” Breathes out, opens his eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t even that night. It all kind of blends, you know?”

  I reach across the table and take his hand, squeezing his fingers, which somehow still feel cold to me. “Why did your mom kick you out?”

  He pulls his hand back. Bounces in place a little, ready to move. Because as long as you keep moving, nobody can pin you down, right? “Want to go? I can pay for us.”

  I sit back, folding my arms, forcing myself not to keep pushing as he digs money out of his wallet, tossing it down where Daisy can see it the next time she wanders through. I add two extra dollars to the tip, as if that will somehow raise us in her estimation.

  When we get back into the car, I begin, “The money,” focusing on fastening my seat belt, remembering how he went into the house, coming out a minute later, before his mom could follow. Enough time to get into a purse.

  He stretches his legs out in the space under the dash. “I go home sometimes, take what I need.”

  “Think she wants you to have it?” I shift into drive, glancing over when he doesn’t answer right away.

  “I don’t know what she wants. But she doesn’t want me there with her. She said so.”

  “During a fight?” I glance at him. “Everybody says stupid stuff when they’re mad. I’m sure if you just talked to her—”

  “She changed the locks.”

  And I’ve got nothing. “Really?”

  He nods slowly. Then he reaches over without looking, sliding his hand from my knee, along my inner thigh, between my legs, and my pulse is there, meeting his touch. I’ve learned so much, gotten so many answers, but somehow it comes back to this, the two of us, and I move into his gentle pressure. “I just want to be with you.” His voice is quiet.

  I breathe out, trying to focus on the road. “Where can we go?” Not the woods. That’s cold estrangement to me now; we deserve better.

  “I have a place.” He rests back, doesn’t move his hand. “You know how to get there.”

  My stomach is churning by the time we reach the end of Lorimer and the little house. There’s no car in the drive this time. “You’re sure she won’t come home?”

  “Not anytime soon. She works Saturdays.” He’s got my jeans unbuttoned, edging the zipper down.

  “But the locks . . .”

  “Only so many places to hide an extra key.”

  The street is hushed, the daylight beginning to fade as we go inside together, Kincaid letting us in with the key he pulled out from the gap under the front steps, holding my hand the whole time. She didn’t leave any lamps on. We shouldn’t be here, I think, but don’t say. This is his home; and there’s nowhere else for us to go.

  As we pass through the dim kitchen, I get a quick impression of the private nature of his mom’s life. Bare surfaces; a spoon rest by the electric kettle, a jar of instant coffee; small plate and fork in the dish rack. Faint odor of dust.

  He leads me upstairs. He has a room, of sorts; a bed with a metal frame, a bureau and trunk, a few personal things left around like whoever once slept here has moved on, left for college or something. There’s a closet door by the window, a mosaic of treetops visible beyond the glass.

  We don’t turn on the light. Our coats drop to the floor. He peels my jeans down over my hips, easing me back onto the bed, his lips finding my ear, kissing harder down my neck. The coverlet is cool beneath me, the mattress soft, broken in. I help him pull off his shirts—he wears three, two thermals under a T-shirt—and then mine falls beside them.

  Twenty-One

  AFTER, I WATCH him get dressed, glad he stays shirtless because it keeps him as vulnerable as we just were to each other, exposing his lean arms, the faint remainder of the summer sun not quite disappeared from his skin. We didn’t go all the way, but far enough for me to sense that invisible line, how easy it would be to cross; even in this bare, too-quiet house, I feel warm, in touch with him in a way I’d started to believe I never would. “Where are you going to go tonight?” I wait as he picks up his shirts, shakes them out. “What if we just stay? Try talking things out with your mom?” I think of her standing in the doorway yesterday, waiting. Listening. “I bet she misses you.”

  “Doubt it. There isn’t much about me that she likes.”

  “What did you guys fight about?”

  “Everything. Anything.” He pulls his shirts on. “She wants me to be somebody else. Did the same thing to my dad.” He shrugs. “I’ll find a place tonight. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Like where?” I wish I could bring him home with me. As if my parents would go for that. Hi, guys, meet my first boyfriend—can he move in with us? I’ll take care of him myself, promise! Cut to Ma beating me severely around the head and neck. “Promise me you’ll stay with Trace or Moon.”

  “Promise.” Kincaid puts his hand on my thigh, holding my gaze. “We should get going.” Meaning his mom will be back soon. The last thing I want is her coming home before we’re ready, finding us up here, figuring out what happened between us.

  He’s first out of the room, trailing his hand back for mine, and we lace fingers.

  It’s only later, once I’m home, that I realize we never straightened the sheets.

  A text kicks off my Sunday morning: Heads-up. Co
ps coming your way.

  It pops up on my phone around nine thirty, from Sage to all of us—Bree, Moon, and Trace. I’m in the kitchen getting breakfast, moving slow, seeing everything through the grayscale filter of yesterday afternoon. Being with Kincaid. I want to spend my day lounging in it, gradually wrapping my mind around everything we did together, who it makes me now. Trying to figure out how to heal the damage between Kincaid and his mom, even though I don’t know exactly where the break is, how to find it if he won’t give me more details. Maybe the real question is how hard to push when somebody you care about is sending signals that they want you to stop.

  But. Now the cops are coming, and I shoot a question mark back, adding to Bree’s.

  They’re in the Terraces, just left my place. Asking about Ivy. Next bubble: Talking to everybody again, trying to find other people who might know something.

  Trace’s emoji response—smiley face with no smile—appears.

  Can somebody get in touch w Kincaid?

  Tactful, Sage. Not coming out and asking me specifically, because Bree’s on here, too, and the whole thing is still so raw. I miss Bree. Think of her sitting alone in her room, right next door, yet here we are, not-talking through text when we could be dealing with this together. I think about saying I’ll find him, then think about letting Trace field it instead, when the knock at the never-used front door wipes my thoughts clean.

  I go over, almost opening up until I hear another door open outside—the knock was actually at Bree’s place. I peer around our shade, watching as Faye lets a female uniformed officer inside with a languid sweep of her arm.

  When it’s my turn, I’m glad Ma’s working a morning shift, because she’d probably never let me leave the house again after some of the questions Officer Donohue asks. Dad takes it easier, offering coffee, sitting with us at the kitchen table, arms folded across his chest, not showing much as Officer Donohue asks if Ivy was using drugs, if she ever talked about running away, about hurting herself, about being in trouble of any kind. Did I get a sense of what her home life was like, her relationship with her dad and stepmother? I answer mechanically—mostly, “I’m not sure,” because even though I’ve gotten a pretty good feeling for Ivy through what people have said, it’s all secondhand, passed down from a friend of a friend—and my attention sharpens as the questions move on to somebody else. Somebody unexpected. Gavin Cotswold.