Messenger 93

by Barbara Radecki

  The neighborhood was way nicer than ours. Bigger yards, grander homes, sportier cars in fancier driveways. A police car was like a bruise. It didn’t belong. It spoke of injuries that weren’t supposed to happen in places like this.

  Instead of confronting Remy, I was drawn down the block. I guess I had to see it for myself.

  Krista’s house was a princess castle of French doors and dormers and topiaries. The front door was open, so I crossed to the other side of the street and wandered a little farther on so I could get my bearings without being seen. I certainly didn’t want to talk to or be questioned by the police.

  In an effort to look/feel inconspicuous, I pulled out my pen and a scrap of paper from my pocket — a receipt from True Blue-locity for Tandem Acorns’s latest 12-inch.

  Establishing shot: Infinity Girl stands in front of a decrepit mansion. She’s found Double Kross’s secret lair. Except it’s not within her power to destroy a person, even for the betterment of the world. She must find another way to stop Double Kross before Double Kross finds her and takes her down.

  A crow flies in. It lands on Infinity Girl’s shoulder. She is taken aback but doesn’t shoo the bird away. Speech-bubble: “Messenger 93, face what most frightens you.”

  No no no. But before I could scratch it out, there was some movement across the street in the front hall of Krista’s house. Shadows and striking bursts of light. And then there were people coming out. I crumpled the receipt and shoved it into my pocket.

  It was the same uniformed police officer as that morning in school, and another man — grizzled, white, bald and mustached, wearing a wrinkled brown suit. They were talking to someone inside the house — I assumed it was Clio. They made grim, respectful gestures of goodbye and headed to the cruiser.

  Clio stood in the doorway and watched the car drive off. Her face seemed to dissolve in the late afternoon light, paling into frail distress like a tissue in a puddle. She looked so alone. Abandoned. My heart ached for her. This was Krista’s fault.

  But there was another person in the house. And he came out then too.

  Boy stepped onto the front stoop beside Clio. He didn’t see me. Or anyway, he was looking down the street in the other direction. His face was ashen, eyebrows winched up in sorrowful misery, hair tousled in a way that showed he hadn’t thought to brush it.

  His sadness cut me. That was Krista’s fault too.

  He waved at Clio in the same grim, serious way that the cops had, and Clio gave him a weak smile. Hands in his pockets, he trudged down the stairs, down the front walkway, down the sidewalk. As if the crushing weight of every lost girl everywhere had landed on him.

  I crossed the street and followed him, hypnotized by his scrunched back. I was about to call out when he pulled his phone from his pocket, punched in a number, and put it to his ear. I worked to break free of my rattling nerves, willed myself to go after him, when someone suddenly touched my arm in the softest, gentlest way.

  Clio. She was looking up at me with an exhausted expression. She laid the tips of her fingers against my cheek. “Thank you so much for coming. It means the world.”

  “Oh, hi!” It was all I could say. The possibility that Clio remembered me was mindboggling.

  She took my hand. I glanced back at Boy. He was walking faster now, still talking on his phone, too far away to notice me.

  Clio led me up the walk and then up the stairs to her house. Her hand was dry — sharp edges from pulled hangnails scratched at my fingers — and there was something childish about the way she gently tugged at me to come inside. Like we were going to see something marvelous together.

  “They’ve been here for hours,” she said as she led me down the grand entrance hall. “We’ve been going through all her things.” She sighed as she spoke, tiny puffs of miserable air. “Her phone, her room, her computer, her locker. They took her hard drive. Do you know what that’s like for a mom who promised to respect her child’s privacy? It’s — It’s — I can’t —” She shook her head and escorted me down another hall.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. Useless. Somehow responsible.

  It was sumptuous but gloomy inside the house. No sunlight streaming in through windows. No artificial light radiating from chandeliers. We arrived at a family room, and it was gigantic — expensive furniture, toys strewn everywhere. Blocks, trucks, picture books, stuffed animals, a rocking horse. There was a plate of cookies on the coffee table, crumbs from some having been eaten, four mugs of coffee in various states of emptiness/fullness.

  Clio pushed aside some tiny car models on the couch, and they clattered noisily to the hardwood floor. “Please sit,” she said, flopping into the luxurious cushions. “Forgive the mess.”

  I sat down beside her, sinking deep. It was warm and I unzipped my coat.

  “Krista didn’t take anything with her. She needs her medication —” Clio lifted a knuckle to her lips. It was terrible watching her try to erase her emotions. “She just left us.”

  She will fall. Seven days.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  She reached over and took my hand. Her hand started squeezing, probably unconsciously because she squeezed too tight and it hurt. “I drove the streets all night looking for her. Like you do for a lost dog. Isn’t that —” She let out a gaspy, half-hysterical laugh.

  “You must be so tired,” I said. This was outside my realm.

  “I am,” she said, sinking into herself, half-laughing again. “I am very tired.” She ran her fingers lightly over her cheeks. I noticed for the first time that she had a light spray of freckles across them, like aerosol-paint spatter. “I don’t know why she left.” She slumped. “No one knows why she left.” She seemed to surprise herself with a thought, then turned to me. “Do you know why?”

  “I —” There had to be a reason. A good one. But I couldn’t think of any. Krista had everything. Including this — a loving, worried, searching mother. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have no idea.”

  “She gets so —” She clawed at the air. “Angry. For no reason. Ever since her dad —” She stopped. Her fingers wilted. She gathered her hands in her lap and lingered on them.

  “Yeah …” I said, drawing it out to fill the silence.

  “Did you know they took her toothbrush in for DNA evidence? I mean — no expense spared. And I am so, so grateful. But —” She looked up at me. Looked through me, really, to some infinite place beyond my eyes. “If they find her, if she doesn’t want me to know where she is, then they are legally bound not to tell me her whereabouts. Me — her own mother. Isn’t that the most —?” Her focus came back to this reality, and she grabbed my hand for the third time. “Do you know where she is?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I knew where she was.” I was weirdly scared now.

  She will fall in seven days.

  “Aw, sweetie,” she said. “I know how hard this is on you kids.” She let go of my hand. I was embarrassed at the hugeness of my relief. She bent over and gathered up a handful of little-kid puzzle pieces that were skittering under her foot. “Krista always loved puzzles,” she said as she very carefully stacked the pieces one on top of the other. “Riddles. That kind of thing. I think that’s why she sent that strange message. I think it’s her way of processing since her dad died.”

  Everything inside me vibrated. “She sent a strange message?”

  “Oh, maybe you’ll understand it!” She jumped up. “They found her phone in that garbage can at school —” She disappeared around the corner, into the hall that led towards the back of the house.

  She will fall. She will fall.

  Clio came back a few seconds later holding Krista’s phone. It was the same model as mine, protected inside a glitzy black-and-gold cover.

  She plopped onto the couch beside me and said breathlessly, “Oh, I hope you can figure it out.” She powered on
the phone. The unlock screen came up. She glanced at me guiltily. “They hacked her passcodes. Don’t judge me — we have no choice.” Her fingers were trembling. She keyed in Krista’s code. 9393. “I wonder if you have any idea —” The screen unlocked — “what this means?” She tapped into the messages, then into a text, which she presented to me.

  But I couldn’t register the text or her question. My entire brain was occupied by a flashing set of numbers.

  9393.

  Was that really Krista’s password?

  Of course I couldn’t ask Clio why Krista would’ve chosen that, or what it meant.

  Messenger 93. You must find her.

  But Clio was staring at me so directly it felt like a drill to my head. She was waiting for me to understand. “I’m sorry, what is it?” I said. My voice echoed. Someone else speaking.

  You must find her. Only you can save her.

  But I didn’t want to save her. I couldn’t.

  Clio pointed at the phone. “These are the last two texts she sent before she left.” She clicked out of the first text and into another one. “This is the one she sent to me.”

  I leaned in and begged every one of my brain cells to co-operate. To pay attention.

  Don’t worry, Mom, Krista’s text read. I’m okay. Not coming home til I work it out.

  “See,” Clio said, pointing to the time-stamp. “She sent this at 12:45 p.m. yesterday. And then there’s this one.” She clicked back to the other text. “This is the message she sent Boyd right after, at 12:46 p.m.”

  I looked closely. The text to Boy was made up of the words Only you, followed by four emojis: the single eye, the finger-pointing-up, the scissors, and the tiny paired stars.

  Clio hysteria-laughed again. “You see? Riddles! She wants him to find her, doesn’t she? Aren’t these little pictograms meant to show where she is? Aren’t they clues?”

  “Mm-hm, mm-hm,” I could hear myself saying as she spoke. My head was nodding.

  “He came over today — he’s in such a state, oh my goodness, I feel so badly for him. He doesn’t understand the clues! He doesn’t know where she is, or why she’s doing this.”

  “Boy, you mean? He doesn’t understand her message?”

  “No! None of us understands it!” Clio turned slightly away. Her mouth twitched. She didn’t cry, but her eyelids puffed out as if they’d instantly filled with tears.

  “I’m so sorry.” I looked into my lap — I couldn’t face her fragile expression anymore. I had to get out of there.

  Clio’s eyes flicked to look behind me and her whole face softened. “Hey, buddy,” she said. “Did we wake you?”

  I turned around. Her kid was standing at the entrance to the family room. He wasn’t a baby anymore — weird that I’d expected one, hadn’t factored in the past year and a half. He had the soft jowly cheeks and pudgy fingers of your basic-model toddler, and pale skin with a paint-spatter of freckles, like his mom’s but lighter. Freckles-in-training.

  “Mommy?” he said, looking at me, tears pooling on his lower lids. “I don’t feel good.”

  “It’s because you need to go back to bed,” Clio said.

  “Thwoat hewt.” He had that funny accent so many little kids have, where they can’t pronounce their Rs. “I’m sick.”

  “It’s okay, Eddie,” Clio said. “You’re not sick. You’re just tired. It’s been a long —”

  And then he puked. It squooshed out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin and onto the front of his pajamas.

  “Oh gosh.” Clio was up.

  The kid began to cry. Clio picked up a random cloth and used it to wipe his face and chest. She murmured at him, “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay.” But he bawled like a baby while she threw the cloth to the floor and pulled off his pukey pajamas. “Sh-sh. You’re just surprised.” She threw the pajamas down too and picked him up. “It’s okay. Everything is fine.” The kid was naked except for a diaper, and she wrapped her arms around his diapered butt and walked him over to me. “Please, do you mind?” She released him onto my lap. He was incredibly heavy. “He just needs a little comfort while I —” Clio went back for the pajamas and cloth. “I’ll just be a minute.” She bundled them together and retreated down the hall towards the back of the house.

  Eddie stopped crying and stared at me with weepy eyes, tears and snot rolling down his pudgy, almost-freckled face. He hiccupped and took in a tragic gulp of breath. There was a thunking sound from down the hall of a washing machine being opened.

  He said, “De bewd wants you to go.”

  I didn’t want to scare him. I said, “What?”

  “De black bewd said it.” His eyes were tiny little swimming pools.

  Then I remembered — the baby couldn’t pronounce his Rs. “The bird said I have to go?

  “Yes.”

  Everything liquid inside me crystalized.

  “What bird, Eddie?”

  “It said de boy will help you.”

  I stood up. The kid rocked happily in my arms.

  I didn’t know what to do. What I wanted to do was bolt.

  There was a sudden loud rush of running water as Clio started a load of laundry.

  I noticed Krista’s phone in its black-and-gold case. Clio had left it on the couch.

  Krista’s life would be in her phone. Information. Important places. Significant people. Her phone could potentially point to where she was. The cops, Krista’s mother, they already had all the data. But what if they didn’t understand the clues? And what if I could? Eventually, with time and quiet focus.

  Honestly, I don’t know what got into me, but I was suddenly bending over, heaving the kid with one arm, and reaching around his padded butt to rifle in my backpack for my own phone. I angled my back to the hallway because I didn’t know how much longer Clio would be gone. I thought I heard a door open and close somewhere.

  I pulled my SIM card out of my phone. I popped Krista’s phone out of her glittery case and rammed mine inside it. But my phone didn’t snap into her case right away, and I grunted and pushed at the corners. The kid started to giggle. He thought we were playing a game.

  “Eddie! I guess you’re feeling better.” Clio’s voice behind me.

  I dropped my phone, now in Krista’s case. It landed softly on the sumptuous couch. I bolted upright, tugging the kid close to me. “I’m sorry,” I said, fighting tears. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Aw, you’re doing great.” Clio had her eyes on Eddie. She looked like she’d been crying. “Thank you so much.”

  I grasped Krista’s stolen phone against my palm.

  Clio took the kid from me and tugged a onesie over his bare parts.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, cringing away from them, fumbling with my coat pocket, dropping Krista’s phone and my SIM card into it. “I have to go.” I grabbed my backpack and headed to the front door.

  “Wait, wait,” Clio called out. I squirmed and looked back. She was lifting the plate of cookies off the coffee table. There was a small pile of business cards underneath it. She brought me one. Actually tucked it into my same hand that had, a second before, been hiding her missing daughter’s phone.

  Detective Stanzi, the card read, then his precinct, address, and phone numbers.

  “We’re handing those out to everyone. Please, if you think of anything …”

  If you think of anything. Just like a real-life murder mystery.

  I really, really had to get out of there.

  “Bye, Eddie.” I waved clumsily and half-stumbled down the hall and through the grand entrance towards the front door. I can’t say for sure if Clio was watching me the whole time, but it was a super-long hallway.

  I BASICALLY RACED MY beating heart down the street. What was I doing? What was I thinking? I’d just stolen a phone that was a mother’s connection to her runaway
daughter. Was I supposed to take it? Was that it? It was a dire situation, and I’d been asked, or commanded, or ordained, to help. The bird wants you to go. The black bewd, he’d called it. It said you have to go.

  But, no. Just no. I couldn’t help them. Because I didn’t know what I was doing.

  Daylight had changed again. Somewhere behind the matte of clouds, the sun was dipping into early evening. I ran all the way to the bus stop. I hailed the next bus without checking the route. There were people on board — there must’ve been — but I was so inside my own mess, I didn’t register anything except the few inches in front of my face. The bus doors levering open to usher me in, the fluorescent lights tinting the air blue, the smeared floor of the aisle as I walked down it, the free seat against the window.

  I reached into my coat pocket. Krista’s phone, my SIM card, and Detective Stanzi’s business card came out clinging to each other. I tossed my SIM. Punishment for my stupid recklessness. Detective Stanzi went back into my pocket. If you think of anything. And now there was only Krista’s phone in my hand.

  9393.

  The screen came to life.

  I clicked into her texts first. The one to her mom: Don’t worry, Mom. I’m okay. Not coming home til I work it out. And the one to Boy: Only you. Single eye emoji, pointing-up-finger, scissors, two tiny stars.

  It looked like Clio was right: that Krista was playing some kind of warped hide-and-seek with Boy. Of course she’d leave clues. Like a serial killer hiding in her secret lair who wants to be found. Or admired. Or both.

  Still, I played with interpretations.

  Eye emoji: Definitely, Look for me. Up-finger: Probably, I’m over here. But where? A high-up place? North of the city? Scissors: Maybe, We’ll cut ourselves off from the world. Either that or, I’m hiding at a crafts store. Stars: There were no observatories or planetariums that I knew of, so it couldn’t be, Let’s look at the stars together So probably she meant, Follow all these clues and I will blow your mind. Obviously, it was supposed to be romantic.