Messenger 93

by Barbara Radecki

  I said, “I think I was sleepwalking or something.”

  “Do you sleepwalk?” His brow furrowed. He seemed genuinely concerned.

  “Not usually,” I said. “But I had the weirdest dream.” I tried to piece together the odd bits that I could remember. “It was those girls — they came to tell me they were leaving to look for Jocelyn.”

  “Which girls?”

  “The ones, you know, who were playing ball when we arrived? The little ones. Vivvie.”

  “Vivvie? Sequined vest?”

  “Yes, her. She told me that only she could find Jocelyn. Then she led four girls into the woods to search for her.” I pointed in the direction they’d gone. “But before I could do anything, her dog ate me.”

  “The silver husky?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Random.” He got up and urged me up too.

  I started to shiver. Gray put his hand on my arm. His skin was much warmer than mine. “You’re soaked. You should change before we take the tent down,” he said.

  “Right.” I hesitated, started to say something, started to go to him, then whirled away and crawled into the tent.

  But I was uneasy. The certainty that I’d somehow said or done something wrong nagged at me while I changed out of Walter’s wool hiking clothes and into my jeans and a new drugstore sweatshirt. Worry flushed through me, burned me up. Irritated the underside of my skin like a rash.

  I finished dressing — tying my boots on, zipping up my raincoat — and was about to crawl out again when I felt something inside my mouth, lodged between my gums and cheek. It was small and sharp, almost like a chipped piece of glass.

  I shuddered a little as I reached into my mouth and probed for whatever it was. I wished and wished that it was nothing too hideous — I’d been sleeping outside for who-knows-how-long and any kind of bug could have crawled inside me.

  But even before I saw it, as I was pulling it out, I recognized the tiny, shining disc.

  A white sequin from Vivvie’s too-big vest.

  At the exact moment that I balanced the sequin on the tip of my finger, a terrible, heart-shattering cry rang out. Then another and another. Many voices yelling and streaking through space as if no one could move quickly enough.

  I bolted out of the tent. Three women — their faces wrenched with distress — were racing past me and into the woods. More people ran behind them — everyone leaping over fallen tree trunks and moss-covered rocks. Two dogs I hadn’t seen before barked and sniffed the ground. I noticed the husky wasn’t with them. Their footfalls on the rotting groundcover echoed from the forest as the trackers went deeper and deeper inside.

  Other people ran out of the house, throwing on coats, and climbed into cars and trucks. Walter’s car was pulling out too and that’s when I saw that Gray was inside it, sitting in the passenger seat. Gravel roared and dust tornadoed as one vehicle after another raced away down the drive.

  Lily was among a few people who stayed behind at the house, all of them watching the exodus with tense expressions.

  It all started to make sense — the girls, Vivvie, her silver husky, they had left in the middle of the night. It hadn’t been a dream. Or it had, and it had showed me what was going to come.

  And maybe I had caused it. Telling Vivvie about beaming to another place, wishing with her that she could materialize to where Jocelyn was so she could bring her home.

  I hadn’t stopped them. I had let them get away. I had lost them.

  I rushed to pack everything up. Because I had room in my backpack, I shoved Walter’s waterproof sack of clothes and the sleeping bag in with my stuff. It took ages longer than it should have to collapse the tent and squeeze it into its too-small pouch. Nothing fit the way it was supposed to, too much was distracting me from getting it right on first tries. When I was finally done, I hauled Gray’s and my backpacks to the parking strip and waited for the cars to return.

  Lily came out of the farmhouse with another woman who’d stayed behind. The woman was tiny and frail with a dark face, drawn and deeply lined. Something about her reminded me of the Jocelyn photo. I wondered if this was her mother. A woman too sick to run with the others, needing Lily to keep her company. She pulled out a cigarette and Lily lit it for her and they huddled a little against the cold breeze.

  I paced in a circle, not sure what to do. I couldn’t sit still and do nothing.

  It was my fault that Vivvie and the girls had left. Stupid Infinity Girl and our dreams of empowerment. Believing we could change the way things are.

  I aimed for Lily and the woman. Lily noticed me coming and left the woman on the stoop to head me off. Her expression was softer already. She reached her hands out as we approached each other and I thought for a minute that she was going to hug me — I almost reached out my own hands because, in that moment, there was maybe nothing I wanted more. But she placed them on my shoulders and used them to hold me back. “I’m sorry, M. You’ve been really patient. You just have to wait a while longer. We’ll get you to the bus as soon as we can.”

  “But I don’t want to go.”

  No one was bursting through the wilds looking for Krista. Other people ran the show — experts, professionals, authorities. I wanted to be like Lily and Walter, Arthur and the others. Out there. Seeing with my own eyes. “Please let me help. I’ll do anything. Search the woods, hand out flyers, make coffee, whatever —”

  “I know, and we appreciate it, but we don’t need your help.” The way she said it was kind. But final.

  I was about to make another plea, but was cut off by the crunch of wheels on gravel. We both turned to watch Walter’s car pull into the yard. Walter and Gray both looked somber behind the windshield and my heart dropped. Lily groaned. “Oh no.”

  Walter must have known we’d think the worst, so he got out quickly and waved his hands. “It’s not the girls,” he said. “Everyone’s working their way down to the community hall. More help is coming.”

  Lily let out a breath. “Okay. I’ll let the others know.” She was about to turn away when Walter stopped her.

  “But we have another problem.” He crossed his arms and shot a look over at Gray who was still sitting in the car, eyelids drooping. Lily glanced at Gray and crossed her arms too.

  “Just got a call from his dad,” Walter said. “Gray wasn’t answering his phone. They had no idea he was with us. That new camping gear? It was for a trip his dad was going to take him on … to make up for the fact that they wouldn’t allow him to search for Jocelyn on his own.”

  Lily let out an epic sigh, walking away to fill the air with it. She wandered the drive, shaking her head, slumping and realigning her back.

  Gray slinked out of the car. It was painful to watch.

  Lily turned on him. “You see what’s going on here, right?”

  Gray sunk into himself and stared at his boots.

  “I am not going to turn a blind eye to you running away from your family while families here are in pain.” Lily jabbed her finger at him. “You are going home right now, and we —” she twirled her finger to include herself and Walter — “will talk about this later.”

  I was shrinking too and hoped Lily wouldn’t see through me and into my parallel lie.

  Even Walter seemed to be shrinking. “Yeah, I told his dad we’d put him on the bus. We can bring the kids to the stop at Earl’s on our way to the community center.”

  “Damn straight.” Lily shook her head. “I should’ve called your parents before we left. I blame myself,” she said as she headed back to the house. “I blame myself.”

  Gray didn’t say a word. He grabbed the backpacks I’d piled on the drive and loaded them into the trunk.

  2

  THE DRIVE TO EARL’S was long and uncomfortably devoid of talk. Gray huddled into his corner of the back seat, practically pressed against the window. As if he coul
d somehow slip through the glass and into the landscape. He didn’t want to go home, I knew that. But it was more than that. It was obvious he didn’t want to be cut off from what was happening at the farmhouse. He looked like someone being banished to wander the desert forever.

  Earl’s was a diner on a lonely stretch of highway, bunched together with a few other shops — a couple of gas stations, a convenience store, a canoe and kayak market. It was also one of many stops along the way for a bus service that connected people to busier areas.

  Lily got out of the car without saying anything and headed to the diner. It looked like she’d lost some of her steam. Walter glanced back at us, then gave the ground a guilty kick. Gray had nothing to say, so he climbed out of the car, and I got out too.

  We grabbed our backpacks from the trunk and slung them over our shoulders. Walter got out and shuffled along beside us, not speaking, but not exactly stone-faced either. A cold wind buffeted and bowled down the highway and we had to turn our backs against it while we waited. When Lily came back, she had two slips of paper in her hand. She gave us each one.

  “Here are your tickets,” she said. “The bus gets here in an hour. You’ll be back in the city by late afternoon. Gray, your parents are expecting you. I assume you’ll make sure they get M where she needs to go.” Gray steeled himself and I felt myself flush. “Can I trust you?” She stared him down. The worst kind of ferocity — the kind you respect. Gray nodded.

  “Here’s what you can trust —” She placed a hand on his arm. “That we will do everything we can to find the little ones and everything we can to find Jocelyn. Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Barely audible.

  Lily huffed and blinked her eyes and then turned abruptly towards the trunk of the car. “Let me get you some food for the trip.” A cooler was in there, packed with essentials.

  “Lily.” Gray stopped her. “It’s okay. You’ve done enough. Too much. My backpack is full of food.” He indicated his bag. “And I have some money.” He fluttered the bus ticket at her. “I will pay you back for this the next time I see you.”

  “Me too,” I said, feeling stupid that I hadn’t even considered the expense to Lily and Walter. Also stupidly excited for an excuse to see them again at some future point.

  Lily softened and put a hand on Gray’s cheek. “Are you going to work it out, my boy?”

  Gray nodded.

  “Soon?” she said.

  He managed a smile. “I promise.”

  She bowed her head and gave him a tight hug. Walter stepped in and grabbed Gray. “You’ll speak with your parents, right?” He squeezed Gray’s arms. “You’ll come back here.” Gray nodded and Walter pulled him close and gave him three strong pats on the back.

  I felt my throat constrict and stepped out of the way, not expecting anything for myself. But Lily pulled me into a hug too and I sank against her.

  “I am so sorry about your sister,” she said in my ear. “I pray that you find her.”

  Then she released me and marched to the car and got into it. She started it up while Walter climbed into the passenger side. Gray and I watched them take off down the road, the car speeding away to its nobler, higher purpose, us aching and diminished at being left behind.

  THE DINER WAS HALF-FULL of truckers and road-trippers slurping on coffees and shoving toast and scrambled eggs into their mouths. A TV flashed from behind the cash, tuned to the same twenty-four-hour news channel that had been on at the coffee shop in the city.

  Gray and I found a table. I didn’t have money — because it had been stolen. I remembered the girl I’d seen at City Hall and how I’d tried to run after her. The flash of pink. I thought of Dell. The Ittch star. I fiddled with my sleeve. Without a shower to wash it off, the address Dell had penned on the inside of my wrist was still there. You should come to the party next week. It’ll be off the hook. Had she been the one to hit me and steal my wallet? But that didn’t make sense either. Dell would have even less reason to need my money than Krista.

  So … who had it been?

  Serial killer. Sex trafficker.

  Gray pulled scraps of cash from his jeans’ pocket and counted it out. $8.60. All he had left after paying for his knife two days before.

  “I left my cards at home,” Gray said guiltily. As if he was responsible for feeding me. “Didn’t want to take anything else from my parents.”

  But I knew leaving cards behind also gave parents one less way to track you. “It’s okay,” I said.

  The TV screen flashed to the next news report. Subtitles scrolled along the bottom of the screen — human remains, routine maintenance work, Betthurry. Body has been identified. I grabbed Gray’s forearm and he looked over his shoulder. I could feel the muscles in his arm tense as the shot panned over a weedy patch of construction off a country highway. Where the body was found. The screen cut to a photo of a young woman. White, brunette, pretty, smiling. It wasn’t Jocelyn or Krista. A law student who’d gone missing from the city a year ago. Killer has not yet been caught.

  As she falls, so do we all.

  I shuddered and let go of Gray’s arm and we didn’t look at each other.

  Find Jocelyn.

  Find Krista.

  Find all the missing girls.

  I fought nausea as Gray ordered one breakfast for us to split. We didn’t talk much as we rationed out the eggs and toast. I kept secretly checking on him. He looked distracted and nauseous too, and pretty soon he pushed his half-eaten breakfast away, and then so did I.

  Behind Gray, the door chimed open and two uniformed officers walked in — a man and a woman. They headed for a table at the other end of the diner and settled in. A server handed them menus and poured coffee.

  The TV flashed to another report. Krista stared out at me from her glamorous Missing Teen shot. Subtitles scrolled along the bottom. She was still gone. No new developments. There were lingering shots of our neighborhood, our school, of Clio’s house, patrol vehicles, cops coming and going. I wondered how Clio was doing. Little Eddie.

  Gray tapped his fork against his plate. A high-pitched porcelain beat.

  Jocelyn had been missing a lot longer than Krista. Where was the news report for her? And what about Vivvie and her friends — had they begun an official search for them yet?

  The ping-ping of Gray tapping his fork against the plate was epically loud. I jerked forward. My hand clamped over his to stop the sound. He froze and stared at me. I froze too. Shocked by the smoothness and warmth of his skin, of my own against it. Locked in his gaze.

  Gray’s phone buzzed with a text and we were both startled. He checked the screen.

  I checked on the cops behind him. The server had come back to take their orders.

  “It’s a group text from Arthur,” Gray said, reading his screen. “One of the girls took a phone with them and they have a trace on it.” I almost whooped with surprised relief — but then Gray read on. “Bad news is, they have to track it through cell triangulation. Because we’re in the middle of nowhere, the transmission radius is thirty miles.” Gray flashed his phone at me. It showed a screen capture of a gridded map, various roads crisscrossing it, small points indicating towns. “Thirty square miles is huge,” he said. “They could be anywhere in there. Tracking every inch on foot could take forever.”

  Behind him, the TV flashed to another story. Me this time. My terrible photo. Missing for three days.

  The officers were staring out the window, sipping coffee.

  I pulled my coat hood over my head and shrank down. They would drag me home. Gray would find out who I really was.

  Another text buzzed on Gray’s phone. “Arthur says he’s sending everyone out to look for the girls.” He gave me a grim smile. “So the search for Jocelyn has to wait.”

  If Messenger 93 was a real thing, then maybe only I could find Krista. She was going to fall in four days.
And if I believed in destiny or fate, maybe it meant I was supposed to be with Gray, and that Jocelyn would also be found. And if we found Jocelyn, then Vivvie and the other little girls would never have to run after her again, and they would go back home and grow up safe.

  Gray was the one to say it out loud. “I can’t wait. I need to get to Deerhead.”

  A jolt of excitement stirred me up. “We’re supposed to be on our way home,” I whispered. “We promised Lily.”

  “I came all the way out here,” he said. “I want to search.”

  Me too, I thought. I want to search with you.

  I lowered my voice even more. “There are two cops behind you.”

  Gray checked very casually behind him. Then he looked back and pointed to a narrow hallway at the back of the diner. It led to the restrooms and also to a service exit.

  We packed the bus tickets Lily gave us into our bags and spun away from the table towards the back of the diner. We ducked down the hall and pushed our way through the service door, bursting out of warm, bustling, familiar reality — through a wardrobe wall, down a rabbit hole — and landing in the chill northern scrub.

  I was smiling despite everything, but Gray got serious right away. “Deerhead is far. We have no car, and no bus goes there.”

  “Right.” I slumped and racked my brain for ideas. Then I pointed through the trees to the two-lane highway that ran alongside Earl’s. “What if we hitchhike? I know it’s sketchy — but we have each other.”

  “Lily and Walter can’t see me,” Gray said. “If they catch me, I’m back at square one.”

  “True.”

  We considered more options.

  “What if we walk to the next major turnoff?” Gray said. “Through the woods so we aren’t seen, but following the highway so we don’t get lost.”

  “That could work.”