Messenger 93 Page 13

  Gray leaned forward again. “Do they know why she keeps running?”

  Again, I was surprised he had to ask.

  “It’s hard to say for sure,” Walter said. “We don’t work that closely with her community. But we do know her father died a few years ago. It’s been difficult on her and her mom. Jocelyn’s uncle Arthur invited them to move near to him and his family so they could support and watch over each other. But apparently Jocelyn isn’t happy living there. I mean, it’s beautiful, but her dad is gone and nothing’s going to make that better.” Walter looked back and gave Gray a sad smile.

  “When you’re told your whole life that there are certain rules,” Lily said thoughtfully, watching the road, “and you follow them because you think you have to, but those rules don’t work — don’t protect you, don’t give you comfort — you start looking for something different. A way out. A new way. An old one.” She glanced through the rearview. “That’s where we are now.”

  Gray gave a serious nod. “True.” He put the tip of his finger against the window. “And that’s what Jocelyn is doing?”

  “It’s my guess,” Lily said. Then she said with a quiet smile, “And you too, Gray.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Okay, so tell me — why Gray?”

  Gray sort of laughed and slumped back in his seat. “It’s my birth mom’s last name.”

  “I know it’s her last name. She also named you Gordon.”

  He didn’t say anything, but drew his finger along the glass, outlining a shape I couldn’t make out.

  “Too cool for Gordon?” Lily said, teasing.

  Gray shrugged.

  “He had to give up his last name when his parents adopted him,” Walter said. “What if this is his way of honoring his birth mom?”

  Gray looked down and went very still, and we all knew that was it.

  It was quiet for a while. When Lily spoke again, she eyed both of us through the rearview. “When we get to Arthur’s, remember: be respectful. It’s not our place. We can’t forget that.” She glanced through the mirror at Gray then at me, and we murmured our agreement. “Their priority is Jocelyn,” she said more seriously, looking ahead at the road. “They’ll tell us what they need.”

  It was an easy promise for me to make. In my mind, I was only going along so I could get my next message, the one that would lead me to Krista, that would maybe lead them to Jocelyn.

  THE DRIVE CONTINUED ON and Lily and Walter went back to their jazz and podcasts, to their comfortable hand-holding. I kept my eyes on the landscape. Daydreams about my parents and Trevor at home played across the window, projected on the passing trees.

  At first I felt sorry for myself and imagined no one cared that I was gone. One less ego to feed and all. I remembered once when I was five and following Mom through the grocery store. Trevor was caged in the cart, his little legs dangling. Mom was sh-shing him mindlessly while she picked items from the shelves. I decided it would be hilarious if I hid from her. So I tucked myself behind the frozen meat fridge, peeking out from time to time to watch her push Trevor and the cart farther and farther away. It was nothing, just a moment in a childhood full of moments, but she never noticed that I was gone. It was me who was the frantic one, searching one aisle after another for her. Lost and running. It felt like hours before I found her standing in the dairy aisle in front of the eggs, trying to choose between organic free run and the usual. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, and so I stopped crying and slipped in beside her and secretly wiped my tears on the cotton hip of her dress.

  I wondered if a task force had been set up for me too. Police taking my data, tracing my SIM card to some zigzagging bus, checking my non-existent social media, interviewing people who had no idea who I was, cataloguing my DNA. Money no object.

  Maybe Dad was a suspect. Maybe they were taking a sledgehammer to the concrete in our basement right now, on the lookout for bones.

  I pictured them at home, waiting for me, gathered at the kitchen table. Dad stoic but compulsively clearing his throat. Mom with a tissue in her hand, dabbing her nose. Trevor pretending to read one of his comic books, pretending he didn’t care about any of it.

  My body shuddered reflexively and I wondered if I was cruel.

  THE FINAL ROAD LEADING to Jocelyn’s uncle’s house was long and unpaved. Dust kicked up and swirled around the car. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d passed a town or a store or even a gas station.

  Gray was leaning forward in his seat, watching over Lily’s shoulder as Walter drove us in. Tension fanned off him. I wished I had mind-reading abilities. Like Infinity Girl but the opposite — not reflecting him, but absorbing and knowing his deepest thoughts.

  Soon he was going to meet the people from his birth community. For the first time. For the worst possible reason. That’s what he was afraid of.

  Eventually we pulled into a driveway that took us to a neat farmhouse. There was a barn not far away with an enclosed pen full of chickens, and a pasture with two grazing goats. It looked peaceful. Across from the house, a row of cars and pickups lined a cropped field. A few tents were set up, scattered around the field. Walter turned the car into the gravel lot.

  “Looks like they have a good turnout,” Lily said.

  There were a dozen or more kids on the driveway, toddlers to teens, playing soccer with a large silver-and-black husky. They stopped playing when they saw us. A heavy-set teenaged boy picked up the youngest kid and tucked him under one arm. The dog sat back and dropped its ears and stared at us with silver eyes. Lily opened her window and waved and some of the kids waved back, but not in a way like they knew her.

  “Wait here,” Lily said to us. “We need a minute to figure out how they want to handle this.” She and Walter got out of the car and slammed the doors behind them.

  Gray sat back in his seat. He followed the kids outside with his eyes, maybe hoping for some kind of acknowledgement. Lily and Walter laid hands on a few small heads as they made their way to the farmhouse, greeting everyone and saying things to them that we couldn’t hear. The kids followed on their heels, curious. All except one. A little girl about seven or eight, who stayed back, flanked by the silver husky.

  The girl stood on my side of the car and stared at me through the window. Her hands were clenched into fists, her small brow knotted, her feet apart like she was standing her ground. She was wearing a too-big white-sequined vest, and the sequins glinted like they were part of her arsenal. She didn’t look like a child, but like a miniature leader of dissidents. A renegade. I was a threat, I realized before she and the dog ran off, following the others into the house.

  Gray craned around to look through the rear window. I turned to look too. There was a small mobile home behind the farmhouse, pressed against the wall of trees that skirted the property.

  He powered up his phone and scrolled until he landed on a photo. I snuck a look and saw that it was a shot of the same mobile home, but taken in winter so it was locked in a hold of snow.

  Gray caught me staring. “That’s Jocelyn’s place,” he said.

  “The one she keeps running away from?”

  “Yeah.” He contemplated the photo. “She posted it a couple of years ago.” He read the caption — “New chapter. New digs.”

  Footsteps in the snow led from the front door to where the unseen photographer was standing, and I imagined Jocelyn making them. Her boots testing then sinking one at a time as she tried to get the best angle to show her friends where she lived now. Maybe retracing those steps twenty-seven — no, twenty-eight days ago as she snuck away from home.

  Like the map had shown us before we came, we were far from everything here. I wondered how she got to school, or who she hung out with. Definitely not the kids playing soccer, who were all much younger than her.

  “I read that when she ran away, she usually went to the city,” Gray said as if he were rea
ding my thoughts. Again, I was surprised he didn’t know for sure. If she’d gone to the city, wouldn’t Gray be her favorite destination? “But she always comes back here. So a part of her must really want to be here too.”

  “You read that she went to the city?” I said. “You don’t see each other?”

  He turned to me. “What do you mean?”

  I tried again. “I just thought — you know — because you’re together — you guys would, you know — see each other.”

  Gray blinked at me. “Jocelyn isn’t my girlfriend.”

  I remembered the photo on his phone of Jocelyn on her bed. He’d stared at that beautiful, kneeling pose a million times.

  Oh no, I thought. Unrequited love. The worst kind.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, fumbling with my coat zipper. “I thought — because — the photo — the one she sent you —”

  “No,” he said. He was so easy about it. “I pulled that from her feed.”

  “Her feed?”

  “Yeah.” He clicked out of the photo of her home and showed me. And then I saw it was Jocelyn’s Ittch stream. And it was full of shots, including the one of her kneeling on the bed. “That one was the best angle of her face.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “I don’t even know her.”

  I started. “You don’t know her?”

  “No.” He turned his intensely honest gaze on me. “We were born in the same town. We’re the same age. We would’ve grown up as family. We’re practically cousins. I’m not looking for Jocelyn because we’re together, or because I want us to be. I’m looking for her because — Because I care what happens to her. Because —” He shook his head. “What if she doesn’t turn up and — And I never did anything?”

  “Oh,” I said, letting it sink in. I remembered his story about a little girl whose disappearance and death had once been turned into a joke.

  He craned around to scrutinize Jocelyn’s house again. “I need to get in there. I need to check her stuff. See if there’s anything they missed.”

  I was about to say something — I don’t know what — when Walter interrupted us by opening the rear passenger door and leaning in. “They want to talk to you, Gray.”

  Gray sat up. “Did they find her?”

  Walter’s face turned somber. “They just got back from today’s search. Nothing yet.”

  “Is her mother around?” Nervous energy radiated off Gray.

  Walter said gently, “She’s inside with the others.”

  Gray collected himself and stepped out of the car. I started to follow, but Walter angled for me. “Not you,” he said. “I’m sorry. They respectfully ask that you wait here until we’ve had a chance to speak.”

  “Okay, no problem.” I reared back into stillness. Before Gray could slam the door, I said to him, “Will you keep me posted?”

  He turned. His expression had changed. I wondered for a second if he felt sorry for me. “Yeah,” he said. “For sure.”

  2

  ANOTHER HOUR PASSED, MAYBE two. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t have my playlists to distract me. Didn’t have my sketchpad or binder or loose-leaf scraps. It was a dangerous lull. I kept thinking of Gray. Wondering what he was learning. How it made him feel. How the planes of his face might shift with each new piece of information, with each new thought. His fingers tapping on his knees. His hand brushing his hair.

  No no no no. Stop, I told myself. Stop now.

  Lily and Walter had brought along a newspaper for the ride, and out of desperation I reached for it and rifled for a page they wouldn’t need — a full-page ad for some kitchen design store. The oversized-white-whatever island in the center would make a perfect frame for some Infinity Girl doodles.

  Establishing shot: Infinity Girl hides in the shadows, spying on the impenetrable fortress of Double Kross’s evil lair. The only way to escape her nemesis — without destroying her — is to infiltrate the lair and find out what villainous treachery Double Kross is up to. She uses her mirrors to disappear and finds the servants’ entrance — because of course Double Kross has servants and luxuries too many to count.

  Infinity Girl camouflages herself during an emergency delivery of French pastries. Then scrambles to hide inside a pantry in the kitchen. Because of the optical effect of her mirrors, no one sees her.

  But there are other ways she can be discovered: an accidental brush of an elbow, or a miscalculated turn down a hall. Because Infinity Girl still has body mass. She’s still a person.

  She wiggles her way into some ductwork (okay, it was too cliché — and do evil lairs even have ductwork?) and explores the cavernous estate. She comes upon the room where Double Kross is holding her Nefarious Plans meeting. She listens in. Double Kross is in the middle of schooling her minions.

  Speech-bubbles: “First of all, Infinity Girl is weak. Second: she believes everything you tell her. And third: she can’t resist showing up to the game. But — here’s the catch —” Double Kross threatens her minions with her scarlet saber. “She is so desperate to matter that she will disappear of her own accord.” Double Kross uses her saber to stab a chocolate éclair. “And that’s what makes her so hard to find.”

  I checked the farmhouse again. Nothing had changed. The tents in the distant field rippled in a short gust of wind. No one was coming or going. Everyone was inside the house discussing Jocelyn. My bladder was getting the better of me.

  I slipped out of the car and stood behind the open door. I was sure the husky was going to come charging, or the renegade girl. When nothing happened and no one came, I stepped out. Everything was static and still. The woods that lined the property weren’t that far away. I jogged for them. I was afraid to make a sound, to rouse a mysterious something out of hibernation. I tried not to look at anything as I passed. Just wanted to be done and get back to the car as quickly and inconspicuously as possible.

  The tree trunks were thin and the pine trees sparse, but it was enough to make me feel hidden. Protected even. The mat of spring growth had turned the ground into something soft and yielding. Old leaves cracked under my feet. The fresh air hit me too. It was new but also sort of familiar. Thousands of years of evolution forgotten as you find yourself back at the beginning.

  I picked a spot behind a pine tree, hidden enough from the farmhouse and tents that I had some privacy, not so far that I couldn’t see them if I peered through the branches. A low whirring wind kept me company. The relief was intense. Sweet.

  A snap of branch made me jump and I rushed to get dressed. I looked around, but couldn’t see anything moving. The rustle got louder and closer. Something coming at me over the matted ground. I found a loose branch and picked it up. The branch was so rotted it almost disintegrated in my hands.

  The rustling stopped, advanced again, and stopped. And then I saw it landing on a moss-covered rock not too far away. A crow. It settled and cocked its head to stare at me.

  I let out an embarrassed laugh. “Well, hello.”

  It looked a lot like the crow from my vision. Glossy black feathers. Thin overbite beak. Gray-black claws. But much smaller, and real. When I looked closer, there were also unexpected details. Its legs were textured like snakeskin. The black feathers along its chest were faintly speckled with cream and red. Unlike my dream-crow, but like the crow on Gray’s back, its eyes were outlined with yellow.

  Very slowly, I squatted and laid the branch down. “Are you here to give me another message?” I didn’t expect it to answer; I was just playing. “Because so far, your clues have sucked.”

  The crow tilted one of its eyes at me.

  “No offense.” I let my weight down until my butt rested on a cracked tree stump.

  The crow flared its wings, but then folded them back in again.

  “Wait —” I said, looking closer at it. “Are you hurt?”

  But it didn
’t look hurt. It looked curious.

  “Or learning to fly?”

  It didn’t look young either. Didn’t have those scruffy, downy feathers baby birds usually have. It nudged its beak at me and I almost held my breath, almost did expect it to say something. But then it settled again and seemed to wait. Its claws flexed and dug into the padding of moss on the rock.

  I remembered that thing about crows liking shiny objects. I’d seen a video once about a friendship between a family of crows and a little girl, how every day they’d leave each other tiny gifts. Crows are smart, everyone says. They recognize you. They judge you.

  I needed an ally. I checked myself for something shiny, but everything was denim or cotton or leather or nylon. I couldn’t rip off zipper-tassels or my clothes would be useless. I couldn’t pull off a button or my jeans would fall down.

  The crow cocked its head — it was watching my calculations very closely. And then I saw my hand as it fumbled over my jacket, and couldn’t help noticing the silver ring on my middle finger. It was a simple band, not fancy, not overly shiny. It represented my one pathetic act of subversion.

  When we were in grade seven, before the Krista-days, Boyd’s nanny would take us to the mall so we could hang out and pretend we were super-sophisticated. We’d buy junk and wear it for a few weeks, and then replace it with more junk, and on and on. I was the thriftiest of the bunch, and usually just trolled bins and racks without actually committing to anything. Anusha and Boyd were the worst. Bags and bags of cool this-or-thats.

  The ring had cost about twenty bucks, bought from one of those pretend-exotic shops loaded with crystals and incense and painted silk. Anusha had convinced Boyd that his style needed to go edgy, that he had to wear jewelry — jangly silver and turquoise — and all-black clothes. Boyd was always up for anything and he bought everything she endorsed. But his new look only lasted a week, maybe not even, before he was back to wearing his usual elite running shoes, track pants, basketball jerseys.

  I’d found the ring in a pile of junk on his desk when we were hanging out, and I tried it on, and it had fit. I guess I stole it. Not that he or anyone had ever noticed. And pretty soon even I forgot I was wearing it.