Messenger 93 Read online

  I played with the ring. Twisted it around my finger.

  It was off without me consciously pulling it off and I cradled it in the palm of my hand. The crow, from its perch on the rock, took notice. The ring really was pretty.

  What would the crow do with it? Would she add it to a nest? Or give it to her beloved? Or find a little girl in the woods and ask to be her friend? Whatever she chose, it would be better than what I was doing with it. Hanging on. Holding it hostage.

  I reached my hand towards the crow, the ring a miniature silver lifebuoy for her to catch. She hesitated. “Take it,” I said. I kept my voice steady and gentle. She blinked at me. “It’s okay.” She raised her wings and hopped a tentative step forward. “Come on,” I said. I was beginning to feel giddy. “Take it.”

  She was staring at the ring. I turned it so it would catch a glint of light flashing through the trees. “Take it.” She flapped her wings once more and hopped closer, landing on the leaves inches from my knees. “Please take it.”

  And then she sprang forward. I screeched and recoiled and she grabbed the ring with her beak just as I dropped it. In one fluid motion, she swooped up and into the air above me.

  It was such a relief to watch the ring fly away with her. Like it had weighed a thousand pounds.

  It was a sign, I told myself. Gray and I would get the answers we needed and we would find our girls and I’d go home and the meaning of my life would be forever etched in history. M of Arc.

  I followed the crow’s rise to the sky, the dappled late afternoon light landing on my face, and pushed myself off the rock. That’s when I saw it. Probably the only reason the crow had stuck around for so long. A dead bird at my feet, on its back, head turned to the side, beak open, tongue out, rigid claws sticking up.

  A murder of crows.

  I bolted away so fast, I practically flew.

  I landed in the open area that made up the yard, desperate to keep going, except the little renegade girl and her silver husky stepped in front of me. She was gripping the lapels of her white-sequined vest, eying me like she knew I was up to no good. I aimed for the refuge of Walter and Lily’s car.

  “Witiko,” she said when I passed her. I didn’t acknowledge her greeting — it was pretty clear it was an insult. “Witiko!” she said to my fleeing back.

  Four other little girls came out from behind the car. They stepped in front of it to block my way. They were super-relaxed, super-easy about it. I stopped, not sure where to go, or what would happen next. The oldest must’ve been about twelve/thirteen, skinny and tall, and she coddled the smaller ones, stroking their hair and pulling up drooping sweater-arms. The next oldest — maybe eleven — had a shaved head that she bopped like a rapper. The next two were younger — about nine or so, identically round-cheeked and giggling and whispering into each other’s ears.

  But the renegade girl in the white-sequined vest was the youngest of all. She came around and stood between me and the others. Her husky padded in and stood sentry beside her.

  “My dog Kimi says you want something.” Her voice was surprisingly deep for such a little kid. “Kimi says we need to ask you what it is.” She seemed to wait for me to say something. Her dog blinked its silver eyes at me. “What do you want?” she said.

  I didn’t know what to do. It was obviously a trick. Or a test.

  The girl looked at her dog. “She doesn’t know, Kimi. What do we do now?” She made a show of listening to the dog. “Huh. You think so?” She looked back at me. “Kimi says you think you’re right.” All five girls stared at me like they were waiting for my response. “But you’re not right. You don’t know the way.”

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy melting. Melting in front of them while invisibly trying to scoop myself together. I was older than them by years. Trying to keep the upper hand. Holding onto the idea that inside me, the inside me that no one could see, it was strong and surging. That I was bigger than you. Smarter.

  I wanted to hang onto that feeling. Grow it. Own it.

  I didn’t want to be humble. I wanted to pretend to be humble.

  But I couldn’t hide any of that from those girls. The littlest one burst into laughter and then the other girls started laughing too.

  “Don’t be so scared,” the renegade said. She made a show of wiping her hands. “You’re allowed to use Jocelyn’s house to wash up.” She pointed to the mobile home. “They say to tell you it won’t be long. They say don’t worry, dinner is coming.”

  Then she reeled away, and the dog went next, and the four other girls followed. The sequins on the renegade’s vest flashed and sparkled. I wondered where she’d bought it.

  I DIDN’T KNOW ANYONE who lived in a home like Jocelyn’s. It was old and run down. So, so small. Jocelyn had been forced to move here from the town she’d grown up in. Gray’s birthplace. Because her father had died.

  The little girl had said I was allowed to go inside to wash up. It would be nice to wash up.

  The front stairs were made of cinder block. The door was metal, slightly warped. It stuck when I pulled on the latch-handle, and then it burst free and almost knocked me over. I checked behind me. The yard was empty again, the farmhouse blank, its windows not yet reflecting light or revealing what was happening inside. I turned back to Jocelyn’s house.

  I was allowed to go inside.

  Every corner of the trailer was jammed. Pots and utensils — clean and stacked into each other — were rim to rim on open shelves and across every inch of the short L-shaped kitchen counter. Too much stuff and not enough place to put it. Un-opened packing boxes improvised as furniture — coffee table, side tables, plant stand. Blue marker scrawled on the sides: Henry’s clothes, Henry’s books, Henry’s instruments. Framed photos and paintings, collected documents, folded blankets, winter coats and boots, were piled in every remaining spot.

  I imagined Jocelyn here. Maybe folding her life into a tiny parcel and stacking it inside everything else.

  There was a short narrow hall that held the bathroom. I soaped and washed my hands at the sink. Checked my face in the mirror. My hair was scrunched up on one side and I scrabbled my fingers through the knots to smooth it down.

  I was a wreck. No one would look at my photo a million times.

  I should’ve left her home then. I hadn’t been given permission to do anything except wash up. But curiosity drew me the opposite way, towards the open doors that led to the two bedrooms. The first room I came to I recognized right away from the photo Gray had shown me of Jocelyn on her bed. It was tiny compared to what it had seemed. The bed, with its rumpled sheets and blanket, took up practically the whole space, and the walls were almost like a box around it. Wire hangers draped with clothing — slinky dresses, sparkly shirts, faded sweatshirts — were hooked to thumbtacks stuck in the wood paneling.

  I leaned on the bed to check the corkboard, especially interested in the corner that had been hidden in the photo behind Jocelyn’s head. Gray had been anxious to fill in that blank. If I found something interesting, I could be the bearer-of-news.

  There was the pinned paper-photo of the older man. Handsome, smiling. Leaning against a vintage pickup truck. It had to be her father. Her dead father.

  I glanced back at the cardboard boxes in the other room. Henry’s clothes, Henry’s books, Henry’s instruments. Portable gravestones.

  The corner of the corkboard that you couldn’t see in Jocelyn’s Ittch photo held two items. First, a postcard-sized flyer for a concert by the Tandem Acorns. My favorite band of all time. Jocelyn and I liked the same music. When the Acorns had been scheduled to come to the city the year before, I’d begged my parents to let me go.

  Beside the postcard was a beautiful black ink drawing of a word.

  truth

  Underneath was another word.

  nohtawi

  Both were written in spiraling calligraphy,
each letter decorated with elegant ink curlicues and streamers and hearts. I wondered if Jocelyn ever dreamed of being an artist.

  I didn’t know what nohtawi meant — I assumed it was a Cree word — but truth repeated in my head. The truth is hidden inside the fallacy. The truth is the way, painted on the city mural. Then the message the birds had created in the photos. Messenger 93. Follow him. He is the fall. He is the way. Then there was the little renegade’s warning. You think you’re right. But you’re not right. You don’t know the way.

  Was it all coming together to warn me I was on the wrong path?

  That it wasn’t Krista I was supposed to be searching for — but Jocelyn?

  Don’t be so scared, the renegade had warned me.

  I checked the details of Jocelyn’s room one more time, in case we’d missed anything. Her clothes, her jewelry, her pictures. Nohtawi. Her longing. Her pain.

  Her bed was so tempting. My body yearned to curl up under her blankets and have a long nap. But it was too Goldilocks. Who got away lucky that the bears didn’t kill her for squatting in their lives.

  I WENT BACK TO the car and shut myself inside. The question of what I was supposed to do next dissolved. I’d been offered a better, more noble mission. Not Krista. Jocelyn. I was supposed to help find Jocelyn.

  As she falls.

  The softly swaying grasses in the field were mesmerizing. Pretty soon I dozed off.

  There was a loud tap and I started awake. It was twilight-gloomy out. The sun had dropped in the west, its sunset-halo cloaking the clouds in pink and blue. There was another tap. It was one of the older kids at the car window. I’d seen him when we arrived, playing soccer and handling toddlers. He motioned for me to come with him.

  I rubbed my eyes and climbed out of the car. The air was chilly. I pulled up the hood of my coat.

  “Get your stuff,” he said as he opened the trunk and pulled out Gray’s backpack. I glanced at the farmhouse. Lights had been turned on inside, making silhouettes of some of the people moving around. Still no Gray.

  “C’mon,” the boy said. He led the way to a fire pit not far off. I grabbed my bag and followed him. He rooted inside Gray’s backpack and found the tent. “Not enough room in the house for everyone.” He emptied the small case and began connecting poles and laying out pegs. “Most of us gotta sleep outside. You down for that?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I’d never slept in a tent. Our family trips had been all hotels and resorts. I dropped my backpack and went over to help — even though I had no idea what I was doing. I smiled at him. “I’m M.”

  “Charlie.” He slid a linked rod into a tent seam.

  “Where’s Gray?” I said. Very casual.

  “Gray? Oh, you mean Gordon, right.” He sat back on his haunches and measured me. He looked about fourteen. Around Trevor’s age. “He’s getting caught up.”

  I wondered if Gray was feeling better about being here. If he was getting what he needed.

  Charlie said, “Did the girls tell you that you can use Jocelyn’s place to wash up?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said. None of my rod-pieces were fitting together. “What does Witiko mean?”

  Charlie grunt-laughed. “Why?”

  “One of them called me that.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What did you do?”

  “Walked past her.”

  He burst out laughing. “Nothing like Witiko stories to mess with a white person’s head.” He laughed harder. “Witiko is a cannibal. Haunts the woods. Has a heart made of ice. If it eats you, you turn into a Witiko. Sort of like with zombies. Only way to kill it is by melting its heart.”

  I slumped. “Great.”

  Charlie had to clamp his fist over his mouth because he was laughing so hard. “Which kid said it?”

  I was almost laughing too. “She’s about eight? White-sequined vest? Super-tough?”

  “Oh yeah.” He nodded, his fist stifling more laughter. “Vivvie. She is super-tough. She’d lay down her life for any one of us.”

  Vivvie. She was just a kid.

  I fumbled with tent rods. “Do you know Jocelyn?”

  “We grew up together. But I haven’t seen her since she moved over here with her mom.”

  “Is there any more news about her?”

  “The only thing we got is someone knows someone who saw her thumbing outside Deerhead four weeks back. Another dude thought he saw her two days ago in some random car. But the dude was driving the other way. By the time he turned around and went back to check it out, the car was gone. We can’t say for sure it was her. That’s all we have.”

  “Do you know why she would go to Deerhead?”

  “Pretty obvious.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah. Her dad died near Deerhead.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  “Murder. That’s what happened.”

  “He was murdered?”

  “Three years now.” All Charlie’s tent pieces were assembled, so he picked through the collection of parts in front of me. “Her dad was in Deerhead waiting for a ride home ’cause of a snowstorm. But when his ride showed up, her dad was gone. When he didn’t show up at home, they sent out the search party. They found his body on the side of the highway, miles from everything, frozen. Someone had picked him up — and left him out on the road. So yeah: murder.”

  Made-up pictures circled my mind of Jocelyn’s father being abandoned and dying on a winter road. I said, “So Jocelyn went down there to look for answers …”

  “You sleuthed that out by yourself?” He gave me the sarcastic-eyebrow-lift.

  Jocelyn’s father had been murdered. Of course Jocelyn wanted answers.

  Charlie shook out the nylon tarp and laid it over the ground. “Damn, this is a fine spread. Gordo’s got some serious dough. He got out of the boonies and got rich.” He pushed a peg through a loop and into the ground, and added sarcastically, “Lucky him.”

  I helped him with the pegs, and in a minute he had the tent raised. We stood and admired it together. “Thank you,” I said and he nodded. I wondered how terrified I would be sleeping out here.

  Charlie went to the fire pit and quickly assembled kindling and logs and lit a fire. I sat on one of the nearby stumps and, despite the coolness of the air and the coldness inside me, I was warmer already. He poked the flames with a stripped stick. “Got bad news for you.”

  My stomach churned. “Oh?”

  “You’re not going with them tomorrow. They’re gonna take you to the bus stop at Earl’s Diner over on Route 8 and send you back to the city.”

  The urge to cry came over me so quickly I had to flick my fingers over my eyes to hide it. “Why?”

  “This ain’t your search, man. They’ve got too much going on without worrying about your ass.” He smiled to show he was making light, but another rush of tears threatened and I coughed and tilted my head away. He saw through me and hurried to add, “Hey, it’s not so bad. The cops will find your sister. They’ll be all over a lost white girl. Don’t worry. You’ll be okay.”

  “Was it Gray’s idea?” I said. Anger was stronger to cling to than tears. “Did he convince them to send me back?”

  Charlie laughed a bit. “No, it wasn’t him. He was pulling for you. It was the adults who said no.” In an instant, my anger was gone and tears were pressing again. “They say there’s no connection between your girl and ours. Jocelyn is on her own out there.”

  He reached over and patted my shoulder. Like a middle-aged dad. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but they’re looking out for you. Just like they hope someone’s looking out for our Joce. Trust me — you’re gonna do more good in the city.” He gave me another reassuring smile. “The whole world’s got your back, girl. But we —” He circled his hand to encompass the farmhouse and everyone in it. “We only have each other.”<
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  I wanted to resist — to say that of course they had more than each other, they had all of us too. But where did Jocelyn and her father fit in with that? There were no investigations happening here. They hadn’t even traced Jocelyn’s phone.

  For a second, I considered begging Charlie to convince the adults to change their minds. I considered rushing the farmhouse myself and arguing with my deniers face-to-face. But I knew in my gut, in my heart, that I had no right. This was not my place, and I was not their problem, and my conviction that I needed to help Jocelyn because of some cryptic message from a magical crow would probably not go over.

  Charlie smiled at me, then raised an eyebrow. “You good?” A regular old high school guidance counselor.

  I blinked at the flames. The urge to cry was gone, the tears crystalized in my chest. I nodded.

  “Cool,” he said and stood up. “I’m gonna set up Lily and Walter’s tent, and then I’ll get you some chow.” And he walked off like a man with a mission.

  Boys with more problems than me taking care of me.

  I slumped again. What was I going to do tomorrow when they left me at the bus stop? How was I ever going to find missing girls if I was back in the city? I picked up Charlie’s stick and poked the burning logs. I poked them hard enough to launch tiny missile-sparks into the purple sky.

  3

  A FEW PEOPLE CAME out of the farmhouse and headed to the other tents. The campsites were lined up in a wide semi-circle around the yard. More fires sparked and roared up. I could hear the quiet murmur of voices. Charlie was setting up Lily and Walter’s tent near an unlit fire pit between my spot and the rest. I hadn’t seen Lily and Walter since they’d left me in the car. Still no sign of Gray.

  I pulled out my new Infinity Girl storyboard and smoothed the crumpled newspaper ad against my knee. It was getting dark and I angled the page to the fire so I could see what I was doing.

  Where was I? Infinity Girl is spying on Double Kross. Double Kross is planning her demise. Infinity Girl has to come up with a plan. But what?