A Girl Called Dust (13 page)

“You don’t understand.”

He was right. I didn’t. I folded my arms
across my chest. “I want you to leave now.”

Fletcher didn’t argue or give us a second
glance. He stood from the chair and left the room.

Mom came home Sunday night just as she
said she would—well, not really home, but to Grandma’s. Officer Putney promised
we’d be let back into our own house in a day or so.

“Where were you?” Grandma demanded as soon
as Mom came through the door. The whole scene was weird. Grandma was talking to
Mom like she was a teenager, and Mom looked like she was afraid of getting in
trouble.

Mom hugged me and kissed both my cheeks.
“Me and a couple of friends decided to take a spur-of-the-moment girls’ trip.
There’s this new spa in Langston. They don’t allow cell phones or any type of
technology. I had to turn in my phone when I checked in.”

She was so lying, but Grandma seemed
satisfied with her answer. Mom would never take a spontaneous trip like that,
and she would never be without her phone. If she were just going to a spa with
some friends, why hadn’t she just said so when I spoke to her on Friday
evening?

Quinn lay in the guest room, staring at
Grandma’s antique armoire. Mom had spent a great deal of time stroking Quinn’s
hair and saying nothing about Paige. Officer Putney came over that evening and
he, Mom, and I gathered around Grandma’s kitchen table while Grandma did what
she had been doing for the past day: paced the living room.

“Your husband, Mrs. Moss.” Officer Putney
asked as he opened his trusty notepad.

Mom swallowed hard. “He’s away on
business.”

“Yes, we know, but we haven’t been able to
get ahold of him. Have you?”

Mom shook her head quickly in such a way
that made me feel that she was lying. “He’s very busy.”

“I’m sure he is, but his child is missing.
Aren’t you concerned that he hasn’t been returning any of our calls?”

Putney was right. Dad’s voicemail was
full, so we couldn’t leave him any more messages. Something had to be wrong.
There was no way he wouldn’t call us back, and there were still a couple of
weeks left until his business trip was over.

“Are you looking for my daughter? What
progress have you made?” Mom asked, avoiding the officer’s questions.

“We’ve had several calls from people
claiming to have seen a girl who looks like Paige, but they haven’t turned out
to be anything. We checked the hotel your husband was supposed to be staying
at, and he wasn’t there. He’s never stayed there, in fact.”

My stomach ached. “What? What does that
mean? Where’s Dad?”

Mom placed her hand on mine. “Arden,
please. Officer Putney, he’s not staying in any hotel. He was going to, but
then he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to stay with his
brother. He hardly gets to see him and his family.”

Putney nodded as he wrote that down. “I’ll
need the name and number of that brother. Mind if I speak to Arden for a few
minutes? I just have a few questions.”

Mom tightened her grip on my hand. “Sure,
but I’m staying right here. She’s a minor. You can’t question her without me.”

Putney sighed, not hiding his annoyance.
“She’s not under investigation or anything. We’d just like a little more
information.”

“Then it should be fine if I stay,” Mom
said.

I should have felt safe with Mom there,
and I almost did. I would have felt completely safe if it weren’t for the fact
that Dad didn’t have a brother.

Chapter Fifteen

Officer Putney got called outside for a
few moments before he had the pleasure of questioning me again. Grandma put on
some chamomile tea, and we moved to the living room.

“Don’t give him more information than you
need to,” Mom said.

I nodded, although I didn’t fully
understand. Didn’t she want to find Paige? Why wasn’t she more upset?

Putney came back inside and graciously
accepted a cup of my grandmother’s tea. He slurped it instead of sipping, and I
could feel Mom seething beside me.

“Arden, aside from the broken window,
there’s no sign of anyone coming into your home on Friday night. We even
checked the surveillance cameras your family has set up. No one set foot in
your yard, the front or the back, that night except for you.”

“Yeah, I went back there after Paige was
gone to see if I could find anything. If Quinn is right, you wouldn’t have seen
anyone in our yard, and the cameras are set up to catch the first story only.”

Officer Putney raised one eyebrow at me.
“You want to stick to the story of the flying man?”

I squeezed the teacup in my hands. No, I
didn’t want to stick with that story, but it was all I had. It was the only
thing that made sense, yet it didn’t make sense. Also, Fletcher said it had
happened, and he had no reason to lie about that.

He set his empty teacup down on the table.
“You three girls were home alone, and one of you disappeared. Did something
happen? Did you fight or something?”

“Officer Putney, what exactly are you
suggesting?” Mom demanded, and I wanted to know the same thing.

“A witness has come forward. They claim
they saw you and your sisters in Gerdy’s that night. They said you and Paige
had a big fight because she wasn’t listening to you.”

Freaking Lacey. It had to be her.

“Maybe the fight continued at home,”
Officer Putney went on, “and you lost control and hurt Paige.”

“Okay, this is over,” Mom snapped. “I want
you to leave now.”

“Your so-called witness is Lacey Chapman,
isn’t it? Lacey is a liar. The only problem Paige had that night was with
Lacey, because Paige was sticking up for me. Me and Paige weren’t fighting at
all.” My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. Why couldn’t I speak with
more conviction in my voice? “The glass from the window was in Paige’s room,
which means someone broke it from the outside, right? I would never hurt my
sisters. And if I had done something to her, you would have found her in the
house, wouldn’t you?”

“Arden, quiet!” Mom glared at Putney. “Get
out,” she demanded.  

Officer Putney slowly rose and made his
way to the door. “Fine, but we’re going to do everything we can to find that
little girl, and until we get ahold of your husband, he’s a suspect. If I find
out you’ve been in contact with him without informing me, I will have you
charged with hindering an investigation and obstruction of justice.”

I felt sick, but Mom didn’t look the least
bit worried. “Good night, Officer.”

We were allowed back home the following
day. Mom allowed me to stay home from school, and I was glad. The only thing
worse than being ignored and treated like dust was having people who didn’t
even like you feel sorry for you. Also, I thought that if I saw Lacey, I would
slug her and get myself suspended or expelled. Fletcher had wanted to meet me
in the park, but I’d refused. I had no desire to speak to him. He might tell me
more crazy things I’d decided I didn’t want to hear.

Although I tried to stay up, my body
wouldn’t let me. I fell asleep dreaming of winged boys coming to snatch me from
my bed during the night.

Quinn began to move around and answer
questions with one-word answers, but she wouldn’t talk about Paige or what had
happened to her. Any time we mentioned Paige, Quinn would shut right back down.

Wednesday morning, Norma came over to do
her biweekly housecleaning. Mom and I were eating breakfast when Norma went out
back to empty the trash. She screamed, and Mom and I rushed out to see what was
wrong. Paige lay on the back porch asleep and shivering. She wore what looked
like a filthy homemade gown made of patches. Normally Paige wouldn’t have been
caught dead in a garment like that.

No matter what we tried, Paige wouldn’t
wake up. Mom said she had probably been drugged. We called for an ambulance
immediately, and Paige was taken to the hospital. This was all too much. First
Quinn. Then Paige. Was I next in line for a hospital stay?

Paige was examined, and thankfully she
hadn’t been harmed except for a small, deep cut on the back of her left
shoulder. At least she was alive, and unlike Quinn, the minute she was cleared
of her grogginess and the doctors were done examining her, Paige was talking a
mile a minute.

“Me and Quinn were about to give each
other makeovers and then something thumped against the window. At first we
thought it was a tree branch, but it was a guy, and he was just floating there.
Then he broke the window and grabbed me. He stuck me with something that made
me fall asleep, so I didn’t know how we got where we got. When I woke up, I was
in a gray room with beds and TVs and computer screens. Him and some other weird
people kept looking at me and whispering about me. Some of them looked like
monsters. They weren’t mean though. They fed me and everything, but they said I
was just a stupid Human, and they brought me back.”

Just a stupid Human? What were they?

Officer Putney didn’t seem too happy to
hear that Paige’s story matched what I’d told him. He eyed us all suspiciously.
“Something is wrong here. Parents who can’t be reached. A mysterious uncle we
can’t get ahold of. Your daughter goes missing and then she mysteriously
reappears? Maybe you’re all making this stuff up for attention.”

Yeah, it sounded crazy when you said it
out loud like that, but we hadn’t asked for any of it to happen.

 Putney and Mom had a yelling match,
the police left, and we were on our own.

That night, Grandma wanted to stay over
but Mom insisted she didn’t. Mom tucked each of us into bed, which was
something she hadn’t done for me since I was eight.

“It’s been a long day. Lights out for
everyone,” Mom said before she went into Quinn’s room then Paige’s, then she
came to mine.

A book was propped open on my knees when
Mom came in, but I had no intentions of going to sleep. I didn’t know how much
longer I could dodge sleep, but I had too. I also needed to ask Mom about
Fletcher’s accusations.

She smoothed my hair back and kissed me on
my forehead. “One more chapter and that’s it. You really need to get some
rest.”

“I can’t go to sleep.”

Mom’s face scrunched with concern. “You
want me to give you something?”

“No. I can’t sleep because I don’t want
to. I’m afraid to.”

“I know what happened to Paige was very
scary, but—”

“Where’s Dad? You told Officer Putney he
was staying with his brother, but Dad’s an only child. Why didn’t he come home
when Paige was missing? He’d never stay away when something like that
happened.”

Mom took my hand and squeezed it. “It’s
late. We’re both tired. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

If we didn’t have the conversation then,
it was never going to happen. “No. Tell me now.”

“He’s away on business. That’s all.”

“Am I your daughter? Your real daughter?”

Her eyes filled with tears immediately,
and that should have answered the question for me. “Of course you are. What
kind of question is that?”

“Then why are you crying? Fletcher was
right, wasn’t he? That’s why Dad got so mad when he said you couldn’t be my
parents because you smelled different. I don’t know what that means, but
there’s a reason he said it.”

Mom blotted her tears with her index
fingers. “Something is wrong with that boy. You shouldn’t believe anything he
tells you.”

“I don’t look like anybody in this family.
Not anyone. Aunts, cousins, grandparents. No one.”

Mom squeezed my hand gently. “You can’t go
by that. Genetics can be a funny thing. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I want us to take a DNA test. If you’re
really my parents, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

She sobbed harder. I hated the fact that
she was crying, but I needed answers.

“Mom, please. Something is wrong. Well,
maybe not wrong, but different about me. I have a right to know. Not knowing is
driving me crazy, and it’s not fair.”

Mom swallowed hard and then squeezed my
hand tighter. “I went into labor the day before Halloween when I was eight
months pregnant. You were supposed to be a Thanksgiving baby, but you wanted to
come a month early. Your father was still out of town. You know he’s gone every
October. Anyway, I was by myself, and everything was happening so fast. All I
know is that I gave birth to this tiny pink baby with gray-blue eyes and a
patch of white fuzz on her head. They took her away to clean her up and I fell
asleep.

“When I woke up, beside me in a cradle was
a pale baby with a head covered with jet-black hair and the largest black eyes
I’d ever seen. There was no way it could have been the same baby. I screamed
for the nurses and told them the baby in the cradle wasn’t mine.” Me. She’d
told them that I wasn’t her baby. “They all insisted that she was. No one
besides the hospital staff had been there to see the other baby and to back me
up, but I knew. A mother knows. I knew you weren’t truly my child. They said I
was crazy and suffering from some sort of postpartum depression.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. I wasn’t
hers and Dad’s, and she was disappointed about it.

“But Arden, you are my child. None of that
matters. I loved you from that day to this one. I couldn’t love you any more if
you had really come from me.”

This was too much. Way too much to take
in.

I had more questions to ask, but I was
drained from learning that my mother wasn’t really my mother. I had expected
it, but actually hearing it from her knocked the wind out of me. If Mom and Dad
weren’t my real parents, who was? Where was their real daughter? Why had we
been switched? Somehow getting the answers to one question had only produced
several more.