17 & Gone (23 page)

Yoon-mi Hyun and Maura Morris:

Gone 2007 from Milford, Pennsylvania.

Both age 17.

— — —

KENDRA

Kendra ran to the edge of the cliff and

waved to all her friends. “Guys, guys!”

she called. “I’m gonna do it. Watch!”

Kendra had seen the guys jump the

cliffs before—one of the guys would

take a running leap to clear the

outcropping of rocks and cannonball into

the bright blue basin of water below.

The splash would be terrific. Then

there’d be those heart-pounding moments

after the jumper went in, when he was so

deep no trace of him could be made out,

and then, just when some coward was

thinking of dialing 911, the surface of the

lake would shatter.

The jumper would surface, whooping

and yelling, and the next guy would get

in line to see if he could make a bigger

splash.

None of Kendra’s friends had ever

jumped off this particular cliff—the

highest point above the lake—and she

knew they were too chickenshit to try.

She’d be legend.

She powered through the run, took the

leap, and her body set sail. Gravity took

hold and air rushed around her as she

started to fall. It sang her name.

When she hit water, she didn’t expect

it to sting so much. She’d fallen

sideways, and the impact was a surprise,

and the cool temperature of the water

was also a surprise, and she was sinking

fast, going deeper than she knew the lake

could go. Traces of foam surrounded

her, forming a tunnel that seemed to bury

her in the wet and sopping center of the

Earth.

She looked up and up, and up and up

some more. That pinpoint of golden light

at the highest height of the blue above

her was the sun, she knew, casting down

over the water. All she had to do was

swim up to reach it.

How far could it be?

Kendra Howard: Gone 2012, from

Greenwich, Connecticut. Age 17.

—
33
—

EVERY
night it seemed I was out on

the cracked sidewalk again, feeling that

distinctive pinch of smoke in my throat

as I approached the front gate. I was

climbing the stairs and ignoring the bell

—because there’s no need to ring a

doorbell in a place that’s like home—

and going in. I always went in.

The house was brighter, the flames

having caught the drapes and only

beginning to dance in delight across the

vaulted ceilings.

I didn’t know if this was a new fire,

set from a flick of Fiona Burke’s lighter,

or if time had woven in on itself and the

remnants of fire I saw on nights before

this were meant to become this one, this

fire that still had a chance to build and

rage.

Still, the flames didn’t hurt us. We

lived with them like we would the

quirks of any ordinary house, the way my

mom and I constantly catch our socks

and pant hems on the loose nail in the

floorboard in the upstairs hallway, but

we’ve never bothered getting it fixed.

The house was getting crowded now

as each new girl arrived. Voices coasted

down corridors and stairways, echoing

so it sounded like they were repeating

ever after the same things.

Two of the newest girls were moving

in. They wanted to share a room, since

they came here together, and they didn’t

want to spend a night apart.

I met them on the stairs outside and

noticed they were holding hands.

What is this place?
Yoon-mi asked

me as she eyed the door. Yoon-mi wore

a hat that hid her long hair, so she

seemed made of only two bright brown

eyes.

Beside her, Maura wore her own hair

tightly tied back, pulling sharply at the

skin of her scalp. Only when they were

alone did she take down her hair. She

whispered something and then Yoon-mi

asked that question also, for the both of

them.

Why are we here?

“It’s where you live now,” my dream-

self told them, holding open the door so

they could join the others. Once they

made it through, I pushed the door

closed. And I wondered: They wouldn’t

get out, would they? Now that they were

here, they were as good as stuck and I

couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

They must have read the curse of this

place from off my face. Maybe they

thought

I

was

the

one

who’d

manufactured

their

doom,

who

commanded this house and kept them

bound here. I expected them to fight me,

claw at my arms and try to push open the

door to get out onto the ashy street, but

they didn’t seem too upset so long as it

was both of them on the same side of that

door.

There was one girl, though, who

couldn’t accept it—the curse of what

being in this house meant for her fate.

For her plans.

Whenever I saw Madison, she was

trying to find a way out. The house had

many windows, some with no glass left

in the frames so it should be easy to

jump through and hit the sidewalk

running, but none of the girls could leave

through the windows or even the front

door. If they could make it to the rooftop,

if the crumbling stairs didn’t cave in on

the way up, they still couldn’t take a

flying leap to reach the bottom.

Something always stopped them.

Still, Madison had tried every one of

the exits. She’s got someone to meet,

she’d

go

around

saying.

That

photographer. It was really all she talked

about—how she had to leave and get

back to his place, how they never did get

around to finishing the pictures for her

portfolio.

Madison hated that I could simply

come and go and she couldn’t, so she

tried to block the door to keep me with

her. It was only fair, she told me. It’s not

like anyone would want to take
my

picture, with my choppy haircut and my

ugly boy boots and my face, which was

okay, she conceded, but nothing special.

She held her leg across, her back

wedged against the frame. She was tall,

and her legs were quite long. Her top leg

was propped up just high enough that I

couldn’t hop over. Her bottom leg was

propped lower, so I couldn’t crawl

under. She wouldn’t budge.

Why do you think you keep coming

back here, Lauren?
she asked me. She

spoke as if she were only curious, but I

could see on her face it wasn’t that.

She wanted me to stay this night and

the next. She wanted me here all nights,

and it wasn’t because she liked my

company. It was only that if she had to

be here, she wanted me to have to stay,

too.

One night you’ll come back and you

won’t be able to get out again,
she said.

There was a threat in her words,

something unspoken. All the girls had

that unsaid question in their eyes when

they looked at me. I was in danger, too,

wasn’t I? Because why else did I know

about this place, and them—why else

was I here like they were?

Madison was very blond in the dream,

even more so than in the pictures posted

all over her online profiles. It was like a

fire was still burning somewhere, or

flashbulbs were dancing in her hair.

One night you won’t be able to get

out,
she said again. Then she adjusted

her leg, lowering it a smidge, and in that

quick moment, I leaped over her shin

and darted out the door. She
called after

me as I made it down the front stairs and

into the street,
I’m the one he wants to

take pictures of. Not you.

I always did make it out, every time.

And though the voices stayed with me,

snippets of the things they said (
You

should’ve seen me jump, man,
Kendra

was going,
you should’ve seen me.
Or

Isabeth, more quietly,
I should have

walked. It was only rain. I should have

just walked home.)
cascaded through my

head like little lullabies sometimes,

other times like cymbals crashing.

These girls were here inside the house

and they couldn’t get out—and maybe,

no matter how much it pained me, this

meant they were dead.

But there was one girl who hadn’t set

foot in the house yet. I’d looked, and I

still couldn’t see her. She’d reached out

to me, and it wasn’t to keep ahold of her

story, to record it when no one else was

listening, to hear her confessions, her

regrets. To know her like no one else on

the outside could. There had to be

another reason.

She was different, wasn’t she? She

was the one I could keep from ending up

here. Maybe even save.

—
34
—

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013, at 10:03

AM,

Cassidy

Delrio

wrote:

Lauren,

Sorry it took me a little while to

write you back. Yeah, if you’re

around campus and you want to get

coffee or whatever just let me

know. I get out of econ at 2:40, then

I have anthro at 4:10, so if you

could meet me at like 3? Sorry

about your friend. She was sweet. I

really don’t know why she ran

away, none of us counselors did.

Sucks you haven’t heard from her,

for real. But if that’s not a bummer

and you still want to come by and

talk about it, that’s cool. I have an

hour to kill.

Cass

—
35
—

I
was in math class when the message

from Abby’s camp counselor came

through on my phone. Which meant I had

to leave. Right then. I couldn’t think

about sines or cosines or try and fail to

find the hypotenuse on the triangle when

I knew I could meet her today, if only I

could leave school and drive down

there.

I raised my hand, and Ms. Torres said

couldn’t I wait until the bell rings? I

assured her I’d be quick even though I

wouldn’t be, because it won’t matter,

will it? Trigonometry, after you’re gone.

Jamie was sitting a few rows behind

me in class, and his eyes followed me to

the door. When I closed it and gave one

last backward glance through the

window slit, he was still staring.

Glaring actually. He knew I wasn’t

planning on coming back—but he wasn’t

trying to stop me from leaving.

I grabbed my coat from my locker and

then headed for the main hallway, the

closest way out. The lockers in this

hallway were red, and the floors were

checkered in black-and-white, making

the exit bob and swim out there in the far

distance. I could see down the long

corridor into the sunlight beyond: the

south parking lot, unguarded, the

gleaming windshield of my van. There

was more I needed to find out about

Abby, and I felt drawn to talk to this

Cassidy girl, to someone who’d been

there with her that summer. There was

more, and I could learn what it was . . .

If I could just get myself out of this

building.

“The bathrooms are that way,” a

voice said. “I mean, if you’re using that

hall pass for what I think you’re using it

for.”

I paused in the empty hallway and

looked back. Around the corner, braced

by a wall of teal-painted lockers, stood

a tall girl. A real one.

I blanked on her name for a moment,

like I barely even knew her, and then it

came to me: Deena Douglas. Deena of

the fake eyelashes and the smoky voice,

of the boyfriend who was six years older

and the habit of sucking her thumb when

she slept and then denying it when she

woke, even when it was sticky with