17 & Gone (37 page)

I was a kid. But also, I know she’s right.

I’ve seen the girls in reflective surfaces:

mirrors and windows, and once in the

exceptionally clean surface of a fork

from the dishwasher. And I’ve seen the

girls in small spaces, where they emerge

only if no one’s looking, and in the trees,

where the shadows make good places to

hide. But I don’t know how being out in

the open, with the pine forest all around

and no roof above, will let them know

it’s safe to emerge. The only other way

is the flicker of flame, the mask and

smell of smoke. That’s why we have to

do it, Fiona says.

Once we do, they’ll be lured out, and

so will their stories. I think of them like

apples bobbing to the surface of water,

though these are real girls, and real

girls’ heads. Soon, families and friends

will have closure. Mysteries will be

untied and left out in the sun for the

finding. I’ll mourn every last one of

them, hoping against hope I’m wrong.

And Abby Sinclair, the girl my

thoughts keep returning to. The one girl

whose end I can’t see. Her story starts

here, on this closed-off tract of land in

the pines. She’ll have to step out of the

woods once the fire starts. How could

she ignore us now?

When the fire catches the kindling and

begins to burn, I warm my hands over

the growing flames. I don’t let myself

think about Jamie, who I ditched at the

hospital. Or my mom, who’s surely

gotten a phone call that I’m not there and

is in a panic trying to figure out where I

could be. I mean, I think about them, but

only for a moment. Fiona stops me. She

wants me to see . . .

At this high point, looking over the

campground, all the dark, empty cabins

can be viewed. The mess hall, the arts-

and-crafts cabin, the chapel, the empty

flagpole flapping its loose string in the

billowing wind. Abby Sinclair spent her

last days here, and now—side-eying

Fiona, who drifts fire-bright at the edge

of the stones—I wonder if this is where

I’m about to spend mine.

The fresh night air clears my head. It’s

cold, but it’s cleansing, and I can think

again the way I used to.

I stand up. I pat my pockets, feeling

for a cell phone, and remember I had no

cell phone at the hospital, so I have no

cell phone here. For a second, I’m on a

frozen, windy hill in a vacant, forgotten

place on a late January night and I don’t

know why.

Then I see what Fiona has been trying

to show me.

The snow has disappeared to make

way for the sidewalk. The cracks are the

same, and I avoid stepping on them, and

the black iron gate swings open with a

shriek and a creak, the way it always

does. The stairs don’t crumble under my

weight the way I sometimes suspect they

might as I approach the door, and the

door pushes open, because it’s never

kept locked, not for any of us, not for me.

Inside the house is a wall of heat,

from the fire. It climbs high to eat a

gaping hole out of the ceiling. I duck

when the chandelier drops and falls. I’m

so deep in it, the heat should blister my

skin and catch and blaze up my clothes,

but I can’t feel a thing. It doesn’t touch

me.

That’s when they start to come out,

one girl from behind the banister, and

one girl from another room. One from

within the folded curtains, and one from

the floor, since there’s no furniture to sit

on. They come from upstairs, where

their rooms are, and they gather here

with me.

There’s a flicker, and I lose sight of

the house and can see only the quiet

campground again. The fire burns from a

pit of ash and sticks and branches at my

feet.

But then the night flickers back to

what it was, to what Fiona knew would

happen. They’ve been smoked out, as

she said they would be. Smoke clears to

show that the girls are here. The girls I

haven’t seen since getting sent away.

Now they surround me.

Natalie Montesano, who thought for

sure her friends would come back for

her, who never thought they’d leave her

behind in the crushed car on the sleek,

steep road after the accident, but when

they did, she took off and she didn’t look

back. Even when she wanted to.

Shyann Johnston, who sometimes

fantasizes she could glide through the

school hallways again, but this time with

a sawed-off shotgun tucked under her

arm, because they’d see it and they’d

shut their mouths. And when the

hallways emptied, she’d put the gun

down on the floor because it’s not like

she’d ever use it and she’d get a drink

from the water fountain, which she’s

never been able to do before without

getting shoved in, and she’d smile.

Isabeth Valdes, who thinks she

wouldn’t have gotten in the strange car if

she hadn’t been carrying all those books

in the rain, and she wouldn’t have been

carrying all those books if she didn’t

have three tests on Monday, so if she

didn’t have three tests on Monday she

might still be here.

Madison Waller, who bought herself

three fashion magazines for the bus ride

into the city, who’s practicing her face

for the camera even now, even though

nobody who’s anybody can see her.

Eden DeMarco, who only wanted to

see the Pacific Ocean, who only wanted

to touch it with her toes, that’s all.

Yoon-mi Hyun and Maura Morris,

who both think love changes a person for

the better, and both agree that it
is

possible to find your soul mate at age

17, no matter what your parents may say

when you bring the girl home.

Kendra Howard, who expects she’s

the bravest, baddest, most kickass girl

those guy friends of hers have ever

known, and bets they still spend nights

talking about her, still toast her memory

over cold beers, saying how high she

leaped, how far she fell, how she had

balls, and she’ll never be forgotten, RIP.

Jannah Afsana Din, who believes

starting a new life with Carlos in

Mexico

wouldn’t

have

been

as

impossible as people said—they could

have lived on the beach together and

raised chickens; they could have sold the

little cakes she makes on the streets and

survived, even flourished, even found

happiness.

Hailey Pippering, who’s done some

things she can’t say out loud because it’d

make her sick; she only wants her

parents to know that she didn’t run away

this time, even if they think she did. This

time, she wanted to stay.

And Trina Glatt, who always meant to

track down the father who abandoned

her when she was a baby, so she could

throttle him and blame him for every bad

thing that ever happened to her, but also,

secretly, so she could hug him, and admit

she missed him, and if he invited her to a

baseball game, or to the backyard, to

throw a Frisbee around or something,

she’d probably go. She’d tell him that, if

she could.

There are a lot of things the girls

would tell the people they left behind, if

they could.

All those girls. So many to keep track

of tonight, my head swirling. Only,

something’s missing. Something’s not

right here. The circle of girls comes

close and then weaves tighter around

me. I can’t tell if I’m at the center or if

the fire is.

The night flickers.

What I thought were the soot-streaked

walls of the house are the tall stalks of

the pine trees; the staircase to the upper

floors is the side of the mountain leading

up to the looming ridge; the ceiling

doesn’t end because it’s the night sky.

Pinpricks of flurries rain down, as soft

as ash but cool on my cheeks. My

surroundings keep shifting: I’m at Lady-

of-the-Pines, in the ring of stones where

the campers toast marshmallows in

summer. Then I’m in the house in my

dream. My dream is here, or this place

has become a part of it; I don’t know the

difference.

The girls’ hands are tightly clasped,

though there’s no singing. This isn’t

summer camp. This isn’t the kind of

night for belting out “Row, Row, Row

Your Boat” and holding a flashlight to

ghoul up your face and tell ghost stories.

The ghosts tonight have already told

their stories.

I cast my eyes around the fire. I still

can’t shake that something’s not how it’s

supposed to be. Madison’s bright-blond

hair seems wild in the fire, and there’s

an uncountable number of stars in her

eyes, but it’s not her. Trina shoots me a

threatening glare, but it’s not her, either.

Then I know: Yes, the girls have come

out. Some (Jannah, Hailey) have only

recently become familiar and I barely

know their full stories yet, and some

(Natalie, Shyann) are girls I feel like

I’ve known since first grade. But there’s

one whose face I can’t find in the roaring

glow, one I keep looking for in the

hissing, dizzying circle of smoke,

thinking I must have missed her.

Thinking they’re moving too fast, and if

they’d only slow down or stop so I

could see her.

Where’s Abby?

She doesn’t step out of the smoke. She

still hasn’t come. I haven’t gotten her

out. All this, and I haven’t found her.

I turn to Fiona to ask what happened. I

see Fiona now, at the edge of the ring,

not holding a hand, not taking a step

inside, only watching. Only waiting. An

observer to a disaster about to occur,

standing back so she can wipe her hands

of it after.

She wants me to join the girls. It’s not

fair that I’ve been living my life out in

the daylight, driving my van down any

road I want, walking into any house I

want, seeing the people who love me at

any moment, on any day. She’s forgotten

I’ve been in the hospital, unable to have

any of these things, either. Because

surrounding us is an entire sky made of

shadows, and there’s no escaping your

fate.

I’m 17. Like she was, like they all

were.

Then Fiona meets my eyes, and I

question my distrust of her. I question

everything.

Because no, she didn’t bring me here

to get rid of me. She expected Abby to

come out, just as I did. She’s looking at

the fire, waiting and wondering where

she is, too.

Then she makes a decision.

She grabs my arm. I can’t tell if I’m

feeling her touch or if what’s come back

is a memory of her touch, from before.

Her hand has a hard grasp of my arm,

reminding me of that night when I was

still eight and she was 17 as she is now,

when she grabbed me and shoved me in

the closet. But tonight it hurts so much

more than it did then because she’s

grabbing my left arm, my bad arm.

We’ve got to burn the place down,

she says.

No, no, wait, we can’t yet, I try to tell

Fiona. Abby’s not here. Aren’t we

supposed to find Abby first, and only

after can we—

But I’m not fast enough to catch her.

Fiona’s racing down the hill with the

bottle of kerosene in her arms. It’s too

late. She will start the destruction

without me.

—
60
—

SHE’S
telling me to do it. She’s

telling all of us, pulling our strings and

giving commands. Soon the girls have

sticks gathered from the outskirts of the

woods that they raise to light the way,

and soon the kerosene can is in my good

arm and the spout is open and the liquid

is dribbling out on my toes.

I start to wonder: Is it too late for

Abby? Fiona is acting like it might be.