“Yeah,” she says. “I can give you that.”
17
Gretchen’s face is everywhere. Footage of the corn maze and the ambulance carrying her speeding down the dirt road leading to the highway dominates the top of every news hour.
I called Grandma Lou on my way home from the corn maze and told her everything. On Sunday morning, she let me sleep in until noon and even then, all she did was open the blinds and bring me toast and orange juice in bed. It all reminds me too much of the weeks following Mom and Dad’s death and how she just let me mope for a while and sit in my feelings before nudging me out of my room and back to normal. Most people want you to get over things too fast. It’s like your sadness makes them uncomfortable. It’s an inconvenience. But not Grandma Lou. Maybe it was losing her husband (my grandfather and my dad’s dad) so early in life or maybe it’s just the way she was built, but Grandma Lou’s never shied away from the hard stuff.
Later that day, Matt and Ches come over and I rehash it all. Instead of asking me a bunch of questions, they pile up in my bed with me and watch reruns of The Grove from my parents’ generation.
Ches doesn’t even bring over homework. She just holds my head in her lap and braids my hair over and over again while Matt and I mouth along to some of the more iconic scenes we know by heart.
That night before they leave, Ches digs in her bag and comes up with a small bundle of twigs and sage. “To smudge your room,” she explains. “It’ll help. Do you mind?”
Matt smirks, forever a nonbeliever.
“Of course not,” I tell her.
Matt and I sit perched on the edge of the bed while Ches lights the edge of the bundle with a lighter and then blows it out, before using the smudge stick to outline the door and then the perimeter of the room. Finally, she takes the empty jewelry dish on my dresser that Miss Ella gave me for my thirteenth birthday and places the smudge stick on top. She lies down on the floor and reaches beneath my bed with the dish and smudge stick.
“For restful sleep,” she calls from beneath the bed frame.
Matt looks to me and we both share a smile. “I love that little witch,” he whispers.
I nod. I do too. I really do. Ches isn’t one for sweeping affectionate gestures or fancy gifts, but this is a specifically Ches way of letting me know she cares, and it means so much. Even if it is just a bundle of twigs and sage beneath my bed.
On Monday morning, as I’m waiting for Matt and Ches, the chilled morning air laces through my hair.
I watch as Miss Ella, her housecoat wrapped tight around her shoulders, shuffles down her walkway to pick up her paper. She beckons me with the rolled-up newspaper, and I step over her flower beds.
“Something’s up with Lou,” she says, not bothering to sugarcoat it. “Her brain’s all wrong.”
Defensiveness boils up in me. But she’s right, and the thought makes me nauseated. “I think she’s just getting forgetful.”
Miss Ella eyes me pointedly. “I’m doing my best to keep an eye on her, but you might want to start driving that car to school during the day. I can take her wherever she needs taking.”
Something in me crumbles at that little bit of kindness. “I just . . .” I can’t make myself finish for fear of crying.
She grips my arm with her free hand. “Sometimes these things are slow as lava and other times they’re as sudden as an avalanche. Let’s hope for lava.”
I nod as Matt honks his horn.
“I’ll take the car tomorrow,” I tell Miss Ella.
I’m quiet the whole way to school, and thankfully, Matt and Ches take it as a result of the weekend I’ve had, but question after question plagues me. What if Grandma Lou really has Alzheimer’s or dementia? Are those even two different things? Can we keep it a secret long enough for me to turn eighteen? I don’t think I could bear leaving her. Has Grandma Lou made legal arrangements? The kind that Mom and Dad never had. In fact, if I didn’t have Grandma Lou as next of kin, who knows what would have happened to me?
As I’m getting out of the car, Ches catches me by the wrist. “You okay?”
“We can skip if you want,” offers Matt.
Ches gives him a look.
“You and I can skip,” Matt clarifies.
I take their hands. “I’m good.” I’ll tell them about Grandma Lou. I will. But for now I just want to get through today.
Johnny is waiting for me at the entrance to the school. I’d texted him to let him know I was fine but ended up ignoring his requests to come over yesterday. It was easier to cocoon myself with Matt and Ches.
I let go of Matt’s and Ches’s hands, so that I can give Johnny a hug. I can feel the anxiety and worry radiating off him.
“I’m so sorry we got split up,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, just like I did over text message. “It really is.”
We walk into school with Ches and Matt close behind.
“Did you have to talk to the police?” Johnny asks.
I sigh. “Yeah. It was fine. Have you heard anything about how Gretchen is doing?”
“Still in a coma,” he says. “Well, not a coma, but whatever state she was in when you found her.”
Matt and Ches wave as they head past us toward their lockers, and I pull Johnny into a little alcove a few steps before the journalism room.
“Johnny.” My voice drops to a whisper. “Her eyes were glazed over . . . and it was like . . . nothing was left inside of her. It was like . . . it was like a Dementor from Harry Potter had attacked her.” A chill runs up my spine.
“It’s all linked,” says Johnny, voicing the creeping thought I’d had in the back of my head. “It has to be. The missing people. The missing dogs.”
“There was a dog a few weeks back. At the shelter. A Good Samaritan brought him in. He’d been dumped on the side of the road, but his whole body was rigid and he had that same glazed-over look about him. Like he’d seen a ghost.”
Johnny’s eyes go wide. “Where’s that dog? What happened to that dog?”
I shrug. “Dr. Bryner took him to the vet school at the university for more testing. We couldn’t really do much for him.”
Johnny deflates a little as the bell rings.
“Let’s get to journalism, and then after that we’ll sit down and make a list of everything we know.”
I nod fiercely. I knew I wasn’t just imagining things, and knowing Johnny feels the same way reinvigorates me.
We walk into journalism a few seconds late and Mrs. Raburn’s shoulders slump a bit as we do, like she was expecting someone else. “This is just . . . has anyone seen Colleen? She’s been out for a week now.”
“A whole week?” asks Johnny. “How is that possible? She hasn’t missed a day since . . . well, ever. Right?”
As I sink into my seat, I realize just how possible that is. We’re on an A/B schedule, so we only meet every other day, and then there’s the fact that people like Colleen are just easier to miss than others. She’s soft-spoken and keeps to herself. In fact, I’ve never even seen her talk to anyone else outside a classroom setting. Like those homeless people, it’s all too easy for someone like Colleen to fall off the radar.