Chapter Two
Two
The park should be full. Halfway through June, the sun sweltering overhead and the town pool closed for maintenance all week, the town’s kids—or, technically, their parents, probably already wishing for fall and school to start back up—should naturally gravitate toward the bright plastic playground.
Apart from my siblings, the only other occupants of the playground are a young mom with a baby strapped to her chest and her toddler, who happily digs through the mulch at the base of the slide.
Golden hour is on its way out, and the beginnings of a sunset kiss the horizon with traces of deep oranges and reds.
The mom watches her son, his little hands flecked with dirt, with an intensity that makes me look to my brother, Jasper, on the swing beside me, verifying he’s still there.
“Look how high I am!” Jasper calls, kicking his legs out hard as he swings back up.
When he reaches the top, there is a millisecond where he hangs in the air, suspended, his overgrown hair standing up.
He’s overdue for a cut; I’ll have to drag him to a barbershop sometime soon.
My mom is too busy with the move and taking over the finances for the family bookstore to notice something like too-long hair.
The minutiae have never been her specialty anyway.
I flash him a smile and let it fall as soon as he rises too high to see my face.
I push off against the mulch, my swing a tenth of the height my little brother reaches.
Seven years old and braver than I’ve ever been.
I almost envy the innocence of him. Swinging as high as he can, unaware that falling is a possibility. Oblivious to how much it would hurt.
I’ve never been brave. As a kid, when my classmates on the playground competed at recess to see who could land a jump from the highest point or climb up the outside of the jungle gym the fastest, I kept my feet safely planted.
The other kids saw victory at the far end of their trek. All I saw was the fall.
“Margot!” Jasper calls. I tear my gaze from his blurry form before it makes me nauseous.
On one of the benches across from us, Margot makes a noncommittal noise.
She’s barely looked up from her phone since we got here.
Why she agreed to come along, I have no idea.
Maybe it’s for the same reason I volunteered to drag Jasper the three blocks—which is like a mile when you’re with Jasper, who is notorious for stopping to smell every single metaphorical rose. To escape for a little while.
“Margot, watch!” Jasper yells again, unsatisfied with only me as a witness. I can’t say I’m the most enthusiastic on the sidelines.
Margot huffs, lifting her head, blowing her dark bangs out of her eyes. She cocks a brow, giving her head a little shake.
“I’m watching!”
“I’m gonna jump,” Jasper says.
“Don’t you dare,” I warn.
“Bet you won’t,” Margot calls. I shoot her a glare, but her attention is already back on the phone.
My hesitance combined with Margot’s dare makes the decision for Jasper. He launches.
Jasper lands on his feet and promptly falls forward, hands and knees in the mulch. For a moment, he is silent, and I freeze on my own swing, fingers tightening around the metal chains.
“Nailed it!” Jasper calls, picking himself up out of the mulch with a giant grin on his face.
Instinctively, I flick a glance toward the mother on the other bench. She looks my way, and though I expect to find judgment in her eyes, there’s more of that unbridled intensity. But as quickly as she meets my gaze, it returns to her son, now digging a hole at the base of the smaller slide.
“Did you see, Jo? I got so high!” Jasper says.
“I did. Let’s not tell Mom you did that,” I say. Jasper’s grin doesn’t waver. He heads for the jungle gym, presumably the big slide, unfazed by how badly his little leap could have gone.
Meanwhile, I’m still stuck in the moment he hit the ground and the dozen alternatives to a safe landing. I don’t even know where the hospital is. If it’s walkable. The images flash: his eyes red-rimmed, his knees bloody, his limbs wrapped in casts.
Shaking off the lingering anxiety, I make my way over to the bench with Margot. She glances up when I sit but doesn’t say anything.
“You shouldn’t egg him on. He could get hurt,” I say.
Margot snorts. Since she turned fifteen a few months ago, most of her responses are scoffs and snorts; she rolls her eyes so much, I’m surprised they haven’t gotten stuck that way.
“He could get hurt walking on the sidewalk, too. Or getting out of bed in the morning.”
I inhale through my nose, not taking the bait.
Jasper comes flying down the tall, curly slide, landing with a thud. He sweeps his hair out of his eyes and turns, climbing back up the slide instead of wasting time on the stairs.
On the bench, the mother rests one hand on her baby’s head. She checks a watch on the other hand, and her face tightens. She pushes to her feet and gestures for the little boy.
“All right, Elijah. Time to head home.”
Elijah, knee-deep in a hole he’s made considerable progress on, frowns.
“Don’ wanna go,” he says.
“I know, sweet pea. But it’s getting late. Come on.”
At my side, Margot checks the clock on her phone.
She turns the screen my way before I can ask.
Seven p.m. In the dead of winter, when the sun can’t be bothered to stick around past dinnertime and the cold settles in like a fog, I’d understand.
But that’s one of the perks of the summer.
More time to let the kids run themselves ragged.
The sun still has another hour and a half before it fully disappears for the night. And curfew isn’t until eight.
Margot lifts a brow at me. I shrug, shaking my head.
“Elijah. Now.” The mother’s energy changes, hardens.
The little boy, Elijah, begins to cry. His mother sighs as she makes her way toward him. He cries louder and decides too late to make a run for it. His mom catches his tiny hand in hers.
“I know, baby. But it’s time to go,” she coos.
“Don’t wanna!”
She pulls him gently out of the mulch, onto the grass surrounding the playground. She makes her way toward us.
“You kids should head on home,” the mom says, lingering near our bench. She has a tight grip on little Elijah’s hand. He looks about five seconds away from a full-blown meltdown. The baby strapped to her chest, too, is starting to fuss.
I’m so shocked at the almost-instruction—coming from this complete stranger—I can’t form words. I look to Margot, who takes the order as well as she takes any, which is not at all.
“Thanks, but we’re okay,” Margot says, not at all thankful. She’s stiff, and she folds her arms over her chest.
The mom shifts her weight. Like she’s deciding whether her fight is worth it. But I have no idea why there’d be a fight at all. The mother looks between Margot and me, over at Jasper, blissfully making himself sick on the curly slide. Looks down at her own children. She lets out a sigh.
“Just be careful,” she says. “This town isn’t safe.” With that, she heads off, piling into the only car parked at the curb. Even as the minivan rumbles to life, I can feel her eyes on us until the car pulls away.
She’s talking about all the missing kids. The elusive Shadow Man rumored to be behind it all. I always figured it was easier to push the creatures in front of the tragedies than to accept that sometimes horrible things happen. And usually the monsters in the stories are people.
“That was…” Margot starts.
“Interesting,” I say.
“I was going to say weird and rude as hell.”
I can’t help a tiny laugh. The sound surprises Margot, who stills and looks my way. Her tense, hardened expression softens for a beat. She gives me a lopsided smile, and I return it.
“I didn’t know you could do that anymore,” she says. I think she means to say it sarcastically, but it comes out wrong. Gentler.
Heat rushes up my neck and across my cheeks.
“Do what?”
“You know what,” she says. As if she’s given away too much, she clears her throat and returns her attention to her phone.
I do know what. Laugh. Smile. I haven’t done much of either in the last six months. For a little while, I didn’t think I ever would again.
I clear my throat.
“We should probably get going.”
“Let’s give it five more minutes. In case that mom sees us and thinks we took her advice.”
It’s my turn to snort. “God forbid.”
Margot looks at me again, that odd look on her face. The one that reminds me that we weren’t always this way; once upon a time, we were so close, it was hard to surprise each other. Every action was expected, every reaction predictable.
Then my best friend died, and it left me stranded, bobbing on a life raft, too far from shore for anyone I love, anyone who loves me, to reach.