Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
I don’t make it farther than the tree line before Finn materializes in front of me. I stumble, narrowly avoiding a nasty fall.
“For the love of—” I say. I steady myself and shoot him a glare. “Don’t do that.”
“What are you doing?” Finn asks, looking around us like the answer to his question lives in the thick bark and gnarled branches.
I turn up my chin. To be fair, I don’t even know what I’m doing. Like if I keep walking, keep exploring, the answers to the decades-old mystery will fall at my feet.
“Walking,” I say.
He narrows his eyes. Folds his arms over his chest.
“Bullshit.”
“I’m going to the creek.” I try to keep walking, but he jumps back in front of me. I let out an exasperated sigh. “Sloane told me that her and Aisha’s last memories are near the creek, too. I wanted to look. See if there’s anything out there.”
“If there was, wouldn’t the dozens of cops or search parties have found it?”
“Maybe.” Definitely. “Maybe not.”
“So?”
“So,” I say, and step around him. This time, when he jumps in my way, I walk through him, ignoring his curse.
Finn chews on the inside of his cheek. “It’s not safe out here alone. Or have the dozen-plus missing kids escaped your notice?”
It’s a fair point. One I can’t bring myself to care about. It’s barely dinnertime, the sun still safely above our heads. As illogical as it is, it feels safe during the day. And the fact that he’s trying to talk me out of it only makes the urge to keep going stronger.
“I’m going,” I say, not slowing my pace.
Finn grumbles something I don’t catch, but he doesn’t disappear.
He trails behind me along the footpath through the woods. He is as silent as a nonmaterial person can be but curses beneath his breath every minute or so to remind me he’s still there and not happy about it.
The first few minutes are through thicker brush, but once we hit the main path, worn down by hundreds of other shoes, the brush clears and afternoon light cuts through the canopy.
I hear the creek before we reach it. It snaps and cracks beyond the opening in the trees, past the tall grass and down the grassy shore.
The creek is wide, deep, and fast enough to be dangerous when it swells during the warmer months.
Each summer, when we arrived the adults bombarded me, Margot, and Jasper with warnings to steer clear of it.
Margot and I always planned to investigate but never did.
Jasper was too young to even think about disobeying back then.
Beyond the creek, the grassy bed leads into more trees.
Thirty years ago, the town’s electrical plant was tucked in the woods behind the creek, but such an isolated location was always a problem.
The service road was blocked half the time by falling logs or muddy from creek runoff.
It shut down ages ago, and apart from whatever’s left of the old building, it’s nothing but forest and mountain out here.
The original property boundary for my aunt’s house sits right past the opposite side of the creek.
And following ghost logic, the three of them—or four—are trapped on the property because they died on it.
Which makes me believe their bodies are somewhere around here, despite zero physical evidence turning up.
According to Sloane, it isn’t as clear cut as a property line. But the farther they get from the house, the less tangible, for lack of a better term, they are. They’ve never been able to make it farther than the creek on my house’s side or a few hundred yards into the forest across the street.
I take a few steps into the clearing leading to the water. The creek looks the way it always did. Deep, dark blue water rushing along in an endless migration cycle. And past it, miles and miles of trees.
“You’re looking around like you expect the boogeyman to step out of the creek and confess to snatching town kids,” Finn says at my side.
I jump and curse, swatting uselessly at him as he grins. “It would be nice.”
“Until the boogeyman grabs you, too,” Finn says.
“At least then I’d know what the hell happened,” I reply.
Finn’s easy smile falters. “That’s not funny,” he says.
“Oh, so we can dish it, but we can’t take it,” I say. “Noted.” I head down the bank, stopping at the edge of the water.
Finn jogs behind me, protesting, “It’s a creek and some trees. There’s nothing out here.”
“I’m just looking,” I say, irritation flickering in my belly.
Deep down, I know he’s right, but despite the chill starting to creep into the air and the clear lack of anything that outright says this way to the missing kids, I’ve resigned myself to ten more minutes to spite Finn. I continue down the bank.
“The sun’s going down soon,” Finn says.
I whirl on him. If he were real, I’d slam right into him. He jumps back anyway.
“No one asked you to be here. If you want to go home, feel free.” I gesture to the way we came, and for a long moment he holds my stare. Then he exhales in defeat.
I let him stew for the next few minutes, trailing behind me as I make my way through the clearing, stopping at the edge of a crumbling barbed wire fence marking the property line. He grumbles something beneath his breath as I turn back and head the other way.
A flicker in the trees makes me pause. It’s a shadow in my periphery, and each time I look toward it, it’s gone.
I slip off the path, dipping through the brush.
The hairs spike on the back of my neck, and I think I hear some kind of whispering, a female voice too low to be intelligible.
I follow it deeper into the trees, stopping at the edge of an old path.
Most of it is covered by leaves and grown over with grass, but bits of a foot-worn route poke through it.
I’m about to take another step when the unintelligible whispers clearly enough to say, Find me.
I lurch sideways, tripping over a jutting root, slamming to my knees in the dirt. Something digs into my skin. Almost buried, invisible unless you literally fell onto it, is a piece of metal.
I sweep the dirt away. A partially rusted charm bracelet. It’s one of those chains with the customizable charms. There is a tiny running shoe, a blue horseshoe, a flower, a little zodiac charm for Libra, and a silver letter. The letter I. Ingrid.
I use the hem of my T-shirt to wipe as much of the muck off the bracelet as I can.
I run my fingers across the charms. A shiver runs down my spine and I lift my head instinctively, scanning the trees for something.
I’m not even sure what. For a moment, I think I see a flash of blond hair among the trees, but it’s gone before I can lay eyes on it.
“This is hers,” I say.
“Whose?”
“Ingrid’s,” I say, and I hold his gaze, a silent challenge to dispute his knowledge of her.
“Even if it is, how does it help?”
I can’t understand his hesitation, or the fear that takes him over whenever I say Ingrid’s name. Something about Ingrid scares him.
Even if cracking open this hornet’s nest brings him face-to-face with whatever freaks him out so badly, it might bring him answers about himself.
Closure, maybe. Even if knowing wouldn’t bring him back to life, it would be something to cling to.
It’s always been a lifeline for me. After Harper died, I looked up every statistic I could on fatal car accidents.
Dove deep into what I knew about her injuries and whether she would have survived if I’d done something.
Mostly, I wanted to know if I could have saved her.
Unless Finn already has the answers and he won’t tell me.
“It’s not your job to figure it out,” he says, exasperated.
“Why are you so up in arms about me taking a walk in my own backyard?”
“Because there’s nothing to gain,” Finn says. “You think I haven’t spent the last three years doing exactly what you’re doing? Trying to find answers? There’s nothing here, Jo. Nothing.”
I take a step toward him, leaving less than a foot between us. He’s not much taller than me, but I lift my chin to look at him. “The bracelet was here.” Another half step. He sucks in a breath, gaze flitting down, then up, but I’m too irritated to focus on what that might mean.
He holds for another second before huffing and shaking his head.
“Jo?”
I leap out of my skin, whirling to find Nora stepping out of the trees, a bundle of wildflowers in one hand. For the first time since I’ve known her, she isn’t wearing lipstick.
She looks as confused to see me here as I am to see her.
“Nora?”
She frowns, looking around. “Were you talking to someone?”
At my side, Finn is frozen, like he’s seen a ghost, and another time, I might make the joke to him. I force myself to focus on Nora. It’s definitely a better sign of my sanity, anyway.
I jam the bracelet into my pocket, clearing my throat and gesturing around. “The universe.”
Relief flickers over her features and she comes to join me near the creek, giving me a knowing smile. “I’ve done my fair share of that. Shitty listener, that universe.”
I laugh. “I don’t know, I think it does okay on the listening part. It’s the response that sucks.”
She laughs, too, but it isn’t entirely a happy one. “What are you doing out here?” she asks.
Just bickering with your dead twin and exploring the scary woods. “I’m…getting some air.” I glance down at the flowers. “What about you?”
She stops, her eyes and nose growing red. “I feel closer to Finn here. This was one of our favorite spots.”
Nora gives the flowers a little shake and sits down in the grass with a sad smile. I drop down at her side.
“Today’s the anniversary of…” Nora’s face twists up and she stops, clearing her throat. She sets the flowers carefully in the grass beside her. “Three years since Finn…”
She doesn’t say the word, and I don’t make her. Died is such a sharp word, a stinging reminder of what those four letters mean.
“I’ve always hated when they call it an anniversary,” I say, not really meaning to say it aloud.
To my surprise, Nora says, “Me too.” She shakes her head at me. “Like there’s something to celebrate.”
A few feet past and a bit behind Nora, Finn takes a seat in the grass.
“I used to come out here all the time,” Nora says after a moment. She glances over her shoulder, in Finn’s direction, as if she can sense him. His face contorts, lips parting.
A shiver rolls through Nora’s shoulders, and her gaze slides to the creek.
“I think part of me figured if I looked enough, I’d find something that even resembled a clue.
I knew they had teams of people on it—and still do—but it was like if I was here enough, maybe I’d be the one to find it,” she says. “Find him.”
I turn the words over in my mouth a handful of times before gathering the courage to spit them out. “I’ve been looking into the disappearances,” I say.
Behind Nora, Finn goes stiff as a board.
Nora stills. “Why?”
Heat licks up my neck and across my cheeks. My mouth makes the decision before my brain can protest. “Because of Finn and the others. I think whatever happened, it happened here. Or near here.”
With uncovered panic, Finn says, “Jo,” but I ignore him, like he isn’t there. Because he’s not.
Nora inspects me for a moment. “How do you know that?”
My belly lurches, and I try to keep my face impassive.
“I…I’ve been putting pieces together. Articles and news segments and witness reports.
” Technically, there are no actual witness reports.
There are people who saw the kids before and didn’t see them again, but not a single soul saw them go. Saw who took them.
But I can’t exactly tell her the witnesses are the victims themselves. And only three. Or maybe four.
“And?” she asks, not cold but inquisitive.
“And as far as I can tell, they were all either at or near this creek,” I say, gesturing to the lapping water down the bank.
“What can you do that twenty years of cops haven’t been able to?” She doesn’t sugarcoat it, nor does she sugarcoat anything. She’s not wrong either. What do I really think I’m doing, playing detective?
Instead of telling me it’s ridiculous like I expect—like I know Finn wants to, lurking a few feet away—Nora lets out a long breath. “You need to be careful, Jo,” she says. “The summer is almost over.”
I frown, confused.
Nora presses on. “It’s a pattern. Before the end of the summer, that’s usually when the next one disappears.”
My stomach drops like an anvil, slamming into my feet.
“I know how easy it is to fall into the rabbit hole,” Nora says. “But this might be one you can’t climb out of.”
“So, what, we do nothing?”
“No,” Nora says, shaking her head. A smile bordering on mischievous lands on her lips. “We do something. We just do it smarter.”
We sit together for a few more minutes, not really talking about anything, and it’s so comfortable it makes my chest ache. The pieces of me desperate for a friend battle it out with the rest, and by the time Nora rises to leave, I’m exhausted.
She sweeps her gaze around. “Get home safe, okay?”
I nod. “You too.”
She smiles, and then she’s gone, heading back through the trees, leaving me alone with the creek.
The creek and the sulking ghost.
The two of them aren’t identical, but no one could claim they aren’t related. They have the same pink lips, the same round nose. The same eyes.
“She’s so grown-up.”
That familiar ache swells in my chest. I reach a hand out without thinking, letting my palm settle on top of Finn’s. My fingers pass through his, the grass tickling my skin.
Finn meets my eyes, and I can’t quite read the emotion in them. It makes the pain in my chest pulse with the beat of my heart.
He looks down at our hands, hands that might have touched in another life but will never meet in this one.
“I know I’ve been”—Finn lifts his hand and palms the back of his neck—“kind of an asshole about this whole thing. I’m sorry.
I—” He stops. Huffs. “When I woke up…like this…I spent all my time looking for answers. And then there was Sloane and Aisha, with the same hopes I had, that they could figure out what happened to us, give us some closure, help us move into the light or whatever. But each time we thought we found something, it ran right into a dead end. Hope is dangerous. And even when you think you have nothing left to lose, hope can take whatever’s left.
I can’t put them through that any longer. ”
“I understand not wanting to get their hopes up,” I say. “But I can do things you and Sloane and Aisha can’t. I’m—”
“Real?”
The word slices like a barb through my skin. “Alive,” I say.
He flinches, as I knew he would, and it only stings a little bit.
“I’m going to head back.” I climb to my feet, not bothering to wait for Finn.
I don’t have to look back to know he’s following me.
I may have been harsh earlier, but it was true.
Whatever I do, Finn can’t physically stop me.