Chapter 7
MISREMEMBERED
On Sunday afternoon, Twig and I go to Mistress Bramble’s cabin in the woods.
I think I hear movement on the other side of her drawn curtains, but she doesn’t answer.
We leave—disappointed, but not defeated.
I will return every day if I have to. I will keep knocking on her door and I won’t stop until she speaks with me.
That evening, I have two more terms to search.
Tala’nih and de Overlaag.
Neither produce results.
I tell Jude about them over the phone, hoping he might invite me over to talk about it further. But he isn’t feeling well and doesn’t want to spread his germs. I wake up the next morning to a text message.
He’s still under the weather. He can’t give me a ride to school.
I stare at my screen, a tiny knot forming in my stomach.
Normally, Twig would be my backup. But he has a follow-up appointment at the burn clinic, which is killing him softly.
The appointment, not the burn. If Lainey is going to be at school today, Twig wants to know what she has to say.
I thought Jude’s curiosity would be just as piqued.
And yet, he’s staying home. Which means, he must be really sick.
I have a hard time picturing Jude—perfect, angelic Jude—sidelined by such trivialities as a head cold or the flu. The idea doesn’t jive in my brain.
Dad pulls to a stop at the front of the carpool line. I give him a peck on the cheek.
“Have a good day,” he calls as I scoot out of his Bronco.
Up ahead, I spot someone with shiny brown hair swinging in a ponytail and my insides pull tight with excitement. But then the girl turns around and it’s not Lainey.
One of my good friends, Harper Mahoney, joins me with a friendly nudge. “Where’s your man?”
I frown. “He’s not feeling well.”
“Don’t worry.” She wraps her arm around my elbow. “I’m sure when school’s over you can order him some soup from the Cobbler and nurse him back to health.”
The idea makes me smile.
Inside, the air hums with anticipation. Classmates talk animatedly, many of them craning their necks to look this way and that.
Apparently, I’m not the only one hoping to catch sight of Lainey.
As Harper and I weave through the throng of students, I pin my attention on her locker.
Last week, it was a shrine. Now? It’s just a regular locker.
The custodian must have taken all the notes and decorations down.
Meanwhile, Ivy Winslow’s shrine remains.
Harper and I make our way to Naomi Kapoor, the fourth member of our four-person friend group.
Twig and I merged with her and Harper in junior high and while we’ve been friends ever since, neither Harper nor Naomi have any clue what really happened on Halloween night.
I glance at the bulletin board next to Naomi’s locker, where a Night of the Howl flyer has been pinned.
When I see the name listed under storyteller, a thrill of excitement thrums through my extremities.
Walt was right.
And Night of the Howl is next weekend. If Mistress Bramble doesn’t answer her door between now and then, surely I can track her down at Willowmere Park and force her to speak with me there.
I nod at the flyer. “Look who’s telling the story this year.”
“Miss Coraline Bramble,” Harper reads. “Who’s that?”
“Mistress Bramble,” I say, with meaning.
“The witch?”
Naomi hangs up her coat “She’s not a witch, Harper.”
The hum in the hallway turns into an audible buzz.
Lainey walks down the hallway laughing with Griffin, glowing in the spotlight. Several classmates stop her as she goes. They squeeze her hand or give her a hug like she’s some sort of celebrity.
“I can’t believe she’s here.” Naomi shuts her locker. “If I did what she did, my parents would lock me in my room and ground me for life.”
“I’d never hear the end of it from Jake,” Harper says.
Jake is one of Harper’s older brothers. He’s also the newest—and youngest—officer on the Foggy Hollow police force.
“He wouldn’t stop ranting last night. I swear, if he had the grounds, he’d arrest her on obstruction of justice.”
“He thinks she’s lying?” I ask.
“Of course she’s lying.” Harper looks at me like she can’t tell if I’m being serious. “She didn’t know people were looking for her? She didn’t realize Ivy was missing? There’s no way that’s true.”
“Right,” I say.
It isn’t true at all.
“According to my brother, they used a lot of resources on her search and rescue. They should have been using all of it to focus on Ivy.” Harper worries her bottom lip. “He doesn’t think they’re going to find her.”
Stubborn refusal wells inside me.
If Lainey is alive, then Ivy has to be alive, too. And if Ivy is alive, I will find her.
I watch as Griffin stops in front of Lainey’s locker, takes her backpack, and kisses her neck.
Lainey giggles.
It’s the most bizarre thing—seeing her like this, acting so totally Lainey.
Naomi wrinkles her nose. “She has no shame.”
“Neither does he,” I mumble.
As far as Griffin knows, Lainey left town. Took off with another guy. Now she’s back and he’s looking at her like he’s the luckiest man on the planet.
Twig’s sister, Kate, joins them. She wraps Lainey in a tight hug, pulls away, then hugs her again. Kate’s boyfriend, Harrison, hugs her too while everyone else gawks. The foursome have become the sun in our student body universe.
“I’m surprised Kate isn’t angry with her,” Naomi says.
“Seriously,” Harper agrees. “If either of you took off with a guy for a week without telling me, I’d be really upset.”
“I’m gonna go talk to her,” I announce.
They both object.
But I don’t listen. Hooking my thumbs beneath the straps of my backpack, I make a beeline into Lainey’s orbit.
Kate notices me first.
“Hey,” she says, with a kind, somewhat bewildered smile, like she’s trying to wrap her mind around Lainey, too. I wonder if Lainey called her last night. Extended a more personal, private apology than the generic one she offered reporters.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“Of course,” Kate says.
“Sorry, not you and me.” I look past her, making eyes—knowing eyes—at Lainey.
She gives her hair a toss. “What’s up?”
I blink at her disbelievingly.
Lainey was sucked into the Overlay, where she combusted into ghostly flame. Now, she’s here. It had to have been a harrowing, if not terrifying, journey. And yet, she’s all brightness and sunshine, like we don’t share a secret. Like she doesn’t know I know the truth.
I clear my throat. “Maybe somewhere less crowded?”
Griffin shifts in this protective, bodyguard sort of way, but Lainey just shrugs. She tells him she’ll meet him in PE, gives his cheek a quick kiss, Kate’s arm a reassuring squeeze, then gestures for me to lead the way. She follows me down an empty corridor off the main hallway.
Now that we’re alone, I expect her to drop the charade. Instead, she just gives me another innocent shrug. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I want to talk about what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
I gape, her oblivion so convincing, I’m starting to second-guess myself. Maybe she never saw me. Maybe she doesn’t know that I know. “I was there. On Halloween night.”
Her brow furrows.
“I know you’re lying to the police.”
She folds her arms and arches her eyebrows.
I exhale an indignant breath. “You didn’t leave with Rafe. You were—taken.” More like snatched. “By a—monster-thing.”
Now, it’s Lainey’s turn to gape.
She stares at me like I’ve lost my marbles. Every single one. Then she smiles a little uncertainly. “This is a weird joke.”
“I’m not joking.”
She scrutinizes me a while longer, then rolls her eyes.
“Selah, what do you want me to say? You were right and I was wrong? Rafe is a jerk? He was totally using me? I should have never been with him? I certainly should’ve never left with him.
But I don’t think I’d go so far as to call him a monster thing. ”
The more she talks, the more my ears ring.
She’s lying, straight to my face.
She didn’t leave with Rafe.
But it’s an Oscar worthy performance, and as far as I know, Lainey’s never been much of an actress.
So maybe she’s not lying.
Maybe this is what she genuinely remembers.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
She doesn’t have an accurate memory of the masquerade ball, when Rafe compelled her to stir up all that drama.
She did an artful job. And when that job was done, he nearly disposed of her.
I shudder at the memory—Lainey standing on a chair, a rope tied around her neck in the music room.
But afterward, she didn’t remember it. Has this happened again?
Has her memory been conveniently altered?
Does she truly think she took off with Rafe?
The first bell rings.
A student slips into the art room.
“I can’t be late to class,“ Lainey says. “My mom has made it clear that if I step one more toe out of line, she’s shipping me off to live with my father, who runs a literal Boot Camp. Look, Selah, I know we haven’t exactly gotten along these past few weeks, and that’s on me.
You tried to warn me and I didn’t listen.
I should have never fallen for Rafe. It was a totally idiotic thing to do, but I promise, I’m not going to be an idiot any longer.
You don’t have to worry. I’ve learned my lesson.
Rafe is a loser and I want nothing to do with him.
” She gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I’ve really got to go. ”
I stand there, dumbfounded as she steps around me and heads back to the main hallway.
I call after her. “Where is he, then?”
She stops. “Who?”
“Rafe.” If she left him, where did she leave him?
And what about Ivy?
She shrugs, like she hasn’t the faintest idea. “Hopefully, far away from here.” With that, she pivots on her heel and turns out of sight.