Chapter 27
RAFE REDUX
Come Wednesday, Emma and Sienna are still missing, and the Vandenberg family disappearance isn’t the only one fueling speculation. Budding journalists and online sleuths have pointed to another that up until now, has slid under the radar.
The entire town is on edge.
A cloud of unease hangs heavy in the air as a growing contingent of parents question authorities.
Two girls have vanished mere days after pulling another from the river.
What was widely believed to be a tragic accident last week is being re-examined beneath the glaring light of fear.
What are the police missing? Or worse, what are they hiding?
The student body is distracted.
Teachers are, too.
The goal is to get through today—an early-out before the long Thanksgiving weekend. And maybe, just maybe, when we reconvene, Emma and Sienna will be here, too, and this horrible debacle will come to an end. That’s the unspoken hope. The breath everyone is holding.
If only they knew that breath holds no oxygen.
Even if Emma and Sienna return, the debacle will be far from over.
Lainey and Griffin are proof.
Mr. Langley, my U.S. History teacher, is the only teacher pressing forward with the curriculum. While every other class period has been a “make-up day”, he stands at the front of the room lecturing us about the Boston Tea Party.
On my left, Harper sits with her chin in her hand, gazing glossy-eyed out the windows.
News trucks are parked along the street, ready to grab soundbites from any student willing to give one upon our dismissal.
Jude sits on my right, his legs extended in front of him, one ankle crossed over the other as he twirls a pencil around his thumb.
We haven’t found any new information about the heart stone, not even with Naomi’s impressive researching acumen.
Nor have we found the missing page from Mistress Bramble’s codex.
I glance at the clock, my knee bouncing under the desk.
Time is moving torturously slow.
I can’t bring myself to care about the Boston Tea Party, so I doodle in my notebook, drawing different renditions of the strange plant in my bedroom. I scrawl Mistress Bramble’s words.
You woke a great hunger. Now it will hunt.
I trace them and retrace them, then attempt to sketch the beast that killed Lily Vandenberg, but I’m no artist.
Not like Lily, anyway.
I doodle more words. Maybe some mindless scribbling will lead to a legitimate connection.
Hollow Walkers.
Hellhounds.
De Zwarte Muil.
Vorat.
I wish I would have asked Mistress Bramble more about him.
As it stands, I only know what I already knew from the podcast episode Twig and I published in our first season, Night of the Howl, and the story I found in the WPA files while researching alternate dimensions.
A tale featuring the Hollow Hounds. Each one was once human—a victim of the Hollow Walker—bound to him not by loyalty, but by the consumption of their souls.
I draw a third leaf on the plant.
Manifestation via illustrating.
Langley reaches the final slide—instructions for the remainder of class. He wants us to read the Boston Tea Party section in our digital textbook and answer the corresponding questions.
I scoot away from my desk and ask to use the restroom. I can feel Jude’s attention hot on my back. It doesn’t relent until I step into the hallway.
The bathroom is empty except for Lola Hayes, a girl in my year who spends more time vaping in the stalls than sitting in a desk.
At the moment, she has one bare foot propped on the sink and is painting her toenails black to match her lipstick and her eyeliner.
Lola and I are vaguely acquainted. Before moving onto the Vandenberg estate, Dad and I lived two trailers down from her and her mother, so our paths have crossed occasionally.
Our eyes meet in the mirror.
I give her a friendly nod.
She just stares back impassively while I slip into a stall. I don’t need to use the bathroom, so I take the opportunity to check my phone instead, then head to the sink to wash my hands. Lola is still there, working on her big toe.
“Nice shirt,” she says, completely deadpan.
This is how Lola talks, without any expression.
I’m wearing my Smashing Pumpkins graphic tee under a chunky cardigan. It is arguably my favorite.
“Thanks,” I reply, pumping soap into my palm.
“Do you actually listen to them?” she asks.
“Siamese Dream is one of the best albums of all time.”
“What’s the better song—Mayonnaise or Today?”
“Mayonnaise.”
She gives her eyebrows an almost imperceptible lift. It’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen Lola exhibit. She’s impressed with my taste. I bring the soap to a lather. “It was my mom’s favorite band.”
“Your mom sounds like a legend.” She blows on her toenails, then caps the nail polish.
“She was,” I say softly.
I think of her here—my mother. In this very bathroom thirty years ago, listening to Smashing Pumpkins on a Walkman, maybe smoking a cigarette and thinking of Simon.
I’m not sure about the middle part. According to her foster parents, the Abners, my mother was a good student.
I don’t think smoking in the bathroom fits that description.
“My mom’s idea of good music is Blake Shelton,” Lola says, as dry as toast.
I rinse the soap from my hands.
The lights flicker overhead.
I glance up at them, then back at the mirror and gasp—an intake of breath so loud and sharp, Lola brings her bare foot to the bathroom floor and makes a very R-rated exclamation.
I spin around, then look back at the mirror, my heart galloping.
Rafe.
I just saw Rafe.
He was right behind me in the mirror.
“What is wrong with you?” Lola asks.
I swallow, unable to find my voice. Or get a handle on my heart rate. I want Lola to leave. I want to shut off the lights, stare into the mirror, and say his name three times like Bloody Mary. I want him to come back. I want him to tell me what he’s doing. Why does he keep appearing like this?
But Lola isn’t leaving.
She’s too busy gawking.
I tear off some paper towels, dry my shaking hands, toss them in the bin, and step out into the empty hallway. I hurry to a nearby display case and stand in front of the tempered glass, willing Rafe to come back.
But only my vague reflection blinks back at me.
Frustrated, I bypass Langley’s classroom and head instead to the library.
I stop in front of a shelf filled with yearbooks.
I remove the one with my mother and flip to the staff photos in the back.
My mother was here, thirty years ago. Was anyone else?
If so, did they know her? Would they remember her?
I don’t come across a single familiar face until I reach the Ws.
“Mrs. Wilch,” I whisper.
One of the English teachers.
According to her byline, she also oversaw the poetry club.
Goosebumps march up my arms.
I return the yearbook and hurry upstairs to the English department before Mr. Langley or Jude come searching for me.
She has no class in session.
Just an open door, a room full of empty tables arranged in a horseshoe, and faded literary posters lining the walls. Mrs. Wilch sits at her desk, eating a sandwich while grading a stack of essays.
I knock on her half-opened door.
She looks up.
“Hi,” I say. “My name’s Selah.”
“Hi, Selah,” she replies, her attention dropping to my hand, as though looking for a note or a pass. Perhaps I’m an office runner with a message. When she sees neither, her attention returns to my face. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“You used to be in charge of the poetry club,” I say.
“The poetry club.” Her expression goes soft and dreamy. She sets her sandwich on a napkin and folds her hands on top of the essays. “Not many people remember that club. It didn’t last very long. Poetry is a dying art, I’m afraid.”
“Do you remember a student named Clara Green?”
Mrs. Wilch blinks a few times, then gazes upward as though trying to recall.
Hope burns in my chest.
Please remember. Please tell me about her.
But she just shakes her head. “Was she part of the club?”
“The first year,” I say.
“Oh, well. That’s…” Her eyes cloud with confusion. She clearly doesn’t know what that is, but lands on, “Nice.”
“She was my mom,” I say.
“Oh,” Mrs. Wilch replies with a dawn of understanding, which quickly melts into compassion.
I used the word was.
“I was wondering if you kept any of her poems?”
Mrs. Wilch brightens. “Why yes, in fact. I kept all the poems from poetry club.” She spins around in her chair, opens the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet behind her, and removes a manilla folder.
“We had that club for three years, and for each of the years, I bound the poems together into one edition.”
She opens the folder on her desk, revealing packets of poems with black spiral binding. Three in all, each one with a simple cover that reads Foggy Hollow High, Poetry Club, along with its corresponding year.
“You said she was in the first one?” Mrs. Wilch asks.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Well, then, this would be it.” And just like that, she hands me the booklet on the bottom. “You’re welcome to make copies. I just ask that you return it when you’re done.”
“Thank you,” I say holding the booklet with both hands as I float out of the room.
I sit in the empty hallway, lean against a locker, and flip through the pages, searching for her name.
I find it ten poems in.
A limerick by Clara Green that is far from earth-shattering. My mother wasn’t destined to be a poet, and yet I devour every word.
His eyes are as gold as the sun
With brown sugar flecks in each one
A door to his soul
That makes me feel whole
One look and my heart is undone
The poem is titled His Eyes, and I can’t help but think of Jude’s. Only this poem isn’t about Jude. It’s about Simon.
I flip through the pages, desperate for more.
But this is it.
The only one she wrote.
A love poem about the boy who vanished. The boy who might still be alive.
My muscles tighten with resolve. He is still alive.
I know it. Why else am I having these visions?
What would be the point if he and my mom were dead?
Lily didn’t make it, but he did, and now he’s being held hostage inside the Overlay with my mother.
Urgency swells inside me, but I don’t know what to do with it.
How can I rescue them if I can’t get to them?
I lean my head against the locker behind me.
“I can’t get in unless you show me how,” I say, unsure who I’m speaking to.
My mother?
Rafe?
Whoever it may be, I hope they are listening and I hope they can help.