Glimmer (6 page)

Chapter 12
DARK-EYED BOY

“So, what was that guy Jim talking about?” Elyse presses her mom when Jeffry’s headed down to the basement to watch TV. “What’s ‘the drop’?”

“Just a silly slogan.” Liz gestures toward a framed poster on the kitchen door depicting a powerful waterfall. “Summer Falls, 1,600 feet.” And below that: “Feel your tensions
drop away.
”

“Is it true?” I ask. “Do people really relax that much when they come here?”

Liz shakes her head. “Only because they expect to. It’s a good sales technique, and with the mill closing we need the revenue from tourism.”

Same thing the sheriff said. “Why did the mill close?” I ask.

Liz preheats the oven to 350 degrees. “Some machines malfunctioned,” she says vaguely. Either she had no idea what happened or there was a grisly disaster with tons of casualties. Either way she’s not talking about it.

Elyse and I decide to head downtown. On the walk we catch each other up. She tells me about the missing photos in the album, and Liz’s weird reaction to seeing pics of her own mother, Elyse’s grandmother. I tell her about the fainting, fighting couple—her eyes widen—and my theory that I can turn invisible just by not speaking when I first enter a room.

“You’re not invisible.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re just good at blending in. Besides I saw you, this morning in—um, in bed. You definitely hadn’t said anything. You were asleep.”

“That doesn’t fit the pattern,” I admit. “But I think it’s more likely that there’s something weird about you.” I tell her about the ghost description of Tomoko. “You were right, okay?”

“So that’s who she was.” She stares at the surface of the lake, thoughtful. “So weird that you couldn’t see her.”

“You think
that’s
the weird part? How about the fact that ghosts exist and haunt your hometown?”

She tilts her head toward me in surprise. “The idea of ghosts is perfectly natural. They’re just spirits of the dead.”

“Right,” I deadpan, “spirits of the dead. It’s all so very natural and normal. Not like crazy, crazy magic, which you don’t believe in.” She shoves me playfully, and I grab her hand before she can pull it back. She gasps.

“I just want to know, how come you’re down with ghosts but not magic?”

She fixes her eyes on me. “How come you’re down with magic but not ghosts?”

I let go of her hand. I don’t have an answer.

“Maybe I’m used to ghosts,” she says, shrugging. “Growing up in a haunted town and all.”

“Maybe,” I say, “except . . . that brochure was very
hokey.
Like whoever wrote it didn’t seriously believe in ghosts but just thought it would be cheesy, good fun for the tourists. A sales technique, like your mother was saying. Elyse, don’t tell anybody else what you saw. Not even your parents.”

She shudders. “You’re worried they’d put me in the asylum, aren’t you?”

“They would literally have to kill me first.” But yes.

—

When we hit Main Street we decide to split up, checking out stores on opposite ends of the street and meeting at the fair in an hour, in time for the picnic.

I cross the street to Hinklebeck’s Antiques and note the smaller writing under the main signage. “Thousands of Secondhand Goods and Antiques Within . . . and One Relic.”

I’d been expecting a bell to announce every customer, but the door makes no sound as I open it. Maybe the door sensed my broke status and knew I wasn’t important enough to warrant a staff welcome.

From behind the counter, an older woman is talking to a slightly built young man.

“And what do we have here, Bette?” The man has a British accent. “A fresh catch from the sea of eBay?”

“1923,” Bette brags. She plays with her wooden beaded necklace and grins, the over-sixty version of the hair-flip-giggle combo. “That there’s an original Dorian Coffer, seller’s great-grandma had it down in her basement . . . souvenir from her honeymoon.”

I tiptoe forward and lean closer to see what they’re looking at. The woman still doesn’t notice my existence—I’m getting used to that treatment around here—but the man turns his head and winks at me. Weird. He stands directly in front of the poster, as if he wants to become one with it, but I can still see a smiling white couple in the foreground. When I say white, I mean really white: the woman blond with a bright white face, the man with his blindingly white arm around hers. I read enough of the words at the bottom to guess that it says something like: “Turn your frown upside down with a holiday in Summer Falls!”

The British guy whistles. “Pristine condition too. Hundred bucks is a steal.” He pulls out a brown battered wallet. I have a sudden sad feeling for him. How much of his paycheck does that hundred dollars represent?

“I’m surprised you’d want it, Mr.—”

“Joe, please.”

“Why, your people aren’t even from here, yet you care so much about our history.”

“History’s my one true love, Bette. Or maybe just my longest successful relationship.”

Bette clucks with pity. “I know how you feel, but don’t sell yourself short. You could meet a lovely girl right here in Summer F—” She gasps, and I see why. Right in front of her, the man started rolling up the poster, calmly and deliberately, a smile on his face. The antique poster he hasn’t yet paid for. “Mr. English. Oh dear.”

He reaches over and pats her sloped shoulder. “Bette Hinklebeck, you’re the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen, and you talk too much. That’s why Floyd Johnston dropped you for Myrtle Kessler in 1946.”

WTF? Talk about cruel, telling a sweet old lady she’s ugly and talks too much? Worse, did he just throw an ancient breakup—one she must have told him about in confidence—in her face?

“Oh dear, oh dear.” Poor Bette’s hand flies to her heart, and her eyes flutter. Her mouth opens, and she clatters to the ground behind the counter, shaking every hundred-year-old plate and glass on her shelves. Another heatnap?

He’s just finished stuffing the poster in his briefcase when she groans and stands up again. “Oh, hello, Mr. English—”

“Joe,” he says again, with perfect patience. “Please, keep the change.”

“Change?” She glances over at the cash register, confused. “So sorry, I must have had a moment. Thank you.”

“Pleasure’s mine.”

Whoa. This guy has some nerve. On top of insulting her, not that she seems to remember—just like the Bishops after
their
heatnap—he just shoplifted a poster from her by pretending he’d already paid.

And it worked too.

When did he first figure out he could do that? Does he pay for anything in this town?

I hustle out the door, but he catches up with me on the street.

“Hey, where were you yesterday?”

Yesterday. This guy knew me yesterday. I turn to face him, not wanting to waste this opportunity to learn more. But at the same time, I don’t want to let on how helpless I am. Especially not to this sadist. “Sorry.” I stall. “I wasn’t feeling well?” I say, hoping it’ll work as a catchall excuse.

“Please, I’m not talking about your missing the history test.” He snorts. “Like I’d ever fail you. Do me a favor and don’t start giving a damn about school all of a sudden—it’s unnerving.” Whoa, he’s my teacher? A teacher who doesn’t want me to care about school? Why won’t he fail me . . . are we friends?

“You know, you can tell me if you’ve changed your mind,” he says, leaning in. Behind his Coke-bottle glasses, his owl eyes sparkle with concern. “I’d understand.”

I can’t fake my way through this. “Understand about what?”

“What do you mean about what?” He lowers his voice. “Your mother’s work, what else? Her notes.”

“Right.” Mentally I’m taking down his every word, because all of it’s new information. New and intriguing too.

“Do you have them?”

“Not . . . not with me.” Technically not a lie.

“Meet me tomorrow after school at Mollie’s,” Joe says.

Chapter 13
ELYSE

Fresh white paint gleams on the faux-Greek columns of the Summer Falls Public Library, making the building look new even though, from the style, I can tell it must be old.
Very
old.

Back when I had my memory, though, I probably took its well-preserved beauty for granted.

I try to picture my pre-amnesia self racing over here every day after school. Browsing the new books shelf, loading my backpack with hardcovers. If I came in here all the time, the librarians must know me pretty well . . . that thought gives me some trepidation. What if one of them guesses there’s something wrong with me?

Feeling a tingle of apprehension, I bound up the three marble steps and pull open the heavy door. A narrow shaft of sunlight disappears behind me as the door snaps shut, leaving me in a cool, dimly lit hallway.

Through a glass window, I can see into the library proper: metal browsing shelves, long wooden tables where patrons sit studying or reading, and the librarian’s desk.

The walls in this entryway are lined with cork bulletin boards sprouting colorful flyers announcing summer fair events, from town softball games to pie-baking contests.

But the main focus is a single exhibit behind glass in the center of the room. It’s a dollhouse-like model of Main Street, it looks like, and the surrounding town. A “You are here” flag hangs from a pin stuck in the library building. The shop window of Mollie’s is painted the exact same shade of orange as it is in real life. Someone’s obsessive about their hobby . . . or is this all just more show for the tourists? Outside the circle representing town is a white-capped plastic mountain.

I read the caption below the model. “The Summer Falls Effect. How come the weather is always warm and sunny here? Many scientists believe our perfect weather is a happy accident caused by Kiowa glacier’s proximity to our town. You might think a glacier would make things colder, but scientists know better!”

I frown at the plastic mountain, wondering how the hell it could make anything hotter.

The librarian doesn’t notice me entering. Her frizzy graying head is bent over a stack of books that she’s vigorously ink-stamping.

My hands feel clammy as I approach her desk. “Hi,” I say, trying to sound casual and upbeat. Will she know me well enough to guess that something’s wrong?

“Heya.” The librarian looks up from her stamping and smiles at me. “Enjoying your stay?”

I blink. Wait . . . she thinks I’m a tourist? “I’m from
here
,” I say, feeling irked. Just my luck, the normal librarian must be sick today.

“My mistake. I’ve never seen you in the library before.” The woman slips off her reading glasses and lets them hang around her neck from their string of beads. “Of course,” she says, and pops her glasses back onto her nose. “I do recognize you now, from the Sunrays games.” She wiggles her shoulders and waves her arms, mimicking pom-poms. “Go, Rays!” She turns back to her ink-stamping.

“Go, Rays,” I repeat dumbly, trying my best to hide my disappointment. So my bookworm status, the one thing about my former self that sounded right to me, turns out to be bull. I’ve never set foot in the library. I don’t get it. Why would Liz say I had a reading habit if I didn’t? How am I supposed to remember my life if she can’t get her facts straight about her own daughter? Does she have a memory problem too or what?

Is
everyone’s
memory scrambled in this town?

That thought makes the hairs on my arms prickle to attention.

I wander into the stacks, still pondering. Clearly there are major problems with memory loss here. That would explain the whole conversation between Kerry and the sheriff. Is there just something in the water here, a chemical that makes people slowly lose their memories? Until . . . until they end up like me? And get shipped off to an asylum?

Not if they don’t find out.

“Excuse me,” I say to the librarian. “Where are the computers?”

“Researching some new cheers?” she says brightly. “Down the hall.”

I don’t bother to tell her there’s more to me than being a cheerleader. First I need to make sure it’s true. I’m planning to Google myself and see if anything comes up.

On my way down the hall, though, I get derailed, distracted by a rich, sweet, female voice in one of the other small rooms. The door’s ajar. I peek in and see about a dozen preschool-aged children sitting in a squirmy horseshoe, their parents hovering at the edges of the room. The girl reading from a rhyming picture book looks about my age, but she’s about as far from my reflection in the mirror as you could get. She looks more the way I imagined I would look—the way I thought I should look.

Tall. With long, slender limbs. Small breasts that barely disturb the clean line of her blue flower-sprigged sundress. You can tell her glossy chestnut hair would never dream of waving without her permission, let alone tangling and falling into her face like mine’s doing right now. Most striking of all is her serene smile, so innocent, so sure, the exact opposite of how I feel inside.

“Time for one last story today,” she announces in her even, hypnotic tone.

Several small voices clamor back, “No! More!” and their parents gently shush them.

She gifts the audience with one more poised smile and holds up another picture book. “
The Legend of the Tribe with No Name
. ‘Long ago,’” she reads from page one, “‘there lived all over this valley a tribe of Native Americans. They hunted deer and rabbits in our big pine forests. When the deer and rabbits weren’t plentiful or easy to catch, the tribe gathered mushrooms instead. Or fished for trout in our big, calm lake. They lived happy and easy lives, protected by the spirit of the giant waterfall.’”

This is a girl who’s happy and content. Who knows exactly who she is, who’s never for a moment felt unsafe or scared. She’s beautiful, in all the ways I’m not . . . and never can be. It hurts to look at her, but I linger in the doorway, unable to look away.

“‘The waterfall was their holy place, and the tribe’s medicine woman lived as close to the water as the spirit would allow her. Once, and only once, the spirit even let her swim in its waters without harm.’”

Great, a story encouraging kids to go swimming in a waterfall. That’s when it occurs to me to wonder: Is the story supposed to be about
this
valley? A local legend about
this
waterfall?

“‘But one day a strange man and his wife came to the valley. The man told the medicine woman that he had brought gifts for the water spirit and needed her permission to get near it. Now, the tribe knew something wasn’t right about this man. His smile did not reach the corners of his eyes. But they also knew the spirit was powerful, powerful enough to devour any mere man who tried to get the better of it, so they all agreed to let him build an underwater stone labyrinth on the condition that he pay the tribe in grains and metals.

“‘When the man’s labyrinth of stones was finished, he laughed with delight. Holding his wife’s hand, they dove together underneath the surface of the water. But the spirit did not devour him. It had no chance to. The man was an evil magician and he had weighed the spirit down with stones so it could not move, and then he whispered the words of his magic spell to it. At that moment, the medicine woman lost her power, and without her guidance the tribe dispersed. Many fish died in the water. Many trees fell, and in place of the trees appeared a labyrinth of buildings nearly identical to the one the magician had built underwater. From then on, the water spirit was no longer wild and free but was enslaved by the magician.’”

To my surprise, the kids and their parents are clapping, and when I look up, the tall girl is showing them the final picture, but just before she closes the book I can see a tuft of paper sticking out from the spine. Extra pages have been torn out from the end. No
wonder
the book didn’t have a satisfying ending. Why didn’t anyone else notice?

The door opens outward and a young mother slides past me with her toddler son in tow. “Thanks for the story, Carla!” the little boy calls behind him.

Before I can duck out of the doorway, the tall reader turns and waves good-bye to the kid, and her eyes lock on mine. “Leese!” she squeals.

I freeze, caught in the headlights of her searching gaze, then realize I have to go over to her. Obviously this girl and I know each other well. Very well. If I had to guess, I’d say this was my best friend.

Was.

I can’t think of one thing to say to her.

“I’ve been texting you all day.” She points to her purse. “Where were you, slacker? Miss school again?”

“Yeah.” I shrug.
Again?
So I miss class a lot? A bell goes off in my head, but it’s not a lost memory returning. It’s the memory of Kerry at the clinic this morning, asking what I’d done to myself this time. Why am I always at the clinic?

Carla grins at me and whispers under her breath, “You were totally hungover from the party, weren’t you?”

“Hungover?” I say stupidly, not wanting to commit myself to an answer, but it comes out sounding like, “Yes.”

“I knew it. You were pretty sloshed at Dan’s. Of course, he was too . . .”

Sloshed
, what a gross word. So sloppy and wet, so out of control. I look at Carla’s perfectly flat hair and decide she’s never been sloshed in her perfect life. Much as it pains me, I need to stay close to her at least for now. She knows so much about me that every sentence out of her mouth gives me new info to process. Like, I went to a party last night. Hosted by some lush named Dan.

Then again, I’m also a lush. Who misses school a lot, possibly from being drunk-sick. Lovely. I’m afraid to learn more about myself. But I’m even more afraid of staying a blank. Of never being whole again, ending up in the asylum.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” She giggles. “In the
library.
”

Jesus. Am I that well-known for being illiterate? “I got bored, okay?” I say, hoping after the fact that my defensive tone sounds like the old Elyse.

“If you’re bored with partying, maybe you should try some volunteering.” Carla smiles, a little bit smugly, in my opinion. “Reading to kids is
such
great practice.”

“For what?” I ask, before I can stop myself.

Carla throws me a hesitant look, like she thinks I might be making fun of her. “For when we have kids, hello? Ticktock. Graduation’s in two weeks, gonna be adults soon.”

“I guess.” I’m thinking Carla must be one of those obsessive planning types who think ten to twenty years ahead. But as I glance down at the now squirming semicircle of kids on the carpet, the moms and dads kneeling to zip up sweaters and tie shoelaces don’t look much older than we are. They look about the same age as Candace, the college student staying at Preston House. So why haven’t any of these people gone off to college themselves? Come to think of it, Liz, my own mother, can’t be older than her early thirties. Which means when
she
had
me
—

Before I can complete that scary thought, Carla’s purse rings with a tinny R & B riff. She pulls out a sleek silver phone. “Oh, it’s Pete!” I can tell from the sudden purr in her tone that Pete is her boyfriend. She thumbs a quick response and flips the keyboard shut. “I was just telling them that I found you,” she says earnestly, swinging her purse over her shoulder. Who’s them? I can’t ask. I’m clearly supposed to know. “And that you weren’t answering texts before because you were still hungover. But I only said that part because it seemed like they were getting worried.”

“It’s okay,” I say, thinking that as soon as I get back home I need to find that phone and see who I text and what about. It’s probably buried deep in the pink pile carpet.

“Are you sure everything’s okay?” She smiles nervously. “I mean, we always text each other back.”

I hate lying, but I can’t see a way around it this time. “I lost my phone charger,” I say, “and the battery’s dead. Sorry I didn’t get back to you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to apologize!” Carla throws up her hands, stepping away. “I’m just relieved you’re not mad at me.”

Inwardly I cringe. Am I a total bully to my friends?

Carla keeps staring at me, like she’s expecting me to say or do something. But I’m still overwhelmed by the ugly picture forming in my mind of the person I used to be.

Finally she says, “Um, Elyse? You do remember the plan, right? They’re meeting us down by the Ferris wheel.”

They
again. So it’s a group. Well, that works okay, since I was going to catch up with Dark-Eyed Boy at the fair later anyway. He can meet my friends. “Of course.” I hate lying, and to make matters worse I’m bad at it.

“Okay, so, I’m ready when you are,” she says.

Holy crap. She’s waiting for me to tell her it’s time to go. This beautiful girl who reads in a rich, hypnotic voice is waiting for me to call the shots. “Let’s go to the fair,” I say decisively, and she beams and follows me outside to Main Street.

“So, I liked the story you picked,” I say as we walk, and again, Carla beams.

“Thanks!”

“But I noticed there were pages torn out from the end.”