Long Lost Page 15

  “How did you know where I was, Grandma?” Charlie asked, turning back toward Judy.

  “Oh, you’re not hard to find. When school’s out, if you’re not at home or at the diner, you’re here.” His grandma wrapped a forceful arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “Now apologize to Ms. Miranda, or you’ll be spending all of your time helping out at the Perch.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Miranda,” said Charlie. “I’d understand why you might have to ban me from the library. Although I hope you won’t.”

  “Well,” said Ms. Miranda, with a very small smile. “Since it was a one-time thing, and since you did it on your own . . . I think we can move on. Just this once.”

  “Lucky for you.” Judy steered Charlie toward the doors. “Home. Now.”

  From behind them, Ms. Miranda aimed one more look at the second-floor walkway.

  Fiona froze against the banister, not breathing, not even blinking. For a sliver of a second, she could have sworn that Ms. Miranda’s eyes landed on her.

  But the librarian turned away. There was the click of a switch as the lights went out, plunging the library back into darkness. The double doors thumped shut.

  Fiona was alone.

  She leaned hard against the banister, her panting breaths filling the dark. It was all right, she told herself. Darkness couldn’t hurt you. Being alone couldn’t hurt you either.

  She forced herself to count to twenty. When she was sure it was safe, she switched Charlie’s night-light back on.

  The octopus glowed cheerily.

  Inside its cloud of light, Fiona wobbled to her feet. Charlie was right. She shouldn’t waste this chance. After tonight, she might be grounded forever and never get another one. Besides, archeologists didn’t let darkness and strange sounds scare them away. They climbed into tombs, through underground tunnels, down ancient stone stairways.

  She could do this. She had to do it. Charlie was relying on her. Maybe Margaret was too.

  She could do it by herself.

  Clutching the glowing octopus, Fiona rushed up the stairs and down the hall to Evelyn’s bedroom. One glance through the door told her two things.

  Both The Lost One and the pocketknife were gone.

  And she definitely wasn’t alone in this house.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Fiona wavered on the threshold, gripping the glowing octopus with both hands.

  She scanned the floor, just in case the missing things had simultaneously fallen from their places.

  They hadn’t.

  Someone had taken them.

  She and Charlie had left this room just minutes ago. No one had passed them on the third-floor staircase. Which meant whoever it was had to be nearby.

  And now whoever it was had a knife.

  All rational thoughts flew out of Fiona’s brain like a flock of birds in front of an incoming airplane.

  She barreled back down the hallway, half expecting something—a ghost, a knife-wielding stranger, a hunched black-cloaked terror—to lunge at her through the surrounding doors.

  She thundered down the creaky stairs. It didn’t matter if she kept quiet anymore. Whoever was here already knew about her too.

  She skidded onto the second-floor walkway. Moonlight through the tall, narrow windows brightened the air, glazing the central room with foggy gray. She was almost to the main staircase. She was almost on her way out.

  Fiona wheeled onto the staircase landing.

  But someone was already there.

  A girl.

  A girl with long brown hair, a pleated ivory dress, and a green leather-bound book in her hands. A girl who was staring at the portrait of Margaret Chisholm. Next to her, its body quivering with excitement, sat a curly brown dog.

  Fiona stopped so abruptly that she almost fell on her face. She threw out a hand, catching herself on the banister and dropping the octopus night-light. There was a thunking crack as its light winked out.

  The girl turned.

  Fiona stared.

  Long brown hair. Old-fashioned dress. A face as pale and misty as ice. Pixie sitting beside her.

  It would have been easier if both sisters had been there, so she could compare them: taller, shorter, older, younger, the way people did with her and Arden. But the soft face and dreamy eyes made her sure—as sure as she could be about something so impossible—that she was looking at Margaret Chisholm.

  “Hello,” Fiona breathed.

  The girl stared back at her with eyes that were gray and steady. “Hello.” Her voice was like the creaks of the floor, or the soft rush of night wind against the walls.

  Pixie glanced back and forth between the two of them, bristly nose twitching.

  The girl turned back to the portrait. “This doesn’t belong here. Who is this?”

  “Th-that?” Fiona’s voice stuck on the word. “That’s Margaret Chisholm.”

  A strange expression crossed the girl’s face. She stared at the portrait again, eyes wide, eyebrows drawn together.

  “You’re Margaret Chisholm too,” Fiona whispered. “Aren’t you?”

  The girl’s eyes flicked from the portrait back to Fiona. And Fiona saw something else in them now. Something anxious and hopeful and lonely. Something that was waiting to be recognized.

  “My name is Fiona Crane.” Fiona pushed on, as steadily as she could. “I—I’ve read that book. I know what happened.”

  The girl’s face seemed to tighten. “You do?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know everything.” Fiona inched forward, fighting the wobble in her knees. “I haven’t read the ending yet. But I know you couldn’t really have hurt your sister.”

  A new expression flickered over the girl’s face. Wariness. Maybe even fear. She gripped the book, pulling back.

  “You could tell me the truth right now,” Fiona persisted. “You could tell me what really happened. That’s why you and the book and Pixie and everything are stuck, isn’t it? Because nobody knows the whole story. Except you.”

  The girl seemed to waver like the flame on a candle. “The book is . . . it was just for me. And for . . . for her.” She clutched the book with shaking fingers. “I thought it might help. I thought if I turned it all into a story . . . it might be easier to believe.”

  “Wait. You wrote the book?” Fiona’s thoughts tumbled and slid, rearranging themselves. “But that means it’s not just a story. Because you know what really happened. At the end.”

  “But I couldn’t . . . even on paper, I couldn’t . . .” Margaret’s voice thinned. “I erased that part,” she whispered. “No one else was ever supposed to know.”

  “Until now.” Fiona rushed to finish Margaret’s thought. “But you knew we’d understand. That’s why you’ve been moving the book around, isn’t it? So we would find it, and you could finally tell the right person the whole truth?” She held out one hand. “Can I read the rest now? Please, Margaret. I’m on your side. I swear.”

  But Margaret Chisholm stepped out of her reach again. “I never moved the book.”

  Fiona halted. “You didn’t?”

  Margaret shook her head. “That is—I only moved it back. I always brought it back here, back up to her room, where it belonged. Where it would be safe.”

  Fiona stared at the trembling girl. “Then . . . who . . .”

  Pixie let out a howl.

  The sound pierced the air, slicing through Fiona’s words, ringing away through the empty rooms. Fiona’s skin tightened with goosebumps.

  Margaret spun away. She stared, petrified, down the staircase.

  The library’s double doors thumped open.

  On the threshold, outlined by moonlight, loomed a black-cloaked figure.

  A wave of horror crashed through Fiona’s heart.

  The Searcher stepped forward. Its cloak dragged along the parquet. Its hood was too deep to reveal any hint of a face inside—if there was a face at all—but Fiona could sense something within that hood staring back at them both, holding them still with its inv
isible eyes.

  No. The Searcher is a lie. Margaret had said so herself, in the book.

  But when Fiona managed to turn her head just enough to catch the other girl with the corner of her eye, Margaret’s expression was pure terror, her face as pale and stiff as stone.

  The Searcher took another step. A rush of cold air swept up the staircase, carrying the smell of damp and mud and rot.

  “But it’s not real,” Fiona choked out, not sure who she was speaking to. “It isn’t real.”

  The Searcher came closer still. Slowly. Slowly, as though it wanted them to wait. It wanted their dread.

  Pixie gave a strangled whimper.

  The Searcher reached the base of the stairs.

  It set its weight on the bottom step. Fiona couldn’t glimpse a foot or a leg or anything human about it, but she thought she saw a small pool of dark water forming there, a puddle in place of a footprint. A glittering trail marked its path across the parquet.

  The Searcher began to climb.

  Margaret whipped toward Fiona. She thrust the book into Fiona’s shaky hands.

  “Run,” she whispered, before turning and vanishing into the darkness.

  For one fragment of a second, Fiona wavered in place, gripping the book. Then, without knowing where she was going or what she would do when she got there, Fiona whirled around in the opposite direction, and ran.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It’s not easy to run in the dark.

  Especially through a sprawling old house that isn’t yours. Especially when fear is pounding in your chest like a fist on a locked door.

  Fiona ran anyway.

  She flew along the second-floor walkway, relying on the haze of moonlight to keep her from crashing straight into a wall.

  At the first open doorway, she dashed inside, wheeled around, and slammed the door behind her.

  She leaned against it, clutching The Lost One to her ribs.

  Now what?

  She was still trapped in the dark with one long-dead girl, a ghost dog, and some silent, lurching thing in a long black cloak. Could a closed door keep any of them out anyway? Fiona couldn’t even believe she was asking herself the question.

  Quickly she scanned the room around her. Tall bookshelves, wood-paneled walls, one latticed window. There was no way out but the door behind her.

  And now she could feel, seeping around the edges of that door, a sharpening edge of cold in the air.

  Fiona pressed her back to the door as hard as she could.

  A damp chill slithered around her ankles.

  No, Fiona told herself. The Searcher is a lie. The Searcher is a lie.

  She waited, shuddering, holding her breath.

  Slowly, so slowly that it made her want to scream, the swirl of cold air faded away.

  Fiona’s knees gave out. She sank to the floorboards, spine still pressed to the door.

  Fumbling through her backpack, she pulled out the flashlight and switched it on, slashing its frail beam around the room. Maybe she’d find something useful: a tool, a phone, a hidden exit.

  Fiona steered the beam back to her lap, where it outlined the green leather edges of the book. Margaret had pushed The Lost One into her hands. There must have been a reason—something else in the book that she was meant to notice.

  She flipped rapidly through the chapters to the end.

  But the end wasn’t where it had been before.

  There were new pages. Waiting for her.

  Heart thudding, hands shaking, Fiona began to read.

  Stories are strange creatures.

  Like the contents of a sealed and buried box, they exist only in the minds of those that recall them.

  If a story isn’t shared, if it isn’t kept alive through the telling and retelling, it ceases to exist. If the last keeper of a tale dies without passing it along, the tale dies as well. And when a true story dies, perhaps the truth dies too.

  This is a story of two sisters who did everything together.

  But only one of them disappeared.

  The other sealed and buried their story deep inside herself, where no one but her sister could have ever reached.

  On the morning after the terrible thunderstorm, downed tree limbs, wide puddles, and shoals of wet leaves littered their small New England town. The sky was gray, the ground dark and damp. The river beneath Parson’s Bridge swirled high around the pilings. The rush of its swollen waves could be heard deep in the heart of the Enchanted Forest, where Pearl was seated on a fallen log.

  Of course, without her sister to play in it, the Enchanted Forest was just another part of the woods. But it was still a pretty spot, and a slightly drier one than the sunken stretches along the riverbanks. Pearl had brought her notebook and pencils with her. She was writing a fairy tale about two sisters and ignoring the dampness that seeped from the mossy tree trunk straight through her dress.

  It was odd to be there without Hazel. The sisters hadn’t spoken in nearly two days, not since they had argued at the carnival in the meadow and Pearl had run home alone. It was the longest they had ever gone without exchanging words. Oh, they had had other arguments, of course—dozens in a single day—but this was the first time that their anger had grown wide and deep enough to carve a chasm between them.

  Pearl didn’t know how the trouble would end. However, she knew Hazel, and she knew that their battle was far from over. In a way, she hoped it would continue. At least the battle was something they did together.

  A rustle came from the ferns to Pearl’s left.

  Pearl paused her pencil, listening.

  “Pixie?” she called out. “Is that you? Come here, boy!”

  But Pixie did not appear. The ferns, and the woods around them, hushed. Only a few birds twittered in the treetops beneath the smoke-colored sky.

  Pearl squinted back down at the open page. Maybe when she was finished, she’d let Hazel read the story. Maybe then Hazel would understand.

  Pearl caught herself. No. She was still angry at Hazel. Hazel didn’t deserve her forgiveness.

  . . . But perhaps Pearl would give it anyway. Because, although Pearl hated to admit it, life without her sister’s company was proving to be drab and dull indeed.

  She was bowing over the open pages once more when there came a louder, closer rustle.

  A shadow poured across her notebook.

  Pearl turned with a gasp.

  A black hooded figure loomed above her.

  Pearl shrieked as the Searcher raised a hand—an ordinary human hand—and smeared a fistful of mud across the open page.

  “There!”

  The other hand threw back the deep hood, revealing Hazel’s laughing face. Pixie bounded out of the ferns beside her, dashing around the pair in happy, barking circles.

  “You?” choked Pearl.

  Hazel let out another peal of laughter. “You should see the look on your face!” She leaned against a tree, holding her sides. “Oh, Pearl! Your eyes are like goose eggs!”

  Pearl jumped off the log, every thought of peacemaking flying from her mind. “Why would you do that? Why do you have to be so hateful?”

  “Because you deserved it,” said Hazel, her laughter ceasing at last. “Now we’re even. Or closer to even.” She stepped toward Pearl. “This all started because you wouldn’t listen to me and got us both into trouble.”

  “Into trouble?” Pearl echoed. “I was almost caught by the Searcher! And now you come here, dressed like that, to scare me?” She stood toe-to-toe with her sister, her fury flaring. “Hazel, I was nearly taken!”

  Hazel broke into laughter once more. “Oh, you were not, you ninny. There is no Searcher.”

  Pearl could have kicked her. “Hazel, I saw it. I felt its hand on my neck.”

  “I know you did. But it wasn’t the Searcher.” Hazel spread her arms in their big sleeves. “It was just Matthew from the carnival, dressed in this old magician’s cloak.”

  Pearl stepped backward. “What?”

 
; “We thought it would be funny if he followed you and gave you a scare. So he pretended to be the Searcher. That’s all.” Hazel lowered her arms. “The Searcher is just a silly old story, and you’re a silly little girl for believing it.”

  Pearl stared at Hazel, her thoughts spinning, her heart crumpling.

  Then, before Hazel could brace for it, Pearl dropped her book and pencil, lowered her head like a charging bull, and barreled straight into her sister’s stomach.

  The two of them fell to the muddy ground.

  Pearl was shorter and lighter, but she had surprise on her side, and at first she kept the upper position. Her advantage didn’t last long, however. Once Hazel managed to brace a boot heel in the mud, she flipped Pearl onto her back, knocking the wind out of her. Hazel knelt above her, trying to catch her writhing arms.

  “Get off me!” Pearl yowled.

  “You started it!” Hazel shouted back. “Do you give in?”

  In answer, Pearl shoved off from a nearby tree trunk, sending Hazel toppling over once more. The two of them rolled through bracken and mud, Pixie dancing around them, barking uproariously at the fun.

  “You’re not going to win, you little idiot!” Hazel yelled, pinning Pearl to the ground under her knees. “Tell me that you give in, or I’ll give you another haircut!”

  Pearl ceased struggling. She sagged back against the mud and leaves, panting. Hazel relaxed her grip, panting too. Seeing her chance, Pearl lunged forward and snatched the knife from Hazel’s pocket, where it was always kept. As Hazel sat up, trying to grab it back, Pearl kicked her sister in the ribs, knocking her aside. Hazel let out a gasp of pain. But Pearl only scrambled upright and dashed off into the trees.

  “Come back here!” Hazel shouted, once she could take a breath. “Give me back my knife!”

  “I won’t!” Pearl shouted back. “I’m going to throw it from Parson’s Bridge!”

  “You will not!”

  “See if I don’t!”

  The sisters hurtled through the woods, darting between the thick trees, skidding in the mud. Hazel’s stride was longer, but the cloak slowed her down, and she clutched her hurt ribs as she ran. Pixie galloped at her heels.

  “Don’t you dare throw my knife in the river, Pearl!” she shouted.