Long Lost Read online

  Fiona wriggled backward in her chair. This boy knowing more about her than she knew about him made her feel off-balance and small—like he was sitting at one end of a seesaw with bricks in his pockets, and she was trapped on the other end, dangling in midair.

  Before she could ask any questions of her own, the boy plowed on. “Where do you live? Which street?”

  “Lane’s End Road,” said Fiona slowly, wondering if it was safe to give a strange kid her address.

  But the boy nodded like he knew this already. “South of town. Up against the woods.” He nodded again. “My family lives on Church Street. So if you were heading into town from the north, you’d go down Old Turnpike Road, which used to just be called Turnpike Road. It goes past Wayfarer’s Rest Cemetery.” The boy leaned a bit closer. “Do you know where I mean?”

  His skin was very pale, Fiona noticed. And his eyes held fragments of several shades of green. Their stare was bright and flickering, like a candle behind stained glass.

  “I think I know where you mean,” she said.

  “And then, keeping on Turnpike Road, you’d cross Rose Lane and Lilac Lane.” The boy whispered the names so emphatically, Fiona wondered if she was meant to whisper them back.

  He went on staring at her with those intent eyes until she did.

  “Rose Lane and Lilac Lane.”

  The boy nodded once more. “Rose Lane.”

  He gave Fiona a last, long, evaluating look. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he wasn’t sure what to think of her. Then, without saying goodbye, he stood and walked quickly away.

  Fiona watched him go.

  She couldn’t wait to tell her friends about all of this tomorrow. She pictured herself and Nick and Bina and Cy bursting into the Hartford Science Center, poring over fossils, studying Egyptian artifacts . . . but even amid the happy pictures, the boy’s words kept whispering in her head.

  Rose Lane. Rose Lane. Where had she heard that name before?

  On street signs on the way out of town, obviously, Fiona answered herself.

  But that wasn’t it. Or it wasn’t all.

  Fiona sat up straight.

  There had been a Rose Lane in The Lost One.

  Pearl had rushed across it with the Searcher chasing after her. And just before meeting the Searcher, she had passed an old cemetery. A cemetery on Turnpike Road.

  Fiona’s heart jolted in her chest.

  She yanked a notebook out of her backpack. Rapidly, she scribbled down every location she could recall from The Lost One: Rose Lane. Turnpike Road. The cemetery. The meadow. The river and the lake. Parson’s Bridge.

  She stared at the list for a moment.

  Then, backpack in hand, she dashed toward the circulation desk.

  “Good morning,” said the man with the bow tie as Fiona barreled closer. “Can I help—”

  “Do you have any old maps of Lost Lake?” Fiona blurted. “Maps that would show the town back in . . .” The Lost One mentioned cars and telephones, but it also had horse-drawn carts and girls who always wore dresses. “Maybe 1900 to 1920?”

  The librarian’s face brightened. Fiona had noticed that this often happened when you asked librarians for interesting things.

  “Sure,” he said. “They’d be in the reference collection, right over here.”

  Fiona followed him into the long rectangular room.

  “Here’s our local history section.” The man, whose name tag read MR. OWENS, pulled a wide book from the shelves. “This is one of the most complete histories of Lost Lake. It has a lot of great illustrations, maps and charts and old photos. Sound like what you need?”

  “That’s perfect,” said Fiona, already pulling the book out of his hands. “Thank you!”

  She plunked down at the table and cracked the book open. Near the start was a series of maps. Lost Lake and Environs, 1700. Village of Lost Lake, 1776. Lost Lake, 1850. Lost Lake, 1910.

  Perfect.

  Fiona craned over the open page.

  Rose Lane and Lilac Lane were small gray lines at the northern end of town. Running past them was Turnpike Road, lined by the big green plot of Wayfarer’s Rest Cemetery. Fiona checked off the four items on her list, her fingers shaking with excitement. She traced Turnpike Road to the north, to another wide green space that had to be the meadow—and beside that, between a patch of woods and the river, was a narrow twisting track labeled Joyous Ridge.

  Her heart thudded again.

  She leaned over the book, her eyes like needles. There was the big blue body of Lost Lake, and winding upward from it was the blue line of the river. At one twist in the river was a black square labeled Lost Lake Mill Site. And not far from that square, so small that even Fiona’s sharp eyes had missed it at first glance, was a little line spanning the river. The tiny letters beside the line spelled Parson’s Bridge.

  Fiona suppressed a happy squeak. She felt like an archeologist whose shovel had just scraped the wall of a buried city.

  This was proof. The Lost One was set right here, in Lost Lake.

  But what did that mean?

  Fiona ran her fingers over the map. If the setting was real, was the rest of the book real too? Could the whole unfinished story—the story of Hazel and Pearl and the Searcher in the woods—be true?

  She could think of one person who might know.

  Fiona jumped up from the reference-room table.

  She checked every corner of the library, peering into every room and behind every shelf, just like she had done for The Lost One itself.

  But the blond boy had disappeared.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning, for the first time in days, Fiona did not wake up thinking about The Lost One.

  She’d gone to bed thinking about it. Arden and her mom had come home late from Arden’s dance class, and Arden had gone upstairs immediately after dinner, and Fiona had never gotten the chance to corner her and demand answers. But now the missing book didn’t seem quite so important.

  Because this was Saturday. The day of Cy’s birthday party. And she was going to spend the whole day at the science center with her friends. Fiona’s body buzzed with joy.

  She leaped out of bed, grabbing her cartouche T-shirt and pulling it on over her beaming face. The whole world seemed brighter this morning. The sky was already vividly blue, and crowds of birds were having cheerful conversations in the woods outside her window.

  Fiona had one leg inside her jeans and the other still tangled in her pajama pants when she noticed another sound.

  Voices. Loud, familiar voices, coming from downstairs.

  One voice wasn’t just loud. It was shouting.

  Fiona stepped out into the hall.

  “I didn’t write it on the calendar! You did!” Fiona heard Arden yell. “So I didn’t know you had put it on the wrong day!”

  Her mom and dad murmured something that Fiona couldn’t catch.

  “It was on the list Carolyn gave you!” Arden shouted as Fiona padded down the stairs. “I was always going to be skating on Saturday, not just on Sunday!”

  “We get it, Arden,” her mom answered. “It was a mistake. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  Fiona slunk closer. Her family was in the kitchen, gathered around the calendar taped to the refrigerator. No one seemed to notice her hovering in the kitchen doorway.

  Arden’s face was warped with desperation. “Can’t you just tell the clinic that you can’t come in?”

  “Arden, I have patients to see, and it’s my very first week. I can’t—”

  “There’s no other way.” Fiona’s dad broke in. “I’ll cancel my meetings and take Arden instead.”

  “So Mom won’t even be there?” Arden spun back toward her mom. “It’s the Longfellow Open. One of the biggest competitions of the year. And you won’t be there to see me do my new program for the very first time?”

  “You know I’d be there if I possibly could.” Her mom squeezed Arden’s arm. “Now hurry and get your things, so you
r dad can still get you to the rink by nine.”

  Somewhere in the back of Fiona’s head, an alarm began to clang.

  “Wait,” she said loudly. “Dad’s driving me to Springfield to meet up with the Kostas.”

  Her parents turned toward her. Her dad’s face was a careful blank. Her mom covered her forehead with both hands.

  “Fiona . . . ,” she murmured.

  “You didn’t forget, did you?” Fiona fought the panic that began to rise through her ribs. “Because it’s been on the calendar for weeks.”

  “No. We didn’t forget,” said her dad. “We’ve just got an amalgamation of issues here.”

  “But they’re Arden’s issues.” Fiona kept her eyes away from her sister’s face. Her sister, who had stolen her book and so much else. “It’s Cy’s birthday. They already bought me a ticket for the Egypt exhibit. You’re supposed to drive me halfway there. You promised.”

  Arden made a noise like the start of a sob.

  “Okay . . . let’s look at all the elements,” said her dad. “We can’t change the fact that Arden has a competition in Boston that lasts all day, and she needs to have a parent with her. We can’t change your mom’s shift at the clinic, which means I’ll be the one going to the city with Arden. We can’t change the location or timing of Cy’s birthday.” He turned toward her mom. “Could the Kostas pick Fiona up here?”

  “You want to ask them to drive two hours out of their way?” her mom asked. “And then drive back to Hartford?”

  “I could take a cab,” said Fiona desperately. “I’ll pay for it myself.”

  “We’re not sending you on a long-distance cab ride alone, Fiona.” Her mom put a hand on her forehead again. “Girls, let the two of us talk for a minute.”

  Fiona and Arden stepped through the kitchen door and stopped in the hallway just outside.

  Fiona stared straight down, her eyes so hot and her thoughts so furious she could practically feel them burning her toes. This couldn’t happen. After days of loneliness, of waiting, of keeping this bright spot in front of her like a beacon, she couldn’t have it stolen now. She glared at Arden from the corner of her eye.

  At first Fiona thought Arden was just staring down at her own feet. But then she noticed two big tears dripping onto the hallway floor.

  Arden’s sock scuffed the drops away.

  “Girls?” called their mom.

  They darted back into the kitchen. And with just one look, Fiona knew. She knew from the way her parents were looking at her, not at Arden, with eyes that said, “We’re sorry” and “We love you” and “Please be understanding” and a lot of other things that she didn’t want to hear or see.

  “Fifi,” her dad began.

  “No,” said Fiona.

  “If there were any other way—” said her mom.

  “No,” said Fiona, more loudly. “This isn’t fair.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t,” her mom agreed. “And we’re so sorry. But Arden can’t miss this competition. We just don’t have another choice.”

  “We will make this up to you. We promise,” her dad added. “We’ll find another weekend when we can drive all the way to Pittsfield and pick everyone—”

  “So I should just keep waiting and waiting, until maybe, someday, I can see my friends again?” Fiona broke in. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I shouldn’t be the one who gets punished!”

  “It’s not a punishment, Fiona. There’s just no other option.” Her mom spread her hands. “Arden’s competition is—”

  “NO!” yelled Fiona.

  Her parents looked taken aback. Emotional explosions were Arden’s terrain. Fiona was usually the quieter, sulkier, secretive one. But right now, Fiona’s feelings were too huge to go anywhere but out.

  “No!” she shouted. “I can’t see my friends for a single day, a day I’ve been looking forward to forever, because you’re choosing Arden over me?”

  Her mother’s face was like a broken china plate.

  “Fifi . . . ,” said her dad.

  But Fiona had wheeled around and bolted out of the kitchen. She charged into the living room, threw herself down on the couch, and buried her head in the pillows.

  She didn’t want to cry. At least, she didn’t want anyone to see her do it. She bit down on an upholstered cushion, muffling a scream.

  A hand tapped her arm.

  Fiona glared out between the pillows, expecting to see her mother. But it was Arden who sat beside her, perched on the edge of the coffee table.

  “Hey,” said her sister softly. “Fifi . . . I’m really sorry. About the birthday party.”

  Fiona stuffed her face back under the pillows.

  “This isn’t my fault either. I swear,” Arden went on. “Mom and Dad were supposed to check the emails from the skating club to find out when I was scheduled to skate, but they read things wrong, or wrote them down wrong. It was a mistake. I’m sorry it’s getting taken out on you.”

  Fiona didn’t answer. Her throat clenched. Her lungs felt like two burning paper bags.

  Arden kept still for a moment. Her fingers brushed Fiona’s arm again.

  “You know what?” said Arden, a ray of brightness filtering into her tone. “This isn’t one hundred percent bad. Now you can come to the competition.”

  Fiona sat up so fast that the pillows around her tumbled to the floor. “I can come to your competition?”

  Arden smiled at her obliviously. “To the Longfellow Open. You and Dad. It will be fun.”

  Fiona dug her hands into the couch cushions. She wished that her fingers were claws. She wished she had something big and valuable to tear into tiny bits.

  “I thought that you stealing my book, the one thing I’ve found here that matters to me, was the worst thing you could do. But that was nothing.”

  “Your book?” Arden put on a confused look. “What—”

  “This is all because of you.” Fiona plowed on. “We had to move here because of you. I had to leave my friends because of you. Now I lose my one chance to see them because of you. And you want me to just come and cheer for you instead? ‘Oh, Arden is so important and special and amazing that nobody around her even matters!’”

  Arden stiffened. Her eyes turned hard. “Yes, I wanted you to come see me skate,” she shot back. “Do you know how long it’s been since you’ve come to any of my events? More than two years.”

  Fiona’s mouth fell open. She would have argued, even if Arden was right—and Arden probably was right, because Fiona couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched her sister skate. But Arden went on first.

  “Do you know what that feels like?” Arden’s voice was getting higher and louder. “When everybody else’s families are there, supporting them, and my own sister never even shows up? Not at exhibitions, not at competitions, not even when I make it to regionals? Do you know how that feels?”

  “No, I don’t know how that feels!” Fiona yelled back. “I only know how it feels that no matter what I do or what I want, I’ll always be less important than my sister!”

  Fiona and Arden both shot to their feet.

  Before Arden could beat her there, Fiona took off for the staircase. She raced through the hall, past her parents’ stunned faces. She thundered up the stairs and bolted into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  When someone tapped at the door a few minutes later, Fiona didn’t answer.

  “Fiona?” her dad called gently. “I let the Kostas know what was going on. Everybody’s really sorry to miss you.”

  Fiona kept still.

  “Any chance you want to change your mind and come along with me and Arden?”

  “No.”

  There was a pause.

  “All right,” her dad said at last. “You can reach your mom at the clinic if you need to. Just stay home, and we’ll see you tonight.”

  Again, Fiona didn’t answer.

  The hall creaked as he walked away.

  Several seconds passed. Then the heavy ba
ng of the front door echoed up the stairs, and the house went still.

  Fiona lay on the bed, boiling in her skin. If she thought about Bina and Nick and Cy climbing into the Kostas’ minivan together right now, the lump in her throat swelled so large that she could barely breathe.

  Fiona shoved the tears out of her eyes. She couldn’t just stay here, imagining everything she was missing, feeling miserable. She had to do something. Something that would distract her from the boiling, choking feelings. Maybe even something her parents wouldn’t want her to do.

  Well, they wouldn’t know. And that was their fault, not hers.

  Fiona yanked off her cartouche T-shirt and pulled on a plain green one instead. She stuffed the map of Lost Lake, her notebook, her phone, and her house key into her backpack. Downstairs, she gathered the rest of her equipment: a flashlight, a water bottle, a piece of sidewalk chalk. Then she headed to the garage for her bike.

  Early on Saturday morning, the town of Lost Lake was even quieter than usual. Most businesses were closed for the day. Only a few cars rolled by as Fiona pedaled along Main Street.

  She tugged out the map and pinned it against her handlebars. If she rode past the library to the bend in Old Mill Road, cut through the woods, and then followed the river northward to its narrowest point, she should find Parson’s Bridge.

  Beyond the library, at the end of the row of stolid old mansions, Fiona steered off the sidewalk. She pedaled across the lawn of a closed law firm and into the thick trees beyond. She hid her bike in a patch of ferns. Then, on foot, she hurried into the woods.

  The ground quickly began to slope beneath her. Fiona jogged downward, catching herself on low branches. Already she could hear the rushing sound of water. A few more steps through the lace of leaves, and the river sparkled into view.

  It looked just like she’d imagined. The water was greenish silver and fast, sloshing along its rocky banks, and the woods were thick all around. Fiona wondered which of the towering trees had been here a hundred years ago. She pictured Hazel and Pearl walking beside her, the heels of their buttoned boots leaving matching prints in the earth. She imagined them breathing the same damp air.