Long Lost Page 9

If The Lost One had been set right here, there had to be some sort of hint to find. Some sign. Some trace. Something that could point her toward the missing ending. Spreading her arms for balance, Fiona hurried to the edge of the water.

  She perched on a flat rock and looked around. To her right, the river widened before vanishing around a bend. And upriver, just a few yards away, there stood an old wooden bridge.

  Parson’s Bridge.

  Invisible, icy fingers brushed the back of Fiona’s neck.

  She rushed along the bank and onto the bridge. The wooden boards thumped softly under her shoes, the river shushing and sparkling beneath.

  The woods on the far side were dense. As Fiona stepped off the bridge, their shadows swept over her like gray silk, cool and light, covering everything. She dug through her backpack and pulled out the stick of chalk. With it, she drew a bumpy white X on a nearby tree trunk, just in case she needed to find her way back.

  Fiona hiked onward, keeping the river beside her, marking trees as she went. The farther she walked, the quieter the woods became. It got easier and easier to imagine that this was the Lost Lake of a century ago—or the Lost Lake of a strange old book.

  At last she reached a patch of forest where the pines grew tall and straight, and ferns and tiny white flowers caught the droplets of sunlight that slipped through their boughs. Fiona stopped and took a long look around. This could be the sisters’ Enchanted Forest. Right now, Fiona could be standing on the spot where Hazel had disappeared.

  Fiona turned in a slow circle, trying to observe everything at once, the way a researcher should. What might Pearl or Hazel have noticed, hidden among the ancient trees? What might they have seen? What might they have thought, but never had the chance to say?

  And then, beside her, in the shadows, something stirred.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fiona caught it with the corner of her eye.

  A tall, gaunt, black-draped form. Hunched shoulders. Long, bent spine. Its face—if it had one at all—was hidden deep in a black hood. It was close enough that Fiona didn’t have time to think. She could only whirl around and run.

  She tore through the underbrush. If the thing was following her, it didn’t make a sound. All she could hear was the blood whooshing in her ears, her own gasping breaths, and the furious, frightened voice in her head.

  You IDIOT! it screamed, as Fiona ran. You wandered into the woods alone. Now no one will ever know where you went, or what became of you, just like Hazel!

  No, another voice shouted back. No way.

  She wasn’t going to let her story end like that.

  Fiona pushed her legs faster, farther, flying over the mossy ground. The Xs she’d drawn on the trees beckoned her on. In another instant, the woods began to thin. She could see the brightening glint of the river ahead, and the solid shape of Parson’s Bridge waiting for her. She had nearly made it. This was her chance.

  Planting her feet, Fiona whirled around.

  There was nothing there. Nothing at all.

  Of course there isn’t, said a more reasonable voice in her head. Because the Searcher doesn’t exist.

  Fiona choked out a laugh. She’d probably been spooked by a strangely shaped shadow. Maybe she’d seen a black plastic garbage bag fluttering in a tree. Either way, there was nothing—

  Snap.

  A nearby twig broke.

  In the underbrush, just a few feet away, the leaves began to sway.

  Fiona’s heart juddered. She took a backward step.

  The brush rustled again.

  “I know you’re there!” she shouted, her voice breaking. “So come out!”

  For one awful second, Fiona waited, wondering how the Searcher’s hands would feel as they locked around her body.

  And then, so fast that Fiona couldn’t even scream, a dog burst out of the bushes.

  It was medium-sized, with curly brown hair and whiskers that tufted beneath its nose like a mustache. Its eyes were black and glittering.

  “Oh.” All the air in Fiona’s body whooshed out with that word. “Hello.”

  The dog watched her, keeping a slight distance.

  “It’s okay,” Fiona told it, creeping closer. “Are you alone out here? Are you lost?”

  She couldn’t see a collar around its neck. But when Fiona got near enough to make sure, the dog skipped sideways—not like it was afraid of her, but like they were playing a game that Fiona hadn’t joined yet.

  “What are you doing out here?” Fiona asked it. “Were you following me?”

  Abruptly, the dog bolted past her, galloping to the end of Parson’s Bridge. There it stopped, looking back at her.

  “And now you want me to follow you?” Fiona asked.

  Of course the dog didn’t answer. But it trotted across the bridge, looking back at Fiona with its bright black eyes.

  She hurried after it. When she sped up, the dog sped up too. By the time they reached the trees on the other side, the dog was galloping. It led her through the woods, finally bounding up the slope and straight onto the back lawn of the library. Fiona watched, trying to keep up, as the dog neared the building. It stopped beside the back door, throwing Fiona one more look. Then it nudged the door with its nose and scampered inside.

  After you’ve chased a strange dog through the woods and watched it sneak into a weird old library, you don’t just stop there.

  At least Fiona didn’t.

  She rushed through the back door after it.

  The door opened into a small, empty chamber with more doors on three sides. To her right stood a set of wooden stairs. The sound of the dog’s scrabbling paws floated down from above.

  Trying to make the steps creak as little as possible, Fiona climbed after it.

  The staircase ended in an alcove on the second-floor hallway. Over the banisters just ahead, Fiona could see the central reading room, the librarians and patrons going about their business below. No one seemed to have noticed the dog on the walkway above—the dog that was ducking under a STAFF ONLY sign in another alcove and scurrying up yet another flight of stairs.

  Well, thought Fiona, she’d already disobeyed one sign. Besides, if she got caught, chasing a lost dog would be a good excuse.

  She climbed under the sign and up the wooden staircase.

  The library’s third floor was hushed and dim. Unlike on the second floor, there was no open central chamber letting in light from every side. There was only a long corridor, stretching away in two directions, lined by a row of closed doors. Small windows at each end of the hall let in a few beams of daylight. The scents of an old house—aging wood, dust, and something smokier, like dead leaves—spun thickly in the air.

  The dog had stopped at the end of the hall. It glanced at Fiona. Then it pawed at the base of a door, whining softly.

  “What’s wrong?” Fiona crept closer. “Are you trying to get inside?”

  She reached for its shaggy fur, but the dog sidled quickly out of reach, whining again.

  “All right,” said Fiona. “I’ll open it for you.”

  She turned the heavy brass knob.

  The door groaned, swinging inward.

  The dog bolted through.

  Fiona froze on the threshold.

  On the other side of the door was a bedroom. Not a former bedroom, with an empty closet and dark spots on the wallpaper where pictures used to hang. A bedroom that looked as though it might have been used the night before.

  If the night before was a century ago.

  Fine lace curtains let in enough sun for Fiona to make out every detail. A high wooden bed with quilted silk blankets. A chest of drawers. A mirrored vanity, its top covered with treasures: a vase of birds’ feathers, a chipped bowl full of agates, a silver hairbrush.

  Feeling a little like she was stepping into a dream, Fiona ventured over the threshold.

  She tugged open the vanity drawers. Inside were hair ribbons, pins, stacks of embroidered handkerchiefs. When Fiona lifted one from the top of its pi
le, she saw that the embroidered stitches were crooked, like someone young and impatient had been holding the needle. Between the cross-stitched flowers were two initials.

  E.C.

  E.C.?

  Putting the handkerchief back, Fiona hurried to the closet. The stuffy smells of old fabric and cedar poured out as she opened the door. The closet was filled with hanging dresses. Antique dresses, trimmed with lace and ruffles. Dresses with pleats and pearl buttons. Dresses just about the right size for someone Fiona’s age.

  The curly brown dog, which had been circling the room, darted into the open closet. It nosed at the clothes, snuffling loudly. The dresses swung on their hangers like dancing ghosts.

  Fiona turned from the closet to the chest of drawers. On its top were more scattered objects. Fiona noticed a butterfly net, a sewing box, a few hairpins. And, behind them all, a photograph.

  It was set in a little cardboard folder, the kind that you could close like an envelope or fold backward into a stand, the way it was folded now.

  She picked it up.

  In the grainy gray image, two girls stood side by side. They wore matching pleated dresses, matching buttoned boots, and matching floppy bows in their long hair. The face of the taller one was sharper, with a hint of a smile around the mouth. The shorter one’s eyes were wider, dreamier, like she’d been looking past the photographer at something else.

  Fiona turned the photo over. On the back of the folder, in ink, someone had written Evelyn and Margaret, 1913.

  Evelyn. And Margaret.

  Fiona’s brain whirred through memories and names and years.

  These two were sisters. Just as obviously as she and Arden were sisters. Evelyn and Margaret had lived in this place, back when it had been a grand old mansion, not a library. Then, many years later, Margaret had died, leaving her house to the town and her portrait hanging above its staircase, overseeing it all.

  Evelyn and Margaret Chisholm.

  Fiona set the photo back on the dresser. Her fingers felt numb. So did her legs. Maybe she was thinking so hard that her body had sent all its blood to her brain, leaving everything else to turn to rubber. She let her gaze drift along the wall until her eyes snagged on something else.

  Beside the dresser hung a painting of a vase of roses. And just past the corner of its gilded frame, drilled into the wall, was a small, round hole.

  Fiona bent closer.

  Through the hole, dimly lit by daylight, was an empty room. But once there had been another girl’s bedroom there. And there had been another girl in it. A girl who might have put her face to the hole and whispered—

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Fiona jumped back.

  A woman stood in the bedroom doorway. She was tall and broad, wearing a long black dress and a stern expression. Fiona didn’t recognize her, but from the authoritative way she moved and spoke, it was clear that she worked here. Maybe she had an office behind one of the nearest closed doors.

  “No one is supposed to use this room,” said the woman.

  “Sorry,” said Fiona, tottering forward on rubbery legs. “I was just following that dog. . . .”

  The woman eyed the open closet, where the dog was still huffing at the hanging clothes. “Yes, that dog,” she said dryly. She snapped her fingers. “Come here, troublemaker.”

  The dog trotted reluctantly to her side.

  “This room is to remain closed,” the woman said as Fiona scurried out into the hall. “Undisturbed. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Fiona backed away. “I just . . . sorry.”

  The woman gave a brusque nod. She stood protectively before the bedroom door, the curly brown dog beside her, as Fiona hurried off.

  Fiona started down the steps. The old wood creaked beneath her. The creaks were too loud for her to be sure, but she thought she heard the woman’s distant voice say, “Come along, Pixie.”

  Pixie.

  Fiona almost tripped down the rest of the staircase. She grabbed the railing.

  Pixie? No. No way. She must have misheard.

  Heart thundering in her ribs, Fiona inched back up the staircase.

  The upper hallway was deserted.

  The woman and the dog might never have been there at all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By the time Fiona reached home, she was starving. She’d run through the woods and biked across town and back, and the one thing she hadn’t stuffed into her backpack was a snack. But while her stomach was empty, her head was crammed full of shadowy forests, shaggy brown dogs, stolen books, and sisters whispering through bedroom walls. She was so preoccupied, she nearly forgot to put her bike away in the garage so her parents wouldn’t know she’d ridden it.

  She didn’t even notice the car that was parked in the garage too.

  Fiona stepped through the kitchen door.

  “Fiona?”

  Her mom’s voice was like a dodgeball in the face.

  Fiona reeled back.

  Caitlin Murphy-Crane strode into the kitchen, cell phone in one hand, receiver of the landline in the other. “Where have you been?”

  Fiona’s thoughts blew apart. All that remained were several of her own questions, like: what time was it? How had her mom beaten her home? What could Fiona say that wouldn’t result in very bad things?

  “Um . . . ,” Fiona stalled. “I rode my bike to the library.”

  “To the library? When you were told not to leave the house?” The fuzzy elephants dangling from her mom’s earlobes jiggled with her words. “You went without leaving a note, and you didn’t even answer your phone when I called over and over?”

  “My phone?” Fiona reached into her backpack pocket. Three texts. Six missed calls. “Oh. I must have had it on silent.”

  “I can’t believe you would do this. I was so worried, I got out of work early and rushed home. And you just—hold on, your dad is calling me back. Steven?” she said into the cell phone. “No, she’s here now. She just came in. Yes, she’s all right. . . . the library. I know.”

  Fiona sidled toward the staircase. Her mom raised a hand, halting her.

  “We can talk more when you get home,” she continued into the phone. “Yes. How’s Arden doing? Really?” Her face softened slightly, happiness touching it like a thin ray of sun. “That’s great.”

  Fiona felt a spear of resentment. She couldn’t even get through a scolding without Arden stealing the spotlight.

  “I’m so sorry we couldn’t all be there. Yes. Sorry to have made you panic too. See you later.” Her mom tapped the screen, her eyes slicing back to Fiona.

  “Can you imagine what it feels like to come home and find your child gone, without a trace?” She didn’t wait for an answer, which was fine, because Fiona didn’t have one. “It’s lucky I hadn’t already called 911.”

  Her mom finally set down both phones and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. “All right. We’ll talk specifics when your dad gets home. But I can promise that you will not be leaving this house for several days. You will lose your phone privileges. And it will be a long time before we trust you to go anywhere on your own.”

  Taking the cell phone out of Fiona’s hand, her mom turned and strode toward the staircase.

  Fiona rushed after her. “Mom . . . I’m really sorry. I should have left a note. And the phone thing was an accident, I swear.”

  “Really?” said her mom, reaching the creaky upper hall. “This wasn’t your revenge for having to miss Cy’s birthday?”

  “No,” said Fiona, after a telltale pause. “I mean, I was really disappointed. But—”

  “That makes two of us,” her mom interrupted.

  She opened Fiona’s bedroom door and lifted the laptop from the desk.

  “Computer too?” Fiona gasped. No contact with friends. No Kon-Struct. No way to research any of the names or dates or places that were whirling around the borders of her brain like enraged wasps. “Mom, please—can I just keep the laptop? I need it for research. Please.�
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  “You think you should only get punishments you want?” Her mom shook her head. Her face was sad, like something empty that should have been full.

  It reminded Fiona of the dresses dangling in that musty closet.

  She needed to learn more about that bedroom. Evelyn’s bedroom. And her mom was taking away every tool she had.

  “I said I was sorry.” Fiona’s voice came out too hard. Too angry.

  Her mom looked down at her with those hollow eyes. “I heard you. And I’m glad you’re all right. But that’s all I’m glad about right now.”

  Holding Fiona’s things, she stepped out the bedroom door, closing it soundly between them.

  Fiona stood still, the wasps buzzing out of her brain and down through every vein in her body. Her mom’s words weren’t even true. That wasn’t all she was glad about. She was glad about Arden doing well at her competition.

  Perfect Arden.

  Fiona threw herself down on the bed. An instant later, she bounced up again.

  Cautiously, she inched open her bedroom door. The thumps and clunks of her mother moving around the kitchen drifted up from below. Fiona slipped out into the hallway. Keeping close to the wall, where the floorboards were less loose and creaky, she tiptoed to Arden’s room.

  The door was shut, but not latched. Fiona darted inside. There was still no trace of The Lost One, but her sister’s tablet lay on the desktop, between a mug of perfectly sharpened pencils and a stack of sparkly notebooks. Fiona snatched it up. With the tablet pinned under her arm, she scuttled back to her own room.

  Arden’s background image was a picture of French skater Surya Bonaly in the middle of a backflip. Fiona rolled her eyes. Of course it was. But at least Arden hadn’t broken the family rule about setting up a lock code.

  Fiona hunched over the tablet and got to work.

  She began by searching for “Evelyn Chisholm.” She wasn’t sure what she hoped to find. But if Evelyn and Margaret Chisholm had even more in common with Hazel and Pearl than matching bedrooms in a matching town, there would have to be some information about them—something to link them irrefutably with the girls in the book.

  She found an old British lady named Evelyn Chisholm, and a few Evelyn Chisholms scattered through the US, but no one from the right era. And nothing about a girl who disappeared.