The Children on the Hill(40)

Alex shook his head. “That’s not what happened to Lauren. She wasn’t kidnapped or anything. Her parents brought her to the place.”

“What kind of place?” I asked.

“She said it was somewhere in Upstate New York,” Alex said. “It’s this rehab place for teens that’s like a cult or something—lots of meditation and practicing mindfulness—whatever that’s supposed to mean. And talking about your feelings and making collages and crap. She hated it. Was there for six weeks. She said she’d rather be in prison.”

“Wow,” I said. “So this was recently?”

“Yeah,” Riley said. “Her parents picked her up from there and brought her straight here to the island for together time. They come every summer. Lauren hates it.”

“Lauren hates everything,” Alex said. “Literally everything.”

Skink shook his head. “Come on, man, not everything, right?”

Alex laughed, ran a hand through his bleached-blond hair. “Right. She loves weed. And trouble. She loves trouble.”

“That’s totally unfair,” said Zoey. “She has an artist’s soul.”

Alex rolled his eyes dramatically.

“So,” I said, “do you have any idea where she is now?”

“She took off,” Riley said. She threw her cigarette butt into the water.

“That’s what everyone’s saying, anyway,” said Zoey, biting her lip. “Like her parents, the cops.” She wrapped her arms around her torso, giving herself a tight hug, mumbled, “But that’s not what happened.”

“So what did happen?” I asked.

“Rattling Jane got her,” she said. She lit another cigarette with shaking hands.

“That’s total bullshit,” Alex said. “That’s what Lauren wants everyone to think. It’s, like, literally brilliant, really. She goes around town telling everyone she met this scary monster lady down by the lake, shows everyone the pebble she got, then disappears. Of course some idiots are gonna think the monster got her.”

“I heard they might get a team of divers from the state police to start checking the bottom of the lake,” Riley said.

Everyone was quiet for a few seconds.

“How did Lauren first meet her?” I asked. “Rattling Jane?”

“She said it was in the sanctuary,” Riley said. “Loon Cove. There’s a little beach there, not a sandy beach but a pebbly one. Sometimes we go there to swim and hang out.”

“So,” I said, “she met Rattling Jane at Loon Cove? Was she alone?”

She nodded. “Loon Cove is kind of hard to get to, and no one ever bothers you there. Like, bird-watchers and hikers show up once in a while, but mostly no one goes. We showed it to Lauren a couple of years ago. This summer she was going there just about every night. Her dad’s a dick. They’d have these huge fights.”

“Do you know about what?” I asked.

“I guess he’d say shit like, ‘I paid money to come to this cabin for family time and you don’t even show up for dinner.’?”

“It wasn’t just that,” put in Zoey. “He’d hit her and stuff, too. He was super controlling.”

Alex nodded. “That’s what she said, anyway. I don’t know. Lauren could be kind of dramatic. Anyway, apparently he and Lauren’s mom thought that being here would magically bring them all together. It just pissed Lauren off to be dragged to a place with no Wi-Fi, no cell service. Away from all her friends.”

I nodded. “I get it.”

Riley continued, “Her dad kept threatening to send her back to the lockup psych ward place.”

“Guy’s a douchebag,” said Alex. “Has some fancy job trading bonds or something. He’s one of those guys who comes here for a few weeks every summer and walks around like he owns the place.”

“Lauren hates him,” Zoey said. “She says he represents everything that’s wrong with the world: patriarchy, mindless consumption and wealth, total lack of creativity and respect for the planet.”

“Right.” I got the picture. “So she’s miserable, fighting with her parents, and she started walking out to the cove every night? Did any of you guys ever meet her there?”

“Sometimes,” Alex said. “But mostly she went on her own.”

“She’d walk there along a path from her cabin,” Riley said.

“Tell her about the tree,” Skink put in.

“There’s a hollow tree there,” Riley explained, “and she kept her weed and cigarettes and shit there—stuff she didn’t want her parents to find. And one day she goes and there’s a flower in there. Then another day she goes and there’s a coin. Then a piece of sea glass.”

Zoey nodded. “Rattling Jane was leaving her gifts.”

“How did she know it was Rattling Jane?” I asked.

“She didn’t,” Zoey said. “Not at first. Not until Jane showed herself to Lauren.”

“So she just went one day and found Rattling Jane there waiting?” I asked.

“No way,” said Riley. “Rattling Jane doesn’t just show up and wait for you! You have to call her!”

“See,” Skink said. “Just like I told you.”