All the Missing Girls(58)

Corinne and Bailey and I took over the clearing once, way before boys, when we were still made for play, and tried to make Daniel and his friends earn it back. Corinne had raised a big stick over her head, pretending to be the Lord of the Rings wizard, which the boys had been watching in the living room. It became this big event: me and Corinne and Bailey guarding this site, Daniel and his friends trying to sneak inside without getting caught, and Corinne’s booming voice, You shall not pass!, disintegrating into a fit of laughter. We’d played until it was dark, and Corinne tried to make them declare their loyalty to her as Queen of the Clearing, waving the stick in front of her body, swishing her hips in a rhythm. Eventually, Daniel swung Corinne over his shoulder—she was skinny and straight, and her hair nearly brushed the ground, and she was yelling, “A curse on you, Daniel Farrell!” because she was Corinne Prescott even back then.

I could feel them surrounding me here before things changed—like the past was alive, existing right beside the present. Daniel abandoned this place first. Always responsible, too mature, no time for kid stuff. Corinne and Bailey didn’t want to hang out here by themselves. “It’s only fun if someone’s trying to fight you for it,” Corinne said. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”

I tried to hold the memory of all the people who had been here with me. Daniel and Tyler, Corinne and Bailey.

And then I tried to imagine an outsider watching us all.

All those times we used to scare ourselves with sounds—an animal, the breeze. A monster, Daniel had said, and we had rolled our eyes. Nothing, Tyler had said, pulling me closer in the tent, I got you. But what if there were something? What if the monster were a child just watching? What if it were Annaleise crouched in the bushes? I tried to make myself small, make myself timid, make myself her, and see our lives playing out through her eyes. What did she see? I wondered. What did she think? Who was I through the filter of her eyes? I stood, wandering to the center of the clearing, trying to picture us.

I was so caught up in the memories of other people, the feeling of people sharing this space with me, that at first I didn’t recognize the feeling of someone real. Someone now.

The crack of a twig and the shuffling of underbrush. The hairs raising on the back of my neck in response.

I was in the middle of the clearing, completely exposed, and I felt eyes. I was sure I could hear breathing.

“Tyler?” I called.

I hated that he was always my first instinct. The number I’d start dialing after midnight and then stop. The name I’d call when I heard a front door creak open.

“Annaleise?” I called in a voice just above a whisper.

I took out my cell phone, so if there were someone, he or she would see I had it.

Sounds—footsteps—from just out of sight, from deeper in the woods.

I backed away, into the trees, closer to home. Heard something from the side and spun in that direction.

I held the phone in both hands. And I had a signal. A beautiful signal, out in the woods, with the one service provider who covered out here. Terrible plan otherwise—couldn’t get a break on mobile-to-mobile, the data-service part was murky at best, but I was alone in the woods, and it worked.

Everett had taken my phone once while his was in the other room charging. He tried to look up the scores of a game, got frustrated, and said, “Why do you have this service? It’s horrible.”

“It’s not horrible,” I’d said. But it was.

Now I thought: Because. Just in case. For this. For here. I thought of all the little things I’d held on to. All the little things I’d taken with me when I left. A fine, transparent thread leading all the way home.

I held the phone to my ear, and I called the one person I knew would come, no questions asked.

The phone rang two, three times, and I was teetering on the brink of panic when Daniel picked up. “I’m in the woods,” I said. “At the clearing.”

“Okay,” he said. “Are you okay?”

The faint wafting of a scent on the breeze—cigarette smoke. Gone as suddenly as it had registered.

“I don’t know,” I said. My hand on the tree trunk with the hole, the bark rough and familiar, grounding me.

I could hear the panic in his breathing, imagined him pushing himself to standing. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

My eyes roamed the woods, looking for the source. I lowered my voice. “I don’t know. I feel like someone’s here.”

I heard him curse under his breath. “I’m coming. Stay on the phone with me. Make it known that you’re on the phone. Be loud, Nic. And walk straight for home.”

It would take him twenty minutes to get here if he were home. Longer if he were on site somewhere.

I had no idea what to talk about and ended up sharing the most idiotic thing I could imagine: “I’m thinking about eloping.” Something totally vacant. “I can’t stand the idea of a big wedding. All these people I don’t know—Everett’s family knows everyone. There will probably be two hundred people from his side and five from mine. And Dad . . . what if that day he doesn’t know who I am? What if he won’t walk me down the aisle? Or maybe we should have a destination wedding, just family. Somewhere warm.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m on the trail, there’s this cool oak tree, you remember it?” I picked up a sharp rock off the path, spun in a quick circle. Heard a noise to my left. A crackling of leaves. I kept moving, with more purpose now.