Girl in the Blue Coat(37)

Mrs. Janssen rotates two of the jars, so I can see them right side up. The dust drawing on the first jar is an M. The second one is a T.

“I noticed them yesterday and thought they were just doodles,” Mrs. Janssen says. “But they’re not. They’re M and T.”

“Mirjam and Tobias,” I say.

“Do you think it means something?”

Do I think it means something? Something like Mirjam running away from a safe place to try to find a boy she liked? Something like Mirjam risking her life for a relationship whose only evidence so far is a cryptic note, a dusty trail on jar lids, and some flowers Mina says Mirjam once received at school? It would seem crazy to rational people. But isn’t this something like I would have done? Even if I hadn’t seen Bas in months, wouldn’t I still be thinking of him every day, mentally tracing his name on everything I saw? Isn’t that what I’m doing now still?

Isn’t love the opposite of rational?

Mrs. Janssen polishes her eyeglasses again while she waits for me to answer, rubbing off dust particles they picked up on the floor, murmuring something about the garden stake.

“Hmm?” I ask her absentmindedly.

“I was thinking I should keep the garden stake nearby in the house. The one you used to get my glasses? It could be useful for when I need to reach in small spaces.”

I sit up, a lightning bolt down my spine.

“What did you say?”

“I’m sorry. You were trying to concentrate.”

“No, no. You’re helping,” I tell her. “This stake was in your back garden?”

“Yes. I have a little plot of vegetables. Not now, obviously; it’s winter. But in the summer. Why?”

“I need to see the back door again.”

“Why?”

I brush past her, down the dim, narrow hallway to the back door. It’s just as I remembered from last time: When it’s not latched properly, there’s a large, gaping crack of air, and the door blows open. The latch is heavy and black and looks to be made of iron. What I’m thinking could work—I’m sure of it. Theoretically, at least. Experimentally, I lift the latch up and let go. It falls back down, missing the eye and failing to lock. The same thing happens the next time. This is why she thought it would be impossible to lock the door behind you. The latch wouldn’t naturally fall into place.

Mrs. Janssen is getting impatient behind me. “I don’t understand,” she says finally.

“Shhh.” I lift the lock again.

I’m about to decide I must have been wrong. Then, on the fourth try of letting go, the latch naturally closes with a satisfying click.

I whirl around to see if Mrs. Janssen noticed. “See? Did you see that?”

“But it doesn’t matter if you get it to close on its own,” she protests. “You’re standing right in front of it. Mirjam couldn’t do that from the other side of a locked door.”

“Hand me the garden stake. I’m going outside for a minute.” Mrs. Janssen’s vegetable plot is just a small square of frozen dirt. In the dead of winter, nothing is growing, but stakes with seed packets affixed to them stick out of the ground, labeling herbs and vegetables. There’s a small hole missing where the beet stake should go. “Mrs. Janssen?” I call through the closed door. “Watch out, all right? I’m going to poke this through the door.”

Jabbing upward, I use the vegetable stake to poke around until I feel it—the iron latch inside the door—and I try to use the stake to swing the latch up into place. The first time, it swings back down with a thud. But on the fifth try, I manage to swing the latch up at exactly the right angle, so that when it comes down again, it clicks into place with a heavy noise.

I’ve locked an unlockable door from the outside.

Mrs. Janssen opens the door, staring at me as I stand in her back garden with her dirty garden stake, the one I’ve just used to do what she thought was impossible. “How did you think to do that?”

“Girls in love will do desperate and creative things.”

Today has been a very long day, but I have solved two things. First, I have learned the identity of the T in Mirjam’s letter. Second: I still don’t know where Mirjam is, but at least I know she didn’t walk through walls to get there.





FOURTEEN





Friday


Tobias still hasn’t been in school. That’s what Mina tells me, when I visit her at the crèche the next afternoon.

“Sick?” I ask. “Or gone? Does anyone know?”

She doesn’t know anything, just that he hasn’t been in school, which could mean he has a cough, or it could mean he’s gone into hiding, or it could mean he’s dead. It could mean Mirjam is already dead, too. After yesterday afternoon at Mrs. Janssen’s, I was feeling so optimistic. But now I’ve spent the morning visiting dentist after dentist, looking for Tobias or his father with no luck. How long do I keep looking for Mirjam? She’s been gone for four days. As more time passes, any trail leading to her will only run colder. At what point does it grow so cold that I accept that Mirjam has either been killed or slipped so deep into the cracks of the underground that we will never see her again? Not yet. I’m not to that point yet. But when? Will I be able to tell that I’m there? Will I be able to walk away?