You Can't Catch Me(23)
Kiki—named after how she pronounced her middle name when she was two—was the golden child. Long, perfectly spun sunshiny hair. Clear blue eyes and excellent posture. We were as close as sisters, and yet we wouldn’t be allowed to share a house when we turned eighteen. She was sharing with Sarah, the other girl our age. I’d be the odd woman out, even though we’d asked to be housed together. But it wasn’t to be. Instead, I was the one whose mother wouldn’t look her in the eye when she talked up the virtues of living alone “most of the time.” Shivers.
Even before Todd took an interest in me, I’d thought about escaping from the LOT off and on for years. I’d listened to those rumors about “Liam,” the ghost who came to rescue you if you wished it hard enough. A specter who appeared when you needed him most. If you turned around three times at midnight and clicked your heels together under a new moon, he might come and get you. Sarah knew for sure that this was how Aaron had escaped, only he’d screwed up the spell and his parents had disappeared too.
I didn’t believe in spells, but after that day at the farmers’ market, I knew Liam was real. I told Kiki about him at the first opportunity, but she refused to leave with me. So I was on my own. I spent that winter working out the details of my plan over and over, waiting for an opportunity. When Tanya told me she was taking me to town, I was happy despite the underlying unease related to the reason for the visit. Sitting next to her in the van, I tried to memorize the turns as if I’d be driving them. Right, right, left, then a long stretch . . .
The store she took me to was out of date and out of the way. There was one older woman at the cash register and dust flashing in the sunbeam that cut through the front windows. I took the white dresses Tanya handed me and willed her with a look not to follow me into the dressing room. I hung the dresses on the hook, then slipped out the emergency exit before I had time to talk myself out of it. I rushed down the street to the coffee shop Liam had told me about, one who’d know what to do if a scared girl came in unexpectedly asking to use the phone. I dialed Liam’s number, and he thankfully picked up immediately. We made a quick plan for a week ahead, the day I’d be moving down the mountain. Then I ran back to the store, grabbed the dresses from the changing room, and told my aunt that either of them was fine, she could choose.
I’d been away for five minutes.
What did she make of the beads of sweat on my brow? She was too guilty to notice, I thought. Or she’d mastered the art of looking away, because that was how you survived in the LOT.
Looking right at things was discouraged.
The LOT has shrunk in the intervening years. As we walk around the dilapidated compound, I’m shocked at how quickly we canvass what once seemed vast: the Gathering Place, Todd’s house, my parents’ cottage, where I was supposed to live. There’s still half a dock on the small lake we used to jump into on winter mornings to cleanse ourselves of our desires. “When you plunge into the cool,” Todd used to say, wrapped in a fur coat that looked like it belonged to a Muscovite, “you have no choice but to forget everything else. There’s nothing but yourself and your survival. Hold on to that feeling and you’ll be invincible.”
I move instinctually, Liam following me, letting me set the pace. I’ve been back here since I ran away, but I had things on my mind other than a trip down memory lane. Like Todd said, I’d been dipped into the cool, and I was trying to hold on to the feeling.
The hike up to the Upper Camp is steep—I remember that right. I’m out of breath when we get to the small collection of cabins I spent my childhood in. The “school,” where we learned our odd lessons and ate our meals. The washstand, where we brushed our teeth outside in all weathers. The girls’ bunks and the boys’ bunks.
The guardhouse.
I open the door to the girls’ bunks. The roof is half–caved in.
“Careful,” Liam says.
“It’ll be all right.”
I walk into the dark wooden structure. It smells of rot and decay. A mouse scurries across the floor. I suppress a yelp.
My bunk was at the back, above Kiki’s. My initials are carved into the beam, but Kiki was too afraid to do that. She didn’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t either, but I didn’t think I would. That was how we were different. She let fear in, anticipated it, even. I tried to keep it at bay by ignoring the obvious realities.
I look down at her bunk. I don’t have to close my eyes to remember her lying there in a rough muslin nightgown like something Laura Ingalls Wilder might have worn. Her hair was always pleated into a tight braid that looked as if it hurt her head, but she took it out for sleeping. She’d make me brush it a hundred times, though I never understood why. It was perfect whether she did anything to it or not.
I told her I was leaving that last night I spent here, my bags all packed with my meager belongings to move down the hill. She was moving down also, but not moving on. I’d asked her again and again to come with me, but she’d always refused, her fear holding her in place.
“What will you do?” she asked. “Where will you go?”
“Anything and anywhere. It has to be better than here.”
“They won’t accept you.”
“So Todd says.”
Kiki sucked in her breath. Questioning Todd was an offense that brought on the highest punishment—banishment to the Back Forest. Kiki was terrified of the place even before we were forced to spend a week there for punishment. It was claustrophobic and terrible, and the thought of being there for any length of time was more than enough to keep her in line.