Pretend She's Here(27)

As I got into the Porters’ minivan, I glanced next door. The large house was as ramshackle as it had seemed at my first impression, with a fading grandeur—it belonged, or had once belonged, to someone important. It loomed over the hedge between its yard and the Porters’. The Porters’ house was tiny in comparison. White paint had weathered down to the bare wood, and there were slate tiles missing from the mansard roof. A second-floor shutter creaked in the wind. Even the beehives looked forlorn. I looked for the boy, but he wasn’t there.

I wanted to scream for help, but this wasn’t the right place anyway. I needed to get farther away from this spot, where I would somehow gain the advantage, where I could run to the police so they could warn my mother before Mrs. Porter could reach her.

Chloe and I sat in the back seat. This was the minivan they’d driven when they’d kidnapped me. Now I was riding in it as if it were normal. My hands were not tied, I wasn’t drugged. My heart jumped so hard, I was worried they’d hear it banging in my chest, my breath coming fast, as if I’d just run the fifty-yard dash.

Mr. Porter was right: Many of the branches were bare, and most of the remaining leaves were brown. But every so often we’d spy a tendril of woodbine holding on to the last of its scarlet leaves, and Mrs. Porter would cry out with joy, and we’d pull over to gather a few. These roads were twisty and deserted, lined with stone walls and the occasional farmhouse. I held my breath, wanting to open the door and tumble out, run away, but I knew I had to bide my time.

A few miles later, we pulled into the parking lot of Jeb’s Olde Cider Mill, a big red barn surrounded by hundreds of pumpkins and baskets of gourds. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I smelled apples. I heard the grinding of the press, extracting juice from cartloads of Macoun and McIntosh apples.

The Porters barely kept their eyes on me. They must have been confident no one would recognize Emily Lonergan with her hair dyed black, blue eyes hidden behind green contacts, a mole drawn on her cheek. Mr. Porter wandered over to a display of apple wine and maple syrup. Chloe stuck close to me. She grabbed a box of fudge and another of maple sugar molded into the shape of jack-o’-lanterns. Employees wore khaki jackets with Jeb’s patches on the chest.

I tried to catch the eye of a woman handing out cups of hot cider, but she was talking to a couple. I overheard them say they were from Kentucky, meandering through New England on vacation. This would be the place to yell. I wouldn’t even have to run—people would surround me to find out what was wrong.

And there he was—the boy who had been on the porch next door. Today his dark blond hair was tied back with a leather cord, a few strands falling into his face, and he wore a brown canvas jacket. He was with three other kids, all of them wandering past the crates of apples, drinking cups of hot cider.

One of them was a girl in a long dress, with wavy strawberry blond hair flowing almost to her waist. She laughed, a trill as pure as birdsong. Just behind them was a stocky boy with a beard and sunglasses and a dark-haired boy wearing a cap that said MARTIN GUITAR.

“Oh, look, it’s Casey,” Chloe said.

The boy with the dark blond hair must have heard his name because he turned and waved. He left his friends and walked toward us.

“Hi, Chloe,” he said.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“Saturday at the cider mill,” he said. “Life is good, right?”

“Pretty much,” she said.

He smiled. His eyes were turquoise and cloudy. His lashes were so long they brushed his cheeks when he blinked. But it was the color and opacity of his eyes that mesmerized me.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I said.

“I bet I know who you are,” he said.

“You do?” I practically died then and there. Had he seen the news stories? Unconsciously I touched my dyed hair—could he look right through the disguise and see who I really was?

“Please, you’ve got to …” I began, instantly grabbing for what felt like my best and last opportunity, my heart smashing through my ribs, when I felt sharp fingers grip my shoulder.

“I see you’ve found our neighbor,” Mrs. Porter said, smiling warmly. “Casey Donoghue, meet my daughter Lizzie.”

“I knew it had to be you,” Casey said. “Home from Europe. How was it?”

“Europe?” I asked.

“I told Casey and his dad all about your semester as an exchange student,” Mrs. Porter said. “How badly we missed you but how we absolutely could not deny you that once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

“Must have been cool,” Casey said.

Mrs. Porter prodded me.

“Was it cool, Lizzie?” she asked.

“Uh, yes,” I said.

“It was really great,” Casey said. “Your family moving in last year—we don’t exactly get a lot of new people around here. It’s a little rural.”

“It’s just so scenic and beautiful,” Mrs. Porter said. “A great place to raise a family.”

“That’s what my parents said when we moved here,” he said, looking straight at me. “But I was a lot younger than you and Chloe.”

His eyes seemed to bore into me, but at the same time, they looked through and past me. Did the cloudiness mean his vision was impaired? But he’d walked over so easily, sure of himself, no cane. Still, there was something.