Pretend She's Here(33)

Tilly spotted the van. She pointed at us, said something to the others, and they waved, started hurrying in our direction. When the group began to break toward us, I saw that it wasn’t only classmates: There were parents and teachers, too. There was my mother. There were Bea and Patrick. I nearly flew out of my skin.

“Fix this situation, Ginnie. It will look strange if we drive away,” Mr. Porter said.

“Back up, John,” Mrs. Porter said. “Chloe, run over and meet them, stop them from coming closer.”

Chloe was out of the van like a shot, slamming the door behind her. I lurched across the seat, grabbed the door handle. My family was right there—this was my chance. I opened my mouth to yell for help, and Mrs. Porter wriggled between the two front seats and pulled my hair so hard my head smashed the headrest. She slapped my face.

“Duck down,” Mr. Porter snapped at me. Mrs. Porter had now wriggled her way into the back seat beside me. Fingers still tangled in my hair, she tightened her grip, shaking my head, making every nerve in my scalp scream with pain. I didn’t care—I was going to get away from her.

“You idiot,” she hissed. “You stupid girl. You really don’t get it? You don’t believe I’ll kill your mother here and now? I don’t care if everyone sees. It will take me ten seconds to get to her, and her life is over. You want that?”

My body froze. Mrs. Porter violently tugged a fleece blanket from the pocket behind the driver’s seat and thrust it at me.

“Cover yourself with this,” she said. She started tucking it over my head, but before it fell over my eyes, I saw her touch her jacket pocket, weighted down with the knife. That’s all it took. She didn’t have to say another word.

I heard Tilly’s voice: “… a vigil for Emily and a memorial for Lizzie …” Then Bea—her voice breaking, making my heart crack in half: “I can’t take it—I just want Emily to come home …” Then my mother, her voice low and gravelly: “Ginnie, John, I’m so glad you’re here. Our two girls … here, take my candle. I’ll get another.”

I screamed. Not out loud, but in my head. In my mind I tore out of the van, ran faster than I ever had in my life, grabbed my mother, and got her to safety. But Mrs. Porter was right there with her now, she’d stab my mother in the heart before I could take two steps.

My body was so tense, a sheet of ice, I thought I’d shatter. Be okay, be okay, Mom. At least I knew the red shoe had come from her closet, not off her body.

She’s going to kill you; she’s going to murder you.

Was I talking to myself or my mother? I prayed to the cemetery ghosts to surround my family and protect them.

My mother’s voice sounded strong, steady, not drunk. Now my fantasy changed, and I imagined my father yanking open the car door, rescuing me. I felt Patrick and Bea holding me tight, creating a shield between me and the Porters. Then I heard the sound of Mrs. Porter’s blade crunching through muscle and bones, saw my mother lying on the ground.

Being in Black Hall felt unreal, a nightmare, full of nothing but threats and dangers. I checked out. I didn’t exist anymore, not in life as I used to know it. I was a lump on the minivan floor, and I merged with the blanket, and the gold anchor necklace of my dead best friend lay against my skin. A song filled my mind, a mantra, until I dissolved into the lyrics, the melody, the bright strum of a mandolin:

Last night I dreamed of the mountain

And our cottage in the dell,

And I dreamed a love story,

Of the girl I knew so well …



The music entwined with my breath and my heartbeat, an invisible thread connecting me to someone, pulling me north. If I wasn’t here, if I did what the Porters wanted, my family would be safe. I listened to Casey’s music and stopped feeling the hot tears burning my cheeks.




Emily’s birthday. My birthday. There was no cake, there were no presents.

We were back in Maine. For the first time, I knew the name of the town where we lived. I’d seen the sign as we’d driven over the covered bridge spanning a stream: ROYSTON, POPULATION 656, WASHINGTON COUNTY.

“It seems obvious they’ve accepted the story about you running away,” Mrs. Porter said to me that morning, as we sat side by side on the living room sofa. “That is very good. You’ll send another email soon, but not yet. It’s important you stay lost.”

Emily Lonergan, lost girl. That could be a new play: Lost Girl. But who would write it? Lizzie wrote poetry. Emily had been the playwright. And whoever I was, or was becoming, I was still too stuck to let creativity, in whatever form, flow.

“I’ve changed my mind about you,” Mrs. Porter said. “The trip to Black Hall proved that we can trust you.”

I choked down shame and rage. I hated her for threatening my mother, and I hated myself for not screaming while my parents had been so close. All those brave saints whose names my siblings and I had chosen—I was nothing like any of them. I was a coward.

“It’s time we enroll you in school,” she said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. My heart began to thump. “Seriously?”

“I’ve already talked to the high school, given them Lizzie’s records. In fact, if you hadn’t butchered your eyebrows, you would have started two weeks ago.”

“But what about the last year?” I asked. “Lizzie wasn’t in school.” Because she was dead.