Pretend She's Here(81)

“That sounds dangerous,” I said, picturing the old wooden house going up in flames from one of those candles.

“It was. Chloe stopped over when she got off the bus, to make sure I was okay. She found me running back and forth between the kitchen and bathrooms, checking on the candles. And she wound up staying with me till after dark, helping me keep an eye on them.”

“So you both saved the pipes from bursting?” I asked.

“Most of them, yes, but I forgot about the one that went to the back bathroom upstairs. After the thaw, we had a huge leak—it ran through the ceiling, and there was plaster everywhere. But still, it would have been much worse if Chloe hadn’t been here.” He paused and glanced at the door. “I’d better go, nail up a tarp over the broken window for now.”

“Okay,” I said. “I wish we lived closer so I could help.”

“So do I. I miss …”

“What?”

“Having you next door. But that’s probably not cool to say.”

“It is. It’s fine.”

“L,” he said.

“L,” I said.

When we ended the call, I kept playing. I thought of Casey in that old ramshackle house. I pictured him and Chloe lighting candles. Even the small warmth from each one had made a difference. Just a little helped.

*

The library was my second-favorite place to study in school—after the Apiary. I loved the smell of books, the stacks that reached to the ceiling. I used to be happiest when I needed a volume from the top shelf and would get to wheel over the small oak ladder and climb it. Lizzie and I each had a favorite carrel.

I pulled out Lizzie’s envelope addressed to Mame, removed the letter, and smoothed it on the desk with my hand. My idea was to research Sarah Royston. Even though she was prominent in Maine, and this was Connecticut, I had the feeling there hadn’t been many women mill owners or industrialists in the nineteenth century. Our library had a big section on New England history.

I could have gone online, of course, but for this, I wanted to read real books, find actual pages. I wanted to hold dusty volumes in my hands, have the authors’ words right in front of my eyes instead of filtered by a screen.

Instead of starting to work, I texted Casey.

Me: Are you there?

Casey: Always.

Me: Big sigh of relief. I wish I were in Maine.

Casey: I wish I were in Connecticut Me: Hmmm.

Casey: Did you hear about Chloe?

Me: What?

Casey: She got attacked in her cell.



I froze to read those words, to think of what had happened to her. My hands were shaking when I typed again.

Me: Is she okay?

Casey: Yes, aside from a black eye. Another inmate beat her up.

Me: Why?

Casey: Her nickname there is “Kidnapper.” The other kids think she should be punished for what she did to you.

Me: I don’t want that.

Casey: I know.



There was a long silence between us. My stomach flipped. I felt sick, thinking of Chloe locked up, as I had been, beaten up and unable to get away and go home. Unlike me, she had no home to go to.

Me: What will happen to her?

Casey: There’s a hearing on Friday, to figure it out. They’re going to send her to a group home. They’re saying she’s not really a criminal, that in some ways, her parents abused her, too.

Me: Where’s the hearing?

Casey: Portland



The biggest city in Southern Maine. It was where the United States district court was located—the place the Porters would go on trial. And I knew the Casco Bay Youth Development Center was near there, too.

Me: I want to go to her hearing Casey: I was thinking of it, too Me: Let’s try

Casey: If you’re going, consider me there.



I was sixteen now; I could get my license, but I needed to take driver’s ed, get some practice driving in before that could happen. I looked up and noticed Dan in the library. He stood in the earth science aisle, trying to catch my eye. BR—Before Royston—I would have been over the moon. But now it didn’t matter.

I googled Portland, Maine on my phone. I saw images of the Atlantic Ocean and a bay full of small islands, brick buildings on the waterfront, a planetarium, and six different lighthouses.

Then I searched for the Casco Bay Youth Development Center. I pulled it up on Google Earth, looked at the tall walls and small windows, the narrow outdoor recreation area. I read an article about how the youth offenders attended high school inside. Bullying was rampant. Passing notes—incarcerated kids’ version of texting—wasn’t allowed. It was called illegal mail.

There was no question I would attend Chloe’s hearing on Friday. I just had to find a ride.





On Wednesday, Bea and I went to the Apiary. It was the last room on the second-floor corridor, with its comfy chairs for studying and glass bubble that contained the beehive. In spring, bees flew in and out from the outdoors, forming a colony and making honey. Now, during the winter, the bees clustered on the frame, deep in hibernation.

The bees were in a state of suspended animation. I stared at them, immobile in their cells. Each cell was private, enclosed. I wondered if the bees felt trapped, if their wings twitched, longing to fly. Did they remember that each year spring came again, that there were meadows and flowers and wild thyme? I suddenly felt sure, as positive as I’d ever been about anything, that these were Casey’s mother’s bees, that they had swarmed down from Maine, joined the colony already living in the hive. They were safe right here in my school.