The Leaving(27)

“A roller coaster ride,” Sarah said. “He thinks they’re just hallucinations we had. But I don’t know. I feel like I can picture this gray house. An old-looking gray house. Adam says I shouldn’t say anything to anybody. I wanted to know if any of you remember that? Like charcoal gray?”

Lucas didn’t. Neither did the others.

Kristen said, “I’m meeting with a hypnotist again in the morning. Maybe I’ll remember.”

“Did you remember anything today?” Lucas asked, and for a second, it seemed like Kristen and Scarlett shared a secret look, and then Kristen seemed to break it off.

She said, “They’re not telling me what I said yet. They want to preserve the integrity of what I recall when I’m under for at least a few sessions.”

Lucas looked at Scarlett, who was staring at the ground.

Were they hiding something from him?

“I won’t hold my breath,” he said.

“It’s worked for people before,” Kristen snapped. “There were a bunch of kids who were kidnapped on a school bus in California years ago. They managed to escape, and the bus driver remembered a license plate under hypnosis and they caught the kidnappers, so . . .”

“I have to go.” Sarah started to walk away.

“But you just got here!” Lucas protested.

She turned. “I snuck out. I don’t want to get caught. I shouldn’t have come.”

“Don’t you want to find who did this?” Lucas ignited again, but this time low heat. He said, “We all need to work together,” but wasn’t honestly convinced Sarah would be any help at all.

“I don’t know what I want.” Sarah starting walking in circles like the night before, and now talking in circles, too. “I want to go back. I want to move on. I want to know why it was us and not some other kids, and I don’t want to know anything at all!”

So many questions.

So many ways in.

Why us?

Why then?

Why now?

Why here and not any other town?

“At least give me your phone number,” Scarlett said, “in case anything urgent comes up.” She and Sarah exchanged information via text and Sarah walked out of the playground. They watched her go until they couldn’t anymore, then listened until distance silenced the slip-slap of her sandals.

“Let’s all exchange numbers,” Lucas said. “So we can be in better touch.”

And as they did that, headlights fell on them.

A local news van pulling up right at the gate to the playground.

“How did they find us?” Lucas said as he finished typing the word—“Scar”—into his phone.

“That’s my cue to go home.” Kristen stopped her swing and stood. “We don’t know anything more than we did yesterday anyway.”

Lucas actually wanted her to leave. She put him on edge in a way he couldn’t explain.

If he were alone with Scarlett, he thought he might tell her about the gun—the tattoo.

“Maybe Sarah and Adam have the right idea,” he said. A news crew of two were now standing by a curly slide.

A woman called out, “We just want to talk.”

What else would they want? “What do you mean?” Scarlett asked Lucas.

Lucas had the urge to take a photo of her, framed as she was by the chains of the swing, her face lit softly from the van’s headlights. “I’ve been avoiding them,” he said. “But why? We don’t have anything to hide.”

Nothing that anyone needed to know about, anyway.

“I just mean maybe they can help,” he said.

“How?” Scarlett asked.

“Follow my lead.” He walked toward the slide, stopped, and said, “Whenever you’re ready.” The cameraman hoisted his machine.

The reporter held out a microphone.

Lights burned on.

Lucas could almost see into the camera—lens after lens in there reflecting and capturing.

“Why are you all meeting in secret?” the reporter asked.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a secret.” Lucas stood up straighter, pushed his hair out of his eyes. “We’re in a public place. We arranged to meet when we were dropped off here because we had no idea what was going on. We wanted to check in on each other. To make sure we were all okay.”

“Who remembers the carousel that Avery Godard is talking about? Why aren’t Sarah and Adam here? Has there been a falling-out?”

“I’m the one who remembers the carousel,” Lucas said. The light was near blinding.

“And I remember riding a horse in a meadow,” Kristen said.

When the microphone was presented to Scarlett, she said, “I remember riding in a hot air balloon.”

“So maybe,” Lucas said, “the person who owns the horse or the hot air balloon or runs the carousel will remember us?”

“What about Adam and Sarah?” the reporter pressed. “Do they have memories, too?”

Lucas said, “They’ve shown that they’re quite capable of speaking for themselves. Anyway, there hasn’t been a falling-out. We’ve all just had a lot to deal with, obviously. That’s all we remember. We really hope they’re able to find out what happened to Max.”