The Leaving(88)

“Is it me or are those scars a little too realistic?” Avery said as they sat on a sunned-hot black leather bench along the side of the boat.

This ship’s flag had a winking pirate face on it of the Big Beard variety. The pirate dude had the kids all saying Arrgh and was telling them it wasn’t loud enough. They tried harder and Avery laughed.

All the kids were roaring “Yo ho ho!” when Lucas kissed her.





Scarlett


With her first funeral under her belt, Scarlett felt strangely alive.

Maybe it was morbid but all through the service she hadn’t been able to fight a nagging feeling of— It couldn’t be excitement.

No.

Maybe just awareness.

Of the blood in her veins.

The air in her lungs.

The synapses firing in her brain every second of her existence.

There was something magical about her.

Something magical about everyone.

The scene itself—the small coffin, the way Max’s mother just locked eyes with the coffin through the whole Mass, like staring down an ene my—had been borderline unbearable.

Tammy, who’d foolishly worn mascara, had wept silently the whole time.

Then Avery and that stuffed dog . . .

Scarlett had had to look away.

But none of it could stop her from looking up at the stained-glass windows—angels on high—and thinking about how Max, at least, had been loved.

That was what mattered.

When her phone lit up in the church parking lot afterward, it seemed right that there’d be news. She called Chambers back and he filled her in.

They’d arrested the old principal. They’d found him—disguised but not by much because who would even think to look for him?—among the crowd at the memorial yesterday; they’d spent twenty-four hours trailing him, to see if he might lead them anywhere interesting.

He hadn’t.

Now he was in custody and they’d gotten at least a few more answers—were able to explain a few more things.

Like how he’d selected the six of them, specifically, because he’d been right there with them—showing them a mural of a zoo scene on the cafeteria wall while their parents did paperwork—when it happened. He’d seen exactly what they’d seen—blood, fear, mayhem—when they’d huddled with him by that slightly misshapen giraffe on the wall. He’d seen it in their eyes that they would never be the same.

He’d had a copy of The Leaving in his office when the kids had been vetted during kindergarten orientation. He’d wanted to read it after he’d been told that it had inspired the scientist running the experiment, a man he thought was named David Kunkel, but who had used an alias. Of course. It had never occurred to the principal how closely what would eventually happen would mirror the book.

Scarlett must have seen his copy of The Leaving and read the description. And her five-year-old imagination had taken it and run with it.


I’m going on a trip.


To the leaving.


Maybe it had sounded exciting!

Fun!

Maybe even back then she was fantasizing about getting away from her mother.


Now they drove home together, then went their own ways off the hall to change. When Scarlett came out in a tank top and shorts, her moth er was already out in the yard, sitting in a bright-green plastic Adirondack chair with another beside it. Beyond her, in the water, Scarlett saw the quick bump of a dolphin’s arched body and almost gasped.

She smiled and opened the door. “What’s with the chairs?” she said, going down the back stairs.

Tammy uncrossed, then recrossed her legs. “Thought those old loungers were looking kind of ragged and saw these on sale at the Home Depot.”

“Not too shabby,” Scarlett said, and she sat, head resting comfortably back. The parasailing people were at it again, the sail dragging slowly across the sky.

Maybe Scarlett would brave it someday.

Maybe it would feel sort of like riding in a hot air balloon.

Maybe it didn’t matter if it did or didn’t.

She’d start redecorating her room tomorrow, maybe order a poster of Christina’s World, so she’d never forget how a single moment—any one, really—could be so perfectly its own.

“It is always now,” she said, and her mother said, “Huh?”

Scarlett closed her eyes and the sun warmed her lids. “Oh, nothing.”





Lucas


Ryan had finally gone back to working regular hours at the hotel, and Lucas met him there for his dinner break. They sat on the roof deck, at a canopied table on coasters that swung, and ate fish sandwiches and fries. Below, on the beach level, a live band had just started playing.

“We should be down there,” Ryan said. “The girls coming in so far today have been hot.”

“You rebound pretty quickly,” Lucas said.

“Trust me. I’m reeling on other levels from the deception and all that. Feeling like an idiot in general. But I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, heartbroken.” He looked down. “She gave me this shirt.”

“Who is that, anyway?” Lucas asked. His brother’s valet shirt was hanging on the corner of his bench.

“Mr. Magoo,” Ryan said. “Some old cartoon character. She made me watch a bunch of clips on YouTube when I told her I had no idea who he was. He’s this old nearsighted guy who keeps getting into sticky situations because he can’t see and won’t admit he can’t see. But it always works out. She gave me another one, too. The Pink Panther.”