17 & Gone(72)

Yoon-mi Hyun and Maura Morris, who both think love changes a person for the better, and both agree that it is possible to find your soul mate at age 17, no matter what your parents may say when you bring the girl home.

Kendra Howard, who expects she’s the bravest, baddest, most kickass girl those guy friends of hers have ever known, and bets they still spend nights talking about her, still toast her memory over cold beers, saying how high she leaped, how far she fell, how she had balls, and she’ll never be forgotten, RIP.

Jannah Afsana Din, who believes starting a new life with Carlos in Mexico

wouldn’t

have

been

as

impossible as people said—they could have lived on the beach together and raised chickens; they could have sold the little cakes she makes on the streets and survived, even flourished, even found happiness.

Hailey Pippering, who’s done some things she can’t say out loud because it’d make her sick; she only wants her parents to know that she didn’t run away this time, even if they think she did. This time, she wanted to stay.

And Trina Glatt, who always meant to track down the father who abandoned her when she was a baby, so she could throttle him and blame him for every bad thing that ever happened to her, but also, secretly, so she could hug him, and admit she missed him, and if he invited her to a baseball game, or to the backyard, to throw a Frisbee around or something, she’d probably go. She’d tell him that, if she could.

There are a lot of things the girls would tell the people they left behind, if they could.

All those girls. So many to keep track of tonight, my head swirling. Only, something’s missing. Something’s not right here. The circle of girls comes close and then weaves tighter around me. I can’t tell if I’m at the center or if the fire is.

The night flickers.

What I thought were the soot-streaked walls of the house are the tall stalks of the pine trees; the staircase to the upper floors is the side of the mountain leading up to the looming ridge; the ceiling doesn’t end because it’s the night sky.

Pinpricks of flurries rain down, as soft as ash but cool on my cheeks. My surroundings keep shifting: I’m at Lady-of-the-Pines, in the ring of stones where the campers toast marshmallows in summer. Then I’m in the house in my dream. My dream is here, or this place has become a part of it; I don’t know the difference.

The girls’ hands are tightly clasped, though there’s no singing. This isn’t summer camp. This isn’t the kind of night for belting out “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and holding a flashlight to ghoul up your face and tell ghost stories.

The ghosts tonight have already told their stories.

I cast my eyes around the fire. I still can’t shake that something’s not how it’s supposed to be. Madison’s bright-blond hair seems wild in the fire, and there’s an uncountable number of stars in her eyes, but it’s not her. Trina shoots me a threatening glare, but it’s not her, either.

Then I know: Yes, the girls have come out. Some (Jannah, Hailey) have only recently become familiar and I barely know their full stories yet, and some (Natalie, Shyann) are girls I feel like I’ve known since first grade. But there’s one whose face I can’t find in the roaring glow, one I keep looking for in the hissing, dizzying circle of smoke, thinking I must have missed her.

Thinking they’re moving too fast, and if they’d only slow down or stop so I could see her.

Where’s Abby?

She doesn’t step out of the smoke. She still hasn’t come. I haven’t gotten her out. All this, and I haven’t found her.

I turn to Fiona to ask what happened. I see Fiona now, at the edge of the ring, not holding a hand, not taking a step inside, only watching. Only waiting. An observer to a disaster about to occur, standing back so she can wipe her hands of it after.

She wants me to join the girls. It’s not fair that I’ve been living my life out in the daylight, driving my van down any road I want, walking into any house I want, seeing the people who love me at any moment, on any day. She’s forgotten I’ve been in the hospital, unable to have any of these things, either. Because surrounding us is an entire sky made of shadows, and there’s no escaping your fate.

I’m 17. Like she was, like they all were.

Then Fiona meets my eyes, and I question my distrust of her. I question everything.

Because no, she didn’t bring me here to get rid of me. She expected Abby to come out, just as I did. She’s looking at the fire, waiting and wondering where she is, too.

Then she makes a decision.

She grabs my arm. I can’t tell if I’m feeling her touch or if what’s come back is a memory of her touch, from before.

Her hand has a hard grasp of my arm, reminding me of that night when I was still eight and she was 17 as she is now, when she grabbed me and shoved me in the closet. But tonight it hurts so much more than it did then because she’s grabbing my left arm, my bad arm.

We’ve got to burn the place down, she says.

No, no, wait, we can’t yet, I try to tell Fiona. Abby’s not here. Aren’t we supposed to find Abby first, and only after can we— But I’m not fast enough to catch her.

Fiona’s racing down the hill with the bottle of kerosene in her arms. It’s too late. She will start the destruction without me.

— 60 —