Authors: Susan Vaught
Drip’s mouth comes open just like mine. How did he get those files? Much less read them on such short notice? And if he can do all that, why wouldn’t he have a clue about why he scares us?
“My—you—” Drip shakes his head and appears to get hold of himself. He lowers the beam of the flashlight so it’s on Mercer’s chin. “You just read about me on a computer or paper or whatever?”
“Derrick?” So far away it’s like a whisper. Drip’s mom is leaving us, too, and I don’t hear the colonel or the lawyer or anybody. They’re all going the other way and this jerk, he keeps not saying anything to them and I’m not sure why I’m not yelling out for our parents and other
people, except I sort of want a chance to talk to Mercer, to get him off my back, to make him see the truth and start trying—really trying—to find Sunshine.
“You don’t know what it’s like to have an alphabet,” Drip adds to Mercer, sort of angry. “You don’t understand anything about my problems, or about Freak’s. Nobody listens to us. Nobody believes us. Nobody cares about what we think about anything.”
That flicker crosses Mercer’s face again. I can tell, even though I can see mostly his mouth, not the rest of him. Is he surprised? Pissed off? Who knows.
He’s evil. He wants to arrest you. Maybe he wants to kill you. Death is peaceful. Death is quiet. You’ve read lots of poems about death.
My heart won’t stop with the racing and it’s hard to breathe and my ankles still sting from thorns. I try to focus on the pain to keep my mind sharp but the darkness, it’s growing hands and fangs and it’s hard not to stare at them everywhere the flashlight isn’t.
Mercer’s mouth shifts again at the corners—something to nothing—something to blank—as he studies us and doesn’t notice the dark hands or dark fangs or how the darkness, it’s getting meaner. For a few weird seconds, I could swear he’s about to apologize. He doesn’t say he’s sorry, though. What he says is, “You’re right, Derrick. I probably don’t understand much about what either of you goes through every day.”
“So stop scaring us.” Drip sniffs, and even though the
dark’s mean and getting meaner, I’m impressed because he’s not usually so tough. Is he doing it for me? For Sunshine? She’s worth it. I’m not so sure about me.
“I don’t want to be scary,” Mercer says. “I just want the truth.”
Drip’s not through being tough because he comes right back with, “You’ve got the truth—or all of it we know. What good does it do to ask us the same questions over and over? We should look for her.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Mercer’s so smooth he could be made of silk. Wonder if he’d be so smooth if he knew the night could bite him. Do darkness fangs have a name? Nangs, maybe. What about Farkness Biters? If I designed video games, I’d put in Farkness Biters and maybe I’d name the night hands, too, something like—
Don’t give in to it Jason I know it’s all scary the stuff you hear the stuff you see but it’s not real look at me here squeeze my locket and look into my eyes and I do and her eyes they’re like midnight with candles in the center all warm and soft and right and she’s not scary because Sunshine’s never scary except one day she will be only I don’t know it and I don’t want to know it and
—“Yes.”
That was Drip. I suck in black night air. What if it’s poison? But that’s stupid. It’s not poison. What was he saying yes about?
My right palm tingles in the center like I’m actually squeezing Sunshine’s locket, her magic locket that makes her not afraid and turns my voices into whispers and makes my eyes tell me the truth, at least for a little while. I can almost feel the gold, warmed by her skin, hot against my hand—but—
But—
Focus
.
I reach back, dig through my thoughts, try to skip past pictures of Sunshine and fangs and stuff and—oh yeah. Mercer asked if we were looking for her. Yes. That much is the truth. Good job, Drip.
Mercer’s next question comes out slower and softer. “Did you expect to find her?”
No. But I was hoping. Does that count?
I don’t say anything out loud.
Drip covers us both with, “We were thinking maybe she got upset and she was hiding. She might only come out for her mom or for us, so we thought—it seemed like we should look for her.”
He lifts the beam of the flashlight, catching Mercer full in the face again, and this time the man blinks and some spell comes off me.
“We needed to get out of the VFW and do something to find her,” I say, but my voice sounds weird to me, like I’m somebody else, like I’m talking from a room in some house miles away. Maybe the spell didn’t come off after
all. “Something real. Something more than you’re doing. We know her better than you.”
Drip glances in my direction, one eyebrow up. I must have sounded weird to him, too. Maybe the air really is poison and it’s making my throat die. If my throat dies, can I keep living? If Sunshine dies, can anything keep living?
She can’t be dead. My chest goes tight and hurts like something’s punching me. Maybe the dark. Maybe the trees. Maybe the Farkness Biters. I can’t breathe. I want to cry but I can’t cry because I’m too old and because we have to look for Sunshine. She has to be alive. I can’t think about anything else. She’s alive. She’s alive.
Mercer’s gaze stays steady and it’s on me, I know it is, even if Drip’s shining the light on his neck now. “What is it I’m not listening to right now, Jason—or what is it you’re not sharing?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing you need to know. Nothing that’s any of your business.
Why is Drip looking at me like that? Like Mercer. Like I’ve done something?
Because you have.
Drip needs to stop. Mercer needs to stop.
But Mercer doesn’t stop. “If something happened, if something went bad, you can tell me. We’ll work it out.”
Short breaths. Pounding heart. I think I’m sweating in the cold. I know I’m making fists and hearing buzzy whispers and that’s bad. “You think I did something to her. You think I hurt Sunshine.”
I’m talking to Mercer but maybe I’m talking to Drip, too, but that’s stupid because Drip would never think something like that. Would he?
“I think it’s possible,” Mercer says, and for a second, I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but then I remember what I said.
And my heartbeat comes back. And my breath. Because there, he just admitted it, didn’t he? That he thinks I hurt Sunshine. He thinks Sunshine is gone because of me.
You know he’s right. You know you’re scum. It’s all your fault. All
your
fault. Faults make somersaults. Acrobats make somersaults. Why is it so cold out here?
Mercer thinks I hurt her and Drip probably thinks I hurt her but Drip’s saying—no—yelling—at Agent Mercer.
“Dude! You’re more nuts than we are. You don’t know anything.” Drip’s laugh comes out like mean-dog barks in the dark woods and the flashlight beam bounces each time. “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of expert.”
Before I can count to two, Mercer pops back with, “Do you have a temper, Derrick?”
And that’s about all I can take. My turn to yell. “So, what? If one crazy kid didn’t hurt Sunshine, it must be the other one? No wonder my mother got a lawyer before you ever showed up.”
“Why
did
she bring a lawyer, Jason?”
Could have predicted that question, couldn’t I? Of
course I could. And he follows up with, “Why does everyone call you Freak?”
“Because I hear voices!” Yelling feels good. The gray clouds puffing around my head feel good because they chase back the darkness and make me safer. “I think funny. I say stupid crap when my brain plays tricks on me. All of that makes me a freak. It makes me
Freak
.”
“And my nose runs and my mouth runs, and that makes me Drip,” Drip says. Then his volume drops. “Sunshine never calls him Freak, just like she never calls me Drip. You know that, right?”
This time Mercer’s expression does change, and it shows just enough sadness that my thoughts brake and swerve before speeding straight into fantasies of murdering him.
“Sunshine was different,” he says, and I don’t think he’s poking at us or trying to get more information. Just stating what he’s been told, what he’s trying to understand.
“Yes,” Drip whispers, right at the same second I do. “She
is
different.”
Mercer nods. “Sunshine was special.”
“Yes,” we both answer, and I say, “She
is
special.”
Was, were—I don’t want him talking about Sunshine in the past tense any more than Drip does. It’s wrong. She’s not a was or a were or a used to be. Sunshine’s an
is
, and I’ll fight him over that if he makes me—
“Do you think she ever got—ah—
gets
—depressed?” This question doesn’t sound smooth or planned. It sounds
real. And Mercer’s using the present tense. Christ. Is he actually
listening
to us? That would be a first. “You know, down and sad? Hopeless?”
Drip and I don’t say anything to this, because yeah, sure she does. We all do, but we help each other and that’s one of our private things.
“She did,” Mercer says, no doubt adding up our silence to get his sum total. “I mean, does.”
He gets more nothing from us, which I guess is another answer for him. “Would she hurt herself?”
“No.” Drip sounds sarcastic and pissed off now, from zero to eighty in two seconds flat. That’s how his engine runs, even on meds.
My mouth stays shut because I know I see different and I think different so maybe Drip’s right and Mercer’s question was totally stupid but—
Sometimes I don’t think I can stand another second Jason do you understand that do you ever feel that way when everything goes dark and numb and you think you’re never getting out of any of this and I put my hand over hers and feel how tight she’s squeezing her locket and I tell her yes of course I do you know I feel like that a lot but you always help me and she says then help me now Jason please help me now and
—I see clouds. Nothing but clouds, black and thick and I want to scream and beat my way through them but they’ll bite me and I’ll bleed and I’ll just get locked up.
“She didn’t hurt herself,” Drip tells Mercer. “Freak and I didn’t hurt her and the sooner you
get
that and get busy searching for her like you should be doing, the sooner we’ll find her.”
A pause. Then Mercer asks, “Do you think we’ll find her, Derrick?”
“You have to.” He’s yelling again, only now he’s not mad and now I’m wanting to reach out and try to pat his hand like I did when we were little but we’re not little and big grown Drip would punch me if I tried that. “
Somebody
has to find Sunshine.”
I hear his tears even if he’s not crying them, and if Mercer ever tries to mess with my brain and make me think Drip might have hurt Sunshine, I’m going to remember this and I’m going to know better because he’s sobbing inside. He’s wailing inside. I know, because I’m doing it, too.
And for some reason, Mercer’s nodding.
“We’ve got a team going over her room and home, over her locker and classrooms, her family cars, and your school bus. Is there anywhere else we should look?”
Maybe he
is
listening.
I open my mouth to tell him. I open my mouth to send him down the path and through the thorns, to the river and the rocks and water, but the words don’t come out and before I can make a single sound, Drip answers with a firm “No.”
“Is this clearing important?” Mercer gestures to the mean dark all around us, and the mean trees, which I haven’t been thinking about until just now when he points to them, thanks a lot, FBI man.
“We’ve been here before,” Drip says.
Smooth. I’m impressed. But I’m confused. Part of me wants to tell Mercer anything and everything because maybe he’s actually listening to us even though we’re alphabets but a bigger part of me doesn’t trust him and sort of hates him and I’m glad he seems to be getting closer to actually looking for Sunshine but I’m not sure I want a man like him to find her. I’m not sure I want him anywhere near her. There’s something dark and monster and wraith about him.
“Don’t be dark,” I tell him. “She can’t stand any more darkness.”
“Freak, shut up,” Derrick mutters where only I can hear him.
“What was that?” Mercer asks, and I don’t know if he’s talking to Drip or me, so I let Drip answer.
“He said it’s dark, and we want to go back to the VFW.”
“Okay.” Mercer shrugs, relaxed like I’m not sure I’ll ever feel again, and turns in the general direction of the VFW. He switches on a flashlight I didn’t realize he was carrying, because he had it turned off when he snuck up on us.
He starts walking.
I don’t know what to do and I don’t think Drip does either because we just keep standing there until Drip finally jumps like he’s waking up, then takes off after Mercer. I follow Drip.
Mercer lets us get a few steps into the twigs and loam and evil trees I don’t want to look at before he says, “So, what do you two think about this Roland Harks character and his minion—what’s his name—the little gangster?”
“Linden Green,” Drip says. “And they’re jerks.”
Oops. There’s that impulse thing. But Drip’s right so I keep my eyes on his shoulders like I did when we were running down here and I walk and I don’t say anything at all.
“Bullies,” Agent Mercer supplies, and Drip gives him a snort that clearly says,
Well,
yeah,
idiot, what do
you
think?
“Would either of them actually hurt somebody—hurt Sunshine?”
“Roland would,” Drip and I say in unison, like we’ve rehearsed the opinion for years, and if you really think about it, we have.
“What about other people—like your teacher Mr. Watson?”
Drip laughs at this, but I don’t, because the guy keeps giving me cases of the creepies, but why bother explaining. He’s only doing his job, right?
Mercer’s moving on. “Her stepfather—any issues with him?”
Drip’s answering everything, so he says, “Nah, don’t see him much,” but I follow my Dad-ism about shutting my mouth rarely being a bad idea, and I keep my lips tightly pressed together on this one. There’s something digging at me, something I’m trying to put words to, but it’s making the clouds come back and my head’s starting to hurt and my words, they’re running away from me like Sunshine’s words run away from her, and I wonder if it’s because she’s in my head and she’s hiding the letters and periods and commas and even the thoughts, tucking them away and closing them up in her little gold locket so I can’t see them or find them or say them out loud because I promised I promised I promised and I made the clouds and I gave the clouds fangs and they’ll kill me if I talk because anybody who breaks a promise to Sunshine should die.