The tunnel exhales on me. Standing in the dark, feeling my heart pound, I smell the mildew and moist minerals, like a black ocean that goes on forever.
"Drew?" My voice shakes.
I take another step inside. I told her, told her how this geology gave out, the rocks collapsed on the men, still inside the steam train. Her eyes grew bright.
"You have to go check it out," she said.
"Right, only one small detail: I'm afraid of the dark."
She rolled her eyes. "What's the law of conservation say?"
"Energy can't be created or destroyed. It can only change form."
"Okay, so take the energy from your fear and change it into courage."
"Just like that?"
"Yes." She nodded so vigorously her wild hair bumped up and down. "Just like that."
I release one long slow breath, telling my pulse to quit freaking out. Another step. Another breath.
"Drew—it's me!"
My eyes are adjusting because the ground is coming into focus, the gray sediment rising to the curved stone roof. That glossy shine on the walls, the ground water weeping. When suddenly the space shrinks, I crouch, dropping to my stomach. Crawl.
"Drew!"
Her name echoes back, comes back, but sounds muffle from the blood throbbing in my ears. I keep calling, calling, and the next thing I know, I'm perched on the ledge. The black hole drops out.
"Drew?"
It comes back: "Who?"
I flip over, swallowing hard. My breath hits the stone above my face. No flashlight. No—wait. I twist on my side, fingers shaking as I dig into the pack. The cell phone, I know it's in there.
Something scurries across the soil. A tingle slithers up my bare legs.
"Drew?"
It's a whisper.
And the reply only comes from my mind:
She's not here
.
She's not.
But that litter? Somebody else is here. Panic spears my heart. I scramble, turn around, cell phone in hand, holding it so the light shines in front of me. As fast as possible, I worm my way back and stagger to a crouch. Fall. Get up. Scramble a few more feet forward. Fall again, the tiny light growing blurry. The tunnel seems to widen. I dive toward the end, find the boards, slap them until one feels loose, shove it with all my might—screaming along with the rusty nails.
I can barely see my bike, the sun is so bright. Running, bottles clanking against my shoes.
She is not here.
I push my bike over the rough terrain, running with one sickening thought repeating in my ear like the echo inside the tunnel.
She is not here. Not here
.
But Helen is.
"Surprise!" my sister exclaims when I walk into the kitchen.
I stand speechless. Shocked. Sweaty. Speechless.
Helen points at my legs. "What've you been doing?"
I look down. Blood trickles from my knee, tracing down my shins. My blue-plaid skirt is almost brown with dirt. But that's not the worst thing. I look up again.
Helen. Here.
Like some cruel substitute for my best friend.
"I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow."
"Yeah, well, it's going to be
parents’ weekend
at Yale." She makes air quotes around the words "parents' weekend."
"So?"
"So everybody kept asking when my parents were coming. I made up so many stories I couldn't remember what I said. And these people are not as dumb, not like Richmond. At some point, somebody was going to figure out I was lying. So I split."
She shrugs. Her auburn hair falls loose over her shoulders, the faded jeans smeared with acrylic paint that slant across her thin legs like war paint. I hate to admit it, but Helen is one of those artists who look more like a model.
"Where's the whiskey?" she asks.
"I don't know."
"Dad keeps a bottle somewhere, for medicinal purposes." Another set of air quotes around those words before she begins yanking open every cupboard, searching inside.
I walk over to the stove, hoping against reality that my dad will also cook dinner. But substances are simmering in pots, each one a different shade of brown. Like dinner might be various consistencies of mud.
"So you got a cell phone." She's standing on a chair, opening the top cabinets. "You going to use it?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how to use it, to text people, stuff like that?"
"Of course." I hate the pettiness in my heart, but my sister brings out the worst in me. In her presence one minute, and she's already making me feel inferior. "I know how to do all that stuff."
"There you are!" She grabs a bottle—"Come to mama!"—and jumps off the chair. She turns to me with a devious smile. "Care to join me?"
"I'm fifteen."
"Suit yourself." She unscrews the top, sniffing the opening with appreciation. "Ahh. Now I just might make it through this stay."
I wait until she pours a full glass of the amber liquid. Wait some more while she takes a long drink.
Then I ask, "What happened?"
She just nods toward the hall, pours another glass. "Go see for yourself."
I start down the hall, feeling like I might be dying. Like, maybe I even want to die. Fade away, and just not have to deal with all of this. When I'm halfway down the hallway, the voices come rushing toward me. My mother's high North Carolina accent. Tight, distressed. My dad's deep Virginia baritone. I check my watch.
He’s home early.
Too early.
Helen is already drinking.
And—I look down—I'm a mess.
I make a mad rush for the kitchen, find Helen finishing another glass of whiskey, and take the stairs like a fugitive cat burglar. On the third floor, I start tearing off my clothes and jump in shower, scrubbing away all the evidence of another life. Back in my room, I pull on clean jeans and a t-shirt then quickly open the window and shake out
my school uniform. The tunnel soil patters on the ivy that climbs up our brick like that kudzu.
I make a vow to wash my clothes tonight, when my mom goes to sleep.
If she goes to sleep.
It's nearly six o'clock when I come back downstairs. The storm, I pray, has passed. My dad's pushed it out of the house, like he always does. We will say grace and celebrate Helen coming home and eat brown paste.
But I hear her voice before I reach the second floor.
"David. I saw her."
I stop on the landing. Long ago, before I even realized what I was doing, I figured out how not to cry. If you practice it enough, it's almost like breathing. First you tell yourself that sting in your eyes is nothing. A speck of dust. A stray eyelash. Allergies. Then you focus on something completely and totally unimportant. A blank wall. A pencil. Some fork on the table. Whatever you find. But the most important thing is to never ever blink.
When I come down the last flight of stairs, my eyes are fixed on the handrail.
"Nadine," he's saying, "let's not get into this now."
"The voices said to look out the window. And there she was, running. In the dark. And a car was waiting."
"Honey, those voices aren't real."
"You're not listening. Raleigh's afraid of the dark—she would never run at night."
I make sure to hit the last step just right. The wood squeaks. Everyone turns.
In my dad's face there's so much anguish I have to look away. And because I can't look at my mother, that leaves Helen. Leaning against the fridge, she slurps the whiskey. I take a long look at her. If I don't stop lying, that's who I could turn into.
"Hi, sweetie," my dad says. "Look who's home?"
I force my eyes back to him. My heart shrivels, seeing the raw pain in his face. The stress of this day. I can’t keep adding to his hurt.
"Mom's right," I tell him, my eyes begging him to understand. "I snuck out of the house last night."
"Really!" Helen says. "That's amazing!"
Ever since I was little, my dad's told me the truth is always better than the lie. He says the truth sets us free. Maybe it does. But sometimes it first splashes gasoline on the fire.
My mom's voice quavers. "Who are you?"
"I'm Raleigh."
"You can't be."
"I am."
“And Helen—" she spins toward her. "What did you do to Helen?"
I glance at my sister. She raises her glass. "Here's to family," she says. "Bottom's up."
My dad moves toward my mom, trying to put his arm around her. She backs away.
"Honey," he pleads. "It's alright. The girls are here, we're all here."
"No, they're not!"
"We talked about this, remember? The voices don't love you; they're not your family. We love you. And I'm sure Raleigh can explain why she was—"
"Hours, David! She was gone for hours. The car brought her back. It prowled down our alley. And now Helen." Her hand, pointing at my sister, is shaking. "Helen told me she was coming on Thursday. Three-forty-five. Today is Wednesday, I know it's Wednesday, don't try to tell me it's not Wednesday—"
Helen slams the empty glass on the counter. "Oh, for Pete's sake! Everybody can agree it's Wednesday—okay? It's Wednesday and I changed my plans. Why is that such a big freaking deal?!"
I shift my gaze. The glass in the French doors holds too many reflections. My mom, her posture coiled with fear. My dad, still wearing his suit from work, like he raced out of the office. My sister swaying. I focus on the slate patio, the stones blue and flat, made over eons and epochs, time upon time. I think about how Teddy describes time, as a football field.
"These two are not our daughters!" my mother cries.
"Honey, you need to trust me."
I hear something move. I look over. She's opened a drawer, taking out the yellow legal pad. My footprint.
I stare at the slate, refusing to blink. The football field begins with dust and stone and prehistoric flora that die in swamps. Twenty yards. Creatures of the deep, creatures on earth, thirty yards. All of them baked into the earth, fifty yards, and by the time human beings show up we're one inch from the goal line. From dust we came, to dust we will return and—
A door slams.
I look over. My mother is still holding that legal pad like she's clutching courtroom evidence. But my dad is calling Helen's name, racing down the hall. Calling, calling, calling, the same way I begged that tunnel for Drew.
I shift my gaze to my mother's face. It looks as stony as the slate.
"You won't win," she says. "Whoever you are."
The sting. The burn. It makes me want to blink.
"I guess you needed this person to pretend she's Helen, is that the plan? She had to come home early?"
God knows the very last thing I want is for Helen to come home early.
But speaking the truth right now will only open up another avenue leading straight into Crazyland. The situation is hopeless, and serious, but despite the tightness in my throat, I open my mouth and force out the words.
"I'm your daughter, Raleigh. I've always been your daughter."
My dad comes back into the door. When he looks at me, I blink. My vision blurs but I can see the look on his face. Like now he doesn't know who I am.
What happened to the daughter who never cries?
Oh, she left. Now he has the girl who skips classes and sneaks out in the middle of the night and lies, lies, lies.
"Go get Helen," he tells me, wearily. "Bring her home."
I look at him, like I don’t know who he is either—
what happened to grounding me?
But I nod and rush upstairs.
In my bedroom, I yank open my backpack and search for the cell phone. The battery is low so I plug it into the wall socket and search for the phone number my dad programmed into the thing.
After four rings, Helen's recorded greeting comes on: "I refuse to answer my phone right now, so leave a message. And be witty."
Hanging up, I do neither. I throw a flashlight into the pack, pull on a sweatshirt, and then toss in the dying phone.
In the kitchen, the brown pastes have all crystallized and cracked, like desert mudstones. When I step outside, pushing my bike across the patio, through the back gate, the cold darkness feels like it will never end. I order my heart to stop palpitating, force my breathing to slow, tell my mind to focus solely on helping my dad.
I stick to the lighted streets. People are strolling the sidewalks in pairs, dipping under awnings into neighborhood restaurants and bars. After several passes through the Fan district, I'm surprised by how much I'd really like to see my sister. Even drunk, even belligerent. Even in her paint-smeared jeans, scuffing down the street, Helen would be a welcome sight because my life feels too full of emptiness. It's like everyone is not here. There's just me. Alone.