“Ha! We talk sometimes. I didn’t know the whole town was worried about us.” He grins.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard old Mr. Greenwood say more than a few words at school, like if he’s yelling at us to clean up or whatever,” Kendall says. “He’s kind of cranky. How long have you known him? Has he always been that way?”
Hector shakes his head. “It’s been a long time. Since we were about like you two. . maybe a few years younger, each.” He gets a strange look in his eyes.
Marlena leans in. “Did you meet here? Did you always live here, Grandpa?”
“We met here in Montana, yes.” He turns to explain to Kendall, “I was born in Texas, and my parents only spoke Spanish, so I didn’t learn English until I went to school. They were good field-workers, and we migrated here one spring to work when I was fourteen. I was. .” He pauses. “I was not a good boy. I had a lot of troubles with other kids.”
“Because. .?” Marlena demands.
“Because. . Well, partly because I am Mexican. Here in Montana there were Native Americans and
Caucasians. Not so many Mexicans.”
“So what happened?” Kendall turns around on the steps so she can watch his face.
“I got into fights. And my parents couldn’t have me doing that. They worked very hard for long hours, and I was bad. So they found me a new place to live.”
Marlena’s mouth drops open. “You mean, like, with another family? With the Greenwoods? Is that how you became friends?”
“No, no. . nothing like that.” Hector glances at his watch. “My goodness, I have to go. I have to get some invoices together pronto for Jacian. He has deliveries tonight. Miss Kendall, do you need a ride home?” He slowly eases out of his chair.
“My mother’s going to pick me up at six, if that’s okay.”
“Aren’t you all busy harvesting those delicious potatoes? Seems like the right time.”
“Yeah,” Kendall says guiltily. “They let me off the hook because of Nico. They think it’s good I’m spending time talking with friends. Whatever that means.”
“It means you’re not all alone and brooding on a tractor or in a field,” Hector says.
“Whatever it means, it’s practically the first September I’ve had off from harvesting since I could walk,”
Kendall says. “Still. . I’d rather have Nico back.”
“It’s very hard to lose a friend at your age. I have been through it,” Hector says. He shakes his head and shuffles into the house. “Be careful out there, Miss Kendall. I’d be sick if we lost you, too, or anyone.”
When Kendall’s mother picks her up, she hands Kendall a letter. “It’s from Juilliard,” Mrs. Fletcher says.
Kendall stares at it, her stomach jumping into her throat. Takes it, not quite sure how she’s supposed to feel. Slips her finger under the flap and slides it across. Pulls out the folded piece of paper and opens it.
She reads for a moment with held breath, and then skims the rest of the letter. Lets it drop into her lap.
“It’s a no.” Kendall gazes out the car window, focusing on the distant mountains. Mrs. Fletcher squeezes Kendall’s hand and starts driving home.
It’s what they thought. What she’d expected. And to be honest, Kendall hasn’t thought about it much since Nico disappeared. It doesn’t really seem to matter anymore. Nothing does.
Still, she wonders, why does it hurt so much?
That night Kendall checks all the doors and windows six times each before she goes to bed. She’s exhausted, but her mind is revving up again, recalling everything that happened today. Blocking out the
Juilliard letter as best she can. But it doesn’t matter, because her brain keeps bringing her back to earlier in the day.
All she can think about is one thing.
Desks.
Only a faltering brush of warmth today.
Cold, so cold. We move Our cast-iron anchors, creaking, slowly inching across the floor, hours and hours of strain in search of heat and life. Now butting against a soulless We, now pushing the dead one out of Our way into the empty space. We breathe, ache, rest, strain again. We make Our move.
Stalking the next soul to trade for one of Us.
When Kendall and Jacian get to school, she senses it, and a shiver goes down her spinesomething’s off. She moves through her rituals and straightens the desks. When she gets to the senior section, she stops.
“These desks are switched,” she says. “Nico’s and Travis’s. Did you switch them?”
Jacian frowns. “You’ve been with me the whole time. Did you see me switch them?”
Kendall wrestles Travis’s desk out of the way and moves Nico’s desk back to where it belongs. “Who could have done this?” She rips her fingers through her hair, distressed. “This is Nico’s desk. It’s staying right here next to me. Totally not funny.”
“It was probably the janitor moving desks to clean. So it got moved. No big deal.” Jacian goes back to his book. “I’d ask how you even noticed it’s not Nico’s desk, but I’m scared to know the answer.”
“I know all the desks,” Kendall says, straightening Travis’s. “I have them—”
“No.” Jacian holds up his hand. “What did I just say?”
Kendall stops abruptly as the rest of the class trickles in. She takes a closer look at the spot on Nico’s desk that had the new/old graffiti yesterday. It’s still there, same as before. Looking like it’s been there for years. She shakes her head. Must have just missed that one, or forgotten it somehow. It’s not like she’s been exactly stable the past few weeks. And maybe because it says help, she actually really noticed it in a different way this time. Almost as if Nico were crying out for it.
But, like a good portion of Kendall’s thoughts, that one is just ridiculous.
Halfway through the day, when she’s supposed to be writing a book report, she stops short and lays her pen down. It really hits her. She’s not going to Juilliard.
She has no reason to ever dance again. Add to that, no reason to play soccer again. No reason to do anything without those things in her life. Without Nico. She slumps to her desk, suddenly very, very tired.
On her notebook she doodles the word “LOST,” making the last letter dangle precipitously down the right margin.
Jacian glances at her notebook. Frowns. But says nothing.
Day after day after day goes by in black and white for Kendall now. She puts herself in a mind-numbing routine of school, farm, homework, sleep. She rides silently in the pickup to and from school with Jacian and Marlena, making small talk but not remembering any of it. Sitting quietly at her desk, moving automatically through the days, just getting by, and doing whatever her OCD tells her to do, no more, no less.
There is no more visiting Hector’s ranch once Marlena comes back to school. Marlena starts hanging out with the other tenth graders, who begin to get to know her, help her out when she needs it.
There’s no more soccer with Jacian either. Kendall’s parents need her desperately on the farm. It’s the height of harvest, and Kendall has work to do. Everything is one dull event after another now. She plunges her hands into freezing water, pulling leaves and bad potatoes off a belt for hours every day after school, and all she can do is think.
The thing is, for Kendall it just doesn’t matter. Nico is gone. Juilliard is no longer a goal. There’s no future with either one of her two favorite things — both dreams shattered within a matter of days. What else is there to think about? The truth is that Kendall might be tough on the outside. She can take a hit, and she can stand up for herself. But inside, in her scared heart and in her stupid, unstoppable brain, Kendall knows that she will stay in Cryer’s Cross forever. She will work on this farm until she inherits it someday. She will probably marry somebody like Eli Greenwood or Travis Shank and have children who play soccer on a too-small team until they graduate.
Or maybe not. Maybe she’ll shake up the town and stay single, adopt a baby or two, and just hide out at the farm.
And wait.
Wait for Nico to come back.
