Shadows

“The last time he tried it, no one thought it was truly serious. Often — in fact most times — when children try to kill themselves, they aren’t truly serious. Most children really have no concept of death, you know. They know it exists, but only in the abstract. Most children feel immortal — they have no sense that they’re ever going to die. For a child, even growing up is something that’s barely comprehensible. So I doubt that I would have hospitalized Adam, given all the circumstances. I would have talked to Dr. E, of course, but there’s no guarantee that this wouldn’t have happened anyway. And I have to tell you that there’s no guarantee that it won’t happen to other of our students. In fact, I can almost guarantee that it will. Sad as it is, there’s no way, short of isolation of every one of them, that we can stop it entirely.” She smiled wanly. “I doubt you’d be any more in favor of locking these kids up than anyone else here is.”

Steve Conners listened to her words silently, knowing that no matter what she said, he would still feel the guilt for what had happened, perhaps for the rest of his life. He’d known the boy was in trouble, but done nothing about it.

Because it had slipped his mind.

Slipped his mind!

And now there was nothing he could do about it, nothing he could do to put the situation right, nothing he could do to bring Adam back to life.

Except see to it that from now on he kept a better eye on the kids, never again failed to act if he saw that one of them was in trouble.

But even as he made his silent oath, he knew that it still wouldn’t be enough.

No matter what he might do, it wouldn’t assuage the guilt he felt over the death of Adam Aldrich.

11

“Josh?”

Josh looked up from the book he was reading while he ate his breakfast. At the sight of Amy Carlson’s pale face and the wild look in her eyes, he pushed the book aside.

“Have you ever been to a funeral before?” Amy asked.

Josh shook his head. “I never even knew anyone who died before.”

“Are they going to make us look at Adam?” Amy’s voice was anxious, and even as she uttered the words, her face turned pink.

“What’s the matter?” Josh teased. “You scared to look at a corpse?”

Amy’s blush deepened. “I–I don’t know,” she stammered. “It’s just — well, I’m not sure I want to look at a dead person.”

“Well, they probably won’t. I mean, if Adam got hit by a train …” Josh left the words hanging, picturing in his mind an image of the train barreling down the tracks, striking Adam Aldrich, sending his body flying into the air. Had his arms and legs been severed? Maybe. Even his head could have been torn off, if the train hit him a certain way. The image made Josh shudder, and he decided not to think about it anymore.

Except that all day Saturday, and Sunday, too, all any body was talking about was Adam, and what had happened to him.

Jeff hadn’t been back to school since Hildie had taken him to his parents’ house early Saturday morning, and most of the kids didn’t think he’d be coming back at all.

Brad Hinshaw, however, hadn’t agreed. “I talked to him a little while ago,” he’d reported yesterday afternoon. “He says he’s coming back, and Jeff always gets what he wants.”

“I bet he doesn’t,” Amy Carlson had argued. “I bet his mom keeps him at home. I mean, wouldn’t she be worried that he might do it, too?”

“Not Jeff,” Brad had replied. “If he wants to come back, he’ll come back.”

Josh, though, had stopped listening, his mind lingering on the word Any had used when she’d talked about what had happened to Adam.

It.

That seemed to be the word everyone was using, as if actually saying out loud that Adam had killed himself was wrong.

But that’s what he’d done, wasn’t it? Just sat down on the railroad tracks and waited for the train to hit him. Josh shuddered again, just the thought of it sending an icy chill through his body.

“I wonder how messed up he was,” he mused out loud. Amy, her mouth full of oatmeal, choked, and spit her cereal into her napkin.

“That’s gross, Josh!” she said when she’d recovered enough to speak.

“Well, I was just wondering,” Josh replied. “What’s wrong with that? Didn’t Mr. Conners say it was all right to talk about it?”

Amy’s eyes rolled disdainfully. “He said it was all right to talk about what Adam did,” she told him. “But he didn’t say we should talk about how—” She broke off, unable to find the words she wanted. From the next table, Brad Hinshaw, who had been listening to the conversation, smiled darkly.

“How squashed he was?” he asked.

Amy, looking slightly ill, glared at Brad, then shoved her chair back from the table. “You guys are so gross! I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” She turned and started away from the table. A second later Josh went after her.

“Don’t be mad,” he said, catching up to her in the foyer. “I was just thinking about what happened to him, that’s all.” He fell in beside her, and though Amy didn’t reply to him, she didn’t tell him to leave her alone, either. They went out the front door and dropped down onto the steps. Josh glanced around. Seeing no one within earshot, but still lowering his voice, he spoke again. “D-Did you hear anything Friday night?”

Amy frowned, puzzled. “Like what?”

Josh reddened, but was determined to go on, no matter how dumb Amy might think he sounded. “Th-The elevator,” he said. “I heard it twice, and after that story Jeff was telling us about old Mr. Barrington, I went to look.”

Amy’s lips pursed. “So?” she asked, suspicious.

“So it wasn’t running,” Josh told her. “It was just sitting on the main floor, like it always is. But I could hear it!”

Amy glared at him. “Don’t you try to scare me, Josh MacCallum!”

“I’m not,” Josh protested, his voice rising in spite of himself. “I’m just telling you what happened. And what if”—he hesitated, then plunged on—“if Adam didn’t kill himself at all? What — Well, what if old Mr. Barrington really got him!”

Amy’s eyes widened for a second as the story took hold of her imagination, but then she shook her head violently. “That’s just a story Jeff made up!” she insisted. “I bet you didn’t even hear anything. Besides, everyone knows Adam killed himself!”

Josh was silent for a moment, pondering Amy’s words. What if he hadn’t really heard those noises? Was it possible? Could he have just imagined it, because Jeff had told him that story?

His mind wrestled with the problem, but then he decided there was no way he could know what had really happened that night. When he finally spoke again, his voice was low, and trembled slightly, and he made no further mention of the strange sounds he’d heard. “Could you have done that?” he asked. “Just sat there on the tracks and waited for the train to hit you?”

Amy shook her head. “I can hardly even stand to think about it.”

Josh turned to look at her. “What would you do? I mean, if you were going to kill yourself.”

Amy, her eyes staring off into the distance, shrugged. “I don’t know. Who even thinks stuff like that?”

“You mean you never have? You never thought about killing yourself?”

Her brows knitted into a frown. “I–I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I mean, last year, when I was in