I snuck down the stairs and made it out of the house without running into Mrs. Barnes. I trotted down their porch stairs and broke into a run on the sidewalk. But the load in my pack bounced around too much. It was small as loads go, but weirdly heavy.
Then I decided running would draw too much attention to me anyway. Because nobody runs with a backpack.
I made a beeline for the woods. And, because it was an entry point I had never used before, and a part of the woods I didn’t know like the back of my hand, I promptly got lost.
Score one for my mom.
It had been just long enough to worry me. I’d been backtracking, and thinking I was on the right path, and then finding out it was the same path I’d been lost on all along.
I was starting to get scared.
Then I remembered to use the sun.
It was well up now, shining into my eyes. Which meant I was facing the same direction I’d be facing if I were sitting on Zoe Dinsmore’s porch. Which meant I wasn’t running the long way through the woods, and I wasn’t facing town. Which meant if I just kept going, I would hit the River Road.
Problem was, there was no real path in that direction. But I pushed on anyway.
It was slow going because I had to pick my way through tree roots and underbrush. My legs were getting scratched up. I’d have to wear long pants for weeks to hide the damage. In the middle of a hot summer. But I just kept going.
Sweat poured down my legs and down my neck into my collar, and it tickled. But I just kept going.
And then I burst out onto the road. Suddenly. Somehow the brush had hidden it until the last minute, and I hadn’t seen it coming.
I crossed the road and looked down into the muddy, fast-flowing river. And I cursed it. Actually cursed it out loud.
“You son of a bitch,” I yelled at the river, which couldn’t have bothered to be insulted by my words. “You swallowed up everybody’s peace of mind in this town. Least you can do is take a problem off our hands for a change.”
I dropped the backpack onto the ground. Looked around me 360 degrees. There was not a soul to be seen. Well, a soul. But not a person. A buck stared at me from the shoulder of the River Road, as if trying to figure out what I was so upset about. Then he trotted away, his hooves clattering over the tarmac.
I took out the knotted pillowcase. Swung it around like winding up for a pitch. But just before I let it go, I had a bad thought. Imagine if I threw it too far and it landed on the bank on the other side. Exposed.
The nearest bridge was probably three and a half miles away. And what if I got to the other side and couldn’t find the spot where it had landed?
I did a light underhand swing, but before I could let go, I was struck with another bad thought.
Imagine if I threw it not far enough, and it landed on this near bank. This muddy, slippery, very steep bank. I’d have to scramble down there and try to get it. But one false move and that river might take me away.
I put it back in Connor’s pack and ran three and a half miles down the road shoulder to the bridge.
It was a one-lane bridge with a high iron structure to support it, built for cars but also built back when cars were a lot smaller. There was a car coming; I could hear it. I ducked into the woods and leaned on a tree until it had crossed the river and gone on its way.
Then I walked out of the woods and onto the bridge with the terrifying bundle under my shirt. On every step it poked at the place where the kitten had scratched me.
I stood a minute, just looking down and watching the water flow. But there was a method to my madness. I was straining my ears to be sure there was no one coming. When I was sure I heard nothing but silence, I looked around. All around. But if there was ever a deserted part of the developed world, I was standing in it on that crazy morning.
I slipped the pillowcase out of my shirt and let it fall straight down into the river.
“You owe me one,” I told the river. Quietly this time. “You owe us all one. You hide that for me. You make this one thing right, at least.”
I looked around again, but thankfully I had not been seen. There was simply no one there to see me.
I ran back down the road toward my familiar entrance to the woods on the river side. The one that would take me in a fairly straight line to Zoe’s cabin.
When I passed the cemetery, I could see fresh flowers on the two graves. Matching red flowers on long stalks. But I was too upset to think much about it, and I didn’t go closer. I slowed my feet for just one beat, staring at them.
Then I ran as fast as I had ever run in my life. Or maybe faster.
She was on her way back from the outhouse when I burst over the rise, still sprinting like a maniac.
“What the hell got into you?” she asked when I was close enough to hear her.
I stopped in front of her. I could barely speak I was panting so hard.
“He was really going to do it.”
“Who was really going to do what?”
“Connor.”
I stood a minute. Panting. Watching the news settle on the inside of her. Of
