The Missing Season Read online

  “You’re in that class?”

  “Occasionally.” Bree reaches into her bedside table drawer, pulls out a gallon ziplock bag of candy, and drops it between us. “Hope you’re not diabetic.”

  “Whoa.” It’s Halloween candy: mini boxes of Nerds, Mary Janes, those little fruit-flavored Tootsies. I choose a chocolate tombstone. “When the zombie apocalypse comes, I know where I’m holing up.”

  She cuts her eyes at me, checking my expression, and a thin smile crosses her lips, which look kind of chapped, like she bites them. “What do you know about Halloween here?”

  She says it the way she says everything, making it impossible to read her meaning.

  “Um . . . nothing. Why?”

  She completes her smile, untwisting a Jolly Rancher wrapper. “You better be ready. We got over two hundred trick-or-treaters last year. And everyone called it a bust Halloween.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope.” The Rancher clicks in her teeth. “It’s a Pender thing. Everybody decorates, the businesses get into it. People bring their kids from hick towns like Derby to take them door-to-door, because we have, like, sidewalks. You’ll see.” She lifts a shoulder. “But I don’t know, maybe not so much this year. With the mill closed and everything, lots of people have moved away.”

  I take another piece of candy and concentrate on gluing my jaws together. My dad worked the paper mill demolition in Astley, too, and it felt just like this: like we were scavengers, coming to clean up after a town died. Bree’s watching, and it’s like she’s in my head with me, because she says, “How come you started school so late?”

  “It took us a while to find a place to live here. Everything was either way too expensive or too long a commute for my dad. Then this place opened up.”

  “Will you move again when they’re finished tearing the mill down?”

  I shrug. “Depends. My dad works for Cuso Construction—they won the bid for the demolition and everything. They’ve got jobs going all over New England. I mean, he’ll try to get something close to here so we don’t have to leave so soon, but sometimes”—just talking about moving brings discomfort back, the thought of packing up, cleaning up, that last swift walk out the front door with the keys left behind for the landlord—“there just isn’t anything.” I stuff the wrapper into my pocket. “Anyway. Nobody ever trick-or-treated at our old apartments. Guess they were too sketchy-looking. Everybody’s mom probably thought we’d give their precious pumpkin a razor blade in a Mr. Goodbar or something.”

  I earn another rough laugh. Feels like such a win—you can tell she doesn’t give them out much. Bree checks the time on her phone. Maybe hinting for me to go. But then she says, without lifting her gaze, “Can I ask you something?” I say yes. “Do you want your hair like that?”

  I brace up, like maybe she lured me here just to give me shit. “Obviously.”

  Footsteps stop outside the doorway, and the girl from the living room peeks in. Bree’s little sister: same eyes and hair, except mini-Bree wears hers longer, and her style is totally girly. A glitter appliqué on her tank top, pink polish on her toenails. She’s maybe twelve.

  “Yes?” Bree bites off the s.

  “Heard you talking.” Mini-Bree looks at me curiously. “I thought it was Sage.”

  “Well, it’s not. It’s Clara. Bye.”

  I wave. She keeps looking.

  Bree sighs. “God, Hazel, it’s customary to say hello. Is there a reason you came down here?”

  “Mom’s going to be late. They’re slammed tonight, and then she’s going out for drinks after.” She traces her toe over the carpet. “Thought you’d want to know.”

  Bree glances at me, nods.

  Hazel tugs the drawstrings of her pants, taking a few steps into the room, her attention on me again. Upon closer inspection, her eyes are nothing like Bree’s; they’re dove gray, not a hint of steel about them. “Have you ever heard of FreshStepz?” I don’t have a chance to say no. “It’s this dance troupe I’m in.”

  Bree looks at her from beneath her brows. “It’s a class at the rec department.”

  “So? Same thing.” Hazel stops at the foot of the bed, blows her bangs off her forehead. “We have a show next month. I’m practicing really hard.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  She drops onto the mattress beside me, pulling one knee up. “Your mom lets you wear fishnets? You are so lucky. Where’d you get your shoes? I had some like that once, only they had silver sequins on them and they—” Bree clears her throat, makes walking legs with her fingers. Hazel rolls her eyes. “Fine. Forget it. See ya.”

  Once I hear her bedroom door bang shut across the hall, I stand to go, but Bree catches me with “The reason I asked about your hair?” I half turn, gaze trained on a framed poster print of swirling blues and yellows, some surreal starry night, ready to take it on the chin. “I think it’s cool. I mean . . . that you weren’t afraid to show up at school like that.”

  Fearless. That sounds way better than too broke to buy another box of dye, and too stubborn to ask Mom to bail me out. “Um. Thanks, I guess.”

  A pause. “Look, if you’re ever bored or whatever . . . sometimes Sage and I hang out at the skate park.” She fidgets with her phone. “Boys go there.”

  Full turn. Her face is guarded, like I’m the one who could do the hurting. “Boys are good.”

  Three

  I THINK I surprise them, Bree and Sage.

  It’s Monday, Columbus Day, around six p.m. They get points for waiting for me at the streetlight in front of Unit Eight like Bree said they would, but I doubt they would’ve hung out long. Nervous energy crackles around them in electric halos, mixing with smells of Tommy Girl, fruity lip gloss, and fresh deodorant. Whoever these boys are, they’re getting the full treatment, and the butterflies in my stomach turn to ravens, talons dragging down my insides. Despite all my “boys are good” talk, I’ve never actually done this, met up with some like an almost-date, and what the hell made me think I’d be able to fake it?

  Sage is already moving, bouncing on the balls of her feet, walking backward to face me. “Your mom’s cool with this?”

  “She’s at work now. I’m good until nine-ish.” Ma’s probably still in shock; I waited until she was almost out the door to ask if I could go to the park with the girls, leaving her speechless for a full three seconds, looking at Dad, who’d stopped at the stove, a stolen forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. Shocked I’ve already met kids in the neighborhood, I guess. Complex coded messages shot between those two, making me wonder what they say about me behind their bedroom door at night, especially since the hair-dyeing incident. I’ve overheard enough when they think I’m sleeping—feel so bad, putting Clara through it again—to know that they worry about it, our three-person caravan in perpetual motion.

  Now, I tug my long cardigan around me. The temperature’s dropped—it’s the third week of October and feels every bit of it.

  Bree leads the way down the hill to the development’s coin-op laundry building, where fluorescent light glows through steamed windows. Beyond, in the woods, a trailhead waits for us, the ground carpeted in dried pine needles. Those pitch pines are everywhere, splintered limbs, trunks jeweled with streams of hardened sap.

  Bree sees me hesitate at the sight of that shadowy opening. “It’s okay. We take the trails all the time. This cuts right over to Maple.”

  We walk the trail three abreast, hands in our pockets, footsteps crunching. It’s dark here, patches of fading daylight showing through branches like cutouts in a black valentine doily. Nobody speaks until Sage says, “Wait till you see Trace.”

  “Please.” Bree hip-checks her. “It’s all about Kincaid.”

  Sage giggle-snorts, and we all laugh. Their giddiness is catching, like riding whiffs of nitrous oxide down the trail, and I don’t pay much attention as they choose a fork here or there, because it all looks so much the same: walls of brambles grown spindly with the colder evening
s, tiers of black evergreen branches stirring in the slight breeze.

  And then we’re there, stepping out onto the fringes of a public park.

  The grass is mostly dead, mowed bald in patches. We pass a covered picnic area shedding brown paint, a playground with jungle gyms and swings tossed up over the frame, and, beside that, a skate park.

  It’s all concrete, like a drained swimming pool with rails and half-pipes. That’s where everybody is, a small crowd beneath the streetlights, perched or sharing benches or ollieing boards off ramps. Reminds me of when we lived in Berlin, New Hampshire, where I spent most afternoons with my best friend at the time, Nica Pleck, eating Popsicles and watching her brother practice stunts on his board in their driveway. When I had to move the summer before eighth grade, Nica and I made the usual promise to visit each other over school breaks. Tough to keep when you’re thirteen and your life is ruled by your parents’ schedules and whether they’re willing to drive across state lines just to ensure that your BFF doesn’t find somebody else to eat blue Icee Freezes and share Raina Telgemeier books with. We drifted. Four years later, Nica’s a vaguely familiar profile pic on my social media feed, shrunken, without detail.

  Now, Bree’s fingers work the hem of her shirt, itching to tug it down. “Shitshitshitshit. Why didn’t I change—”

  “You look hot, okay? Quit messing with—” Sage’s last word hiccups off as he collides with her, this boy-shaped bullet who seems to come from nowhere, catching her around the waist and tossing her up in the air, nearly knocking me on my ass in the process.

  No time to shriek—she’s over his shoulder, laughing crazily, carried off as if by a pillaging Celt, which he sort of looks like: six and a half feet tall, his hair a ragged carroty-red Mohawk, the flannel around his waist streaming back like a clan tartan.

  I shoot a WTF look at Bree, but it bounces off her back. She doesn’t even slow down, totally focused on finding a strategic position along the edge of the park, only a few feet from where the concrete dips down into the flat bottom, where the skaters do their thing. I run to catch up.

  Bree seems to want distance from the cluster of girls who chat on the benches nearby, so we stake our own territory close enough to catch the wind off the passing skaters. There’s a carnival vibe here, the smell of cigarette smoke and overfilled trash barrels, and music, somebody blasting vintage Beastie Boys from iPhone speakers.

  After charging her in mad circles around the parking lot, the Celt brings Sage back clamped upside down under his big arm, letting go every few seconds like he’s going to drop her on her head, and saying, “OhmyGod—ohJesusChrist—” while she screams like she needs saving. People only laugh and catcall, so I guess this is normal.

  “That’s Trace,” Bree says. “Don’t ask.”

  A girl on the nearest bench appraises me with cooler-than-thou stoner eyes, and I force a laugh, turning my back on her. Act like you’re having the best time, brazen through it—my own good advice, hard to take. “Where’s yours?”

  She inclines her head slightly to the left. “Black coat. Don’t look.”

  Lots of boys and a few girls on boards out there, hitting the ramps, grinding over the rail, swirling together like leaves in an updraft; I track pairs of sneakers just to sort them out. Vans, DCs; my eyes finally land on a pair of black Converse high-tops with dirty skull laces coasting on a battle-scarred Polar board, somehow hardly having to push off to keep momentum. His jeans won’t survive another wash cycle—both knees are out—and his black wool topcoat falls at mid-thigh, a bottle of Jolt sticking out of the pocket. He slaps and scoops the tail of his board, catches a moment of air to pop shove-it, then slams down, rolling away like business as usual.

  “Right?” Bree waits.

  Heat rises from some magma chamber inside me, and I forget about wanting my coat, may never want for anything again, because I’ve just seen the most incredible face.

  Not a perfect face. It looks like his nose might’ve been broken once, and he has some acne at his jawline, aggravated by shaving, and scattered at his temples, where I get it, too. His hair is long, the color of straw, with a few thin braids that snake around whenever he lifts off on his board. He wears a wallet chain. I can’t stop looking.

  And I need to, because Bree is waiting for my answer, starting to take offense, one eyebrow raised. “Wow. Nice.” I sound vague and half-assed, too stunned to say the right thing, and I think I’ve pissed her off.

  Now, Trace finally flips Sage and sets her on her feet. She whirls, pounding his bicep, swearing at him as he laughs, drawing all eyes their way except mine. I watch Kincaid, following his motion to the top of a plywood ramp, where he decides to sit on the edge, hanging his board off the side and drinking his Jolt, wearing a thousand-yard stare as the other skaters bomb past him. From here, his eyes look dark, but not brown; maybe a muddy green. Beneath his dangling feet, half buried by swirls of spray-painted initials and X-rated cartoons, are those words again: Fear Him.

  “I’ve seen that.” I was mostly thinking out loud, but I’ve got Bree’s attention. “That message, ‘Fear Him.’ It’s under the overpass by school.”

  “It’s everywhere. All over town.” She watches me, gaze intent. “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know. Like, God, maybe?”

  She gives one of those laughs, 90 percent cacao, bitter and rich. “No. Not God.”

  Sage comes over to us, struggling to walk with Trace draped over her like a bearskin rug, his chin resting on her head, arms slung around her neck. “Hey, psycho, you’re pulling my hair—” He kisses down the side of her throat, nibbling, making her laugh and wrinkle her nose. “You’re so gross.”

  “Clarabelle wants to know about the Mumbler,” Bree says.

  Trace keeps nuzzling. “No, she doesn’t.”

  He hasn’t even looked at me yet. “Yeah, I do.” My voice carries like Bree’s, getting the attention of some of the skaters.

  Trace lifts his head. Pale eyes, cinnamon freckles, earlobes pierced with half-inch stainless-steel tunnels, wide enough to fit your thumb through. I brace up, half-afraid he’ll bull-rush me. “You’ll be sorry.” Sage lets him pull her back with him in staggering steps. “What is known cannot be unknown.”

  “Wow. So wise.” One of the bench girls turns to face us. “Is that like a quote?”

  “Book of Trace. Mumbler Three, Verse Sixteen.” Trace presses his nose into Sage’s hair, watching me with eyes that remind me of a coyote’s, something feral. He holds up a finger. “Whoever believes in him shall perish, and never find eternal life.”

  Bree folds her arms. “Scared yet?”

  “Nah. She doesn’t get it. She’s not feeling it here.” He thumps his fist to Sage’s heart like it was his own. “You know who needs to tell it?” He glances back, says, “Kincaid! Get over here, ya skinny bastid.” Trace looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “Trust me. This dude will scare you.”

  I thought I had time to observe, to take in every detail of him, but he’s coming, and there’s no chance for me to hide myself and how much I do/don’t want him to look at me. Kincaid stops maybe four feet from us, giving Trace a dimly amused yeah, what? look, and I can’t remember how to act casual.

  Trace jerks his chin toward me. “Chick wants to know about the Man with the Sweet Tooth.”

  “Chick’s name is Clarabelle.” Bree avoids Kincaid’s eyes, like there could be something better to look at, and now I’m not sure who they are to each other. Kincaid’s gaze keeps right on traveling, and Bree scuffs her sneaker over the dirt, pendulum-style. For some reason, she’s put her crush in a killing jar. It must be slamming from one side to the other, iridescent wings pummeling the glass.

  Kincaid looks at me; my lips part, but nothing comes out. He’ll scare you, Trace said. But Kincaid smiles, his eyes creasing into these cute half-moons. “Where’d you come from?” His voice is teasing, and a little hoarse, like he might be getting over a cold.

  Say something witty
, anything. My words come out tinny and distant, like I’m reading cue cards over an old-timey radio: “Astley. Outside of Skowhegan.” Nice.

  “New blood,” says Trace.

  “Fresh meat,” says one of the bench girls, and somebody wolf-howls.

  “It’s sad, you coming here.” Kincaid takes me in, his smile fading. “Now you’ve got no chance.”

  No chance. Like he read it in my tea leaves or the lines of my palm. “Why?”

  “Because he only takes Pender kids. Likes our taste, I guess.” Kincaid drops his board, glides backward on one foot, never breaking eye contact. “Like . . . hopelessness.”

  “And Steak-umms from the caf,” somebody says, making people snicker.

  “Liver.” Trace shows his teeth. “God, I love that shit.”

  “What about Gavin Cotswold?” Sage says. “Have they figured out how he died yet?”

  “Mumbler got him.” Trace.

  “He OD’d.” Bree gives Trace a withering look. “He went out in the woods, got fucked up, and died. His own mom thinks so.”

  “I heard the animals didn’t leave enough of him behind to be sure,” Trace says. Then, to Kincaid, “Tell her about the first boy. Ricky Whoever.”

  “Sartain. Ricky Sartain.” Behind Kincaid, most of the activity has stopped, everybody pulling up some concrete to listen. He’s holding court, a storyteller who knows his audience. “It all started, like, twenty years ago. Kid went missing two days before they found him on the banks of the marsh, way out by the railroad bridge.” Kincaid nods slowly, easing into it. “Somebody put their hands all over him.”

  More covert laughter, Trace’s whisper: “Loved to death.”

  Kincaid entwines his fingers, working his palms together in sinuous rhythm. “Squeezed him, crushed him. Mashed his spine, smashed his belly.”

  A voice speaks up: “My mom said that kid got hit by the train.”

  “Of course she did.” Kincaid doesn’t turn. “She also told you that Santa Claus is real and honesty is the best policy and if you’re good, you’ll get into heaven, right?”