Tabitha was wild with grief. “It’s her phone,” she kept saying. “She never goes anywhere without it.” And for his part, Ben looked stricken, his Adam’s apple bobbing wildly, like he was trying and failing to swallow something. It was like the sight of Zahra’s phone had finally made it all real to them. Wherever she was, she didn’t have the one thing you could use to communicate with someone, to find your way back home, to summon help. She was truly out of our reach.
I barely remember walking out of the woods. I remember a cold hand in mine—Ingrid’s, I suppose, because she was the one whose voice I kept hearing. “Just keep walking. That’s it. One step and another . . . oh, be careful, there’s a root sticking up right over here.” It was just like the moments after my mom died. Just like the times I went on autopilot as a kid, when my dad was particularly messed up. I followed Ingrid obediently until we made our way back to the parking lot.
There’s been no word—and who knows when there will be? According to the local news site I keep refreshing on my phone, the trail is closed and there are search and rescue teams combing the area. But it’s a big park, and there’s a lot of ground to cover. It might be a while before they make an official statement.
Upstairs I pad across the dark kitchen and open the fridge. I’m the furthest thing from hungry, but my throat is parched. I grab a lemonade and have the door half shut when someone in the living room clears their throat, and I drop the bottle on the floor.
I stoop to pick it up, and then go to the doorway.
The lights are off, but the TV is on, the sound down low. It’s tuned to some kind of cooking competition. Brandy’s sitting in the easy chair in her pajamas, a mug of tea next to her.
“Sorry,” she says softly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay.” I watch the screen so I don’t have to look at her. The chefs are running around the kitchen, scooping up ingredients in their arms for whatever it is they’re hell-bent on making.
“Can’t sleep either, huh? Want me to make some tea? Or hot cocoa?” She makes a movement like she’s going to get up, but I shake my head quickly.
“No, that’s okay. I’ve got a drink.”
She nods. Then she glances at the empty couch. “Want to sit? I’ll let you have the remote.”
I crack open my lemonade and curl up on the sofa. On the TV a guy with tattoos is trying to melt gummy bears in a pan while a woman in a bandanna juices a few dozen key limes as fast as she can. It’s very dramatic.
“No new information?” Brandy asks. Her face is ashen in the flickering light, all the old scars puckering her skin thrown into ugly relief. I was surprised when I found out she was only thirty-five; she looks so much older.
“No.” Ingrid had told Dad and Brandy about what we’d seen over the dinner table. I didn’t have the energy to go through it all again, and then they didn’t say anything about me heading down to my room to hide for the rest of the evening.
“Lots of people use that kind of phone,” she says tentatively. “Right?”
“Tabitha was sure it was hers.” I take a sip of lemonade. “There were drawings on the cover. In silver Sharpie. That was always Zahra’s trademark.”
“Shit,” she says softly.
I must look at her strangely, because her cheeks darken a little. “Pardon my French,” she adds.
“Bien sûr,” I say. She gives a little smile.
“I don’t get the feeling you were too jazzed about church, so maybe this is the wrong thing to say, but . . . I’ve been praying for her.”
For some reason it doesn’t annoy me as much as it should. Maybe it’s just because she says it so simply.
We watch the TV in silence for a few minutes. My eyes track the contestants as they plate their food, but my mind is spinning in circles, trying to lay out the possibilities and argue for or against their likelihood. Anything could have happened. Someone could’ve snatched her from the path. A stranger. Or even Ben. He could’ve steered me to that particular clearing so I’d find the phone—though that line of thinking doesn’t feel quite right, anymore. Or she could have dropped it in the middle of a panic attack. Or she could have dropped it while running from an animal. Other than telling us she was there, in the woods, and that she lost her phone, the discovery hasn’t given us a damn thing to go on.
“You don’t have to go, by the way.”
Brandy’s voice startles me. I look up at her.
“To church. Your dad . . . will argue. But I’ll make him understand.” She gives a small smile. “Pastor Worthen can be intense. And I don’t think anyone benefits from forced ministry.”
I open my mouth to say something—like, “Thank you for understanding,” or “Don’t worry, I’ll keep going because he’s Zahra’s granddad and I’m desperate for any connection I can make.” But those aren’t the words that come out.
“Do you believe in all that stuff?” I ask.
She looks away from the TV screen. The show’s gone to commercial, and as is traditional for a three a.m. promotional spot, there’s a negligee-clad woman talking on the phone in an embarrassingly sensual voice, urging the viewer to Call Now. “I believe in God,” she says slowly. “And I believe in prayer.”
“Yeah, but . . . all the other stuff. About sin, and obedience, and . . . like . . .” I shrug a little. “Do you think women are supposed to listen to their husbands?”
“Nah.” She leans back in the chair. “I’m pretty sure Jesus is the only man ever born who’s worth obeying.”
“Then why do you guys go to Victory Evangelical?” I ask. “There are other churches. Some might be . . .”
“Nicer?” she says with a small smile.
“I mean . . . yeah.”
The light flickers along her skin. She doesn’t look beautiful, exactly, but there’s an eerie, almost ghostly magnificence to her. If I were putting her in The Precipice, I’d make her an oracle. A sacred priestess, chewing laurels and channeling the voice of a god.
“Has Ingrid told you much about her childhood?” she asks.
I shake my head a little. “I mean, I know you were . . . you know.”
“A meth-head, yeah,” she says. She takes a sip of her tea, and I’m impressed by how calmly she can say it. “I don’t want to say too much, because some of it is Ingrid’s story to tell, whenever she’s ready. But if you’ve ever met a tweaker you can probably imagine some of it. I’ve sold her shit for drug money. I’ve sold myself for drug money. Yeah, I mean what you think I mean,” she says at my shocked look. “I’ve been homeless, I’ve been in prison. Ingrid’s been in foster homes on and off for years.”
I realize I’m holding my breath. I unclench my fist, roll my shoulders.
“Anyway, Grace Worthen caught me living out of my car in the church parking lot when Ingrid was about nine years old. I usually moved the car every night so it wouldn’t be too obvious, but that morning I slept in, and she came and knocked on the window. I pretty much freaked out. I was sure she’d call the cops on me.”
Her voice is calm and even. I wonder if, someday, my dad will be able to talk about his mistakes like this. Because so far, he’s seemed to want to shrug them off. Brandy is five years into her sobriety, and her tone is different; there’s a matter-of-factness to it that makes me trust the tale. That makes me trust her, a little.
“Anyway, I was scrambling to gather up our stuff and get out of there, and Ingrid was in the back seat sleeping, and this lady in a pastel suit is looking in and I’m freaking out. I’m like, I can’t lose my baby, not again, not even if it’s the best thing for her. That’s addiction, man. When you’re willing to make your kid sleep in the car in the middle of winter because you’re too selfish to do better. But Grace invited me in. There’s a locker room in the church, and she let me clean up and she gave me something to eat. Not a word about cops or social services.
“It’s not a Hallmark movie of the week,” she says softly. “It’s not one of those big moments that, you know, swoop in to change someone for good. I had a little more fucking up to do before I hit my bottom. But when I was ready, I knew I could go back to her. I knew I could trust her. She—well, the Women’s Ministry Group that she leads—they helped me find a job. They helped me find an apartment. They helped me keep my daughter. So yes . . . Pastor Worthen’s ministry is a little on the intense side for my tastes. I won’t lie. But the community in that church—they’re legit. They’re doing God’s work. I’m only here because of them.”
She goes quiet. I don’t really know what to say. Honestly, until now Brandy’s seemed on the bland side to me. No, that’s not quite right; the truth is, I haven’t thought enough about her to decide if she’s bland. I haven’t thought about who she is or what she’s been through, or what kind of relationship she might have with Ingrid or my father.
“I’m glad you are,” I say, finally.
She smiles. Then she looks at the screen again. “Oh, it’s back on.”
The girl with the bandanna unveils her tilapia-lime fajitas. One of the judges makes a pained grimace.
My text alert goes off. It’s Tabitha.
There’s blood spatter on the phone.
The screen seems to sear my eyes in the darkness, but I can’t tear them away. I hold the phone so tight my fingers start to cramp.
I open up the news on my phone’s browser. MISSING GIRL’S BLOODY PHONE FOUND NEAR CHESTER CREEK TRAIL, says the headline.
Anchorage police confirmed that the cell phone found in today’s search belonged to Zahra Gaines, 17. Blood evidence collected from the scene will be sent to the lab to determine its origin.
For a second I see it, as if it’s right in front of me. Blood, spattered across the phone. Blood, flecked across the leaves, the stones. Blood, pooling around a body.
But no. Because they didn’t find a body. We didn’t find a body.
There’s still hope. There has to be.
I look back at Brandy. This dowdy, ravaged woman who, even after all this time sober, still can’t sleep at night. For once I wish I had some kind of faith, too, some religion or belief that might see me through. All I’ve ever really had is the Precipice, and Zahra.
The old oaths come easily to my mind.
By the light of the midnight sun, by the gods of the fen and those of the dale, by the mountaintop guardians and those that keep the ocean’s tides, I will find you. I will not rest until I do.
It was the way the Starmaiden and Lyr swore their fealty to one another. Even though I know the gods invoked are not in the fen or dale or mountains or oceans but are in a series of battered, sticker-encrusted wide-ruled notebooks, repaired with tape, stashed downstairs in my room.
I will find you, I think again. I’ll do anything I have to along the way.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE CUP AND SAUCER is inside a tired little seventies-era mall, tucked between a wig shop and a country-and-western clothing store. The first thing I notice is Zahra’s picture, featured prominently on every surface; her coworkers have posted her flyers all over the store. Her chiseled face, her stark hair and full lips and long-lashed eyes peer out dozens of times over.
“She really is pretty,” Ingrid says softly, looking at one of them.
It’s Monday morning—a half hour before school is scheduled to start. The coffee shop is the only thing in the mall open this early. All the other shops are still locked up tight, and the only people roaming the halls are senior citizens in track suits, walking their laps in the safe, warm mall air.
The coffee shop decor is a mix of frumpy and twee. The chalkboard menu is written up in pink and green, with vines and flowers that I recognize as more of Zahra’s etched around the edges. The merchandise shelf is stocked with tea sets and coffee pots; the girls behind the counter wear aprons in a pattern that can only be called “Grandma’s curtains.”
It’s hard to imagine Zahra here. But it’s increasingly hard to imagine her at all.
There are two baristas on duty this morning. One is wiping down the espresso machine with a rag; the other’s restocking muffins in the pastry case. The place is otherwise empty. I step up to the counter, Ingrid just a half step behind, and clear my throat.
The one at the espresso machine looks up. She’s a few years older than us, maybe, her hair black with bright green sections, her arms covered in tattoos. I recognize her from the Walk and Roll for Hope photo I found online. “Hey, what can I get you?”
“Just a drip coffee with room,” I say.
“Mocha for me,” Ingrid puts in. “Double shot.”
“Margo, will you ring them up?” asks the green-haired girl.
Margo’s closer to our age, with blunt-cut bangs and a freckled, snub nose. She makes change, and I drop it into the tip jar with a conspicuous jingle.
“Um . . . can I ask a kind of weird question?” I say.
She cocks her head to one side. “What’s up?”
“What’s the name of the guy who works here?” I feel myself blushing. They are going to think I’m a creeper. But Ben said the guy Zahra was messing around with—or at least supposedly messing around with—was someone from work.
Margo glances over her shoulder at the other woman. “Do you know what she’s talking about, Soo-Jin?”
The green-haired barista puts our drinks down on the counter in front of us. “Sorry, babe, there aren’t any boys around these parts.”
“No boys? But . . .” I trail off. My eyes fall to the picture of Zahra taped to the countertop. Nothing for it but to be straightforward, I guess. “Zahra’s a friend of mine. I heard a rumor that she was flirting with some guy at work. You’re sure there’s no one here?”
The green-haired barista’s expression changes, her lips turning downward. “You know Zahra? Hey, are there any updates? No one’s telling us anything. The news said they found her phone.”
I nod. “We were the ones that found it.”
“Shit,” she says. She brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “We were both working yesterday or we would’ve been there, too.”
“We still don’t know much,” I say. “The phone was broken. And I guess there’s . . . you know, trace amounts of blood on it.”
Margo’s hands fly up to cover her mouth. Soo-Jin looks faintly nauseated.
“I knew something was wrong when she didn’t show up for her shifts. I called her parents, but they said she’d just gone off with her boyfriend,” she says, resting her hands on the counter.
“Weird that they weren’t worried, don’t you think?” Ingrid asks, glancing at me. I just shrug.
“They’re kind of like that. Hippie types, you know?” I say. “Anyway . . . so there aren’t any guys who work here? Not even, like, stocking or delivering?”
Margo and Soo-Jin exchange a meaningful glance.
“No one that works here,” Soo-Jin says. “But there was a guy around all the time this summer. He used to come in for lunch and she’d take her break with him.”
“Specifically not her boyfriend,” Margo says.
Ingrid’s eyes go very round. “You don’t know his name?”
“Nope. I snooped as much as I could but I never managed to find out,” says Margo, without shame. “He always paid in cash.”
“Crumpled ones,” Soo-Jin giggles. “Remember, we used to tease Zahra about it? We kept asking if he was a stripper.”
Margo snorts. “Oh my God, she turned so red.”
“But as far as you know, they only ate together?” I ask. “They weren’t hooking up?”
Margo twists her mouth to one side like she’s thinking about it. But Soo-Jin is the one that answers.
“Zahra’s an odd bird,” she says. “She gives off this aura of being super warm and nice and easy t
o talk to, and it’s not until you stop to think about it later that you realize she didn’t really tell you anything about herself. You can feel really close to her, and at the end of the day be asking why.”
The words hit me with a dull, sickly thud. It isn’t just me, whispers one voice, exultant. Somewhere else, another answers mournfully: It isn’t just me?
Am I the one that doesn’t know Zahra? Or is Zahra the one that refuses to be known?
“So the whole thing was hard to read.” Soo-Jin’s still talking. I force myself to focus back on what she’s saying. “Maybe they were just friends, but it felt like they were sneaking around. She’d eat with him back on the loading dock every day, out of sight of customers and stuff. And a few times when Ben came to surprise her around lunch time she’d get really nervous.”
“Who knows, with that girl,” Margo says.
All this time I’ve been half-assuming that the rumors of Zahra cheating are just that. Rumors. I realize now I’ve only thought that because it seemed so out of character, even with all the evidence that my best friend has changed. But there is, at least, another boy in her life—one no one really seems to know.
“Did you ever find out anything else about him?” I plead. “Where’d she know him from? What’d he look like?”
“He looked like half the guys in Anchorage,” Margo says dismissively. “Scruffy and boring.”
“Margo’s got a rare case of white-dude face blindness,” Soo-Jin says. “Or maybe she’s just a lesbian.”
“Really?” Ingrid gives a little jerk of surprise, looking at Margo again. I grit my teeth a little. Now is not the time to have to find out my stepsister is a homophobe.
“Well, I’m bi,” Margo says. “But I’m waiting to experiment with dudes until I get to college.”
“Anyways,” I say, trying to steer the conversation away from anything that might lead to a Bible study session or get us kicked out of the mall. “He was scruffy, you said?”
“Yeah, he was a little unkempt,” Soo-Jin says, thinking. “Cute, though. Brown hair. Really skinny.”
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