“No offense, but how do you know? My parents are okay, but Canaan is boring as hell.” Star started babbling away about leaving town, visiting her favorite cousin, Harry, at college. “He’s in upstate New York. Bard College. He’s going to be a filmmaker. I’ve visited him there. It’s cool. That’s where I’m going to school. I’m going to be an artist.” There she was, blabbing a bunch of stuff to a total stranger. She hadn’t realized how starved she was for conversation. She’d been spending a lot of time alone lately. Ruby had a new boyfriend, and Star never liked being a third wheel. Ophelia seemed kind of weird, but she was a good listener.
“Star, you’re not going to tell anyone about me, are you?”
“Why would I?”
“I don’t know. I just would rather you didn’t.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks.”
“Is there someone you need to call, like your parents, to tell them you’re okay?”
“They’re the last people I want to talk to. My dad’s dead, and my mom’s a heroin addict. She’s hooked up with this total creep. He dopes her up at night and comes into my room.”
Star tilted her head. “I thought you said you had your own place.”
“Right. I do.” She sat up and looked away. “I mean he used to before I moved out.”
“Oh.” There was definitely something off about this girl.
Ophelia looked down at the ground then back up at Star. “Did that hurt?” She nodded at Star’s wrist.
A green-and-black barbed-wire tattoo encircled her left wrist like a bracelet. She’d gotten it the weekend she visited Harry, using some phony ID he’d gotten her. “It kind of stung when the guy was doing it. Now I forget it’s there. Of course my mom went ballistic.” And she laughed, since that was basically the reason she gotten it. She wasn’t sure why messing with her mom was so much fun. It just was.
“I’m going to get one,” Ophelia said. “An angel with big white wings and a sweet smiling face. On my back, right above my butt.”
“Oh. Okay.” Who doesn’t want a smiley angel on their back? Star thought. Gross.
“I really appreciate your helping me, but I don’t have money or anything to give you. Just so you know.”
Star hugged her knees. “Shit, Ophelia. I’m not doing this for money. I’m just helping out a girl who needs a place to stay. It’s fucking nuts out there, you know. There are lunatics and crazies and drug addicts and whackos that prey on young girls.”
Ophelia zipped her sweatshirt up to her neck then flipped the hood over her head. “You’re creeping me out, Star.” She bit her bottom lip, reminding Star of the way Sophie looked when she was off in a Sophie trance.
“Well, it’s true. I had a friend when we were ten... who just disappeared. I mean she was snatched or something, and they never found her. It’s too scary to think what might have happened to her.” Lately, though, that was all she could think about. She’d shoved the terrifying thoughts away, and they’d stayed tucked in a dark corner of her brain for years. But then she kept hearing scary news reports of other missing girls, the thoughts popped out, and Star couldn’t put them back. She pulled a Camel out of her jacket pocket and offered it to Ophelia. She shook her head, so Star lit it for herself.
“You mean they climbed in her bedroom window and kidnapped her?”
“No, I mean she disappeared from a fucking Zone. She was even with her mother.”
“Wow, I was at a Zone today. That's terrible.”
Star didn’t say that nobody but her mom shopped at the Zone anymore. Plus she wouldn’t be caught dead in one nowadays. Just walking by the store made her start shaking.
“God, you must miss her.”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She took a drag of her cigarette. “I guess.”
Ophelia sat up tall. “Maybe she’ll turn up one day. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Like you’ll be at the mall or the Olive Garden, and suddenly, you see her walk in. You’ll have a ‘holy shit!’ moment, and you’ll shout out her name...what was her name?”
“Sophie.”
“Yeah, you’ll shout out her name, like, ‘Hey, Sophie... is that you?’ And she’ll stop and turn and look at you and run into your arms, and you’ll hug for like ten minutes and start crying. She’ll look all pretty and grown up. Someone will film it, and it’ll go viral. Then you’ll both become famous. Maybe that will happen.” Ophelia’s eyes were wide, and she smiled like she’d just unwrapped the greatest Christmas present ever.
Star said, “You’re cracked. She’s dead. Her decomposed body is lying in some ditch. Or her bones are in a Hefty bag in some hand-dug grave after she was forced to commit vile sex acts on some pervert. Maybe she was tortured or buried alive, brainwashed or mutilated then raped and killed.” Her mind went back to the three Cleveland girls who were all over the news a while ago. “Or she’s alive being held by some sicko in an attic, chained to the wall, and she’s had his baby. After all these years, there’s no fucking happy flowery rose-scented ending to this story. That’s the thing of it. Your mind just wanders to all the awful but probably real possibilities. There is no good news in this story, Ophelia. No happy ending. Wake up and smell the rat poison.”
“Jeez. That’s so dark.”
“Welcome to the real world, girl. It could happen to anyone. It could’ve happened to me. I could’ve been at the Zone that day with them. I was normally with her, like, all the time.” Star couldn’t help it. She felt the need to protect the girl, to tell her the facts of life. “You can’t trust anybody. Well, I mean you can trust me. I won’t hurt you, but probably you shouldn’t even trust me. Definitely don’t trust men.” She checked the time on her cell phone. “Shit. I better go. Do you think you’ll be okay?”
Ophelia nodded apprehensively.
“Lock the door after I leave.”
Star walked over to the window she’d climbed in and locked it. She went to each window, checked the locks, then double-checked them. She found a flashlight in a drawer. It worked, and she handed it to Ophelia. “You’ll need this. The phone is disconnected. Do you have a cell?”
“I did, but I lost it.”
Star thought for a minute. Life without her cell was, well... torture. But she needed to help the girl. She could always snatch her mom’s iPhone for a while. She’d done it before. “Take mine for now, just in case. Don’t use up my minutes on bullshit. I mean it. My parents are crazed about my minutes. Just be careful. I’ll come and check on you tomorrow after school. But if I was you, I’d be thinking about a plan. You can’t stay here forever.”
WHEN SHE GOT HOME, Star found her mom scrubbing the kitchen countertop furiously, her dirty-blond ponytail bobbing up and down. That couldn’t be good. She usually turned to cleaning when she was upset—washing the floor after a fight with Star’s dad or scrubbing toilets when she was exasperated with Star. She was wearing her long Kiss the Cook apron over her too-baggy mom jeans. Star had seen photos of her mom when she was young. She’d been a dancer, and she was hot. She still had an amazing body for an old person, even if she never showed it off and refused to buy a decent pair of jeans that fit right.
“Where were you?” her mom asked, glaring at her.
“No place.”
She rubbed the countertop harder. “I called you, and some girl answered. Did you lose your cell again?”
“You must have dialed wrong.” Damn. I should have told Ophelia not to pick up if Mom called.
“How could I dial wrong, Star? I have you on memory. Who were you with?”
“God, Mom. No one. You know how lame you are with technology.”
“We waited. We finally ate without you.”
“I told you to start without me.”
“Chicken parmesan, your favorite.”
“Mom, seriously? I’ve told you like a million times—I’m vegan now.” Star sighed loudly. Her mom had some mental block about it.
“All right, all right.” She shook her head. “You’re inconsidera
te, Star.”
Star looked up at the ceiling and mouthed, “Blah, blah, blah.” She’d heard it all before. She went to the fridge and saw her mom had left a whole plate of chicken parm for her. And it did look good. And she was really hungry and not like religiously vegan, but her mom had ticked her off, so she grabbed a water instead. She knew it was stupid, but she did it anyway.
“I can make you something else. Something vegetarian.”
“Vegan. There’s a difference.”
“Vegan,” she said, like it was a dirty word.
“I’m not hungry.”
“How can you not be hungry? Did you eat already?”
“Why do I have to tell you my every little move? I’m not three years old,” she said, whining like she was three years old.
“Star, have some respect. I’m your mother.” She turned to the living room and shouted, “Blue, will you please step in here? Star is being rude again.”
In the living room, Star’s dad lifted his head from his newspaper and glanced at them. “Star, listen to your mother,” he said then went back to reading. He liked to stay out of the fray.
Looking at Star pleadingly and using a softer, calmer voice, her mom said, “Star, what is it? Why can’t we have a normal conversation? I’ve seen you speak to other people.”
In recent years, Star was either fighting with her mom over the stupidest stuff, like food or her messy room, or feeling guilty about the mean things she’d said. And the closer it got to college, the more Star said and did things to set her mom off. Star knew she was pushing her mom away. The thought of being far away from her parents in some antiseptic dorm room actually freaked her out. She loved her parents.
“Honey, I’m worried about you. You look terrible. Are you feeling okay?”
Star was so not into the conversation. She took a drink of her water. Her mom exhaled and released her shoulders, letting her anger subside.
Star could never tell her mom how she really felt or that a once-well-adjusted kid had slipped into freakdom and become a total worrier, a real loser. She was good at covering up, though. Maybe I should think about becoming an actress, she thought, walking into the living room to see her dad.
“Hey, sweetie.” He put his paper down and looked up at her. He still insisted on getting a real newspaper instead of reading it online. Totally old school.
“Hi, Daddy.” They bumped fists, their little ritual, and he smiled. Her dad was also clueless, but somehow, he didn’t bug her the way her mom did.
“We missed you at dinner. You should have called when you saw you were going to be late.”
“Sorry, Daddy.” She gave him a kiss. That worked every time.
He pulled back and looked at her questioningly, his brow furrowed.
“What?” she said.
“You been smoking?”
Shit. Forgot to eat some Tic Tacs. “Some of my friends were smoking, and it gets in my clothes and hair and makes me reek of it. I hate it. It stinks, doesn’t it?”
She wasn’t sure if he bought it. “It’s a terrible habit,” he said. “There’s lung cancer, of course. And it’s really hard to quit. Not to mention cigarettes are expensive. Don’t you guys care about any of that?”
“You know kids, Dad. They like to experiment and think they look cool. Didn’t you ever try smoking when you were young?”
“Me? Never.” He gave her a wicked smile. She knew for a fact her dad had smoked, plus he was a pothead in college and still smoked weed. When she was low, she even snuck a little from the stash in his underwear drawer. That was one thing father and daughter had in common. And she also knew that her mom used to be into it, too. Maybe if Mom smoked pot more, she’d lighten up some.
Parents used to be just like kids. They did exactly the same stuff—drugs, sex, and alcohol. They used to be fun and have a good time. Then they grew up and started acting like what kids did was so shocking. Star didn’t understand what the big surprise was all about.
“How’s work going at the shop?” he said.
“Great. It’s fun.” Ha, she thought. Most boring lame job in town. Ruby worked at the fitness center, where she got to use the machines, take free yoga classes, and look at hot guys. Heather worked at Fresh, the cute new clothes store. She got a big discount. Meanwhile, Star got all the free old dusty books she wanted. Oh goodie.
She waved to him then headed up to her room.
Chapter Four
As usual, by the time Jesse left Gary, that intense feeling of relief was gone. And when she pulled up to 421 Bug Hill Road, the reality of her life was waiting for her once again. The old farmhouse was in need of serious TLC. Its front porch sagged, and its paint, a dingy and dirty off-white, was peeling badly. The grass was overgrown, and her once-lovely cottage flower beds had been inundated with clover and poison ivy. Out back, a ramshackle barn listed to the right, looking as though it might fall down with the next storm. If one didn’t know, they would assume the house was abandoned, which was mostly true.
She reached into her mailbox and pulled out a stack of bills and a piece of paper that fluttered to the ground. She picked it up, unfolded it, and saw it was a dictionary page that included the words: retribution, retrieve, revenge, reverse, revile, revise.
Another clue. How it’d gotten there, she didn’t know. But when she thought about it, the words could pertain to her life. Sophie used to sit and read the old Webster dictionary Jesse had received as a high school graduation present from her parents. An odd thing for a kid to do, but Sophie wasn’t a typical kid. She was extremely bright, intense, creative, and unpredictable. So knowledgeable and articulate about her birds, she sounded far older than her actual age. Jesse remembered when Sophie stumbled onto the word for the nesting place of birds, a rookery, and how enchanted she was with it, using it all the time. Jesse and Cooper had started slipping it into sentences, too. But their daughter could also be stubborn and obsessive, existing in her own Sophie world.
Jesse stood on the wraparound porch, looking out at the large front yard. Cedar trees and forsythia lined the edges, and lilac bushes and hydrangeas near the house exploded in lavender and magenta in spring and summer. She thought back to her recent conversation with Cooper and his demand for her to sell the house. She had known it would happen someday, but she still wasn’t ready. The house was all she had left of her old life. Of Sophie. She had to hold on to it. She had loved the house and loved living there with her family. And besides, she wondered who would want to buy the neglected and possibly cursed house.
A slight breeze blew, rustling the leaves. For a second, she thought she saw something off in the distance. It could have been a large bird. Or... “Sophie?” she whispered.
She turned and let herself into the house. The initial sight of the living room was always a shock, as if she’d forgotten how she’d left it. She inhaled sharply. Years’ worth of ephemera and objects were stacked in overflowing boxes that lined the perimeter of the room then turned into a mazelike pathway shoved next to the couch and chairs. Jesse had haphazardly labeled the boxes in black marker. Paper boxes held massive mounds of notes, letters, clippings, lists, and receipts. Others were marked Jewelry, Clothing, Metal, Wood, Toys, Knick-knacks, and Miscellaneous. The boxes held everything from passionate love letters to quirky shopping lists and broken eyeglasses to rusted mufflers. She collected anything and everything that people had lost or discarded. Her living room looked like a junkyard—an organized one but a junkyard nonetheless.
She’d heard people in town talking about her behind her back, mumbling about hoarding. They would glance at her with disapproving looks. She supposed they’d seen her hauling her finds into her truck or noticed the piles that had started to accumulate next to the barn, where she stored the larger items she didn’t bring inside: a busted Raleigh bicycle, a store mannequin, and funny-shaped metal pieces whose purpose she couldn’t begin to guess. The No Stopping sign would go there. She realized the piles made it look like the house of one of those sc
ary hoarders on reality TV, and she even attempted watching an episode once to convince herself otherwise. Those hoarders were disgusting. Some had bugs and rodents in their homes, crawling out of their dirty stuff. That wasn’t her. Her house was a bit cluttered, but each piece was important, and she was clean. She had quickly shut off the show but Googled “the difference between collecting and hoarding” to prove to herself she wasn’t crazy. Collectors displayed their items proudly. Compulsive hoarders were often isolated, embarrassed by their habits, and very distressed when confronted with the prospect of discarding their items. She had shouted, “I’m not a hoarder. I’m a mother, damnit!” and slammed down the lid of her laptop.
When she was part of a real family with Cooper and Sophie, the house was a normal home. Tidy. Cozy. The scent of baking apple pie or chocolate chip cookies wafted through the place. But that was before That Day, before she began finding things. It began with Sophie’s birding book, the Bixby Bible. After Sophie went missing, Jesse had found it next to Sophie’s bed. That wasn’t unusual since she studied it obsessively. It was the bookmark at Chapter One, “How to Find Birds,” with its pink-highlighted passages that convinced Jesse her daughter was guiding her. To find birds, you must pay close attention and be patient. Stop. Wait. Watch. And most of all... listen. Bixby’s Birder’s Bible became her Bible, and she carried it with her everywhere.
Then she began finding scraps of paper in books at work: funny lists and letters, love notes, photos, and even money. After a while, she was also finding things outside of work. On the sidewalk, in her grocery cart, or caught in her hair after being blown by the wind. The finds were amusing and fun to collect, and she was convinced they came to her specifically via Sophie or her spirit. Before she knew it, she had quite a stash. But soon, she began finding other objects, which she collected, as well. Single gloves. Old toasters. Costume jewelry. Lampshades. Tools. Once, she even found a prosthetic leg. They seemed to have been dropped in her path, left exclusively for her.
Sophie Last Seen Page 3