Long Lost

by Jacqueline West

  At last Pearl’s lips moved. “She . . .”

  Mrs. Rawlins snatched up the word. “She what, child?”

  “Gone,” whispered Pearl, her gaze still floating above Mrs. Rawlins’s head.

  Mrs. Rawlins rocked back on her heels, the chill of terror sweeping through her. “Who is gone, child?”

  Pearl’s lips moved once more, but no word came out, only a sucked-in gasp. Her eyes glimmered with a spark of consciousness.

  For the space of several heartbeats, no one moved.

  “Hazel,” Pearl breathed at last.

  “Dear god,” Mrs. Rawlins whispered. “Where, child? Where is Hazel now?”

  “It took her.” The glimmer in Pearl’s eyes seemed to crystalize. “The Searcher.”

  Mrs. Rawlins blinked. “Pearl, where did you last see Hazel?”

  “The Enchanted Kingdom,” said Pearl dully. “Then . . . it came. It took her. And I ran. Into the water.”

  Mrs. Rawlins whirled toward Charlie and Mr. Hobbes, who stood beside her, working their caps in their hands. “Maybe there’s a tramp or a wild animal out there,” she told them. “You know where she means. That bit of old forest past Parson’s Bridge. Go. Hurry.”

  Mr. Hobbes nodded. He grabbed Charlie by the shoulder and rushed him out the back door.

  “Go from house to house,” Mr. Hobbes told his son as they raced across the lawn. “Gather whoever you can and bring them along.”

  Charlie scrambled off.

  With a coil of rope and an old rifle from the shed, Mr. Hobbes ran down the slope into the woods. Before long, Charlie came tearing after him, trailed by old Joseph Carlyle from across the street, the Morrisons’ hired man, and the grocer, who’d been stopped mid-route on his cart. The hired man carried a cudgel. The grocer had his horse whip.

  The group rushed through the trees.

  “We’ll check by the old mill first,” Mr. Hobbes told the others. “Then we’ll move downstream if—”

  “Papa,” Charlie interrupted. “Listen.”

  Everyone halted. From somewhere in the distance, across the river, there came the sound of a barking dog.

  They raced across Parson’s Bridge. The barking continued, high-pitched and panicked and growing closer. As they circled a knot of pines, the dog itself came into view.

  Pixie darted back and forth at the river’s edge. His curly fur was splattered with mud, his eyes fixed on something in the water. His barking didn’t cease as the men raced closer.

  Mr. Hobbes scanned the scene. The water narrowed here, running fast and deep before twisting and widening in its course to the lake. A few fallen trees lay in the waves, the tips of their branches nearly reaching from one side to the other. On the bank, trammeled by the dog’s pacing paws, were multiple sets of shoe prints. Pixie’s frenzied tracks had erased any chance of reading those prints, deciphering how many feet had made them, or where those feet had gone.

  “Papa,” Charlie murmured again. He nudged his father’s arm.

  Mr. Hobbes turned to follow the boy’s gaze.

  Nearly halfway across the water, caught in a cluster of branches, was something pale and soft. Something that rippled on the waves.

  The group moved fast. The hired man stayed on the bank, holding one end of the rope. The rest pulled the rope into the waves, Charlie stopping where the water was ankle-deep, Mr. Carlyle and the grocer wading farther. Mr. Hobbes, with the rope’s far end tied around his waist, strode and then swam past them all, into the rain-swollen river.

  The dog’s hoarse barks accelerated.

  Mr. Hobbes reached the heap of fabric.

  There was nothing inside of it.

  It was only an empty dress: an empty, linen, lace-edged dress, which belonged, as Mr. Hobbes and Charlie recognized, not to Hazel, but to Pearl.

  When Mr. Hobbes returned to the bank with the dripping dress over his arm, Pixie finally fell silent. The dog buried his nose in the dress. Then he turned, seemingly confused, to sniff along the bank once more.

  “Pixie,” Charlie called, but the dog had resumed his frantic pacing, searching for something no one else could sense.

  Before long, the woods were filled with sheriff’s deputies, neighbors, curious onlookers. They searched for hours, wading in the river, checking the ruined mill, examining each hole and hillside, until darkness settled over everything like a cold fog. At last, when even the brightest lanterns became useless, the whole company trudged back to town.

  Mr. Hobbes carried Pearl’s sodden dress. Charlie led Pixie, whose collar was tied to the length of rope, and who whined and pulled backward the entire way.

  Meanwhile, inside the grand house, Hazel’s father was telephoning important friends, gathering more help. Hazel’s mother was shut in her bedroom. Pearl sat, as still as a plaster mannequin, in a chair near the fire. When anyone questioned her, whether it was her father, the priest, or the sheriff himself, she would say nothing but what she had said before.

  The Searcher took her sister.

  And now she was gone.

  Fiona didn’t even notice when her phone began to ring.

  It had just buzzed for the eighth or ninth time, and Fiona was hoping that whatever was making that annoying sound would knock it off, when she realized the noise was coming from her own backpack.

  “Fiona?” said her mom’s voice, when Fiona finally answered. “I’m on my way to the library right now. I’ll need you to meet me outside.”

  “But—” Fiona glanced at the phone’s clock. “You’re not supposed to come for another hour!”

  “I know. Arden’s evening dance class was cancelled without us getting notified, so she’s waiting outside the studio right now. She walked straight there from the rink, and the doors are locked. We can’t just leave her standing on the street.”

  Fiona was pretty sure they could. “Can’t you go get Arden by yourself, and pick me up when you come back?”

  “I have two errands to do on the way home. By the time we get back to Lost Lake, the library will be long closed. I’m sorry, ladybug.”

  “Wait,” said Fiona. “You were supposed to come inside and help me get a library card!”

  “I know.” Her mom’s voice was gentle. “We’ll just have to do it another time. I’ll see you in three minutes.”

  The call cut off.

  Fiona would have liked to throw something, or slam a heavy door, but she was in the last place where a person should do those things. Instead, fuming, she shoved The Lost One back into its spot at the end of the bottom row. Then she stalked down the steps, past the stares of the strangers in the reading room, and out the library doors.

  Her mom craned around with an apologetic smile as Fiona threw herself into the back seat. “I am really sorry about the change of plans, ladybug. It wasn’t my idea, believe me.”

  Fiona nodded but didn’t answer.

  Her mom steered back onto the quiet street. “I’m glad you’re enjoying the library so much.”

  “I’d enjoy it more if I had a library card,” Fiona mumbled, low enough that her mom might not hear.

  They rolled along Old Mill Road and turned right onto Old Turnpike, leaving the library behind. Through her window, Fiona watched downtown Lost Lake slide past, its outlines blurring like a photograph dipped in water. There went another steepled white church. There went a row of cozy little cottages. There went a crooked street sign reading ROSE LANE.

  Rose Lane. Fiona shifted in her seat. Hadn’t she just heard that name somewhere?

  “Hey.” Her mom’s voice snipped through her thoughts. “How about I take you to the library the minute I get home from work tomorrow, and we both get our library cards?”

  “The minute you get home?”

  “Yes. I promise. And how about if you get to choose what we do for dinner tonight?”

  Fiona met her mom’s eyes in the rearview mirror and gave her the start of a smile. “That sounds good.”

  They drove on, past sagging wooden fences and ancien
t overgrown orchards, past a silent cemetery and a small patch of meadow that stood against the surrounding forest. But Fiona wasn’t looking out her window anymore.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time Fiona and her mom stepped through the doors of the Chisholm Memorial Library the next afternoon, Fiona was practically vibrating with impatience. She barely felt the other patrons’ stares as they approached the librarians’ desk, or the stifling hush in the air, or anything at all except the need to have the satiny green leather cover of The Lost One back in her hands.

  “Hello.” Ms. Miranda smiled from behind the desk. Today her hair was pinned up in two wispy, looping braids decorated with origami flowers. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Hi. Our family has just moved to town, so we need library cards. I’m Caitlin Murphy-Crane, and this is my daughter, Fiona Crane.”

  Through the buzz of her impatience, Fiona felt a shift in the reading room atmosphere. She glanced over her shoulder. The room had grown even more still than usual. All the people in the nearby chairs had turned toward the circulation desk. A knot of three old men at the newspaper rack had dropped their murmured conversation to listen.

  Ms. Miranda ignored all of this. “Welcome to Lost Lake.” Her bright brown eyes flicked to Fiona. “I’ve seen you in here already, haven’t I?”

  Fiona could have sworn everyone else in the room leaned closer. She nodded, keeping a wordy answer inside.

  “It’s a beautiful old town,” said Fiona’s mom, when Fiona didn’t speak. “And this is a beautiful old building.”

  “Yes. The Chisholm house,” said Ms. Miranda, rooting in a drawer. “We’re really lucky to have it.”

  “The Chisholm house,” Fiona’s mom repeated. “Were the Chisholms town founders, or local politicians, or . . . ?”

  “Frederick Chisholm was a very successful businessman,” said Ms. Miranda. “He left the house to his daughter, and she left it to us.”

  “He was an investor.” One of the old men spoke up. “Invested in a bunch of industries. Didn’t make anything himself except money.”

  “And they weren’t local,” put in another. “Sure weren’t town founders. Just moved here, built this house, and left again.”

  “Or died,” said the third man.

  Ms. Miranda’s smile didn’t waver, but Fiona saw it stiffen slightly. “This town is just full of history,” she said, banging the drawer shut. “Can I see a photo ID, please?” She pointed at the chain of purple monkeys hanging around Ms. Murphy-Crane’s neck. “Love your necklace, by the way.”

  Fiona rocked from foot to foot while her mother dug for her wallet. She could practically feel The Lost One’s pages between her fingers already. She would flip through them until she found Pearl, soaked and shaken, staggering back to her house, and then—

  “Fiona?” Her mom gave her a look. “Do you need to use the restroom?”

  “No.” Fiona stopped rocking. “I’m just excited.”

  “Almost finished.” Ms. Miranda slid two plastic cards across the countertop. “All I need now is a signature.”

  Fiona grabbed her card. Chisholm Memorial Library, read the text beneath a sketch of the big brick building, widow’s walk and looming trees and all.

  The other new things that had been shoved into her life hadn’t been hers to choose. But this new library card was different. She wanted it, even if it would mean that she truly lived in this strange, whispery old town.

  She signed her name on the bare black line. Fiona Crane.

  “Arden and I are heading to Framingham to pick up her new costume,” said her mom, dropping her own library card into her bag. “Your dad will pick you up at twenty to six. Fiona, are you listening?”

  “Twenty to six,” said Fiona, sidling toward the staircase.

  Her mom laughed. “See you later, ladybug. Happy reading.”

  Fifteen seconds later, Fiona was skidding through the door of the mystery room. Late afternoon sun gilded the paneled walls. The rows of waiting books seemed to glow. In the back corner, Fiona threw herself down on the rug, yanked the book from the very end of the very bottom shelf, and settled into reading position, shivering with happy anticipation. She flipped the book open in her lap.

  And immediately closed it again.

  This was the wrong book.

  Fiona rocked back, frowning. This book had a crinkly cellophane cover and a painting of a thatched cottage on the front. A Quiet Country Murder, by Rebecca Zales. Fiona shoved it back into place. On her hands and knees, she scanned the rest of the shelf. A row of ordinary, shiny spines stared back at her.

  Fiona shot to her feet. Someone must have reshelved the book. Maybe The Lost One was back in the spot where she’d discovered it in the first place.

  She darted through the rows. There was no sign of The Lost One on the shelf where she’d found it. Or on the next shelf. Or the next.

  Fiona’s heart tripped. She forced herself to walk slowly along each shelf once more, trailing her eyes and her fingertips over every book.

  The Lost One wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere.

  Fiona raced back along the upper corridor, down the staircase, and through the central room so quickly that the newspapers in their racks fluttered like paper wings.

  “Where’s the fire?” called one old man.

  Ms. Miranda glanced up as Fiona skidded toward the circulation desk. The paper flowers in her hair nodded.

  “I’m looking for a book,” Fiona panted, too desperate to care about the many eyes aimed at her back. “A mystery book. I started reading it here two days ago, but I had to leave it because I didn’t have a library card yet, and now I can’t find it.”

  “And you have to know what happens next. I understand completely,” said Ms. Miranda. “Someone else may have checked it out, but we’ll put a hold on it so you get it ASAP.” She clicked a few buttons on her keyboard. “Title?”

  “The Lost One.”

  Something small and bright flickered in Ms. Miranda’s eye—probably just light from the computer screen. “We have a recent mystery novel called All the Lost Ones,” she said, squinting at the monitor. “Is that what you mean?”

  “No. The Lost One. I’m positive,” said Fiona. “And this book was old. Like, at least fifty years old. It had a leather cover, and a drawing of a forest on the front. . . .”

  Ms. Miranda took a quick breath through her nose. Fiona couldn’t tell if it was a sniffle, or a gasp, or nothing at all. “Hmm. We definitely don’t have a book by that title in our fiction collection.” Her eyes flicked from the computer to Fiona. “Where did you say you found it?”

  “It was in the mystery room. On the shelves.”

  “Well, that’s very strange,” said Ms. Miranda slowly. She typed something else, took a breath, and turned to Fiona once more. “I don’t know what to tell you, except that the book didn’t belong there.” She gave a small, sympathetic smile. “I’d be happy to recommend another great mystery, if that’s what you’re into.”

  “No,” blurted Fiona. “I mean—I am—but I need to get to the end of this one.”

  Ms. Miranda stared into her eyes for a beat. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “Let me know if you change your mind about another book.”

  The sympathy on the librarian’s face looked genuine. But that was no help to Fiona. Silently she turned away from the circulation desk, the stream of thoughts in her head sloshing so hard that it made her dizzy.

  The Lost One hadn’t been part of the library collection at all. Now it was gone. And she might never find it again. She’d never know what had happened to Hazel. She’d never know if the Searcher was real. She’d never know how it ended.

  Fiona’s eyes drifted across the central room, landing on the row of computers.

  Wait a minute.

  If you were looking for a book and couldn’t find it in the library, a librarian would usually offer to get it for you from another library. Fiona had requested enough rare old books about Egypti
an tombs and lost Mayan cities to be sure of this. But Ms. Miranda hadn’t even offered. Why not? What would Fiona find if she searched for the book herself?

  Fiona darted to a free computer. When she typed “The Lost One book” into the search bar, dozens of book covers appeared: lost boys and lost girls, lost lands and hearts and dogs, Lost Lake itself. Fiona scrolled through them all, page after page. But nothing was right. Maybe that was why Ms. Miranda hadn’t offered to get the book somewhere else. Maybe she’d tried and couldn’t find it either. Just in case, Fiona searched for “The Lost One novel.” And “Lost One mystery.” And “Lost One Hazel and Pearl.” Still nothing.

  But the book did exist, Fiona assured herself, fighting against the sinking feeling that pulled at her stomach like an open bathtub drain. She had held the book in her hands. She’d read half of it. She’d left it right where she could find it again.

  If it had been there, and if it had moved away . . . then someone else had moved it.

  What if that someone else—and the book itself—was still here?

  Quickly, trying to make herself as small and silent as possible, Fiona circled the central reading room. She checked every desk and tabletop. She squinted at the books in other people’s hands. Several people squinted back at her. A few of them even watched her suspiciously, as if she was the one who might have stolen something. But none of them had her book.

  Fiona skulked through the study and the reference room next. There was no sign of The Lost One anywhere—although Fiona did spot the blond-haired, round-faced boy who’d told her about Margaret Chisholm, poring over a big book of maps. She scanned the upstairs rooms as fast as she could, rushing between the shelves until her vision blurred and her brain spun. But the book wasn’t there.

  Finally, out of places to look and almost out of time, Fiona threw herself down in one of the central room’s big armchairs. She felt sad and annoyed and even a little sick, like she’d been about to dig into her first meal in days, and someone had whisked her plate away before she could take a bite.

  If her mom hadn’t come early yesterday, Fiona thought, she wouldn’t have left the book behind. And her mom wouldn’t have come early if it weren’t for Arden’s stupid dance class. All of this—like so much else—was Arden’s fault.