The Vanishing Season

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  She turned right, and behind her the footsteps continued. They sounded too slightly off to be just the echoes of her own footfalls, but whenever she looked back, the street was empty. This is what mass hysteria feels like, she told herself. She thought of Elsa. Elsa thought she was being followed or stalked practically four days out of seven.

  Maggie took the next left, cutting away from Main, not sure why, except that she had some vague idea she didn’t want to end up at the parking lot alone if someone really was following her. She threw another glance back over her shoulder—nothing but the glare of a streetlight and an empty block. Still, she felt like someone was there, just beyond the trees.

  She walked faster. Up ahead the Emporium came into view, and Maggie suddenly remembered the hidden key. She walked as if she’d planned to pass the building, but at the last moment cut left, down the sidewalk that was sheltered on one side by big holly bushes.

  Darting around to the side door and looking behind her, she crouched near the landscaping rocks which were dusted in snow, turning them over one by one. Which one had it been? Which one?

  She pulled off her mittens to get a better grip, her hands prickling and trembling.

  Her breath hissed in relief as she revealed, under the fifth rock she tried, the key, clumped with dirt. Glancing down the sidewalk and through the cracks of holly bushes (which revealed nothing), she scrambled up to the door and quietly turned the key in the lock, letting out her breath when it turned easily. Within a moment she was inside and locking the door behind her.

  She crouched in the dark and then ducked over behind a display table against the window, where she could look out the window from beside a large, old, brass clock that still, she knew from the vendor, kept perfect time. “You’re being ridiculous,” she whispered to herself. She watched through the window as the snow fell lightly. Nothing. She looked around behind her. The shadows of all the old things stuck up in crooked angles. Elsa had covered some of the stalls in drop cloths, so that only dim outlines of the shapes underneath showed through.

  Outside, Main Street remained empty. She was beginning to feel like a complete moron. If only someone normal would walk by, then she could slip out with them. She could get back in her car and write off the whole thing as the insulated-town-induced paranoia it probably was. Even she, Maggie Larsen the realist, was not immune.

  And then she heard it, the light tapping of glass. Inside the Emporium.

  Maggie felt physically unable to move. She turned her neck, ever so slightly, toward the noise. A shadow was sliding back and forth, up and down the third, winding aisle. It reached forward, flicking a switch, and suddenly the corner was flooded with light, falling on the form of Elsa with a coffeepot in her hand.

  “Elsa!” Maggie breathed in relief. Elsa jumped and simultaneously threw her hand over her heart. The coffeepot dropped and landed against a drop cloth with a thwap, miraculously staying intact.

  “Oh my God, you scared me!” she said.

  “You scared me.” Maggie straightened up.

  “What are you doing in here, honey?” Elsa turned on another lamp, then another. There was no shortage of available light in an antiques store.

  Maggie looked outside. Had she imagined the footsteps? The presence following her? “I got spooked. And I knew where the key was.”

  “Oh, honey, I understand that.“ Elsa lifted up a retro mannequin and moved it to her left. “I had to come get this to ship because it sold on eBay. What do you think? Why do you think anyone would want this horrible, old thing?”

  Maggie shrugged and smiled, relief flooding her. Elsa turned on more lights, flicking switches by the register, and each light that came on seemed to dispel the fear until it was gone. Maggie was finding tempests in teacups, as her dad liked to say about her mom whenever she stressed out too much over things that were mostly in her mind.

  “Let’s have some coffee,” Elsa said. It was her answer to everything. Soon the pot was percolating and bubbling and filling the room with the comforting smell, and when Elsa handed Maggie a cup, she took it gladly, even though she didn’t normally like Elsa’s coffee.

  “So what have you been up to?”

  “Not much. Schoolwork.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you mean that’s it?”

  “Well, you’re sixteen! Surely there’s some drama.”

  “Elsa, all the sixteen-year-olds are trapped indoors. There’s zero drama. I mean, there’s . . .”

  She thought about Liam and the sauna and the night in his bed with the laser show, and it must have been written on her face, because Elsa grinned.

  “Who is he?” she asked.

  “Nobody. Nothing is happening. Zero.” Maggie looked over at one of the antique clocks, and even though it didn’t tell the right time, she pretended to gauge it. “Well, I’d better get home. My parents will be wondering.” Just as she turned to go, Elsa spoke.

  “Maggie, I’ll tell you this: Things don’t just land in your lap. You have to throw yourself out there. If you just hang back protecting yourself, one day you’ll find yourself my age, with a really nice garden and a really nice shop and not much else to show for it.”

  “I like this shop. You seem to have a pretty good life.”

  Elsa gave her a knowing look, waiting for the truth.

  “It’s nothing,” Maggie said. “Really.”

  For a moment Elsa had started to seem like some kind of cipher of wisdom. But now she pulled out an old Us Weekly and began to flip through it as if she had nowhere else better to be.

  “It better not be your friend Liam Witte,” she said absently. “My friend Mary said she saw Mr. Witte burying a small animal over by the church. And you know killing small animals is always a stepping-stone to . . .” Elsa made a slit with her hand across her neck.

  Maggie sighed. No ciphers of wisdom here.

  That night she slipped outside while her parents were watching TV and went for a walk. She stood outside Liam’s house with her heart pumping, Abe at her side, willing herself to knock on his window.

  Her cell vibrated. For the first time seemingly ever, she had a signal. She bit down hard on her lip in surprise. It was Liam.

  “Hey,” he said, when she answered. His voice sounded soft, like he was lying on his couch.

  “Hey,” Maggie said.

  They were both silent for a few seconds. “What are you doing?” Liam asked.

  “Watching TV.” Maggie stared around at the dark forest. “What are you doing?”

  “Same.”

  More silence. Maggie thought about what Elsa had said, about ending up with comfort and safety but nothing else to show for it.

  “Well, actually, sorry, I gotta go, my mom wants me,” she said. The quiet of the woods enveloped her. “See you later?”

  “Okay. See you later.”

  “Okay.”

  The next night her mom and dad sat in the living room watching Antiques Roadshow while she cooked dinner. Thursdays were her night to cook, and she always made pasta with tomato sauce and melted goat cheese and red pepper flakes, something she’d invented one night by throwing random things in the saucepan.

  “Honey, they have a lamp just like that horrid one at Elsa’s. Come look!”

  Maggie delivered steaming plates of pasta perched on wooden trays to her parents, and watched the announcer give the value of the lamp. The lamp’s owner looked duly surprised, delighted, and humbled. Maggie’s mom and dad were engrossed as they dug into their food, muttering things like “Can you imagine?” and “Payday.” Sometimes she envied her parents, the way they were so streamlined with each other, how they watched the same shows every night and how a lot of things—though obviously not all—seemed settled for them, instead of so unpredictable as it was for her.

  After she ate, she climbed the creaky stairs, changed into her boxers and tank top, and crawled into bed, her room toasty and cozy because of the big radiator near the foot of her bed. She turned out
the lights but couldn’t sleep. Faintly she could hear Abe barking across the field. He’d taken up the habit, in the last few days, of barking at the woods.

  Maggie woke sometime later, thinking she was dreaming the howling, but it was Abe again, howling at the top of his lungs. She looked at the clock; it was almost three. She noticed an orange flicker through the trees out the window. She stood from bed, half asleep, and leaned against the glass to get a better look, her forehead turning cold. There was a strange illumination deep in the woods, flaring and retreating over and over.

  “Fire,” she whispered.

  It was in the woods where Liam’s house had to be.

  “Mom.” She shook her mom awake moments later, after she’d pulled on her flannel pants. “I think there’s a fire at Liam’s.”

  Her parents were awake and groggily pulling themselves out of bed when she took off, throwing on a sweater and her boots, pulling a blanket around her arms and running out into the snow. Hearing panting, she realized Abe was at her side just as she reached the clearing.

  It was the roof. Half the roof was up in flames.

  A shadow was running back and forth across the lawn, and she saw to her relief that it was Liam.

  “The lake,” he breathed, thrusting a bucket into her arms. “We broke the ice; get water from the lake.” The fire licked up the sides of the house and flared along the roof. Liam’s dad appeared from around a corner with another bucket, and they began to work, coughing because of the thick, black smoke as they tried to keep the fire under control. Wherever the water hit, it seemed to chase the flames to another part of the house’s frame.

  The icicles hanging from the corners of the roof evaporated before their eyes. Then pieces of the roof began to disintegrate and fall in. The beautiful cupola blackened and burned and fell inward. Her dad was behind her when she looked and said her mom was on the phone with 911, though Mr. Witte had already called them.

  By the time the fire trucks arrived, the roof of the Wittes’ living room was gone. Liam and his dad stood back, panting and wiping soot from their faces, trying to get breaths of fresh air.

  A light snow had begun to fall, and Maggie thought that might help slow the flames. And then a long, thick stream of water hit from the direction of the first fire truck. The fire began to shrink and die quickly under the power of the fire hoses.

  They watched as the flames sputtered and died. It took several long, agonizing minutes, but it was much faster than Maggie would have imagined.

  She didn’t see the letters in the yard until a little while later, when she was crossing to get a blanket from the fire truck to wrap around Liam’s dad.

  MURDERER, it said in black stones, stretching across the snowy yard. And then a pitchfork, also made of stones.

  She tried to kick it away before Liam caught sight of it, but looking up, she saw him standing with his hands against his hips, watching her—looking not shocked, only tired.

  After they’d talked to the police and her parents had straggled home, making Maggie promise she’d follow them soon, Liam and Maggie went down to the lake, and Liam chipped at the edge of the newly, thinly refrozen ice until he reached the water. He washed most of the soot off his face, but it still clung to the edges along his hairline.

  “Come here,” he said, and he took his shirt, dipped it in the water, and rubbed it against Maggie’s face—her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. Then he surveyed her. “You still look like you crawled through a chimney, but it’s better.”

  “Do I look like Santa?” she asked, trying to cheer him up, and he smiled, but then looked like he might break down and cry, and Maggie wiped some of the soot off his face with the inside of her sleeve.

  They were still huddled together at the edge of the lake when darkness began to give way to morning, and the sun began to show what was left of Liam’s roof.

  “It could have been much worse,” he said. “It’s only the roof.”

  “And everything’s wet,” Maggie said. For some reason she thought of Liam’s beautiful light show. The ceiling where they’d watched it was gone.

  When they returned Mr. Witte was talking to the police, and someone was helping him make a reservation to stay at a local hotel.

  “We’ll go to the hotel once we’re done here,” Liam said as they stood at the edge of the driveway saying good-bye. “I’ll call you.”

  One of the women in a four-wheel-drive emergency vehicle offered to drop off Maggie. She badly wanted to stay and help, but she didn’t know what she could do. She climbed into the car and watched through the rear window as Liam and his dad stood in the yard looking helpless.

  Hurrying up her own driveway in the dim dawn light, she let herself inside soundlessly. Once in the bathroom, she scrubbed her body, threw her soot-stained clothes in the hamper, put on a thin tank top, and got into bed, pulling her fluffy, warm comforter around her like a shield, relief to be home and safe flooding her, but mingled with a heavy sadness. She fell asleep to the chirping of the birds. And then she woke to the sound of someone in her room. She remembered she had forgotten to lock the front door. She could hear the breathing before she opened her eyes.

  It was Liam. He put his finger in front of his mouth and knelt by the side of her bed. “I just wanted to say thank you. I forgot to,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He looked deeply sad, a little fragile, and so tired.

  “No . . .” She sat up. “I’m sorry, Liam. I am so, so sorry.”

  He shook his head. He was staring at her mouth, and he began to sit back on his heels, pulling away, when Maggie leaned forward and put her hand on his shoulder. Gently, scared he would stand up, she stroked his collarbone, something she’d thought of doing a million times, just to see what it felt like.

  He reached for her, clasped the lower part of her back, and hungrily pushed his mouth against hers. His hands were in her hair and then pulling her closer, as if she couldn’t be close enough. Then he abruptly stopped. He put his forehead against hers and looked in her eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “But . . .”

  He stood up, turned, crossed the room in what seemed like two steps, and was gone.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  15

  THINGS WERE QUIET IN GILL CREEK, AND ALL OVER THE PENINSULA PEOPLE waited with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. The more days that went by without incident, it seemed to Maggie, the more people were on their guard. Even at the grocery store, shoppers and tellers seemed less friendly and easy.

  Liam didn’t come back to Water Street for the next few days, and he didn’t call. Maggie tried to get it out of her system; she ran every day, despite the cold; she threw herself into schoolwork. He’d kissed her. If it had been a mistake, it had been his mistake. She didn’t need to feel embarrassed about it. What embarrassed her was how much she thought of the kiss, like she couldn’t control her brain. She wasn’t as scared of him saying he’d made a mistake, and how much it would wound her pride, as she was of not getting to feel that feeling again, that hungry, wild giddiness.

  She decided to try to work on her mural again, the one she’d tried to start when she moved in. She had an idea for it. Moths, fluttering around a moon. It would take lots of dark blue for the night sky and grays and pale, pale reds for just a hint of color shading the moths’ wings. She began to sketch it, envisioning the colors vividly as she penciled in the outlines.

  She jumped at a thunk at her window and looked up to see the dripping remnants of a snowball sliding down the glass. She looked outside. Liam stood in the yard. He lifted a hand out of his pocket and held it up toward her in a wave.

  Maggie swallowed the lump in her throat and went downstairs slowly, pulling on her boots at the edge of the kitchen, then opening the front door. He was already climbing the stairs. She stepped out, closed the door behind her, and leaned back against it
, unsure. They looked at each other awkwardly, and then Maggie moved to the left, shivering, to make room for him on the landing, and he moved to the left at the same time. Uncertainly he put both his hands on either side of her face. “You’re cold?” She nodded, and mid-nod he kissed her, his lips trembling slightly. Then he pulled back. He looked at her seriously, but hopefully.

  “I’m a lot more nervous now. Last time I was running on adrenaline.”

  Maggie couldn’t get her voice to work. She reached for the lapel of his coat and held tight to it, feeling her face heat up. He reached around her and pushed her back against the railing and kissed her much harder, running his hands down her lower back. Finally she pushed him away, dizzy. “My dad’s home.”

  Liam took two steps back like he’d touched something hot, and they stared at each other. “Sorry.” He shook his head. “I just . . . looking at you . . .”

  “Wanna come in? Officially meet my dad?”

  Liam nodded, out of breath. “Sure. Sure. I’d love to meet him. I mean, since my house isn’t on fire this time.”

  Maggie’s dad was at the kitchen table over his home-repair book, where possibly he’d seen everything.

  “Dad, this is Liam.”

  “Hi, Liam. I prefer that if you want to make out with my daughter, you do it where I can’t see it? I’m old-fashioned that way.”

  A red flush crawled up Liam’s face. “Yeah, yeah, of course, I’m so sorry, Mr. Larsen. I will . . . I mean, we wouldn’t . . .”

  Maggie’s dad fake-yawned, as if to say he wanted to drop the subject.

  “I think we might go for a walk or something,” Maggie said.

  Her dad raised his eyebrows at them. “Bring your pepper spray.”

  They stepped out into the blinding-white day and cracked up when they got halfway across the yard.

  “I thought you might never come back,” Maggie said.

  Liam looked at her, amazed. “Crazy.” And then he hoisted her into the air and over his shoulder and carried her across the snow. And even though Maggie had never been much of a squealer, she squealed and let him carry her as far as he wanted.