Hard to Find: A Tillgiven Romantic Mystery

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  The train car was mostly empty, but an older woman came to my side. She spoke in Swedish, so I shook my head. “In English, please?”

  “Ah! Yes. He is seizure?”

  “Yes, yes, Diabetic. Do you know what I mean? His blood sugar.” Fear beat against my skull, making me dizzy.

  Her eyes flew open and her mouth dropped. She knew what I meant.

  She pulled herself together quickly, looked me in the eyes, and nodded. A sense of peace seemed to flow from her to me. I didn’t know why, but I could breathe again.

  Si stopped shaking, but his eyes were closed, and though I shook him gently, he didn’t respond.

  The lady pressed a lighted strip on the wall—the emergency signal. “We need an ambulance, to rush him to hospital. Nice, big hospital in Vaxjo, ja? Ambulance will get him there immediately.” She looked around our seats. “He has insulin? When did he eat last?”

  I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t have his insulin with him, and he hasn’t eaten in a long time.”

  She closed her eyes and considered. “Does he have a kit to test his blood?”

  “I think so? Yes?” I let go of his shoulders at last and looked under his seat for the backpack, but it wasn’t with us. In fact, the pack with his blood test kit was at least eighteen hours south of us in the trunk of the school Saab with Stina and Dani. “No. He doesn’t have his bag. He doesn’t have anything.”

  She paused and closed her eyes again. “I have a little Nutella. Just a minute.”

  I nudged Si again and he roused, a little, so he probably wasn’t in a coma.

  She brought over an individual serving of Nutella, the kind that comes with cookie sticks, and dipped her finger in it. “Here is a little something for you, mitt barn.” She opened his mouth with one hand and daubed Nutella on his gums with the other. “This should help his sugars. It is mycket svar—very bad to try and make him swallow right now.”

  I didn’t know who she was, but I loved her.

  “Is he your lillebror, your brother?”

  “No, no, he’s my student. At Tillgiven.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “In Brunn Vatten. I know this place. He must go to the hospital in Vaxjo and then back to school later.”

  The train steward came to our seats. “You have an emergency?”

  “Ja, ja! Vi behöver en ambulans.” The svenska flew fast between the steward and the lady for a few minutes. The steward radioed the engineer, and the train came to a stop.

  It took less than five minutes for the ambulance sirens to fill the air.

  The rescue went like a blur: The paramedics boarded the train. They put Si on a cot. They moved the cot to the ambulance and then led me on it with him. They hooked him to machines I only recognized from TV. They spoke in Swedish. So much Swedish. Why did I keep moving to places that did not speak English?

  The hospital was near, and Si was in a bed before I really knew what was happening. The doctor let me sit with him. A sign showed a cell phone with a line through it, so I didn’t make any calls. I just watched Si, so glad to see his chest rise and fall. I told myself that if he could keep breathing, it would be fine.

  I found myself praying in a way I hadn’t in a long time. The words were few and far between, and the requests seemed to pour out of my heart, apart from my mind and my will. Just, for healing, for another chance. For Si to wake up and for his heart wounds to be healed. For him to be able to make it past the awkward pathos of seventeen and grow into the man God meant him to be.

  For a while I held his hand; then a sort of peace, or just calm, like when the Nutella lady took over on the train, washed over me. Would my prayers be answered? Yes. Would my requests be granted? I didn’t know, but I knew God had heard. So I went outside for a breath of fresh air and to call the school. Someone needed to get in touch with Si’s parents.

  “Cadence, this is Isaac. I’m at the hospital with Si. Are Steve or Megan back yet?”

  “They just called. They were delayed again. Si—is he going to be okay?” There was a real note of panic in her voice that did my heart good, as though the burden was lightened for being shared.

  “I don’t know. He’s here. They’re trying to get his blood sugar level, I think. He’s sleeping. I don’t think he’s in a coma, but, I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything. I’m just so glad they haven’t kicked me out yet. If we were in America…”

  “Thank the Lord you aren’t, then.”

  “Cadence, can you call his folks?”

  “Just a sec.” She typed on the old, noisy keyboard of her office computer. “Isaac…I don’t know. His file says his parents are on furlough, and are traveling. I don’t have any idea where to find them.”

  I swallowed. “But he’s only seventeen.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t they have cell phones listed?”

  “I have an email, but I can’t email this, can I?”

  “No, you’re right. You said his grandma is coming in tomorrow with El Jefe, right?”

  “They should be here first thing in the morning.”

  “Okay. Call me at this number as soon as they get in.” I gave her my cell number again just in case. “I need to talk to his grandma immediately.” I stared at the hospital doors behind me. Surely Si would be fine by the morning. “Maybe the delay is good: we won’t send anyone into an unnecessary panic.”

  Cadence was silent. We both knew the panic was necessary.

  When that was done, I called Dani. I hadn’t let myself worry about her, but there was a high likelihood that I had left one student to rot in a French prison and the other to die in the Vaxjo hospital.

  I got her voice mail.

  That couldn’t be good.

  Dani Honeywell 7

  Crossing the English Channel ought to have been a really big, memorable experience. I wanted it to be, but I was mostly just seasick. I went out on the ferry deck with the idea that the horizon would straighten me out, but it didn’t. The sea air didn’t help either. I wanted to breathe deeply, inhaling the fresh air, absorbing the sight of the pure white cliffs, but it made more sense to be near a bathroom in case I had to barf.

  I didn’t.

  The trip across, praise God, was only an hour and a half, but by the time I was on the road again, it was midmorning and I had to figure out my next move. I found a grocery store—something called “Tesco”—and parked. I needed to map my route to Gretna, check my messages, and call Si to see if he could hook me up with my sister’s Google+ account.

  I called Si first off, but no one answered. They should have arrived home yesterday, so he would be in class, which was kind of weird to think of. I should be in class too. And Drew. We should all be in class. I wondered who was teaching. Not Isaac. At least I had a feeling that ditching classes to find us meant someone else had to have been teaching. Maybe Dr. Hoffen was back now.

  I drummed my fingers on the phone screen. I ought to call the professor. But I hesitated because I didn’t have his number. Not that that should technically stop me, because I could call almost anyone at the school, or even the school itself, and ask for him. But see, he could look my number up on the school computer and call me, which he really ought to do, since the last he had seen of me was while I was under arrest.

  Not that I was the kind of girl to wait around moping for a boy to call me. Or that the professor was a “boy.”

  I grabbed a box of granola bars and two bottles of water from the grocery store. I knew I would need a lot of gas to get all the way back to Sweden with my sister, so I couldn’t bring myself to buy any more food than that. I only hoped Drew would still have some cash on her.

  “Siri: How do I get to Gretna Green?” I said it even though I had an Android phone, because it sounded more dramatic. Really, I just used my GPS phone app.

  After the two days I had just had, the six-hour drive to Gretna seemed like nothing. I stopped midway at a fueling station that would have passed for a mall in my neck of the woods, and topped
off the tank.

  By this time I was only two hours from Drew, and I couldn’t help but be happy about that.

  I let myself sip a little water while I checked Drew’s email again and munched on the last of the julienned carrots I had bought in France, but the only new email was an ad for cheap airline tickets and a LivingSocial for a hair salon in Stockholm.

  Truth be told, I was a little homesick for Tillgiven. Nice was beautiful, of course, but I found the whole experience to be stressful beyond redemption.

  The UK was all new to me, but at the same time, one freeway is just like all the others, no matter what country you are in. Yes, I was driving on the wrong side, which gave me an adrenaline rush that I hadn’t expected, but it was still just a highway. I crunched a slender carrot sliver.

  Tillgiven, on the other hand, was cozy. The barn-shaped buildings. The lodge-like student lounge with the huge fireplace. The trees. Everywhere, giant evergreen trees. The woods with their glowing mosses, dappled shadows, slender willows with dripping branches, sturdy, twisty oaks hung with snowy lichen. It was, like home, if home was magic. I could see why the Scandinavians had a folklore rich in fairy and elf life. Not that I believed in it, or thought it was right, but it did make sense. If fairies lived anywhere, it was in Smaland.

  I would trade a week in the most exciting city on earth for one more day in the forest behind the school.

  But I didn’t have to trade. I just had to get my sister. And then I could have the next six months in the forest, and the hills, and the little classroom that smelled like chalk and old books and vanilla. And in the library that didn’t have very many books, which in its own way was wonderful, because I had a notion to read them all before I went home.

  Home.

  Where was that going to be exactly? Certainly not on the A1 running north through England. But would it be back in Oregon? Or somewhere else?

  A spring of hope bubbled to life in my heart. A hope that maybe Tillgiven could be home.

  It couldn’t, of course. Bible school was nine months long, not a lifetime. But the facts didn’t jive with the little dream that was growing. Staying in Brunn Vatten, Sweden, sounded just about right.

  Gretna Green was well signed, and getting to it was more than easy. It was evening when I got there, and raining. Thick, steely clouds hung low in the sky, like pewter cotton balls.

  The rain was a light mist that would soak you if you stood still, but not affect you at all if you kept walking. I parked in the first public parking area I could find and got out.

  I needed to drink in some of the wet Scottish air.

  The center of town felt like a movie set. A kilted piper filled the air with the necessary soundtrack, and what evening sun broke through the blanket of clouds, just here and there, hit the city like set lights—my favorite time of day. The famous blacksmith chapel was a low-slung building of creamy white, and a couple dozen people were vying for turns taking their pictures in front of it. A couple resplendent in white dress and black tie were having their formal portraits done under an archway covered in horseshoes, labeled “The Kissing Gate.” I paused by a telephone pole to get my bearings. I picked at a staple in the post. Someone had been by and cleared off the band posters and garage sale ads and missing-cat flyers recently. One of the corners of paper was still big enough to have words on it, and not much faded by the sun. I smiled. I easily recognized the W on it as the one used by my favorite band. If only Drew had timed this better, I could have seen a show. I picked the paper out of the staple and rolled it into a little ball.

  Where would Drew have gone?

  There was a modern hotel-restaurant, very New York looking, if New York happened to look as I imagined New York looked. As nice as it was, it didn’t seem like a place Drew would go. If she had run away with someone from the train to get married in Gretna Green, she’d have found a nice little thatched-roof cottage to spend her wedding night in. A thrill ran down my spine. Maybe I wasn’t too late. Maybe I could still rescue her.

  Because rescuing your sister from eloping in this day and age was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you were an idiot.

  Drew was twenty. She had hinted that she had found true love. If she was here, it was because she had made the adult decision to get married. It wasn’t the kind of thing you needed your little sister to rescue you from.

  The thought of what I had done hit me like a haggis in the gut. I wavered on my feet, found a bench, and sat down.

  I had run away from a place I loved, gotten arrested twice, and stolen a car.

  And I thought Drew needed rescuing?

  But there was at least a remote chance that a serial killer had made off with my sister for the sake of dismembering her and feeding her to the Loch Ness Monster, so I had to keep going. I would never forgive myself if I let something terrible happen.

  I wasn’t sure what to do next, and I had sort of prayed myself out on the drive, so I did the American thing and pulled out my phone.

  No news from Drew’s email.

  No news on mine.

  No word from Si about the Google+ account.

  I was scrolling through my Instagram when I got my first hopeful clue.

  Drew had cracked, and finally posted on her Instagram again. The most recent post was a McDonald’s wrapper, crumpled up on a worn wooden table. How…charming.

  I clicked over to see the rest of her recent feed. She had posted a lot of pictures during my six-hour drive.

  Before the McDonald’s, Drew had posted a pic of a field. Rural, autumnal. Could be anywhere. Before that, a bus stop sign. Before that, the Kissing Gate, and before that, a train.

  I looked around. There had to be a train station here somewhere. That’s how she would have gotten here. But had she left again already?

  I googled Gretna McDonalds.

  My heart sank.

  The nearest one was nine miles north. Had she gotten on a train and gone nine miles for a cheap burger?

  I pressed my fingertips to my temple. The Kissing Gate proved she had just been here. But without Si and his hacking skills, it looked like I’d always be a day behind her.

  I scrolled through her Instagram until I got to the day before travel weekend started. There she was, taking a picture of the woods, from the roof of the girls’ dorm. And another shot of her in an oak tree. And one of her on the porch of the chapel, leaning against the rail with Si.

  While I tried to piece together her mindset before travel weekend, a new pic popped up. I praised God and stared at it. A funny round kind of building with a sign that said Premier Inn. I knew what the sign said, even though I couldn’t see the whole thing in the picture, because I had so recently seen the building myself.

  That funny little round hotel was in Dover, by the port.

  In Dover. I had just driven the whole day to leave Dover, and that’s where the lovebirds were? I ground my teeth in frustration. She had come and gone.

  I got up and started wandering. The copper statue in the square of the clasped hands would have been a good Instagram moment if I wasn’t contemplating sister-cide.

  I wandered into the lobby of the luxury destination hotel and wandered out again after I saw the prices for dinner. There was no way I could afford a room.

  Dover was a six-hour drive, and it was going on seven at night. There was a strong chance Drew was spending her wedding night at the silly round hotel and leaving tomorrow. I could get to Dover before morning. I could pull up in front of the Premier Inn and catch her when she left.

  I could also just call her again. Who cared that she hadn’t answered a single phone call since last Friday.

  I dialed.

  She didn’t answer.

  I wondered how much the Premier cost.

  And how she could pay for it.

  I grinned and texted her. “Mom canceled card. Weird charges in Nepal. Are you okay?”

  She replied immediately, and simply. “Oh poop.”

  I smiled.

  “W
here are you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I sighed.

  She had been, as of her last Instagram post, at Dover, near the ferry ports. I had a direction to go, at least.

  Before I relieved the parking spot of the Saab, I took a selfie in front of the blacksmith shop. Seeing this place was on my bucket list. This was the very last way I would have wanted to see it, but at least I had a picture.

  “Excuse me.” The voice that interrupted me was deep and very Scottish.

  “Yes?” I tried not to sound impatient, but he was the first person to speak to me all day, and he would do it exactly when I wanted to leave.

  He was cute.

  “I was just wondering if you were eating dinner.”

  “Eating? No…” The guy didn’t look mental, but how could I be eating dinner? I was standing in the square, taking a phone selfie.

  He laughed and his eyes crinkled. He had thick-rimmed glasses like everyone seemed to be wearing, to my approval, and a shaved head, like maybe he had early male pattern baldness. I say early, because there was no way he was thirty yet. He also had an anchor tattoo on his forearm. “I meant I was just wondering if I could buy you dinner. You look a little lost, and maybe hungry.” He said hungry like it was a question.

  “I’m both.” Something about him worked for me. His sort of chagrined way of talking, and that he wanted to feed me. Both were things I appreciated in people.

  “Can I take you out? I know a little café.”

  I glanced around. How far should I travel with this stranger? I wasn’t Drew, after all.

  “Or not, that’s okay.” He took a step back, giving me a little personal space. “This is weird. Sorry.”

  “Not weird. I just don’t know you at all. Not even a little.”

  “I’m Angus. I’m passing through and have to eat, and you looked like you could eat too.”

  “Right, yes. If I look half as hungry as I am, you would want to rush me to the hospital.” I chewed my lip. Charming. Scottish. Food. Why not, right?

  “We could go over there.” He nodded at the big, expensive place I had rejected earlier. “My treat, since I put you on the spot like this.”