“You’ll spoil your appetite,” he tells me, mouth full of chocolate.
Mom comes into the kitchen with her eyebrows knitted. I panic for a minute that Rose’s mom called last night for whatever reason, but Mom pats me absentmindedly on the shoulder.
“Where’s Emily?” she asks.
“Her room probably. I just got home. From Rose’s.”
“Can you call her?” Mom asks.
“Rose?”
“No, Emily. She’s not in her room and I put my phone down somewhere and now I can’t . . .” She looks vaguely around the kitchen and shakes her head.
I hold my phone to my ear with my shoulder and wait until it rings out. Emily’s voice mail comes on.
“Emily, call Mom,” I say loudly. “Or it looks like for once you’ll be the one getting in trouble. On second thought, don’t call, because that’s a conversation I’ve been waiting on for years.”
Mom gives me a look, but then half smiles and rolls her eyes. “What did I ever do to deserve two teenagers?” she mutters.
“Have you considered swapping experimental jazz for boy bands?” I ask my parents. “Might act like a siren call.”
“Hmm,” says Mom. “Could be worth a try.”
“In that case,” says Dad, “I have essays to mark. Olive, these dishes are all yours.”
My nana and the aunts descend on the house for Sunday lunch around two. They spill inside in a cloud of perfume and cakes covered in plastic wrap towering on trays and plates. “Like a funeral,” Emily always says. “Nobody should make that much food unless somebody’s died.”
Usually Emily disappears into her room after lunch with the cousins her own age. They sit on her bed and watch stupid videos on the Internet and blast music to drown out the sound of the younger cousins, who, with Max as their leader, rampage around the house with the dogs until one of the aunts has the presence of mind to open the kitchen door and let them loose in the garden. But even when everyone’s finished their last helping of dessert, Emily’s still not home. The cousins pile into the sitting room instead.
As the eldest, every Sunday after lunch I am forced to stay in the kitchen with my mom—“You are my sanity shield,” she tells me. “Don’t you leave my side”—and listen to Nana order everyone about and exchange gossip.
“I heard Patty Murdock’s boy’s gone missing,” Nana opens with, throwing a questioning glance at Aunt Gill.
“It’s not an official report,” Aunt Gill tells her. “Teenage boys disappear for a couple of days all the time. We’re just keeping an eye out.”
“Didn’t another boy go missing last week?” I ask, thinking of Laurel’s diary. “In the year above us?”
Aunt Gill looks surprised. “Not that I’ve heard of,” she says. “You sure you’re not thinking of Patty’s boy?”
“No, probably just some guy who broke his curfew one night and his parents got worried.”
Nana harrumphs. “Most likely off doing God knows what,” she says in what is meant to be a mutter, but can probably be heard all the way into town. “I’ve seen those lads around, no respect, won’t even give you the time of day . . .”
“Didn’t a boy go missing when we were in school?” Aunt Lucy asks under the sound of Nana’s rant. She’s the closest in age to my mom, so would have known the same people. “The kind of missing that doesn’t come back.”
Mom nods. “Terrible thing,” she says. “I can’t even remember his name.”
“. . . with their hippie hair and their drugs; at their age, I was married with two children . . .” says Nana. She finally runs out of steam, then adds, “I’m just glad our Olive is a good girl.”
I look anywhere but at Mom and Nana. The aunts hide their smirks as best they can.
“Olive’s an angel. She’s just like her mother at that age,” Aunt Lucy says, barely keeping a straight face.
“Laura was better than you, Lucy.” Nana glowers at Aunt Lucy, then she gestures toward Mom with her cup of tea. “No, it was her friend who was a bit of a troublemaker. What was her name again, Laura? The one that ran off with a Protestant.”
“You’re going to have to narrow that down for me, Mom,” says my mom while the aunts laugh. Nana thinks anybody whose surname doesn’t start with O or Mc is Protestant. My dad, with his beard and his tweed and his PhD from Trinity, is definitely Protestant in her books. She would probably consider my bisexuality proof of Protestantism except she held me while I was being baptized, and anyway I’m not particularly comfortable discussing my sexual preferences with my grandmother.
“Oh, so it was Mom’s friend who was the troublemaker,” I tease. “Suuuure.”
“None of my troublemaker friends ever vomited in my mother’s car,” Mom replies serenely. Rose has ruined my reputation forever.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure Amy Kennedy would have given Rose a run for her money,” Aunt Gill says to Mom, one eyebrow raised. Mom just shakes her head.
“What’s Amy up to now?” Aunt Lucy asks. “Apart from having run off with a Protestant,” she adds, side-eyeing Nana.
“Kyle, that was it,” mutters Nana. “I knew it was a Protestant name.”
Mom says, “I don’t know—” but Nana interrupts to ask Gill something. My mouth drops open.
Amy Kennedy. I knew I recognized the name. I saw it this morning, written on the tunnel wall. Amy Aisling Kennedy. It could just be another person with the same name, but Nana said she ran off with a guy named Kyle.
Jack Kyle. Another name on the tunnel wall.
My mom knows the twins’ mom.
“Mom,” I murmur at her so my nana won’t hear. “You know your friend from school? Amy Kennedy? Does she have twins my age?”
Mom narrows her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve met them actually. They’re . . . staying in town.”
“They are?”
“Yeah. I mean, I knew their grandparents used to live here, but I didn’t know you knew their mom.”
If my mom’s eyes narrow any further, she’ll be squinting. “I don’t,” she says. “Not really. Not anymore. We went to school together, but we lost touch when I left town. I was traveling, then at the university . . . I haven’t heard from her in years.”
“Oh. I was just wondering what she was like.”
“I can’t believe she’s back in town,” Mom says slowly.
“Oh, she’s not,” I tell her. “The twins, they’re . . . staying with some friends.”
“And where are their parents?” Mom asks. “Maybe I should try to contact Amy . . .”
“Um.” I consider lying but decide against it. “They didn’t say. They live with their grandparents actually. Hazel and Rowan, I mean. In Dublin.”
“Hazel and Rowan,” Mom says. “That’s right.” She stares off into the distance for a second, then snaps out of it and says, “Can you ring your sister again, please, Olive? She’s probably with Chloe after the news about her brother, but I would appreciate her calling before missing Sunday lunch.”
I go into the back garden, where it’s blessedly quiet, to call Emily, who still isn’t replying. I text her and send a quick message to Chloe saying Mom is looking for Emily. Then I message Rowan to tell him what I just found out from my mom.
I KNEW I recognized you, he replies immediately. There was a picture of my mom with her school friends on our mantelpiece. You look just like your mom at seventeen.
I’m constantly told I look like my mother. It’s funny to think that when I look at her I could be seeing exactly what I’ll be like when I’m older.
When I get back inside, Nana is on one of her favorite rants—the Price of a Pint and how you can’t get a good Guinness these days for love nor money and the Decline of Rural Pubs.
“And Maguire’s,” she says. “Whatshername who owned it back when I was a girl—Ma
gs—she used to make poteen the old-fashioned way. Nobody makes good poteen anymore.”
“No, Mom,” says Aunt Lucy. “Mags couldn’t be more than sixty—she can’t have run the pub when you were a girl.”
Nana looks into my eyes and says, “It’s happened before and it will happen again.” It’s like her eyes can see right through me. “There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
“What?” I stare at my nana, then look around at Mom and the aunts. Nobody else seems to have heard her speak. “Nana, are you okay? What did you just say?”
Nana blinks, then yawns and waves my words away. “I said will someone else look through my coat pockets. I can never find my damn car keys.”
I shake my head. Now I’m really losing it. Nana starts arguing with the aunts over who will drive her home. The car-key fight will last half an hour and will more than likely culminate in Nana finding out who’s hidden her car keys and threatening to write that particular daughter out of her will. This happens every Sunday lunch without fail.
I stand up and prepare to make myself scarce. Mom notices and yanks on my arm.
“Do not leave me alone with these nutjobs,” she hisses out of the corner of her mouth.
“I just really need to pee,” I lie. Luckily, a distraction arrives in the form of my father, who comes into the house at that very minute with a very muddy Max. There are tear streaks down Max’s cheeks and rips in the knees of his jeans.
“Anybody seen Bunny?” Dad asks the assemblage of aunts. Everybody shakes their head. Max sniffs.
“Here.” I hold out my hand to my brother. “I’ll help you look.” I give a quick whistle and the dogs congregate around us. “What we need,” I tell Max, “is a good hunting hound to find him.”
Max wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Not Coco Pops,” he says. “He can’t even find his tail when he chases it.”
“An acute observation,” I say. “Weetabix it is.”
By the time Max, Weetabix, and I have combed the house for his missing teddy, the car-key fight is over and my nana and the aunts have gone home. Bunny is nowhere to be found.
“Let’s try the garden,” I say to Max.
Back in the kitchen, my parents are both on their phones, identical worry lines running across their foreheads.
Mom waves at me to stop before I go outside. “Can you try your sister’s phone again?” she asks me. “She’s still not answering.”
“Try Chloe,” I say when Emily’s voice mail clicks on again. “They’ve probably gone to the cinema in Castlebar or something.”
Max and I decide to split up to cover more ground. He searches the flower beds and the trees on the opposite side of the house while I circle the chicken coop and the bike shed. The garage door is open and a couple of the boxes that line its walls have toppled over. I stuff a bunch of gardening tools and car accessories back into one of them and nearly step on a plastic doll that has obviously fallen out of another box. I hold the doll up to the light. It’s a Barbie. An old one, with hacked-off hair and pen marks on her arms and fingers and around her neck. I remember vividly drawing them on. They were supposed to be jewelry, but after ten years in a garage they look creepy. They look more like scars.
My first Barbie. I was sure Mom had given it away.
Max comes up to the door of the garage, looking despondent.
“No Bunny?” I ask.
“No Bunny.”
I give my little brother a hug. “He’ll show up,” I assure him. “He’s probably just off having adventures and he’ll tell you all about them when he gets back.” Max sniffs. “Anyway,” I say, “I’m pretty sure there’s still some ice cream left in the freezer. I’ll distract Mom and Dad while you grab it.”
That perks Max up a little. He raids the freezer while I try once again to reassure my parents that Emily’s probably off doing normal if vaguely rebellious things with her best friend and will doubtless be home before tea.
I take my own bowl of ice cream into my bedroom and lean against the door for a minute. I make a mental list of missing things that starts with the twins’ parents, going through to Cathal and Lucky the dog, Max’s Bunny, Rose’s makeup bag, and my nana’s car keys that actually were lost this time because one of the aunts ended up driving her home.
I call Emily again, but she doesn’t answer. It’s probably nothing. It’s probably fine. I’ve probably been spending too much time with troubled runaways in disused housing developments and Emily’ll be back before tea. She’ll find a phone and message us. She’ll borrow a phone and call. Any minute now.
At ten in the evening, my parents call the police.
Hazel
Sunday, May 14th
Lost: Dog (brown Labrador, answers to Lucky)
We search the development again. For my dad, or the boy who whistled “Hey Jude,” or a lost soul, or whatever was doing the howling. I message Rowan to keep an eye out on the way home, and he calls to tell me to get out of Oak Road.
“Let’s just go to Maguire’s,” he says. “Lay low for a few hours.”
But I want to find him. Them. My dad, if it was him behind my window. My mom, if it was her who left the lighter. Ash, if she’s the one who wrote the words on the tunnel walls.
Ivy rides off to meet Rowan, to watch the roads for anyone who could’ve broken in. Rose comes with me in the direction of the forest. We climb the rubble to get to the wall.
“Hazel,” says Rose. “Who are we looking for? What were you looking for after Olive found that lighter?”
“I thought maybe . . . I thought it might’ve been my mom. That the spell worked and she . . . showed up. That lighter. It’s mine, but I didn’t bring it here. To Oak Road. I left it with Mom back when me and Rowan ran away.”
Rose looks stunned. She looks all around us like my mom could just appear at the edge of the forest. When she suddenly points into the woods, I think for half a second that it could be true. But then Rose says, “Hey, isn’t that Mags’s dog?” She’s pointing toward a shape moving slowly through the trees.
“Lucky?” I call. I give a whistle. The dog turns her big brown head, but then walks on. “Yeah,” I say to Rose, frowning. “I think it is. I mean, it’s the old Lucky. Mags was carrying a puppy this morning.”
We look at each other. We climb down from the rubble. We hop over the wall into the forest and we follow the dog.
Lucky leads us through the silver birches, the fat chestnuts, and gnarly oaks, down the slope to where the trees are older, bigger, closer together. She’s not far ahead, but we’re always losing her in the trees.
When we’re almost at the lake, Rose stops and grabs my arm.
“Hazel,” she says very slowly, the way you would to an animal you didn’t want to scare. It makes me really not want to turn around.
“Yeah?”
“There wasn’t anything on this path earlier,” she says in the same voice. “Right? That stuff was all by the slope up to the development?”
Toy parts and trinkets, socks and umbrellas, key rings and cables.
I nod. “Yeah?”
“Look,” she says, and I have to turn around. The first thing I notice is the thread. Silver and shiny, the kind Ivy used to bind the lost words we wrote on the tunnel wall. It’s everywhere. It’s on the moss (sprinkled with a red something like blood); it’s in the bushes; it’s tangled around branches and between the trees. It’s wrapped around a pair of men’s black hiking boots with zippers up the sides.
I close my eyes and feel my heart drop right down my chest, knocking off each rib like the rungs of a ladder, cartwheeling down inside my belly, and landing with a splat in the cradle of my left hip. There are words written in Wite-Out on the backs of the boots—I know it without even looking. Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me. My dad’s motto. I looked it up one time. It’s Jack Kerouac. Nothing behind me, everything ahead
of me, as is ever so on the road. I’ve always hated that quote.
I keep thinking that I see him, and now here are his boots in the middle of this stupid forest.
Farther down the path I can just about see what looks a lot like a row of small teeth. A line of diary keys. Fingernails. Dog bones. Yellow eyes in a dog’s face blink at me from between the trees, then disappear. On the other side of the path, another dog stands silently. Rose’s hand tightens painfully around my arm.
“Hazel . . .”
But I’ve caught sight of Lucky again, just a few yards ahead of us. She’s plodding slowly toward the lake shore. I get this crazy idea in my head that she’s trying to lead me to my dad. His empty boots are ghosts behind my eyelids. I take a couple of steps toward the dog, but Rose holds me back.
“Hazel,” she says again.
“It’s Lucky,” I say, and something in my expression must’ve convinced her, because she follows me through the last of the trees to the water, her hand still tight around my arm.
Lucky leads us down to the lake, where she steps into the water and wades out. When she walks, her steps are lumbering, but once she starts to swim she glides right in. Then she puts her nose in the water and dives. Rose and I stand on the shore and we watch her go under. We wait for her to resurface, but she doesn’t come up again.
The lake is ringed by trees. We can see every edge. She couldn’t have climbed out without us noticing.
I don’t stop to think—I just run across the rocks and splash into the lake. My shoes are heavy on my bandaged feet and the water’s cold on my legs. I slip on submerged stones and flail my arms to keep my balance. I wade out and I curse the water for making me so slow, but even if I’d been as fast as a fish I know I’d never have found her. You can’t find something that isn’t there.
“Hazel,” Rose calls.
I turn in circles in the water. “Lucky?”
“Hazel, come back.”
“She was right here.”
Spellbook of the Lost and Found Page 21