Never Missing, Never Found

by Amanda Panitch

  “Maybe Katharina gave Scarlett drugs,” Cady says. “Katharina seems like someone who might do drugs, doesn’t she?”

  “I can hear you—I’m right here,” I say hotly. “I didn’t do drugs. Let me go.” I stand, and the world wobbles around me for only a second. “I’m not going anywhere in an ambulance.”

  “You should really get checked out,” Cady says. Her eyes are heavy with sympathy. I don’t want sympathy from her, of all people.

  “I’m not getting checked out,” I say, and lurch forward, away from the hovering group. “Call 911 again and cancel the ambulance, if that’s even what you do. I need to find Katharina.”

  I lurch forward again, and again, until I’m doing something resembling walking. Murmurs rustle behind me. “Should I go after her?” “Someone should go after her.” “She might have a concussion.” “I got it. I’ll go. No, you stay here.”

  There’s a gentle touch on my shoulder, and someone else’s footsteps echo my own. “Scarlett?” It’s Connor. “What happened under there?”

  “I didn’t hit my head.” Well, I might have hit my head when I went down, but that’s not important. What’s important is that I find Katharina and shake her until her eyes pop out, and make her tell me what she’s trying to do to me. If anyone’s guilty of hurting my head, it’s not me, it’s her. “And I’m not doing drugs.”

  “I didn’t think that,” Connor says. His voice is quiet, cautious. “But you can understand why everyone is worried. You’re acting kind of strange.”

  Tears burn the corners of my eyes. “How do you even know what strange for me is? We haven’t even known each other that long.”

  “You’re a Skywoman fan,” he says. “And that’s all I need to know.”

  I snort and roll my eyes, more to disguise the oncoming rush of tears than anything else. “You don’t know me.”

  “Fine. We’ll go with that,” he says. “But what I do know is that you seemed fine today, then fine in the bleachers, and then you step away for a few minutes with Katharina and you’re a shaking, white-faced mess.”

  I want to talk to him. I can’t talk to him. “It’s really nothing,” I say. “I swear, I’m okay.”

  He doesn’t look convinced. “Let me take you home, at least.”

  “Then what would I do with my car?” I say. “Anyway, Melody can drive me if it gets too bad. But really. Look, I’m fine, I swear.” I hold my palm out to demonstrate. It barely trembles. “I swear.”

  “But do you swear?” A smile shines through a crack in his face.

  I return a tiny smile of my own, the most I can muster. “I swear on your grave.”

  “I’m not dead.”

  “You will be if you keep asking if I’m okay.”

  “Ouch.” But he’s no longer creased with concern. “Give me a hug.”

  He’s on me before I can react, a pure force of warmth enveloping me whole. I close my eyes and breathe him in: deodorant, smoke, a faint sweetness that might come from dried baled hay. I pull my arms tight against his back, feeling the rangy muscles under his pilled flannel. I’ve never considered backs a particularly attractive body part, but he might change my mind. He surrounds me and his smell is inside me and now I’m not shaking anymore.

  I pull back. I can’t touch him, knowing Cady is standing there—probably within sight, though I can’t bear to look—and knowing that he’s hers. That she gets to touch him anytime she wants to. That I can’t. “Thanks,” I say thickly.

  “Of course.” His smile flickers. “If you ever need anyone to talk to, you can always come to me, okay?”

  I want to say, Apparently, you have a girlfriend. I want to say, That’s weird, because what about Cady? But there’s no official rule that you can’t talk to someone with a girlfriend. There’s no official rule that says we can’t be friends. Close friends. Just as long as we don’t get close enough where he probes too deep. Or maybe that would be okay. Maybe he wouldn’t go running. “Okay,” I say.

  “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want me to drive you home? I don’t know where Melody went.”

  Melody couldn’t even wait around long enough for me to wake up, which hits me like a punch in the gut. I square my shoulders, trying to muster an appearance of strength, and hold up my hand. “Stop. Stop it. I’ll find Melody. Go back to your friends.”

  He sucks on his bottom lip, like he wants to object, but he only nods. “You guys drive safe.”

  “We will.” I watch as he lopes back to his friends and Cady’s waiting arms. I bet she has noodle-arms. She looks like she has noodle-arms. I bet her hugs are limp.

  Melody is still gone. I pull out my phone to call her, but my phone is already blinking with a text message. Nobody ever texts me, so I know before I open it that it’s from Melody. Going to stay and get a ride home with Kat. Feel better 

  Kat. Katharina. Melody is getting a ride home with Katharina? When did they get all buddy-buddy? How long was I out? Kat?

  Whatever. I don’t bother texting her back.

  As I walk to my car, my feet start dragging. I look everywhere for Katharina and Melody, maybe braiding each other’s hair or painting each other’s nails, but they’re nowhere. They’re gone.

  As I pull out, I pass the ambulance on its way in, sirens shrieking, lights flashing, looking for someone headed in an entirely different direction.

  —

  My dad is nowhere to be seen when I get home; he goes to sleep at a ridiculously early hour, sometimes before the sun even sets, so he can wake up at a ridiculously early hour and enjoy the sunrise. Matthew is everywhere to be seen, though; I see him in the pajama shirt tossed on the hallway floor and the chocolate cookie crumbs on the kitchen table and then, finally, in the milky-smelling body of the little boy draped across the couch, head lolling against the armrest. The TV plays, but quietly—Matthew isn’t a stupid kid.

  I shake him gently by the shoulder. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

  He blinks up at me and winces at the overhead light. “It’s morning?”

  “No,” I say. “It’s nighttime. You should be in bed.” I glance over at the TV. I’m expecting a cartoon or the Disney Channel, but it’s some angry news show. An old fat guy is yelling at three young, pretty blond women who might well be triplets. “Why are you watching this?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  I sigh. “Get up. Brush your teeth and go back to bed.”

  He smiles angelically at me. “I just wanted to wait for you and Melly to get home.” I might have bought it if it weren’t for the chocolate smeared across his front teeth.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I’m about to ask him why he would ask when I notice something wet sliding down my cheek. “I’m crying,” I say, surprised.

  “Yeah,” Matthew says. “Did someone hurt you? Are you hurt?”

  Matthew is seven. I can’t tell him what happened. “I just like this boy,” I say. “But he has a girlfriend. Kind of.”

  “Oh,” Matthew says. He’s staring at me, nodding, seeming entirely interested. I buy it for a second before I realize he’ll do anything to avoid going back to bed. “Is she prettier than you?”

  “She’s a hideous beast,” I say. My eyes hurt. These tears aren’t even for Cady, and she’s still ruining everything. “She has a hunchback and buckteeth and a clubfoot like the Jersey Devil. And an annoying voice. And she’s stupid.”

  Matthew’s eyes are huge and round. He’s actually interested now. “Really? Can I see her?”

  I sigh. What kind of lesson am I teaching my baby brother? “I was kidding,” I say. “She’s perfectly normal and probably a lovely person.”

  Matthew gives me the stink eye. He doesn’t believe me. Or else he doesn’t want to believe me. Given the choice between a hideous beast and a lovely girl, he’d take the hideous beast anytime.

  When he starts going for the lovely girl, or the lovely boy, that’s how I’ll know he’s growing up.
/>
  “Where’s Melly?” he asks.

  Good question. “She’s out with one of her friends,” I say. “She’ll be in later.” Hopefully. “No, you cannot wait up for her.”

  He hops up. “I’m just going to stay awake in my room anyway.”

  Okay, Mr. I-Fell-Asleep-on-the-Couch. “As long as you’re in your bed, under your covers, that’s fine. Now come on.”

  I make him brush his teeth, then tuck him into bed and kiss him on the forehead. “Sweet dreams,” he says drowsily.

  Sweet dreams. Ha.

  I actually wait up for Melody. I sit on the couch facing the hallway, my legs crossed, one foot jiggling. The news show is still playing in the background. I kind of find it soothing to see people upset about things that don’t involve me.

  I wait. And wait. And wait. Old Fat Guy’s bluster starts to wear on me, so I switch him off. It has to be nearly midnight, and still no Melody. I might fall asleep on the couch myself.

  Turns out, I do. My dad shakes me awake in the morning, the rich aroma of coffee drifting from the mug in his hand. “Scarlett, you okay?”

  I touch my cheek. My hand comes away smeared with mascara, and I know without looking that my eyes dried red and swollen. “Fine,” I say. “Just…the vigil, you know.”

  “Right. I understand.” He moves away to give me privacy, or so I figure.

  I fell asleep in a way that, naturally, cricked my neck, so I roll it back and forth, trying to make the pain stop. In all my rolling, my eyes land on the small, unassuming picture hanging almost behind the TV, peeking out as if it’s apologizing for its existence.

  I nearly forgot it was there. I get up and move closer.

  There’s my dad, hair slicked back, baring his teeth in an artificial smile. There’s Melody, her smile so wide you can barely see her face. There’s me, my hair in sleek black braids, cheeks so rosy you’d think I’m wearing blush. I look so innocent. I find it hard to believe I ever looked so innocent.

  And there’s my mom, standing in the middle, the sun around which our universe revolved. She stands proud and tall, her shoulders thrown back. She’s the only one who doesn’t smile, like she’s spurning the traditional conventions of picture-taking and getting ready to show the world what’s what.

  I wonder what happened to her.

  She didn’t die, at least not that we know of. Soon after I returned, she just disappeared. At first I wondered if she’d joined the club—mother-daughter solidarity, right? But then the police told us she’d withdrawn a suspicious amount of cash in the weeks before she went missing, and she was spotted in a city far away with a different hair color, and my dad was forced to admit she’d left a note. “She was sorry,” he said. “She said she loved you all.”

  I still wonder if that was true.

  Melody looks like her.

  Speaking of Melody, I head upstairs and crack open Melody’s bedroom door. She lies on her back, sprawled across the bed like she has all the room in the world. I’ve never really thought about it before, but suddenly I wish I could sleep like that too. Even after all these years, I still sleep curled up like a comma, like there’s another little girl beside me.

  I hover in the doorway, wondering whether I should wake her up, when she lets out a great gasp of a snore and jolts into a sitting position. “You,” she says. “What are you doing? Why are you watching me sleep? That’s so creepy. You’re so creepy.”

  “I’ve been here for, like, a second,” I say. “I wasn’t watching you sleep. I swear.”

  “Whatever,” she says. “Go away, creeper.”

  I stand my ground. “I waited up for you last night.” I realize how pathetic I sound and switch tacks. “What were you and Katharina doing at the vigil?”

  “We were just hanging out. She’s new to the area and wanted to talk to someone who was actually involved in her school. God, will you go away already?” She plops her pillow over her head.

  I wish I could plop a pillow over my head too, so I’d never have to see her looking at me like that again. “Whatever,” I say, and go, making sure to slam the door behind me as hard as I can.

  —

  For the next couple of weeks, Five Banners Adventure World cycles me through all five of its sections a few times over. My best days are in the south side under Connor and Rob; my worst are easily under Cady in the north side, where I work in another kids’ store and have to deal with hordes of screaming kids and, worse, with Cady, whom I discover (to my absolute displeasure) to be a normal and totally lovely person. In central I become pals with Wonderman and Slugworth; underneath their costumes they stink of cigarette smoke and have raspy, rattling coughs. The east and west sides are largely unremarkable—I learn the ways of Games one day when they’re shorthanded, and on another day fill in in Foods, a day that leaves me soaked in sweat, stinking of french-fry grease, and swearing never to step foot in a kitchen again.

  Interestingly enough, I don’t run into Katharina. After the first few days, I think there must be some sort of backroom juggling going on, and that Cynthia must be involved. I’m afraid to speak Katharina’s name for several days, like saying her name will make her burst through the closest mirror, but I finally get up the courage to say something to Rob one slow morning in headquarters. “Hey,” I say. “Does Katharina still work here?”

  Rob looks at me, then at the floor, then at the door, then at the counter. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “Why?”

  “Just curious,” I say as airily as I can manage. “Just haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “Yeah,” he says. It’s more about what he doesn’t say here: That’s weird. Huh. I’m sure you’ll see her soon.

  Soon enough I’m seeing her everywhere—in the face of a guest with long, dark hair; in the shrieking smear of people riding a roller coaster over my head; in the strong chin of a Skywoman action figure, for God’s sake. I think I might be going crazy.

  Crazier.

  —

  A few weeks into my Katharinaless period, Connor’s and my lunch schedules line up again. My heart skips a beat, but I sternly flash it with a mental picture of Cady—painfully normal, painfully lovely Cady—and it calms down. Stupid, stubborn thing; it just won’t let up.

  Connor and I walk together in companionable silence, our hands in our pockets, stopping every few minutes to answer someone’s inane question. Just as we’re passing the entrance to the secret passage he tried to lure me down on my first day, I stop. Melody would never be afraid of something so silly as a secret passage in the park.

  “Let’s do it,” I say.

  He looks over his shoulder and arches an eyebrow in a surprisingly elegant fashion; I expect him to shake a monocle out of his sleeve. “Excuse me?”

  I roll my eyes. “Get your ginger head out of the gutter,” I say. “I mean, let’s do the secret passage.”

  “You sure?” he says, and the skeptical way he says it, like he doesn’t think I can do it, makes me sure.

  “Sure as sure can be,” I say. My feet don’t seem to want to move, but I grit my teeth and yank them from the cobblestones; I feel like I’m leaving bits of blood and skin behind. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Connor pushes open the door, and I breathe in and step through. It clangs shut behind me, locking automatically, and there’s a moment of scrabbling panic in my chest before I exhale it out and I’m okay again. One breath at a time, I tell myself. You’re with Connor; he won’t let somebody grab you. You won’t let somebody grab you. Not again.

  The secret passage is surprisingly underwhelming. We’re not the only people taking it; it seems to stretch around this whole side of the park, encompassing multiple entrances that lead outside the fence, and so there are lots of other groups of Day-Glo workers chattering and laughing as they stroll along to the Canteen or to a staff smoking area, or to make quick stops at stores or stands or restaurants throughout the park. The ground is packed dirt, and the wooden fence separating us from the park rises up abov
e on our right; to the left are series of long, low buildings interspersed with long alleyways and rusting trailers and piles of God knows what. I tense every time I pass an alleyway, but it helps that the sun is shining and birds are twittering overhead; I can see the other ends of the alleys sparkling like they’re pathways straight to heaven, and soon my shoulders give up and relax.

  “What’s in there?” I ask, gesturing to the low buildings we keep passing.

  Connor shrugs. “Lots of stuff,” he says. He points toward one behind us. “That’s full of all sorts of retail crap.”

  “Like stuff that’s out of season?”

  “Some of it,” Connor says. “Mostly it’s stuff we can’t have in the stores anymore but we feel too bad throwing out. You can barely move in there.”

  I shudder. It sounds awful. “What about that one?”

  “That one, Grasshopper, is the changing studio for the costumed characters on this side of the park,” he says. “If you’ve ever wanted to see Wonderman’s junk, we can stop by.”

  “No thanks,” I say, and he laughs. “That one?”

  “Where more merch goes to die. Rest in peace,” he says. A roller coaster roars overhead; its wind rushes through my hair.

  “That one?”

  Somehow Connor knows what every single building and trailer holds. “It’s amazing,” I tell him.

  “You’re amazing,” he says back. A smile spreads across my face, a flower poking its head out from the dirt, until I stomp on it hard with my mental picture of Cady and it shrivels back into the hole it came from.

  We slow as we approach the Canteen. There are two cops posted outside, balding guys sweating in their navy garb; both have pit stains the size of the sun. “What’s going on?” I say. Connor seems to know everything—maybe he’ll know this, too.

  He shakes his head, though, and bites his lower lip. “I hope nobody else is…” He doesn’t have to finish. Missing.

  He doesn’t even have to say he hopes they haven’t found a body.

  I trail behind him as we approach; both the cops eye us up and down as we climb the steps leading into the Canteen. “Afternoon, officers,” Connor says affably. If there’s one thing I wish I had, it’s this: Connor’s remarkable ability to talk to anyone, anywhere, exactly how that person would like to be talked to. I could have friends, then, maybe. Instead of worrying that I’d blurt out the truth at any moment, I could twist my words around, make people think I’d answered them when really I’d told them nothing at all.