“This time it was much larger. And written on the wall in permanent marker. Do you remember any patrons behaving unusually?”
I squirm because I don’t want Mallory to get caught, but I don’t like the idea of someone being in here, roaming the halls and writing on the walls. “I thought I heard footsteps one morning a while back. And I saw black footprints in the kitchen—maybe a week ago?”
“What can you tell us about your last shift specifically?” the detective asks. “Did anything out of the ordinary occur?”
Like sneaking in the library near closing time? Or sitting on a bathroom floor all night with a patron you’ve got a crush on? My throat feels Sahara dry. It clicks when I swallow.
“Nothing that stands out.”
“Spencer didn’t work yesterday,” Mr. Brooks says as an aside, then to me, “You’ll keep your eyes open?”
“Of course. Do you think—” I turn to the detective. “Do you think it’s someone dangerous?”
“No way to know at this point,” he says.
“Either way, I’d like to talk about security measures,” Mr. Brooks says. “The recent tragedy is being used as a springboard for all this, and my patience is wearing thin.”
I nod, half waiting to be dismissed and half expecting them to get to the accusation part. There could be a bigger reason I’m here with all of them. They could be testing me to see what I admit. We tried to be careful, but we could have screwed up. They might already know I was here last night.
“Spencer.” The detective flips back through his notebook, tapping his pen on an earlier page. “You were here the day the little girl mentioned hearing a ghost, right? There were three gentlemen in the library that day,” the detective says. “One of them told the little girl about the tragedy. Gretchen believes you’re acquainted?”
“I didn’t witness it. But, yeah, I know the guys.”
“What are their names?” the detective asks.
I tense. There’s no way this won’t send Jarvey over the edge. Worse still, I don’t want Isaac or Alex mixed up in it. But refusing to help the police? There are some lines I’m not willing to cross.
“Hey.” I’d barely noticed Ruby before, but now she’s leaning in, her eyes narrowed. “I could pull the records. I could go through the security tapes and then through the circulation for the day. You’d just speed it up, but if it helps, we’ll say I gave the names.”
I nod and give them the information. “For the record, I think it was Jarvey. He had the sucker, which Gretchen mentioned. Is it… Will he be in serious trouble?”
The detective gives a wry grin. “Unfortunately for all of us, there’s no law against being a pain-in-the-neck teenager. We’re simply looking for more detail. We want to talk to anyone who might know something.”
Truth is, Jarvey is a jerk. He probably did scare that kid and, in some scenario, might have pulled a note prank on a bulletin board for kicks. But he was not pacing and crying in the library last night, and I doubt he knows a thing.
The question is, who does? Because someone has been getting in and out of this library in a way that none of us have figured out. It’s spooky.
I restock the displays in the front until Ruby comes out. She heads right for me, looking relieved to be out of the inquisition room.
“Weird and intense, right?” she asks.
I laugh. “Yeah.”
“Come on. Let’s go do some heavy lifting.”
“Huh?”
“We need register tape and copy paper. They’re in the big supply room upstairs.”
“There’s a supply room upstairs?”
“Just for big items. We use it for orders. Or to restock our supplies down here.”
We follow the smell of fresh paint to the stairs where a maintenance worker is rolling over the message. I lurk a step behind Ruby, my shoulders tensing as I glance at the still wet coat of primer over the words I saw earlier. Every step I take brings more doubts to focus.
They should know about the noises we heard last night. This is a crime. The police are involved. We never even heard that person leave last night. For all we know, they could still be in there, and I should have said something.
I still could.
By the time we reach the top, the hair on the back of my neck is standing upright. Ruby heads straight down the hallway, past Mr. Brooks’ office and the fiscal officer’s area. We turn right, and I flinch, half convinced that some sobbing, marker-wielding person will burst through one of the closed doors.
At the end of the hall, Ruby unlocks the supply room door and pushes it open. The smell of familiar cleaner assaults my nose. Ruby coughs, and I step in behind her, nostrils burning with a sting of cleaning wipes, the ones that come in those giant tubs my mom always sent me to school with when I was young.
The heavy door swings shut behind us, amplifying Ruby’s voice in the small, shelf-lined room.
“Are you freaking kidding me? Someone uses half a canister of the damn things and just leaves them in a dirty pile?”
She’s stooped over a veritable mountain of cleaning wipes. She’s not wrong. There has to be at least half a can of them, and they’re filthy, stained black-gray like they’ve been used for wiping tires. I shift back on my heels, searching for a trash bag.
“Who does shit like this?” she asks. “I need a trash bag.”
I turn to find one. There’s got to be a box of them because there are certainly boxes of everything else. Paper clips, staples, binders, rubber bands, Sharpie markers. My focus sticks on that. The box is knocked over and empty.
I turn around, spotting a marker on the floor, not far from the door. Caps litter the floor.
“Ruby, I thi—” I cut myself off the second I see the wall.
“Ruby, you need to see this.”
“See wha—”
She doesn’t finish because she sees it too. Endless lines of black handwriting cover the inside of the door and the wall around it. The writing is a heavier, cramped version of the writing I saw last night. Slanting black words bunched so tightly together it’s hard to pick one word from the next. But it’s the same pattern, over and over, the same strange but beautiful writing, all narrow loops and sharp diagonal lines, spelling out the same three words.
WhereareyouWhereareyouWhereareyouWhereareyouWhereareyouWhereareyou
Mallory
Sunday, November 19, 2:29 p.m.
Lana hid me in her room most of Saturday while she ran errands with her mom, but I slipped out of her window at six the next morning, too afraid of being caught. It’s a drizzly morning, so I spend several hours aimlessly wandering Walmart and the local drugstore, waiting for the skies to clear. Finally, the rain eases and I head out. It’s time to check in with my mom, and I need to be as far from Fairview as possible when I call.
I avoid Main Street and take all the side roads out of Fairview. As I head south, the houses and yards shrink, and at Bartlet, the spell breaks. The trimmed lawns and power-washed sidewalks abruptly give way to tired strip malls and streets with faded lines.
I’m considering heading another block south when I spot the Krispy Kreme Hot-n-Ready sign glowing in the window. My stomach lurches. I’m all too happy to try to get a free doughnut, though I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to buy a drink or something.
The guy behind the counter doesn’t even ask what else I want. He shovels two hot donuts into a bag and off I go.
It’s not the last gift of the day either. Halfway down the road I spot a crumpled dollar bill in a parking lot. Not much, but now that I’m looking, I find change too. Not often and not much—a dime under a bush, a quarter wedged sideways in a sidewalk crack—but it’s there.
I’m bending over to pick up a nickel when I spot an older man watching me from the bus stop. What is that expression he’s wearing? Irritation? Sadness?
No. That’s pity.
My cheeks instantly burn. I want to explain myself or tell him to mind his own business, but I pocket the change and move on. I’m not here for explanations or doughnuts or lost change. I’m here to get away from the library so I can call my mother.
I don’t know how fast Charlie can track my calls, but I’m not taking chances.
My phone takes a second to power on, but once I call, Mom picks up immediately.
Her voice sounds thin on the other end of the line, and she lets out a shuddery breath when I say hello. I brace myself, expecting her to cry. Which isn’t even close to what happens.
“I want you to come home.”
My stomach drops, terrible scenarios rushing through my mind. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“It’s not nothing. What happened? Did he do something?”
“No, he didn’t do anything,” she says, sounding tired and irritated at the same time. “This isn’t about him. It’s about you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You, Mallory! We gave you this time so you could come to your senses and work out your teenage rebellion. I have been patient, but now we’ve had enough.”
“We?” I shake my head. “Not even a month ago, you were ready to leave him. Do you remember, Mom? Tracking our calls. Taking your keys. Telling you what to wear, what to eat. You said it was starting to scare you.”
“Because you twisted those facts! None of that is a big deal, but you lined these little things up the way you do, knowing how sick I was. You know my condition.”
Condition. It’s another Charlie word, and it rolls in my stomach like bubbling tar. I hear her fiddling with papers on the other end of the line. A book maybe. Or a magazine.
“Which of those things is so bad?” she goes on. “Is it that he wants me to be safe? That he wants me to eat healthy? He’s an old-fashioned man.”
“No, Mom, he’s an asshole.” I clench my fists and force a lower volume. “Please tell me what happened.”
She adjusts her grip on the phone, and I try to picture her on the other end of the line. Squaring her shoulders. “I know that you and I have had a unique mother-daughter relationship.”
“Unique how? Because we like each other? Because we were partners?”
“See, that’s just what Charlie is talking about. You interrupt me. You try to speak for me. That’s not how this works. We aren’t partners, and I am not your friend.”
“So now we’re not friends?”
“No, we’re not. I’m your mother. And you bullied me into believing my own husband was out to hurt me.”
“Mom—”
“No, you listen to me.” She pauses for a long time, and when she speaks again, her rhythm is strange. Staccato. “You’ve done damage that might be affecting this pregnancy.”
“Now you’re blaming me for you being sick?” The voice coming from my mouth is too hollow and small to belong to me. Tears burn my eyes and my throat feels tight.
“I love you, but it is time for you to learn your place. This online school—” She pauses again, awkwardly, and I hear another rustle of paper. What is she doing? “You convinced me in a weak moment, but we are reenrolling you at your old school after the holiday break.”
I don’t respond. What can I say? She is still the mom who made me Popsicles out of cherry Kool-Aid. The woman who sang into curling irons and hairbrushes to make me laugh.
A part of her is still my mother. But now she is Charlie’s wife first. How did I not see this? He will always come first.
“I’ve had enough of your theatrics and your games, Mallory. You will come home tonight, or I will—” She cuts herself off, a sharp inhale followed by another too-long pause. “I will call the police and report you as an endangered runaway.”
The words come out in perfect succession, one right after another. It’s like she’s practiced. I hear another soft paper rustle on the other end of the line. Paper? The truth slams into me like a punch.
Mom hasn’t practiced what she’s saying to me. She’s reading it. This whole conversation is scripted.
Cold crawls up the length of my spine as a new picture of her forms in my mind. She isn’t there alone, bracing herself for a hard parental talk. Charlie is there. Probably leaned over a notebook, jotting down what he wants her to say. He’s coaching her.
Rage chases that icy feeling out of my bones. I open my eyes and feel the world tilt back to center. “Is Charlie with you, Mom?”
Her silence is all the answer I need. I shake my head, heart beating fire into my veins. That man is pulling all her strings now. I have no choice but to be strong enough for both of us.
“I’ll give you until six to be home,” she says, voice trembling.
“I’m not coming home,” I say softly.
“I’m not changing my mind on this.”
“I’m not asking you to change your mind. You’re going to do what you think is right, but I’m going to do what I think is safe. Charlie is dangerous.”
She sighs. “He’s a good man, Mallory.”
“Mom, I love you. And I’m really sorry for what this is putting you through. But in my heart of hearts, I know Charlie is not a good man. I think deep down you know it too.”
I disconnect before she can say anything else, and power off my phone.
“Now what?” I whisper.
But I already know what happens next. I’m not going home, and Charlie will force her hand about reporting me to the police. If he can’t control the situation by bringing me back, he’ll spin it so that he’s a victim. A hardworking father worried about his poor, lost stepdaughter.
As I shuffle back toward Fairview, it’s as if someone else is pushing me forward. At Main Street, I emerge from my stupor, realizing I’m only ten blocks from the library. My body warms thinking of the stone building with its wide inviting steps, remembering the heat when the door whooshes shut behind me. Remembering the warmth of Spencer’s shoulder next to mine.
I don’t care that this is the worst time for a relationship. He wants to help, and at this point, I need it.
Six blocks out, the rain starts. Two blocks after that it turns to sleet. I’m soaked through.
I arrive after 5:00 to a deserted lobby, so I stop inside the doors, peeling off my zip-up sweatshirt. It’s wetter than I thought—dripping. Even directly under the heater vent, I’m shivering so hard my teeth clack together. I shove my sweatshirt into an umbrella bag by the door and tuck it into my backpack. My hair has come loose in the wind, so I redo my ponytail, pulling back all the soggy strands with frozen, waxy fingers. It’s not great, but it’s probably good enough that people won’t notice.
I walk in farther and someone greets me from the circulation desk. I wave and smile and pretend my shoes aren’t squelching and my jeans aren’t wet. I don’t spot police officers or Spencer, so I head to the browsing room. Might as well get to work.
I settle at the computer with my access code and hands so cold, I can’t fathom how I’ll type. But today, I won’t be doing school work. Not that I have any work due on Thanksgiving break. I have a whole different reason for sitting at these keys today.
I type two words into the search bar: Charlie Wrightson.
Sixty-eight thousand matches pop up. Good thing I have nothing but time. I proceed to type in every search combination I can think of.
Charlie Wrightson Ohio
Charlie Wrightson Whitestone
Charlie Wrightson IT
Charlie Wrightson United States Armed Forces
I try other cities. Other versions of Charlie. Charles. Chuck. C Wrightson. I chase his name down a hundred rabbit holes. Each search finds a few uninteresting hits, a long-outdated profile on a career site, a link to his staff picture and email on Whitestone Memorial, and a photo of a y
oung, happier-looking version of Charlie with other young guys, all dressed in fatigues. There’s no helpful information. No social media links revealing groups of deviant friends or a carefully chronicled relationship breakdown.
There’s got to be a better way to get information on this guy. I’m sixteen years old, and I’ve never been outside of Ohio, but you can find more crap on me.
I’m missing something.
I try the Ohio search again, scrolling through page after page, scanning for any nugget of promising information. Eleven pages in, I stop. There’s a hit with Charlie’s name on a blog named Pentel the Pooch. Charlie mentioned a friend with a dog named Pentel once. He said she named all her pets after writing instrument brands. Bic, Dixon, Zebra, and Pentel.
I click the text and an ancient blog appears. Pentel the Pooch is in bad shape. Half the image links don’t work, and the last post is three years old. But somehow, it’s still up. I scan the site, searching for Charlie’s name. It’s from a post five years ago, one surrounded by little balloons.
On a final note, I can’t end today’s post without congratulating my good friend Billie Reeves on her engagement to Charlie Wrightson. It’s been a whirlwind of a fairy tale, and Pentel is blowing you both a big poochy smooch. Congrats!
Engagement. Charlie was engaged to someone else five years ago? I scrawl down the name “Billie Reeves” on a piece of paper in my notebook and close down my browser.
“Good evening.” The voice over the intercom makes me jump. “The library will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please bring all materials for checkout at this time. Thank you for your assistance and have a wonderful evening.”
At the browsing desk, a tall, slim man smiles at me. I try to smile back, but I’m suddenly shaking again. He’s checking to see who’s here because he needs to make sure we’ll leave. This is why I’m always careful to clear the room before these messages.
I stumble to my feet, dragging my backpack over my shoulder. How could I lose track of time like this? I know the library closes at 6:00 on Sunday! I step away from the desk, noticing the spray of rain against the windows. The idea of more cold makes my knees weak.
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