SW01 - The Edge of Nowhere

by Elizabeth George

  “So why are you here? And why aren’t you saying anything, Becca King?”

  Because, Becca thought, because because. Because the words were flying around the room like banshees howling for someone’s soul. Because she couldn’t tell whose thoughts were whose. But most of all because she couldn’t take her eyes off the floor, and the reason for this was that she couldn’t move her gaze away from Seth’s shoes. He was wearing the same sandals he’d had on each time Becca had seen him, but she’d never seen the soles before now. Now she saw them, though, because of how he was sitting, and the sight of them and what they looked like and what that meant froze her in place.

  Becca couldn’t look away and what she really couldn’t do was reply to Debbie’s question. But then it didn’t seem to matter because Debbie went back to Seth.

  “So why are you here? And where’s that cell phone you were so hot to deliver? Or is this a different kind of delivery? What’ve you brought with you? Show it to me.” Then she began flying around the room, a witch looking for her regular mode of transportation. Only she was opening and closing drawers and doing the same to the closet and looking under the beds and—

  Not here . . . oh man . . . not again . . . not like this . . . for God’s sake . . . where it always ends . . . just like Sean . . .

  “Okay, okay,” Seth cried. “The cops have her cell phone. I wanted her to know. I figured she’d start looking for it, so I came to tell her. All right?”

  But cops and cell phone and this this this and what’ve you done and liars . . . liars just like Sean were bouncing off the walls just like balls in a children’s blow-up house. Becca felt them driving into her brain and knew that she was going to vomit if she didn’t stop them.

  She cried out, “It’s Derric. It’s Derric. He got pushed off a trail in the forest this afternoon, in Saratoga Woods. Seth was there and I was there and the dog got lost and Derric got taken to the hospital. It’s Derric, okay? It’s Derric. I thought he’d fallen but someone pushed him and that’s what happened.”

  Then she looked at Seth. He was reading her face, and she knew he was reading it, and his expression was both wary and scared. But he didn’t know what she’d seen in the forest along with Derric’s broken body, and she couldn’t tell him. Not here, not now, and possibly not ever.

  Seth said on a breath, “I’m out of here.” He made good on his word. A moment after the door closed behind him, they could hear the sound of Sammy roaring away.

  In the void left by Seth’s departure, Becca could hear Debbie breathing. Her whispers came like gasps, like her breath. She caught no way out not again mess up they use it’s the erratic where everything happens, but only after Debbie turned away. She went for the door saying she had to tell Josh what had happened to Derric. But then she paused before she left Becca’s room.

  She said, “I’m not running the No-Tell Motel for a bunch of high school kids. No more boys in here. Is that clear?”

  Becca nodded and Debbie left her.

  BECCA REALIZED FROM that moment that her time at the Cliff Motel could be terminated at the least provocation. She had no clue where she could go if Debbie threw her out, but she had a feeling that she might need to start looking for a place. She was also worried that Debbie might betray her at South Whidbey High School, but she decided she had to let that one go. If things got hot over there, she would just have to leave school.

  Monday morning after the scene with Debbie, Becca was rolling her bike off the motel porch when Debbie came out from the office. Becca hadn’t yet put the AUD box on, since the ride to school usually had no whispers attached to it. But the sight of Debbie made Becca’s insides quiver, so she fumbled for the AUD box and slipped the earphone into her ear as Debbie approached.

  Debbie said, “I’m sorry about the other night. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I shouldn’t have talked like I did.”

  Becca tightened her hands on the handlebars of her bike. She wasn’t used to adults apologizing. She said, “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “That’s just it, you don’t. How could you?” Debbie glanced back at the office. Soon it would be time to take the kids to school, so they needed to keep their conversation out here brief. Still, there were things that had to be said and Debbie was the kind of woman who knew this since she’d had long experience of saying them, marked by the years since she’d taken her last sip of beer. “There are things from the past that I shouldn’t let affect me. Sometimes I forget and they do. None of this is your fault. I shouldn’t have unloaded on you.”

  “It’s okay.” Becca wished she hadn’t put the AUD box on because now Debbie’s expression told her that there were whispers here that might have helped her to understand what was going on. Something, for sure, because as usual when it came to personal stuff, Debbie lit up a cigarette.

  She said to Becca, “You’ve got to stay away from Seth Darrow, darlin’. You just need to trust me on this. I know him. There are parts to Seth . . . You just need to stay away, okay?”

  “Grammer!” It was Chloe at the door to the office. She saw Debbie and Becca in conversation and said, “Why’n’t you come for breakfast today, Becca? We had pancakes and sausage. Why’n’t you come?”

  “It got too late,” Becca called. “I gotta get to school.”

  “You’ll be late too if you don’t skedaddle,” Debbie said to her granddaughter. “Why’ve you still got your jammies on?”

  “Josh hid my undies.”

  “You tell your brother if he doesn’t hand over your undies, he’ll be wearing mine on top of his clothes.”

  Chloe laughed and darted back inside the office. They heard her calling out her brother’s name as she went.

  Debbie said to Becca, “I can get your cell phone back for you. I know the undersheriff fairly good.”

  Becca knew that couldn’t happen. Debbie going after the phone would lead right back to Becca. A trail meant questions. Questions meant answers. She said, “You don’t need to bother. It was a throwaway with only about one minute left on it. I was going to dump it in the trash, and I probably just dropped it in all the excitement.”

  “You want me to pick you up another?”

  Becca shook her head. There was hardly any point. The phone she needed was the phone the cops had, which was the phone with her mother’s number on it. It was also the phone that she couldn’t allow near her at this point. Her eyes got blurry, but she blinked hard and fast. She said, “That’s really nice of you, but it’s okay. I don’t really know anyone to call.”

  Debbie cocked her head. She said, “You know me, darlin’. What happened the other night . . . I’m really sorry.”

  BECCA RODE TO school as fast as she could. It was mostly level, so the going was easy, but she could still tell that she was getting better on the bike every day.

  She was close to the first school on the route when she saw a flash of white to her left, across the road. It caught the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see what it was, so buried in all the dark greens of the forest. Thus, she encountered the white deer. It was there for an instant, standing like a marble statue in the middle of a rutted driveway. Becca gasped at the sight and braked her bike. White deer. A buck. He was watching her.

  Then he was gone, in a simple leap that effortlessly took him into the trees. So quick was he that Becca thought she might have imagined him. A bit of sunlight through the branches, perhaps. An old sheet hanging from a limb, maybe. On the other hand, she did know it had been the deer, and she recalled what Josh had told her about it. Seeing the white deer meant change was coming.

  At South Whidbey High, she coasted into the parking lot. She heaved her backpack onto one shoulder and started for the six double doors that would put her next to the new commons.

  A sheriff’s car passed her. She ducked her head. A cop coming to the school could have meant just about anything, but after what had happened to Derric, Becca knew a cop’s presence wasn’t going to be good.

  She t
urned the AUD box off and pulled the earphone from her ear. The whispers, she figured, might help her know what was going on. They were everywhere, prompted by what the other students—along with Becca—had just seen.

  Cops . . . someone’s in for it . . . out of it . . . do with Nyombe . . . homecoming dance . . . God he’s so hot . . . what I want is . . . Aaron’s got a bean . . . Courtney’s having a cow . . . I would’ve if he’d asked . . . don’t know his leg or . . . bummer . . . a chance with her now . . .

  Becca pulled one of the six doors open. Inside, the spoken words and the whispers were pretty much the same. Six girls sat at one of the tables in the new commons, two of them crying. Four boys in letterman jackets walked by, talking earnestly to a coach. Students stood around gossiping, their expressions concerned. Then Tatiana Primavera walked by, heading in the direction of the administration office in her stilettos. She looked like someone with Important Things to do.

  Then: “Were you there or what?”

  Becca knew who was speaking before she turned to see Jenn McDaniels.

  “Seth Darrow was there, so you had to’ve been, since him and you are so tight.”

  Jenn had come into the new commons behind Becca. For a girl so petite, she managed to make herself seem like a force of nature ready to do what forces of nature do: explode, howl, destroy, flood. Becca heard the gutter words in Jenn’s whispers. She wondered how often Jenn said them aloud.

  “He’s in a coma.” Jenn sneered, and added, “Make sure you tell Seth. Or did he tell you? Bet he’s totally happy now.”

  Becca realized from this that Seth hadn’t said a word to the police or to anyone else about her presence in the woods. Diana Kinsale had also known she was there, but there was something about Diana that suggested she wasn’t going to betray Becca’s presence either. She said, “A coma? Derric? What’re you talking about?”

  Jenn laughed harshly. “Oh like I don’t know what you’ve been after since you saw him.”

  “Seth?”

  “Don’t be stupid, fattie. And have you looked in a mirror lately? Like you ever could have a chance with Derric.”

  Before Becca could answer, an earsplitting screech silenced everyone in the new commons and a voice came over the PA system. It said, “This is your principal, Mr. Vansandt,” and he announced that all the students were to proceed to the big theater for an assembly. It would start in ten minutes.

  The students began moving from the new commons into the big corridor where the six double doors marked the entrance to the school. They didn’t go outside, but rather went left and were soon disappearing around a corner. Interestingly, though, Jenn McDaniels didn’t go with them. Rather, she headed past Becca in the other direction. She gave a hard push upon her shoulder, saying, “Excuse me, Fatbroad,” and she went the way Tatiana Primavera had gone.

  INSIDE THE THEATER, the students jostled each other to get to seats. Up on the stage, a lectern stood. There were chairs on either side of this, four on one side, three on the other.

  Becca became part of the jumble of people, but her mind was completely on what Jenn had told her. She didn’t know what a coma meant exactly. She knew that people survived comas, but she also knew that sometimes they languished in comas for years and never came out of them at all. Or if they did come out of them, it was ten years later and they woke up to a different world.

  She didn’t want this for Derric. She wanted him well and rejoicing, the way he kept telling himself to rejoice and the way his smile suggested to other people that he was rejoicing because they couldn’t feel the rest of him, which was sunlight but which was sadness as well.

  Becca thought about Seth and what Jenn had said about him, how he’d be happy to hear about Derric in a coma. She also thought about the fact that Seth hadn’t mentioned her to anyone but especially he hadn’t told the cops that she’d been there and that she’d made the phone call to 911. Then her thoughts switched to Diana Kinsale, her dogs, Seth’s dog, and the nothing that came from Diana Kinsale when everyone else filled the air with whispers. And finally, because she couldn’t avoid it any longer, not with Derric now lying in a coma, she thought of that footprint at the top of the bluff. It wouldn’t have been there when the paramedics had finished with the site. Getting Derric up the bluff to the trail would have taken care of that. This meant that Becca was the only one who knew about that footprint unless Diana Kinsale had seen it as well.

  But she couldn’t think of this. She wouldn’t let herself think of this.

  She found a seat in the middle of a row. There, she ducked her head and dug in her backpack for her Eastern Civilization book. Mr. Powder had told them there was going to be a quiz, and even having one of his students in a coma in the hospital wouldn’t stop Mr. Powder from holding firm to that plan. So she could study. It would occupy her mind.

  She didn’t get far. Someone tapped a microphone and said, “Is this on?” and she looked up to see Mr. Vansandt standing at the lectern.

  He wasn’t alone. There were six other adults on the stage with him, and since they were staring ahead into the audience of students who suddenly fell silent, there were whispers although they were very brief. Becca caught one of these little losers and look at me, Dave and what was he doing there and my job my job and lawsuits come from this kind of and don’t really care look at them, but anyone could have been the owner of the whispers. One person, even, could have owned them all.

  Mr. Vansandt asked them all to stand and pledge allegiance after which he made the grave announcement that everyone was expecting. He told them that one of their fellow Falcons had been badly injured in Saratoga Woods. Most of them knew him, he said. Derric Mathieson. He said that Derric was in intensive care at Whidbey General up in Coupeville. He was in a coma and he had a triple fracture of his leg, too.

  At this, murmurs went around the room and a girl in the crowd wailed “Oh no!” dramatically. Becca focused hard on what was going on on the stage. Mr. Vansandt was talking about all doors being opened and extra counselors being brought on board and how they would be there for the entire week for any student who wanted to talk. He introduced them one by one. Tatiana Primavera was one of them, of course, but the other names were all new to Becca. She dismissed them as soon as she heard them because it was fairly clear that more was about to happen on the stage since the one person left to be introduced was a man in a deputy’s uniform.

  The principal was concluding his remarks by telling everyone where each of the new counselors would be stationed that week. He added that a classroom would be open each lunch hour for group talk. Then he concluded by saying that Derric’s father would like to talk to them now about the part they could play in Derric’s recovery because, he added, “Derric is a Falcon and this is one Falcon who’s going to recover.”

  It was at this point that the man in the sheriff’s clothes got up and went to the microphone. It was also the moment when Becca realized that Derric Mathieson’s adoptive family was white.

  * * *

  SIXTEEN

  Becca recognized the man. The lights shining onto the lectern were brighter than the lights on the chairs set around it, so while he was still sitting among the others on the stage, she hadn’t given him any more attention than went with knowing he was someone from the sheriff’s office because of his uniform. But when he walked into the fuller light on the lectern, Becca saw that he was the man Derric had been with on the ferry.

  His face was like something carved. Becca knew in an instant that he was the source of the what was he doing there that she’d heard jumbled among the other whispers inside the theater. What seemed to be coming from him now sounded like please God . . . punish . . . I swear . . . not because . . . black black black . . .

  His expression was so hard that it hushed the crowd of kids, especially those who were still reacting to the news about Derric’s injuries. The silence that fell over everyone made their whispers soar upward. Becca caught snatches of them only, disjointed words like what’s
with . . . scary . . . is there . . . ever . . . does he think . . . like dead? . . . coma . . . Derric Derric . . . something new . . . Along with these whispers came a flutter of feelings, like birds high up near the ceiling among the lights. All of this made Becca look around her. What she noted gave her pause. For unlike her schools in California, there didn’t seem to be a single kid in the entire assembly who wasn’t white.

  Then she understood at least part of the whispers. Derric’s father was wondering what sort of mess he’d created in bringing a black son to a place where he would probably never fit in. Raisin on Wonder Bread was what his whisper actually seemed to call it.

  Becca wanted to stand up in the audience, then. She wanted to tell Derric’s father that he was wrong. She wanted him to know that that wasn’t even what people were thinking, that the only whisper in the theater declaring black black black was coming from Mathieson himself.

  He began to speak. He said that Derric’s mom was with him at the hospital and he was getting very good care but he sure could use everyone’s good thoughts and prayers. Then he went on in a different tone, one that was firm with a meaning that he didn’t need to make explicit. He said that there were things that had happened in Saratoga Woods while Derric had been there, things that needed to be looked into. He said he was hoping that anyone who had been there that day would be willing to come forward at the end of the assembly and sign a sheet so that they could be talked to individually.

  “No one’s in trouble.” Mathieson peered over the lectern into the audience. “No one’s in trouble.” But his whispers said only you and when I know who you are I swear to God while he concluded by telling them that the sheet would also be available in Ms. Primavera’s office for anyone wishing to sign it privately. Then he shifted his weight with a shift in his topic. He said, “I know a lot of you also want to do something to help Derric. Here’s what it is.”