The Disappearance of Emily H.

by Barrie Summy

  And I almost met her one night when I got up for a drink of water.

  Levi must be so used to her that she doesn’t even consider Emily an intruder.

  It’s as if I’m in my running zone. Every thought in my head is crystal clear.

  Emily Huvar is alive. And living in our basement. She convinced Jennifer and the others to abandon her at the bridge, then stayed hidden in Yielding.

  I wander through the kitchen to the living room to the bathrooms to the bedrooms. The entire house looks different, feels different. I’ve crossed over to another world. A world where missing girls hide out in basements.

  It certainly explains a lot. Like the weird creaking and groaning sounds that wake me up at night. That’s Emily moving around the house, opening and closing cupboards and doors. Like Tasha showing up with a grocery bag full of sandwiches and a magazine Emily used to read. She must visit often to drop off supplies for her sister. Like the neighbor thinking she saw me sneaking back into our house late at night, when she actually spotted Emily.

  I come to an abrupt stop.

  Why? Why did Emily fake her own disappearance?

  And then several more questions tumble into my head. Has she been living in our house since her family was evicted? Where was she before then? Besides Tasha, and now me, does anyone else know? Her parents? Where does Emily go late at night?

  One person can answer all those questions.

  Emily and I need to meet.

  —

  I press my ear against the door to the basement. Silence.

  I can’t go down there. I can’t. Beads of sweat collect under my arms. I shake from the legs of imaginary spiders crawling all over me.

  I slide down the wall and sit, my back against the frame. Levi lies next to me, her head at my thigh and her tail at my feet. Emily will trip over us if she tries to go out tonight.

  Weird how the only memory I picked up of Emily was her lying on the living room carpet, listening to music and reading a magazine. True, I generally don’t grab sparkles I see at home, because they’re usually boring, everyday memories left behind by my mother or me. But it’s not like my fingers are tingling overtime or the house is lit up like the Fourth of July with a bunch of extra sparkles. Maybe Emily mostly stays in the basement. Maybe she only recently started raiding our cupboards because her sister hasn’t been dropping off food as often. Since I took her key.

  After an hour, I am cold and stiff. I get a thick blanket and pillows and make a bed. I lie there in the dark, wondering what to say to Emily when she goes to step over me. “Hi. I’m Raine.” “Do your parents know you’re okay?” “Are you completely insane?”

  At midnight, Shirlee messages me.

  She’s texting him.

  Saying what? I type.

  Watcha doin?

  You want to answer? I ask.

  Idk. I kinda think he can’t keep ignoring her. But I don’t know what to say.

  Trying to sleep, I suggest.

  Ok. Thx.

  Shirlee texts again in a few minutes.

  Jennifer texted, Sorry. Gd nite. So I texted, Gd nite babe.

  Babe? Shirlee’s really getting into this.

  The morning begins with Levi, me, and a closed door. Emily never left the basement. If she had even cracked the door, I would’ve woken up.

  What now? I think as I walk to school. Am I going to sleep at the top of the basement stairs every night till Emily comes out? How often does she leave the house?

  Jennifer, Alyssa, and Danielle are lying in wait for me inside the double doors.

  “Hi, KleptoRainia,” Jennifer says, as usual. That girl is seriously lacking in imagination.

  The girls surround me.

  “You really like this necklace, don’t you?” Jennifer says.

  And the stupid comments begin. They’re easier to ignore today. Instead of listening, I watch texts scroll through my head. Bec you were horrible to me. Watcha doin? Gd nite babe.

  The bell rings, and suddenly it’s over. The three of them split up and leave me standing, a new bruise on my calf where someone kicked me.

  I’m going from math to history when there’s a tap on my shoulder.

  “She already texted three times,” Shirlee whispers.

  “Did you answer?”

  “No. You got a second?”

  We duck into the library, and Shirlee hands me her phone.

  Gd morning! was sent at seven.

  ??? was sent at eight.

  My girlfriends say u wont text me anymore. came in a few minutes ago.

  “Can I take this one?” I say to Shirlee.

  “Sure.”

  Hey babe. Ur girlfriends r idiots. I tilt the screen toward Shirlee.

  She frowns.

  “It’s good. I promise.” I press send and give Shirlee her phone.

  The bell buzzes, and we hustle to our next class.

  The rest of the morning passes uneventfully. Although Señor Lopez decides to spring a pop quiz on us because half the class didn’t do last night’s homework. And Mrs. Fisher is offering extra credit in history to anyone who dresses up in a Colonial costume, which just sounds lame.

  “We were talking about the West Hills Invite,” Torie says when I sit down at lunch.

  “What about it?” I ask.

  “You are so going to place,” Sydney says. “And that means a gift certificate. What will you use it for?”

  “I haven’t won yet.” I unwrap my ham sandwich.

  Willow doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t feel great about still being on JV.

  Hugh stops at our table.

  Avalon and Celine are on the other side of the cafeteria, asking people questions and videoing them.

  “I’m picking the restaurant, right?” he says to me. “That’s the agreement.”

  “Not exactly. I said I was willing to compromise.”

  Like sunflowers turning toward the sun, everyone at the table suddenly tunes in to our conversation.

  “Our video for film class,” I explain.

  “Don’t give them any details,” Hugh says, “or we’ll have to kill them.”

  I roll my eyes, and that’s when I see Jennifer, Alyssa, and Danielle walking toward me. My heart sinks. Not now. Not in front of Hugh. They already got me today.

  “Hi, Kle—” Jennifer feels in her pocket. “I got a text,” she says to Alyssa and Danielle.

  “What’s it say?” Alyssa asks.

  “High school guy,” Jennifer brags to the table at large.

  “Can I talk to you privately?” Hugh asks. “I do not want them”—he mock-glares at the girls I’m sitting with—“to hear my plan. They’ll steal it.”

  “We don’t need your dumb plan,” Torie says. “We have our own.”

  “Except our plan isn’t dumb,” Sydney says.

  Hugh and I walk to the front of the cafeteria. “I would’ve texted, but I don’t have a new phone.”

  “How’s Buttons?”

  “Fine, but I don’t think he learned his lesson,” Hugh says. “He already went after my pen.”

  “Maybe he’ll improve with therapy.”

  “Here’s hoping.” Hugh crosses his fingers. “About the restaurant. I’m thinking Mario’s. You make your own pizza.”

  “Okay.”

  “My brother can drive us next Thursday. Wanna go right from practice?”

  Three syllables, I remind myself. Av-a-lon. It’s not a date. Av-a-lon. “Sure.”

  “And he’s lending us his hi-res camera,” he says.

  “Very cool.”

  “Hugh,” Garrett calls from a table of guys. He holds up a milk carton. “I drank your chocolate milk.”

  “I should have a phone tomorrow.” Hugh starts fast-walking toward Garrett. “I gotta save whatever lunch I have left.”

  Shirlee waits till Hugh leaves before approaching me. She nods at him walking away. “Romance?”

  “It’s not like that,” I say. Although, it is confusing. Because it kind
of feels like we’re flirting. A little. But there is Avalon. The problem is I don’t have tons of experience with guys. “Thanks for saving me with the last text.”

  She smiles. “I just asked her if she’d gotten the previous message.” Shirley hands me the phone to read Jennifer’s reply.

  My girlfriends r not idiots. That’s not nice, Jennifer wrote.

  “Because she can recognize nice?” I say sarcastically.

  Shirlee smiles. “What next?” She shakes her phone.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe Michael doesn’t text anymore today. And we can think about exactly where we’re taking this.”

  Shirlee pushes her phone into my hand. “You’re on for tonight.”

  When I get home after practice, I tiptoe into the house carefully, shushing Levi. I go straight to the basement door and listen. It’s quiet. Is Emily sleeping? Just being super quiet? Is she on the other side, listening? That’s a creepy thought.

  I slowly turn the knob, then gently push. I peek my head through the doorway. I’m not descending into the spider pit, only looking from the safety of the landing.

  It’s dusk, and dull gray light filters through small windows that are at ground level. There’s a musty, damp smell. I squint. My heart’s thudding so hard, I almost expect to see it jump out of my mouth.

  I pat the wall for the light switch. Flip. The room is illuminated. The steps down are concrete, but the floor is covered with white linoleum squares that reflect the light from the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. I like the bright white floor. Spiders can’t hide on it.

  I go down a step. A single step. I peer around. It’s one big room with a furnace in the far corner near the laundry hookups my mom mentioned. Next to the hookups is another door, partly open. A bathroom?

  I go down a second step. My hands are clammy.

  “Emily,” I call softly. “Emily.”

  Levi whines from the top of the stairs.

  “It’s okay, Levi. Come on.”

  She bounds past me and sniffs around the room, tail wagging.

  I take a deep breath and walk down the remaining steps. I scour the floor and corners, looking for spiders, my heart beating in my ears. There’s a web up high, across the room from me. I bite my lip. Not going there. I peek through the doorway by the furnace. It’s a tiny bathroom, with a rusty toilet and a small pedestal sink. The faucet drips.

  There’s no furniture, no clothing, no towel, no nothing. No sign of anyone. It feels empty.

  “Emily,” I call more loudly, and my voice echoes.

  Not to be dramatic, but it’s like I’m in an old black-and-white horror movie, waiting for the bad guy with a knife to lunge out.

  My fingers tingle. So there are memories around, but they could be from anyone, anytime. I’m not seeing sparkles. And I’m definitely not hanging down here long enough to check out the whole room, hoping to find them. A spider could land on my head at any moment.

  And then I see it.

  Behind the furnace. It’s the magazine that fell out of Tasha’s grocery bag. She must’ve returned a different time to give it to her sister.

  I bend down to pick it up.

  A hairy spider, the size of my fist, crawls down the wall and straight toward me.

  I scream and race up the stairs. Levi follows. I slam the door.

  I am never going down there again. Mom can forget about hooking up a washer and dryer. I’m never folding, wearing, or even touching clothes that were in a basement that can grow a spider that big.

  It takes a while of lying flat on my bed to get my heart down to a healthy rate and convince my body to quit pouring out sweat.

  Emily was in our basement. She was probably sleeping on that mattress. But Mom, full of fresh-start fever and determined to settle in, scared her off. Most likely, Emily started looking around for a new hiding place the first time an empty box came winging down the stairs. And she would’ve left for good when mom threw out her mattress.

  So where is Emily?

  Her choices seem fairly limited: another empty house, a shed, the woods.

  Tasha must know.

  I take a shower, getting rid of any possible spider germs, then set up at the counter in the kitchen to do my homework.

  Until Shirlee’s phone buzzes from my backpack, I forget I was playing Michael this evening.

  Jennifer sent a picture of herself at a desk, her face large and distorted with the caption “Doin homework.”

  Me too.

  How was ur day?

  Boring, I type.

  Why did u start texting me?

  It must’ve taken a backpack of courage on Jennifer’s part to send this. In real life, Michael was crystal clear about how he wanted nothing to do with her.

  I had this experience.

  ???

  I was hanging out with a girl in my class. I realized I wished it was u.

  I can practically feel Cupid’s arrow stab Jennifer’s chest when I press send. For a second, I feel bad, tricking Jennifer like this. But then I think of how she treats Shirlee and me.

  Wow. Incredible, Jennifer texts.

  But sthg is bugging me.

  What? She replies at lightning speed.

  Idk if I should say. I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.

  I won’t. I promise.

  I do part of my science worksheet before answering, letting Jennifer worry for twenty minutes.

  I said I promise. Jennifer finally can’t take it anymore.

  It’s your friends.

  What???

  They’re immature, I type.

  U rele think so?

  Def.

  Jennifer doesn’t answer.

  After my Spanish homework, I pick up the conversation.

  Hi babe!

  U rele think they’re immature?

  Yup.

  R u basing it on that time in the pkg lot? When they were acting goofy?

  I guess. And on stuff u said.

  I’m trying to be careful. I have no idea how well Michael even knows Alyssa and Danielle.

  But u think I’m ok?

  Creepy. Like I’m eavesdropping or reading someone’s diary.

  Yup. It’s the most I can type without gagging.

  I call Shirlee on her house phone and read her the texts.

  “What are you trying to get her to say?” Shirlee asks.

  “I’m not picky,” I say. “I’ll take any kind of trash talk about Alyssa and Danielle.”

  “Will she?”

  “She’s a jerk. So, yeah, I think she will.”

  “I feel kind of gross about this,” Shirlee says.

  “Honestly? I do, too. I want to take a hot shower and scrub off my skin. But, even more, I want her to leave us alone. All we need is proof of her dogging her friends.”

  “And then what?” Shirlee asks.

  “Then the mean girl’s going down.”

  Varsity practice is canceled the next day because the coach is traveling with the JV team for an invite in Albany. After school, I jog home to drop off my backpack, then head over to Yielding Elementary.

  Surrounded by moms and a few older brothers and sisters, I wait outside the school. The bike racks are in plain view, and I’m peering at them, looking for Tasha’s turquoise bike…in a sea of turquoise because, apparently, this is the color of the year. Thank you, Tasha, for attaching red streamers to your handlebars.

  Now that I’ve spotted her bike, I find a quiet place under a tree, slump against the trunk, and people watch. It’s like being in a foreign country. I just don’t fit in. Yeah, we’re all humans, but we’re not speaking the same language. It’s been a long time since I skipped happily out of a classroom to get grabbed up in a hug and taken home for milk and cookies. After my grandmother’s death, I became a permanent member of the after-hours-care club.

  Avalon shows up on the other side of the courtyard, hanging out on the fringe of the crowd. She must be picking up a little brother or sister. Earbud cords t
rail from her ears to her pocket, and her lips move as she sings. She turns in a circle, checking everyone out. I’m too low to the ground to be on her radar.

  Suddenly her face practically cracks in half with a huge smile. A dark-haired guy walks toward her. When he gets close, she hooks a finger in his belt buckle, pulls him to her, and sticks one of the earbuds in his ear. They stand together, bumping hips, waiting for the bell.

  What? Wasn’t she glued to Hugh at school today? Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe that was yesterday? Or last week? Maybe today she and Celine were interviewing in the cafeteria. Did Hugh and Avalon break up? If you blink, you can miss a middle school romance.

  The bell rings, loud and long. The crowd surges forward, including Avalon and Nameless Guy. I stand, scanning the bike racks for Tasha.

  There she is. She buckles her helmet, walks her bike to the edge of school property, then climbs on and takes off.

  I start a slow run behind her. Way behind her. Tasha would definitely recognize me. So I run, hide behind a streetlight, run, duck under a bush, run, crouch next to a parked car. Very super-spy. I feel ridiculous.

  Tasha pulls into a parking lot, carefully winds a chain through her front wheel and the metal stand, then snaps on a lock. She disappears into 7-Eleven and returns with two tall Slurpees, which she balances in the basket hanging from the handlebars.

  She takes off again, eventually steering down my street.

  Doesn’t Tasha know her sister changed camps?

  She passes my house and waves to Levi, who’s looking out the living room window. Then Tasha veers left at the next street, then right, then right again. She parks her bike at the back of 51 Groveland.

  This neighborhood’s only a few streets over from mine, but it’s several degrees skuzzier. Trash cans squat out by the curb, and the air reeks of baking garbage. Number 51 has a yard of weeds and knee-high grass. The windows are bare and streaked with dirt. I look in. Empty. A door at the back of the house opens and closes, the quick movement mirrored in the front window. Tasha’s inside.

  I wait across the street, out of sight and in the shadow of an old car. After half an hour, I’m bored and thirsty. So I retrace my steps to the 7-Eleven for a Slurpee, too. I get back into my hiding position by the car. A third of a Slurpee later, Tasha leaves.