by Susan Vaught
“Maaaa-aaan,” Drip mutters, his head swiveling like he’s got ball bearings in his neck. His mother has him by the arm, which is probably good, or he’d be heading straight for one of the towers and trucks to poke at it and pull at wires and figure out how everything works. Drip can take anything apart. It’s the putting-it-back-together phase that gives him trouble.
“You’re organizing a search,” I echo, not sure I heard Mercer correctly, but scared and excited all at the same time.
“Television, radio, e-mail, online social networks, highway information signs.” He nods. “Everywhere we can send the alert and the requests, we do.”
“Oh.” Yeah. So, maybe I’ve been being an ass to him for no reason? Well, not no reason, but—okay. This is pretty impressive and more what I had been hoping for when the FBI got called. A search. They’re going to search. We’re going to search—with lots of people and some organization and maybe, just maybe we’ll find her. We have to find her.
Tears pop to the corner of my eyes. I want Sunshine back so badly my whole insides hurt.
“I know it feels like we’ve been doing nothing but harassing you, your friends, and Sunshine’s family, but that’s not the case.” Mercer sounds almost smug, but I ignore it because he’s doing something and we’re going to look for her and that’s fine by me.
“Can we search, too?” Drip says, loudly. “Can we go? Now?”
His mom pulls him along and Dad comes around to my right to help her. When we get close to the front door, I see a roped-off area where arriving volunteers are directed until they go to the tables to sign in, and a big banner hanging on the VFW wall behind the tables reading SEARCH COORDINATION.
Everything seems too big and too bright and too sudden and too much and then we’re in the door, into the VFW, and—
Even more people in here. New tables. Uniformed local officers. People with FBI identification badges like Agent Mercer’s. We’re standing on the edges of a pretty big crowd. I recognize kids from school, kids from class, and Mr. Watson with his screwball hair and calm-clown expression. I don’t see Sunshine’s mom or Mr. Franks, but I’m figuring one of them is here while the others are waiting at their place in case she calls or comes home. That bothers me a little bit, the thought of her getting home to just them and me not being there, but that’s stupid, I guess. Home would be home. Just let her come home.
Roland’s still in the hall, and now his pal Linden’s with him. What was it Mercer called Linden? The little gangster? Fits him. He’s lounging in a chair next to Roland’s, only Linden’s got his tipped against the wall, his dark hair in his eyes, chewing on something, maybe a straw. He has one person standing beside him, an older guy with silver streaks in his dark hair, dressed in black jeans and a black tank. He’s fidgeting and glancing at the door like he wants a cigarette. Linden and Roland don’t look nervous. They don’t look like they have anything to hide.
It’s you who needs to hide. You’re a freak. You’re a horrible freak. You know somebody was hurting her. You were hurting her. You hurt her, hurt her, hurt her. Maybe you only hurt her a little bit?
“You ever think it’s weird that hard cases like Linden Green have parents?” Drip whispers, making me jump.
I shake my head, then rub my temples, wishing I could crush my alphabet voices or at least make sense of them. I know they’re lying. I know they aren’t real, but sometimes they sound so real and they feel so real and they say the stuff I’m worrying about.
You know somebody was hurting her….
Do I know that for sure? Do I really remember that?
I know you’ve wondered everybody wonders why I don’t talk much but it’s better I don’t say anything can you understand that because I need somebody to understand and you’re the one who understands things Jason I know you don’t show it that you can’t show it but I trust you so much and her fingers twine around her locket and
“Yeah, that’s bizarre,” I tell Drip, but my voice comes out cracked and dry and I shiver because I probably sound like the dark, grabbing trees in the woods. Drip gives me a strange look and I glance down at my body. Am I turning into a tree?
Drip’s mom yanks him away. Her expression has none of her usual tolerance and irritable sort of patience. She seems… wary. Maybe scared.
Why doesn’t she want Drip talking to me? Is that real? Am I making that up or imagining it or alphabeting it? Maybe something’s wrong. Or maybe something’s worse wrong with me than usual.
I look at myself again. I’m still not a dark, scary tree. At least I don’t think I am. Maybe Ms. Taylor is afraid Drip and I will take off again, but the VFW’s turned into Search Central. No way we’re going anywhere except out with an orange vest and a piece of the grid to explore.
Everybody seems alert. Everybody seems to know the FBI search team found something in Sunshine’s room.
I lurch toward the murmuring, muttering, milling VFW crowd because I really don’t know what else to do or where else to go, but hands grab me and I almost scream because maybe the trees followed me here but it’s not trees. It’s my parents and some part of my brain knows this but the trees still scare the hell out of me and I grab the wrists and hands and fingers expecting branches but when I turn I don’t see black bark it’s Dad and—
“Breathe, Jason.”
I’ve got hold of his wrists. Both of them. I’m digging my fingers in hard and my eyes are probably wide but it’s Dad, not a tree, so I breathe.
“What are you seeing, son?” Dad’s voice comes out calm and his face is calm, but his eyes—still not right. Not totally him.
“I’m seeing you,” I tell him. You and your wrong eyes.
“You sure about that?” He’s keeping his voice low, and I know he doesn’t want anybody else to hear what we’re saying.
I don’t want to tell my father I thought he might be an evil tree, especially not with my mother standing right behind him looking as wide eyed as I feel, so I shake my head and wonder vaguely where the lawyer is, then go back to thinking about why we came back to the VFW.
“They found something in Sunshine’s room,” I tell Dad, and give the colonel a quick glance so she knows I’m talking to her, too. I try to make myself smile but I’m not sure it’s working. Stupid alphabet. My father isn’t a tree.
“I know,” Dad says. “Captain Evans has gone to get more information.”
Captain Evans. Oh yeah. That’s the lawyer’s name. But why is she going and not us? I let go of Dad’s wrists, and he lets go of me, and I ask my question out loud.
“Why is Captain Evans getting more information? Why aren’t we going?”
Dad and the colonel exchange a look.
Dad says, “Things like this can get tricky, son.” He takes a breath. “It’s best to leave the heavy lifting to the guys with the muscle.”
The Dad-ism thunks against my awareness. Heavy lifting. Guys with muscle.
Tricky?
Dad’s smile seems fake, which is something my father never does. Dad’s always been real. Straight-up. So what—
Images of the trees blare through my brain. He could be possessed. Maybe the trees got him and—
That’s not real, Jason…
Sunshine’s voice. Just a whisper, something she’s said a million times, and I always believe her even if she’s not here right now because maybe she is, a little bit, at least in my head. My palm tingles again, right at the center, a locket-shaped spot like she’s just pressed it into my hand to hold and banish all my bad thoughts, and I know I have to banish them on my own, at least until she makes it back to me.
Dad’s not a tree, and he’s not possessed by a tree. But something is wrong with him. There’s that thing in his eyes, a glimmer of sadness, of worry I’ve never seen before, and it makes my stomach flip-flop. He could be scared and worried about a ton of stuff, like whether or not Sunshine’s okay, or how the colonel’s bringing the lawyer makes me look even more like a freak, or stuff from work I don’t even know about—but I don�
�t think that’s it. He’s worried about what they found in Sunshine’s room, but it’s more than that. He’s worried—oh.
Oh no.
He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, he KNOWS, he knows, HE knows, he KNOWS, you FREAK.
This time I look him straight in the face, and my words come out slow and very, very clear. “Dad, whatever they found in Sunshine’s room, it’s okay. I didn’t do anything to hurt her.”
Are you telling the truth? Because you’re a liar. You know you’re a liar. Liar, liar, house on fire. Maybe your house is on fire?
New expressions cross Dad’s face, and I pick them out, one by one. There’s guilt, then more worry, then… something like distance. Like he’s stepped back from me in his head, and he’s studying me like some of the FBI agents, who are watching us, all of us, and that’s real and definitely not coming from my alphabet, but I can’t care about the agents watching us right now.
“I didn’t hurt Sunshine,” I tell Dad, who doesn’t react, but the colonel does.
“Of course you didn’t,” she says, forceful and definite. “That’s why I brought the lawyer—so nobody tries to run over you just because they think you’re an easy target. You wait. If the agents lean on Derrick even a little bit, his mother will hire three lawyers.”
I can’t stop staring at Dad and now I’m wanting to cry and I’m kind of wishing he was possessed by mean trees because maybe that would be better than realizing he thinks I might have done something awful to somebody else—and not just any somebody else, but Sunshine, for God’s sake.
“Dad,” I try again, ignoring the shouting and bellowing and moaning in my head. “How could you think I’d do anything like that?”
“I know you’d never hurt her on purpose,” he says, trying to get closer to me, but I back a step away from him.
“On purpose? I’d never do it at all.” I want him to hear me. I want him to agree with me. He has to agree with me. I can’t have my own father thinking like an alphabet voice.
He doesn’t agree with me.
My insides start a whole new kind of ache. I keep looking at him, waiting for a crack or a change or a shiver, for the moment he says he’s sorry, that he knows I’m not that kind of guy.
Nothing. He’s giving me nothing.
My chest crushes toward my heart, and I wonder if I’m going to die, because if my own father thinks I could hurt people, then who am I, really? What am I?
Freak freak freak freak FREAK freak FREAK FREAK freakfreakfreakfreakfreak…
The colonel’s face goes red along the cheekbones and she glares at the back of Dad’s head like I’m glaring at the front of it. “Johnson,” she says, using Dad’s whole first name, which is never a good thing. “You can’t be serious.”
Dad turns to her. “Not now. This isn’t the time to have this discussion, Lisa.”
“We shouldn’t be having this discussion at all, ever!” Her bright brown eyes flash at him. “I can’t believe you could—that for one second you could consider—”
She stops and I’m breathing hard and I realize some of the people around us have pulled back and folks are staring and three seconds later Mr. Watson’s coming toward us with that all-is-well somber calm-down expression he uses when people fight in class. It’s hard to take him seriously with his clothes all rumpled and his hair poking in every direction, but both of my parents go zombie quiet except for quick grunts of frustration.
“How are you tonight, Jason?” Mr. Watson asks in his most mellow voice.
Fine, I want to say because it’s automatic, but it’s not fine because Sunshine’s gone and there’s some lawyer flogging the FBI for information and my father thinks I’m a freak for real.
I keep my mouth shut. He’s almost doing the stand-too-close thing to me, but not quite. Not enough that anyone would notice.
He’s just doing his job.
“Jason’s stressed,” Dad says. “And it’s past time for his medication.”
“I’m not taking it tonight.” I look to the side of him, because I really don’t want to see his evil-tree face or his evil-tree eyes.
He thinks I could have hurt Sunshine.
Because you did, you pathetic waste of skin. You hurt her and you know it. You hurt everyone. Pain, pain, rain, rain, pain is all a game. I don’t remember the last time I played a game.
“You most certainly are taking your meds.” Dad glances at his watch, and the colonel—though her face is so different right now, it’s more Mom than military—doesn’t argue with him. Her I can look at. Her I can talk to, at least for right now.
To the colonel—to Mom—I say, “No. If I take my pills, I’ll sleep for eight straight hours. Maybe ten. I won’t be able to help find Sunshine.”
Mom doesn’t answer. Dad frowns, and Mr. Watson frowns with him. They can’t exactly hold me and stuff pills down my throat, but I guess they could drag me to the hospital and force some doc to give me a shot in the butt. That’s happened before, but only when I was already locked up in the freak house.
My right hip stings at the memory, and I remember how the dead-thick feeling spread out from the needle, down my leg and up my back until it beat on my brain and I dropped away into nothing darkness for hours, maybe days, I never can remember those times very clearly, but no way am I turning dead-thick now.
My fists clench, but I make myself relax and my fingers uncurl. My heart’s beating too hard and I’m mad because it’s not fair that I’m even having to argue this, that at my age I don’t have any more choices or any more freedom than this. A guy should at least get to decide when going nuts is worth the risk.
“Agent Mercer says the first twenty-four hours are the most important,” I remind Mom, more desperate by the second. “Nine of those hours are already gone. That leaves fifteen hours—less now—to find Sunshine, and I’m not sleeping through any of them.”
Mom opens her mouth, but Dad jumps in with, “Taking your medication isn’t open for negotiation.”
“I’m not negotiating.” Don’t be obnoxious. Don’t look at him. He’s possessed by evil trees. No, stop it, there are no evil trees. “My best friend in the world is missing. The medicines work by blood level. I’ve missed days before, by accident, and that time on vacation. One day—even two—it won’t make that much difference.”
Dad goes quiet, frowning worse, and now his cheeks look as red as Mom’s. She clears her throat, and I hold my breath, wondering if she’s going to agree or disagree but she really doesn’t do either because what she says is, “That’s dangerous thinking, Jason.”
And what I hear is, she’s hearing me, and I relax the tiniest bit inside until Mr. Watson comes out with, “We’ve gone over this in class, Jason. When you have an illness that’s under control, the most important thing is not underestimating it and getting lax with treatment.”
“I’m not getting lax with anything.” Somehow I didn’t yell that. “I’m not taking fuzzy pills and letting Sunshine down. The second we find her, I’ll take whatever pills you want. I’ll take whatever pills anybody wants.”
And Mom and Mr. Watson and Dad all look like they’re going to say something but they don’t get the chance because Agent Mercer comes striding into the room with Captain Evans right behind him. Four other agents follow, and they fan out toward Roland Harks and Linden Green, toward Drip and his mom and brothers, toward a room off to the side and when the door opens, I see Eli Patton inside. He gets to his feet as the agent goes in, but the door shuts. Then the last agent starts moving volunteers outside like cattle through a chute, fast and away, away from the people the other agents are approaching—like me.
Agent Mercer stops in front of me, and he glances from me to Mr. Watson and even gives Dad a quick brush with those cold gray eyes that seem suddenly twice as icy as the last time I saw them.
“We’ve recovered some clothing from Sunshine’s room,” he says, and waits, like he wants to see if any of us have anything to say.
All I can think is, of course they recovered clothing from Sunshine’s room. She’s a girl. She has a great big closet full of lots and lots and lots of clothes, but he’s acting like something is wrong with these clothes and—
I have to tell you something and she’s got her locket tight in her fist and she’s got tears in her eyes and I want to lift my thumbs and wipe the tears away and when I do she lets me and then she’s got her face against my chest crying and I hold her and I want her to stop stop stop crying and the clouds are coming and the stabbing knife pain is coming but I have to remember even if I promised I need to remember but it hurts it hurts so much and I don’t know how to help her until she tells me what she wants and I still don’t know how to do it but I’ll try and I’ll do my best because it’s Sunshine and I’d do anything for her even give up all my own books and games and movies I’d do anything for her even die I’d do anything for her even this and she’s wearing jeans and a gray lace shirt with hints of yellow that make her black hair and black eyes look even darker and her pale, pale skin even lighter and I have to think she’s beautiful she’s so beautiful she’s always been beautiful and
—Knives stab into my brain and my ears have to be bleeding and I’m breathing hard and the black clouds spin like tiny tornadoes in my eyes and
“… DNA sample,” Agent Mercer’s saying, and the words don’t sink in but then the knives go away and only my temples ache and the clouds stop spinning and I catch my breath and I think about crime shows and how if the police find anything with skin or body fluids on it test it and get DNA from it, especially when they want to see if the bad guy left some little part of himself behind at the scene of the crime, some little something that’ll send him to prison forever, and my alphabet voices start screaming about prison and the rest of my mind starts screaming about the clothes and what they found on the clothes and what it might mean and whether or not it was the lacy gray-and-yellow shirt and jeans Sunshine was wearing the last time we were alone and from across the room where Eli’s behind the door I hear a big bang and clatter like a table getting pitched against a wall and then I hear Drip’s mom yelling about people being crazy and why are they even asking her boys something like this and Drip trying to tell her it’s okay and he’ll do it and Linden Green’s father bellowing no f-ing way and how he’s getting an attorney and Roland’s mom is saying something like that and Captain Evans is mentioning it’s a reasonable request and cooperation would be viewed positively but none of that goes all the way in my brain because what does it mean, what does it mean, what does it mean—