“I don’t really get it,” I told him when it ended.
“That’s why I gave up film,” Enzo said. “No one ever got what I was trying to say.”
Sometimes, Enzo wrote short stories. One of them was about a man who worked in a fortune cookie factory, whose job was coming up with the fortunes to put on the little slips of paper. One day, he realizes he’s spent his whole life telling other people what to expect in their futures without ever thinking about his own. So he sets out to discover his true fortune, which can’t be found at the center of a cookie.
“What does he find?” I asked.
Enzo shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s where the story ends.”
“I hate it when you do that to me,” I said with a groan.
Enzo thought ends were disappointing. He said when you were really immersed in a story, you started to have expectations. And the end was never as great as you imagined it could have been. Even though I mostly agreed with him, I couldn’t help wanting to know everything. I was always looking for more.
“But you must know what happened next,” I said about the fortune cookie story. “Even if you didn’t write it.”
“You’ll just have to use your imagination, kid.”
Enzo had a lot of stories—and a lot of different ways to tell them. He’d tried writing, painting, filmmaking, playing in a band. I asked him if it was overwhelming to have so many things he wanted to do. He said the storytelling was the important part, not the medium.
I wondered if I had my own story to tell, and if so, what medium I would use. I’d never wanted to be an artist, but I could see the beauty in the idea.
Later that night, I brought it up with Sundog. He said that we’re all born with our paths already in place; our job is simply to find them.
I imagined my dad would disagree. When I went to my room, I found a stack of college catalogs on my bed. There was a sticky note on the top one that said, “It’s time.” I shoved the catalogs under my bed without looking through them.
Unlike the man who worked in the fortune cookie factory, I wasn’t ready to find my future. For once, I was enjoying the present.
Chapter 22
On the Threshold of Everything
Enzo and I went to the thrift store because he liked looking for messages in books. He had a collection. He looked for school books with doodles in the margins. Or inscriptions in books that had been given as gifts. Those were the saddest, because why would someone give something like that away? Enzo had even found one book with a forgotten letter tucked between the pages.
“These notes are little pieces of history no one cares about,” Enzo told me. “But they remind you you’re not the first person to hold that book. Someone else owned it first and read the exact same words, and one way or another, it impacted them. We’re all connected.”
“That sounds like something Sundog would say.” I liked the sentiment though. It made me want to write messages in my own books.
Dusty Roses was the only secondhand store in Layton, and there were only a few other shoppers that morning. I trailed behind Enzo, watching him open books and flip through pages, then I got bored and wandered off on my own.
I could see what Enzo meant. It was weird to think about how everything there had once belonged to someone else. Why had they gotten rid of it? Did they ever think about someone else using their dishes or sitting on their couch or wearing their beat-up fedora? It felt like giving away memories.
I walked through the section of women’s clothes, running my hands along the racks as I passed. Everything smelled funny. I wondered how many of the people who shopped there didn’t have any other choice than to buy something another person considered old or broken. It made me feel a little guilty about my own closet, stuffed with clothes I seldom wore. Though that was largely my mom’s fault for continuing to buy me things that were hideous.
Out of the corner of my eye, I got a flash of hot-pink tulle. It was pretty much impossible not to see. I parted the hangers to get a better look.
The dress was a monstrosity. It must have been worn to a prom in the 1980s and spent the intervening decades forgotten in someone’s attic. In addition to all the tulle, the dress was covered in lace, with a ridiculously poofy skirt that stopped at the knee. It was so absurd that I couldn’t help but grin. I had to try it on.
I didn’t bother taking off my jeans or tennis shoes—I just pulled on the dress over them. It was a perfect fit. I admired myself in the mirror. I spun, and yards of lace flared up like a tutu.
Enzo was still examining books when I walked up behind him.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He turned, and I did another spin.
Enzo laughed. “Not bad.”
“Do you think the first owner had a good prom? I bet she did. She probably had a ton of friends, and they all chewed bubble gum and twirled their hair while talking about if they’d go all the way with their dates.”
“I wonder where she is now.”
“Maybe she married her high school sweetheart.”
“And got divorced ten years later when she realized her husband wasn’t a star athlete anymore.”
“I can always count on you to look on the bright side,” I said dryly.
He laughed. “Come on, can’t you see it? They’ve got, like, five kids, and he’s working a dead-end job and spends every night at the bar.”
“That does seem to be most people’s fate around here,” I agreed. “Except they wouldn’t get divorced. They’d stay together and make each other miserable forever.”
“And you call me a pessimist?” he said, grinning.
“Go to homecoming with me,” I blurted out.
“What?” Enzo looked baffled by the sudden change in conversation. I was a little surprised myself.
“Please?” I said before I could think about it too much. “I want to wear this dress somewhere. And it would be fun to go together.”
Granted, the last party we’d attended hadn’t been a roaring success. But I’d stay away from alcohol, and it wasn’t like I could get in another fight with Emily—we weren’t even speaking to each other.
“Hawthorn, I didn’t even go to my own homecoming dance.”
“Exactly. That’s why you should make up for it now.”
“I’ll be the same age as the chaperones.”
“Who cares?” I said. “It’ll be totally ridiculous. You can wear a suit with a Hawaiian shirt or something, and everyone will probably laugh at us, but it won’t matter. Please? I really want to go.”
Enzo smiled a little, and I knew I’d won.
“When is homecoming?”
“Next weekend, which I know is super soon, but it’s not like we really need to do anything to prepare. It won’t be a real date or anything.”
“All right. Let’s do it.”
I laughed and twirled around again. For once, I wasn’t going to be the only person in the school who didn’t go to a dance. Even if I was just going with Enzo and wouldn’t really have anyone else to talk to and would just be annoyed by the bad music, I was still going.
I paid seven dollars for the dress, which was cheap considering it was getting me to the homecoming dance. Enzo bought a fifty-cent book that had a neatly scripted haiku on the inside cover. Then we went werewolf hunting again.
• • •
The pavement ended a few miles back, but the dirt road was well maintained enough for my little Rabbit to drive down it. I was slightly nervous, because my car was still making chugging noises like a steam engine, but that sort of made the whole experience more adventurous. The road was narrow, and tree branches touched overhead. We were deeper in the woods than we normally went and much deeper than the search parties had looked those first few days, since Lizzie was on foot. But Lizzie had nothing but time. She could be anywhere.
/> Enzo was in the passenger seat, frowning at a map like it was a book written in a foreign language.
“What happens if a car comes from the other direction?” I asked. “There’s not enough space for them to pass.”
“I don’t think many people drive out here.”
“Then why is there a road and not a trail?”
Enzo shrugged.
But that was OK too. I wasn’t really worried, just making conversation. How could I be worried on a perfect fall day when I had nothing to do but wander through the woods with my friend and think about mysteries and dances? I rolled down my window and let the cool afternoon air hit my face.
A few minutes later, the road split. I stopped the car and looked at Enzo.
“It’s not on the map. At least, I don’t think it is.” He spread the map on the dashboard and pointed out where he thought we were. We both leaned in to get a closer look, and I could feel the soft sleeve of his leather jacket brushing against my arm.
“Look at how the road is kind of squiggly,” I said, tracing our path on the map. “I think that’s the right fork.”
“I think so too.”
I shivered with excitement. “I wonder why the left road isn’t marked.”
“Probably because it’s not a real road anymore. Look at it.”
I followed Enzo’s gaze. The right fork continued on in pretty much the same condition as it had been. The left side was more overgrown. Grass grew around the wheel ruts, and bushes lined the sides of the path. The woods were trying to take back the road.
“I think we should go left,” I said.
“I don’t know if your car can make it.”
“That’s OK. I don’t care if the sides get scratched up.”
“It’s not that,” Enzo said. “Look at how uneven the ground is. We don’t have a lot of clearance in this thing. It’s a Volkswagen, not a Jeep.”
“No adventure ever started with someone turning back because they weren’t in the ideal vehicle.”
“You’re crazy, kid,” Enzo said, but he was smiling, and I knew he meant it in a good way, not like how the kids at school said it.
“So left?”
“Yeah. Left.”
The road was a little worse than I thought it would be. I had to drive really slowly, and at one really big dip, the front of my car thumped against the ground. I rolled up the window, because the bushes and trees were so close that I felt like something could be waiting in the shadows to reach inside and pull me out. A couple times, a branch scraped the side of the car, making a nails on a chalkboard screech. Enzo seemed tense, but I thought the whole thing was fantastic.
I turned the radio to an AM station that was mostly just static and a few garbled words.
“What are you doing?” Enzo asked.
“Setting the mood. Now it’s really like we’re in a horror movie.”
After a while, the road widened a little, and we came to a gate. It was made of rotting wood and closed but not latched. I stopped the car. Enzo and I looked at the old gate through the windshield.
“I suppose there’s no way you’re turning back now,” he said.
“Go open it,” I replied.
Enzo didn’t move, so I got out of the car. From what I could see, the road continued on for a short distance, then opened into some sort of clearing.
I grabbed the wooden gate and pulled. Rusty hinges groaned, and the rotted wood started to collapse. I jumped back with a squeal.
Enzo finally got out of the car and looked at the pile of wood at my feet. “Well, your car certainly isn’t getting over that.”
“We’ll have to walk the rest of the way,” I said.
“What do you think is back there?” Enzo asked, peering down the dirt road. He sounded a little too hesitant for my liking.
“I think someone used to live here.”
“Maybe we should go back.”
“Are you kidding? We got this far. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
I could tell he was.
“Let me just turn my car around first,” I said.
“Why?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention to all those horror movies? If there’s a demon back there waiting to eat us, we’ll need to get away fast. Do you really want to take the time to make a U-turn?”
“How often have you been in situations like this?”
“Well, never. But I’ve thought about them a lot.”
After I had the car situated, Enzo and I started down the path. The woods around us were quiet except for our footsteps and the papery sound of dry leaves rubbing against each other.
Enzo and I didn’t talk much while we walked. He smoked a cigarette and glanced back every few feet, as if he wanted to make sure the car was still there. In all the time we’d spent looking for Lizzie, I’d never noticed how out of place he seemed in the woods. Enzo lived his life in dark rooms, making art that only he understood. The camping trip must have been Lizzie’s idea. Was she the one who got the fire going and set up the tent? Enzo could sculpt and draw and write music, but I couldn’t imagine him using his hands to drive a stake into the ground. He wouldn’t know what berries you shouldn’t eat or how to use the sun to figure out where you were. I wondered if he even knew how to use a compass.
There was a time when I thought Lizzie was the same way, that she wouldn’t have survived a weekend without a hair dryer. But Lizzie had changed. Or maybe I just never understood who she really was. Maybe a person could be equally comfortable out in the woods and at the top of a cheerleading pyramid. Just like Emily could be as comfortable playing a classical piece on the piano as she was swaying in the audience at sweaty rock concert. I used to think there were so many rules about how people could be. Maybe I was wrong.
Enzo and I reached a clearing and stopped short. It was like something from my imagination had come to life.
The farmhouse had seen better days, but it was still standing. It was possibly in better shape than some of the houses in downtown Griffin Mills. The paint was mostly gone, but the clapboard siding was intact. Same with the windows. I only saw two that were broken, both on the second floor. The steeply pitched roof was covered in moss, and a lot of shingles were missing, but it wasn’t sagging.
A sea of tall weeds separated us from the house. I could see where there had once been a path leading to the front porch, and I started in that direction. I couldn’t wait to get inside. It was like getting a second chance to explore the Griffin Mansion. This time, I wasn’t letting the opportunity pass.
“Wait,” Enzo said. “The whole place will probably collapse if we go inside.”
“Old houses were built with solid materials,” I told him.
“I hardly count you as an architectural expert, Hawthorn. This place has probably been here for a hundred years.”
“No way.” I pointed toward the front door. “There’s a porch light. It can’t be that old if they had a generator out here.”
“Well, what if there’s someone in there?” Enzo asked.
“That’s sort of the point. What if Lizzie is in there? She’s been gone for almost two months now. She must have found some kind of shelter. Maybe a cave or old mine or something. Why not an abandoned house?”
Enzo frowned and looked at the house more thoughtfully.
“I’m going in,” I told him. “You can wait out here if you want.”
This time when I started through the weeds, Enzo followed.
I tested my weight on the first two porch steps before climbing up them. They creaked, but the wood didn’t give. I stopped and waited for Enzo to catch up.
My heart pounded, and my fingertips tingled with anticipation.
“Are you scared?” he asked, dropping his voice to a whisper as he joined me on the porch.
“I feel alive.”
When we walked through the door, anything could happen. Anything at all. Maybe we would find Lizzie sleeping in an upstairs bedroom like a werewolf Goldilocks. Maybe this was the secret hideout of some serial killer, and my life was about to turn into a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Maybe we would find skeletons of a family who’d mysteriously died there. Or maybe we wouldn’t find anything at all. It didn’t matter. The important thing was that, unlike my daydreams, the house was real. I could reach out and touch it. It had a story to tell that I didn’t know the ending to. And no matter what happened when I went inside, I would always have that one perfect moment standing on the threshold when anything was possible.
Enzo was the one who finally reached out and turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked. He pushed it open, revealing a dusty corridor with rooms branching out on both sides. A staircase with a thick wooden bannister hugged one wall. We couldn’t see much else through the gloom from where we stood.
Then something really weird happened, which was that Enzo reached down and grabbed my hand. I was startled and glanced at him, but he was already stepping into the house and pulling me behind him.
It was dim inside. None of the windows had curtains, but they were so dirty, they filtered the afternoon light. Enzo and I walked slowly from room to room, and I didn’t know if my hands were sweaty because I was nervous or if it was because one of them was clasped in his.
The floorboards were covered with dirt, and I looked for footprints that didn’t match ours, but it was too hard to tell in the low light. There were a few small pieces of leftover furniture and bits of trash, but mostly there was dust. The wallpaper was peeling, the pattern so faded that I could barely see there had been a pattern to start with.
“Nothing,” Enzo whispered after we’d explored the first floor.
“Let’s go up then.”
I expected him to argue with me, but he just nodded and started up the stairs, still gripping my hand.
There was more light on the second floor, because of the broken windows. The stairs led to a long hallway, which was empty and in pretty much the same state as the rest of the house. The first room we found was a bathroom with cracked tile and a toilet filled with dark-brown water.
The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett Page 16