Of Scars and Stardust

by Andrea Hannah

  When I’d called Grant about wanting to investigate the Alpena area more, he’d gotten strangely quiet. I mean, Grant was usually quiet, but in a thoughtful way. Not in a freaked out way. I didn’t know what it was about that map, or that town, but he froze up whenever I mentioned it. I realized that the only way I could get him to help me figure out what was there was to tell him the truth.

  And so, I told him part of it. I asked him for a lift to the library, and on the car ride over I told him about the note Ella had pressed into my hand at the hospital, about the wolves and the warning. Grant didn’t say much in response, but he didn’t tell me I was crazy either. I guessed that was a start.

  I pointed to the map on the computer screen. “Here. Up here, almost at the top of the state. This is where the packs originated.”

  Grant leaned over me and squinted at the screen. He smelled like some kind of ocean breeze shampoo and peppermint. “Where does it say that?” he asked, wrinkling his forehead.

  I glanced around the dank little library. In the corner, a girl with long dark hair and way too much eye makeup watched us. I dipped my head below the monitor and whispered, “Are you done with your million-and-one questions? A hundred different websites have confirmed it.” I tapped the screen just north of Alpena. “This is where the wolves came from.”

  Grant nodded slowly, his eyes glazed over. “Yeah.”

  I snapped my finger in front of his nose and he twitched back to life. “It says it right here,” I said, pointing. “‘In 2008, the DNR reintroduced wolves to the northern lower peninsula, where they successfully bred. All lower peninsula wolf packs originated from this region.’”

  My eyes scanned the fuzzy map on the screen. Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the northern tip of Ohio were flecked with blue: wolf migration patterns. I reached for the mouse to click out of the website. But just before I tapped, a pinprick of blue flashed over the right side of the screen. I leaned in so close that the dust lining the edge of screen tickled my nose.

  “Grant, look. Do you see this?” I whispered. “That’s totally blue there, right?”

  Grant’s eyes darted to the screen, almost like he was afraid to look at it. But when he saw the fleck of blue positioned over New York City, his eyebrows drew together and he blinked at the screen. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, right there. Looks like one little speck of wolves found their way to New York. Probably just one pack.”

  I smiled to myself. “I knew there had to be wolves there. And Dr. Barges told me there couldn’t be any.”

  “Who?” Grant was staring at me, his face inches from mine.

  I felt the start of a blush blooming on my cheeks. “Oh, um. No one.”

  Grant swiveled his chair away from the computer. Something about the way his shoulders slumped and how he kept picking at his fingernails made me wonder if he secretly thought I was out of my mind, even though I knew he’d seen that blue fleck on New York City. But the way he wasn’t clearing his throat told me he didn’t really have anything to say to me.

  “Hey Grant,” came a voice over top of the monitor. I peeked up and saw the girl with the long hair and the caked-on mascara that made her eyelashes look like fat caterpillars. She glanced at me and gave me a tight smile, the kind without teeth. “What are you doing here?”

  Just then, it came flashing back to me, like a wad of algae or a lost flip flop or something pulled from the bottom of Lark Lake that made the sand pucker. Lacey Jordan. We’d gone to school together a hundred years ago.

  Grant’s ears grew pink and his knuckles turned white around the mouse. “Just looking some things up,” he said.

  Lacey nodded before he even finished talking and immediately snapped her eyes onto me. She pressed her lips into smile again and said, “Claire Graham, right? Do you remember me?”

  I returned the courtesy smile and said, “Kind of. Well, we were just on our way out.” I stood, clicking out of the browser. The last thing I wanted to do today was pretend to have a nice talk with Lacey Jordan.

  It seemed to offend Lacey that I wasn’t fawning all over her like all the guys in school did—mostly because they knew how she’d given it up to a senior in the cornfield one night—because her smile quickly disappeared. “So, I thought you weren’t ever supposed to come back to Amble, isn’t that right?”

  I blinked at her for a minute and then turned to Grant, who was still fiddling with his stupid fingernail at the desk. “What do you mean, I’m not supposed to come back to Amble?” I asked. Unfortunately, it sounded more confident in my head.

  Lacey shifted her massive, ugly purse and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Oh, just some silly rumor that you’re, like, not even allowed to set foot here because of what happened to your sister.” She cocked her head to the side. “So what are you doing here?”

  I felt like I’d swallowed an ice cube and it was slowly, slowly sliding down my throat, coating everything inside me in cold. My mind churned like bath water sloshing out of the tub: the way Dad had pulled me out of Ella’s hospital room right when she was starting to recognize me again; the one-way ticket, wrapped in an orange holder, stuck quietly into my purse. How I was never invited back to Amble to visit.

  “Lacey, stop.” Grant was standing now, but I didn’t re-member him standing up. He pressed his palm in between my shoulder blades, and the coldness inside me started to melt. “Come on. Do you think they would have let her leave if she was guilty?” His hand slid up my shoulder so that his fingertips brushed against my neck. “Those are just rumors.” But he didn’t sound so sure when he said it.

  My head snapped up to look at him, and I tried to swallow down the panic rushing into my chest. “What do you mean—guilty?”

  But Grant didn’t answer. Instead, his grip around my shoulder tightened and he shot Lacey a death-look.

  Lacey stared at Grant’s hand on my shoulder for a long time before her eyes flicked back to my face. “Mmm. Rumors. Just like those rumors about how your dad screwed up the evidence when he was out looking for Sarah Dunnard and couldn’t wrap up the case. Some people even say he hid evidence on purpose, that he went all psycho out there. But those rumors turned out to be true, didn’t they? Runs in the family, I suppose.” She batted her fat eyelashes at me before turning to Grant. “I have to get to the salon before it closes, so I’d better run. Will I see you at my New Year’s Eve party tomorrow? My mom’s out of town.” She smiled again, and this time she actually looked pretty, younger. Even though I hated her.

  Grant shrugged, but he didn’t move his hand from my shoulder. “We’ll see.”

  Lacey pulled a pair of leather gloves from her purse. She looked me up and down and said, “Better watch it, Grant—you know how Amble doesn’t like crazy.” And then she sauntered through the library, waving back at us with a quick flick of her hand.

  I watched her go, but the only thing I felt was the warmth of Grant’s hand on my neck, and the way it felt heavy and light at the same time as it slid down my arm. He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and squeezed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  I pulled away from him, the corners of my eyes prickling with heat. “What’s going on, Grant?” Those were the only words I could choke out without completely losing it. I just had to hope he knew what I meant.

  Grant tipped his head back and sighed. “Claire, I think we need to talk.”

  I took a step back from him, hoping he couldn’t see my hands shaking. “We couldn’t have ‘talked’ when you drove me home from the diner? When we went to the police station? When I called you this afternoon?” I took another shaky step back. “You’ve had a lot of time to tell me what the hell is going on with—with my dad, with Ella, with me. And you didn’t.” The last words cracked on my lips on their way out, and I knew I couldn’t talk to him anymore.

  I weaved through the stacks of books and ancient computer des
ks toward the front of the library, past the million pairs of eyes following after me.

  What did they see when they looked at me?

  Guilty.

  Crazy.

  I threw open the door and stepped out into a day the color of quiet, with thoughts that screamed violently in my head.

  nineteen

  I stomped through the streets of Amble, smashing the snow under my boots with satisfaction. I didn’t want to talk to Grant; I couldn’t. Not yet.

  I was halfway to my house when a heard the chugging of an engine creep up behind me. I kept going, eyes forward even when I heard it slowing down.

  “Claire,” Grant said, his voice windswept and breathless. “Please. At least let me take you home.”

  I shook my head and kept walking.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you,” he continued, practically yelling out the passenger window. “I should have.”

  Something snapped just then, and all of my guilt and shame and sadness roared out of me. In a split second I was next to the truck, staring at Grant, clutching the edge of the open window. I wanted to scream at him, punch him, at least tell him what an asshole he was for keeping all this a secret from me. But the only word that would come out was, “Why?”

  Grant’s face melted as he reached over to push open the door. “Get in. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  I sucked in a breath and pulled myself into the truck’s cab. I wanted the truth. I knew I did. But the possibility of what Grant had to say to me right now felt like a brick wall, one built on top of my rib cage, crushing oxygen from my lungs.

  I stared at him. “Go on.”

  He rubbed the skin between his eyebrows and swallowed. “The police found you in the cornfield, next to Ella. I guess … you were pretty shaken up.”

  Shaken up was an understatement. I remembered my heartbeat rattling in my chest; blood—hot and red—slicing across the snow; flashes of diluted blue and red lights reflected on my skin. Humming. Screaming.

  “Your dad was too, obviously. And in any case like this, where there’s a person in the immediate vicinity of a victim, there has to be a formal investigation. Your dad … he couldn’t do it. So he called in the team from Toledo.” Grant reached out to touch me, but I pulled my hand away before his fingers grazed mine. “They named you a suspect as soon as they came into town.”

  And in a snap of an instant, I was back at the station, across from some detective I’d never seen until that day. His questions flooded my mind:

  Where were you before you found her in the field?

  Why were you looking for her over a mile from your home?

  How did you know she was at that location?

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. I was totally going to pass out. I heard Grant shift in his seat and then his hand was on my back, keeping me steady. It the only thing keeping me from tumbling out of orbit. “But how—” I started.

  “How did you not get charged with anything?” Grant said. “I’m sure there’s a reason.”

  “There has to be a reason,” I repeated, rubbing my eyes. Suddenly, the weight of this day had left me exhausted. “Cops don’t just let criminals go scot-free.”

  “I suppose—if I had to guess—I’d say it had something to do with the fact that there wasn’t a weapon or anything like that at the scene. How could they charge you?”

  How could they charge you? Grant’s words rang in the space between my ears. The fact that they even suspected me at all made my stomach ache.

  “Some of the residents weren’t pleased, though. They kind of thought it was an open-and-shut case after you were found at the scene.” Grant paused to swallow, and I could practically see him contemplating his next words. “And then when they heard about you singing and talking about wolves … well, it made them even angrier that you didn’t admit you were guilty and just plead insanity.”

  Guilty.

  Crazy.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” I whispered. I pressed my palms to my face to hide the heat creeping into my cheeks. All this time, I’d been asking Grant to help me find Ella, when he already knew about her case and what everyone thought of me. I’m sure I looked crazy to him.

  Grant shifted again, and this time he wrapped his arm over my shoulder and squeezed. “I didn’t want you to think that of yourself,” he whispered into my hair. “I know you wouldn’t hurt Ella. I saw how much you loved her.”

  I gently pulled away so I could look at him. “I have to find Ella. I have to figure out what happened to her. Everyone needs to see that I didn’t hurt her. She has to tell them.” I pulled the fat square from my pocket and smoothed it out. I tapped the frantic red ink stains near the top of Michigan. “I have to know what’s up here.”

  I have to know if the wolves took her there. If she knew that’s where they’d take her.

  Grant tipped his head back and closed his eyes. After a minute he said, “There’s one thing I know of in Alpena that might’ve attracted Ella there, if she went on her own.”

  “What?”

  Grant sighed. “That’s where Rae lives now.”

  twenty

  The whole thing was easier to plan than I’d thought it would be. After Grant told me that Rae had moved up to Alpena when she and Robbie broke up and her mom didn’t want her back in Amble, I knew my next step was to go there. The wolves were there, and the person who told the best stories about them was too.

  We agreed that if we were going to go, we’d have to go soon, while there were enough distractions. I told my parents that Grant had invited me to go with him to a New Year’s Eve party, but I didn’t say whose. I didn’t really have to; everyone in Amble knew that Lacey Jordan always threw the craziest parties in the clearing behind her house. There were always tubs of liquor that Lacey’s older brother brought home from his college frat house, and everyone and anyone looking for a drink seemed to find their way to the clearing like a moth to a flame. Sometimes even adults. In fact, I think the only person in town who hadn’t been to one of Lacey’s parties was her mother. Mrs. Jordan worked forty-five minutes outside of Amble, and often had to stay at her job during the week to finish up paperwork. By the time she got home the next morning, every last liquor bottle and pile of puke was always gone. Good thing, too—Mrs. Jordan was not one of those people I’d like to see pissed off.

  As it turned out, Rae was right all along: holidays really are the best time to plan an escape. I would have to thank her for that tip when I saw her. Mom and Dad usually hosted their own New Year’s Eve party every year—it was one of those things that distracted them for days prior as they argued over how much liquor was appropriate to use when spiking punch.

  So that’s what I’d been expecting when I made my plans with Grant, but there was no gaudy punch bowl or greasy cocktail weenies this year. There was no party, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it had everything to do with Dad’s resignation and the bitterness of the town that still stained our aluminum siding. But it didn’t matter anyway; they’d planned a quiet dinner alone, and acted almost relieved that I’d have something to do with myself.

  They didn’t even seem to care when Grant’s truck rumbled into the driveway at four o’clock, daylight still spilling through the kitchen windows. Mom hugged me with one arm while she zipped up her dress with the other and Dad said “Have fun” while searching for his favorite tie.

  “Hey,” Grant said, and somehow it meant more than “hey.” His eyes were round and iridescent, like green marbles lit up under the sun. His cheeks and nose were flushed, and for the first time since I’d seen him, his mouth stretched into a broad grin. “You ready?”

  “Yep,” I said, and I felt the corners of my own mouth hitch into a smile.

  Everything about Grant was contagious, especially the calm he radiated from every inch of his body. Most people seem
itchy in their own body, like they can’t wait to get home and unzip their skin. But Grant was always content with wherever he was, even if it was in a truck for a four-and-a-half hour drive up to Alpena to hunt for wolves he wasn’t sure existed, and to see a sister that didn’t really either.

  I watched him as we drove, the ice collecting in dangerous ringlets on the trees as we got farther north. His shoulders slumped in his seat and he laid his head back as he drove. If I wanted to, I could probably have leaned over and looked up his nose. It seemed like an odd position to be in, driving on an ice-splattered highway while looking like you’re ready for a nap instead.

  Two hours into the trip, just as I felt my head bobbing against the window, my phone buzzed in my lap.

  “Phone,” Grant murmured, his voice was heavy, almost like it had woken him up too.

  I touched the screen and saw Danny’s name grinning up at me.

  When r u comin back?

  I stared at the cursor, blinking, waiting. I’d sent Danny a text the day I left for Amble; I’d practically begged him to meet me at the train station to kiss me goodbye. But he never responded, just like he hadn’t on my birthday. And now he wanted to know when I was coming back? Why now?

  A week ago, I would have told him I was coming back as soon as I could, that I missed him and couldn’t wait to see him again, that I was sorry for being a freak that day, it wouldn’t happen again. But now I didn’t feel like it.

  I clicked the phone off and threw it into my purse.

  Grant rubbed his eyes and asked, “Was that your mom?”

  “No,” I said. “It was no one.”

  He nodded and leaned forward to flick on the radio, which sounded crackly and dry through the speakers. That was another awesome thing about Grant that I’d forgotten these past couple of years: he waited for you to tell him things instead of forcing them out of you. And if you never told him, that was okay too.

  It was like we were in a time warp, because I swore we’d been talking about who was texting me just a second ago. But then I lifted my head from the window and saw stars flecking the inky sky. Grant yawned next to me and reached over to pat my knee.