Of Scars and Stardust

by Andrea Hannah

  I closed my eyes as I listened to his heart beating in his chest. Real. Solid.

  Safe.

  After a few minutes, the rhythmic thumps began to warp into a low-pitched groan. And then they slowly stretched into something like a howl.

  “Grant,” I whispered.

  He pressed his finger to my lips. “Shhh.”

  I gently pulled my ear from his T-shirt, but his heart kept howling.

  No. The wolves kept howling.

  “Grant.” I threw off the blanket and ran to the kitchen window. Another howl ripped through the cornfield.

  I felt his breath on the back of my neck as I stared out the window.

  The stalks at the edge of our yard began to shiver, and I thought for sure I was seeing things. I rubbed my eyes until they burned and looked again. Now I could hear them snapping, even through the window. Grant’s hand clasped my shoulder and squeezed.

  Nothing in the entire universe could have prepared me for what I saw come staggering out of that cornfield.

  Dad stumbled through the snow, wiping the snow off the sleeves of his jacket. He started to make his way toward the back door, and for or a second I thought he saw the graffiti. But I quickly realized he wasn’t even looking at the house.

  Dad hesitated in front of his shed, staring at the door. He circled it—once, twice—like a wolf analyzing its prey. Then he bent down to inspect the lock, turning it over in his hand.

  My pulse raced.

  Could he tell I’d tried to open the door, that I’d tugged at the lock? No, he would have said something before.

  Right?

  Slowly, Dad stood up, still staring at the door. And then he turned and stared straight at me through the window.

  twenty-seven

  “Claire, are you here?” Mom’s voice wafted in, along with a flurry of snow and a stuffed grocery bag.

  Mom. Thank God.

  “I’m here,” I called back, watching Dad wipe off his boots on the back porch.

  “Can I help you with that, Mrs. Graham?” Grant asked, and before she could answer, he had already lifted the paper bag out of her arms. Mom smiled, and then winked at me when he wasn’t looking.

  “Got any tea in there? My throat’s a little scratchy,” Dad said. He smiled at me. “How ’bout you, Claire-bear? Want some tea?”

  I stepped away from him. “No thanks.”

  He cocked his head to the side, watching me, trying to analyze me with his investigative training.

  I turned away. “Maybe you’re getting sick because you’re spending so much time outside. In the snow,” I challenged, watching as the snowflakes made webs across the windowpanes.

  Behind me, Grant sucked in a breath.

  Dad cleared his throat and said, “Well, that could be the case. Seth’s been sending me out to look for those graffiti vandals. You know, the ones that messed up the school.” He shuffled to the kettle and lit the burner.

  I caught Grant’s eye. He shook his head once, just slightly, so that only I would see. And then he went back to unpacking the groceries.

  Dad was lying. I remembered that first day in the station, when Grant and I searched the database. I’d overheard Seth telling Grant he’d been working on the vandalism case himself.

  The tea kettle screamed, and Mom hummed to herself as she poured the steaming water into two polka-dot mugs. She hooked her fingers around the handles and carried them to the table, Dad trailing behind her.

  “What do we do?” Grant murmured, handing me a bag of lettuce.

  “I think we need to get some answers,” I whispered back, “before we assume anything.”

  Grant nodded. He scooped up two loaves of bread and shoved them in the bread box on the counter. I smiled to myself. Even two years later, Grant still knew how to locate everything in my kitchen.

  I squeezed his hand. And then I turned to face my parents.

  They sat at the tiny, bow-legged table by the back window, each drinking from their mugs. Dad’s socked feet touched Mom’s bare leg as it bounced beneath the table. They looked normal, like someone else’s parents sitting in a regular kitchen, on a regular day, reading depressing news stories about things that didn’t happen to people like them. I felt a sharp pang in my chest, and I realized that I missed them like this. I missed them the way they were before I knew better. Before I knew about all the secrets they kept.

  “Claire? Grant? You guys want something to eat?” Dad asked, setting down the paper. “There’s some pie in the fridge.”

  I stepped into the dying afternoon light and slowly sank into an empty seat across from them. Grant lowered himself into the seat next to me. “Dad. I need something from you.”

  They both stared back at me blankly, and I froze. There was so much I didn’t know, so much I wanted to know—about Ella, about Sarah, about me—that I didn’t know where to start.

  Mom set her mug on the table and folded her hands, waiting. I stole a glance at Dad. His eyes roamed over me, analyzing me, checking for evidence of guilt or deception. I decided then to start with the subject that would bring up the least resistance. They both knew I’d come here to find Ella, so asking questions about her might not cause Dad to harden.

  I took a deep breath. “There are a lot of things about Ella’s case that aren’t adding up for me. Grant’s been helping me do a little research And I know you guys think I’m this fragile thing or whatever, like I can’t handle any kind of news about Ella. But I’m not, I swear. I’m not going to freak out and bust through the window and run screaming through the cornfield.” I choked back a smile, but they didn’t seem to get the joke. Dad just nodded and Mom continued to blink at me. “Dad, I need you to tell me what happened the day you found Ella. Really.” I set my hand on top of his. “The truth this time. All of it would be nice.”

  Mom pressed her lips together, over and over again like she was trying to smear on her lipstick. Dad looked at Mom. Mom looked at her mug. And I waited until I thought the silence and the wind rattling the back doorknob would shatter my eardrums. “Please,” I said. “I really need you to.”

  Dad leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The day we found Ella—”

  “Mike, don’t.” Mom squeezed Dad’s wrist, and I couldn’t help but think about Grant’s long fingers around my skin. And just like that, his fingers were there, warm and soft and safe.

  Dad carefully peeled Mom’s fingers away, one by one, looking at her like he was afraid and confident in his decision at the same time. She slid her hand away.

  “The day we found Ella, she’d been out there for at least five hours. We weren’t ever sure how much time there was between when you arrived back at the scene and when the Gillet boy showed up.”

  I stared at him, images clicking through my brain like a rusty Rolodex. The last thing I remembered was the singing, or at least I thought. But as Dad’s words melted into my brain, more ribbons of memories, snipped into bite-sized pieces, flickered to life. There I was, my bike stopped outside of Grant’s house. But by that time the police were there, the house all lit up in blue and red watery light. I couldn’t go in, I couldn’t ask them. Then they’d find Rae, and I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise. Then there was just my breath, and snow, and a mile of broken cornstalks. Running, running, running to the split-level house on the other side of the Buchanans’, the one that looked like it was made out

  of matchsticks. A boy younger than me in between the stalks near the house: blond hair that curled at the tips and heavy-lidded eyes. The one Ella had that picture of, pinned to her corkboard up in her room. Patrick Gillet.

  Patrick Gillet had been in the cornfield the same time Ella was attacked.

  Something cold prickled up inside me, but I forced it down, for now. I wasn’t ready to entertain the idea that someone Ella trusted and loved so much had hurt her so deeply.
r />   I cleared my throat. “Yeah. I remember that.”

  Dad continued. “Patrick went with you back to the field and waited until we came.” He rubbed his fingertips along the edge of the table, back and forth, back and forth. “You were sitting next to her, kind of rocking. And singing. It was … it was hard to see.”

  Mom shifted so that she could pull Dad’s fingers into hers. He patted her hand. “There was a paring knife from our kitchen there, at the scene. It was a few feet from where Ella was lying.”

  Grant’s knitted eyebrows and wobbly words popped in my head: “They didn’t find it in the field near Ella. Your mom found it in your jeans pocket the next day. She gave it to your dad, and the department sent it in for a DNA scan. It was Ella’s blood on the tip.”

  “I thought they found it in my pocket the next day?” I said to Mom, tapping my finger to my lip. How could my file at the police department say something that was so critically different from what the person who wrote it was telling me now?

  Dad looked at me—really looked at me—for the first time since he’d started talking. I thought he might be trying out his cop voodoo mind magic on me, but there was a softness lingering in the corner of his eyes that was usually impossible to find. “I was the first one at the scene. I found it there, and I knew where it came from. And I saw the blood on your hands, and I just … I just couldn’t leave it there. I couldn’t leave you there.”

  He let go of Mom’s hand and pressed his palm to his forehead. “It was wrong, and I got busted for it like I should have, anyway. Seth was on my ass after the Dunnard investigation started, and I don’t think he trusted me to scan the scene alone. He came up while I was trying to clear the evidence.” Dad sighed heavily and continued. “He found the imprint of the knife in the snow, with the blood, and he knew something had been there. I had to play stupid while we searched the field, looking for it, knowing it was in my pocket the whole time.”

  A thought bloomed in my mind and I blurted, “You wrote my reports, and you cleared all the evidence in my case out of the police database, didn’t you? So they wouldn’t ever find out you took the knife?”

  Dad shot Grant a look from across the table. “Yes, I cleared it. But not only to keep me out of trouble with Seth. To keep you out of trouble, too.”

  I felt my forehead wrinkle. Something still wasn’t adding up. “But why was Seth so suspicious of you during the Sarah Dunnard investigation? You guys had worked together for years. He’d always trusted you.”

  Dad shifted in his seat and took a swig from his now lukewarm tea. “It’s no secret that I screwed up that investigation. She just reminded me so much of you girls.” His voice cracked over the words, and Mom slid her arm over his shoulders. His face went splotchy, and for a second I was sure he was going to cry. I glanced up at Grant, who looked at me with eyes as round as moons. “She was so young—she looked like a miniature version of you, Claire—and when I found that doll in the cornfield, I just—I just couldn’t keep searching for her. It was going to kill me. I had to resign.” He looked up at me, eyes shiny with remorse.

  But I just stared back at him. I could almost feel the color draining from my cheeks, the heat dripping into my stomach and starting to burn.

  When I found that doll in the cornfield.

  I remembered the images in Seth’s secret folder, the ones he’d taken the first day of the search for Sarah. Cornstalks. Blood. Prints.

  No doll.

  I glanced over at Grant, who looked so ashen under the kitchen lights that I started to worry if he was actually breathing. After a second, his chest rose and fell, and I cut my eyes back over to Dad.

  He was still watching me, faking his crocodile tears. What kind of response did he expect from me?

  Something told me to be very, very careful.

  I blinked quickly and patted his hand. “It’s okay, Dad. It’s over now.” The words sounded limp coming out of my mouth.

  But it seemed to be enough for Dad, because he continued on. “Seth never got over that. Called my mistakes ‘irresponsible’ and ‘inconceivable.’ And then when it happened to Ella, and I saw how they got her the same way, I couldn’t let them think it was you, Claire.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. There was something still hidden under this snippet of truth, and it had everything to do with the word “they.”

  How they got her.

  Grant must have noticed it too, because he blurted out, “Why?” He pulled his hand from my wrist and slapped it to the table. “Why would you do that with evidence? You always taught me that an officer’s first duty is to protect the people, and tampering with evidence leaves them vulnerable, not protected.”

  Dad let out a low breath that came out like a whistle. “Claire is not the threat here. She’s just a girl, my little girl. I couldn’t—I didn’t want to see anything bad happen to you, Claire. But I couldn’t hide it forever. Seth suggested we search my house for the missing knife after the doctor looked at all those cuts on Ella. And I knew I had to tell them I found something. I washed it clean and gave it to him, but they still found a tiny speck of Ella’s blood on it when they sent it in.” Dad sighed and shook his head. “I’ve felt like a criminal ever since.”

  “We did it because we love you, Claire,” Mom chimed in, suddenly reanimated. “We were trying to protect you.”

  No. There was more. I wanted him to say it—to admit to me—that he’d believed in the wolves all this time. And then I wanted him to apologize a million times for trying convince me of my own insanity.

  “There’s another reason you did it,” I said, my voice even. “What about the wolves, Dad?”

  I stood, and the sound of the chair screeching against the floor echoed through the kitchen. “Ella’s attack was almost identical to Sarah’s, only you never found Sarah. There are rumors that you saw something in the cornfield when you were still looking for her a few months later, something that made you go all psycho and quit the case. And you just said yourself that I’m not the threat. So then, what is?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “You sent me away because you were afraid the wolves would find me and kill me, like they almost did Ella, like they probably did to Sarah, only you used that whole insanity plea thing to help me escape. Admit it to me. You at least owe me that.”

  “Claire.” Mom stood now, her eyes equal with mine. It was a weird moment to realize it, but I guess that’s when I noticed that we were actually the same height, me and Mom. I don’t know why I noticed it right then, but it must have had something to do with that shock thing where you think of pointless things and sing Christmas songs you hate because you’re not sure what else to do anymore.

  She took a step forward, and all of a sudden she looked like she’d grown three inches. “We sent you away because you needed help, honey. You needed to get away from here, from what had happened with Ella. You were still talking about the wolves, and not eating and not sleeping and not living. You needed space. You needed Dr. Barges’ help. We never tried to conceal anything from you.” Mom placed a tentative hand on my shoulder. “Honey, the only secrets you kept were your own. You just saw what you wanted to see that day.”

  “Does Mom know?” I whispered, staring at Dad. I was shaking and sweating and starting to feel like they’d made a mistake when they didn’t send me to Havenwood. I didn’t wait for him to answer. Instead, I ran to the hall closet and started pulling the tangle of scarves from the shelf.

  It wasn’t there.

  The other knife, the one Dad had bought from Mrs. Dunnard’s shop a few years back. The knife Ella and I had found in the closet the night of my birthday party. The one that had left an imprint in the snow in the clearing behind Sarah Dunnard’s house. The one with the blood on the tip.

  I ran back into the kitchen. Mom still stood there, and now Grant was standing next to her. They both didn’t look surprised in the least by my antics; in
fact, they almost looked sad.

  Dad still sat at the table, his shoulders slumped like I had beaten him with my words. I wasn’t done yet. “What did you see out there, Dad? When you were looking for Sarah?” I was pleading now, desperate for the truth. “If you can tell anyone, it’s me.”

  He looked at me for a long minute, his eyes ringed with bags that looked more like bruises. This was it. This was the moment that would make this whole thing right or break my heart.

  Dad pressed his hands to his face and said, “It’s not real. I don’t believe it.”

  “I believe it.” Grant sat back down at the table, his eyes locked on Dad’s. “I believe Claire. And excuse me for being a little brash, but I think you do too, Mr. Graham.”

  Dad’s head snapped up and his bottom lip hung out. The only sound was the clock ticking in the corner, the one that turned seconds into minutes and made time crawl. I held my breath in my lungs.

  But Grant didn’t stop to clear his throat or rub the skin between his eyebrows. He kept going: “You’re the one that taught me about motive, my second day in training. Remember? You said everyone has a reason for doing what they do. It doesn’t make sense, you withholding evidence from either case. Not unless you had more convincing reasons to believe that Claire’s innocent, or you found something that proves what happened to Sarah Dunnard. You wouldn’t have hidden that knife in your pocket if you believed these attacks were caused by a rabid raccoon or a crazy girl or whatever.”

  Dad rubbed his eyes, and in that second he looked more exhausted than I had ever seen him before. Than I had ever seen anyone before, really. “I never found Sarah,” he said, his voice cracking around her name. “I’m not sure what happened to her. And that’s all of it. That’s the truth. Conversation closed.” He grabbed his mug off the table and lumbered toward the sink.

  Mom gave me a withering look and followed him.

  I bit back all of the vile words I wanted to scream as I washed him rinse his mug. Seth was right; Mike Graham never told the truth, at least not all of it. The difference was that this time he wasn’t going to get away with it.