Of Scars and Stardust

by Andrea Hannah

“I know who you are,” Patrick said dully. “Ella said you’d find me eventually.”

  My heart jolted in my chest, and I swore Patrick could hear it fluttering against my ribs like tiny bird wings. “She said I’d come looking for you?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got something I’m supposed to give you. Why don’t you just come inside for a sec?”

  I followed him into the house and wove through a living room dotted with flannel furniture and smelling like boiled cabbage. Patrick headed toward a tiny room with bunk beds that looked like they might break if he jumped on them too fast.

  He sat on his bed and I flinched as the frame wobbled around him. And then he lifted the edge of his mattress and pulled out a pink canvas notebook.

  A diary.

  There was the missing piece of her, the one I’d been searching for, wrapped in this boy’s fingertips. And I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy poison my excitement, when I should have been feeling so many other things. How could Ella have left her secrets with him and not with me?

  Patrick leaned over warily and tossed the notebook into my lap, like if he got too close I would bite him. “Here. She gave this to me a few days before she left.” His heavy-lidded eyes flickered as he looked me up and down, and I couldn’t decide if he was just inspecting me or if he was genuinely freaked out by me. Maybe even a little of both.

  I flipped open to the first page. The Diaries of Ella Graham: Part One, it read, in wiggly purple letters.

  I felt Patrick’s eyes still on me, still watching. I lifted my head. “Have you read this?”

  He gave a stiff nod. “She told me I could.” And the way he looked at me just then sent a shiver down between my shoulder blades.

  Something about the way Patrick shrugged and stared so sadly at the book made me think of the picture, the one with Patrick’s lips grazing Ella’s temple as the sunlight poured between them.

  I looked up at him. “Did you love her?”

  “Still do,” he replied, without missing a beat.

  I flipped through the pages, watching the words blur together. “Why didn’t you just give this to me when you heard I was back in town?”

  Patrick stood up and went to the tiny window. Just past his head I could make out the bonfire still raging, smoke churning into the empty night. “She told me to give it to you when you were ready. I don’t know what ‘ready’ is to Ella, but you sure as hell made a mess of everything.” He turned around to look at me. “Seems like it’s time to know the truth.”

  I felt my heart beating in my neck. Time to know the truth.

  Did I want to?

  I didn’t know how much more truth I could take tonight.

  “I don’t believe it all, you know,” he added.

  I glanced up at Patrick. “Why wouldn’t you? You don’t even know me.”

  Patrick pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and sat still for a second, staring at the stained carpet under his feet. “I think Ella was still angry when she wrote this. She didn’t understand yet.” He looked at me. “I think she’d look at that year after the incident a little differently now.”

  Of all the things Patrick was telling me, he stunned me the most with the word “angry.” I couldn’t comprehend how Ella could have been upset with me—of all people—after the attack. I knew I should never have let her walk home alone that night, but I was the one who searched for her, who found her. I stayed with her and sang to her until the police came. I visited her every day in the hospital until they shipped me away.

  I didn’t expect angry.

  The walls felt like they had fingers, they were all so close to me. They were touching me from every corner, tousling my hair and licking my skin clean. Trapped. I felt trapped. The air was being sucked out and I was going to be stuck here with this awkward boy, destined to rot on his mud-stained carpet.

  I stood. I had to get out of here; I was suffocating. I loosened Ella’s scarf around my neck and headed for the door. I would read the diary and go to Grant’s. He had to be back home by now. And then we’d figure out what to do next.

  I couldn’t go back home to read, I realized; I couldn’t ever go back.

  I trudged through the snow, into the cornfield halfway between Patrick and Grant’s houses just as the stars began to fade and sky began to bleed into that charcoal color that comes before dawn. I plopped next to a thicket of broken stalks, and I couldn’t help but think of that day with Rae, when she told me she was leaving and I told her she was crazy. And now Rae was the one telling me I was crazy. Funny how things change.

  Sucking in a lungful of the bitter air, I started to read.

  The Diaries of Ella Graham: Part One

  January 2nd

  I overheard some of the nurses talking about Claire yesterday. I didn’t catch it all, but they said something about how they were told to watch her because she’s being investigated for my attack right now. There’s a rumor going around town that she’s crazy, that she’s going to plead crazy in court or something. And you know what? That whole rocking and crying while she watches them clean my stitches isn’t going to help her case. I gave her a note to warn her they were watching her.

  And today, she’s gone.

  She left for New York today. Mom and Dad said she’s going to stay with Aunt Sharon for a little while. They said she needs to rest for a while because the accident made her scared.

  I say it made her crazy pants for real.

  She wouldn’t leave my hospital room. She even sat there while they stapled my mouth shut. Mom told me it’s because she feels guilty about what happened. Well, she should.

  I told her I was scared. She didn’t listen.

  This is her fault.

  January 15th

  A boy came to see me today. He was waiting for me when I got out of speech therapy. It was THE boy, actually. He brought me sunflowers. Where he got sunflowers in the middle of winter, I don’t know, but I don’t care. It was perfect.

  It was even more perfect when he asked me to meet him downtown.

  So I was looking through the closet for that big purple scarf I made a few weeks ago to cover my mouth up, when I found that weird knife box. Only this time it was empty. I never did find the scarf either. Claire must have taken it with her to New York. She always gets everything.

  February 8th

  Well, Dad officially resigned as chief today. Which means he’s going to be hanging over me even more than he and Mom do now. I can’t stand it anymore. Something is always keeping me trapped here.

  March 9th

  It’s not fair that Claire gets to be in New York and I’m stuck here forever. Mom and Dad won’t let me do anything. They won’t let me see the boy. They won’t let me skip therapy. They won’t even let me take driver’s ed, like every single other person in my class. They hover over me like vultures. I have to get out.

  April 19th

  Four months since my face got ripped off, and they’re still always watching me. Every day, I feel them watching me, waiting for me to snap. I don’t know if they’re ever going to stop. I need to talk to the boy about his plans.

  Maybe they can come take me away, too.

  June 18th

  I found something today. Something very, very bad.

  I don’t know what to do about it.

  I can’t tell the police. My dad is still the police.

  I think he’s hurt someone. Maybe even killed them.

  Her attack was just like mine, only they can’t find her now.

  I’m afraid he’s going to kill me too.

  August 1st

  My counselor says I need to forgive Claire. I’m trying, I really am. But it’s hard.

  Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if she hadn’t left me. I probably would have gotten that babysitting job for the Wallace boys, and I�
�d be saving money for a car or jewelry or Cedar Point tickets, but the littlest one was freaked out by my scars. Instead I’m figuring out how to say my R’s with my new lips, like a toddler.

  Sometimes I hope I never see her again.

  The rest of the diary was just a tangle of entries about secret plans and escaping and nothing else about me. She’d been so upset that once she burned off all her anger toward me there was nothing left to write about.

  I closed the diary and clutched it to my chest.

  I wished I’d known.

  Ella’s resentment toward me cut deeper than any of the scars I’d left behind. If I had known, maybe I would have tried to come back sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have let Mom and Dad shove me out of Amble in the first place. I could have stayed with her.

  I could have taught her how to drive (after learning how to myself). I would have told Dad to let her grow up, to stop trying to snuff out all the things that made Ella Ella. I would have snuck her to picnic dates with Patrick and made her lemon­grass soup while her stitches healed. I would have held her, helped her, loved her.

  My whole body ached with regret. It was funny, because I’d always wanted nothing more than to leave my sleepy town behind, but now I wished nothing more than that I’d stayed.

  I wished I’d never left.

  Ella’s words rang in my ears: Four months since my face got ripped off, and they’re still always watching me. Every day, I feel them watching me, waiting for me to snap. I don’t know if they’re ever going to stop. Maybe they can take me away.

  The wolves. Ella was so afraid of our own father that she chose the wolves over him. She let the wolves take her from Amble instead of staying here.

  Would she have let them take her if I was still around?

  No. I wouldn’t have let them take her.

  And Dad. I could barely think about him without getting sick. While I’d been in New York skipping class, Ella was trapped here, scared out of her mind that Dad was going to try to take her life.

  Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.

  How could I have made such a mistake?

  It’s true what they say—one night, one moment can change everything.

  I wiped my eyes with Ella’s old scarf and pulled myself to my feet. I had to go to Grant’s. And as much as it hurt, I had to tell him what I’d found. I started in the direction of his house.

  Something snapped behind me. I froze.

  A shadow flitted between the stalks.

  I slid my hand into my pocket and wrapped it around the handle of Dad’s wolf knife.

  Claire, something whispered.

  I whipped out the knife. The wolves may have taken Ella, but they weren’t going to take me.

  Claire. Claire.

  Another snap, and the stalks parted. I raised the knife, and my hands shook so hard I was almost afraid I’d accidentally stab myself.

  Just then, something bulky but quick jutted out of the dark and twisted my wrist behind my back. A heavy hand clamped over my mouth.

  Dad stared into my face, his eyes wild, more animal than human. And I knew all the guilt and regret and sheer heartbreak didn’t matter anymore. It would never matter that I didn’t stay in Amble with Ella.

  Because I was going to die tonight.

  thirty-one

  I tried to scream, but Dad’s hand was so tight over my mouth that no sound came out. He dragged me to a small, oblong clearing about fifty yards from Grant’s house. I could see the gabled roof poking out over the cornstalks.

  If I could just get to him.

  “Claire,” Dad whispered into my ear, his breath hot and sour. “I’m going to release my hand as soon as you promise me you’re not going to scream.”

  I nodded.

  I was totally going to scream.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’ll even let you keep the knife on you in case you’re worried about that. I just need to talk to you. I need you to let me talk to you.”

  I froze. If he was going to let me keep the knife, then he must have some other weapon in his pocket. I wasn’t about to fall for that.

  “I couldn’t talk about what happened with Sarah in front of your mother and Grant,” he continued. “They’d think I was crazy. Have me committed. I’m not crazy.”

  A shiver crawled up my spine. I’m not crazy. Those were the same words I always used to say.

  Which one of us was right?

  “I know the wolves exist,” he said, loosening his grip on my mouth ever so slightly. “I’ve seen them too.”

  I reached up and ripped his fingers from my mouth, and he let me. I twisted my other arm free and stumbled back, holding his knife out in front of me. Dad just stood there, palms out, watching me.

  “You’ve seen them?” I said, panting. “You’ve seen them, and this whole time you tried to tell me I was crazy?” I took a step toward him. “You sat there, in front of Mom, and told me that I was delusional, that the wolves weren’t real. That there had to be some other explanation for why Ella disappeared. You let everyone in Amble think I was crazy. And now you’re telling me the truth?” I clenched my fist around the knife. “You have no idea how tempting it is to use this right now.”

  Dad lifted his hands above his head—a cop move—and said, “You have every right to be angry with me.”

  My anger softened just a little. Just enough to lower the knife. “Why would you do that to me?’

  “It’s more complicated than that, Claire,” he said.

  “Why don’t you try explaining it to me. All of it, this time.”

  Dad cleared his throat. “I was your age the first time I saw them. Or one, I should say. A female. She was watching me from the cornfield as I was getting into my old truck. Gray fur. Yellow eyes. I tried to tell people about it, but they never believed me. They said I’d been listening to too many Amble wolf stories. So I learned to keep my mouth shut. I saw them periodically after that, but not often.

  “Then, a few years back, they started following me again. I heard them everywhere. The stalks would rustle, and I heard their howls almost every night. They were driving me crazy. So I went into Candice Dunnard’s new little shop on Main and looked at the wolf things she had in there. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, just something to keep them away. I bought the knife,” he said, nodding toward my hand.

  “Two years ago, I was out in the stalks, looking for some kid’s stolen bike. That’s always where I used to look for things like that first—in the little clearing by the lake, not far from the Dunnards’ place. Lots of kids went up there, and I almost always found something.”

  I nodded slowly. It was true. Everyone hung out at that clearing, and almost always something was left behind. The last time I’d been there, I’d left Ella behind.

  Dad rubbed his hand over his bald head and continued. “I was near that clearing when I hear something. A growl. And then I saw the eyes and the teeth and everything. I thought it was going to attack me, but it had a different target.”

  “Sarah,” I breathed.

  Dad nodded. “I watched it stalk her, snap at her. So I got out the knife and I, uh, used it.”

  I looked at the knife in my hand. At the crimson staining its tip. “Then why didn’t you bring the body back to town, so people could see they’re real?”

  Dad suddenly got quiet. He smeared a clump of snow with his boot. “Because the wolf was too quick,” he said slowly. “And I stabbed Sarah.”

  My stomach lurched and I tried to blink away the images of the blood-splattered cornstalks near the Dunnard house. “You killed her,” I whispered.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Dad said, and the sadness in his voice made his words sound heavy. “It was an accident. I was trying to protect her from the wolves.”

  “What’d you do with her?”

  �
�Buried her. Far away from here.”

  I sucked in a breath, trying to collect my thoughts. “So you tried to cover it up by taking the doll and cutting down the cornstalks. You tried to call it a missing persons case,” I said slowly, “but someone took pictures of the scene before you could clean it all up.”

  “Seth,” Dad said.

  “But why?”

  “I—I couldn’t remember what had happened for a while after that. I kind of just ‘woke up’ and I was back at the house, reading the paper. Then I got the call about Sarah being missing, and I went to the scene to check it out. That’s when I found her. I guess I panicked then. I kept telling Seth not to come up there, that I could handle it myself. He must have thought that was fishy. He came up there while I was—while I was taking care of her body and snapped the photos for evidence. But that’s not the information I shared with reporters.”

  “He has a file,” I said. “Seth’s keeping all those pictures in a file with your name on it. I don’t know why—”

  “Blackmail,” Dad said grimly. “He told me he had proof I’d killed Sarah. Said he’d shout it from the rooftops if I didn’t step down as chief and let him take my place.”

  My mouth dropped open. I always knew I hated something about Seth. It turned out it was because he was a sneaky, conniving creep. “Why didn’t you just tell the truth? Why did you just tell him there was a wolf, that you were trying to protect her?”

  Dad laughed, and the sound bounced in the space between us. “Claire, you know people don’t really believe in the wolves. If I’d tried to pawn off Sarah’s death on some legend after my knife was found at the scene, I’d be in jail right now. Or worse—Havenwood.”

  The wind lashed at my cheeks and chapped my hands. It was suddenly very, very cold. I shoved the wolf knife back in my pocket and tucked my hands into my jacket. “You should have at least told Ella,” I said. “Then I don’t think she would’ve left.”

  Dad’s forehead wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”