Evie shook her head. “Jeez-us!” She stabbed the knife hard into the lawn so that only the handle stuck out. “This isn’t one of your freaking stories, Lisa. This is real life.”
“Exactly,” Lisa said. “And that’s why I keep going back. Because this is really happening. They’re down there. And before the summer’s over, I’m going to find a way to prove it.”
“Just say you’re right,” Evie said. “Say the fairies are real. What if it was them that made that whole town disappear?”
“Exactly!” said Lisa, excited that Evie was finally starting to get the importance of what was happening.
Evie shook her head, pulled the knife out of the ground, and wiped the dirty blade off on her sleeve. “If they did that to a whole town, just think what they could do to one twelve-year-old girl.”
Lisa took a breath, watched Evie clean her knife. The fairies weren’t dangerous. How could Evie think they were?
“You shouldn’t be down there alone,” Evie said.
Maybe it wasn’t that Evie was worried or scared about what was happening in Reliance. Maybe she was just jealous.
“Okay,” Lisa agreed, crossing her fingers behind her back. “We’ll go together next time.”
“Promise you won’t sneak off on your own?”
“Promise.”
Evie put her knife in its sheath and lay down on her back in the grass beside Lisa. She blew out a long, dramatic breath.
Lisa turned to Evie. “I think it’s sweet that you want to protect me,” she whispered. “But I don’t really need protecting.” She felt Evie’s body stiffen beside her. Lisa pushed herself up on her elbow and studied her cousin. Evie’s body seemed all wrong to Lisa. Her forehead too broad, her nose too small for her round face. It was like Evie was put together from a bunch of mismatched parts.
“Evie?”
“Yeah?”
“I heard my mom yelling at you earlier. About Gerald. It sounded bad.”
Evie chomped on her lower lip and shrugged. “It wasn’t too bad, I guess. Aunt Phyllis said I’d gone too far. And that I need to stay away from Gerald. His mom’s real pissed. His arm’s broken in three places.” She gave the tiniest hint of a smile.
Lisa nodded, thinking her mom’s warning must not have sunk in at all if Evie was already having secret meetings with Gerald.
“Has your mom said anything to you lately? About my dad, I mean?”
Evie was quiet a minute, staring up at the sky. “Nah,” she said at last.
“What do you think? About Da? Does he seem any better to you?”
“I don’t know, Lisa.”
“That’s bull. Tell me the truth, Evie. This is me.”
She sighed, turned onto her side, inching a little closer to Lisa. Her breath smelled sweet and fruity. “He seems the same, I guess. No better, no worse.”
“He’s like a zombie,” Lisa said. “Some days I look at him and I don’t think he’s inside there at all. I talk to him, get right up in his face, and whisper in his ear, and he just looks right through me.”
She thought of the Red Sox cap she’d found in the woods—the one Pinkie’s bogeyman had been wearing. Was it possible Da had gotten up? If it wasn’t him, who’d taken his hat?
“It’s like he’s an empty husk,” Lisa continued. “I don’t know if it’s the sickness or all the medicine they’ve got him on.”
Evie chewed her lip, considering. “A little of both, probably. But he’s in there, still. I can tell.”
Lisa shook her head. “I feel like I don’t have a dad at all anymore.” As soon as she said it, she realized it was a dumb thing to say to Evie, who’d never known her dad. No one even knew who her dad was. When Hazel got pregnant at sixteen, everyone had their theories—it was a married man with a family of his own; she was raped; it was the retarded janitor in the nursing home where she worked weekends; it was one of the male residents of the home. Lisa had grown up hearing everyone around her discuss it in hushed conversation: her parents, the people in Jenny’s Café, even old ladies who volunteered at the town library—they all wondered who Evie’s father might be.
“I’m sorry,” Lisa told her. “That was a dumb-ass thing to say.”
Evie shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Do you ever think about it?” Lisa asked. “Who your dad might be?”
She didn’t answer.
“Evie?”
“No one would believe us if we told.”
Lisa sat up. “So what? You’re saying you know who he is? She told you?”
“Forget it,” Evie said.
“Evie.” She put her hand on Evie’s arm. “You’re not allowed to keep secrets from me, remember? Especially not something this big.”
Evie frowned, plucked up a handful of grass. “There’s a lot you don’t know,” she said.
“So tell me,” Lisa said. Lisa crossed her fingers, showed them to Evie. “We’re like this, you and me. Remember?”
Evie closed her eyes. “Remember what I said about how I started going to church?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s this picture there, in stained glass. It’s the Virgin Mary. She’s got on that blue robe, and her face is all serene and peaceful. But you look down, and there, under her bare foot, is this huge snake. And she’s holding it there, crushing it.”
Lisa nodded. She couldn’t imagine where Evie was going with this, but she wanted her to keep talking. Maybe it would be like a ball rolling downhill—once she started, she’d just keep going, faster and faster, until everything was out and there were no more secrets.
“Sometimes when I’m there, I just scrunch down in the pew and stare at that window. And you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking—I know how that feels. The snake is like . . . like evil, like secrets, and she’s trying to hold it there, to crush it. And maybe she can, ’cause she’s Mary, she’s the mother of Jesus, but who am I? I’m nobody.” Evie’s eyes were full of tears.
“Evie,” Lisa said, reaching out to stroke Evie’s unruly hair. “If you’d just . . .”
“Bioluminescence!” Sammy appeared at their feet, a jar of fireflies in one hand, a net in the other.
“What?” Lisa said, furious that he’d interrupted them. Now Evie would never talk. Evie sat up, rubbing her eyes hard, blinking at Sam.
“Fireflies. Glowworms. Deep-sea marine life. Maybe there are other insects that can do it. Something that hasn’t been discovered yet. Maybe that’s what we saw in the woods.”
He was studying the fireflies in the glass mason jar, blinking green lights.
“What we saw wasn’t fireflies!” Lisa snapped. “Or any distant cousins of fireflies.”
“Right,” Sam said. “Because fairies are the logical choice. Why not leprechauns?”
Evie laughed and said, “Yeah, like the Lucky Charms guy. Magically delicious.”
“Would you get serious?” Lisa scolded.
Evie nodded and said, “I’m so serious. This is big, Lisa. Really big. Maybe it is the wee folk and they’ve come to take you to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!”
Lisa couldn’t believe this was the same person who’d just been telling her about the stained-glass window.
Sammy started singing a horrible, chortling rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while Evie quit laughing long enough to gasp, “Stop! You’re going to make me pee myself!”
“Would you guys quit it!” Lisa yelled. They only laughed harder, both their faces bright red.
“You’re just jealous,” Lisa said, but they were too busy making fun to even hear her.
She turned away from Evie and Sam, looked at the old penny and the Saint Christopher medal on her bracelet. It didn’t matter what the others thought. Maybe these gifts had a purpose, a reason. Maybe they told a story. Or maybe they were some
thing she’d need at some point—magic charms. Talismans.
There was one thing she was sure of—she was ready to take the next step. And Evie and Sam weren’t going to be a part of it.
That night, once she was sure Evie was sound asleep, Lisa snuck back out to the cellar hole on her own and left a note folded neatly under a pile of sugar cubes.
I want to meet you. Please.
CHAPTER 21
Phoebe
JUNE 11, PRESENT DAY
“We’re on our own tonight,” Evie called from the kitchen when Phoebe came through the door, drawn in by an intoxicatingly sweet smell.
“I baked a cake,” Evie said. “From that Betty Crocker mix you got. I was going to make pasta, but since it’s just you and me, I thought maybe we could skip the pasta and go right for the cake.”
“Where’s Sam?” Phoebe asked, doing her best not to sound pissed off or disappointed. She headed into the kitchen, watched Evie (who was wearing the python draped around her neck like a scarf) spread blobs of canned vanilla frosting onto the pink, strawberry-flavored cake. Just looking at it made Phoebe’s teeth hurt. But the idea of cake for dinner sounded perfect. It was something Sam would never consent to. And the food they cooked at home was always so wholesome—it was nice to take a little break. Even when they went out, it was often to the vegan place Sam loved where everything tasted like paste and she’d once had the misfortune of ordering macaroni and “cheese,” not realizing it would be spelt noodles covered in mashed tofu and white beans.
Cake for dinner probably wasn’t the best thing for the baby, but it was better than nothing, right? And these days, with her stomach the way it was, she was just grateful that anything at all appealed to her, even if it was pure sugar.
“He left a message on the machine. He’s working late, then having dinner with his mom.”
Phoebe felt herself stiffen. Sam ate regular dinners there once a month, and when he did, he always brought Phoebe along. Did this mean he’d go straight to Reliance on his own from there? Was he going to tell his mother the truth about everything? Confide in her now that he’d pretty much shut Phoebe out.
“Great,” she said, a fake smile plastered on her face. “All the more for you and me.”
Phoebe allowed herself one beer even though she knew she shouldn’t. She justified this by telling herself that she might not be keeping the baby anyway. Not with things with Sam the way they were. But if they were to make a choice, that particular choice, they’d have to move quickly, which meant she needed to take the first step and tell him she was pregnant. But how, with him being so distant? What was she supposed to do—leave him a cell phone message? An e-mail? A note tucked under the wiper of his truck?
“This is really good,” Phoebe said, diving into her second piece of cake. “Wait until Sam hears what he missed. He’s probably suffering through one of his mom’s tofu casseroles right now,” Phoebe said. Idiot. How could he just ditch her like that? On this of all nights.
She reached into the pocket of her khakis and touched the little bag of teeth. It was silly, really, keeping it with her. But she felt like it somehow tied her to Lisa. Like if she held on to it, maybe she’d stand a chance of finding out the truth. Phoebe didn’t consider herself a superstitious person, but she believed there was more to this world than meets the eye. And carrying around a few ancient horse teeth for luck couldn’t hurt, could it? When she’d called Sam’s mom to report what Dr. Ostrum said about the teeth, Phyllis had thanked her. Phoebe offered to drop them off, and Phyllis said, “No need to bother, dear. Why don’t you keep them? It seems a fitting addition to your odd little collection.”
If the teeth were a treasure of Lisa’s, then Evie might remember them. Maybe she’d even know the story behind them.
Phoebe pulled the bag from her pocket, placed it on the table.
Evie pushed back in her chair, nearly losing her balance, as if Phoebe had just dropped a severed limb onto the table.
“Where did you get that?” Evie looked at Phoebe with fear and suspicion.
“It was Lisa’s,” Phoebe said.
“I know,” Evie said. “The teeth. All those ugly yellow teeth. They were the first gift he left for her. Before she even knew who he was. He came into her room and left them on her goddamn bed.”
“He?”
“Teilo. Where’d you get them, Phoebe? Was it Sam? Did he have Lisa’s teeth?”
“They’re horse teeth. Old horse teeth.”
“I know what they are,” Evie said. She was breathing faster now, struggling a little with each inhalation. “But I don’t think you do. You shouldn’t have them, Phoebe. Anything of Teilo’s, it’s full of magic. Bad magic. It links you to him. Do you understand?”
Phoebe nodded, put the teeth back in her pocket. “I don’t believe in magic,” she said.
“You will,” Evie said.
They ate in silence, forks scraping against plates. Their chewing seemed unnaturally loud.
“Sorry I freaked out like that,” Evie said as she stood to clear the table. There was only one square of cake left, and they’d decided to save it for Sam. “The teeth always kind of creeped me out. And I wasn’t expecting to see them again. I thought Lisa had them with her when she left. The teeth and the charm bracelet. The two things she was never without. Her goddamn gifts from the fairies.” Evie set the dishes back down on the table, reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. Phoebe knew she should stop her, knew Sam would throw a fit when he came home and smelled cigarette smoke, but what was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she could tell Evie to step outside to light up. “So where’d you get them, Phoebe? Did Sam have them?”
“No. Of course not. Why would Sam have had them?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you could tell me. He was the last one to see her that night. And I always thought . . .”
“What?” Phoebe asked, sounding more defensive than she’d meant.
“That he knew more than he was saying.”
Phoebe considered this, wondering if Sam knew something more about Lisa’s disappearance. Mr. Lisa-was-taken-and-there’s-nothing-we-can-do-about-it-so-let’s-all-just-get-on-with-our-lives. Was it possible he was keeping something from them? Some secret he’d been carrying for fifteen years but which was slowly, steadily clawing its way to the surface? It would certainly help explain why he was acting like such a freak lately.
She remembered her conversation with Becca: there are things Sam’s not telling you.
“I know it’s been hard on you two with me staying here,” Evie said.
Phoebe shook her head. “Not at all.” She managed another smile, which she sensed Evie saw right through. Evie pushed the hair back out of her eyes.
“Been awhile since I’ve visited the salon,” she said apologetically.
“I could cut it,” Phoebe said, worried she’d sounded a tad too enthusiastic. “I mean, if you want me to. I cut Sam’s hair. And do some of the grooming at the clinic—not that I’m comparing you to a poodle or anything, but I can handle a pair of scissors.”
“I’d love it,” Evie said. “Do whatever you want. When I was a kid, I let my hair get so badly tangled once that my mom had to shave me bald. Some people have the head for it. Mine’s all lumpy. Lisa said it looked like a stubbly potato.”
Phoebe laughed. “No potato haircut. I promise.”
They pulled the kitchen table to one side. Evie grabbed a chair and Phoebe fetched the scissors.
“So what’s the story with this?” Phoebe asked, touching the key dangling from the chain around Evie’s neck.
“Lisa gave it to me. She told me this story that summer about two sisters who went on an adventure with a magic key that was supposed to save them. She said this was the key.”
Phoebe walked around Evie, trying to visualize how to turn the dark tangled mop of hair into somethi
ng a little more stylish.
“Wanna know the crazy thing? I’ve worn it every day since. I guess I somehow had this idea that one of these days I’d get the chance to use it—that maybe this dumb key was going to help me save Lisa. Stupid, huh?”
“I don’t think it’s stupid at all.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in magic,” Evie said.
“I don’t. But I believe in hope.” She went back to studying Evie’s hair, wondering where to begin.
“Full moon tonight,” Evie said, as if Phoebe didn’t know.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Do you think he’s going to go?” Evie asked. “To Reliance?”
“I have no idea,” Phoebe admitted. “We were planning to go together, but he hasn’t said anything about it in days. Maybe he’s decided to just let the whole thing go. To try to forget about it. He’s kind of perfected it to an art over all these years, so why change anything now?” She bit her lip, thinking she’d said too much. The beer had gotten to her, made her feel warm and open. She ran her fingers through Evie’s hair, deciding to start at the front.
Sam’s warnings echoed in her head: Evie shouldn’t be trusted. There was something going on with her and Lisa that summer.
“Sam wasn’t always this way, you know,” Evie told her as she started cutting.
“What way is that?”
“Closed down. When he was a little boy, he was this fresh, bright-eyed kid—excited all the time, talking nonstop about whatever came into his head. He couldn’t keep a secret if you paid him. Until the fairies came.” Evie’s face darkened.
“So you were there for all of it?” Phoebe asked, tugging at Evie’s bangs, shortening them by several inches with one quick snip of the scissors. “What was it like? When they first came?”
Evie closed her eyes, smiled. “First, there were the bells. It was dusk, and we were supposed to be back in the yard before dark, but we followed Lisa over to the other side of the hill. We heard these bells, like wind chimes almost, this tiny tinkling sound coming from Reliance. Lisa saw them first. Little dots of light, flitting from one place to the next.”
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