The Shadow Girl

by Jennifer Archer

  “I designed it from the photographs we took.” Mom’s eyes shine, and I can tell that she’s pleased by my reaction. “I know you’ve never cared much for jewelry, but now that you’re older, we thought you might like it. Your father made the band and I did the etching. We took advantage of your afternoon hikes.”

  I slip the ring onto my right pointer finger. “It’s perfect. I’ll never take it off.” I hug Mom tightly.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” she murmurs into my hair.

  “I’m sorry, too,” I say.

  “Are you sure you wanna do this?” Wyatt asks when I step onto the porch late in the afternoon, dressed to ride.

  “Positive.” I take the steps down into the gravel driveway where the four-wheelers sit behind Mom’s Blazer. The truth is, I’m not sure. Not about riding again so soon. Not about taking the same trail that Dad and I took. Or visiting the scene of the wreck. I’m also not sure that I’m ready to be alone with Wyatt again. But I have to do this. One thing Dad taught me: Postpone facing a fear and it’s sure to grow bigger with each passing day.

  As I’m climbing onto the seat of my ATV, Wyatt asks, “Did you and your mom get the paperwork done?”

  “Not all of it, but we got started.” Which is true. We went through everything and made a list of clients to call, invoices we need to pay, and balances due on accounts receivable. In a few hours, I learned more about Dad’s business than I’ve known all my life.

  Removing my glove, I hold out my hand to Wyatt so he can see my ring. “Look what Mom gave me for my birthday. She and Dad made it.”

  Wyatt comes over and slips his hand beneath my fingers for a closer inspection. “It’s amazing,” he says.

  Two days ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about Wyatt holding my hand. But now I’m totally tuned in to how warm his skin is against mine, the rough texture of his callused fingers, how close we’re standing. It’s unnerving. Confusing. My instincts tell me to break contact and back away now, but I can’t move. I catch myself wondering what would happen if I leaned in and kissed Wyatt again, but I’m not sure I want our relationship to change. What if it didn’t work out and I lost my best friend?

  I slip my hand from his, and Wyatt backs up a step as I tug on my glove then twist the key in the ignition. The four-wheeler’s engine roars to life.

  Seconds later, as we take off, all my apprehensions about riding disappear. One fear down, three to go. Doing something normal feels fantastic. Like so many times in the past, Wyatt follows me down the road, while Iris whistles a tune in my ear.

  We move deeper into the forest and the temperature drops at least ten degrees. When the curve in the trail where the accident occurred appears ahead, I slow the vehicle, pull off toward the trees at the trail’s edge, and cut the engine. Wyatt stops beside me. We tug off our helmets and hang them on our handlebars.

  “This is the place,” I murmur.

  Wyatt narrows his eyes on mine. “You okay?”

  I nod, but every muscle in my body clenches. I take a deep breath and draw in the musk of the forest, remembering it all. Blink. I rounded the curve. Blink. I saw a deer in the road. Blink.

  I walk over to the aspen tree Dad hit, sorrow and anger crowding my throat as I run my fingers over a scraped section of bark. It’s a small wound compared to what Dad suffered, and that fact makes me want to punch the tree trunk until my knuckles bleed.

  I turn and find Wyatt beside me. “It’s crazy how one second can change everything,” I say, remembering when Mom told Dad that, and later, Iris told me. “It’s like my seventeenth birthday triggered something. Like it set some monstrous wheel in motion that I can’t stop.”

  Wyatt’s expression spills worry and affection.

  “Mom knows I went through that toolbox in Dad’s shop,” I say, then go on to explain that I forgot to take off the flannel shirt and how strange she acted when she noticed me wearing it.

  He frowns. “Why do you think it bothered her?”

  I shrug. “I wish I knew.”

  Wyatt reaches into his jacket pocket, retrieving Dad’s workshop keys and an extra set. “Here. I had these spares made for you like you asked.”

  “Thanks.” I put them into my pocket.

  “What else did your mom say?”

  “She told me I should cut my hair short, that long hair doesn’t suit me.”

  “What’s that all about?” Wyatt asks.

  “Who knows? You should’ve seen her expression. It was so weird.”

  Hoping he’ll have an open mind, I tell him about my return visit to the workshop last night and what happened. That is, everything other than Iris’s insistence that Mom is hiding something. I’ve never told Wyatt about Iris.

  “Winterhaven and Jake must have something to do with what Dad was planning to tell me,” I say. “I’m going to ask Mom and see how she reacts. I want to ask her about the violin and other stuff, too. I’m just waiting for the right time. I don’t want to freak her out again.”

  Wyatt blinks and shifts uneasily. Stooping, he scoops a rock off the ground and tosses it down the road.

  “What?” I say. “You think Winterhaven’s just some random place I scribbled down on paper for no reason? Why wouldn’t I remember doing it?”

  “I don’t know, Lil.” He stands. “It is kind of freaky. I mean, you really think something led you to write that down?”

  “Do you have a better explanation?”

  “Not really. But I’m creeped out by that one, aren’t you?”

  A burst of cool wind rattles the treetops. Iris’s shiver is like a ripple on a lake. Creepy is my normal, I think, wondering what he’d say if I told him about her. “Yes, I’m creeped out,” I say instead. “It was completely eerie, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  Looking down, he pokes a tree root with the toe of his boot, muttering, “I wish you wouldn’t go out there alone.”

  “I’m not having some kind of wigged-out emotional response to Dad’s death,” I say softly. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “I didn’t say I was.”

  “But you are, and it’s okay.” I duck my head to capture his attention, and smile. “It’s nice that you care. I know this all sounds crazy, but I can show you the note. I’ve never even heard of Winterhaven, Massachusetts. Why would I just pull it out of thin air? And what about how I reacted to the music box song?”

  “I can’t explain the music, but maybe you heard your parents talking about Winterhaven sometime in the past. Or you might’ve heard it mentioned in a movie or something.”

  “Maybe. But why did I write it down? Don’t you think that’s sort of random? I’m thinking maybe I’ve been there before.” I cross my arms, my head about to explode from all the questions running through it. “It’ll be easy to find out if Winterhaven’s a real place, but I don’t know how I can prove that it has anything to do with my parents’ secret. Or Jake, for that matter. Right now that’s just a feeling I have.” Because of Iris, I think.

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me,” says Wyatt, but he fails to hide his concern.

  Humiliated that he thinks I’m losing my grip, I say, “I know you don’t believe any of this. But you have to admit that it’s a pretty big coincidence that I zoned out twice when the music box played.”

  “Twice?”

  “You were there the first time,” I remind him.

  He holds my stare. “Wait. When we kissed?”

  I’ve never noticed how green his eyes are. “Yes,” I whisper.

  “And you think the music had something to do with that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, you have to admit it was bizarre.”

  He shrugs.

  I don’t want to embarrass him, but I will if I tell him it was as if I was kissing the guy with black hair and blue eyes in the vision. “I just don’t understand how it happened,” I say.

  “Maybe we both wanted it to,” Wyatt replies, his voice tender and warm.

>   Suddenly, all of my questions and curiosity, my fears and doubts and affection for him tangle together until I can’t sort out one emotion from the other. On impulse, I tilt my face up to his.

  Surprise flickers across Wyatt’s features. He places a hand on the tree trunk above my head, and I can’t move or even breathe as his mouth brushes against mine. I wait for my confusion to clear, to be able to make sense of these new feelings he stirs in me. But if anything, I’m more mixed up than before. “We can’t do this,” I say. “This is just—it’s happening too fast.”

  Wyatt lowers his arm and steps back, looks away. “Okay,” he says quietly. “I get it.”

  “Don’t be mad at me. So much in my life is different now. A part of me is afraid for us to be different, too. One minute I want us to be like we’ve always been, then the next minute—” I take a breath.

  Wyatt’s brows tug together, and the tips of his ears turn red. “I didn’t start this, Lil. I didn’t cause this change between us, you did. You kissed me yesterday.”

  I can’t think of a single word to say as he turns and walks to his ATV. He puts on his helmet, climbs on, and starts the engine. Standing in the middle of the trail, I watch him turn and take off in the direction we came. When he disappears around a curve, I dig my fingers into my palms, trying not to cry.

  No more than a minute passes before I notice that the sound of Wyatt’s four-wheeler is becoming louder instead of more distant. And then I see him driving toward me again. He pulls to a stop a few feet away from where I stand and takes off his helmet. “Damn it,” he says, sounding miserable. “I can’t leave you alone. Not here.”

  Where I last saw Dad alive. I read the words in his eyes, and I love him all the more for his kindness.

  I run to Wyatt, throw my arms around his neck, and burst into tears. We hold each other for a long time, but I still sense his confusion, and I’m more afraid than ever of losing the easiness we’ve always shared.

  When I get home, I check my phone to make sure I haven’t missed a call from Ty. I called him before Wyatt and I left, but only got his voice mail, so I left a message. I do have a missed call, but it’s from Sylvie. She wants to meet in town next week. I make a mental note to call her.

  Cookie is awake, but lying listless in his pen. Mom’s still napping on the couch. I tiptoe to her closet and place Dad’s spare keys to the workshop back inside the shoebox on the upper shelf. Then I throw a load of towels and jeans in the wash, trying to take my mind off the ride with Wyatt.

  Iris is impatient, buzzing like a bee beneath my skin. Knowing she won’t relax until I research Winterhaven, I go upstairs to my computer. Ever since last night, I’ve been putting it off because I’m afraid of what I might find—and what my reaction will be. The thought of falling into another strange daze freaks me out.

  Sitting cross-legged on the bed, I open my laptop and Google “Winterhaven, Massachusetts.” A listing of real estate sites appears, and a link to the town’s chamber of commerce. I sit straighter. It’s a real place!

  Clicking on the chamber of commerce link, I find a photo album with pictures of Winterhaven’s main attractions as well as a few places of interest in the surrounding area. It’s a storybook town. Colorful shop facades line the main drag, pots of flowers beside every entrance. Homes with huge columns stand watch over cobblestone streets shaded by giant oak trees. A boardwalk curves through a lush green park toward sparkling Winterhaven Lake, a small body of water flanked by tiny pastel cottages.

  After browsing through thirty-six unfamiliar images, I click on number thirty-seven and goose bumps erupt on my arms. I stare at the picture of a dock jutting out across an inlet of water on Winterhaven Lake, and a certainty I can’t explain washes over me. Somehow, I know that when the water rises after a hard rainfall, a child can sit at the edge of the deck and easily dip her feet in. I know that the lake is freezing cold, even in the summer, and the planks on the deck creak when you walk across them. The wood is weathered, and you have to be careful of splinters if your feet are bare.

  I brace my hands on the bed, overwhelmed by sound and sensation: A gentle lapping of waves against a shoreline of sand and pebbles. The distant putter of a fishing boat motor. Masculine laughter. A spray of cold water across my face. Sunshine warm on my back. My toes gritty with sand.

  “I have been there,” I murmur.

  Yes, Iris whispers.

  In the sketch of myself as a toddler that’s hidden in Dad’s workshop I’m standing with my parents on a weather-beaten dock. The same dock pictured on the Winterhaven chamber of commerce website.

  “Lily? Are you here?” Mom calls from below.

  “Upstairs!” I yell, then quickly erase the computer’s search history.

  Afraid of something I can’t name, I swing my feet to the floor and go to her.

  8

  Yesterday evening, Ty called and said he’d be happy to help with the roof. For the rest of the night, I kept hearing the way his voice sounded when he said my name. And I kept remembering how he looked at me with an intense, single-minded focus when I was standing with Sylvie at the lake. Even now, I get pathetically lightheaded just thinking about it.

  This morning when he pulls up in front of our cabin, I go out with Mom to introduce them. It’s even warmer today than yesterday. A hummingbird is flitting around the feeder that hangs from the porch eave. Its hyperfast wings are no match for the fluttering in my chest when Ty sees me and his mouth curves into a crooked smile.

  I bite my lip and look away for a second to calm down. I don’t want to do anything stupid, like trip down the stairs.

  In the yard, as Mom talks to Ty, I do my best not to check him out in an obvious way. But it isn’t easy. As pitiful as it sounds, I could stare at him all day. His hair is messy, like he forgot to comb it when he got out of bed. All I can say is, tangles look good on him—really, amazingly good. He’s wearing a white T-shirt, ripped jeans, and black Converse sneakers. His arms are brown and strong—not in a bulky weight-lifter way, just lean, firm muscle. I notice a small tattoo on his right bicep, but can’t make out the design without staring.

  As I watch him walk around the yard peering up at the roof, it’s as if my skin catches fire. There’s just something about the way Ty moves, so loose-limbed and sure, that gets to me. He doesn’t seem to possess even an ounce of self-consciousness. Then there’s his quiet, low voice. And the way his head tilts to one side and his eyes narrow when he talks, like he’s daring you to question him. He doesn’t come across as unfriendly, just sure of himself.

  “I have a couple of other people to interview later today,” Mom says to Ty as she leads him back to the front of the house.

  She’s lying. He’s the only person we’ve talked to about the roofing job. I don’t call her on it, though. She’s using a cane to help her walk this morning—something I’ve never seen her do before. I didn’t even know she owned a cane.

  Mom glances at the list of references Ty gave to her when he arrived. “I’ll get in touch with a few of these folks this afternoon and let you know tomorrow.”

  “Cool,” he says, and I get the most uncanny sense that although Ty is talking to Mom, he’s as tuned in to me as I am to him. I can almost feel his attention being magnetically drawn toward me. “I’d really like to work for you, Mrs. Winston,” Ty continues. “I’d do a good job, and I can start right away.”

  “You’re sure you’ve shingled a roof before?” Mom asks, even though Ty already told her at least twice that he has.

  “My parents own rental property,” he says. “I started helping my dad with maintenance during high school, and he and I have replaced a few roofs together since then. I also did maintenance part-time on some apartments one of my professors owns.” Ty gestures at the page Mom holds. “He’s on the list. Dr. Rigsby.”

  She frowns. “Why aren’t you in school anymore?”

  “Mom.” I glare at her.

  Ty isn’t fazed. “I’m going back in the fall,” he sa
ys. “My family’s been dealing with some difficulties lately, and I needed to get away.”

  “You lived with your parents while you were going to college?”

  “No, they live with my younger brother in Baltimore. I lived on campus.”

  “Columbia. Right.” Mom analyzes him skeptically. “New York City wasn’t far enough away from your family problems?”

  “Mom!” I step between them. “I’m sorry, Ty.”

  “It’s okay,” he insists, but his jaw clamps tight, drawing my attention to the scar just above it on his cheek.

  Mom doesn’t apologize for her rudeness. Instead, she sends me a silencing look. “How long do you plan to stay in Silver Lake, Ty?”

  “I’m not sure.” He glances at me, then back to her. “I can definitely stay another week or so.” With a short laugh, he adds. “I wouldn’t get far if I left now, anyway. I’m a little short on gas money.”

  “I can’t pay much.” Mom quotes a ridiculously low amount.

  Ty nods. “I’m fine with that.”

  “Well, then . . .” She clears her throat. I suspect she was hoping he’d reject her offer. “I’ll be in touch,” Mom says. Leaning into the cane, she walks toward his car, a not-so-subtle hint that she’s ready for him to leave.

  Ty and I follow, but I ignore her monotone chatter about Dad’s tools and kneepads and nails and her instructions that, if she hires him, she’ll expect Ty to clean up and put everything away in the storage shed when he finishes each day.

  Clasping my hands behind my back, I risk a sideward glance at Ty and find him watching me, too. We both smile, but I look away first, self-conscious and giddy. I can’t recall ever being so aware of another human being in my life.

  The three of us pause beside Ty’s beat-up old sports car, which is faded turquoise, with double white stripes down the center of the long, narrow hood. It sits so low to the ground that I don’t know how he gets around on our rocky dirt roads. It’s great, though. It’s just like him—cool, but not trying to be.