When the Light Went Out

by Bridget Morrissey

  Bigs and Teeny dropped us off at Arbor Street. Aidy and I snuck back in the Marley way. As we shimmied and crawled, the pain of my fall started to settle. My head throbbed. My knees buzzed. Fighting against it as best I could, I took my shoes off before entering through our back door and tiptoed over to the house phone, containing my mess as much as possible.

  Mom answered on the first ring. “Hey, Mom. I’m checking in like you asked,” I said, my voice as wobbly as a three-legged chair.

  “Oh,” she said, not noticing. “Thank you, honey. I’ll let your father know. I’ve got to go already, but call again in two more hours.”

  “Of course,” Aidy said over my shoulder.

  “All right, love you girls. Talk soon.”

  “Love you too.” I rolled my eyes as I hung up. “Of course,” I said, mocking not Aidy, but our mom, trying to regain my strength through the power of my sarcasm. “Of course she forgot.”

  “Oh well. We did it. Makes us look better that we remembered. We only have two more hours before we have to do it again, so go shower. You’re going to flip out over what we found.”

  In a matter of hours, our roles had reversed. She was excited, ready to keep going. I was exhausted, overwhelmed by the gravity of what I was piecing together.

  Once in the bathroom, my own face surprised me. The bruises already starting to form under my eyes looked like two faint Cheshire cat grins, smiling at my every miscalculation. The bridge of my nose was a little flatter and wider than usual. Seeing it made the pain multiply, no longer a vague headache, but a concentrated nose ache.

  “Aidy!” I called out. A swelling, starting in the base of my stomach, pushed upward. My voice cracked as I shouted my sister’s name again.

  She burst into the room, yelling, “What?”

  “Is it broken?” I asked her, hearing myself from outside my own mind, finding my hysteria to be an exact match for Harrison’s earlier fit.

  She tried putting her hands on the sides of my arms. Her wheels spun with ways to placate me. “I don’t think so,” she told me. “It’s not bleeding anymore, and it’s not crooked or anything, so why don’t you shower and taken an ibuprofen, and we’ll put ice on it once you’re done. Okay? It really doesn’t look as bad as it probably feels. I promise.” She started to walk out, trying to trick me with her lack of urgency. She closed the bathroom door, then opened it again seconds later. “Are you having any trouble breathing?”

  I inhaled. The air inside my nose moved like it was sneaking in the Marley way, compressing itself between narrow corridors. It was uncomfortable, but it moved. “Not really.”

  “Okay.” She closed the door. She opened it again. “Keep breathing, then.” She closed the door a third, final time.

  I took two ibuprofens and watched myself swallow them, taking in my fractured image until it became something worth appreciating. I turned away from the mirror to remove my filthy clothes, convincing myself that every unexpected hiccup had to be a necessary piece of the bigger picture.

  Good thing Marley thrived on theatrics.

  I stepped into the bathtub and squatted in front of the spout. The water ran over my hands until they were clean. I pulled out the knob. Dirt and filth began waterfalling off my back, slinking into the drain. As my skin revealed itself again, I decided the water was washing away not only the dirt, but the pain itself.

  By the time I climbed out, Aidy had already removed my dirty clothes from the floor. In the distance clapped the unmistakable thunder of a new garbage bag being opened. Wrapped in a towel, I walked out to find Aidy, already changed, shoving my bloody shirt and shorts into the black plastic.

  “Your face looks better,” she told me, even though she hadn’t once looked up from her work. “The Campbells will be back in ten minutes. Get changed. We’ll ice on the car ride.” When she finally noticed I hadn’t moved from watching her, she said, “I’m gonna hide this in the shrubs. We’ll throw it out for real when we’re allowed to go out the front door.”

  I made quick work of changing.

  By its third use, the Marley way had started to give in to our new size, even as I carried a bag of frozen peas with me to ice my nose. Aidy and I came out onto Arbor Street, where the Campbells’ Honda waited like our getaway car.

  Back at Cadence Park, Emery and Nick still held conference near the concession stand.

  “Where’s Ruby?” I wondered aloud. At the same time, Aidy asked, “Where’s Harrison?” Her eyes bored into me as she unbuckled her seat belt. Bigs didn’t even have time to park before she’d opened her door and started running.

  “Well, that’s not good,” Bigs said, because Bigs always said the truth in its simplest form.

  “Better start admitting what you know,” Teeny told me, because Teeny always knew how to say what her brother couldn’t.

  We got out of the car and met everyone at the concession stand. When the Campbells and I approached, Emery was almost done explaining to Aidy what happened to Harrison and Ruby. “I’ve been sending her texts, but they’re not going through, which makes me think she’s still down there.”

  I kept my distance, knowing Aidy’s fury would be directed at me. “Well?” she said, cocking her head in my direction.

  My throat swelled. There was nothing to say that would explain my actions. I brought my bag of peas back up to my face. Poor Harrison. I shouldn’t have left him. Why had I left him? Why couldn’t I make good choices when they mattered most?

  “Don’t hide,” Aidy scolded. “Why’d you leave him?”

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t look her in the eye.

  “This is bad, Olivia. Do you realize that? It’s so bad.”

  “So we’re clear, I’m not ever going down there,” Teeny informed us. She said it to lessen the tension. I loved her all the more for it. If I was an investigator, and Nick a watchman, maybe Teeny was actually a defuser, in charge of deciding which bombs exploded and which got to be disabled.

  “No one’s going down there,” Emery challenged.

  Everyone looked at her like, Who are you to decide? Even though I was making a glorious mess, that solidarity surged through me. Against outsiders, we Albany kids still had one another’s back.

  “I’m calling public services for help,” Emery said. “Ruby and your friend are down there, and they might be as hurt as Olivia is. We can’t leave them and expect it all to work out. We need a maintenance man or something to go down there.”

  Teeny grabbed the phone out of Emery’s hand. “Look, I don’t know you that well. I’ve seen you around at school, and Ruby seems to like you a lot, which means you’re good people. But you have to understand, this is between us.” She used her index finger to draw lines of energy between the Albany kids. “We know it’s bad. But we’ve got a reputation in this town, and I’m not about to prove everyone right. You might not understand this, but I’m telling you that if something was really wrong with either of them, I think we’d be able to feel it.” She handed the cell phone back as a truce of sorts. “We know it isn’t wise doing to do this without help. I promise you that. But know that even Ruby would agree with me. Involving other people will only make all of this worse.”

  Emery pursed her lips, still skeptical.

  “How about this?” Bigs asked. “If you don’t hear from Ruby in the next half hour, come find us, and we’ll go from there. Yeah?”

  Emery agreed to that. We left her behind as we marched along, single file down into the bowl, carrying items both physical and mental, ready to be unpacked.

  Once out of Emery’s earshot, Aidy unleashed. “I can’t believe you! Not a single mention of my missing boyfriend. Is he hurt too?”

  “He might be,” I muttered.

  “Dammit, Olivia.” Aidy cursed again. Then she yelled out “Let me think for a second!” even though no one else was talking. “Ugh, let’s show them. That’
s what we’re supposed to do anyway. Share what we find,” she said to someone. “Maybe it’ll help.”

  I followed the path of her eyes over to Nick. He removed his backpack from his shoulders and unzipped the top. Ragged, rolled-up blueprint paper sprung up, decompressed. He pulled it taut to reveal a map.

  It was Cadence, California, with Xs over places we’d already been, and Xs over places we’d yet to explore.

  July 11

  Five Years Prior

  Marley Bricket always had a way of being coy. She presented a calculated yet attainable distance from the rest of us, which we all aided. She’d been to high school: a much-coveted, little understood land of promise and mystery. Still, she chose our neighborhood group for the summer. We did whatever was needed to keep it that way. We laid ourselves out like red carpet for her to walk all over.

  Want to eat the last cupcake even though Harrison didn’t have one and you’ve had two already? Go ahead. Need to put your dirty clothes in my laundry pile so your mom doesn’t yell at you for spilling rum on your shirt? Sign me up.

  The trade-off was daily excitement. A new game to play. Better, more scandalous things to talk about: kissing, and drinking, and what our parents did when we weren’t home. Learning what no one else would teach us. Seeing what no one else could dare to imagine.

  There was never a dull moment with Marley Bricket around.

  That space we’d provided her with, out of respect and fear and admiration, expanded into an empty ocean of blue marble swirls in her eyes. A startling vacancy covered up all of her trademark mischief. She—of scandalous red bikinis and house raids and endless adventure—was dead. We all knew it, yet Aidy sat with one hand pressed over Marley’s bullet wound, her phone up to her ear, and told a 911 dispatcher things like, “She isn’t responding yet,” and, “Just a little blood.”

  The same Aidy—who called my parents to tell them how I was breaking the rules and going to Marley’s to swim—was bending truth.

  That’s how bad it was.

  Ruby rushed to Marley’s other side and held her hand. I wanted to copy. Earn my spot in the group through dedication, not blood relation to our second-in-command. I agreed to be called Ollie instead of Olivia, so I could have an -ee name like the other girls. I gave up both soccer and softball, so I didn’t miss out on any house raids, or trips to the park, or spontaneous relay races down Albany. I stopped watching TV. I didn’t have favorite musicians or movies. I’d given everything to our group, and still my instincts were wrong. I forgot to call 911. I didn’t think to hold Marley’s dead hand. I wanted to hide her under the bed until I found a way to reverse time.

  With Nick missing, I stood in as villain: a human sponge that soaked up all blame in the room, bloating beneath my hideous peace sign tankini from absorbing every inch of desperation and confusion. Harrison grabbed on to a bed post and stared at blood pooling around his feet. Bigs and Teeny hugged. Better together than apart, they always fit into every ridge of each other until it looked as if they formed one person.

  They all looked at me that day as if every bad thought they’d ever had about me had been proven right. I was bad news. I could kill someone.

  Of course, I didn’t do it. No one knew that yet. Aidy continued her 911 call and futile resuscitation attempts. The iPod played mindless music. I howled big ugly cries over and over until finally an adult appeared: Old Mr. Jimenez.

  “Dios mío,” he whispered to himself. He sounded as young as one of us, his words reduced to desperate whimpers. He ran over to help, muttering prayers and pressing harder on the bullet wound, trying to stop the blood.

  Nobody knew what to do.

  I needed to throw up. Another terrible reaction to the terrible, terrible mess I’d made. It didn’t seem right to use the bathroom connected to the room where Marley lay dead, and I didn’t have time to make it to the other one, so for some unexplainable reason I ran out to the pool and pushed up on the ledge. Overshooting my jump, I ended up face-first in chlorine and my own vomit: regurgitated red freeze pop mixed with Coke.

  Once the day finished emptying itself from my insides, I scooted along the ledge to dunk my head in an untainted area. Opening my eyes underwater, I saw the blue of Marley’s skin and eyes in the abyss around me. Flashes of her golden hair in the streaks of sunlight streaming in like thin daggers. The soaked crimson floral of the pillow in my vomit floating overhead. Primary colors summed up Marley’s demise, linking her to everything I’d ever see again.

  She was everywhere.

  I let my head sink lower, considering what it would be like to stay under and erase all of it. Her blue wouldn’t let me. It screamed for justice, floating me back up to the surface for air. I emerged with a huge gasp, slumping down alongside the pool to drain my nostrils of chlorine and mucus. In a violent fit of cough-crying, Marley’s final words wove into the incessant noise inside my head.

  Pull the trigger. Nothing’s gonna happen.

  I saw Nothing happen to her. When the light went out in her eyes, Nothing crept in.

  That day, Nothing took hold of Marley and kept her.

  13

  “How’d you find this?” and “I almost want to cry,” and “Please don’t,” and “It’s so detailed,” and “Up in the tree,” and “Which tree?” and “Does it matter?” and “No,” and “It was Nick’s idea to go up there.”

  And then so soft, almost missed, “I remember her drawing that.” Everyone turned to Bigs. He took the map from Nick’s hands. It was large and had been rolled into a spiral for so long that it kept curling back up like a reluctant child. “She kept it in the shed.” He folded the sentence into himself as if reabsorbing every word. “It was some project she was working on. She never told me why she was doing it. Just that she was.”

  Each person cast their eyes downward, containing their jealousy, remembering Marley’s very stern command that we were no longer allowed in her shed.

  “She made me promise not to tell anyone,” Bigs continued. We all knew a Marley promise was not to be broken. Our envy sat like a cloud over the sun. “But my letter said to share something no one else but me knows. So there you go.” He turned like he was going to walk away, then pivoted again. “Before we do anything else with this map, why don’t we go back to where Olivia got out? We need to look for Harrison and Ruby. Or I can go down into the tunnels and try to find them. We can’t keep going while they’re missing,” he said.

  “No!” Teeny yelled. “No one’s going back there. We’ll go out to the desert and look for them.”

  Like always, it was follow or defy.

  We all followed.

  After a brief and silent car ride in the Campbells’ Civic, Bigs parked at the end of Ms. DeVeau’s street. Her orange house mocked me with its solitude. If only the twins hadn’t found me, I could’ve gotten her to talk. I know I could have.

  I pushed the thought away and led the group out into the open land, where the sun kept a steady eye on us, its golden face tracking our every step.

  “The Point of No Return,” Teeny remarked when we reached the sign. “Never thought I’d see the day we ended up here. If there really is quicksand, I’m out.”

  Everyone chuckled, even Aidy, who’d always had trouble committing to an angry posture for an extended period of time. I led them all to the sewer entrance. The cover was still ajar, but it looked to be in the exact position I’d left it. Even my belly-flop sand imprint appeared fresh and untouched.

  “Harrison!” Aidy started yelling, leaning so far over the hole, everyone seemed to fear she’d fall in. We each took a reaching step toward her. “Harrison!”

  Then, incredibly, we heard the faintest whisper of a “Yeah?”

  Aidy did topple over, but Bigs was so close behind, he caught her by the shirt. She responded by pretending it didn’t happen, and yelled, “Are you hurt? Is Ruby with you?”

  It was impos
sible to understand what Harrison said back, so I told everyone, “I’ll go down and get him. I owe him that.”

  No one protested. Not even Teeny, for all her claims that we were to stay aboveground. Aidy reapplied her forgotten scowl as I took off my backpack and set down my frozen peas. She kept her snarled face fixed on me until I disappeared out of view.

  Back down the ladder and into the tunnel, I yelled Harrison’s name, following the sound of his voice like it was a game of Marco Polo. “You got me,” he said when I somehow ended up with a fistful of his hair in my hand.

  I startled, leaping back, trying to see his form amid the blackness, but finding nothing. The proof of him seemed more impossible than my Marley. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m sitting.”

  “So I’ve learned.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “Because you’re hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m here to help.”

  He laughed at that one.

  “I shouldn’t have left you,” I said.

  “Can you go now?”

  I tried to use the power of my imagination to implant Harrison-like features onto the amorphous shadow using his voice. Sloping nose. Slender cheeks. Cutting jaw. Full eyebrows that grew in perfect arches. Brown eyes.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Imagining you,” I said.

  “That’s very weird.”

  “So is sitting alone in a sewer.”

  “Touché.”

  We went quiet.

  Not until Harrison said, “Yeah, I know, I’m crying,” did I realize he was. The throaty, snotty sound of his tears pushed to the forefront of sounds around me.

  “Oh, wow. You are,” I said.

  “Don’t even start.”

  “I’m not. I swear.”

  For another yawning stretch of time, our cloaked world became consumed by his ragged breaths. Each of his inhales sounded gasping and hopeful, determined to be the one fresh and full enough to renew him. Eventually, he found the breath that was, and said, through a jerky sniffle, “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve done things that should make me mad. But I never am.” He wiped his nose on what I could only guess was his arm. “I haven’t seen you much since I went to college. Not that we were close before that. I’m not trying to rewrite history. But I realized something down here. You’ve been a part of my life for as long as I’ve lived in Cadence, and that’s the only life that’s ever mattered to me. You’re not only my girlfriend’s sister. You’re my family.”