My parents have excuses for not staying but it feels like they want to be rid of me.
Dad says he can’t work there. Not without electricity. His laptop has at most four hours of life. He has to go into town to work. Mom hates it. “I can never get clean,” she says. “The water is so cold.”
Jordan would stay but the Greats don’t want him. He doesn’t say anything in front of me but I know he’s jealous. I’ve heard him whining to my parents about wanting to play in the woods. “Why doesn’t Grandmother like me?” he asks. Because you’re a sniveling useless brat, I want to tell him. But I’m not supposed to have heard. Our apartment’s so small that we always pretend we can’t hear the things we’re not supposed to. It’s a good rule.
I’m happy the Greats don’t want Jordan, but I wish my parents would stay.
The Greats have a thing about the oldest child.
Which is me.
The Greats teach me woodcraft—tracking, hunting, skinning, how to find my way in the forest, how to find food, make shelter. It’s more work than school. But if the world ends we’ll be ready. That’s the idea: survivalism.
Some of their neighbors are that way. They have basements full of canned food, dried beans and fruits, secret wells, bows and arrows.
The other neighbors are sheep farmers who think the survivalists and the Greats are crazy. But then they’re always complaining about coyote taking their sheep. Coyote bigger and tougher than any coyote previously known to the universe, Grandmother says. “I’ve never seen one,” she always says. “Man with coyote-skin jacket, maybe. What would Hilliard have said about that?”
I never saw any coyote either. Not on our property. Black bears occasionally, but never coyote.
Or deer. Not like on some of the neighbors’ places, where there’s more deer than flies. Though we have more raccoons and foxes, and our forest is much more foresty. Without all the deer chomping away, herbs and shrubs and saplings have a much better chance. We have taller, stronger, healthier trees and birds and insects everywhere you look. In spring there are more kinds of flowers than I can name. Their fragrances float on air, making breathing a plea sure.
It’s beautiful. I can admit that.
While I hate music, I like birdsong. Their bells and flutes don’t hurt my head.
The Greats aren’t happy when I call them survivalists. They didn’t know the word when I first brought it up. When I described it to them they sneered. They hate their neighbors. But what they say sounds the same as all the crazy survivalist sites about hunting and tracking and building your own shelters and knowing what’s edible and what’s not. How to survive when the end-times come.
Grandmother doesn’t talk about end-times, though she does say that the world is off-kilter. Everything, she says, is hotter and colder and more extreme than it used to be. She prides herself on having stuck to horse and buggy. On growing her own food. On needing hardly anything from outside.
The Greats think I’m like them.
I’m not. I’m a city girl. I like electricity and running water. I don’t want to know how to ride a horse, how to slaughter a calf, how to set a trap, or any of the other things they teach me.
I do not belong there.
Though sometimes it is fun.
Because of Hilliard.
Now I must confess to a lie. Everything I’ve told you so far has been completely true except for the tiny matter of Great-Uncle Hilliard. Hilliard’s alive.
But it’s not my lie, it’s the family’s. Hilliard’s in hiding on the farm. I don’t know what it was he did or who he’s hiding from, but to everyone other than us Wilkins, Hilliard’s dead. Grandmother and Great-Aunt hiss at me if I slip up and talk about him in the present tense. Idiot Jordan doesn’t know. Only Dad and me.
I love Hilliard.
He taught me how to track and, when I was little, how to run. We run in the forest together. He’s not as fast as me—he’s old, after all, but it’s still fun. He may not be fast but he’s better at running through the woods. I still stumble, sometimes I fall. Hilliard knows the woods: every old stump, every tree root, every shrub. He never even gets spiderwebs in his face.
When something warm and breathing and edible is near he goes stiller than a rock. Sees it long before it sees him.
I wonder how it would have been if Grandmother had married Hilliard. If Hilliard was my grandfather. If I’d grown up in the woods. If there was no city in me at all.
I’d never have met Zach.
Would that have been better or worse?
I think some—maybe most—of what Zach liked about me was the country parts, not the city. When I showed him how to find food in Central Park. How to hide. Really hide. Showed him red-headed woodpeckers and chipmunks, too. He hadn’t thought there was any wildlife in the city—not anything that wasn’t a rat or a pigeon.
He thought I was wild.
He liked the wild in me.
BEFORE
I didn’t do it to show off.
We were running, Zach and me, slow, four or so miles in, halfway up Heartbreak Hill, when I smelled fox. I knew they were there. I’d caught their scent before. But not this strong. They were close.
“Want to see some foxes?” I asked Zach, slowing my pace to barely running at all.
“Foxes?” he asked, looking at me odd. “What do you mean ‘foxes’? Hot girls I didn’t notice? Other than you, I mean.” He stopped, looked around.
“No, foxes. Actual foxes.”
“Does it mean something I don’t know about? ’Cause you can’t mean the red animals with the big tails, right?”
I laughed. He was balanced on one leg, staring at me as if I was about to do something weird.
“Yes, doof. Foxes. The animals.” I wrinkled my nose, brought my hands up to my face. “Red. Tricky. Eat rabbits. Foxes, you know?”
“Okay. Foxes. The animals. What about them?”
“Do you want to see some?”
“Here?” Zach looked around. “In Central Park?” A Mercedes drove by. Four bikes with riders tricked out in dazzling fluorescent zipped past.
“Yes, here. C’mon,” I said, taking off at a slow trot. “Follow me!” I breathed deep, sucking in fox scent, weeding out all other odors. Mine. Zach’s. Car fumes. Rubber. Urine. Rain getting ready to fall. I left the path and headed deeper into the park.
Zach followed.
When we came to the den, I led us upwind and crouched down on rocks behind bushes.
“Now what?” Zach asked.
“Now we wait.”
“But I don’t see anything.”
I pointed at the brush a little downhill from us. “In there is a fox den.”
“That’s just bushes.”
“And a fox den.” I couldn’t believe he didn’t see the trampled grass. Or smell the sharp meat-eater odor. “See those white and brown things lying there?” I pointed.
Zach nodded.
“Bones.”
“Fox bones?” Zach asked.
“No, bones of stuff they’ve eaten. Probably chipmunk or rabbit. Though mostly they get into the trash cans and eat our leftovers.”
“You’re really serious? That there are foxes in there?”
“Yes! Shhh, now. Wait. You’ll see.”
Zach blew air through his teeth but he hunkered down lower, his thigh brushing mine.
When the first fox emerged it was dusk. Its snout was in the air, orange and white, black tip glistening, tongue hanging out.
“No shit,” Zach whispered. “A fox!”
AFTER
“When we interviewed you last Tuesday,” Detective Stein says, “you said you’d never spoken to Zach.”
“Yes,” I say, because that’s what I’d said. I don’t like them calling him “Zach.” They didn’t know him. They should call him “Zachary” like all the other clueless adults.
This is a house visit. Even though we live in an apartment. A tiny apartment. We are in the kitchen. My dad leans against the fridge n
ext to Detective Rodriguez, who’s leaning against the sink. They are mere inches from where me and Mom are seated side by side on the other side of the kitchen table from Detective Stein. I hope one of the bicycles falls on him.
Mom has offered both of the detectives coffee and tea and juice and water. They’ve rejected everything. She offers Rodriguez the seat next to Stein. He says no, he prefers to stand. At the last interview he sat and Stein leaned.
I figure they reject all forms of hospitality to make it clear that they don’t trust me and thus, by extension, my parents. It feels petty. I wish I could ask them questions. Where did they find Zach? Who killed him? Why?
“Now, we hear that Zach’s your boyfriend,” Stein says.
I look down at my hands. I want them to think that I am shy and afraid of them. Not that I am pissed that I have to talk to them. Mom takes my left hand in hers and squeezes it. Like Yayeko did at the first interview.
“Is that correct?” Rodriguez asks.
“What?” I ask. Maybe if they think I’m stupid they’ll leave me alone.
“Is it true that Zachary Rubin was your boyfriend?”
“He was Sarah Washington’s boyfriend.”
Stein shifts in his seat and accidentally kicks the toaster under the table. There is a loud clang that echoes around the tiny kitchen.
“And also your boyfriend,” Detective Stein says, as if he hasn’t just hurt his toes. “Or was every student who told me that lying?”
He leans across the table. I can smell his breath. He’s a smoker. He’s tried to cover it up with something peppermint flavored, but the nicotine is stronger. Three of his fingers are stained yellow. “I hear that it’s you who tells lies. Is that true?”
The unanswerable question. So I don’t. I stare at my fingers interlaced with Mom’s. My nails need trimming. Mom squeezes my hand a little tighter.
“You’re a liar, aren’t you, Micah?” Stein hisses at me.
“Is your rudeness necessary, officer?” my father asks in his calm tone of voice, which means he’s really angry.
“Detective,” Stein and Rodriguez say at the same time.
“Detectives, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t yell at my daughter. We agreed to this interview because we want to assist with your investigation. I don’t want to call my lawyer, but I will.”
As far as I know Dad doesn’t have a lawyer.
“Sorry, Mr. Wilkins,” Stein says, not sounding even slightly apologetic. “We’re trying to get to the truth.”
“We’re very sorry, ma’am, sir,” Detective Rodriguez says, looking first at my mom and then my dad, and sounding more sincere. “But we have to ask these questions. We can also conduct this interview at the station. We don’t want to insist on that, but this is a criminal investigation.”
Dad opens his mouth to object and Stein talks across him. “Was he your boyfriend, Micah?”
“No,” I say. We never used that word. Well, okay, sometimes I did, but in my thoughts, not out loud. Zach never called me anything but Micah. I glance at Dad, who gives me half a smile, but he is not happy. Mom’s squeezing my hand again. I’m glad for the comfort of it, but I don’t think it will continue after this interview.
“He wasn’t your boyfriend?”
“No.” I think about telling them that it’s a lie Brandon has been telling. He says he saw us kissing in Central Park. We never kissed, I could tell them. He’s such a liar. It is dawning on me that I am a suspect. Not just at school but with the police.
“Did you see him outside school?” Stein’s cheeks are red. He looks like he wants to shake me. I glance at Rodriguez. He’s harder to read, but he doesn’t seem kind.
They really believe I could have killed Zach. I move my head—something that’s half nod and half shake. They take it as a yes.
“Why didn’t you tell us last time that you knew him outside of school?” Stein asks.
“It was a secret. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“I’m sure,” Detective Rodriguez says, “that Zach wouldn’t have meant the police.”
Well, he’s dead, isn’t he? None of his wishes mean anything now. My promises are as dead as he is. I still don’t want to talk about him. Not with them.
Detective Stein is leaning across the kitchen table, staring at me. It’s creepy. I wish the table was wider. I wish the kitchen was bigger, too. Or that there was a living room. Instead of it being Mom and Dad’s bedroom and where we watch TV.
“What did you do together outside of school?” Stein asks, in a tone of voice that implies we must have been doing something he didn’t approve of.
I look at my mom. She squeezes my hand tighter. Dad nods and smiles.
“We ran,” I say. “Training. I like to run.”
“She’s very fast,” my dad says, sounding proud.
“Where did you run?” Rodriguez asks.
“Central Park mostly.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Friday night.”
“You ran at night?” Rodriguez says, as if that’s unusual.
“Lots of people do,” Dad says, in a tone that says he thinks Rodriguez is stupid and from the sticks. It’s one of Dad’s favorite tones. Stein briefly transfers his glare from me to Dad. But then he’s back to glaring at me. I want to tell him he’s not getting to me but that would probably prove to him that he is.
“So you ran together? You didn’t chat or go get a malted?” Stein asks.
“We ran,” I say. I wonder what a malted is. I know it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to think about them believing I killed Zach.
“What time did you stop running that night?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe 9:00 or 9:30?”
“Was it any different from your normal running sessions?” Rodriguez asks.
“No,” I say. “We stretched. We practiced sprints. Then we did distance. A bit more than ten miles.”
“Ten miles?” Stein asks. “What time did you start?”
“Must’ve been by 8:30.”
“You started your ten-mile run at 8:30 and were done by 9:30? What? You’re running six-minute miles?” he asks. He thinks I’m lying. I never lie about running.
Six minutes? I am tempted to tell him that I go sub-five all the time. But Dad hates it when I show off. Besides, if they know how fast I run maybe that will make them suspect me more. “We were running for a long time,” I say.
“I told you she’s good, didn’t I?” Dad says.
“We were building up to twenty-six,” I add.
“That’s the length of a marathon,” Dad explains, to show them how stupid he thinks they are. “Twenty-six miles, 385 yards.” He is not helping me.
“When you were done training that night,” Rodriguez says, “what did you do?”
“Went home.”
“Did you go home together?”
“No,” I say, even though we did. “He lives—lived—in Inwood and I’m all the way down here.”
“And that’s the last time you saw him?” Rodriguez asks.
“Yes.”
“Did he seem upset?” Rodriguez asks, trying to sound concerned.
“No.”
“Did he say he was going to meet with anyone?”
“No. He said he was going home.” Didn’t just say it. I ran with him every step of the way from the park to Inwood.
“Did he ever tell you he was afraid of anyone?” Stein wants to know.
“No. Never. I don’t think he was afraid of anything.”
“Or anyone?”
I shake my head. He wasn’t even afraid of me, which made him different from almost everyone else at school. Most of them are too scared to look me in the eye. It’s like they think my lies are contagious. Or that looking at me will turn them into as big a weirdo as I am.
“What was his frame of mind when you last saw him?” Rodriguez asks.
Frame of mind? I want to mock him, but he is a policeman who thinks I might have kill
ed Zach. “He was tired. Beat. But he seemed happy. I didn’t think it would be the last time I’d ever see him.” I have to concentrate to keep my voice steady. I can’t cry in front of them.
“Was it the last time?”
“Yes,” I said. “Like I told you.”
“We have an account from another student who says you saw him late Saturday night. Or rather, early Sunday morning.”
Sarah. Had to be. Why had I lied to her about that? Because I wanted her to feel bad, wanted her to think I was the last one who kissed him, not her.
“No. You can ask Mom and Dad. I was here all of that Saturday. Sunday, too.”
Rodriguez turned to Dad.
“Yes,” Dad says. Mom nods. “Micah was grounded that weekend.”
“Why?” Rodriguez asks.
Dad pauses. Mom and Dad look at each other. “No,” my mom says. “It is not for us to say.”
They grounded me because they caught me kissing Zach. One of their many rules for me is no dating until after high school. There’ll be no such rule for Jordan; he doesn’t have the family illness.
“It is a private matter. For the family only,” Mom says.
Stein and Rodriguez don’t look convinced or impressed. “We can continue this at the station. Sounds like we might have to interview all three of you.”
“Fine,” Dad says. “Micah stole money from my wallet and then lied when I asked her about it.”
Great, I think, now Dad’s lying about my lying and calling me a thief. That will really help. Mom shoots him a soul-chilling glare. “Isaiah,” she mutters.
“How do you know she did it?”
“I saw her,” Dad says. “We wanted to see what she would say when we said the money was missing.”
“So you both agree that your daughter is a liar?”
Well, they walked into that one.
“Sometimes,” Dad says, as if it’s no big deal. “Aren’t most kids? We’re trying to teach her better. Hence the grounding.”
“Have you been telling us the truth today, Micah?” Stein asks.
“Yes, sir,” I say. “I have.”
“Because if we find out you’ve been lying, the consequences will be much worse than being grounded for the weekend. Do you understand?”
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