The Deepest Roots

by Miranda Asebedo

  I wonder if that means our trailer will be gone soon, too.

  When I get home, I feel sick to my stomach. I go to the bathroom, dropping my backpack with my phone and the car keys next to the tub and leaning over the toilet like maybe I’m going to puke. I retch twice, but nothing comes out. Maybe it was the greasy onion rings, or the worry that Garrett’s about to lose everything. What will happen if he loses his rental business? How long until our trailer is auctioned off? Will we have a chance to buy it ourselves? Is there any bank in its right mind that would give Mom a loan?

  Lux has left without telling me, just like she promised she wouldn’t.

  Mercy is pissed at me for keeping secrets from her.

  I’ve nuked whatever it was that I had with Jett, a perfectly nice, funny, decent guy.

  Fresh air, I tell myself, standing back up. I just need some fresh air. I leave the trailer and start walking. I don’t know where I’m going, but some internal compass takes me back to the Truett farm, and I hike out to the pond where the three of us used to skinny-dip. I sit on the dock, staring out at the water.

  I remember the three of us singing out here, our voices twining together into one beautiful melody.

  Strange how everything can unravel so quickly.

  Long past midnight, I leave the songs of the cicadas and the quiet lapping of the pond against the dock and walk back home. Steven is waiting for me just inside the front door, his whole body wriggling with excitement. I go into the kitchen. The hand-drawn map in its broken frame is on the table, all the glass cleared away like maybe Mom was trying to clean it up for me. There’s a jar of smooth peanut butter and a spoon next to it, so Mom must have gotten her first paycheck. I unscrew the lid and dig out a mouthful. While I’m eating, I sit down and look at the map again. It’s definitely different from the one in the book. The hills next to the ruins are here, and they were missing from the other copy.

  But why?

  I wonder if there’s something on the back, like a date or maybe a name that’s not Emmeline’s. Maybe someone else drew this map. I pull apart the frame, wincing as a few remaining chunks of glass fall out.

  Behind the map is yellowed paper. At first I think it’s just the back of the map, blank, but when I tilt the frame, the paper falls to the table with the broken glass. The same spidery handwriting. Emmeline’s.

  May 2nd

  Maisie,

  I cannot begin to thank you for the care you’ve given me and my angel child in these last days. If I could not be with my true sister, it was at least a blessing to have something like one in my last hours. In return, I would like to repay you as best as I can. I’ve stipulated in my will that you are to live on the homestead as long as you wish. The taxes on the land will be paid through the trust fund set up for me by my family. Upon your passing, the town of Cottonwood Hollow has express permission to use the land as they will, so long as they pay the taxes. The deed to the land is in my dowry chest, should you ever need to find it. Look for the last hill to the south on the eastern border of our land. John had a dugout there before we were married, and it was easy enough to hide it. No one will find it there, and the place looks like it will tumble down on itself any day now. I suppose everything we once loved returns to the earth eventually.

  Sincerely,

  Emmeline

  It’s like a punch of adrenaline in my gut. “Holy shit,” I exclaim. Everything is right here, in my hands. Emmeline Remington gave all her secrets to a girl from Cottonwood Hollow. And Maisie had hung them there on the wall in the house, probably until some well-meaning member of the Cottonwood Hollow Historical Society packed it away.

  I flip the map back over. There’s a tiny cluster of flowers around the last hill to the south. This map was drawn at another time, just for Maisie, in case she needed it. My heart is beating about a million beats per minute as I wonder if the dowry chest is still buried there.

  In another world, one where I hadn’t let everything fall apart, I’d be sprinting across town right now to wake up Lux and Mercy. But Lux is gone and Mercy won’t want to speak to me.

  So I call Steven and we go to bed. I’m not sure I even deserve to find the chest anymore, and I don’t think I could bear finding it without Lux and Mercy at my side, even if it might save me.

  “Rome!” the voice booms, cracking through my skull.

  Mom’s face fills my vision. I pull back, trying to retreat into my pillow, but my body reacts slowly.

  “What?” I manage to growl.

  “Get up!” she says, “Rick is here! And the sheriff.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “Is this about Lux?”

  There’s a flicker of hope in my chest that maybe she came home. That maybe they want to talk to both of us together. Maybe she’s out there waiting with them.

  “No,” Mom says, and as my vision sharpens, I realize that she’s scared.

  Mom is scared.

  “What is it?” I ask, forcing myself up.

  “They haven’t told me,” Mom says. “They said they need to talk to you.”

  I wince as I stand, and Mom pulls a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from a miraculously clean pile of laundry on top of my dresser and flings them at me.

  “Hurry,” Mom says. She leaves, and I can hear her out in the living room, trying to make small talk with Rick and the sheriff.

  I change into the clothes, pausing at the bathroom to splash some water on my face and brush my teeth. I knot my hair on top of my head before hurrying into the living room.

  Steven follows me, delighted to meet the guests. Rick is sitting on the couch, and the sheriff is standing awkwardly by the front door.

  “Hi, Rick,” I say, wincing a little at the light coming in the windows.

  “Hi, Rome,” Rick says. “Sorry to wake you so early.” He motions to the other man in the room. “This is Sheriff Yost.”

  I glance at the clock and notice that it’s barely seven in the morning on a Saturday.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “Is this about Lux?”

  Rick shakes his head. “We need to know if you’ve seen Mercy Montoya recently.”

  “Mercy?” I ask. “What do you mean? I saw her yesterday at school.”

  “But not after school?”

  “No,” I say. “I didn’t see anyone after school.” Fear sends goose bumps over my skin, even though it’s warm in the trailer.

  “Has she contacted you at all?” Rick asks.

  “I . . . I don’t think so,” I stutter, realizing I haven’t checked my phone since yesterday afternoon. “Let me get my phone and check.” I stumble back down the hall to the bathroom, where I’d left my backpack when I thought I was going to throw up yesterday. My chest tightens, constricting in cold, metal bands that make it hard to breathe.

  I find my phone. It’s still set on silent from when I was at school yesterday. There are thirteen missed calls from Mrs. Montoya. I scroll through my text messages.

  There’s one from Mercy, sent at five thirty last night, when I was sitting out on the dock at Truett pond.

  Do you want to come with me to drop off Lux’s homework after I pick up Neveah from church group?

  My first thought is that Mercy really is the best of us. She’s willing to forgive me at least enough for us to work together to help Lux. I hurry back out to the living room. “There was one,” I tell Rick, handing him my phone.

  “What time?” Sheriff Yost asks. He’s pulled out a small notebook and a pencil.

  “Five thirty p.m.,” says Rick.

  “And you didn’t reply to this message?” Sheriff Yost asks me.

  “No,” I choke out. “I was at Truett pond. I think it was around two a.m. when I came home.”

  “Alone?” Sheriff Yost asks suspiciously. “There’s no one who can confirm where you were?”

  I look over at Rick. “What’s going on? Where’s Mercy? Has something happened?”

  “Last night around six thirty, Neveah called home from a friend’s ph
one. Mercy never came to pick her up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mercy is missing.”

  The words are like a fist to my gut. Mercy, sweet, gentle Mercy, is missing. Mercy, who wears floral nightgowns and reads romance novels in secret. Mercy, who charms feral cats and isn’t afraid of heights.

  Mercy, who was supposed to fly away someday.

  Nineteen

  ONCE, A COUPLE OF YEARS ago, Steven ran away. Mercy, Lux, and I were having a sleepover and Steven had to go outside. Mom had picked up a waitressing shift at the bar, so it was only the three of us and Steven at home.

  It was past midnight, and I didn’t want to stand outside and watch him pee in the front yard like he’d done a million times before. So I let him out and went back to my bedroom.

  We pulled the Ouija board from Lux’s bag and placed it in the middle of my bed. I swear the temperature in the room dropped at least ten degrees, which completely freaked us out. But we wanted to see if Lux could communicate with the other side, so we all reached for the planchette. As soon I touched it, my fingers trembled with delicious fear.

  The other side never answered.

  Half an hour later, I remembered Steven and went back to the front door to let him in, figuring he would be waiting on the front stoop like always.

  He wasn’t there. I called for him, but there was no big, jowly dog loping over the wet grass to answer my call. Steven was gone.

  I panicked, knowing Mom would absolutely flip if she found out that I’d let the baby of the family outside all alone in the dark and hadn’t bothered to keep an eye on him. Other than not burning down the trailer, that was the one thing she asked me to do. Keep an eye on Steven. There were rumors of cougars near Cottonwood Hollow, because deer were plentiful out here. And of course there were coyotes, and they would attack a big dog if they were in a pack.

  Mercy was the one to calm me down, to help me think logically about where Steven might be. She was the one who kept it together as we narrowed down Steven’s probable location to the Ruizes’ double-wide trailer, because it was closest and they kept Fluffernut’s food outside on the back deck.

  And thanks to Mercy, that was exactly where we found Steven, sleeping off a bowl of cat food that he would puke up an hour later.

  “See?” Mercy whispered as Steven snored peacefully in the dark. “You just had to know where to look.”

  I have no idea where to look for Mercy now.

  “Did Mercy happen to mention anything to you at school yesterday about plans to stay out last night?” Rick asks. “Did she say anything about meeting anyone?”

  “No,” I answer. “She just said she had to get Lux’s homework.”

  “Do you know anything else about Mercy that might be helpful to us? Is she seeing anyone? Does she have a boyfriend? Maybe someone she didn’t want her parents to know about?”

  “No,” I say, even though it feels like a betrayal. She would be mortified if she knew the police were asking me about boys. “She’s not seeing anyone. She would have told me.”

  Mercy would never keep secrets from me.

  Or would she? Didn’t I keep secrets from her and Lux?

  “You’re not going to get into trouble,” Rick assures me, as if he’s reading my face. “If there’s anything we should know, tell us now. You’re sure you don’t know where she could be?”

  “There’s no boyfriend, as far as I know. But could she be with Lux? I stopped by there yesterday, and it looked like Lux had left. Like she had packed a suitcase.” I don’t want to say ran away because the words scare me. Could Lux have really left town without saying good-bye? Could Mercy be with her? It’s hard to imagine sweet, generous Mercy doing something as cruel as running away and not telling anyone. We swore a blood oath. Didn’t she just show me her scar while we stood by the creek, reminding us that we kept our promises to each other? But maybe she only went to talk some sense into Lux. Maybe her phone died. Maybe she’s at some bus stop right now, convincing Lux to come home and put this whole nonsense to rest.

  “Lux and her mom went to stay with Lux’s grandma since Aaron hasn’t been apprehended,” Rick answers. “We reached Lux this morning by phone and she said Mercy never arrived with the homework.”

  “You talked to Lux?” I ask. It’s not possible. The only logical reason for Mercy to do something like this is if she’s trying to drag either Lux or me back to sanity. No, no, no. Not Mercy. Mercy would never run away.

  Suddenly Aaron’s name registers in my brain. “They still haven’t found Aaron?” I choke out.

  Rick shakes his head. “We’ve checked with friends that Tina mentioned, and with his parents over in Evanston.”

  “You have to find Aaron,” I tell Rick, grabbing his arm. “He was angry about his truck. Somebody put bleach in his gas tank. He thinks Lux and I might have had something to do with it.”

  Rick looks confused, and I don’t blame him.

  “It was me,” I whisper, avoiding the looks I might be getting from Mom or the sheriff. “I saw Lux after Aaron hit her earlier this week, and I was angry. Rick, what if he thought Mercy was in on it, too? What if he did something to her?”

  Rick opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, Sheriff Yost’s phone rings. The sheriff stops jotting down notes and answers it, turning away from us as he speaks, as if there’s any privacy in this tiny living room.

  Sheriff Yost mutters, “Yeah, yeah. Fifth Street? Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. We’ll check it out.” He ends the call and looks at Rick. “They found the Montoya minivan. Parked on Fifth in Evanston, just a few blocks from the church. No signs of a struggle, but the keys were still in it. Doors unlocked. Like someone wanted it to be stolen.”

  Rick’s face hardens, and he’s not my friendly neighbor anymore, or Letty’s dad who checks out books on science and technology for her from the Evanston library every Wednesday after work. He’s in full-on police mode.

  “What do you mean, they found the minivan?” I ask.

  “We know that Mercy drove the family minivan to Evanston to pick up her sister while Mrs. Montoya walked Malakai to T-ball practice at about five o’clock. But Mercy never showed up at the church to pick up her sister. We sent out a call to look for the van on the highway, but somebody already found it in town,” Rick explains slowly.

  “But what does that mean?” I ask him.

  “Normally the police would never get involved this early. But it’s a small town, and this is Mercy Montoya we’re talking about. Nobody in Cottonwood Hollow is going to believe she disappeared without telling anyone where she was going. This is a missing person case.”

  It is as if everything in my body has seized up, like all my joints have rusted and locked. I look at my hands again. Strong, capable hands. Fixer hands. I don’t know how I could have messed this up so badly. Our sisterhood is shattered. Lux is gone. Mercy is gone. I am alone.

  There’s nothing left for me to put back together.

  “Oh my God,” Mom whispers, and her voice loosens the working parts of my brain so that I can function again.

  “We’re going to need volunteers to help canvass the streets,” Rick says. “Bring a recent picture of Mercy to share with the other volunteers. Several, if you can. Come over to the Montoyas’ as soon as possible. We’ll organize things from there.”

  “Mom?” I ask as Rick and Sheriff Yost shut the front door behind them. For once, I feel like a child. For once I want Mom to lie to me and tell me everything is going to be fine, like she used to even though I resented it. Like at the father-daughter dance in junior high when she promised me that any girl could bring a man, but it took a badass rebel to bring her mom. I need to know that there’s a silver lining in all this that somehow I’m not seeing.

  “Get your shit together and come on,” Mom says, putting a leash on Steven and grabbing her purse. “Mercy needs you. Go get those pictures of you girls from your room. Hurry. We’ve got to get to the Montoyas’.”

  She might not
be the perfect mom, but she’s my mom, and she’s exactly what I need.

  I find Mrs. Montoya standing in her kitchen, red-eyed and unusually pale as she plucks dozens of muffins from cooling racks and arranges them on plates. She’s feeding the volunteers, I realize, because the house is packed with Cottonwood Hollow folks milling around the living room, helping Mr. Montoya divide the town of Evanston into a grid for search parties. Rick’s taken several of my photos to the police station in Evanston to get flyers made.

  When Mrs. Montoya sees me, she drops the muffin she’s holding onto her spotless counter, and it smears warm berry juice on the sparkly granite. “Rome,” she cries, seizing me in a hug. “Thank God you’re here.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Montoya,” I tell her, holding her as tightly as I can. Holding her like Mercy would hold her. “Of course I’m here.” She doesn’t ask me why I wasn’t with Mercy last night, and I don’t mention that this might all be my fault. I can’t tell her that Aaron might have hurt Mercy because he thinks that she put bleach in his gas tank.

  Mrs. Montoya pulls away and looks at my face. “I know we’ll find her,” she says. “We’ll find her.”

  “Rome!” Mr. Montoya says from behind me. “Thank you so much for bringing pictures of Mercy. We didn’t have any with her new haircut. Sheriff Yost told me he’d already spoken to you and that you’d had a text from Mercy?”

  “Yes,” I answer, pulling my phone from the pocket of my jeans.

  “A text?” Mrs. Montoya gasps. “This morning? Oh my goodness, is she okay?”

  “From last night,” Mr. Montoya says gently, laying a hand on Mrs. Montoya’s trembling arm.

  Mrs. Montoya pinches her lips together in an effort not to cry.

  “It’s good,” Mr. Montoya says, reading the text. “We know she was okay at five thirty. She hasn’t been gone that long.”

  Nearly fifteen hours. I calculate the time in my head, and it doesn’t sound good to me at all.

  But it’s enough to make Mrs. Montoya nod and blink back her tears. She takes the phone from Mr. Montoya with shaky hands. “That’s my sweet girl,” she says when she reads the text. “She was going to give Lux her homework so she doesn’t get behind. Mercy’s always thinking of others.”