Messenger 93

by Barbara Radecki

  “You think Dell might tell me something?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe? If she knows something.”

  “Hmm.” I pretended to consider it.

  Dell was clearly older than us. Not exactly the kind of person I could walk up to and investigate — if that’s what I was going to do.

  “Okay, well … That’s all I got.” Remy slipped her phone back inside her jacket pocket and zipped it shut. “I should go.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Although I didn’t know where.

  She eyed me. “I think it’s pretty cool what you’re doing.”

  That was mind-blowing.

  She smiled, then took off, running away into the dark before I could smile back.

  I PULLED OUT KRISTA’S phone and clicked into Ittch. My profile still existed. As if I’d never deleted it. But my grid was gone, and my follower count was 1. When I clicked to see who the follower was, it was me. I logged in with my old information — and it worked. I checked the inbox, and there it was — the owl emoji and the Fri at 2 message, sent to Boyd.

  It was so confusing, I almost wondered for a second if I had done it. Reactivated my account to send Boyd a luring message.

  An owl. A day and a time. But they were meaningless to me.

  Clio’s voice floated in, her saying, Krista always loved puzzles. Riddles.

  Krista. Of course it was Krista.

  She knew my logins. The so-many times she’d grabbed my phone when we were still friends. Her going into my feeds, posting stuff for me in the name of fun and games. My friends turning on me for things they were certain I’d done or said behind their backs.

  Krista had orchestrated it all. Sent messages from my accounts to make a point, then deleted them so I wouldn’t find out.

  I wanted to sink into despair. It was too unfair. Her taking everything away from me — using ploys and tricks — for some mystical reason I could never figure out. Why? What had I ever done to her?

  But I didn’t have time for despair. It was the middle of the night, and I was so close to finding the key. To getting out of this torturous nightmare.

  At least now I understood why Krista had run away. She was a) heartbroken; b) humiliated; c) plotting her revenge; d) all of the above.

  But why would she pose as me to talk to Boyd?

  Because she wanted to see him. Because no one would think the message had come from her and use it to track her. Because I was never going to check my Ittch, and no one was ever going to question me about anything. She must’ve thought — for a reason I couldn’t understand — that there was a real chance Boyd would meet me somewhere on Friday at two. Today at two. And instead she would be there in my place. And she would — What? What would she do? Woo him back?

  Her text to Boyd took on a whole new meaning. Single eye: Watch out. Finger: I’m your one and only. Scissors: Find me or I will slice you. Stars: And this is where you’ll end up.

  Krista was trying to correct the tragic course of her life.

  But where was she? And what was she planning?

  Eye. Finger. Scissors. Stars.

  I’d always thought I was pretty smart. I did well in school. Could string lucid ideas together. Could write a mean essay. Had legit taste in music. Didn’t get carried away by absurd romantic notions. Knew who had my back (nobody). Had reasonable expectations of life (none). It was kind of depressing that Krista had designed a clue I couldn’t figure out.

  She will fall in six days.

  The girl-who-has-everything-but-runs-away wants to be somewhere completely different than the girl-who’s-heartbroken-and-waiting-to-be-rescued. Everything Girl is going to chase some idea or dream. She could be anywhere. Hollywood. Yoga retreat. Fight club. But Expectations Girl designs a trap for her prey.

  As she falls, so do we all.

  I wasn’t sure anymore if I was supposed to save Krista from some terrible fall, or Boyd from her heartbreak, or myself from her wrath.

  But Joan of Arc went to war, didn’t she? She probably didn’t like it. Or think it was easy. There was every chance she was going to die. She went because she had to. Because the voices told her to. Because she was going to know what to do when it mattered most. At least that’s what Google had said.

  You must find her. Only you can save her.

  I reset my backpack over my shoulders. It was heavy. Why did I always have to carry so many books? I headed the opposite direction from Remy — it would be too weird to run into her again. It was still dark out, but the sun was definitely pulling up to the curb of the world.

  I walked the long way around to our neighborhood shopping strip. Morning commuters were already on the road. The whoosh of tires driving by was oddly soothing. Like memories of being little and getting driven somewhere, the bliss of not having to make any decisions, of not having to think, of barely being alive.

  By the time I got to the shopping strip, the sun was rising. I’d never watched the sun rise before. It was pretty. Blush-line horizon, buildings and trees silhouetted against it, a dimmed-screen dome of sky containing us all.

  According to the crow, I had six days left. But it hadn’t told me what I would be doing with those days. I felt scuzzy, my mouth was slick with sleep. If I wanted to freshen up, I had two options: go home, or stay on the road and pick up some supplies.

  Going home felt like failure. A destination for losers. Or targets. For worms waiting to get plucked up and eaten by crows. My bedroom was where this whole thing had started. For the first time not a refuge but a dungeon. A trap.

  I went into the all-night pharmacy and found the clothing aisle with its slim assortment of the basics. I picked up two plain sweatshirts, two pairs of warm socks, and six pairs of underwear. At the cash, I added toothpaste and a toothbrush. I used the family emergency credit card to pay, and clocked that it should be the last time to use it.

  By the time I was out on the street again, the morning light was brighter. As pale pink as Dell’s Ittch-famous coat. I found an instant teller and slipped in my card. There was only $213.43 in my account. All that remained of my allowances and money-gifts after spending the rest on music and audio-gear and nondescript clothing. I withdrew the two hundred dollars available through even twenties and stuck it in my wallet.

  I walked a few more blocks and hit the Jo’s Joe. A couple of kids in hairnets were working the counter. Customers were already lined up at the counter or hunched over coffees at tables. No one noticed when I walked in.

  I ducked into the bathroom and avoided looking at myself in the mirror. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, combed my hair. There were smeared black marks on my left palm — numbers I’d written to break into Krista’s locker. I washed those off too, then filled my water bottle. After ripping price tags off my purchases, I changed into a fresh pair of underwear and socks, and swapped yesterday’s sweatshirt with a new one.

  I tried to push the other new clothes into my backpack, but there were too many binders and books in the way. I didn’t know where I was going next, but it seemed unlikely that my imminent future was going to include studying for school. Besides, the books were too heavy.

  I pulled everything out of my backpack. There were only toilets and trashcans in the Jo’s Joe bathroom. Nowhere to stash my stuff for safekeeping. I took a breath, and stacked my schoolwork, book by book, behind the garbage can. Maybe it would still be there when I came back.

  Messenger 93.

  I went to the counter and ordered a breakfast sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate. I paid in cash and slumped at the only free table. There was a socket in the wall and I rummaged for my charger and Krista’s phone and plugged them together. The charge-icon flashed on, and then her screen switched over to the keypad. 9393 to get in. The strangest thing.

  A tinny, barely audible voice spoke above me. “… human remains found in a shallow grave near highway 6.” No
t a crow’s voice this time, but one coming from a TV suspended on the wall. The screen was tuned to one of those 24-hour news channels, and the shot was panning over an empty field near some woods. “… excavated during routine maintenance work.” Cut to an announcer, dead expression, mic at her chest. “Police seek assistance in identifying the female body.”

  My mouth went dry. Of course there would be a serial killer on the loose.

  “More information,” the announcer said, “will be made available following a postmortem examination. Signing off from Betthurry.”

  I keyed into Krista’s phone and searched Betthurry. It was a small place in the middle of nowhere, north of the city. Barely even a town. The only thing that came up about it was the news story about the dead body.

  She will fall.

  The crow had said there were six days left, hadn’t it? Six days.

  I glanced around, half-expecting to see it perched on a nearby table, ready to coach me. But it was only the usual coffee shop hubbub and digitally-absorbed customers.

  So what was I supposed to do?

  Remy’s voice saying, Maybe Dell knows something. She might tell you something.

  Remy hadn’t told anyone else about Dell. Which meant I was the only one who would attempt to talk to her.

  3

  IT TOOK THREE BUSES to get to Fairdale Collegiate. By the time I was on the last stretch, I was sardined in with a hundred other kids commuting to school. When they all started jumping off the bus, I got off too. It was 8:45 a.m.

  Out on the sidewalk, I pulled up my raincoat hood and hid inside it. I searched the student-packs for Dell, but there was no sign of her. A bunch of kids were hanging out on the steps and stone fixtures in the yard. Tight-knit groups were already heading into class.

  I wondered what Infinity Girl would do with this crowd. Would she show them their slumped unhappiness? Their yearning eyes as they stared at themselves in bathroom mirrors, searching for a better face? I know it’s not enough, she might reveal. It’s never going to be enough.

  I looked around for some easy targets. Two tiny girls were walking shoulder-to-shoulder towards me. They tried to walk in formation around me. I stood straighter. For once I would be the intimidating one. “Excuse me,” I said. The girls stopped in unison and looked up at me. Their mouths had frozen into defensive pouts. “Do you guys know Dell?”

  The girls looked at each other — their heads snapping at exactly the same time. I could read the subtext: this is a trick question.

  “You know — Dell?” I said, adopting Remy’s tone. “Dell?”

  “Yeah?” said the girl on the right.

  “Everyone knows Dell,” said the girl on the left.

  They started to walk on, as if they’d answered the troll’s riddle at the bridge and were clear to leave.

  “I need to find her,” I said, stepping in front of them again. “It’s super-important.”

  If anything, their frozen pouts embedded deeper. “We don’t know where she is,” right-girl said.

  “We don’t know-know her,” said left-girl.

  “That’s okay,” I said. I had to walk backwards now because they were trying to get around me. “I just need to know where she mostly hangs out. Like, a general vicinity. Caf? Library? Specific hallway?”

  “Yeah,” said right-girl. She was pulling discreetly at her friend’s sleeve.

  “Any of those,” said her friend. And then they scuttled away.

  I turned and faced the school. I’d have to go in there, unarmed, a one-person search party.

  Weirdly, it wasn’t that hard to insinuate myself among the students and pretend like I belonged. It was a trick I knew well, having done it every day in my own school. You didn’t need friends or a gang if you didn’t care about having them.

  I knew the bell could ring any minute, so I trooped down hall after hall, scanning faces as quickly as I could. To be honest, I expected there to be a glowing aura around Dell, a choir singing, something consecrated that would open a path and lead me directly to her. But it was all so ordinary, so familiar. Just another school, just another hallway, just another swarm of weary faces.

  I found the caf and the library, and she wasn’t in either place. Kids were already collecting in classrooms, and I knew I couldn’t check each one. I half-considered asking the school secretary to tell me which class Dell was in, but didn’t want to risk getting kicked out.

  The bell rang suddenly and, just as suddenly, classroom doors slammed shut and the halls were empty. Soon there would be a hall monitor, and no good explanation to give them for why I wasn’t in class. I rushed towards the nearest exit and pushed through the door. It led me into an unremarkable courtyard. I stopped and let the door close behind me.

  Dell was wearing her pink coat. It was buttoned up this time, with a heather-gray cashmere scarf triple-wound around her neck. Her skin was artificially luminous and light. Her hair was white, fanning upwards in breathless layers, sort of like the feather from my bedroom. Her eyes were closed.

  I turned away and tucked into a corner and settled, pretend-casually, on a concrete ledge, pulling off my hood and shaking out my hair so I wouldn’t look so intensely sketchy. Then I took out Krista’s phone and pretended to engage. I didn’t want to confront Dell right away — it had to be a nonchalant approach.

  When I looked up next, I noticed for the first time that she wasn’t alone. There were three other kids with her, all just as white and synthetic-looking. Two girls were splayed along the edge of a planter, totally absorbed watching Dell with a guy, who had his back to me.

  I shifted on my perch so I could see what they were doing. Dell’s hands were wrapped around the boy’s forearms and his were wrapped around hers. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I imagined his eyes were closed too. There was something formal about their pose — their backs straight and unmoving — that made it look like they were locked in prayer.

  If I was going to ask Dell about Krista, I’d have to go up to them. Interrupt them. Do the detective thing and show them Krista’s picture: Do you know this girl?

  I launched Krista’s Ittch, and clicked into Dell’s profile. The last photo she’d posted was the one Remy had shown me: Dell in front of our school two days before, posing with her thumb down. I enlarged it and inspected every corner. I don’t know what I hoped to see. A scrap of paper lying on the grass with an exact address? A significantly shady person watching from the perimeter? But there was only Dell, a patch of grass, a short strip of road, and the front entrance of our school with its raised metal letters spelling out the name: T. Emmet High School.

  I checked with Dell-in-real-life again. Just in time to see her serene, plastic expression break. Her lips twitched into a smile that revealed very white teeth. Then she started to full-on laugh, her voice high and wheeling. She opened her eyes and looked at the boy whose arms she was clasping. “So, do you love me?” She had one of those nasal-baby voices.

  The guy started laughing too and broke away from her. “No.”

  Dell slapped him. “Get out!”

  “Ow!” He laughed and held his cheek where Dell had slapped him, and then she slapped him on the other cheek. “Ow!” He reeled away, but he was buckling with laughter. “I’m sorry!” he said, cowering away from Dell. I could see his face now. He looked as pristine as a boy Barbie. “I kept thinking about other stuff,” he said, and the two other girls started laughing.

  “No!” Dell screeched. “It’s supposed to work! You were supposed to be, like, connecting with me on a vibrational level.”

  “It did work! I was vibrationally connected to the samosas Lida packed me for lunch. I’m obsessed.”

  Dell smacked him again. “Well, I didn’t fall in love with you either. I was dreaming of that beaded halter at Celestial Inspo. I have to have it.”

  I checked Krista’s phone and clicked into
her profile and picked one of her close-up shots. I imagined the walk across the courtyard, towards Dell and her friends, them looking up at me, my hand shaking as I extended the phone and showed them Krista’s picture: Do you know this girl?

  “Gawd,” Dell said, running her fingers through her hair, flipping the part one way then the other. “I totally have to make my Ittch rounds again. Ugh. I hate it.”

  “Your terrible life,” said one of her friends. She was the only one with dark eyes.

  “I have too many fans now,” Dell said with a theatrical sigh. “It’s so stressful.”

  The dark-eyed girl stretched up off the ground. “I have to go to class.”

  “Me too,” said the other girl.

  If I didn’t ask them now, I’d be trapped there, forever clinging to the bland brick courtyard wall. I stood up and Dell’s eyes flicked to me. “Ugh, I’m so bored,” she groaned to herself. But we were staring at each other. It stopped me in my path and I couldn’t move.

  “Hello?” she said and the others spun to face me.

  I was staked to the spot.

  “I don’t do guest shots.” Dell pitched her voice higher and more baby for me. Her celebrity voice.

  “Or autographs,” said Barbie-Boy.

  “Def not.” Dell was sugar-sweet about it. “But I’m doing a giveaway next week. You should enter.” She brightened, but it wasn’t a smile. She bared her teeth.

  Shoot the messenger.

  My hand with Krista’s phone flew up, positioned so she could see it. “You know this girl,” I said by accident not as a question.

  “What girl?” Dell said. She didn’t move towards me, didn’t glance at my phone. None of them did.

  “You met her outside T. Emmet,” I said. “Two days ago.” I checked the screen. A photo of Krista was up, one with no shadows on her face, only Plasticine contours. My feet finally unglued and I shuffled towards them. “Do you remember her?” I got close enough that Dell had no choice but to look at the photo. By some miracle, my hand wasn’t shaking.