A Girl Called Dust (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

When I awoke the next morning, I wasn’t
sure what to think. At least I could see again. Was the man right about me not
being one of them? I couldn’t fly like Hollis or heal myself like Fletcher.
Whoever thought I was special must have made a mistake.

Downstairs, Mom and Dad were in the
kitchen going about their normal routines. Mom buttered toast while Dad checked
his email on his laptop. I stood in the doorway watching them act completely
normal as if nothing traumatic had happened, like their oldest daughter being
kidnapped by a boy with wings. Had they even called the police? Had they tried
to get me back? My parents should have been crying or having full-out
meltdowns, but there they were acting as if it was just a normal day. A part of
me wished the mysterious man hadn’t brought me back. Everything about being
home felt wrong.

I cleared my throat.

Dad hopped up from the table and Mom
dropped her toast. They stared at me as if they had never seen me before.

 Mom looked to Dad, who seemed as if
he were about to say something, but didn’t, then she rushed over to me. “Honey,
we’ve been so worried.”

Had they been? They didn’t seem worried.
They seemed afraid of me.

She held my face in her hands. “We weren’t
expecting you back so soon. Are you okay?”

“Fine.” They were expecting me to be gone
longer? Why were they acting as if I’d simply come home from summer camp?

I eyed my mother, trying to read her real
emotions. She was good at hiding them. “Maybe you never expected me to come
back. They told me that was my new home. Maybe you thought that too. I think
that’s what you wanted.”

Mom’s face crumpled, and I felt guilty,
but that was the way I felt. “Arden, don’t be silly. We were worried sick, but
like your father said, we knew they wouldn’t hurt you.”

Dad kissed me on the forehead, then he
frowned. “So, they let you come home?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I kind of got kicked
out.”

Dad glanced at Mom then turned his
attention back to me. “I know we have a lot to talk about. We’ll chat when I
get home from work.” He kissed me again and then disappeared from the kitchen
like he couldn’t wait to get away from me.

Mom went back to her toast, which was
seriously overbuttered by then. “I’ll make you something to eat. Hurry and get
ready for school.”

I groaned and sank into my chair at the
kitchen table. “School? Can’t I stay home? I’ve kind of been through a lot.
Besides, I’m exhausted.”

“No. I’m sorry. You’ve already missed two
days. People will start wondering.”

Of course. It was all about what people
thought. I had been kidnapped and locked away for two days, and Mom was worried
about what her friends would say.

“Mom?”

She paused after pulling a package of
bacon from the fridge. “Yes?”

“You know this isn’t normal, right? None
of this.”

She looked at me for a moment then went
back to what she was doing. “I know.”

I stomped upstairs to take a shower and
throw on a dress. Mom made me take my bacon sandwich to go. Just the thought of
the school day filled me with dread. I was in no mood to deal with Lacey,
Ranson, or anyone.

Before the first bell rang, I looked
around for Fletcher, but he was nowhere. I didn’t run into him until third
period. He grabbed me by my arm after class and pulled me to the side. “What
are you doing here? I thought they took you.” I thought he’d be happy to see
me, but he wasn’t.

I looked around. Not that anyone was
paying us any attention, but I couldn’t risk them hearing our conversation
because it all sounded crazy. “Can we talk after school?” He nodded but walked
away looking worried. Had me wanted me not to come back?

Lacey “accidentally” bumped into me on the
way to the cafeteria. “Where’ve you been, Dust?”

I thought about Hollis and Wes and the
cameras. They were probably watching me right then, thinking about what a
sucker I was. Knowing they had cameras placed all over the school made me feel
more self-conscious than usual. I tried to speak in my firmest voice. “Sick.
I’m surprised you even noticed, seeing as though I’m invisible. Nice to know
you missed me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter
yourself. Ms. Melcher’s class has been pretty boring with the substitute, and I
was hoping you’d eat something else gross. A frog, maybe.”

Just when everyone had forgotten about the
crayfish, Lacey would bring it back up. Why couldn’t she let it die already?

I was so not in the mood. “Have you gone
to see Bailey?”

Lacey scoffed. “No. Why would I have?
We’re not friends anymore. She let a guy come between us. And from what I’m
hearing about her scars, no guy will ever want her again. You can have her
back.”

“Your friend is horribly scarred and was
almost killed, and you’re still mad about Trent, who happens to be dead, by the
way. Have some respect.”

Lacey smirked. “Think about it. If the two
of them hadn’t been together, none of this would have ever happened. You were
there. I asked Bailey to stay on the patio and dance with me, but she just had
to go out into those woods with her boyfriend. She ditched you too, you know.”

I had never wanted to punch Lacey as hard
as I did then. “I bet you don’t remember saying how you wished they’d be mauled
by the Teacher Killer.” My voice had risen slightly.

“Shhh.” Lacey yanked me into a corner by
my arm. “I was joking. I totally didn’t mean that.” She looked slightly sorry,
but only because she knew if anyone heard what she said, they’d all hate her.
Everyone felt sorry for Bailey, and not even the queen bee could get away with
making such a heartless statement. “I—I was drunk.”

She might have been tipsy that night, but
she knew exactly what she was saying. “You have to be the most horrible person
I’ve ever met.”

Just like that, any fear she had shown was
replaced by her usual smugness. “Whatever, Dust. Gotta go. Bi-yee.”

She sauntered off, and I hated her more
than I ever had.

Fletcher texted me to meet him in the park
so we could talk. I settled onto our bench, and I focused on my homework since
I had so much to make up. I wished I had the book of creatures to read, but
because of Creepy Guy in the Cloak, I’d had to leave it behind.

Fletcher plopped down beside me with a
white plastic bag from Gerdy’s. He handed me a jar of olives and took out a bag
of potato chips for himself.

“Thanks.” I twisted the cap off the jar
and stuffed olives into my mouth. I couldn’t get enough of them.

“So, not that I haven’t missed you, but
what are you doing here? They couldn’t have possibly taught you everything that
fast.”

The olives suddenly had a weird taste to
them. “Fletch, is it true? Am I what they say I am? A Bandigo?”

He looked straight ahead. “Yeah.”

“You’ve known all this time?”

He nodded. “I didn’t know until the first
time you spoke to me in Gerdy’s after the bus thing. It was the first time I
had gotten close enough to smell you.”

“All the times I asked you—you’re my best
friend. Why couldn’t you just tell me?”

“One, you wouldn’t have believed me, and
two, it wasn’t my place to tell you. Parents have the right to disclose the
truth to their children as they see fit. I don’t agree with your parents not
telling you, but I had to respect it. It’s part of the code.”

“What code?”

He put his chips to the side and pulled a
book from his backpack. “You’ll learn.”

The olives I’d swallowed so quickly
threatened to come back up. “Fletch, what are you talking about?”

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you
about any of this because I’m a Giver. Did they at least tell you about Givers
and Takers?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You need to talk to your father.
He’s a Giver too.”

I almost laughed because the thought was
so ridiculous. “What are you talking about?”

“Think about it. Your father leaves for a
month, the same month every single year.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, so? I told you. He goes
away for business.” He went to an advertising conference in New York each year,
although he never told us much about it, not that we wanted to hear details. It
all sounded so dull.

“That’s not why he goes away. Ask him.”

I threw my books back into my backpack.
Who could think about school with all this life-changing drama? It had been
enough learning that Dad wasn’t my real dad. Now I was supposed to believe he
wasn’t Human at all? I couldn’t just erase what I’d believed my whole life. “I’m
not asking him anything. Dad is just Dad. A plain old boring marketing
executive. He’s not some creature.”

 Fletcher shrugged, giving up. “If
you say so.”

“What are you?”

“A Walker.”

“What’s that?”

A blast of wind passed over us, and
Fletcher shivered. “It means I can turn into different animals at night.” He
said it so casually like it was no big deal. “We’re supposed to protect people
from Takers. Only I’m not very good at that yet.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I haven’t been able to stop the Wendigo
attacks.”

I gulped. “That’s why you think it’s me.
Well, it’s not. I’m not the one who killed those people, Fletcher. They say I’m
not strong enough to do that yet.” But I will be.

“There are no other Wendigos around here
but you, Arden. You don’t know what you do at night after you go to sleep.”

I was hurt that he was still thinking that
I was capable of such a thing. “You think I would hurt Bailey?”

“I don’t think you would want to, but you
can’t help it. A Wendigo would eat their own family. People are just food to
them.”

I thought about my parents and sisters.
There was no way I could ever do that. I would die before I hurt them. “If you
think it’s me, why haven’t you killed me then?”

He looked down, letting his hair cover his
eyes. “You’re my friend, and if you say it’s not you, I’d like to give you the
benefit of the doubt.”

I didn’t know what to do to prove to
Fletcher that he was wrong about me. “Dad said we would talk tonight.”

Fletcher brushed the chip crumbs from his
hands. “Great. It’s about time.”

After dinner, Dad and I went out onto the
patio. I had the leftover pot roast from dinner and Dad had a bowl of ice
cream. My sisters had spent the whole night staring at me like I was a
stranger. They’d barely said three words to me. I figured we were back at
square one, and any sisterly bonding we had done had gone down the drain. Now
they didn’t just think I was weird. They were afraid of me. I tinkered with the
BIG SIS charm that dangled from my bracelet.

The November evening was chilly, but I
didn’t feel it. I was warm and comfortable with a light jacket. Dad and I sat
side by side on the porch swing.

“Dad, do you promise to be honest and
answer all my questions?”

“I promise.” He looked me in the eye so I
knew he meant it.

I stuck my fork into the pot roast.

“Am I your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“No. I mean your blood daughter.”

Dad sat his bowl down between us. “No,
you’re not my biological child, but you are my daughter. Nothing can change
that. There’s more to family than blood.”

“Where’s your real daughter?”

Dad sighed, looking somewhere over the
fence. “I don’t know.” I felt uncontrollably jealous. My parents were probably
thinking about the other girl every single day.

“Why did they switch us? Who switched us?”

Dad shook his head. “We don’t know. I’ve
been trying to figure it out. There has to be some motive.”

I stuck a chunk of pot roast in my mouth.
“If you knew I wasn’t yours, why didn’t you do something about it?”

“By the time I got back from my trip, your
mother had fallen in love with you, and so had I, on first sight. No one had
listened to your mother and everyone assumed she was suffering through some
sort of postpartum when she kept saying someone had taken her real baby. After
a while we just accepted the fact. Arden, I swear I had no idea what you were
until you got older. I thought you were Human. When you were around ten, you
developed the smell. That’s when I knew.”

“When you knew, why didn’t you tell me?
Why didn’t you teach me?”

Dad picked up his bowl again, but he
didn’t eat. “For a couple of reasons. Your mother thought if we just ignored
it, that you could be normal. Human. That you wouldn’t change. Then you started
acting out at night, and we knew that you would change no matter what. On top
of that, I’m a Giver and you’re a Taker. I don’t know how to teach you to be
what I’m not. I don’t know how to hunt and destroy and kill just for sport.”