Grace (18 page)

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Authors: T. Greenwood

BOOK: Grace
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He quickly snapped a picture of the broken glass scattered on the floor below him, the spiderwebs that caught the sunlight in their careful designs. He tried to capture that color green, the inside of a chrysalis. It felt like he was taking photos of his own heart, which was still beating like a captured bird in his chest.
Mine,
he thought. This place is mine.
He wanted to stay longer, but he knew he couldn’t leave Gracy. And it was too dangerous for her to climb up too. So he reluctantly left the caboose and made his way back to the river’s edge where he had told her to wait. But when he shimmied down the trestle, she was gone.
“Gracy?” he asked, looking around. He was sure he had left her here. He remembered this toppled tree, its upturned roots like a giant’s hair. Her witch costume was still lying empty on the rocks, the striped tights like quiet snakes basking in the sun.
“Gracy!” he hollered again, and then he felt the dull, hollow thud of panic setting in. He raced back and forth across the scattered pine needles, winding through the labyrinth of trees. His heart was beating like a drum in his ears and head. He was dizzy, feeling the ground tilting awkwardly underneath him, as if the world might just spill him off its edges. He walked slowly, terrified, to the water, and his heart stopped like a cork in his throat.
Gracy was standing ankle-deep in the water about ten yards away. The sun was bright behind her, making her a silhouette. A shadow. She had made a crown of dandelions that circled her head like a halo. The sun dappled the water with light, and the leaves made heart-shaped patterns across her bare legs. He caught his breath. Where only moments ago there had been terror, now there was nothing but relief. Where there had been blistering panic was now a lovely, hushed reprieve. She was here. She was okay. Disaster had been avoided, and in its place was the most perfect thing he’d ever seen.
She held her arms out and spun on tippy-toes in the rushing water. The tattered skirt of the bathing suit swirled around her legs. He slowly, quietly raised the camera, peering through the viewfinder at her. He was afraid to release the shutter, afraid to disturb her, but he desperately needed to capture this feeling. This beautiful sensation. All of the fragility of the world was in this moment, though he didn’t know how to articulate that except by pressing his finger.
Click
.
That night there was another robocall from Mrs. Cross saying that after a thorough search of the grounds by security, the administration had determined that it would be safe for the students to return to school. There was no bomb; it was just a threat. But in the morning, Mr. Douglas was standing at the entrance to the school with his DayGlo orange security vest, checking out every student before they entered the building, even the kindergartners. He let Gracy through and then looked Trevor up and down suspiciously before asking to see his backpack.
“Why?” Trevor asked.
“S.O.P.,” Mr. Douglas said. Trevor had no idea what he was talking about. He reluctantly relinquished his backpack, and Mr. Douglas unzipped it, reached inside, and rifled through Trevor’s stuff, pulling out a freezer bag. “What’s this?” he asked gruffly.
“Film,” Trevor said.
“What for?” he said, unzipping the Ziploc and shaking the film out into his hand. Trevor felt his stomach knotting up.
“It’s for art class. Please be careful,” he said.
Mr. Douglas looked like he might crush the rolls in his hands. But then he smirked and tossed the loose rolls back into the backpack, shoving it at Trevor. “Get on in there now,” he said, as if Trevor had been dawdling instead of him holding him up.
Trevor went inside and went to his homeroom. Art class was second period on Tuesdays, and he was excited to finally get into the darkroom. He knew there were some good pictures on those rolls of film. He couldn’t wait for Mrs. D. to see. He sat down at his desk and pulled out his social studies textbook. He stayed in homeroom for social studies. Angie McDonald sat next to him. She came in, her hair a mess, two different-colored socks and a wild plaid scarf tied around her neck. She didn’t seem to care what anybody thought; he liked her for that.
“Hey,” she said as she sat down.
“Hey,” Trevor said.
As he reached into his backpack and pulled out his folder, he suddenly realized that he’d forgotten his social studies homework at home. Along with the peanut butter sandwich he’d managed to hide from his mother that morning. They were both sitting on the kitchen counter. He felt sick. He was going to have to try to explain this to Mrs. O’Brien, and she was probably going to send him to see Mrs. Cross.
“Did you hear about Mrs. D.?” Angie whispered as Mrs. O’Brien walked into the room.
“Huh?” Trevor asked. He was starting to sweat.
“I heard she had a heart attack this weekend,” she said.
“What?” Trevor asked, his throat swelling shut.
“Yeah, my mom heard it from someone in her office.”
Trevor shook his head. His hands were trembling as he opened the empty folder again.
“The lady lives in the same apartment building. An ambulance came and everything.”
“Is she ...” Trevor couldn’t get the word out.
“I don’t know,” Angie said. Her eyes were wide and filling with tears. This brought tears to Trevor’s eyes too. “They’ll probably make an announcement.”
Mrs. O’Brien took attendance; she had to call Trevor’s name twice, because he couldn’t even manage to get the word “present” past the burr in his throat. Then Mrs. Cross’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Good morning, boys and girls, this is your principal, Mrs. Cross. Today is Tuesday, June eighth. You’ll probably notice that we have heightened security at the school after yesterday’s incident. Please know that your safety is our number one priority. On that note, remember that you are not allowed to bring weapons of any sort to school. This includes pocketknives. They will be confiscated. Additionally, there is now a schoolwide ban on Silly Bandz. If you are caught wearing them or playing with them, they will also be confiscated.”
Angie rolled her eyes. Trevor took a deep breath.
“Today is Taco Tuesday in the cafeteria. And Friday night is the final dance of the school year. Now please join us all in the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Trevor stood up and felt like he might pass out. He walked up to Mrs. O’Brien’s desk and said, “I think I need to go to the nurse.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked, irritated.
Trevor shook his head. He couldn’t begin to explain what he was feeling. It was the worst kind of sickness, like something had just died inside him.
“Fine, here’s a pass,” she said, handing him a paper slip. He rushed out the door into the hallway. He glanced toward the closed door to the nurse’s office and then down toward the art room. He walked quietly down the deserted hallway and peered through the small window into the art room. Mrs. Lutz, the all-purpose substitute, was sitting at Mrs. D.’s desk. He slowly opened the door and peeked in. Mrs. Lutz looked up at him and scowled at him over the top of her reading glasses. “Can I help you?”
“Is Mrs. D. here?” he asked. His voice sounded like a creaking door.
“No, I’m sorry. She’s ill. Can I help you?”
“When will she be back?” he asked.
Someone shot a paper airplane made with Mrs. D.’s expensive origami paper at him. The pointed part hit him square in the chest. The whole class erupted in laughter, the voices echoing in that cavernous room.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Lutz said. “She’s in the hospital. I don’t know the details.”
Trevor shook his head and backed out of the classroom, worried that somebody might throw something else at him if he turned his back.
Back out in the hall, he looked toward the exit. His whole body felt cold and hollow. The hallway was still deserted. No one was out. Not Mrs. Cross. Not even Mr. Douglas. He looked up at the security camera, its red eye peering at him, and then he ran. He ran and ran until he got to the front doors, and then he was outside. Free, running across the parking lot. He ran all the way home before he realized he’d left his backpack at school. Before he realized that as soon as they figured out he was gone, Mrs. Cross would be on the phone with his mother and father. Before he realized this might be the last straw for Mrs. Cross.
He found the spare key under the garden gnome and let himself inside, feeling like a thief. It was so quiet here with Gracy and his parents gone. Like an empty set on a stage. He sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. He could feel his heart beating in his temples. He found the phone book and looked up the hospital in the yellow pages. He called the information number, but when the receptionist answered, he hung up. He didn’t even know her first name. He flipped to the white pages and traced his finger down the Ds. Finally he located her,
Carmen Dubois
. He punched the number into the phone and waited. No answering machine, just the hollow sound of the phone ringing, endlessly.
He looked at the kitchen clock. Nine thirty. He wondered how long he had before his parents figured out he was gone. Probably a good hour or more. Mrs. O’Brien might not have even figured out he wasn’t at the nurse’s office yet. He decided it would probably be best not to stick around the house, just in case they came looking for him here, and so he grabbed his camera, a handful of Cheez-Its, and a Coke, and locked the house back up. Once he was outside again, he decided to head for the woods.
He found Gracy’s striped tights still sitting on a rock by the river where she’d left them yesterday when he found the caboose. She must have missed them when she retrieved the rest of her costume. He picked them up and slung them over his shoulder. He thought about the photos he’d taken. He thought about the one of her standing in the river with the flowers in her hair.
But by the time he got to the trestle, he was beginning to wonder if he had only dreamed the caboose. The foliage seemed to have grown in thicker in only a day, almost completely obscuring the train car, enclosing it. He shoved the handful of crackers into his mouth and followed it with a swig of soda. Then he set the can down, slung his camera over his shoulder, and started to climb up the trestle. When he got to the caboose, he felt his shoulders start to relax. Inside, his eyes took a long time to adjust to the darkness. It smelled of something musty and damp. The light filtered through the leaves surrounding the caboose, casting shadows across the floor. He hung Gracy’s tights up on a nail sticking out of the wall and then lay down on the scratchy mattress, looking through the viewfinder into the light. He put his hand on his chest and felt his heart as it slowly stilled. He thought about Mrs. D. About her heart. He wondered if it was like this, just slowing until it stopped. He tried to put the thoughts of Mrs. D. in some other part of his mind, but the metal teeth clanged down shut tight, ripping into them, tearing them into ribbons.
“W
e’ve got a problem, El,” Kurt said.
Elsbeth was getting her station ready for the morning when Kurt called. She wasn’t scheduled to see any clients for another hour, so she was taking her time, cleaning her brushes, organizing her tools.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. He was silent on the other end of the line, and she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. Was there some way Kurt could have found out about her going out for coffee with Wilder? Could someone have seen them together, could someone have ratted her out? For one awful minute she thought of Twig. Would she do something like that to her? She tried to gather the words that would explain. The denial that she’d done anything wrong. That he was just a writer conducting research, that it had simply been an interview. And it had been, hadn’t it? He’d asked questions about Two Rivers, she’d answered them. They’d had coffee. He’d smiled, said he’d call her if he had any more questions, squeezed her hand, and picked up the check. She’d gone back to work. She tried not to think about how she’d blushed at the mere thought of him, how she couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the day. She’d tried not to think of Twig’s Post-it admonishment:
Be Smart
staring at her from the mirror as she cut and colored and curled.
“Baby?” she said, her body trembling.
“Trevor’s disappeared. He was in homeroom this morning, said he had to go to the nurse, but he never went and he never went back to homeroom. A substitute said he came into the art room, but then he got upset and left. I’ve been calling the house, but if he’s there, he’s not answering.”
“Jesus, Kurt. Where do you think he went?”
“I have no idea. But I haven’t got my truck. Beal got a ride into work this morning, but then Sally started having contractions, so I lent him my truck to take her to the hospital. Would you mind running to the house real quick to see if he’s there?”
“I’ve got a client coming in a half hour,” she said.
“Shit,” he said.
Elsbeth tried to think about where Trevor would go. He’d never run away before. For all the problems they’d had with him, he’d never
left
. He’d throw tantrums, throw his body down, but he’d never
vanished
. She thought about the boy who had gotten snatched on his way to school in Putney a couple of years ago. The thought of it, of somebody just
stealing
him, made her stomach turn.

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