Five

Four days after I left the note at the library, I trudged through the lobby of my apartment building after my double shift at the Burger Barn. The stench of bacon grease and burnt coffee had soaked into my clothes and hair. The lack of sleep over the past few days was catching up, my eyes were gritty, and my legs felt as if they were tied down with weights.

The back wall of our lobby is covered in 1970s gold-flecked mirrored tiles, and there’s a sofa covered in some kind of moisture-resistant fabric. The whole apartment building has a worn, past-its-“best-by”-date look. I yanked open the creaky fire door that led to the hall and waved to the closed door of apartment 103 as I went past. Rumor has it Ms. Kowlowski sits on a kitchen stool in her daisy housecoat and slippers looking out her peephole and keeping track of who comes and goes all day long. I guess everyone has to have a hobby.

If I were struck blind, I’d know I was home by the smell. Our apartment building was a toxic mix of moldering hall carpet, the curry Ms. Baskhi cooks in her apartment, stale laundry stink wafting up from the basement, and my mom’s addiction to Febreze. Mom is convinced there is no problem that Febreze can’t solve. It’s like a magical fairy dust that she sprays on anything that doesn’t actively move away from her. We might have had a sofa we found out by the dumpster, mostly no-name brands in our cupboards, and closets full of clothes that other people didn’t want, but dammit, our place smelled like a fresh-rain-soaked lavender field in Southern France.

I heard the TV before I even unlocked our apartment door. My mom likes the volume loud enough that you can practically see the sound waves as they move through the room.

“Skye, you have to watch this.” Mom waved wildly for me to join her. She was still wearing her uniform smock from the Stop and Shop. She must have gotten her nails done on the way home. They were a bright red with a crystal embedded in the thick polish at the tip. My mom lives to BeDazzle everything.

I dropped onto the sofa and tried to figure out what had caught her attention. Ghost Hunters, I guessed, based on the night vision shots with people faux whispering, “Did you hear that?!” every two seconds.

“See the guy on the left, the one with the thick glasses? He can feel the vibrations of the dead.” Mom chewed a wad of mint gum with her mouth open. My mom sees dead people. And angels. And auras. She believes in aliens, fairies, the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and in all those online scams that promise you millions of dollars if you simply click “like” and post a picture of a stack of money on your wall. I used to think it was cool that she saw magic in everything. Then I grew to hate it. Then I hated that it bothered me even more.

“Wow,” I said in a flat voice.

She glanced over, scowling. “If you could be bothered to watch, you’d see it’s true. He predicted a child died in that house, like, a hundred years ago, and when they researched it—he was right.” She pointed at me with one shiny fingernail like she’d made a critical point.

I sighed. It never once occurred to her that the show might actually lie.

“I think I have a bit of that ability too. It’s more than psychic readings: it’s a sense of those who have been lost.” Mom sipped loudly from a can of cola. “There are times when I’m in a place and I can almost feel a humming in my skin, like electricity. They were saying human spirits are basically made up of energy, so that would explain it.”

I barely managed to avoid rolling my eyes. “You don’t feel ghosts,” I said, stealing one of the stale Chips Ahoy cookies from the bag in front of her on the coffee table. I had to nip this in the bud or she’d spend the next two weeks wandering around making up stories about the dead people she saw every place we went. It would be like the time she had to wear sunglasses all day and night because the brightness of people’s auras was blinding her. She’d fallen down the stairs to the basement because it was so dark she hadn’t seen that our neighbor had left his laundry basket outside his door. She’d sprained her wrist on that adventure and had to take a week off of work. Unpaid.

It was bad enough that my mom was convinced she was a psychic. I’d grown up with her reading tarot cards in our living room to people who never seemed to wonder why, if she was capable of seeing the future, she didn’t make some investments that would lead to us living better. If she’d picked Apple stock years ago, we’d be living in a mansion by now.

Mom leaned back, pouting. “Oh, and you know everything, I suppose. Just because you treat psychic readings like a joke doesn’t mean everyone does.” The first time my mom found my tarot cards, she’d been thrilled. She thought it was great we could have this in common. Once I convinced her it was nothing more than a scam, she was appalled. She felt I was courting “dark forces” by pretending. At least I admitted I was pretending. My mom actually believed she had some kind of special abilities. I wasn’t sure which was worse—to know you were a liar or to believe your own bullshit.

“I don’t know everything, but I know no one has ever scientifically proven psychic skills,” I said.

“Of course it doesn’t work with all that negativity and skepticism.” Mom waved off my logic. “There has to be a supportive atmosphere.”

“Reality doesn’t require emotional support,” I pointed out. “It just is. You don’t see gravity asking for validation.”

“You’ll see; they have a scientist interviewing him in the next section.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

I was willing to bet that any scientist on this show had obtained his degree from a school he’d found advertised in the back pages of a comic book.

The program broke for a commercial for our local news. “Tonight we’ll be bringing you some breaking news—”

Mom rummaged through the pilled crocheted afghan looking for the remote. “You want to watch a movie after this?”

The picture on the screen stopped my heart. I grabbed her hand to keep her from clicking it off. Oh shit. This was it. No more theory. This was really happening.

“The Bonnet family has filed a missing person report on their seventeen-year-old daughter, Paige. Paige hasn’t been seen since Thursday, when she didn’t return home from her classes at Pine Hill High School.” The anchorwoman’s face attempted to fight through the Botox filler to look concerned.

“Do you know her?”

“Shhh.” I waved off whatever she was going to say so I could listen.

“Judge Bonnet’s daughter has run away in the past. While police don’t believe Ms. Bonnet is at any risk, they, along with her family, would like her found as soon as possible to confirm her safety. Police are asking that if anyone has information about Paige Bonnet, or her whereabouts, to call the hotline number below. Stay tuned to tonight’s broadcast for any developing leads.”

“She’s pretty. Is she in your class?” Mom leaned closer to the screen, inspecting Paige’s picture before it turned to another commercial for laminate flooring.

“Yeah, I don’t really know her.” I tried to swallow, but all the saliva in my mouth had evaporated. Paige was really gone. I knew exactly what happened to her. However, I wasn’t going to be calling any hotlines. Oh god, what had I done?

Mom rubbed her temples as if she were trying to pull a message from the air. “I have this bad feeling that someone did something to her.”

“You don’t have a feeling,” I snapped. I jumped off the sofa. I couldn’t stand to be in the living room anymore. The air felt too hot and close.

Mom’s eyes widened. “I didn’t mean to upset you, it was just a flash, like a vision. It might not mean anything. You know how these things come to me.”

“It wasn’t a flash of anything.” I grabbed the remote off the cushion next to her and jabbed the button so the TV clicked off. I didn’t want Paige’s face to pop up on the screen again like some kind of freaky missing-girl jack-in-the-box. “You shouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about.”

Mom grabbed the remote from my hands. “What in the world is wrong with you?”

“A girl is missing; don’t you get that? You making stuff up, or having magical feelings, or wanting to consult the great beyond for advice, doesn’t help.” I bit off the rest of what I was going to say. It wasn’t going to make a difference. What was done was done.

“Seems to me you have a sense something is wrong too.” Mom sniffed dismissively. “Or someone needs to get some more protein in her diet because she’s getting a little cranky.” Her voice came out in a singsong tone.

I stormed out of the living room and slammed my bedroom door. I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t really involved, that I was more like a bystander, but that wasn’t completely true. I’d known this would happen when I left my answer in that book. I’d thought waiting was bad, but this was worse.

My heart raced and adrenaline Ping-Ponged around my system. I wanted to pace, but my bedroom was barely large enough to hold my twin bed and the card table that I used as a desk. Holy shit. Paige Bonnet was actually missing.

I took a few deep breaths in and out. The police were looking for her, but it was clear from the news report that no one believed anything bad had happened to her. She’d cried wolf too often, taking off for spring break, running away to stay with some guy she met on a Christmas ski trip. She might be a judge’s daughter and from the right side of town, but she had a reputation for being a wild child. No one would look for her seriously. Not yet.

Getting them to do that was my job.