کتاب 06-11

11

Four days after she put the phone away, where it would trouble her no more, Michael Lindqvist pulled guard duty in the infirmary. He came to see her as soon as his shift began.

“Ma’am?” he said, sticking his face between the curtain and the doorframe in a way that reminded Harper of Kermit the Frog, nervously studying the evening’s audience. “Can I see you about a thing?”

“Of course,” Harper said. “No appointments necessary. All forms of health insurance accepted.”

He sat on her cot and she pulled a pale green curtain between them and Nick for privacy. She wondered if he was going to ask her about prophylactics.

Instead he wiggled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and offered it to her. “Just thought you’d want to look at this in private. You never know when Mr. Patchett might pop by to make sure everyone is being good boys and girls.”

She opened the note and began to read.

Dear Ms. Willowes,

What happened to you that night in the woods was all my fault. I could’ve stopped it at any time and I didn’t. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope someday I can earn back your respect, or at least your trust. I would apologize to your face but lately I’ve been pissing everyone off and I’m confined to the dorm, so I have to tell you this way. I’m sorry, Ms. Willowes. I never wanted you to get hurt. I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I’m such an asshole.

If there’s anything I can do to help you, just tell Mike. I would like so badly to make it up to you. You deserve everything and anything. And also: thank you for being a substitute, part-time, all-purpose mom to my brother. You’ve been better family to him than I have. Please tell him I’m thinking about him and I miss him. While you’re at it, give my grandpa a kiss for me.

Please please please be careful.

Hopefully someday your friend again,

Allie

Michael sat with his fingers laced together, hands squeezed between his knees. He looked pasty and couldn’t stop jiggling one leg.

“Thank you for bringing this to me. I know you could get in a lot of trouble, carrying secret messages.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t any big thing.”

“It is, though.” Harper felt as lovely and free as a ten-year-old girl on her first day of summer vacation. She had already forgiven Allie everything. She had that in her—could forgive easily and lightly, with the best feeling in the world. Harper looked at the letter again and frowned. “What does she mean, she’s confined to the dorm?”

Michael’s eyes widened in comic surprise. He had the least guarded face of anyone Harper had ever met. “You don’t know? No. No, course you don’t. You almost never get out of this place. The night you robbed the ambulance, Allie went to see the Fireman and tell him what was going down. She’s the reason he knew he had to send a Phoenix to make sure you all got back safe. Allie has been in a world of shit ever since. Carol had her removed from the Lookouts and made her carry a stone in her mouth for three days. The way Carol sees it, Allie chose sides against her and made her look bad in the process. Now she’s only ever allowed out of the dorm to do kitchen chores and visit the chapel. And she isn’t glowing anymore when we all sing! She just stands there with her head down, not looking at anyone.”

“That girl saved Tom Storey’s life,” Harper said. “How can Carol punish Allie after she saved Tom’s life?”

“Um,” Michael said.

“What?”

“The story in camp is that Allie gave up on trying to save Father Storey and was just standing there crying when Carol came in and called him back by shouting his name. She called Father Storey back from the deep Bright, which is where you go when you’re dead.”

“Allie didn’t—she wasn’t—what nonsense! You were there, haven’t you told—didn’t someone explain what really—”

Michael’s head sank between his shoulders and his face assumed a hangdog look.

“You want to be careful the kind of stories you tell these days. Carol and Ben have their version of what happened. There isn’t room for any other versions. When Allie said it wasn’t true—and she did—Ben gave her a stone again for disrespecting authority. The people in this camp these days, well . . . you might’ve heard we only speak with one voice now.” His head sank still lower. He dropped his gaze. “I hate it, you know. All of it. Not just what’s happening to Allie, but also how Carol is. She’s so suspicious and strained and ready to lash out. She has patrols circling her cabin because one night she thought she saw shadows moving in the trees. Emily Waterman came out of the cafeteria laughing about something, and Carol decided she must’ve been laughing at her, and gave her a stone. Emily cried and cried. She’s just a kid.”

He swung one foot. The laces of his boot were undone and they swooped back and forth and clicked against the underside of the bed frame. After a moment he asked: “Can I tell you somethin’ kind of personal, ma’am?”

“Of course.”

“A lot of people don’t know I tried to kill myself once. Right after my sisters burned to death. I was hiding in what was left of my house, which was half burnt down. My parents were gone. My sisters were . . . these girl-shaped mounds of ash in the wreckage of the living room. I just wanted it all to go away. I didn’t want to smell smoke anymore. I didn’t want to be lonely. I had a little Honda scooter I used to deliver pizzas on. I started it up in the garage and waited for the exhaust to kill me. First I got a headache, then I threw up. Eventually I passed out. I was unconscious for about forty minutes before the scooter ran out of gas, and then I woke up. I don’t think the garage was very airtight.

“A few days after that I went wandering. I had an idea maybe I’d find my way to the ocean, and walk in to clean the stink off me.”

Harper remembered her own desolate morning walk to the ocean, not so long after she first came to camp. She wondered if Michael had gone to the water for the same reason as her, seeking a final cold plunge into quiet darkness and no more worry, no more loneliness.

“Instead I heard some girls singing. They were singing really nice, in sweet, clear voices. I—I was so out of it, I thought maybe it was my sisters, calling to me. I found my way out of the trees and into Monument Park and saw it wasn’t my sisters at all. It was Allie and Carol and Sarah Storey and the Fireman and a few others. They were singing a real old song, that one where the guy says he doesn’t know much about history. Sam Cooke, I think? They were singing and they were all lit up, soft and blue and peaceful. They looked at me like they had been waiting all day for me to get there. I sat down to watch and listen and at some point Carol sat beside me with a wet towel and began wiping the grime off my face. She said, ‘Oh, look! There’s a boy under there!’ And I started crying and she just laughed at me and said, ‘That’s another way to get the dirt off.’ I had been walking barefoot and she got down and wiped the blood and the dirt off my feet. It would kill me to do anything to hurt her. I thought I’d never be loved like my mom and my sisters loved me and then I found my way here.”

He paused, fidgeting, and then sighed, and when he spoke again, it was in a lower voice. “But that stuff Carol said about taking your baby away from you: I don’t know why she’d even think something like that. We can’t do that. And then there’s the way she treats Allie. Seems like Allie has a stone in her mouth all day, every day, and she won’t ever spit it out, because that would be like admitting defeat. Allie would rather starve first. You know how she is. And then . . . and then sometimes after chapel, after we’ve been singing our hardest, I come back to myself, and my head is ringing like after I tried to kill myself in the garage. Sometimes I think the way we give ourselves over to the Bright now, those are also like little suicides.” He sniffled and Harper realized he was close to tears. “It used to be better. It used to be really good here. Anyway. Like Allie said in her letter. You aren’t all alone. You’ve got us. Allie ’n’ me.”

“Thank you, Michael.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yes. There is. But if it’s too much, you must say no. Don’t feel you have to do anything that would put you at more risk than is safe.”

“Uh-oh,” he said. “I was thinking maybe you’d want me to sneak you some creamers for your coffee. I guess you’re thinking bigger.”

“Is there any way I can get out of here for an hour to see the Fireman? And if I did, could you keep a close eye on Father Storey while I’m gone?”

He blanched.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No,” he said. “It’s okay. I could cover for you if Mr. Patchett showed up, I guess. I could pull the curtain across your bed, put some pillows under your sheets, and tell him you’re napping. Just—if I sneak you out—if I get you together with him . . . do you promise you’ll come back? You aren’t going to jump in a car with the Fireman and take off tonight, are you?”

Of all the things he could’ve said or asked, she had not seen that one coming.

“Oh, Michael, of course I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t abandon Father Storey in his condition.”

“Good. Because you can’t leave camp,” he said and sat forward and gripped her wrist. “Not without taking Allie and me.”