But some of the rooms still bear witness to Kyra’s presence. The walls in the room where Kyra slept are still covered with her writing. And in this brighter light, I can see that other rooms in this wing harbor Kyra’s writing too. In the room next door:
They’re watching. They’re watching. They’re always watching.
And in the corner:
Even the walls have eyes.
In the next room, it’s one word. Over and over again.
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Down the hall, the writing becomes mostly endless loops, like when we practiced cursive writing in school. Based on the different colors of ink, and the way some of the lines fade, she must have made her way through half a dozen pens, and it’s a lonely sight. Then, around the doorway:
Come get me, please. Or I’ll come to you.
In the last room, the walls are bare, except for two scrawled words, large and frantic:
Mom. Please.
I have to stop. The weight of Kyra’s unanswered pleas is crushing me. I sit down in the middle of the otherwise empty space. The floorboards creak. I put my head in my hands.
And I break.
I hurt more fiercely than I ever have before. And I cry. I cry for the girl I used to know, who turned this rotten building into her superhero headquarters and tried to help a world that didn’t want to help her.
I cry for the girl I used to know, who kept my heart in the palm of her hands.
I cry for the girl I used to know, who hated to paint and spent the last months of her life in a space filled with her paintings.
But most of all, I cry for the girl who used to be my world, who deserved to have the galaxy at her feet.
I would give up every single star in the night sky to have another day with her.
Dear Diary
She won’t come back. She won’t come back. She’ll never come back.
I replay the same scenarios in my mind: Kyra in her room, writing on the walls. Kyra in the hall, accepting food and flowers from her petitioners. Painting to cope.
Kyra, alone.
Kyra, writing me letters. I still have unanswered letters at St. James and back at Mom’s house. I still have so many things I should have written her, but I never did. I never even said goodbye.
The flood of tears leaves me empty and spent. My shoulders and neck ache from crying. My eyes burn. I don’t know how to go on from here.
Restless energy overtakes me. I can’t sit still.
I scramble to my feet and wander along the other rooms on this floor, but they’re all empty, the only color on the walls that of half-torn wallpaper. I explore the wing where my own room is and find nothing.
In the other wing, the rooms are dustiest. No words. No signs of life. I came here yesterday hoping to miraculously find Kyra. Now, I open every door with the expectation that it will be empty. She’ll never come back.
Until I find myself on the north side of the building. We’re safe here, Kyra told me, the very first time we dared to venture to the spa on our own.
I push open the door and it squeaks in its hinges.
Gray light filters into the room through the window and French doors, which lead out to a balcony. Shadows dance on the walls. And the floor is covered with footprints.
I kneel down and trace one. Kyra.
How has it only been a week since she died? It feels like I lost her long before then. Maybe I did.
The footprints go back and forth between the door to the hallway and the doors to the balcony. I pull the sleeves of my knit sweater over my hands and push out to the balcony.
A layer of snow blankets it. The metal railing that surrounds it is cold through my sleeves, and the wind bites. The snow keeps falling, fresh and thick, covering everything around me.
From here, Kyra and I had the best view of the hot springs and the surrounding woods. In daylight, you can see the snowcapped peaks in the distance. Now, the mountains are shapeless shadows in the slate gray sky. I turn west, to try to make out Lost Creek, but all I see is the end of a broken road that leads from the spa to the town.
Did Kyra sit up here and watch the townspeople approach the spa? Did she dread it, when she saw them? Did she try to escape?
I rub at my eyes and stumble back into the room, pulling hard on the doors to close them. As I start to leave, I remember the loose floorboard where we used to keep our stash of chocolate. I wrench it away and feel around underneath it. At first, there’s nothing but splinters. When I push a little deeper, I feel something soft and smooth. I angle my hand to get a better hold and pull out a small leather-bound notebook. The blue cover and the edges of the pages are stained, and when I flick through it, most have been torn from the spine. But all the pages that are left are filled from margin to margin.
Letter from Kyra to Corey
unsent
Dear Corey,
I moved to the spa. I claimed one of the upstairs bedrooms. It’s dank and more than a little dusty, but I brought my notebooks and pens, and Mom will bring me my books.
The spa feels like a haven—or a headquarters. Lost has changed so much these last couple of months, you probably wouldn’t recognize it if you were here. I’m not sure if I recognize it. Or if I recognize myself.
The townspeople though, they see me now. Not just my parents and Aaron and Mrs. Robinson, but all of them. They don’t scorn me with their sideways glances. They see me. They see me.
I can be useful to them. I can paint the scenes they want to see. I can create a way to belong here.
It’s a sun-bright hero day, and the night feels far away and distant. I feel alive.
I wish you could see me like this.
Letter from Kyra to Corey unsent
I’m spiraling, Cor. Fall is setting in and the nights are getting longer, but my days are still endless. Endless days. No nights. And I miss the darkness, but I can’t sit still. I can’t stop. I have to keep going.
I thought Lost saw me, but they only see my art. They all want to see paintings, and most of the time I don’t even remember painting them. I wish you were here. I wish I had a way to contact you beyond the letters Aaron sends out for me, but the spa doesn’t have a phone or reception, and I can’t go home. They wouldn’t let me.
I just want someone to talk to.
I wish you would come sooner, because I’m so tired. I can’t sleep. I’m burning. I wish you would come sooner. I don’t know if I can wait.
I will wait.
I wish I could tell you how much I miss you.
Letter from Kyra to Corey
unsent
Dear Corey,
They took away my stories and my books, and left me only with paints. This notebook is my secret, so now you are my diary.
Writing to you has become the start of my day and the end of it. I’ve written you so many letters. I’m not sure what Dad reads, so I’ll only send you the safe ones, where my real messages are written between the lines. The rest—these letters, I won’t risk sending. But maybe it doesn’t matter. I’ve gotten used to your silences.
Perhaps you’ll read this one day. I hope you will. And perhaps it will be easier for me to write without expecting an answer. I still hope and pray that I can tell you this story in person one day, but in case I can’t.
Here goes.
Remember when we danced on the ice before you left? Remember how I told you stories about Lost Creek? I’ve never been a good storyteller, I know that. I’d much rather study stories than tell them. But I always thought we’d make our own legends.
Let me tell you a story.
There once was a lonely girl who lived in an abandoned spa, among candles and flowers and offerings. She didn’t belong in the community around her, but when she carved out her own space, the people came to her. For stories and secrets and art.
There once was a boy who never smiled. Everyone who knew him knew that he was searching, but he didn’t know what he was looking for, so he couldn’t find it—or happiness.