"Why are there two piles?" she asked.
"That one's for the missing guy, Greg Olson."
She knelt down and pulled a flower out of her bouquet, and took a step toward the smaller pile.
"Brooke," I said, then stopped.
"What?" Her face darkened. "You don't think he's the killer, do you?"
"No, I just . . . Do you think this helps? We throw some flowers in a street, and tomorrow he lolls another one. We're not helping anything."
"I think maybe we are," said Brooke. She sniffled, and wiped her nose. Her eyes were red from crying. "I don't know what happens when we die, or where we go, but there's gotta be something, right? A heaven, or another world. Maybe they're watching us, I don't know—maybe they can see us." She placed her flower on Greg Olson's pile. "If they can, maybe it will cheer them up to know we didn't forget them." She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in the cold, and looked off into the darkness.
"Max remembers his Dad pretty dang well," I said, "but that doesn't bring him back. And what about all the others? He's killed people we don't even know about—he must have. If he hid Greg Olson's body, he's probably hidden somebody else's. If remembering's important, then what happens to them? Nobody even misses them."
Brooke's eyes teared up again. "That's terrible." Her face was bright red from cold, as if someone had slapped her hard on both cheeks. It made me mad to look at her, and I felt my breathing speed up.
"I didn't mean to make you sad," I said. I stared at my candle, deep into the heart of the flame. Remember me. . . .
Brooke took another flower from her bouquet and set it off to the side, starting a third pile on the street.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"For the others," she said.
I thought of the drifter at the bottom of Freak Lake. Did he care that some stupid girl put a flower in the street? He was still at the bottom of the lake, and the man who put him there was still killing, and that flower wasn't going to help either situation.
I turned to walk away, but someone walked past and placed another flower on Brooke's new pile. I stopped short, staring down at the two flowers crossed on the asphalt. A moment later a third one joined them.
Everyone seemed to know what was going on. It was like watching a flock of birds wheeling in the sky, turning and dropping and soaring without any command—they just knew what to do, like a shared mind. What happened to the other birds—the ones who couldn't read the signals, and kept going straight when the flock took a wide, communal turn?
I heard a familiar voice and looked up—Mr. Crowley had arrived, with Kay alongside, and they were talking to someone just ten feet away. He was crying, just like Brooke—just like everybody but me. Heroes in stories got to fight hideous demons with eyes red as burning coals; my demon's eyes were only red from tears. I cursed him then, not because his tears were fake, but because they were real. I cursed him for showing me, with every tear and every smile and every sincere emotion he had, that I was the real freak. He was a demon who killed on a whim, who left my only friend's dad lying in pieces on a frozen road, and he still fit in better than I did. He was unnatural and horrible, but he belonged here, and I did not.
I was so far away from the rest of the world that there was a demon between us when I tried to look back.
"Are you okay?"
"What?" I asked.
It was Brooke, looking at me strangely. "I said are you okay? You were grinding your teeth—you look like you're ready to kill someone."
Please help me, I begged her silently. "I'm fine." I'm not fine, and I am going to kill someone, and I don't know if I'll be able to stop. "I'm fine, let's go back."
I walked back to Mom. Brooke followed, her hands shoved tightly into her pockets, her eyes darting up to my face every few steps.
"Can we go?" I asked Mom. She turned to me in surprise.
"I'd like to stay a while longer," she said, "I haven't talked to Mrs. Bowen yet, and you haven't seen Max, and—"
"Can we please go?" I kept my eyes on the ground, but I could tell everyone was staring at me.
"We started a new flower pile," said Brooke, breaking into the awkward tension. "There's one for Mr. Bowen, and one for Mr. Olson, but we started a new one for the victims we don't know about. Just in case."
I glanced at her, and she smiled back, weak and . . . something. How was I supposed to know? I hated her then, and myself, and everyone else.
People were still staring at me, and I couldn't tell if they were staring at a human or a monster. I wasn't even sure which I was anymore.
"It's okay," said Mom, "we can go. It was nice to see you,
Peg. Margaret, please give our regards to the Bowens." We walked to the car and I got in quietly, rubbing my legs in the cold seat. Mom started the car and blasted the heater, but it still took a few minutes before anything warmed up.
"That was very sweet of you to start a new pile," said Mom, halfway home.