FOR HOURS I wait in Kit’s cabin, dreading her return. By dinnertime she and Gordon still haven’t turned up, but the promised storm has. Slushy snow pelts the island, then changes its mind and turns to hail. I stop in my room before heading to the cafeteria to eat with Chloe, who sits with a few guests her age. After dinner the kids invite me to a “feelings circle” in one of their rooms. I tell them thanks but I’d rather have rattlesnake venom injected into my gums.
Instead I decide to find Kit.
I’ve been waiting for the right moment to come clean with her when the reality is there won’t be one. There is no perfect setting or situation to deliver news that will shatter your sister, not to mention that in the twenty-four hours I’ve been here, I’ve spent the entire time distracted and looking over my shoulder. The sense of being watched, of eyes unseen, is omnipresent. As soon as I get this off my chest, I can go home. Before something worse happens.
I pull the hood of my parka over my head and brace myself as I leave the cafeteria. When I see how hard the hail is coming down, I pick up my pace. I’ve almost reached the cabins when a pellet shoots me in the back. I yelp.
I hurry around the innermost ring to room number four and pound on the door so Kit will hear me over the storm. I take shelter under the skimpy overhang while I wait. Kit doesn’t answer. I knock again. Still she doesn’t come to the door. I run around the other side of the building and peek inside.
She isn’t here.
A tremble that starts in my shoulders spreads to my arms and legs.
Where is she? Where is my sister weathering this storm? What if she’s stuck at sea with Gordon? Maybe she couldn’t stop him from leaving. What if their boat capsized? I picture her being tossed around in the water like a piece of driftwood, shredded to unrecognizable pieces.
I bow my head, negotiate with a presence I badly want to be listening.
Take whatever you want. My job, my apartment, my health. Just don’t touch a hair on her head.
Thirty seconds later, I’m back in my cabin. Hail bounces off the roof. I walk to the window and peer out. No one there.
I kneel next to the bed and reach my hand between the mattress and frame, keeping an eye on the window. I scoot over an inch or two, grasping at nothing. I glance from the window to the bed, lifting the entire right side of the mattress off the frame.
My phone isn’t there.
I drop my forehead to the floor. It isn’t under the bed. I shake out the sheets, comforter, and pillowcases. It isn’t in the bed. I check the nightstand and desk drawers, though I know I didn’t hide it there.
The crystal clear memory of a couple of hours ago plays as I ransack the room. I came straight from Kit’s cabin to mine and deposited my phone in between the mattress and frame, practically in the middle of the bed. The phone couldn’t have been spotted unless someone was searching for it. Or watching from the window when I stashed it. I whip my head toward the panes, but they’re all empty. I swallow.
I try to recall whether the contract had any clauses about confiscating belongings, but I skimmed it too quickly. I might’ve agreed to being robbed. I turn over my purse and duffel bag, letting the contents of each spill onto the floor. I search every pocket, every inch of the room.
My phone is nowhere to be found.
A familiar wave of panic rises.
Nearly a decade ago I had just started my first job post-college. After-work drinks turned into closing down the bar. I didn’t check my phone for hours. When I finally fished it out of my purse, I had forty-two missed calls from my mom. All the breath left my body. I called her immediately, not bothering with the voice mails. She didn’t answer, so I listened to the first message. In it she cried that she couldn’t cope anymore and pleaded for forgiveness. She said she’d had enough, went on this way for three minutes until the carrier cut her off.
I stumbled into a taxi, trying her number again and again, squeezing my phone against my ear until my hand was white. It turned out she’d had too much chardonnay and passed out on the couch with her own device in hand. I put her to bed and vowed never to ignore my phone again.
Even now that Mom’s dead, even though I have no service on the island, I can’t stop the tightness spreading across my chest. I tell myself Kit will understand. I’ll have to admit I lied about not bringing my phone here, but she knows the history. Her new outlook on life doesn’t matter. She’s still my sister. She will help me.
I’ll never lie to her again. Let her be okay.
I dash back to her room, dodging hail the size of golf balls along the way. This time I don’t bother with the door, but go straight to the cabin window and gaze inside. The room is still dark. It’s eight p.m.
I trudge back to my room, resigned to the fact that most of the clothing I’ve brought to Wisewood is damp. I slump on the desk chair, wet clothes and all. The cafeteria will be closed by now. Who would be the most likely to help? Whose cabin number do I know besides Kit’s? I kick the desk and swear.
At nine I try Kit’s room again. No answer then or at ten or eleven. At midnight I give up, trying not to freak out. Where is she? I don’t know how, but I’m sure Rebecca is behind this.
After pacing the room for an hour, I give up. At this time and in this weather, I can’t do anything to get my phone back or find my sister. I’ll go to the cafeteria right when it opens tomorrow and demand to have my property returned. I will confide in Kit as soon as I figure out where she is. I lie in bed, vacillating between fear and anger. Sometime around two thirty, I lose steam. My eyelids grow heavy.
* * *
? ? ?
I WAKE TO a repeated tap on my forehead. A leak in the roof? I think groggily.
I open my eyes. The moon illuminates the room. Someone is standing over me. I scream and recoil from the intruder. The person is tall and thin and wears a bank robber’s mask.
“Who are you?” I pull the comforter up to my chin. Hail beats the cabin walls.
In a low tone the woman says, “Let’s go.” She’s dressed in all black.
“How did you get in my room?”
“Do you want your phone back?”
I start but there’s no sense in lying. Someone must have seen me trying to use it in the forest. Probably Raeanne. I curse myself for being so stupid, then nod.
Trying to blink the sleep from my eyes, I shrug on my parka and boots. The woman doesn’t give me time to get my scarf and hat before nudging me toward the door.
“I don’t have my key,” I protest.
She ignores this and heads off. I glance at Kit’s cabin when we pass, but it’s too far away to see inside. Snow pummels us as we pick our way through the circles. The cold is brutal, bone-chilling. A gale shrieks past us. None of it bothers the masked woman.