The Willows Read online

  Pacing had never been something I thought much about, but while I waited for Jackson, I found myself pacing back and forth in front of the office. I was too keyed up to sit down. My mind kept bringing back Piper's face in high resolution and I twirled a piece of hair nervously wondering if I should say something.

  The bells signaling the end of first period and the start of second, came and went. People looked at me curiously as they walked from one end of the school to the other, but no one said anything to me. Word had spread that I had sort of had a breakdown at my parents funeral and while you would think that would have people showing me some sympathy, it mostly had them steering clear of me.

  Finally, just when I was making a list of all the things I could use to break through the glass of the office windows and rescue my baby brother, he walked out into the hallway.

  "Jackson!" I hugged him, "are you okay?"

  He nodded, but I noticed he was still pale and his eyes looked swollen like he had been crying. "They said we can go home for the rest of the day and wait for Mason."

  "Is that what you want to do?"

  He nodded. "I'm tired, Evie. I just want to go lay down."

  I hugged him one more time, he stood unmoving in my arms, and then I ran back into the office just long enough to grab my backpack and car keys. "Let's get out of here."

  The car ride home was just as quiet as the one going to school that morning. With the exception of an awkward uneasiness between us. I was actually relieved when I pulled into our driveway and put the car into park. Jackson was up and out of his seat in record time, leaving me to scramble to catch up to him.

  At the door, I fumbled with the lock and cursed under my breath until Jack finally took my keys from me and opened the door. Once inside, he stood in the middle of the living room with a vacant expression on his face.

  "Jack? Do you want to talk about it?" Inside I was boiling over. I wanted to grill him. I wanted to know everything they asked and everything he said, but looking at him, I knew he wasn't up for it and I wasn't going to pry.

  He shook his head. "I just want to lay down." He started walking down the hall toward his bedroom and I followed him, deciding that lying down sounded great and I wanted to test my theory about going back to sleep and waking up to a different day. I had just passed him when he stopped me, "hey, Evie?"

  I looked over my shoulder at him, "yeah?"

  "I love you."

  I smiled, "love you too bro."

  He nodded, seeming satisfied with my response and disappeared behind his bedroom door. I stood there for a few seconds and then walked through my own. I stopped in front of my mirror and laughed at my reflection. "So much for getting ready today," I said out loud.

  My sweats and t-shirt were still lying in a heap on my floor and I quickly changed into them. Then I walked down the hall to the bathroom and scrubbed the makeup off of my face and pulled my hair up. On the way back to my room, I stopped at Jackson's door, tempted to knock on it and make him talk to me. I even went so far as to put my hand on the smooth surface. After a few seconds, though, I thought better of it and went to go rest.

  Who could have ever known that not forcing my brother to talk to me in that moment would be the biggest regret and the heaviest guilt I'd yet to encounter. Certainly not I, or my actions would have been so very different in those moments. Instead, I slept. Blissfully unaware that in the weeks proceeding this, I had only thought my life was over. In the weeks to come, it really would be.

  Chapter Four

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Ugh. That was my first thought when I heard the knocking. My second was that my head hurt. My third was really? Knocking again? The door to my bedroom opened and I was surprised to see Mason peaking around it.

  "Hey, sorry I didn't mean to wake you. I wasn't sure you were home."

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes and looked at him, confused. "What do you mean? My car's outside."

  He raised his brows. "No. It's not."

  At first I thought I was delusional; still dreaming. What the hell did he mean? Of course my car was out there. Where else would it be? I held up my hand. "Don't mess with me Mason, it's been a really crappy day."

  I laid back down and buried my head under the covers. Mason threw them off of me. "I'm not messing with you, Evie. Your car isn't outside."

  Ugh. I threw the covers back off and trudged to the living room. I always left my keys in my backpack and I had left my backpack on the couch. "Look, Mason, the keys are right..." except that they weren't. Panicked, I dumped everything out. They weren't there.

  I ran to the front door and threw it open. He was right. My car was gone. I thought back to the morning. It had been draining, scary, exhausting, sure, but I distinctly remembered parking the car and coming inside. Just like that, I remembered. My hands, fumbling with the lock. Jackson taking the keys from me and opening the door. Had he given them back to me? I strained my memory, but I wasn't sure. I couldn't remember getting them back. Did that mean that I didn't?

  I looked up at Mason. "Jackson."

  Knowing what I meant without more of an explanation, he ran back down the hall and tried to open Jack's room. The door was locked. I came up behind him just as he began knocking on the door.

  "Jackson? Open up, it's Mason."

  Nothing.

  "Maybe he's sleeping." Even to my own ears, the excuse sounded flimsy and implausible.

  Mason, still knocking, looked over at me. The fear in his eyes only worked to heighten the fear I was sure was shining through my own. "Jackson, open this door right now."

  Still nothing.

  Mason took a few steps back and took a deep breath. Then he lunged forward and hit the door, hard, with his shoulder. "Shit!" He rubbed his arm. The door was still stubbornly closed. He took a few steps back and lunged again. This time the door crashed against the wall with a loud crash. The room was empty.

  "Fuck." Mason walked out of the room, his cell phone already in his hand. He slammed the end button and looked at me. "Straight to voicemail."

  "Where do you think he went?" Mason was pacing back and forth in the living room so I sat on the edge of a chair and watched him. I felt like I was going to throw up.

  "I don't fucking know, Evie. You were here with him. You tell me."

  I frowned and took a deep breath. "That's not fair Mason. You can't blame me for this."

  He sat down across from me. "I know." He was shaking and I knew he was just concerned about Jackson so I wasn't going to hold anything he said against him. "We need to call the cops."

  I nodded, watching him dial 911 on his cell phone. After a few seconds he began to explain the situation. Feeling like I was going to be sick if I listened to him, I walked back to Jackson's room.

  It looked just like it always did. I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, but it wasn't that. Somehow, with my stomach churning and a headache beginning to pound in my temples, I just knew that something horrible had happened.

  "You know me, Evie. I love you."

  His words echoed through me head. Remembering them now made them almost seem like a goodbye. I hugged my arms around myself, standing in his doorway and wished for the tears to fall that still wouldn't come. First my parents and now my brother. Was there seriously something wrong with me?

  The sun was shining in through his windows, melting the snow that had fallen through the night. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the light glint off of something under his bed. When I looked closer, curious to see what it was, dread settled down inside of me. It was his cell phone.

  "Evie? Where are you?" Mason called from down the hallway.

  I didn't answer. I picked up the small phone and looked at it. He wouldn't have left his cell phone behind. He practically lived with that thing attached to his hand. Was it my imagination or did it feel like it was warm to the touch? I checked the screen, but it was off. Weird.

  "Hey, the police are on the way. They want to look around." He frowned when he saw
me kneeling on the floor, "what are you doing?"

  Without really thinking about the reason behind it, I stealthily hid Jackson's phone inside my sock and stood up. "Nothing, I'm just really worried about him."

  Mason looked at me strangely, but he had been looking at me that way since the accident so it wasn't anything new. "Tell me what happened this morning."

  Over coffee at the kitchen table, I told Mason everything that had happened. He was a little spooked when I told him about early this morning and the strange knocking and had mumbled something about knowing that he shouldn't have left us here alone. When I told him about school and the police and the strange way Jackson was acting he buried his face in his hands.

  "This is just so not like him at all," he muttered.

  I stood up and refilled our cups from the pot on the counter. "I know." I blew on the hot liquid, letting the steam warm my face, before sipping on it.

  There were unspoken words between us. I knew it and by the look in Mason's eyes, I knew that he knew it too. When had secrets become normal between all of us? I was scared. There was no other way to describe what I was feeling. On the inside, I was trembling, sick with worry over my brother. On the outside, I knew that I was just as poised and put together as if it was just another day.

  I knew that the police would be there any minute. Probably the same two who had questioned Jackson that morning. There really wasn't a need for a lot of law enforcement up here in the mountains. His cell phone was like a weight on my ankle and I wanted to hide it before they got there. I needed to see what Piper had texted him. I knew that was the clue to find him.

  "I'll be right back." Mason stood up, like he wasn't going to let me out of his sight. "It's okay, I'm just going to change my clothes."

  Nodding, he sunk back down into his chair and stared into his coffee cup, lost in his own thoughts. I hurried to my bedroom. It was so very tempting to scroll through the phone right there and then, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to stay patient while the cops were there if I knew where to go looking and I didn't want them to get suspicious. So I hid the phone at the bottom of a box of tissues and changed into jeans and a warm hooded sweatshirt. I was just throwing my dirty clothes into the hamper when the doorbell rang. I walked into the living room just as Mason was welcoming the cops into our home.

  "Have you tried calling friends, other family, anyone who he may have contacted?"

  Just as I thought, it was Officer Sutherland asking the questions. Officer Ives was there too, but there was also another officer with them; a young one. He was looking around the room with eyes that seemed to take in everything. He was too far away for me to see what his name was.

  Mason nodded, "I've called everyone I can think of." It was true, he had. While I had been telling him about the day, he had been calling and texting everyone. No one had seen nor heard from Jackson. Most of them since Wednesday because our morning at school had been spent in the office.

  Officer Sutherland nodded at me when I walked into the room, "what about you Miss Magwire. Do you know where your brother could have gone."

  I shook my head.

  "Why don't you tell me what happened after the two of you left school this morning."

  Mason nodded, encouraging me to talk to them. So we all sat down. It seemed silly to me, really. Shouldn't they be out there doing something? So far, my experience with the authorities is that they did a whole lot of talking. Except for the younger guy. He just did a whole lot of listening. It was unnerving, the way he just watched me as I talked. It made me feel like he would see and hear everything. Even the things I wasn't really saying.

  "Is it normal for your brother to take your car?"

  I shook my head, "Jackson just turned sixteen a few months ago. He doesn't have his drivers license yet."

  Officer Sutherland raised his brows, "so you gave your keys to an unlicensed driver?"

  "No. I mean, not intentionally," I mumbled.

  Mason stood up, clearly angry at what he was insinuating. "It's not Evie's fault. What was she supposed to do? Hide her keys?"

  The older two officers looked at each other and then Officer Ives nodded. "No of course not. If it's alright with you, we'd like to take a look around outside the house, maybe we can find something that will help us."

  Mason sighed, "fine. Whatever, just find my brother. We've already been through too much. I want him home and safe."

  Officer Sutherland smiled at both of us. "Of course. We will do everything we can to find him."

  The three men all stood up and walked out the front door. It was strange to me that they wanted to look outside and didn't ask about looking inside. Then I figured it was because of a warrant or something. I wasn't sure, my experience came from reruns of television dramas.

  Mason stood with me on the porch while they poked around outside. I saw Mr. Gates standing on his porch watching and waved at him. He didn't wave back, instead he turned and walked back inside of his house.

  "Hey, I've got something."

  The call was from the back of the house and Mason and I both ran down off of the porch to see what they had found. It looked like it had been the younger officer that had called out. He was standing just outside of one of Jackson's bedroom windows. The only two rooms along that side of the house were his and mine. Mason's was across from ours and faced the front of the house.

  Officer Sutherland pulled out a cell phone and began barking out orders to whoever was lucky enough to have answered. All I was able to take in from his fast yelling was something about a forensics team. Did they have those in small towns?

  "What is it?" Mason was trying to get a closer look, but Officer Ives had blocked him.

  "We need someone to come out and investigate this," he told him.

  With the younger officer still studying whatever he had found, Officer Sutherland on the phone a few feet away, and Officer Ives blocking my brother, I was able to sneak by and get a closer look. When I saw what had them so agitated, the nauseated feeling that had been wreaking havoc on my stomach all morning, finally won and I bent over, throwing up all over the ground at the younger officers feet.

  "Get her back inside the house, Cole." Officer Sutherland barked.

  The younger officer hurried to me and ushered me back around the house. I was shaking. I was dry heaving. I was freaking the fuck out. What the hell was happening?

  "Just take a deep breath. It's going to be okay."

  Cole was trying to soothe me, make me feel better about what I had just seen, but the image was burned into my mind, probably forever. I'd have nightmares about it. Whenever I felt chills down my spine and the hair stand up on the back of my neck, it would be that image I saw. It would haunt me the rest of my life.

  He helped me to the sofa and then threw a blanket over me. I couldn't stop shaking. I was wrong about what I had said that morning. I'd take a bear, a mountain lion, hell I'd even take big foot. Anything other than a person. Anything other than what must have been outside of our house that morning. Not just outside of our house, but outside of Jackson's window and by the looks of it trying to come inside.

  "You're in shock." Cole sat down next to me and took my hand, holding it between both of his. "You shouldn't have seen that."

  I tried to say something, but my teeth were chattering. Mason ran inside and kneeled down in front of me. "What the hell was out there?" He looked at Cole and I was almost surprised that he didn't hit him. I had never seen my brother so angry.

  Cole, looking like he wasn't sure how much to tell him, gulped. "Blood. There was some blood on the window."

  Mason looked over at me, confused. "Evie, what happened? Are you okay?" I tried to shake my head, but I wasn't sure I succeeded as my whole body was pretty much convulsing. He looked back at Cole, "if it was just some blood, why the fuck is my sister freaking out?"

  "Cole, get out here. There's more." This from Ives.

  Cole turned and looked at me, "I'm here if you need me." When I didn't ans
wer, he squeezed the hand of mine he was still holding, "okay?" I nodded.

  He got up and ran outside and Mason took his place. "Evie, what happened? What was out there?"

  I shook my head, rocking back and forth on the couch. My teeth were still chattering so bad I knew I couldn't talk. Hell, I was lucky I hadn't bitten my tongue. He pulled me close to him and wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders. Then he leaned down and kissed my head.

  "It's going to be alright," he murmured, "they are going to find Jackson and everything will be alright. He hasn't been gone that long, nothing bad could have happened to him."

  I knew better. It didn't take a lot of time for something really bad to happen. Piper had only been gone twenty four hours and I knew that something really bad had happened to her. I knew that with certainty now.

  Mason sat there with me like that for what seemed like an eternity. The officers walked in and out of our house like they owned it. More came. Blue and red lights were flashing through the windows and in the setting sun, they were casting an eerie glow on everything and everyone around us. They had squad cars out looking for my car; looking for Jackson. So far nothing had come up.

  Landon had come by and they had all but escorted him away. It was better anyways. Even at my lowest during the past month I knew that I had never been as bad as I was in those hours. Although tears were still stubbornly avoiding me, my whole body ached with the ferocity of my shaking and there was an ache in my head screaming for me to lay down.

  I couldn't do it. I didn't want to close my eyes. I was already reliving that moment in my mind over and over again, I didn't want to chance it haunting my dreams. Who knew what sort of nightmare I would have if it did.

  It was late when they all finally left. They hadn't told Mason anything more than that they had found blood. They told him that they would explain further when they knew what they were dealing with. He hadn't tried to pry anything more out of me, knowing that it was pointless.