A chill runs down my spine, but I force it away.
“I hope they find her,” Eric says.
“I’m sure they will,” I tell him. “That summer camp has been there for generations. The last time I was in Sherwood, there were people I knew whose grandparents went there. There were a few times when kids would go missing because they wandered off into the woods on some dare or just got turned around. It’s easy to do. They always wound up wandering their way back into camp, or the search parties found them.”
“Sounds like the counselors need to do a better job of keeping their eye on the campers,” Eric says.
“So, is this one of Bellamy’s famous themed parties? I just want to know what I’m getting myself into,” I say, trying to push the conversation past the disturbing news report.
I let what I told Eric carry away the heavy thoughts. It was true. I didn’t have long blocks of uninterrupted years in Sherwood the way other people do in their hometowns, but it’s the nearest thing to an anchored, firm home I ever had. Even Florida doesn’t have the same type of attachment. I loved my time in Florida and still dream of the shade of palm trees and the sting of concrete on my feet even though I’ve been away for so long. But being there always felt like a visit. Sometimes extended to many months, but still a visit. I haven’t been in Sherwood in many years, but I know what it feels like there. I carry memories of there that feel like mine. It’s the difference between a postcard and a diary.
Among those memories are tense summer days when TVs and radios churned out reports, much like the one we just heard. A child at the summer camp is missing. They’re doing everything they can to find them. They were upsetting reports to hear, but they always resolved themselves. We never left Sherwood with a child not safely with their family.
It’s going to be the same this time. They’ll find the little girl, or she’ll manage to find her way back to the trail that heads into the camp. A news story will run celebrating her safe return and giving a stern warning for children to follow rules and not get themselves into dangerous situations. Parents will hug their children a little tighter, and some may hesitate on sending them to camp for the next summer. Soon, it will all be back to normal.
Chapter Four
I planned my trip specifically around the goal of not being in town for my birthday and getting to glide by without it being acknowledged. I should have known the effort was going to be wasted. If Bellamy had any say, she would make it a law for people to not only acknowledge their birthdays but to celebrate them with appropriate enthusiasm. That alone makes me want to hide from my best friends every year as the days leading up to my birthday dwindle. I would just as soon let the day pass like any other. Not since my eighteenth birthday have I had any interest in celebrating.
But it turns out I shouldn’t have been so resistant to the idea of Bellamy throwing me a surprise party. She kept the merriment subdued and the bursts of confetti and glitter to a minimum. Though several people from work were there for the initial shouting of ‘surprise!’, they didn’t stay for long. For most of the evening, it was just Bellamy, Eric, and me. The three of us sat on the couch and ate from the massive spread of party food she set out while watching movies. Like everything was normal. Like my ex-boyfriend didn’t break up with me and disappear. Like my parents weren’t gone. Like I never went undercover in Feathered Nest.
I use a black permanent marker to write the year on an aluminum-wrapped wedge of cake. It joins the others in my freezer. It used to be I would stumble on one of the slices while digging through the food in the freezer and tuck it back into the corner. Now there is little room for anything else in half the small freezer.
The house is quiet now that Bellamy and Eric have left. He sat in her passenger seat, both staring straight ahead like they’re convincing themselves the space between them hasn’t gotten smaller, that the months haven’t chipped away at the strain that has always existed between them. In the quiet, my mind goes back to the session with the therapist and how she trod on ground I fiercely protected.
Creagan sent me to counseling to help me through what I experienced a few months ago. I didn’t expect her to ask about my mother, to question her cremation like it meant something more. It felt like she discovered a hidden place in my thoughts and pried it open, revealing what I hid from everyone, even from myself. I hate that my mother was cremated. I hate that the last time I saw her was beneath a sheet on a stretcher. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. I just wanted to touch her face one more time.
Heading back into the living room, I drop down onto the couch. The second everyone left, I was in pajamas with my mascara scrubbed off. Now all I want to do is stretch out on the couch and wait for sleep. It’s been harder to find it recently. Days go by where I’m only able to snatch a few disconnected hours over the course of the entire night. Some nights, those hours dilute down to bare minutes, and I wander into work the next morning feeling like I’m walking through Jell-O.
Sometimes I know that type of night is coming. Somehow, I can feel it, like the potential for sleep is disappearing from my mind and muscles even before I’ve gotten near my bed. On those nights, I’ve found taking up residence on the couch rather than the bed can make a difference. As if I can trick my brain into thinking I’m not going to sleep when I sit down in the living room and can sneak up on it.
The cream-colored chenille blanket draped over the back of the couch and a pillow subtly tucked into the space beneath one end table come out just as my eyelids start to droop. There’s not much room to stretch out the long frame gifted to me by my mother on the couch. I usually greet the morning with more than a few creaks, pops, and groans as I try to release tight muscles. But I’ll trade an hour of full range of motion for enough sleep to function any day.
Nestling into my favorite corner of the couch, I feel something prod me in the back. I reach into the crack between the cushions and the side of the couch and pull out a small white box. I don’t recognize it, and the plain sides give me no hint as to what it might be or why it’s in my couch. Prying off the top, I find a folded notecard.
“Happy Birthday,” I read.
There’s no signature or indication of who it’s from. Under the card is a bundle of purple tissue paper tied with a narrow lavender satin ribbon. I untie the delicate bow and unfold the paper. Nestled in the paper is a necklace. A round silver pendant swirling with translucent colors dangles from a thin chain. With a puzzled frown, I reach for my phone and call Bellamy.
“Hmmm?” she answers, through the sleep that obviously doesn’t elude her.
“Did you sneak a birthday present into my couch?” I ask.
“Did I what?” she asks.
“A birthday present. Did you sneak one down into the cushions of my couch?”
“No. I gave you the picture frame because I got too busy organizing the party and forgot to get anything else.”
It also came with a handwritten IOU for a more thought-out gift in the future. Bellamy is not known for being smooth when it comes to covering up her mistakes.