Page 79 of Broken Things

“It’s just a story,” I said. I was surprised to hear that now I was the one shouting. “We made it up.”

“Shhh,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard. “The Shadow’s coming.”

“You’re on your own,” I said: the last words I ever said to her. When I left to throw up in the woods she was still sitting there,head bowed, as if she was praying. And for a moment I felt something pass—something dark and lonely and cold, something that made my breath hurt in my chest—and in that second, I believed too, believed that the Shadow was real, believed that it was coming for its blood.

Summer was actually kinda pissed the Shadow was turning out to be not so evil. She’d had a whole plan to drive the Shadow off and be a hero so that her friends would love her again.

They had to love her again. Everyone loves a hero, right?

—Return to Lovelornby Summer Marks

Mia

Now

Ms. Gray says, “You come here too, then?”

She moves out of the shadow of the woods. I barely have time to slip the note into my pocket. She’s sweating. Her hair is loose and there’s a burr clinging to one shoulder of her tank top.

My arms and legs feel bloated and useless, and I remember once in fifth grade, at rehearsal forSwan Lake, being seized by a sudden dizziness in the studio, a sense that my whole body was floating apart. Madame Laroche caught me just before I fell out of a double pirouette. It turned out later that I had a fever—I was in bed for two weeks with pneumonia.

That’s exactly how I feel now: like my body is betraying me. I want to run but I can’t. I want to scream but I can’t.

I tighten my grip on the shovel as she comes toward me. If anything happens, I’ll swing right into her head, and I’ll run. But even as I think it I know I can’t, that I’d never be able to.

Ms. Gray stops next to me and looks down at the bouquet of flowers, now displaced, at the cross and the churned-up earth. My breath catches in my throat—if she sees that the note is gone, she’ll know I took it, she’ll know I know—but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t ask me about the shovel, either. She seems hardly to be seeing at all. Her face is strangely closed, like a painted-over door. For a long time, she says nothing.

Then she looks up at me. “I come here, you know, to pay my respects. I was very fond of Summer.”

That horrible coiled feeling in my stomach unwinds just a little. For a minute I even think I must be wrong—Ms. Gray couldn’t possibly have killed Summer. Why would she?

“Me too” is all I say, and she smiles. It’s the saddest smile ever.

“She was a very special girl.” Ms. Gray turns to stare out over the field. There’s another long moment of quiet. “It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it? I’ve always liked it.” Then: “I can understand why it happened here.”

“Why what happened here?” The wind hisses through the grass. I take a breath and decide to risk it. “Lovelorn?”

She doesn’t react to hearing the name. She doesn’t sayWhat’s Lovelorn?or look confused. And when she turns back to face me, I get a feeling like diving deep in winter water, getting the breath punched out of your chest by the cold, a feeling of drowning. Her eyes are like two long holes, like pits filled with nothing but air.

And suddenly I remember turning around that day and seeing Summer holding a long knife, watching me with the strangestlook on her face. As if she wanted to tell me something she knew I wouldn’t like.

Run, Mia.I hear Brynn’s voice in my head now, but I can’t move.

“The murder,” Ms. Gray says.

I try to sayIt was youandWhy?andHow could you?But as usual, when I need it the most my throat curls up on itself like a fern, leaving the words trapped in the darkness.

And then, for the second time in my life, Brynn saves me: my phone starts ringing. The noise hauls me back into the present—the tinny ringtone climbing over the sound of the wind and the birds. Ms. Gray blinks and takes a step backward, as if a spell has been broken, and all of a sudden she looks normal again. Good old Ms. Gray. The woman who showed us how to do CPR using a waxen-faced dummy.

“My friend.” I press silence on the ringer, but almost immediately Brynn calls again. “She’s waiting for me in the car.”

“Oh” is all Ms. Gray says. For a split second she looks so sad I almost feel sorry for her. But then I remember what she’s done.

“I should go,” I say. My phone lights up for the third time. I start walking, fighting the urge to sprint, acutely aware of the fact that she’s still watching me, feeling as if she has one long finger pressed to the base of my spine, making me feel stiff-backed and clumsy. Before I reach the trees I have the sudden impression of silent footsteps—I picture an arm outstretched, a hand raised to strike—and I whip around, swallowing a shout.

But Ms. Gray hasn’t moved. She’s still standing next to the little wooden cross, still watching me from a distance, face twisted up as if she’s trying to puzzle out the answer to a riddle.

This time I don’t care about how it looks. When I turn around again, I run.

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