Page 42 of What Happened to Lucy Vale
We
The story coalesced like usual, in dribbles on Discord and in homeroom. First neither Akash nor Lucy showed up for the bus. Then Layla Lewis logged on to ask if anyone knew why there had been cops at the Vales’ house in the middle of the night. Kyle Hannigan tagged Sofia Young to ask whether she’d heard about a disturbance in the neighborhood. Hannah Smith messaged Nick Topornycky to ask if he’d texted Akash. Scarlett Hughes messaged Alex Spinnaker, who went on a rant about Akash’s dismal performance under the onslaught of demonic attackers the night before. And Will Friske got a message from his cousin, who was pissed.
Apparently they were going to have to resod the Vales’ whole fucking yard.
@stopandfriske:motherfuckers
@stopandfriske:those dipnuts dug up my whole weekend
@ktcakes888:what dipnuts?
@stopandfriske:the ones who turned up at the Vales’ last night
@badprincess:???
@highasakyle:gonna need some context, buddy
@ktcakes888:what do you meanturned up?
@badprincess:what do you meandug up?
@stopandfriske:He didn’t tell me much. Just that there were trespassers at the Vales’ last night. Lucy’s mom called the cops when they wouldn’t leave
@safireswiftly:What were they doing there?
@nononycky:yard work, sounds like
@ktcakes888:in the middle of the night??
@stopandfriske:alright. Here’s a pop quiz
@stopandfriske:Three strangers with two shovels can dig fifteen holes an hour
@stopandfriske:If they all met on the internet
@stopandfriske:Then what do you think they were digging for?
For a second, no one answered. We floundered on the edge of Lucy Vale’s front lawn, rutted now with imagined holes, trying to see a pattern. But there was no reason to dig up the Vales’ yard. There was no reason for three strangers to arrive carrying shovels.
Not to Lucy’s house anyway.
Then, in an instant, the mental distance between the past and the present, the Vales and the Faradays, collapsed, and we understood.
We channeled our shock into another second of silence.
@gustagusta:shit
@stopandfriske:nope
@stopandfriske:try again?
@badprincess:please tell me it doesn’t have to do with the Faradays
@stopandfriske:no hints allowed. Anyone else?
@highasakyle:* hits buzzer *
@highasakyle:I’ll go withbonesfor five hundred
