Page 32 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“Take them down. Wren, donotlet those posters stay up long enough for anyone to see them.”
9. Ethics
I acted instinctively, pulling down Riley’s flyer without questioning my mother. Then I hesitated, and the paper wrinkled in my grip.
“Why?” I asked, and the phone line crackled as Mom sighed heavily into the receiver on her end.
“Just do it. It’s too much to explain right now, and I’m tired. But Keel Watch Harbor is a small, quiet town, and missing posters bring the wrong kind of people sniffing around.”
“The wrong kind of people?” I scoffed. “Like the kind of people who might find Riley?”
“Riley’s gone, Wren.” Mom’s voice was hard and final. My stomach dipped. How could she be so certain from across the world, and after only a couple of days? “He was a good kid, but if he’s missing, then—”
She cut off, and the silence that followed was strained.
“Mom?” I prompted.
“Please.” She was urgent now, and pleading. “I’ll explain later, but I need you to take down those flyers. Your grandmother never should’ve let you go to put them up. She knows better.”
She spat out those last three words, angry and frustrated. I gulped and hoped I hadn’t landed Gams in hot water.
“She’s only trying to help,” I mumbled.
“Listen to me. If the wrong people come snooping around Keel Watch Harbor, it could be the end of the town. Everything will be gone, including your grandmother’s entire livelihood.”
That didn’t make sense. Keel Watch Harbor was a peaceful place. There wasn’t anything dark or sinister hiding behind the bright storefronts. Everyone at Siobhan’s Tavern the night before had been so lovely and sonormal.
“But that’s—”
“Wren. There will be no more Keel Watch Harbor. Your grandmother will have nothing. Take down the posters. Promise me.”
“I—”
“Promise me, or I’m coming home to do it myself.”
She’d already considered canceling the book tour after graduation. The waver in her voice told me she’d just as easily cancel it now.
“I’ll take them down,” I promised. Riley’s crinkled face looked back at me from the paper in my hands, but I squashed the guilt that gnashed in my belly.
If anyone else had asked, I would’ve said no. Even if it had been Gams asking me to remove the posters, I probably would’ve left them up. But Mom was supposed to be light and gentle and unserious. If I had to sum her up in a single word, it would be “fun”. That wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, it was something I loved about her.
This dark tone and her new, serious edge scared me enough to fold up the poster and push it into the pocket of my hoodie.
“I’m serious, Wren,” Mom said. The quiver of fear that laced her words felt out of place on the sunny marina. She’d only sounded like that once before, when she’d begged me to tell her what had happened when I’d gone to that party after graduation. “Make sure those papers come down.”
I’d hoped the first phone call I’d had with my mother all week would’ve been more cheerful. It had at least started that way, but now I scanned the shops as I pocketed my phone. There was no way Sabrina and Liam wouldn’t continue to put the pictures up. I’d have to follow them and remove any they’d already posted.
My cheeks burned as I picked a shop at random and trudged inside.
Riley’s face stared at me from the register of a bakery. I was able to pull it down and run back to the sidewalk before the baker came out from the back kitchen.
The next shop was trickier. The old woman at the counter smiled at me with Riley’s poster on the wall behind her.
“Hi!” I pushed as much fake cheeriness into my voice as I could muster. “Sorry, my friends were just in here posting these, but there’s a mistake on them.”
I held up the poster I’d stolen from the bakery and forced a sheepish shrug.
“Oh, dear,” the woman tutted, pulling the poster down to hand it to me. “Come back with the new one. It makes my heart sick to think about that poor boy.”
