Page 2 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

Rosemary would have missed her, of course. If she hadn’t been sent away.

Rosemary. Her twin. She wasalive. It was still hard to believe. What was it going to feel like when they saw each other again? Would it be awkward? Amazing? Would they wrap their arms around each other and fall down crying? Would Rosemary remember who she was? Would it be a wonderful reunion or another heartbreaking loss? A shiver of fear-spiked excitement snaked up Sage’s back.

Last night, when she’d learned that her twin sister was alive, still felt like a dream or something you’d see in a movie. And if she hadn’t been in the exact right place at the exact right time, she never would have learned the truth.

It was after ten o’clock when she’d decided to sneak out and meet her friends. She left her room and crept down the hallway of their fourth-floor apartment, picking her way around hunting rifles and plastic laundry baskets filled with rumpled clothes. She’d hated the place from the day they moved in. Maybe because it felt like her life after her father left—chaotic, messy, uncertain. The kitchen was small and cramped, with a harvest-gold stove and matching refrigerator that had seen better days. The closets smelled like mice and urine, and every noise made its way through the thin walls—someone’s hair dryer, women laughing, men yelling at a ballgame on TV, a muffled phone conversation filtering through the plaster along with the smell of someone else’s dinner. Any excuse to leave was a good one. Or maybe it was just Alan she hated.

Trying not to trip over the clutter, she tiptoed past the plastic-framed family portraits on the paneled walls—her and Rosemary in matching ruffled dresses; Alan with his arm around their mother when she still looked like Elizabeth Taylor, her black hair in a perfect bob, her silver-blue eyes happy and shining. Alan was smiling in the picture too, a normal-looking man with perfectly ordinary features, content and in love with his wife. But his eyes were cold and calm. Secret-hiding eyes. Sage knew that pictures, just like people, could be deceiving: one moment in time captured on film, everyone looking happy and perfect when the camera clicked—then, a minute later, bickering and stomping out of the room. Or yelling and screaming and hitting.

Before she got to the living room, she checked her jacket pocket again to make sure she still had the cash she’d taken out of Alan’s bedside table. Normally she only stole his drinking money to go out on weekends, but it was Christmas break and Heather and Dawn had asked her to go to a new disco over in Castleton Corners because Heather knew one of the bouncers, which meant they’d get in without being proofed. When she neared the archway to the living room, she stopped to listen, praying Alan was passed out drunk in front of the television again. As predicted, the TV was on, but to her dismay, Alan was talking to someone. It sounded like his hunting buddy, Larry. Edging closer, she peered around the doorframe.

Like the rest of the house, the living room was cluttered, the orange shag matted and worn, the furniture dingy with dust. Alan sat on the edge of the plaid recliner, shirtless and lifting dumbbells, his chest and face shining with sweat. Larry was on the couch, smoking and drinking a beer, his feet on the coffee table; he looked like he’d managed to shower that day, at least. A basketball game was on the TV, the volume turned down. Hoping they wouldn’t notice her, Sage got ready to slip past the doorway. Then Larry said something that made her pause.

“How long has she been missing?”

“Almost three days,” Alan said, his words punctuated by hard breaths as he lifted the dumbbells.

Sage frowned. Oh shit. Not another missing person.

“Why’d they wait so long to call you?” Larry said.

“Beats me. Maybe they thought they’d find her first. I should have changed our phone number so I wouldn’t have to deal with that bullshit.”

“Well, they sure took their sweet time lettin’ you know. Seems kinda strange if you ask me.”

“Nah, it’s not strange,” Alan said. “You got any idea how big that place is? The guy on the phone said they checked forty buildings.Forty. First they thought she wandered off and got lost, maybe ended up in the wrong ward, but now they’re searching the woods. He said Willowbrook has three hundred and fifty acres. Can you imagine how many retards they got there? It’s gonna take a while to search all that.”

Sage racked her brain, trying to think. Who did they know at Willowbrook? The only thing she knew about the place was that it was for mentally retarded and disabled kids, and everyone’s parents threatened to send their kids there when they were bad. Even the shop owners scared away troublesome teenagers by saying they’d called Willowbrook to come pick them up. Girls were warned that if they got pregnant too young, the baby would be born with an underdeveloped brain, taken away, and put in Willowbrook. But Sage had never heard of anyone who’d actually been sent there. And if someone were actually missing from Willowbrook—or any other place in the world—why would they call Alan, of all people? What couldhedo to help?

“Are the cops involved?” Larry said.

“Don’t think so,” Alan said. “Not yet anyway. The guy I talked to said he was one of those shrinks they got there. Guess they didn’t call the cops yet because they don’t want to cause a panic.”

“So why’d they call you?” Larry said. “What the hell are you supposed to do about it?”

“They had to call me,” Alan said. “I’m Rosemary’s legal guardian.”

Sage went rigid. What the hell was Alan talking about? Her sister was dead. She had died of pneumonia six years earlier— fifteen days before Christmas, two nights after they’d finished writing letters to Santa asking for presents they’d never get.

Sage would never forget the instant she heard the news. She’d never forget the way the air disappeared from her lungs, the explosion of agony in her chest, like someone had stabbed her with a white-hot knife. She’d never forget screaming until she ran out of breath. Losing her sister was the worst thing that ever happened to her. Only her father’s leaving had even come close. Her twin’s death had left a hole in her heart and soul that nothing else would ever fill.

So how could Rosemary bemissing? Dead people don’t go missing. Her mother had already spread her ashes in the Hudson River; neighbors had brought pies and casseroles. It didn’t make sense.

She felt a shift somewhere deep within her, as if she were watching old home movies but didn’t recognize anyone; like all her memories were being torn away and replaced by something unknown. She felt it in her chest too—a thickening, a hardening, a heavy pressure that made it hard to breathe. She put a hand on her stomach, took a deep, gulping breath, and tried to pull herself together. Maybe she’d heard wrong. Maybe she’d misunderstood. Maybe the television had garbled Alan’s words.

No. She’d heard what she heard. Alan said Rosemary was at Willowbrook and she’d been missing for three days. It sounded impossible. Unbelievable. Insane.

She steeled herself, then entered the living room. When Alan saw her, he dropped the dumbbell and stood.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said. “Don’t you got school in the morning?”

“No,” she said. “We’re still on break.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know what you were saying about Rosemary.”

Alan shot Larry a nervous glance, then looked back at Sage, his mouth twisted in an ugly scowl. Acting oblivious, Larry took his feet off the coffee table and sat forward to crush out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray, his eyes locked on the TV.

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