Hope burns in my chest.
Please remember. Please tell me about her.
But she just shakes her head. “Was she part of the club?”
“The first year,” I say.
“Oh, well. That’s…” Her eyes cloud with confusion. She clearly doesn’t know what that is, but lands on, “Nice.”
“She was my mom,” I say.
“Oh,” Mrs. Wilch replies with a dawn of understanding, which quickly melts into compassion.
I used the wordwas.
“I was wondering if you kept any of her poems?”
Mrs. Wilch brightens. “Why yes, in fact. I kept all the poems from poetry club.” She spins around in her chair, opens the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet behind her, and removes a manilla folder. “We had that club for three years, and for each of the years, I bound the poems together into one edition.”
She opens the folder on her desk, revealing packets of poems with black spiral binding. Three in all, each one with a simple cover that readsFoggy Hollow High, Poetry Club, along with its corresponding year.
“You said she was in the first one?” Mrs. Wilch asks.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Well, then, this would be it.” And just like that, she hands me the booklet on the bottom. “You’re welcome to make copies. I just ask that you return it when you’re done.”
“Thank you,” I say holding the booklet with both hands as I float out of the room.
I sit in the empty hallway, lean against a locker, and flip through the pages, searching for her name.
I find it ten poems in.
A limerick by Clara Green that is far from earth-shattering. My mother wasn’t destined to be a poet, and yet I devour every word.
His eyes are as gold as the sun
With brown sugar flecks in each one
A door to his soul
That makes me feel whole
One look and my heart is undone
The poem is titledHis Eyes, and I can’t help but think of Jude’s. Only this poem isn’t about Jude. It’s about Simon.
I flip through the pages, desperate for more.
But this is it.
The only one she wrote.
A love poem about the boy who vanished. The boy who might still be alive. My muscles tighten with resolve. Heisstill alive. I know it. Why else am I having these visions? What would be the point if he and my mom were dead? Lily didn’tmake it, but he did, and now he’s being held hostage inside the Overlay with my mother.
Urgency swells inside me, but I don’t know what to do with it.
How can I rescue them if I can’t get to them?
