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They don’t ask about the others yet. As if the road is making them forget, look the other way. They never ask about them together; it never occurs to anyone to notice that all of them vanished on the same night. Last night. We didn’t miss a single sunrise here, however much time passed on the road.
In the end, they decide that Trina Jeffries ran away after attacking her stepfather. Kyle goes home. He tells them about what Chris did to him. It doesn’t matter for Trina. They’re looking for a girl undone.
And Becca—eventually, Becca comes home. They can’t find any blame to attach to that blood. If any of them wonder about the other teens who didn’t come home, they don’t wonder long.
I am sitting in my room when she returns. Dad is home. Pretending he never left, though that won’t last long. Becca promises she can find her way upstairs, and she makes her way up alone. I listen to every step. She knocks on my door, pushes it open.
We had seen each other at the police station, but it wasn’t like we could talk about what happened. She gives me a hollow look.
“Where did you go?” she asks.
I have been waiting for her to ask me this question since I left her behind, and I don’t have an answer for her. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t remember.” I want to tell her that there is something wrong with me, but I don’t. I want to tell her that I have changed, been changed, but I don’t. “Mel made it home okay. Kyle, too.”
“Good,” she says, her relief palpable. She crosses to me, sits beside me. “I don’t remember what happened after Anthony and I stepped into the dark.”
“You don’t?” I say, surprised. Or maybe not surprised. “I’m missing things, too.”
“What happened to Lucy and Anthony?”
“I—” I know the answer, and then I don’t. We all walked into the dark. Becca and I walked out. It’s all I know.
My fingertip taps out a strange rhythm on the bedspread. Becca takes my hand.
“What matters is we’re safe,” she says firmly.
“We’re safe,” I agree. I am wrong, of course. And so is she.
We aren’t safe at all.
INTERVIEW
SARA DONOGHUE
May 9, 2017
Sara’s head hangs low. Her hands rest in her lap, palms up. They look like the wings of a broken bird, bent wrong, limp.
ASHFORD: That’s it, then. That’s what you remember?
SARA: You seem disappointed.
ASHFORD: I had hoped...
SARA: I’ve figured some things out, though.
ASHFORD: Oh?
SARA: Can ghosts possess people, Dr. Ashford?
She cocks her head to the side. Becca is tense beside her.
ASHFORD: In my experience? Yes.
SARA: The road called to people. But it wasn’t the road itself. It was Dahut. She needed someone who could be her vessel, to carry her off the road. She thought she’d found that vessel, with Lucy. But Lucy was dying. Her brother had attacked her in the woods, before she reached the road, and so she couldn’t leave it. But an innocent girl like Lucy—people wanted to rescue her. People came when Dahut called with Lucy’s voice. It wasn’t really Lucy calling to Becca. It was Dahut, using Lucy’s voice. Her face. And I—I think I heard her, too.
ASHFORD: I believe you are correct.
SARA: Becca and I got out. But it wasn’t just us, was it? Everything that’s wrong with my memory. The things I remember that didn’t happen. The things I don’t remember that did. Could she have done that to me?
