Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 11 ~ Searching

Monday, Sien wasn’t at school.  Elly waited for him out front and he didn’t come.  She watched for him at their lockers and he wasn’t there.

Tuesday, no Sien.

Wednesday, no Sien.

She didn’t have a phone number or an email address, and she had no idea where he lived.  When she went to what she thought were his classes and asked his teachers if they knew anything about it, no one seemed to even know who Sien Auriel was.

Jani hadn’t seen him at all.  Elly didn’t know if he’d made any other friends in school who would know what was up.  Now she wondered if he even went to Ridgewalter, seeing as none of the teachers knew him.  She’d never thought twice about not seeing him in class, because he was a senior.

There was only one way to find out.

“Marie!” Elly called out, running to catch up with a shy, reclusive girl she rarely ever spoke to.

Marie stopped and turned, looking surprised.  “Hi, Elly.  What are you—”

“I need a favor,” Elly cut to the point.

“Oh . . . .”

“I need you to hack into the school records for me.”

“What?” Marie looked around guiltily.  “What makes you think—”

“I know you can do it, I know you have done it.  I need to you to find an address for me.”  Elly handed her a piece of paper with Sien’s name written on it.  “For that matter, I need you to find out if this guy even attends Ridgewalter.”

“Elly,” Marie lowered her voice.  “That’s—”

“Illegal and horrible, I know.  So obviously I have to make it worth your while.”

“That’s not what I—”

“You like Kenneth Brands, right?  Unfortunately he doesn’t even know you exist, seeing as he’s a virtual idiot when it comes to anything computer related that doesn’t involve user-friendly interfaces and pictures, and you really don’t have much of a life to speak of outside the computer lab.  Frankly, I don’t see that you two have much in common but you think he’s hot and gorgeous and I respect that, so I can make him notice you.  If you do me this favor.”  Elly smiled brightly.  “Okay?”

Marie turned red and pursed her lips together.  “H-how . . . how do you know about Kenneth?”

Elly patted her arm.  “Come on, Marie, I have eyes.  Just because I’m not bosom buddies with everyone doesn’t mean I don’t know what goes on.”

“With everyone?”

Elly just smiled.  “Do we have a deal?”

Marie sighed.  “Even if Kenneth notices me he won’t care, I’m not his type.”

“You’re a girl.  You’re his type.  Will you do it?”

She looked down at the paper and bit her lip.  “Okay.  See me after study hall.  I’ll have something for you.”

“Great.”  The bell rang and Elly rushed off to class.  It didn’t surprise her that Marie hadn’t even ask how Elly planned to make Kenneth notice her.  Elly was known for getting things done.  She smiled.  If Marie has a little more gumption she’d have no trouble handling Kenneth herself, but the only thing Marie had gumption with was binary code and computer hacking.  Elly had no doubt she’d be into the school’s enrollment files and out again with info in the time it took to wolf down a quick lunch.

---

After study hall they met outside on the steps.  Marie smiled apologetically.  “I couldn’t find anything,” she said.  “There’s no record of anyone by that name ever being enrolled at Ridgewalter.  I looked up the pending applications; nothing.  Then I cross-referenced the name with all the public and private schools in the state of California within the last four years,” she said with a note of pride, “and still nothing.  I forgot to do alternate spellings, though.  I can do that later if you like.”

“No,” Elly sighed, glancing away.  “Don’t bother.”

Marie was silent for a moment, then pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack.  “I did do one other thing.  I looked up the name Auriel in recent lease agreements, housing records, etc. etc.”

“And?”

Marie handed her the paper.  “It’s not a common surname, luckily, so I didn’t find that many results.  I printed them all off there.”  She pointed.  “The nearest place shown is this one, a plot in the Golden Jade Campground rented out to a Ren Auriel.  In August.  No phone.  There’s nothing under the name Sien, but maybe he’s related.”

“Thanks,” Elly said with a note of wonder in her voice.  She’d knew Marie was the best hacker in school, but this was above and beyond what she’d asked.  “I’ll, um . . . I’ll take care of Kenneth . . . ” she mumbled distractedly, walking down the steps as she scanned the paper.  There were a handful of Auriels listed, but Marie was right, the only one within a reasonable distance of Ridgewalter, and consequently Elly’s house, was Ren Auriel.

A trailer park?

She folded up the paper and tucked it in her pocket.  She could not remember the name of Sien’s father, but Ren sounded as likely as anything.  There was also a Phillipe, a Charles, and a . . . François?  No, she was sure she’d remember if his father’s name was François.

Now she wasn’t sure what to do.  She had the address of a campground/RV park and a plot number, but what was she going to do, just show up, knock on the door (or tent flap, hah hah) and if Sien didn’t live there what then?  She didn’t even like the idea of venturing into a trailer park.  She’d never been to one before.

And obviously, if Sien gave a twit about her he’d have shown up for school the past three days or at least contacted her.  He’d been coming to school all the time without being enrolled.  He hadn’t attended any classes.  His reason for hanging around the campus was obvious enough, but it only led to more confusion.  Was he stalking her?  She’d always thought that stalking was a little more covert, but this could be his own strange variation on the theme.  And yet, if he was so obsessed with her that he’d go to all the trouble of going to a school he didn’t belong to, day after day for over a month, why had he suddenly disappeared?  And this coming right after a date.  A date on which they had kissed.

She decided not to do anything about it just yet.  Possibly he would show up tomorrow with an explanation.  Or not.  Either way, she didn’t want to rush into something when she didn’t know exactly what was going on.

She also decided not to mention anything to her family about it.  There really was no reason they needed to know.

“Kenneth,” she said, walking up to group of boys standing around trying to look cool.

Ken looked up at her.  “Elly,” he said.  Everyone in school recognized Elly and remembered her name, though not all could quite say why.

“Do you know Marie Baker?”

“Um . . . .”  He creased his forehead in surprise and puzzlement.  “I dunno . . . why?”

“This is Marie,” said Elly, holding out last year’s class photo sheet.  She tapped the little headshot of Marie, a girl with straight brown hair and wide green eyes.  Instead of a glamour shot like most kids had gone for, she had just stared into the camera straight on, looking uncomfortable and caught.  “She wants to go out with you.”

“What?”

“She.  Likes.  You.”

“Oh.  Um . . . .”

“And she could do a lot better, in my opinion, but who can account for taste?”  Elly handed him the photo sheet.

“Er.”  He stared at her, taken aback.

“You can find her in the computer lab.  She’s a genius.  She has natural beauty which is good for her since she’s too eccentric to wear makeup most days, and is deathly shy.  Ask her out, be nice to her, if I find that you’ve been mean to her, or made her cry or want to cry, for any reason, I will hurt you.  There will be lots of pain.  I’ll see you around.”

She patted him on the shoulder and walked away, leaving him speechlessly holding Marie’s picture.

---

Elly had a strange dream that night, a drowning dream, and the water was saying her name.

She floated down the current of a cold, clear river, looking up through the ripples at the unattainable sun far above.  The waves swept her along, holding her under, carrying her down, and she wanted to close her eyes and sink into darkness forever.  The water kept saying her name, and there were eyes in the waves and hands in the ripples, watching her and clutching her and calling her down.  She sank willingly — she didn’t want to come up and break through the surface to the harsh sunlight, unmuted by the undulating mirror of water.  Most of all she didn’t want to breathe in the air.

“Elly,” it was the Lost One’s voice.

She looked down.  Sitting at the bottom of the river was the little girl, her auburn hair floating around her head like the fronds of an underwater plant.  She gazed back up at Elly out of fathomless black eyes, her hands folded motionless in her lap.  But Elly knew it was those hands pulling her down; she was the undertow.

Elly landed softly on the riverbed beside the Lost One.  She stood and looked around, seeing that the bottom of the river was a long room, its floor and walls made of white marble swirled with gray.  The Lost One’s bright hair was the only color to be seen.  There was a black door at the end of the corridor, and as soon as Elly saw it, she was standing directly in front of it.

She lifted one hand and saw that she held a ring of keys — a large ring with a thousand identical keys all clustered together at the bottom of the curve.  The Lost One stood next to her.

“Only one of them works,” she said.  “And you only get one chance at it.”

“What happens if I fail?”

“You never fail.”

Elly considered the ring for a moment, then picked one key.  She didn’t know why she picked it, but she figured it stood as good a chance as any other.  She inserted it into the lock and the door swung open.  Radiant light shone on their faces but Elly was not blinded by it.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s what they won’t tell you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s what they won’t tell each other.”

“What is it?”

“You know what it is.”

“Yes,” Elly stared through the door thoughtfully.  “Yes, I suppose I do.  I only wish I could remember.”

“The truth is in your hands.”

Elly looked down, and saw Marie’s list, only there was one name and location on the list, repeated where the others had been.  “I don’t want to go here.”

“You promised me.”

“I was very young.  I don’t remember what I promised,” Elly said slowly, lifting her eyes to the implacable face.

“You remember.  You have a long memory.  You promised me and you haven’t done anything.”

“That’s because I don’t know what you want me to do.”

Something like an expression crossed the Lost One’s face, and she tilted her head, her floating hair moving gracefully with her.  She said, “It’s time to find out.”

Elly swung the black door shut.

The Lost One extended one hand to Elly, palm upwards.  Settled neatly on the hollow cup of her palm was a mismatched wooden nesting doll.

“I know what this is,” Elly said, taking it from her.  “This was a birthday present.  When I turned seven.”

“You’d forgotten.”

“Yes.”  Elly stared at it.  “Yes, I’d forgotten.”

---

Elly sat groggily over a bowl of Fruit Loops that morning, feeling as if she hadn’t gotten an ounce of sleep.  When she had awoken she rifled through her sheets looking for the doll or the key, or maybe a stray frond of red hair.  Then she stopped, shaking her head, wondering why on earth she was looking for dream objects in her bed.

She couldn’t stop herself from checking the printout in her backpack, though.  It hadn’t changed from the moment Marie handed it to her.

As she sat at the counter eating cereal she thought about the nesting dolls.  She had made them disappear, and then forgotten about it as if it didn’t mean anything.  Granted, she had only been seven, and her memory of events had dulled over time, as memories usually did.  But she’d have thought that was a detail that would have stood out.  She could remember what happened in the garage with Sam in photographic detail.  She remembered speaking with the Lost One and promising something she could not understand.  But her first time obliterating objects with . . . with what?  The will of her mind, unconscious laser beams from her eyes? — how had she let that memory fade?  The vodka bottle she’d banished from the kitchen didn’t seem like such a big deal now.

She listlessly chased one last soggy green Fruit Loop up the side of the bowl, her eyes trailing toward the backpack propped on the stool next to her.  She didn’t know if she’d just been dreaming, or if the Lost One had actually visited her again for the first time in nearly ten years.  Maybe it was both.

“The truth is in your hands,” she mumbled to the traces of sugary milk in the bottom of her bowl.  Then she let out a long sigh.  “Whooooooooo boy . . . .”