Chapter 7 - The Girl in Green

I woke, fully dressed, in the dark violet of early dawn in an unfamiliar bed. In the morning gloom, I spied a lump under the covers in the bed across from me. Ava.

I had to leave now, before everyone was awake. I didn’t want to wait for Mom to show up. I worried that the headmaster would twist everything around. I imagined Ms. Burton telling Mom that I’d threatened her with the letter opener as part of a botched escape attempt. Mom might believe me, but then again, I’d run from two other schools. I didn’t want to risk it.

If I left now, I’d have a long trek down the mountain, but the quicker I could get away from this place, the better. With luck, I’d be at The Guesthouse hotel before Mom even woke up. Once I was out of here, I’d simply refuse to return to school. Mom would bitch, but she wouldn’t drag me back.

I slipped into my shoes and found the heavy wool school sweater in my closet. From the chill in the room, I could tell it was cold outside.

Ava continued to sleep.

I moved as quietly as I could manage down the broad staircase. There was no one in the big open foyer by the front door, no one I’d have to barrel through on my way out. But I smelled coffee. Someone else was awake. I stepped as quietly as I could, but my footsteps reverberated across the open space.

I decided to make a dash past the dining room toward the front door, hoping that no one would spot me.

Just as I reached the door, a figure emerged from the dining room and strode toward me. He was tall, probably my height or a little more.

I froze.

Caught.

I only saw him out of the corner of my eye, but I gave a slight nod in his direction, hoping that he would turn around and pretend he hadn’t seen me. One prisoner to another.

I put my hand on the handle and pulled the door open a crack. It was a surprisingly heavy door. I hadn’t clocked that the night before when Kimber had opened the door for me.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice from behind me said.

“Do what?” I replied, though I knew exactly what he meant.

“Go outside alone,” he said. “It’s not safe for you out there, especially if you don’t know the area.”

The way he said “for you” got under my skin. His voice had a slight accent, a twang of authority. He couldn’t have annoyed me more if he’d called me “little lady.”

I let go of the door and turned around, expecting to see a teacher or someone else who worked for the school. Instead, there was a boy my age standing behind me, with a dead serious look on his face. He had broad shoulders, shaggy dark curls, and a nose that looked like it had been broken and reset slightly crooked. That epic nose bump took his face to the next level. Modeling careers have been built on less.

“Did you just say ‘not safe for you’?”

The boy crossed his arms and smirked. “I did.”

“Do I look like someone who can’t handle myself to you?” I asked slowly.

He looked down at my feet and moved his gaze slowly upward, lingering longer than was strictly necessary. At five eleven, I was used to people taking me a bit more seriously than this.

“Most places, maybe,” he replied slowly. “Not here.”

I met his eyes, hoping to stare him down. They were nice eyes. Not brown, or green, but some combination of the two—or maybe neither. I studied the brutal curve of his cheekbones, and contemplated my next move.

“Thanks for the advice,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I think I’ll chance it.”

I turned and reached for the door handle. He took a step closer and I tensed reflexively. I don’t like people standing behind me.

The message was clear. If I went outside, he was going to follow me. My window of escape was quickly closing, and this boy was wasting my time.

I balled my fists and wheeled around.

“Unless you want to find out how well I handle myself, I suggest that you back way the—”

“Good morning, Barlow!” a voice called from behind us.

The boy turned, startled.

Barlow.

“Dr. Jacobsen,” Barlow said.

I looked away to see a man emerging from the dining hall.

Dr. Jacobsen was slight and muscular. He wore a hoodie and jeans. Definitely not the court-ordered psychologist type I’d come to associate with schools—middle-aged, usually with glasses, a few degrees shy of normal human warmth.

Dr. Jacobsen glanced at the door, and back to me. I’ve seen that narrowing of the eyes, the knowing twist of the lips before. He knew that I’d been trying to escape. Maybe he was the court-ordered psychologist after all.

“You must be Jess. Glad you could join us on our hike today.” He walked over and extended a firm handshake.

No. No way was I going on a hike.

“Actually, I can’t,” I said. “My mom is supposed to come up today and I don’t want to miss her.”

I didn’t belong here. I wanted to make that clear up front.

Dr. Jacobsen turned his wrist over and glanced at his watch.

“You have plenty of time,” he said. “The school doesn’t open to visitors until nine. We’ll be back long before then.”

Dr. Jacobsen walked in the direction of the dining room, leaving me alone with Barlow. If not for Barlow, I’d be on my way down the mountain. I shot a death glare in his direction, but he only shrugged. He must have known I was trying to escape.

“Why did you do that?” I said under my breath.

“Do what?” he said with exaggerated innocence.

“You know.”

“Oh, you mean keep you safe?” he said. “If you were to break a leg on the mountain, who do you think would have to carry you out?”

He looked me up and down again and quirked an eyebrow. And yes, I got the message: I am not a dainty girl. But he was bigger, and could probably carry me if he had to.

Over my dead body.

“If I broke a leg, I would drag my own ass down this mountain before I asked for help from you,” I said.

Barlow chuckled.

Dr. Jacobsen returned from the dining hall with eight other students. Kenzie was with them, standing next to a girl in a puffy jacket.

“Time to go,” Dr. Jacobsen said. “Be careful and stay close by, Jess. There are a couple of steep drop-offs on the trail. It can be dangerous.”

Sure.

Ten students followed Dr. Jacobsen out the front door and around the building onto a damp, dew-soaked soccer field. Though a few people had new hiking boots like Kenzie, I spotted a few pairs of sneakers at least as old as mine.

As we made our way past the soccer field, the hill fell away precipitously. A thin, well-trod trail started up from a pass in the hurricane fence. We threaded through the fence and I was surprised at how close to the edge of the mountain the trail was. Dr. Jacobsen hadn’t been kidding about the steep drop-offs. I followed behind Kenzie and the girl in the puffy jacket.

The sun was just beginning to rise over the field, bathing the valley below in a soft blue light, which illuminated, among other things, the potter’s field and the grove of trees on the next hill. We stood on the edge of the bluff for a moment, taking in the view. I caught a glimpse of the avenging angel through the misty tree line.

“Have you seen the statue in the trees?” I asked. “Up close, I mean.”

“I saw it when I first came here,” a boy with a dark red swoop of hair said.

“Our avenging angel?” Dr. Jacobsen said. “Interesting, yes? It was commissioned from a fairly well-known sculptor in the 1920s. It’s a local landmark.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“I wonder how many miners died of black lung to pay for that?” Kenzie said.

There was an edge of bitterness to her voice that surprised me.

“You sound like my mom,” I said.

“Your mom isn’t wrong,” she answered.

Those are words I don’t get to hear very often.

Dr. Jacobsen said something, but I lost his words in a rustle of leaves in a soft breeze. I remembered the circle of stones that surrounded the angel statue. I’d stood at the foot of the statue, FORTIS in giant letters on the plinth. “So, who is the Fortis family?” I asked.

Dr. Jacobsen smiled.

“There is no Fortis family,” he said. “Fortis means ‘strong’ in Latin.”

“But all the gravestones around the statue have the name Fortis,” I protested.

“There was a mine explosion here in 1910,” Dr. Jacobsen said. “Sixty men were lost, and the bodies they managed to pull out were buried there in unmarked graves. Calvin Burton commissioned the statue to honor the bravery and strength of the coal miners. Hence—Fortis.”

Dr. Jacobsen had a far away, almost beatific look. The way he said the last name Burton reminded me of the old guy at the diner. Like anyone with the last name Burton could do no wrong.

“Of course, that was a few years before he built the hospital here,” Dr. Jacobsen said. “He wanted to bring economic opportunities to the families of miners who settled this region.”

“At the lunatic asylum,” I muttered. It didn’t seem like much of an “economic opportunity” to me.

“I know it’s fucked up, but I think the statue is kind of cool,” the red-headed guy said.

Dr. Jacobsen cleared his throat stagily, but otherwise let the f-bomb slide.

“Things were different back then,” the red-headed guy added.

“Not really,” Kenzie said. “Mining is still a dirty business.”

I thought of some of the blasted hellscapes Mom and I had driven past. Mountaintop removal sites.

“I don’t disagree with you, Kenzie. But you can’t judge Ms. Burton by the family’s past misdeeds,” Dr. Jacobsen said. “You of all people should know that.”

A thick, awkward silence followed. The statement seemed so pointed, I couldn’t help but wonder about Kenzie’s family. I remembered seeing Kenzie in a yellow bikini on a yacht somewhere. It hadn’t occurred to me at the time, but it did now. It was her family yacht. Mom always said all big money was dirty money, and Kenzie’s family had big money.

“Anyway, the Burton family has devoted themselves to philanthropy,” Dr. Jacobsen said brightly.

He turned to continue down the path, and Kenzie and the others followed him.

“Philanthropy on that scale is just a way to whitewash . . .” I lost the rest of what Kenzie was saying as the group made its way down the trail, through a stand of trees. I couldn’t tear myself away from the view. I shifted until I could see the top of the statue, the broad, serene, and yet martial face through the canopy of yellow and orange leaves. In a few weeks when the trees were bare, the statue would be fully visible.

In a few weeks, I wouldn’t be here.

The group had moved on, their voices fading in the distance. I’d expected the fog to burn off, like it did at home, but instead, it seemed to be growing thicker.

I walked slowly down the path toward the group. The path descended sharply and the fog obscured everything but a few feet in front of me. About ten yards away from the overlook, the trail branched off. I could still hear the others on the main path, their voices receding in the fog. The main path curved through the trees, but the branch led down.

This was it.

My opportunity for escape.

The path down the mountain was steep and I had to move slowly or risk losing my footing on loose rock. I couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of me. It felt like I was descending into a cloud. Moisture clung to my face, and a thick silence surrounded me.

I couldn’t hear the group anymore.

The path bottomed out at a slight depression and curved around a stand of trees. The thickness of the fog put me on edge. It could be hours before I reached the bottom of the mountain this way. I had to keep moving downward.

The path branched again. I followed a slide of loose rock through a thick stand of pine trees, only for the path to end at the edge of a short cliff. As I turned away from the edge, my feet slipped on the loose gravel. I grabbed ahold of a nearby branch to keep from following loose stones over the cliff.

I’d made a terrible mistake.

I had to go back.

I gingerly followed the rockslide back up to what I thought was the original trail, but I couldn’t be sure.

And then I heard it.

A soft animal cry. It came from the forest to the right of the path no more than twenty yards away. I squinted into the trees, looking for a sign of movement, but the fog was too thick to see anything.

It had to be a bird, but I knew it wasn’t.

It sounded—strange.

I backed away slowly, in the direction of what I thought was the path.

It was watching me.

Don’t run.

Don’t run.

Don’t run.

I continued to back away from the noise—too fast.

I stumbled and fell into something solid with a thump, my breath leaving with a noisy exhalation. There was a snick of something metallic hitting rock. Arms wrapped around me, keeping me from falling butt-first onto the trail.

Barlow.

Barlow leaned over, close enough for his lips to graze the hair around my ear.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

The air was thick with silence and fog. I instinctively went perfectly still, listening.

At first, I heard nothing but my own breath. A burst of adrenaline made it difficult to calm my breathing.

And then I heard it again. A cry in the forest.

Barlow tensed at the sound. I leaned closer as alarm blossomed into full-blown fear.

“What was that?” I whispered.

Barlow released me and leaned over very slowly, eyes focused on the spot in the forest where the noise had come from. He grabbed something off the ground, and when he straightened, I saw that he was holding a hunting knife. He must have dropped it when I ran into him.

Barlow held the knife in the fist of his right hand, blade down, knife edge facing in.

I had his left arm in a tight grip. He had the knife, and I had nothing.

I craned my head and searched the ground for a rock or a stick, anything that might pass for a weapon.

The cry came again, louder this time, as though whatever was hiding in the forest had taken a few steps toward us. Barlow’s arm tensed underneath my hands, and I realized that I should let go of him. He needed to be able to react in case whatever was out there charged.

“Don’t listen to it,” Barlow whispered so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.

A loud noise of feet came from behind us on the path.

“Where did you guys go?”

I turned my head to see the boy with the red swoop of hair emerge from around the bend of the trail, followed by several other students.

“Soren,” Barlow said with obvious relief.

Barlow quickly folded the hunting knife and shoved it into his front pocket.

I dropped my hand and stepped away as a wave of some strange and indefinable emotion washed over me. I felt as though I’d stepped through the fog into a vast, lonely wasteland from which there would be no return. Maybe I was homesick, but it felt like something more. A choked sob escaped from my throat, and I looked around anxiously, hoping neither of them had heard.

We followed Soren back to the main trail, where Dr. Jacobsen and the others were waiting.

“Everything okay here, Barlow?” Dr. Jacobsen said.

“Everything’s fine,” Barlow said quickly. “Jess and I just took a little detour.”

“Well, okay, just don’t wander off again,” Dr. Jacobsen said, looking directly at me.

I stepped quickly and caught up with Kenzie and the girl in the puffy jacket. The peculiar desolate feeling was beginning to fade, replaced by the undeniable urge to run. To get as far away from this dark, moody place as possible.

Mom would be here soon. She would take me away from here.

The thick fog that had formed while we hiked obscured the view of the graveyard and the stand of trees surrounding the statue of the avenging angel. By the time that we reached the overlook by the edge of the field, the valley had disappeared, replaced by a claustrophobic blanket that resembled a rising sea submerging everything but the school.

We made our way down the trail and the school appeared out of the fog. From the back, without the fake cathedral tower and random stone trim, the school looked like what it was. A prison.