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Authors: Laurie Faria Stolarz

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BOOK: Red is for Remembrance
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23

stickiness around with a fork and pretends to eat, so as not to appear ungrateful for the food.

Lily is sitting across from him; Clay, beside her; the elders and small children, at both ends of the long and splintery table; and Brick and Daisy are seated on each side of him.

Things are just as they should be, and yet everything feels so different.

Maizey, one of the children, whines that her rice is already cold, that she'd prefer jam and toast, but she's silenced almost immediately by Rain, her mother, with a sharp reprimand and an evil eye.

Shell wonders how many of the campers know that he didn't go through with looting the old man's place last night. He looks up, trying to gain eye contact with Clay or Lily, but neither will even look at him. Breakfasts are usually quiet at the camp, but he doesn't remember one as silent and oppressive as this. The sound of forks scraping on plates sends nerves down his back. Why did Clay come to his room before breakfast? Why did he want him here?

Once Clay found out that Shell had returned from the old couple's place without so much as a single piece of hockable silver, he was less than civil. He punched the steering wheel a bunch of times, telling Shell that he'd failed his friends and family and that he wasn't worthy of his keep.

Is that what this silent treatment is about?

Shell continues to slide the rice around on his plate, trying to sneak peeks at Lily, but she continues to ignore him. Instead she nudges him a couple times under the table with the toe of her boot, both startling and reassuring him.

 

24

He looks over at her, admiring her long and twisty golden hair and the way her cheeks dimple when she chews. He wonders if she too might be disappointed with him. He's sure the others are.

Aside from Clay's appearance in his room this morning, no one has so much as looked at him.

There are twenty-two people living under these roofs, and yet not one of them will give him any inkling as to what happened last night after he went to bed. Had Clay called a meeting behind his back?

Lily whispers something in Clay's ear and the two laugh in unison. "It'll be our little secret," Clay says to her.

"May I be excused?" Shell asks.

Clay turns to him, finally. "We need to have a meeting. All of us." He looks around the table with his steel-gray eyes, nabbing the attention of most of the campers, save for a couple of the younger children. Shell figures that Clay can't be more than seventeen at most, and yet he seems to yield almost as much power as one of the elders . . . even Mason himself.

"When?"

"When I say so," Clay snaps. He tucks a lock of his floppy, dark hair behind his ear.

"We'll meet now," Mason says.

Mason is nearly sixty years old but with the health and strength of a man half his age. He's lived at the camp longer than anyone-- when it was only an abandoned shack and there was only him and Rosa, his wife, who passed away shortly after they got set up. It was he who built these rustic cabins, with the help of a few passersby-- wanderers, he calls them-- in search of a more peaceful and self-fulfilling life.

25

He paid them with room, board, and his teachings, and soon the wanderers turned into full-on campers. "Nobody leaves the camp," Mason often says. "Nobody ever wants to. And nobody ever should."

Brick once told Shell that campers
have
left the camp and returned back to the pains of normal society. He's also told Shell that no one-- not even Clay-- is allowed to talk about it.

Shell wonders if it's because of tasks like last night's that made those campers want to leave.

Lily sneaks a smile at Shell as Clay stands to begin the meeting.

"We need to discuss the events of last night," Clay begins.

His voice is loud and bellowing, making up in projection what he lacks in height and visible strength.

 

"One of our campers was asked to perform a task," Clay continues. "He was asked to break into one of the cottages in the town and take whatever valuables he could find-- anything he wanted."

Several of the elders gasp in response. Mason wraps his arm extra tight around Rain and then strokes the length of her inky black hair. She and Mason have been together for at least a few months now, despite their obvious age difference. Though she's considered an elder because she's an adult, Shell figures she can't be more than twenty or twenty-one at most, just a few years older than him.

As we all know," Clay continues, "taking without first considering the worth an item has to its owner is called stealing. This camper was asked to steal as much and whatever he could so that we, as loving campers, may go on in our peaceful ways ... so that we may continue in our loving mission, living without the evils of man."

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Several of the campers, including Lily and Brick, shake their heads in disapproval.

"We don't need the evils of television," Clay insists. "We don't need the evils of cell phones ... of computers ... of microwaves."

"No way," several of the campers mutter under their breath.

"We listen to each other," Clay says. "We talk. We're each other's source of fulfillment, discussing subjects face-to-face. We don't need plastic man-made objects to talk-- objects that transmit cancerous airwaves. We don't need beeping boxes that heat our food in unnatural ways, zapping away all of the nutrients. We cook over a fire. We plan meals with each other in mind.

We love. We share. We live in peace."

"Yes," several of them cheer. Lily bows her head in thankfulness.

"So," Clay continues, "when we asked this camper to perform an act against peace-- to thoughtlessly
steal
from another-- he showed fear ... he showed reluctance. He didn't want to do it. But, at the same time, he didn't want to disappoint us."

Shell grows more and more confused by the moment. Lily peeks up at him and smiles, reaching across the table to grasp his hand.

"Shell," Clay says, raising his glass of water. "You came to us just four months ago. The mission we sent you on last night was a test-- to test your loyalty, but just as important, to test your character. I am proud today to say that you passed that test. You went on that mission to please your

27

fellow campers, but at the same time, you stuck to your moral convictions."

The rest of the campers raise their glasses in unison. "To Shell," they say.

 

"We're happy and proud to call you our brother." Clay sips from his glass and the rest follow, filling Shell with an enormous sense of relief and acceptance.

"I don't know what to say," Shell says, taking a giant breath. He shakes his head, trying to formulate the words-- the gratitude. If it weren't for these campers, he doesn't know where he'd be right now. They're his family. They gave him a home and saved his life. If it wasn't for them, he probably would have starved to death on the streets.

Lily leans over the table and kisses Shell's cheek. "You're so brave," she whispers. "It was so hard to keep that from you all morning and last night."

Brick shakes Shell's hand. "I'm so glad you came to our camp. You've become a good friend to me."

'And so have you," Shell says, shaking Brick's hand with a firm grip, sensing that Brick has more to say.

A moment later, Shell is interrupted as the rest of the campers line up to show Shell their approval as well. A couple of the elder women weep over the emotion of it all, including Rain, who huddles in closer to Mason.

"We're proud of you," Mason says.

Shell stands in respect to shake Mason's hand. "Thank you for everything," he says.

Mason smiles and nods, the glint in his pale blue eyes just a little bit brighter than usual. He scratches at his facial scruff, at the tuft of silvery hair to match the longish mane 28

he's got tied back with an elastic band. The happy couple leaves, enabling the remaining campers to relax a bit. Bottles of cider and containers of fruit cookies are brought out from the pantry.

There's cheering and kissing and hugging-- everyone taking part in the celebration.

"I love you," Lily says. She wraps her arms around Shell and kisses him full on the lips. But the moment is spoiled by his surprise-- she
loves
him? He embraces her nonetheless, grateful for the affection, and glances over her shoulder at Clay, whose eyes appear to burn into the image of the two of them together like that.

29

Stacey

I must have taken a wrong turn on my way to my Holistic Health class. It appears as though I'm in the basement of the science wing, where they do all the lab stuff. I take another turn, down a long, dark hallway-- the walls and floor all concrete-- and pull my schedule from my pocket. It clearly says that my Holistic Health class is in Room 111, which is why I elected to come down here, but there's no sign of anything-- no doors or windows and not a living creature to speak of.

 

It's

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almost as if I'm between two buildings, in an underground tunnel maybe.

I walk quickly, the clunk of my shoes making an echoing sound. I'm hoping to get to the other wing before I'm late for class, but it seems the farther I get, the darker the tunnel becomes.

"Hello?" I call out, my voice echoing. I stop a moment, my heart pumping hard, and turn to look behind me. But it's just as dark; I can barely see my hand in front of my face.

I turn back around. There's a light of some sort at the very end of the tunnel-- a bright, blazing whiteness that glows, like fireworks.

"Stacey," whispers a female voice.

I move toward the light, toward her voice, squinting to try and see something, to try and make out any movement. A chill runs over my shoulders. I wrap my sweatshirt tightly around me, noticing how I can't stop shaking, how everything smells like citrus.

"Stacey," she whispers again.

"Who are you?" I ask.

Her shadow passes before the light, causing a flickering. "Come this way or you will pay."

I move closer, wondering if she's on the other side now, hoping it might be the way out.

"Come this way or you will pay," she repeats.

She has a child's voice, but I don't recognize it. "Who are you?" I demand, confident that it isn't Maura.

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She appears before the light once more and I'm able to see her silhouette. She has long, flowing hair that blows back with the intensity of the glow. It appears as though she's draped in a gown of some sort, and she's carrying something-- maybe a stick or a wand. It has long, star-like spikes that spout from the tip.

"I'm not coming any farther unless you tell me who you are," I shout.

She reaches for something in her pocket. I think it's a ball. She sets it on the ground and I hear it roll toward me-- a low, pattering sound against the ground. As it gets closer, I notice that it's making a trail of liquid. I reach down to stop the ball from rolling, but just as I do, it sinks into the rising stream, as though it's sprung a leak.

"Why the frown? Scared to drown?"

 

"No!" I shriek from the mere toxicity of the word
drown.

I go to step out of the water, but it's all around me now, up to my ankles and getting deeper by the moment. I reach down into the water again, in search of the ball, hoping that if I pull it out, the water will stop. I think I feel it; there's a round, rubbery object by my left calf. I go to pull it upward, but something grabs my wrists. I hear myself scream out. Water flows in harder, up to my knees now. Using all the strength in my legs, I pull upward. There's a pair of the palest hands wrapped around my wrists. It's the girl. She's strong, almost stronger than me, and she wants to pull me under.

"No!" I scream out. My breath quickens. My legs shake. I twist and turn my wrists, trying to pry her away. I kick

32

around under the water, but the weight of the rippling stream makes it difficult.

Taking a giant breath, I anchor my weight into my feet and thrust my arms upward. The girl's grip on my wrists breaks and I see the water wave, a giant ripple that crashes against my thighs.

There's a glow of light that swims its way up the stream, beneath the water, back toward the source of light at the end of the tunnel.

"Who are you?" I shout out.

It's silent for several seconds, but then I hear her breathe; it's all around me. "I may look like a little girl to you, but I'm really a mother of a girl so blue. She needs your help, that's no lie. And if you don't, that boy will die."

"Die?" I ask. "Who?"

"Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead,"
she sings.

I wake up with a gasp. The phone is ringing. Amber is sitting beside me in bed. And I'm still breathing hard.

"Stacey," Amber says, squeezing my hand. Are you okay?"

I shake my head, trying to get a grip.

"Don't freakin' tell me," Amber says. 'Another nightmare?"

I nod.

"Holy freaking funk." She pulls at her cherry-red pigtails in frustration. "Not again." The phone is still ringing. Amber grabs it. "Hello?" She looks at me and shakes her head. "She can't make it to the phone right now-- she's got a raging hangover." Amber holds the phone away from her ear and gags a few times to make the excuse sound legit. "Not pretty," she explains to the caller.

"Can I take a message? I'll

 

33

have her call you when she's done dry-heaving." Amber winks at me, grabbing Janie's grocery-labeling marker from atop the fridge. She writes the message across her palm, grimacing the whole time.

"I can't believe you just did that," I say, once she's hung up.

"You have bigger flounder to fry, sweet pea."

"Why? What's up?"

"President's office, that's what."

"Oh my god." I look at the clock-- it's after four. "I missed the meeting."

"What meeting?"

"It doesn't even matter." I take a deep breath, noticing how my legs still feel like they're shaking.

"What doesn't?" She plops back down beside me. "Stacey, what's going on?"

"I don't know. All I know is that I'm having nightmares again."

BOOK: Red is for Remembrance
2.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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