The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep by Laurie Stolarz (summer reads txt) 📕

totally believe it, that stuff like that can happen.

NightTerra: I wish it happened with my mother too, that she’d talk to me in my sleep.

Paylee22: Can you talk to your aunt about her?

NightTerra: Not really. She says it’s too hard reliving the past.

NightTerra: For me, it’s too hard not reliving it—at least parts of it.

Paylee22: I haven’t wanted to ask …

NightTerra: But …

Paylee22: Did you ever find out how the fire started?

NightTerra: Faulty wiring, plus smoke detectors with dead batteries.

Paylee22: It’s pretty amazing you got out.

NightTerra: Most days I wish I hadn’t.

Paylee22: You can’t blame yourself for surviving.

NightTerra: I can and I do.

Paylee22: I guess I do the same, punishing myself, I mean. Like, why Max? Why not me?

Paylee22: I’m really grateful you survived, btw.

NightTerra: Thanks for being there, Dr. P.

Paylee22: I’m glad we found each other. Seriously, you have no idea.

NightTerra: Yeah. Me too.

NightTerra: It’d be great to meet one day.

Paylee22: I’d like that too.

Paylee22: Come to the Midwest!! You can stay with me and my depressed parents. How fun does that sound?!

NightTerra: Where in the Midwest?

Paylee22: A tiny, sleepy village-town outside Chicago, where barely anything happens … except abduction in broad daylight.

NightTerra: I’m East Coast, just outside Boston.

Paylee22: Chat later?

NightTerra: Sounds good.

Paylee22: xo

NightTerra: xoxo

I log out and reach beneath my pillow. The kitchen scissors are still there—the serrated kind, with the jagged teeth. I chose them specifically, figuring if my aunt were to ever find them, I could say they’re for my one of my mixed media creations, that after cutting and pasting in bed one night, I must’ve accidentally forgotten to put them away.

And the carving knife on my windowsill, tucked behind the curtain…? It’s just for my wood-whittling, I’d tell her.

The duct tape around my windows? It’s because of the draft.

The wasp repellent on my night table? It’s for the wood-boring bees I’ve seen flying outside my windows. There must be a nest somewhere, and I can’t take any chances. I’m highly allergic. Don’t you remember? Back in elementary school, when I got rushed to the hospital…?

Fortunately—and unfortunately—my parents aren’t around to confirm the story.

My aunt isn’t concerned enough to put two and two together.

The authorities aren’t reliable; otherwise, I wouldn’t have to resort to such tactics, which also include a booby trap above the door; a collection of fire extinguishers, strategically placed around the room; and an artillery of art supplies for the primary purpose of trying to stay safe.

Sometimes I remind myself of Crazy Sally—pretty shameful to think about it now, but that’s what we called her—a girl at the hospital during my first stint there, who wore pink party dresses claiming it was her birthday all but three days of the year. Sally used to set traps around her bed, complaining that each night, after she’d gone to sleep, someone would sneak into her room and snip off a lock of her hair. She’d usually blame one of the nurses for doing it, but sometimes she’d say it was a therapist or one of the custodians.

So many mornings, she’d come tearing out of her room, desperate for a tape measure so that one of us could check the length of her hair, proving that some minuscule amount had been trimmed while she slept.

“They take a little bit each night,” she’d say. “Just enough that I won’t notice. But I do notice. Don’t you see it too? Can’t you tell?” She’d grab the ends of the hair and shove them into our faces.

But no one believed her. Sally’s hair always looked the same: a brown stringy mess that hit just above her shoulders. Still, she’d set cups of water over her door as a trap; sleep with balled-up tissue paper littered around her pillow, hoping the rustle might alert her to a “burglar”; and sprinkle peanut M&Ms all over the floor (because she didn’t have marbles), as if peanut M&Ms could ever make anyone slip.

Everyone said she was certifiably nuts, including me. I’d giggle right along with the others as someone would measure Sally’s hair and agree that, yes, it did seem shorter (even though it didn’t). And, most definitely, she should wear a hat, because she’d probably be bald soon.

I feel badly about it now—badly that I laughed, guilty for playing into Sally’s paranoia, and scared shitless that if Sally was supposedly the poster girl for “crazy,” then I must be “crazy” too.

THEN

9

When I woke up again, I noticed right away: I was no longer in my room. I was surrounded by dirt walls, lying on a dirt floor.

In a circular space.

About six feet in diameter.

I sat up, trying my best to process the whole scene, still dressed in the clothes I’d worn to bed: my dark blue sweatpants, my long-sleeved tee, and a pair of knitted socks. A smattering of dried-up leaves littered the ground, along with a handful of broken twigs.

Where was I? What had happened?

But just as fast as the questions hit, the memories hit too: the stranger in my room, his ski-masked face, the smell of mint …

Somehow, I could still feel the cloth inside my mouth, though it was no longer there, and the ache in my jaw.

Hadn’t I broken a glass too?

Weren’t his fingers extra-long?

His eyes were a pale shade of blue; those I remember, along with his tongue—the way it’d waggled back and forth out the hole of his mask.

Where was he now?

Why was I here?

My body trembled. Still, I told myself, Just get a grip. Don’t lose it yet. You can figure this out.

A spotlight dangled down, from a chain, enabling me to see; the dirt walls were at least twenty feet high. There were no doors or windows. No ladder to climb out.

There appeared to be a ceiling at the top of the hole; it looked partially open like a lid of sorts. Out the other half, I spotted a patch of blue. Was that the sky? Were those tree branches?

What was this place? A giant pit, dug into the earth? A root cellar? An old