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

I stood up. In the stream of light, a couple of feet above my head, I saw that the wall had a brick-like pattern.

Was this a water well?

That’s when I remembered: all the questions about fairy tales … The ski-masked stranger had said something about a water well and a forest girl.

Was I in the forest? Did I know where a well was?

My head felt dizzy. I stumbled on my feet, literally spun around in circles, eventually noticing: the spotlight chain. It snaked through the opening in the ceiling, meaning anyone could easily pull it out, and close the lid, and let me die here.

My body twitched like I’d been given a shock—over and over—as a warming sensation spread between my legs, spilling over my thighs. It took me a moment to realize I’d lost control, peed my pants. Tears filled my eyes.

Don’t panic. Rule number four.

Still, how much time had passed since the scene in my bedroom? Were the two things connected: being in the well and the guy hovered above my bed? As obvious as the answer was, I hadn’t wanted to believe it, because of what it would’ve meant—that he’d taken me, that he’d put me there.

Chills ripped through my core as the pieces came together. I screamed at the pieces. The sound vibrated inside my ears. I pictured a hunter hearing my cries. I prayed a hiker might be somewhere nearby. I imagined a pack of search dogs sniffing their way to me.

Where could there be a well? Was it anywhere near home? Had anyone seen what happened? A neighbor, maybe …

Had my aunt gotten home from work yet? Did she check my room? And spot the signs of a struggle? Were the police already looking? But then I remembered: the text I’d sent to my aunt about staying the night with Jessie … and a shot of terror flooded through my veins.

Would my aunt even know I was gone? Would anyone come looking?

I ran my fingers over the ground and clawed at the walls, not even sure what I expected to find—a clue, a tool, an answer, a way out …

That’s when I saw it.

Angled against the wall, only partially concealed by a layer of dirt …

An illustration of a little girl.

I brushed the dirt away, revealing a children’s book cover. It looked old, circa nineteen-freaking-ancient, with cursive loopy letters that spelled out The Forest Girl and the Wishy Water Well. The girl in the picture wore a long blue dress and her hair in two braids. She carried a pail; water splashed out of it as she ran from a well in the middle of the woods. A worried expression hung on her face: bulging eyes, gaping mouth.

With trembling fingers, I opened the cover.

At the same moment, the light went out, stopping my heart. The sound of something solid and heavy, like the lid of a tomb sliding closed, came from above, sending panic through my bones.

I screamed for help over and over again, until my throat turned to blades and each inhalation felt like a cut. How long did that take? Five hours? Five minutes? Until I could swear that blood was seeping out my mouth, dripping over my lip. I pictured the droplets drizzling onto the ground. Eventually, I folded forward and hugged the book like a friend.

Was I really, truly here?

Was this absolutely happening?

A thirsting noise gasped from my mouth. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t get enough air. I cried like I’d never cried before—like a wounded animal left behind by its pack: a sound so shrill and pleading, I didn’t recognize it as mine, kept thinking that someone or something was in the well with me. Was that true? Was he here somehow?

I sat up straight and kept my eyes wide, as if that would help me see in the dark.

Don’t panic, Logic said. You need to hold it together—need to be so much smarter, so much stronger. But all I could manage to be in that moment was a pathetic forest girl in a dark water well.

NOW

10

Having spent most of the night on the Jane site, I get up the following day, sometime after four p.m., and slip into the same pair of dark-washed jeans I wore on the night of the sorority party. I also pull on the same top (with the ruffled hem). My hair is the same too: down and wavy. My lips are colored mauve (Rosy Vixen), just like that night, to match the eye makeup I’d been wearing. And my vintage Gucci cross-body bag (circa 1980-something) is around my shoulder and hip, to complete the precise look.

Into the purse, I stuff a pocketknife, my mini-can of wasp spray, and my own personal set of house keys—all things I should’ve had with me on the night of the party. The spray can shoot up to eight feet. The knife has a jagged edge. And the keys are because there’s no longer a spare set kept hidden outside the house. Rule number five on my parents’ list of survival tips: Go with your gut. Keeping house keys in a planter on the front stoop, as had been my aunt’s practice, always conflicted my gut, but before that night, I hadn’t done anything to change it.

My aunt knocks on my open bedroom door, dressed in her pale green hospital scrubs. I hate seeing her wearing them, hate flashing back to my first stint in the hospital, after the fire—to how ripped open I felt, like a walking bundle of severed nerves. The nurse wore scrubs the exact same color. I remember pressing my face against them, feeling the sensation of thin starched cotton against my cheek as I cried so hard it felt that blood, rather than tears, was running from my eyes.

“Going somewhere?” she asks.

“A work thing,” I lie.

“At the library? Dressed like that?”

“It’s a social event. A book reading.”

“Are you going to take the Subaru? Or do you want a ride?”

“I’m going to walk. It’s nice