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

The spotlight was on. The rock I’d managed to pry from the wall sat within view. It’d left a six-inch gouge. I needed to dig more.

But I felt so tired. My lids were so heavy. My bones and muscles ached.

I stuck my fingers into my mouth and suckled the bloody tips; they tasted like salted chips. I pictured a plate of waffle fries from Gaga’s Grill, with the creamy dill sauce. My mouth ached for the sweet-and-sour taste coupled with the oily crunch of deep-fried potato. Meanwhile, I chewed at my waterlogged skin, remembering lunchtime with Felix at Iggy’s Market—the turkey-, stuffing-, and cranberry-layered sandwiches smothered with gravy, and the time the owner had us sample from a tray of recipes he’d been trying. And so we ate: hunks of garlic knotted butter rolls, gooey mac-’n’-cheese balls with bread crumb crust, filo dough–wrapped asparagus bundles, and four-cheese manicotti with plum tomato and basil sauce.

My body quivered for food. I scooped up a handful of muck, like wet clay, imagining the brownie batter Mom and I used to make with the chocolate chunks. I tried to re-create the look, sprinkling bits of the drier dirt on the top of the heap like caramel drizzle. “Just one spoonful of batter,” Mom used to say. “Then they’re going in the oven.”

I reached out to touch the walls, noticing how much they looked like chocolate too, dampened from the rain. I closed my eyes, willing them to morph into thick hunks of fudge. They felt slick, like glass, like the slabs of cheese at the gourmet shop in the center of town—the provolone, the Parmesan, the Jarlsberg, and the creamy pecorino … But when I opened my eyes again, there was only dirt.

And only me.

With no food and little energy.

There’s no time for sleep now. My father’s voice played inside my ear. There’s so much you could do.

He was right. I could toss the book upward again, so that someone might see it. I could also try yelling some more, stretching my vocal cords. My throat was feeling better, coated with rainwater. What I thirsted for now: sound that wasn’t mine—gunfire, whistles blowing, birds cawing, animals barking …

Any kind of sound.

Some type of noise.

If only the troll doll made a squeak.

I snatched a couple of rocks from the ground and knocked them together—knock, knock, knock—just to remind myself I could still hear, that my ears were continuing to work. I also tapped a rock against my teeth, radiating sound through my body, which felt enlivening at first, but I was still so tired.

I snuggled the blanket. Just five minutes. My eyes burned with dirt. I let the lids fall closed.

Don’t fall asleep, my father’s voice continued.

I tried not to, and I told myself I wouldn’t. But before I knew it, I was back in my childhood bedroom on Bailey Road.

Open up! Dad shouted.

I dreamed that I was glued to the rug as the flames ate away the roof of the house.

Terra? Mom’s voice.

In my dream, I tried to call back, stretching my mouth wide. But no sound came out. My vocal cords seared, despite the rainwater. And the smell of burning leaves hung heavy in the air. I reached outward, toward my bedroom door, zeroing in on the Sharpie-drawn star.

At the same moment, something slid between my fingertips.

A piece of paper?

A page from the fairy-tale book?

I brought it to my nose. It smelled like campfire, like toasting marshmallows.

A loud, cracking noise startled me awake. I sat up with a jolt. Were the rafters splitting? Was the ceiling caving in?

No. Because I was still in the well, surrounded by dirt. There were no rafters, no wooden structure either.

So, what was that sound? A tree falling over? Was someone chopping firewood nearby?

Clenched in my hand was a piece of paper, but it wasn’t a page from The Forest Girl and the Wishy Water Well. This page was whiter; the corners seemed sharper. The texture was different too, matte rather than glossy.

I turned it over, anticipating text or an image, but it was a blank sheet. Where had it come from? How did I get it? It hadn’t been here in the rain; it was as dry as the sparerib bone I could no longer find.

A corner of the sheet was as black as the night sky, as though from a fire. I brought it up to my nose, able to smell smoke.

I stood up. My pulse raced. Did the sheet of paper float down here by accident? I gazed toward the opening of the well. Were campers nearby? I inhaled the night air, desperate to see if I could smell fire. “Hello,” I called, but the word came out a gasp, barely audible enough to hear.

Aside from the burn mark, the paper looked completely pristine—so bright, barely wrinkled. How was that even possible?

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the guy who’d taken me had burned the paper himself, then dropped it into the well just to let me know that I wasn’t a random pick—that I was the girl from the burning house who’d let my parents die.

NOW

26

At the library, Katherine asks me to compile a list of out-of-the-box research tips. I get straight to work, happy to refocus, hoping to remember some of the skills I learned at Emo. Dr. Beckett used to have us do monthly trivia challenges, requiring us to dig deep into the archival abyss of public records and historical documents, all in a long and laborious effort to find the answer to some seemingly impossible question.

I start to take some notes, just as a bell dings. My insides jump. I look up.

To my complete and utter shock, Garret’s standing there, behind the checkout desk.

“Well, hello, stranger.” He grins. “So, it’s true.”

“True?”

“I heard you were working here.”

I stand from the computer, reminded once again how blue his eyes are, like the color of the sea. What would they look like behind a ski mask? “I was wondering if you were still a student here.”

“This