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

should come and check with you.”

“With me?” The lines across her forehead form a map of their own. “I don’t own these woods.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. I’m afraid I’m not explaining myself very well. She’s hoping to do a collaborative project with you, something with STEM … Her group is small—just three middle-schoolers…”

“STEM?”

“Yes, the whole science, technology, engineering, and math initiative.”

“I know what STEM is, but what is the project? And who’s your friend?” She peers over my shoulder, just noticing Garret maybe.

“Her name is Kelsie,” I say. “She’s pretty new to homeschooling, but she has her teacher’s license. Anyway, the project is based on water systems and environmental engineering. She wants to investigate the park’s water well.”

Her face scrunches up, reminding me of William’s. “I didn’t even know the park had a water well.”

“Apparently, it does. I’m assuming you haven’t seen it, then? My friend didn’t specify the location, but maybe one of your students knows about it.”

“Okay, well, does your friend have a card? I can reach out to her. There’s another homeschool group in the area that we sometimes get together with.”

“Perfect. And, yes, she does have a card. But I’m not sure I brought it.” I search my pockets as panic rushes my face, heating my cheeks. “Maybe I could give her your card instead?”

“We’re online, under the Mighty Mindbenders Group. Tell your friend to look us up.” She takes a step back as though finished with our talk.

But I’m not nearly done. “Could I ask your students if any of them have seen a water well?”

The woman turns away, moving back toward her students.

I follow along. “Please,” I insist.

She stands in the clearing. Her face goes stern. At the same moment, something touches my shoulder, making me flinch. I turn to look.

Garret’s there. “We should probably go.”

Not yet. I move closer to the group. “I have a few more questions,” I tell her.

“Well, I’m done answering.” The woman grips her phone as though making a threat, but she knows as well as I do that the reception in these woods is patchy at best.

“Have any of you Mighty Mindbenders seen a water well in Hayberry Park?” I shout out to the kids.

The children stop painting. A few of them gawk. Others exchange looks.

No one says a word—until a boy comes forward, from behind his easel. He’s ten years old maybe, with round eyeglasses and dark red hair. “I’ve seen it,” he says.

My heart clenches.

“Mitchell, no.” The teacher scurries to his side, places her arm around his back, as if protecting him from me.

Still, I ask him, “Where did you see it?”

Mitchell looks to the right, then to the left, his face puzzling over. “It was behind some bushes. My ball fell inside it.”

“When?” My pulse races.

“I’m not really sure.” His face goes twisty. “Six months ago, maybe. Or last year…”

“Which was it?”

“You need to leave now,” the teacher orders, pulling the boy closer.

“Let’s go,” Garret says.

“No!” I shout, still focused on the boy. “Who were you with? What were you doing? Which entrance did you use to get into the park that day?”

“I don’t remember,” he says.

“Think,” I insist, hearing the urgency in my voice.

“Is she crazy?” a girl asks.

“I think she’s probably crazy.” Another voice.

Snickering follows.

“I’m calling the police,” the teacher says.

“No!” I shout, moving even closer, wanting to fix this.

But Garret takes my forearm. “It’s time to go.”

I look back at the group—at the little girl tucked behind the teacher’s leg—and reluctantly let Garret lead me away, over the footbridge, and through a grove of trees. But after several minutes of walking, I stop short.

My chest retightens.

How can I leave without talking to that boy some more, without trying to elicit as much information as possible?

“Terra?” Garret asks.

“You should go.”

“Go, where? I’m not just going to leave you here.”

“Didn’t you hear her? She’s calling the police.”

“So, let her. We haven’t done anything wrong. Not really.” Garret places his hands on my shoulders and levels his gaze, forcing me to look into his dark blue eyes. “You’re not going to find your answers here.”

“Then where will I find them?”

“I wish I knew.”

“They think I’m crazy.”

“Let them think whatever they want. It doesn’t make it true.”

I close my eyes and see an inferno all around me. And picture the ceramic garden gnome. And envision climbing down a ladder from my bedroom window on Bailey Road.

“That night at the party,” he begins, “when we were talking about how the people who cross our paths—the good ones, the bad ones, and the everything-in-between ones … how they do so for a reason … That was honestly one of the sanest conversations I’ve ever had.”

“Too bad it was bullshit.”

“You know it wasn’t.”

I suck back tears. He’s way too nice. I’m way too emotional.

“Look, I know you’ve been through a lot,” he says.

“You don’t know,” I snap.

“What it’s like to lose my parents? No, I don’t. Or how it feels to survive something and have no one believe that it happened to begin with? You’ve got me there too. But that doesn’t mean I can’t at least try to understand.”

“Why would you even want to?”

“Believe it or not, there are lots of people who’d love to know and understand you more.”

I reach into my pocket for my troll key chain and squeeze the belly and stroke the long rainbow hair. “There’s so much that you don’t know about me.”

“I’m sure there is. And, likewise, there’s so much that you don’t know about me either.” He takes off his sweatshirt and drapes it over my shoulders.

It’s only then I notice how hard I’m shivering, how cold I feel.

“You just have to be open to giving people a chance,” he says.

“Opening up hasn’t really worked well for me so far.”

“Sometimes it won’t, and sometimes you’ll open up to the wrong people. But that doesn’t mean you should stop looking for the right people.”

His words create a riptide inside my body; all currents flow through my veins, heating up my face.

Garret’s gaze travels from my eyes