Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay

threaten to topple her over. Luis climbs out of the car and he sinks into the grass, which is still damp from the morning dew. His feet and ankles are instantly wet. Tommy’s only been missing for a handful of days but the long, snarly grass looks like it hasn’t been mowed in weeks. Now that he’s closer to the house, almost standing in its shadow, Luis thinks it does look different. He can see this placeeasily becoming the neighborhood haunted house, the one the kids tells stories about, and they’ll tell them so often you’ll have no choice but to believe them.
    Dad edges Luis forward with a slight shove and a “Come on” that has an exasperated edge to it. Luis’s father is older than everyone else’s dad; his late fifties is a decade and a half older than Mom. He and Mom are the same height, five foot seven, but physical opposites otherwise. Dad’s hair has gone totally gray. He’s thick through the chest, shoulders, and arms. His legs are as skinny as picket fence posts. Dad is generally kind, particularly to strangers, and loyal to a fault, but he craves confrontation like the morning’s first cup of coffee.
    Elizabeth Sanderson opens the front door. She is dressed for a jog: black yoga pants, sneakers, blue short-sleeved outer shell. Elizabeth offers Josh’s mom a weak smile that instantly collapses like a long-neglected bridge, and they embrace. Josh and his dad stand to the side, their heads down and hands folded in front of them. Luis’s mom climbs up the brick stairs, puts a hand on Josh’s dad’s shoulder before stepping in front of him. Elizabeth hugs Luis’s mom next. Luis is still slowly walking across the front lawn.
    Mom and Elizabeth continue to hold each other. She looks over Mom’s shoulder and she locks eyes with Luis. It’s not the hardness, the completeness of her stare that makes him feel so small, smaller than he always feels. It’s how quickly she looks away from him. Luis imagines his smallness as a condition without a cure, and it’s accelerating. He’ll shrink so that the grass is over his waist and then over his head, and he’ll continue shrinking until the grass stalks are as large as redwoods, until he’s down in the dirt with the ants and the ticks and the spiders, and then he’s even too small for them to bother with, and maybe it would be okay living down here alone in the secret roots of the world.

    Kate hovers back at the borderline of the kitchen and living room, running her foot along the crack between the hardwood and tile. Luis, Josh, and both sets of their parents are inside her house, grouped together in the small entryway that spills into the living room. They shouldn’t be here. Is it unfair of her to think that they’re here to make themselves feel better? Nothing they can say or do will help make Tommy come back. Kate didn’t quite articulate it in that way earlier when Mom announced who was coming over, but it was implied in her “Mom, you should’ve said no.”
    Kate hates the Griffins and Fernandezes right now. She blames them and hates them, all of them, even Luis, whom she’s had an obvious crush on forever. Luis has always made her laugh, and whenever the three boys were together in the house, Luis was nicer to her than Tommy was. Tommy would snap at her, tell her to leave them alone and go play with her own friends, and he wouldn’t even look at her when he’d say it. Luis would be the one to say, “Don’t listen to him” and “Let her watch us play Mario Kart.” A week ago Luis and his big brown eyes, jet-black hair, and sneaky smile would’ve sent an embarrassed and exhilarated Kate and her just-got-up morning wear (baggy sweats, dingy T-shirt, no training bra) retreating to her bedroom. Look at Luis now, hiding behind a wall of parents, and slouching next to Josh, both boys with their heads down and their hands