The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson Page B

Like something she should keep hidden, like Mrs. Boden’s dragon rubies.
    “Do you know today’s the shortest day of the year?” Pauline said, changing the subject.
    Maggie shook her head. “I didn’t.”
    “It’s the twenty-first. I always keep track of it. Because now the days start getting longer. That always makes me feel better.”
    Maggie impulsively patted the top of Pauline’s head affectionately, thinking how she only kept track of the good things.
    A little after 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday, a girl showed up at the Gill Creek police station, bruised and shivering. Erica “Hairica” Lasstrom had hiked all the way from the forest that bordered Zippy’s Amusement Park, where she’d been held in a small trailer on the grounds, because she was too terrified to flag down a car.
    It was her long hair that had allowed her to escape. Her attacker had grabbed it, and she’d yanked herself away, leaving a tuft of it in his hands as he tumbled off balance. She’d hidden in the woods all night, too scared to move. In the morning she’d gotten turned around among the trees and lost, finally coming to a road and hiking the four miles to the police station, scratched and bruised but alive.
    In the paper, she described her attacker as male, tall, and muscular. He’d kept her eyes covered and put her in some kind of van. He didn’t say a thing to her the whole time except for “Get in,” but she swore he had an accent. Details of her captivity were not disclosed.
    The police questioned several suspects and searched the amusement park, which had been abandoned years before. No arrests were made.

11
    MAGGIE AND HER PARENTS ALWAYS HAD A DATE TO DECORATE THE TREE together. Her mom had worked a miracle this year, finding a tree practically for free at Lowe’s, minus a few branches and more than a little dry. Already it had left a wreath of needles around itself on the floor of the living room. Her mom had made homemade eggnog and had put Nat King Cole on the stereo, because it was important to her—she always said—that Maggie could rely on traditions. She’d also bought a mountain of tinsel, more tinsel than any one family should decently own, and lit a roaring fire in the study fireplace.
    They were just beginning the first stage of tree decorating—they always put the glass balls on after the lights—when there was a knock at the door. Pauline stood on the landing outside the kitchen. Maggie opened the door.
    “Hi, Pauline,” her mom called from the living room. “Come decorate with us.”
    Pauline stayed on the landing. “Hey, Mrs. Larsen, sorry I can’t, I have to get back. I just wanted to ask Maggie something really quick.”
    She stepped just inside the door and looked at Maggie secretively, lowering her voice.
    “Liam wants to take me to this place for my Christmas present on Tuesday. It’s like this ice hotel where you can have dinner at this ice restaurant. Anyway, I really want to go, but we couldn’t get back by curfew. I wonder if I could just tell my mom I’m hanging out at your house? And if she calls or something, you could just say I fell asleep? We’ll be home by ten, eleven latest,” she said.
    Maggie shifted from foot to foot. She wasn’t a good liar. And she didn’t like the idea of Pauline and Liam being out after curfew anyway, with everything going on. But she nodded.
    “Okay.”
    Pauline swallowed.
    “I think he’s planning to give me the talk ,” she said.
    Maggie felt taken aback. “What talk?” she asked, though she had a twisting feeling that she knew.
    Pauline wrapped her arms around herself.
    “You know, tell me he loves me, make me choose whether to be with him or not. He keeps hinting that it’s now or never.” Pauline looked tired and a little drawn.
    Maggie didn’t know what to say.
    “I don’t want to lose him as a friend, you know?” Pauline said. “I don’t want to hurt him.” She stamped her feet, frustrated, knocking off snow. “Anyway, thanks,