Page 27 of The Gallagher Place
Marlowe glared at him. She could not tell her family how much she dreaded going to bed. Every night, instead of sleeping, Marlowe pictured Nora locked up in a cold basement. She pictured herfriend losing weight and growing hopeless. She pictured a faceless man doing awful things to her. And in the darkest hour of each night, Marlowe faced the truth: It should have been her. Marlowe wished with every bone in her body that she’d been the one who had been taken.
If Nora had been left behind, she would have been far better at handling the panic and seeking the truth. She would have demanded that Brierley do more than just slump his shoulders as he trudged around pointing out that it was hard to determine anything without a body, without any sightings of a car, without drops of blood. Nora would see whatever Marlowe had been missing all these years. Marlowe was useless; she was trying her hardest, and she couldn’t do anything to help. To her unskilled eye, it was as if Nora had been swallowed up by the night, and Marlowe was too stupid and timid to save her friend. As penance for failing Nora, Marlowe would torture herself by imagining, in extreme detail, a man grasping Marlowe’s arms until they were mottled with bruises, tying her up in some basement, abusing her. For the brief periods when Marlowe did sleep, the visions came to life in her dreams. She wept when she woke to find she was still in the Gray House.
“Pain is part of life,” Enzo said. “But sometimes it must be numbed.”
Then Enzo pulled a bottle of red wine from behind the bread box and poured some into a tumbler.
“Swallow what you can, Marlowe,” Enzo said. “It will help you sleep.”
Marlowe took the glass and choked on the first sip.
“Just swallow as much as you can, that’s a good Marlowe. Then clean the glass and put it away, yes?” Enzo patted her head.
It took her a few minutes, but Marlowe managed to drink it all. For the first time since Nora had vanished, the sharp pain loosenedits grip. Marlowe could finally hear herself think. It was a good thing, she realized. She would never find Nora if she let her emotions drown out her thoughts. That night she slept, and she did not dream.
All these years later, Marlowe was well practiced. She gulped the wine and waited, running through everything Ariel had said earlier that day. The detective had not dismissed Marlowe. She had listened. She had not argued when Marlowe claimed Nora couldn’t have run away. That was something different. Marlowe reached for that and held tight.
She wasn’t a child anymore. She knew exactly how to navigate her fears and emotions. She didn’t have to torture herself by composing her own nightmares. Instead, Marlowe could do it right this time.
A log cracked, and the dancing flames seemed to burn away Marlowe’s fears. She took a sip of her wine. “This is a second chance,” Marlowe whispered.
She could just make out the reply: “It’s fate,” Nora whispered back.
FOURTEEN
THE SLED
Thursday, December 28, 1995
The toboggan veered to the right. Through the spray of powdery snow, Marlowe saw the grove of apple trees ahead. She screamed and launched herself sideways, flipping the sled and sending everyone careening headfirst into a deep bank of snow.
Marlowe rolled over and wiped the snow out of her eyes. Her face was so frozen she could hardly feel her cheeks.
Nate jumped up and stomped his feet to dislodge the clumps of snow clinging to his pants and jacket. “Enough is enough, Marlowe!” he yelled. “Just stay on the sled!”
They had been doing runs on the sloped North Field all day, trying to navigate the wooden toboggan down the steep hill with all four of them aboard.
Nora staggered back up the hill behind Marlowe, her blue knit hat covered in a layer of snow, her cheeks bright red. “Seriously, Marlowe, that was our best run yet.” She grinned.
“But if we crash into one of those apple trees, we’ll all break our necks and die! Mom said that happened to someone she knew growing up.” Marlowe groaned.
Henry threw his arms out toward the orchard at the bottom of the hill. “They’re a thousand yards away!”
Marlowe balled her ice-cold fingers inside her mittens and peered down the slope. Henry had a point. From where they had crashed halfway down the hill, the snow-covered branches were minuscule.
“Don’t worry, Mar, we’ll have time to jump off closer to the bottom,” Nate said. “Trust me.”
“Okay, fine, but I don’t see why I have to be so close to the front,” Marlowe said. “It’s too scary, and I’m taller than Henry. I should sit behind him.”
“Just close your eyes!” Nora advised.
“Henry and I have to be in the back,” Nate said. “The sled has to be anchored.”
Earlier that morning their father had given them scientific counsel on the physics of sledding: The heavier riders had to sit in the back, with the smallest person up front, feet jammed firmly beneath the curved prow. That meant Nora sat up front, which she didn’t mind at all. The faster the sled went, the more she squealed with joy. Marlowe had a few inches on Henry, but she was skinnier, according to Nate’s calculations, so she was in the second position, with a full view of any dangerous obstacles in their path as they hurtled down the slope. Henry, on the other hand, was tucked safely between his older siblings, blissfully unaware of the panic Marlowe felt as the sled went racing over the slick, icy powder straight toward the trees.
At the top of the hill, they paused at the hedgerow to catch their breath. Behind them, the woods were hushed and still, while below them, the land unfolded its pristine pearly skirts. Six fresh inches of snow had fallen overnight, and the white was broken only by the vivid red of the Gallagher barn and the green pine trees by the road. Though the hill was on the Fishers’ property, Frank let the Gallagher brothers use the slanted field, as well as the smaller fieldto the south of the Gray House, for hay in the summertime. “For tax-break reasons,” he’d told his children. “Actively farmed land receives exemptions.” The even layer of cut hay left covering the ground after the harvest every season made the winter sledding conditions all the better.
A puff of smoke emerged from the Gray House’s chimney. Marlowe wanted to get in a good run as much as they all did, but soon she would start to yearn for hot chocolate by the fire. She longed to spread out her new acrylics on the kitchen table and try to capture the snowy scene on paper. Ivory paint mixed with something else to capture the glistening sparkle of the snow, she mused.
