Sparked

FRIDAY

1.

THE KNOCKING woke me up from a dead sleep.

Whack, whack.

I sat up, blinking myself awake. The sky outside our porthole-shaped window was still dark, the silhouettes of the redwoods just a shade blacker. Rain lashed at the glass. Wind rocked the Airstream back and forth.

Whack.

There was that knocking again. I leaned over to wake Ivy. Our beds were so close, they practically touched—

But Ivy wasn’t in her bed.

Whack, whack.

She must have snuck out and forgotten her key. I needed to let her in fast. Our mom was a heavy sleeper—especially if she’d smoked a medicinal joint before bed—but there was a limit to what she could tune out.

When I eased open the accordion door to the bedroomette, a river of cold air whooshed over me. I hurried to the front of the trailer, where the door was wide open, banging in the wind.

I stepped out onto the top cinder-block stair, straining to see through the rain. Ivy? I called into the darkness, but no one answered. The icy wind cut through my pajamas and I shuddered, wrapping my arms around myself. Ivy must have left the door unlocked, and the storm had blown it open.

Still, it creeped me out.

I wasn’t used to living in a tin can on the edge of civilization. Our new property bumped up against the state park. We had no neighbors for miles, but hikers, poachers, and the occasional homeless person liked to use our land as their playground. Mom said that we were safer out here than if we lived in some apartment in town. Statistically, there were fewer weirdos in the vicinity.

But all it takes is one.

Get a grip, I told myself. I would’ve woken up if someone had dragged Ivy out of the trailer in the middle of the night. Our beds were, like, two feet apart. Besides, this was the third time before school that I’d gotten up before dawn to find her gone, though usually she left her stuffed lion strategically tucked under her quilt, its yellow mane arranged on the pillow as a decoy in the unlikely event that Mom checked in on us.

I shoved my bare feet into my boots and ran around to the other side of the trailer, where we always parked Spud, our beat-up VW van. But the key was in the ignition as usual and the tires were submerged in troughs of rainwater. The hood felt cold, and I didn’t smell the scent of french-fry grease coming off the engine, so it was clear Ivy hadn’t driven anywhere. Some friend must have come over to pick her up.

I trudged back inside and closed the door, leaving it unlocked in case she had forgotten her key. It wasn’t like her to be careless, but she’d been acting so weird lately that anything was possible.

I was too worked up to go back to sleep. Besides, I hated being in the bedroomette by myself. It would’ve been cramped for one person, but somehow, when Ivy was there, she made it feel bigger. I couldn’t risk waking Mom by turning on a light. But the sky outside the window was already fading to a steely gray, and I thought I could see well enough to write while I waited for Ivy to get home.

I grabbed my notebook and sat down at our red Formica dining table, uncapping my gel-tip pen and flipping to the first blank page. Writing always calmed me down. I’d filled a whole row of marbled composition books with journal entries, poems, and short stories. But right now all I could think about was where on earth Ivy might be.

The clock on the stove read 6:14. The last time she snuck out, she’d crept back in around three thirty, waking me up. Ever since we moved into this trailer, my ears were on hyperalert, especially at dawn, when the underbrush rustled constantly, owls screeched in the trees, and wild dogs howled back and forth across the park.

Ivy always laughed when I complained about the spooky noises, reassuring me that I had nothing to worry about—just like she used to when I’d wake up from a nightmare after binge-reading horror novels. I imagined her walking through the door now and reassuring me in just the same way: teasing but affectionate.

Feeling a little better, I decided to make some coffee. After staying out all night, she was going to need it. But as I held the carafe under the tap, I realized I had no idea how much coffee to put in the machine. Ivy was our family coffee maker. She took pride in it, groaning at the amount of milk and sugar I dumped in mine. I measured three spoonfuls of grounds, filled the carafe to the three-cup mark, and set it to perc, hoping for the best.

As the water burbled and splurted, I decided: Ivy will be back by the time this coffee is ready. I used to play this same game when we were little and Mom left us alone at home. But when the coffee had filled the pot, there was still no sign of Ivy. I ran water on the dishes that Mom had left in the sink. She’ll be back by the time these are cleaned. I scrubbed each one slowly and thoroughly.

Nope again.

I went to empty the trash, which was full of Bryan’s empty Coors cans. This brought back memories of the horrible fight between Mom and Ivy the night before. Bryan, Mom’s gross boyfriend, had practically moved in with us. He had a habit of coming over during the afternoon, when he knew Mom was at work. Apparently, he was allergic to clothes. He’d take a shower and then strut around in a towel, showing off his hairy ape chest. Needless to say, Ivy and I weren’t thrilled about this. Last night, Ivy had finally snapped and called him a pervert to his face.

If you hate it here so much, you should leave! Mom had screamed.

Maybe Ivy had taken her seriously.

Rain pelted the trailer, and I shivered.

If only I could just call her. But no—that would’ve been too easy. People in the African bush had cell phones, but not us. Mom claimed that cell phones were part of a corporate scheme to zap brain cells. Convenient, since we couldn’t afford the plans.

A sour taste rose in the back of my throat as I stared into the trees, which stretched for miles in every direction.

If someone came to pick her up, why haven’t they brought her back yet?

The question morphed into full-blown panic.

Mom, get up! I burst into her room. She grunted, pulling the Indian bedspread over her face. Ivy’s gone!

What? Go back to— she mumbled.

She’s not in her bed, and the front door was wide open when I got up. The panic was rising, and fast. Anyone could have come in and taken her!

She threw on her old chenille robe and followed me to our room, squinting at Ivy’s empty bed.

I woke up before five and she wasn’t here, I said as Mom flung aside the quilt Ivy had sewn from scraps of our grandma’s old dresses.

Mom pushed her fingers through the snarls of her blond hair, her face pale. She must have snuck out again. She narrowed her eyes as if daring me to defend Ivy. Yes, Laurel, I know she’s been going out at night. I didn’t say anything because things have been so tense recently, I wanted to give her some space.

But the door was unlocked. It was wide open. Don’t you think that’s weird?

Mom shut her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose like she felt a migraine coming. Bryan must have forgotten to lock it. He left last night because he was so upset with Ivy after what she said.

I exhaled sharply. "Bryan was upset? Well, boo-hoo. It’s our home! Ivy is the one who should be mad."

And I’m sure she’ll come back as soon as she cools down. Mom tried to push a frizzy red curl out of my face, but I ducked away.

How? The van is still here! Do you think someone picked her up?

Mom nodded. Does she have a new boyfriend?

No. I shook my head, marveling at how little she knew about our lives. The guys at school are all completely lame.

Then maybe she met someone at Ritual Roasters.

She would’ve told me. But I couldn’t help remembering how Ivy had looked away when I asked where she went in the middle of the night. I just drive around, she’d answered. But drive around where? Maybe she had been sneaking out to meet a guy she hadn’t told me about.

Mom tugged back the tie-dyed curtain at the window and peered out. She’ll be back any minute. I know it.

What if she got in some guy’s car, and she thought she could trust him, but she was completely wrong? Suddenly, I was sure that this was exactly what must have happened. Ivy was a good judge of character, but I’d heard that true psychopaths could be incredibly charming. I imagined how some guy had chatted her up at the coffee shop where she worked on weekends, and she’d sneaked out for a couple of dates. He’d spent just enough time with her to win her trust, so that she would run out and get into his car, no question. By now, he could have taken her anywhere. Who knew what he was going to do to her? The trailer lurched under my feet.

We need to call the police, I said. Some psycho could be torturing her!

"You’re torturing me, Mom said, and you know it’s a bad idea to involve the cops."

I felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that Ivy wouldn’t want me involving the police either. We couldn’t risk it. Not unless we had to.

Mom wasn’t a bad person really, but she was only seventeen when she had Ivy, and it’s like she never fully grew up or something. Three months before graduating from high school, she ran away from home to follow her favorite band, Phish, around the country. She painted faces to earn money for concert tickets, and eventually got to know the musicians, who paid her to design one of their concert posters, a psychedelic sunrise over silhouettes of the band members.

That was her proudest accomplishment, proof that she could make it as an artist. We still have that print, framed and hanging over our kitchen table. Unfortunately, right after that she got pregnant with Ivy. Our dad was another groupie who’d barely finished high school. He and Mom moved to Eugene, where they stuck it out until she got pregnant with me. That’s when he decided to head up to Alaska to try to make some money. He promised to send her child support as soon as he got his feet on the ground, but that never happened, and we hadn’t heard from him in years.

Mom kept painting, but since that didn’t pay the bills, she had to clean houses on the side, which she hated. She couldn’t afford a babysitter, so when she went to work, she’d leave us in the apartment, locking the door and telling us to keep quiet. But I guess we didn’t listen, because one day, a neighbor heard us crying and called the cops. When they saw that two little kids had been left all alone in a filthy apartment, Mom got charged with negligence. We were put in foster care until Grandma came to sort things out, bringing us all back to Cascade to live with her.

But even though Grandma was basically a mom to us all, a social worker was still assigned to our case. For years, this woman named Joan would drop in every month or so, to make sure that we weren’t being neglected. We lived in a tidy ranch house, and as long as Grandma was around, Joan was happy. Eventually, when I was ten or eleven, Joan’s visits stopped and we almost forgot about her. But after Grandma died last year, and we had to sell her house to pay the medical bills—using what was left to buy this trailer—we got a letter from Child Protective Services letting us know that they were reopening our case. We weren’t sure what that meant exactly. No one had been out to visit the trailer yet. But Ivy and I had agreed that it didn’t look like much of a home for two teenaged girls. We didn’t want to give them any further cause to find our mother negligent.

Our life may not have been the textbook definition of stability, but it seemed impossible to think that they could take us away. After all, Ivy was the same age that our mother had been when she had us, and I was about to turn sixteen. It’s not like we could be placed in some Dickensian orphanage. Still, I had three years of high school left, and I was not taking chances. The only thing I remembered about that brief period in foster care was the fact that I’d been separated from Ivy because they couldn’t find a home to take both of us.

No matter what, I could not let that happen again.

So I told myself that Mom was right. Ivy was old enough to come and go as she pleased, and super responsible. Maybe she wanted Mom to worry about us for a change instead of the other way around, and that was why she’d stayed out all night.

Look, Mom said. When she gets home, I’ll talk with her. But right now, I need you to lay off. Her hand shook as she poured herself a mug of coffee. She sat down heavily at the table and took a sip. Her nose wrinkled.

It tastes like boiled dirt, doesn’t it? I said, collapsing across from her.

She gulped down half the mug, forcing a smile. It’s fine, she said. Now go get ready for school.

I took a shower, lingering under the lukewarm dribble. She’ll be back when I finish getting dressed, I told myself. But when I came out of the bedroomette, Mom was still alone, pulling eggs out of the mini-fridge. The clock said 7:21.

Mom! Where is she?

She must have gone straight to school. Mom cracked an egg against the side of the pan, smashing it so hard that she crushed it. Instead of looking at me, she concentrated on picking out the bits of shell. If she wanted to give me a scare, it’s working. You tell her that when you see her there.

But how am I supposed to get there?

I guess you’ll have to drive.

But I can’t!

Sure, you can. Ivy’s been giving you lessons all year, and you have your permit. It’s basically the same thing.

Not in the eyes of the law, I said, but she wasn’t listening. You could drive me, I suggested.

That’s not a good idea. Mom fingered her Eye of Ra pendant. She stroked it whenever she was stressed, convinced that its ancient wisdom would rub off, even though she’d found it downtown on Miner Street, at a store called Forbeaddin’, in a bin with dozens exactly like it. If I got caught, it would be a misdemeanor. I could end up in jail, and then I’d lose the two of you for sure.

I sighed, knowing she was right. But what if I get caught?

I don’t think it would be that big of a deal, since you don’t have any kind of record and you are about to turn sixteen. Just be extra careful and don’t get pulled over.

Thanks for the helpful tip. I wanted to roll my eyes, but without Ivy there, what was the point?

I had zero appetite, but I managed to choke down a few bites of Mom’s eggs scallopini. This was practically the only thing she ever cooked—just eggs scrambled with whatever wilted vegetables happened to be lying around—but she always presented it with a flourish, like it was something truly special.

As I ate, I told myself that Ivy would be at school. After all, she never skipped class unless she was seriously sick. But when I went to grab my coat from our tiny closet, Ivy’s favorite black denim jacket—the one she wore like a uniform—was hanging there. I knew Mom would say this didn’t prove a thing, but I bit my lip so hard, I tasted blood. I just knew that something was wrong.

Something was really wrong.

2.

I WAS A NERVOUS DRIVER even with Ivy in the passenger seat, coaching me through lane changes and turns. Alone, I crept along the highway at fifteen miles per hour, gripping the steering wheel with slick palms. I winced every time a semi whooshed past, leaving a tsunami of rainwater in its wake. I kept glancing in the rearview mirror, expecting to see red and blue lights spinning behind me.

Although Mom claimed she wanted to stay under the radar, it simply wasn’t in her nature to blend in, and Spud was a total police magnet. Not only was the ancient VW van plastered with bumper stickers like Visualize Whirled Peas, she had also hand-painted it with a wraparound forest scene. Worst of all: the biodiesel that it ran on smelled like old french fries.

Hence the nickname.

WELCOME TO CASCADE, POPULATION 8,474, a sign informed me as I crossed back into city limits.

Minus four, I thought with a pang.

Even though Cascade wasn’t much of a city, I missed living there. I missed our grandma, who had acted like a mom to all three of us. I missed living in a normal house instead of a trailer on the edge of a state park, eight miles out of town.

The edge of heaven, Mom liked to call it, having skimmed some book on the power of positive thinking. She was determined to see our downsizing as an opportunity. But her version of positive thinking meant turning a blind eye to problems. Such as the fact the redwoods surrounding the trailer were prone to come crashing down in storms, and any one of them could crush the Airstream like a soda can. Or that the septic tank flooded whenever there was a rainstorm, which was just about the only time Bryan didn’t come around.

When Mom got pulled over for speeding last summer, the police discovered an ounce of pot in the glove compartment. She claimed that it was Bryan’s, that she never touched the stuff herself, but a blood test proved otherwise. She ended up with a DUI that cost her $6,000 (which she was still paying back), and a suspended driver’s license. Unfortunately, this happened right after we moved, so Ivy was forced to become our chauffeur, running all of Mom’s errands and driving the two of us to and from school. She never complained about that, but I felt bad now that I thought about how she never got a break.

Today, as usual, it was pouring. Only one of Spud’s windshield wipers worked—if by worked you mean that it swished the rain back and forth—making me squint to see through the smeary glass. Having lived my whole life in Oregon, you’d think I would have gotten used to the unending rain. But it still had the power to infect my mood, which was already dire. Sometimes I wondered why we hadn’t all evolved to sprout gills.

There were almost no parking spots left when I finally pulled into the school parking lot, and I was soaked by the time I made it, panting and drenched, into the building. The bell had rung, and the halls were thinning out as the last stragglers hurried to class.

I was pretty sure that Ivy had PE first period on Fridays, so I sprinted to the gym and pressed my face to the window in the door. I watched as a dodgeball game began, hoping she would appear.

Ten minutes later, I finally gave up, a dull ache in my stomach.

How nice of you to honor us with an appearance, Ms. Goodwin, Ms. Owen said as I slipped into sophomore English. I muttered an apology, keeping my head down to avoid her look of disappointment in me. By now, I was all too familiar with that look.

The only empty desk was in the back row, next to a new kid named Jasper Blake. With just four hundred students in the school—most of whom I’d known since kindergarten—any recent arrival at Cascade High was bound to stick out. This guy was particularly noticeable among the thick-necked jocks dominating our social scene (or lack thereof).

I’d seen him around the halls, but never in this class before. He looked at least seventeen, so I wondered why he’d suddenly been transferred into sophomore English. Maybe he wasn’t that bright, which would have been only fair, considering how he’d scored in the looks department. He was tall and lean, with olive skin and a mess of dark-brown hair that flopped in his eyes and over the tops of his ears, like it hadn’t met scissors in months. He wore faded jeans and a hoodie the color of the storm clouds brewing outside the windows. He shrugged off the hoodie, revealing a black T-shirt washed to a tissue-paper thinness.

As I slung off my backpack, I managed to knock his copy of Frankenstein off his desk. Flustered, I bent down to pick it up. It wasn’t the school-issued paperback—it was a hardcover with a dark-brown leather cover and gilt-edged pages. It reminded me of the first editions I’d seen behind a glass case at a used bookstore in Portland, the ones I fantasized about collecting someday.

Sorry, I mumbled as I handed it back. Nice book. Is it an antique? I bit my lip. I hope I didn’t damage it.

It’s ancient, but don’t worry about it, he said under his breath. Books were made to last back in the day.

Ms. Owen cleared her throat, crossing her arms over her generous bosom. You two back there! Laurel Goodwin, and—what did you say your name was?

Jasper, he said. Jasper Blake.

Save the sweet nothings for after class, please.

As the other kids tittered, I felt my cheeks get red and blotchy—an unfortunate side effect of redheadedness. (As if being covered in freckles weren’t bad enough.) I pulled out my paperback Frankenstein and tried to tune in, but my mind kept veering back to Ivy.

Where is she?

Peyton, can you read for us? Ms. Owen said. Chapter five. Page one hundred and two.

In front of me, Peyton Andersen’s white-blond hair was styled into loose curls, so she looked like a Disney mermaid. Peyton was the head Skittle, a nickname Ivy and I had made up for these two sophomore girls who acted like conjoined twins, always wearing the same skimpy outfit in different fruity colors. Her best friend, Mei, was Chinese American, but somehow she and Peyton still managed to look alike, maybe because they both wore identically vapid expressions most of the time. The Skittles lived to make my life miserable, but only if I was by myself, since even they couldn’t fail to recognize that Ivy had them lapped in the cool department, with actual talent that money couldn’t buy.

Peyton read the passage in which the monster comes to life, managing to make it sound as riveting as a grocery list. While she droned on and on, Ms. Owen paced the aisles. With her tapestry vest and Birkenstocks, and her gray hair pulled into a bun, she looked like a hippie grandma—but behind her glasses, her gaze was pure steel.

Laurel? She came to a sudden stop, looming over me. What motivates the monster to kill?

Uh … he’s a monster, I said. I mean, that’s what monsters do, right?

Did you do the assigned reading? she asked.

I nodded, looking down. I’d just gotten started when Bryan swaggered out of the shower yesterday. We’d been alone in the trailer, and even though it is ridiculously small, I felt like he went out of his way to brush against me as we passed each other. So I shut myself in the bedroomette, where Ivy found me later, still shaken. That’s what triggered the blow-up with Mom. My eyes prickled at the thought of how Ivy had my back—then and always. But if Ms. Owen noticed that I was upset, it didn’t move her one bit.

So that’s your in-depth analysis? she said. He’s monstrous because he’s a monster?

I tried to remember the movie but came up blank. Um …

He just needs a date, Jasper spoke up. Relief spilled over me.

Excuse me? Ms. Owen said.

He’s lonely, Jasper continued. All he wants is a girlfriend, and Victor Frankenstein—the only person who can make him one—refuses. Seems like that would be enough to make anyone mad. I threw him a grateful smile, noticing the way his shoulders filled his old T-shirt. He seemed at ease in his own skin in this way that made me realize how awkward and jerky the other boys in my class were.

A few kids giggled, and I expected Ms. Owen to get pissed, but she was actually nodding for a change. To my dismay, her laser-beam attention shifted back to me. That’s right, she said, peering over the rim of her glasses at me again. The power of a great writer like Mary Shelley is knowing that for characters to be convincing, we must understand the thing that drives them. For the monster, it’s his yearning to find a mate. I felt myself blushing again as she went on. Speaking of unfulfilled desires … She paused, shuffling away to her desk and then returning to hold a paper under my nose.

I recognized the story I’d turned in a week ago, Heart of Stone. I had been really excited when Ms. Owen said that anyone who wanted to earn extra credit could submit a piece of creative writing. English was usually my best subject, the one thing in which I consistently got all As, but so far I was off to a rocky start with Ms. Owen. This had seemed like my chance to show her what I was capable of.

The prompt was to create a character who wants something they can’t have. I stayed up all night, writing about this girl who falls for a boy who turns everything he touches to stone. In the end, she decides she’d rather turn to stone than remain untouched by him. When they finally kiss for the first time, she turns into a statue beneath his hands, her lips frozen in a pucker. I wrote from the girl’s point of view, so the last sentence trailed off as her mind turned to stone as well. I was pretty happy with it, especially after I read it to Ivy and she said that it gave her chills.

This was a clever idea, Ms. Owen said, but I’m afraid the characters never came to life. She dropped the story on my desk. The words—my words—were covered in so much red ink, I could barely read them anymore. I hoped she’d move on, now that she’d embarrassed me in front of everyone, but she seemed to want to rub salt in the wound.

"I mean who is this girl really? she said. What does she see in this boy, aside from the ‘sparkle of his ultraviolet eyes’? Lest I miss her sarcasm, she put those words in finger quotes. I shrugged, my face burning. And what about him? she pressed on. If everything he touches turns to stone, then how does he eat?"

Ouch.

I don’t know, I finally mumbled. I didn’t really think through that part. It’s just, like, a fantasy story.

Well, I think you can do better, she said sternly. A lot better.

My eyes prickled with tears. I tried to ignore her, hoping she’d just go away—but Ms. Owen was like a pit bull, jaws locked on its prey.

If you’re serious about becoming a writer, then I suggest you spend more time thinking about what makes people tick, she said. Use your real-life observations to create fictional characters with a pulse. This girl feels like a statue even before she turns into one.

My vision filmed over and I tried not to blink, knowing that would make the tears fall. Normally,