After Zero Read online

  Something tells me I’ll never pass through that door again.

  At my house, my mother’s station wagon is still missing from the driveway. I drop my bike in the grass and walk across the backyard without looking at the shed. It will be better to climb the fence and cut through the woods than to use roads. For one thing, I’m less likely to be seen. I don’t need people asking where I’m going or telling my mother they saw me. For another, it’s more direct. According to the map printout, North Commons sits at the opposite edge of the forest, where a long lane runs up from a road to the green part on the map. The cottage must be off the beaten path. Rather than making an enormous U around the forest, I’ll walk straight across, following the stream that runs through the middle—or whatever that blue line on the map is—until I get to the other side. There’s no way I can miss it.

  As I climb the fence and slip into the woods behind the house, the world looks smudgy like it could be a dream—with the unsleep it’s hard to tell—but the drumming of my heart sounds real.

  Chapter 10

  I don’t follow a path because there isn’t one.

  I walk straight ahead through the trees, not thinking about anything except how fast I’m moving or how evenly I’m breathing. It’s easy to not think about big things when there are so many little things to distract me, like squirrels darting up tree trunks. Sunshine peeking through leaves. Sparrows bursting out of treetops. And then there are the sounds: the squirrels chittering at each other, the leaves whispering in the breeze, the sparrows trilling on their branches.

  The woods are having conversations all around me, but no one’s expecting me to “participate.” And no one’s calling me “quiet” when I don’t. I could walk forever in these woods. Live here, even. Maybe that makes me weird. Mel called me so, after all. She’s just…gotten weird since school started.

  It’s not like I want to be weird. It’s not like I haven’t tried to find a compromise, a work-around, a way to participate from inside the bubble. I thought I’d found one once, that second Saturday of the school year when I discovered social media. The internet was still new to me then, since my mother didn’t let me use it at home. But I’d gotten doses at Mel’s house, and that afternoon I biked to the town library and logged on to a computer. Each patron was allowed two hours at a time. Mel had emailed me a link to a website that lots of Green Pasture kids use. You’re supposed to be thirteen or older to create an account, but apparently everyone lies about their age, so I did too. I’d be thirteen in less than a year anyway. For my profile picture, I used a photo of Mel and me laughing in her backyard last summer.

  I found Mel’s account—her picture was a “selfie,” as people called it—and browsed her list of “friends.” Some names and faces I recognized from class or the halls of Green Pasture, and others I didn’t. I went down the list and clicked the Add Friend button next to all eighty-one of them. Clicking was easy. I clicked here; I clicked there. As I waited for everyone to accept my friend requests, I opened the site’s instant messaging service and started sending messages. Hi, I said to a girl named Jackie Pincer. Howdy, to some boy named Cody Moretti. Hey, to a bunch of others.

  The person in the first chat box responded: Do I know you?

  I hesitated and then brought my fingers to the keyboard. No. Well, maybe. I go to Green Pasture. Typing was almost as easy as clicking. I could take as long as I wanted to compose my thoughts and choose my words.

  K.

  What’s up? I typed.

  This is weird. Why’d you message me?

  Sorry, just trying this thing out.

  I don’t even know you.

  Do you like poetry?

  Ummm, not really.

  Who’s your favorite poet?

  I waited for a response. Jackie Pincer didn’t reply.

  I saw that someone else had responded in another chat box: Who’s this?

  I typed back. Elise. What’s up?

  I messaged dozens of people that afternoon, starting conversations like the one with Jackie Pincer. There at my fingertips was a new way of socializing that didn’t require me to speak a single word out loud. It was superior even to sign language, because no one could see me or my eyebrows or any food in my teeth. I could be everything online that I wasn’t in person. I could be popular at Green Pasture after all.

  Monday morning, everyone stared at me in the halls and snickered and whispered.

  That’s her. She messaged practically everyone in the school.

  Sylvia came up to me, followed by Mel and the other girls. “We heard you chatted up a storm this weekend.”

  “Did you really message all those people?” Mel frowned at me. “People you don’t even know?”

  It didn’t take me long to realize my mistake. I deleted my account that afternoon, but the damage was done.

  I look at the sky through the treetops now. It may be true that there’s no work-around back home, but here in the woods I don’t need one. And when I get to Glen Forest Cottage, maybe I won’t need one there either. Maybe Granny P will let me stay with her, and the bubble won’t ever come back, and I’ll never have to return to school. Sakya Pandita didn’t get it backward after all. He just forgot to specify that other birds fly free as long as they’re not at school.

  I come to a stream that snakes through the trees—the blue line on the map. The water shimmers and winks at me. Only one thing matters now: finding Granny P. Finding out what happened. That’s all I need to focus on. I let the stream lead the way.

  • • •

  I catch my eyelids drooping as I walk. I can always count on the unsleep to ease up while I’m in class or doing homework or traveling somewhere important, like right now. Never at night when I’m in bed. That would be too convenient. I jerk my eyes open and pop a piece of gum in my mouth. Chew, walk, chew, walk.

  Between the smacks of my gum I hear a noise—not squirrels or birds or the leaves in the wind, but a dog barking somewhere.

  Somewhere close.

  I turn around in time to see a brown shape making a beeline for me through the trees.

  My body is slow to react. Somehow my brain gets the message to my legs, and I break into a sprint. My shoelaces flail, but there’s no time to fix them. I can hear the dog’s collar jangling and a growl edging his bark. I try to imagine I’m at track practice or in my first race, but my legs can’t go any faster. Snot clogs my nostrils, and I gulp at the air, pumping my legs, waiting for the dog’s fangs to pierce my ankles.

  My best bet is to climb a tree, but all the branches look too high. What if I stop and try to climb but can’t reach, and then I’m dog food? What will it feel like to be chewed to pieces? I feel water on my cheeks. I must be crying. Behind the barking, I hear something else. Voices? Through the trees I glimpse figures moving, walking.

  I never thought I’d be glad to see other people.

  “Help!” I yell. Only it comes out as a squeak. But maybe they’ve heard it because they’re coming toward me now. Walking—not running, just strolling, taking their time. Three tall figures, two boys and a girl, all wearing camouflage jackets and hunting boots, with shotguns slung over their shoulders. They look like they could be seventeen or eighteen, older than any kids I know.

  “Here, boy.” The pigtailed girl whistles and claps, holding out some sort of treat. The hound comes running to her.

  I almost keel over, trying to catch my breath. My knees shake. I lean on my thighs and eye the hound, who sniffs at a treat in the girl’s hand. He seems to have forgotten about me—for now. But I wish they’d put him on a leash or something.

  “Go get it, boy.” The girl hurls the treat away like a boomerang. The dog chases it, disappearing among the tree trunks.

  The tallest boy, the one with a buzz cut, is looking at me. “Don’t worry, her pup’s harmless.”

  I’m not convinced.

&n
bsp; He whispers something to his companions, who nod and point at my bag. I adjust my backpack on my shoulders and continue on my way.

  “Hey, where are you off to?”

  “Don’t leave. We’re nice.”

  “Yeah, we’re saints.”

  The three of them snicker.

  I pick up my pace.

  They come up behind me, the buzz-cut boy on my left and the other two on my right.

  “Aren’t you going to say thank you? We did just save your life, didn’t we?”

  I look straight ahead and keep walking. If I ignore them, they’ll get bored. That tactic always works at Green Pasture. When I don’t make a sound, people eventually lose interest. Even Sylvia with all her questions. To keep someone’s interest, you have to say things.

  The buzz-cut boy steps in front of me. “I asked you a question.”

  I try to walk around him, but he steps the same way.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know English,” says the shorter boy with the curly hair.

  The girl grunts. “She said ‘help,’ doofus.”

  The buzz-cut boy nods at my backpack. “Whatcha got in there? Any tokens of your appreciation?”

  More snickers.

  I skirt around him.

  He blocks my path again. “Let’s have a look.”

  As I pivot to walk past him, he wrenches my backpack off my arms. I try to grab it from him, but he scoots back and holds the bag above my head, dangling it out of my reach. I jump for it. The other two cackle. He tosses it to the curly-haired boy, who tosses it to the girl, who tosses it back to the buzz-cut boy, all while I spin around trying to snatch it. Heat engulfs my face. The buzz-cut boy unzips my backpack. I lunge for it, but he jumps back and holds it up again, laughing. “Hold her off, will you?” he says. “She doesn’t want to make this easy.”

  The girl and the curly-haired boy yank my wrists behind me and push me to the ground, pinning me there on my stomach. I jerk and squirm and try to shake them off, swallowing my gum and some dirt in the process. They put their weight on me with their hands and elbows, and one of them rests the sole of a boot against my cheek, pressing my face into the ground. I can’t move my head or see the buzz-cut boy behind me, but I can hear him rifling through my backpack.

  “Anything good?” says the girl.

  “Crackers. Gum.” Another pocket unzips. “A library card. A pen…”

  The more I wriggle, the tighter the two accomplices grip my wrists. The harder the boot pushes on my face.

  “Aha. Jackpot.”

  The girl snorts. “A birthday card?”

  “Look what’s inside.”

  I don’t need to see it to know what he’s found. The hundred-dollar bill. The money for my college fund.

  His companions whoop in unison.

  I hate them, but not as much as I hate myself for letting them be stronger than me. If only I had gotten more sleep, saved more strength… Or would it make any difference? They’re older, bigger, and carrying shotguns. They could hold me at gunpoint if they wanted to. Even if I were stronger, I wouldn’t be able to fight off bullets.

  “We’re rich,” crows the curly-haired boy above me.

  “We’re?” I hear the buzz-cut boy cluck his tongue. “Sorry, finders keepers.”

  “What?” The girl’s grip on my wrists loosens. “We split it three ways. That’s only fair.”

  “Okay, fine, three ways. Mark, you can have the library card. Dakota, you get the pen. And I get the hundred.”

  The curly-haired boy’s grip slackens now too. “You’re kidding, right?”

  My head pounds as they argue over my money. I close my eyes, wishing I could fade into darkness. What will happen to me if I just lie here? Will they go away? Will they kill me?

  Kraaa.

  A deep croak. A beating of wings above me.

  My eyelids weigh a hundred pounds each, but I manage to blink them open. All I see is dirt.

  Kraaa.

  The croaking rises. Wings beat harder. Is that who I think it is? I wriggle and squirm, trying to pull my cheek out from under the boot to see what’s going on.

  “What in the…”

  “Ouch!”

  I twist with all my might. I still can’t move my head, so I throw up my ankles, jamming them into someone’s leg. The hands that bind me hesitate, loosening even more.

  Kraaa.

  I hear all three hunters shouting over the croaking. In one motion, I rip my wrists free and jerk my right elbow back, shoving it into another leg. There’s a yelp—the curly-haired boy, I think—and the boot’s pressure lifts from my cheek. I slam my other elbow into someone’s thigh, and then I glimpse the girl’s boots as she stumbles backward into the buzz-cut boy. I jump to my feet and run.

  Crack-boom.

  A gunshot. I cover my head but keep running. I’m still alive, still breathing. And the kraaas haven’t stopped yet. I’m tempted to look back to see if it’s him…my stalker. Was he helping me?

  But I can’t afford to do anything that might slow my momentum, so I keep my eyes ahead and fly on through the trees as the commotion fades behind me. The faster I run, the sooner I’ll reach the finish line. But where is the finish line? I’ve been running away from the stream, I realize, and my backpack is back there with the directions. The map.

  But I can’t go back now. If I want to stay alive, I can only keep running.

  Chapter 11

  Rain pokes my face, light at first, and then faster and heavier. I dare to glance over my shoulder: nothing but trees. I listen: no gunshots, no footsteps, no barking either. I’ve done it—I’ve lost the hunters. Or, more likely, they didn’t think me worth the trouble of chasing. I’ve lost the stream too, but it can’t be far. I fight the numbness in my legs and pull up my hood, wishing I’d worn something waterproof. Why didn’t I check the weather forecast before I left? Why did I leave in the first place?

  Clearly, it was a mistake. Just like opening my mouth is a mistake, every time. Yelling out to those hunters cost me my backpack and everything in it. Calling my mother crazy made her run off, when maybe if I’d kept my words inside, she would have explained things, and I wouldn’t be out here lost and wet and shaking. But with my mouth closed there’s no winning either: I’m “quiet.” I’m weird. It’s a vicious circle, just like these woods seem to be.

  The rain pounds against my hood. I spot a hollow at the base of a tree and duck into it, pulling my knees toward me. I close my eyes because a headache is digging its way across my forehead, and I have no clue where I am, and my teeth won’t stop chattering.

  I don’t know how long it takes for the rain to stop, but all of a sudden I can’t hear it anymore. The hush startles me. I pull myself out of the hollow and brush myself off. I like things quiet, but this is too quiet. What happened to all the conversations? All the squirrels and chipmunks and birds—the little distractions? The rain must have driven them into their burrows and nests.

  I find myself growing jumpy, spooking when water drips from a leaf onto my head, spying shadows in the corners of my eyes. When I turn, nothing is there. I’ve heard stories of travelers alone in the wilderness losing their minds. Going insane. But I didn’t think it could happen this quickly. I’ve only been gone a matter of hours. How many hours? I wish I’d remembered my watch.

  A flash of black stirs the trees, another shadow that comes to nothing. I have no idea if I’m going the right way. I can’t remember the directions, can’t picture the map. But a person can’t go far these days without bumping into buildings, houses, civilization. The trees will have to start thinning soon. Another town will have to emerge. When I get there, the first thing I’ll do is find a coffee shop or a convenience store and dry off. After that, I’ll force myself, somehow, to ask someone for directions to North Commons.

  But what if it gets to be sunset an
d I still haven’t found my way out?

  Don’t panic. Focus. Don’t panic.

  My head throbs. I wish I had some aspirin.

  There it is again—a flash of black in the trees. And there. My eyes dart around in spite of myself, trying to pin down the source.

  There. Then in that tree there. Now that one.

  Little eyes looking at me.

  To my surprise, relief washes over me. The hunters didn’t get him.

  He zips to another tree.

  I chase him, tripping over roots. He whizzes in and out of trees, keeping just out of sight. My relief gives way to frustration, fueling me even in my exhaustion. I open my mouth to call after him. Hey, you! I know you’re there! Then I realize how ridiculous that would be: me talking to a bird. Not to mention dangerous. The hunters might hear me and track me down.

  I shut my mouth and stumble after the raven, trying to spot him among the leaves, but I’ve already lost him.

  I slow to a trudge, letting my feet drag through the mud. All I see are trees now, and all I hear are my footsteps. And a buzzing in my ears, harsh against the silence. The hollowness in my ears grows hollower. The buzzing louder.

  Then something tickles my eardrums. I perk up. There, behind the buzzing, I hear it. A floating tune. Music. Or maybe the silence has folded in on itself and it’s not really music I’m hearing, but some auditory illusion.

  I follow the sound anyway.

  It’s easy to follow when it’s the only sound there is. It’s so precious that my ears cling to it as it leads me farther and farther on. I don’t have much energy left, but I manage to jog. First I think it’s coming from this tree. Then that tree. Then that tree over there.

  Then just like that, the trees stop and the earth drops. I halt before I drop with it, and I find myself standing on a mossy ledge. It plunges toward rocks and brambles. A wave of vertigo floods me. I step back and put my hand out to steady myself on a tree, but I find it’s better if I just sit down. I close my eyes. After a moment, the dizziness fades enough that I can take in the view before me: a yellow one-story house no taller than the cliff I’m on. Trees hem in all sides of the clearing except my side, where the cliff closes it off from the rest of the forest, zigzagging to my left and my right and disappearing back into the trees. I doubt that anyone would notice this house unless they sat where I’m sitting.