“I mean here, to Barlow Corners, to this camp. Carson clearly brought you here specially, which is why you were at the event last night and why he keeps introducing you to everyone as the girl from Ellingham Academy and as his
partner in this project of his. I know what he wants. Why did you come here?”
Stevie considered her words carefully.
“Because . . . I want to . . . because people need answers. Because someone should do something.”
Allison cocked her head very slightly to the side. For a moment, she said nothing at all. Stevie felt a clammy nervousness brewing.
“You know,” Allison said, “I remember so much about her. So many little details. I remember sitting outside that summer, eating cherry twin pops. I rode bikes with her all over town. She drove me to the roller rink and skated with me. She helped me with my homework. And one of the last things I remember about that summer, right before she went off to camp . . . I remember sitting next to her in her room one afternoon while she played me Fleetwood Mac albums. She got up and wrapped a long scarf around herself and started doing a Stevie Nicks dance. She loved Stevie Nicks. She would have loved your name.”
“My name is Stephanie,” Stevie replied. “I’ve always been called Stevie. I don’t know why. But I prefer it anyway.”
“Well,” she said, “she would have loved it. If she had lived, she would have been great at whatever she did. She would have done it all. She was one of those people, full of life. She was a force of nature.”
She tapped her fingers on the plastic tablecloth.
“As it happens, I know Kyoko, your school librarian. We met at a library conference. I got in touch with her last night,
and she told me about you. She told me about what you did at Ellingham. I read up about it last night and this morning. It sounds like you do the work, like Sabrina did. I talk to Sabrina all the time. Well, I mean, I imagine talking to her. I think about what she would tell me to do. She would have said to give you a chance. I have to get back to the library. I’m busy all this week after work, but why don’t you come over tomorrow morning? I have some things I’d like to show you.”
“Sure,” Stevie said. “Definitely.”
“I live on the far side of the lake. You can walk the path around, which takes awhile, or if you take a bike, it’s about fifteen minutes. Here . . .”
She wrote her address on a napkin from one of the dispensers.
“Come at six thirty,” she said. “We’ll have breakfast. I leave for my run at seven thirty. You’re welcome to run with me as well.”
Stevie had not been expecting a six thirty in the morning meeting time, but she nodded confidently as if that was how she always started her mornings. Allison gave Stevie the address and left. Nicole watched this from the other end of the dining pavilion.
“Everything all right?” she asked as Stevie passed. Her tone suggested that there was no way she thought that was the case.
“Fine, actually,” Stevie said, herself surprised.
Nicole seemed a touch disappointed.
When Stevie returned to the art pavilion, she saw that Janelle had made a display of paint jars on the shelves. She had been joined by a sweaty and defeated Nate, grass stains on his shorts, his hair sticking up on top and slicked around his face with perspiration. He was resting on the smooth concrete floor and staring up at the ceiling.
“What was that about?” Janelle said.
“Allison Abbott came to apologize. She wants me to come to her house in the morning to see some things. Are you alive?”
“No,” Nate said. “And I heard your creepy message situation is now a creepy doll situation. Have you worked it out yet?”