Jude sits on a bench at the edge of the Commons, beneath a tree whose sparse branches haven't offered any shade in a long while. He's leaned over, plucking at the bare threads in his jeans. Indy stands next to him, her hands shoved in the pockets of her coat, tipping her weight from toe to heel and back.
Indy senses the strangeness in the air, like a gentle mist either just before or just after rain, yet what she can't sense is what to do about it. So much has always hung in the balance, but it feels even more like it now.
Jude clears his throat, but when Indy looks at him, his gaze is still trained downward. "Don't feel like you have to answer this."
Indy waits, though she figures she knows what the question is.
"Did something happen at this auction?" Jude says, and he lifts his head slightly, just enough to glance in her direction, his hair in his eyes. "Something that would make Percy not want to talk to you for this long?"
"It's not long," Indy snaps. A cold gust of breath leaves her mouth, clouds her face momentarily as she says it. "It's only been a few days."
"I don't know. I just have this feeling," Jude says. "I have this feeling it has something to do with me."
The strangeness crystallizes, falling like snowflakes that she can catch in her hands, and the coldness bites at her fingers. The first snow of the season hasn't fallen yet, but at that moment, it feels like it's just begun to.
Indy has been silent for too long. Jude straightens up. "If you need me to give you space, orâ"
"Why would I need that?" Indy says. "Don't, Jude. Don't act like you're doing something wrong. Percy's the one at fault here, not you."
It doesn't comfort him as much as Indy was hoping it would. Jude's eyes look faraway, not just because he is looking out over the sweeping green spaceâwhich the coming winter has truly made more yellow than greenâbut because his mind doesn't seem to be entirely here with her, either. "I don't need to know what he said about me. I don't need to know anything at all, really. Justâif I need to take a step back, if I'm making things worse, at least tell me that."
His voice is the dimmest Indy has ever heard it, all the glitz of the being that is Jude Chernenko sucked out of it, a flower curling in on itself in the cold. She remembers the picture of him, beaming like a little boy at the top of the overlook.
Jude glances at her as Indy sits beside him. "It isn't all about you. The auction was a train wreck, to put it simply. A lot of shit went down. So I promise you, Jude, you're probably the least of Percy's concerns."
Jude pauses, interlacing his fingers and cracking the knuckles, laying them in his lap again. For the first time since they came out here, he looks at Indy squarely, his eyes a deep forest brown, the color of an ancient tree. He asks, "Are you sure?"
"I know Percy. Of course I'm sure."
"I know you know him. But I think maybe that's exactly why you can't see it," Jude tells her. When Indy only frowns at him, he adds, voice soft: "You're too close."
Indy's going to ask him what he meansâto say, ask anything to dispel the eerie silence that settles over the bench, but Jude's phone beeps. He pulls it out, glimpsing the screen before he lets out a sigh and gets up. "Ash."
He says this like she knows who that is. "Ash?"
"Guitarist," he clarifies, and Indy says oh, though she only has a vague recollection of his face. "He's moving apartments soon and I forgot I said I'd help him pack up. I'll see you soon. If anything happens, call me."
"Jude," Indy says, but he must know she hasn't figured out the rest. He just smiles, a half smirk of a smile, and waves a hand as he trudges off across the frostbitten lawn.
A tornado has whirled through her dorm room.
This is the first thought Indy has when she clicks open the door and hovers there on the threshold, the scene before her holding her in momentary limbo. Notebook papers, some filled with ink, others empty and wrinkled, strewn across the floor. Blankets heaped on top of desk chairs and bed frames like manmade mountains. Stacks of mugs and red solo cups fill the space around Sylvia's laptop computer on her desk, and the soy sauce, garlic-sour scent of spicy cup noodles ruminates in the air.
Among the chaos, sitting criss-cross applesauce at her desk with her bright pink cat-ear headphones snug over her ears, is Sylvia. She somehow fits right in, like she's part of the magic.
"Syl," Indy says.
No response, just the tip-tip-tapping of Sylvia's fingers across the keyboard.
"Sylvia," Indy tries again, knocking sharply on the door before she kicks it shut. Only then does Sylvia look up with a jolt, like it was the vibration of the door shutting that startled her.
"Oh," she says, slipping her headphones off her ears, letting them rest upon the curve of her shoulders. "There you are."
Indy kicks a blanket off of her bed and drops her body down onto it like a sack of potatoes. Her body and mind are both heavy enough that she's surprised, and a bit disappointed, she doesn't simply sink into the cushions. "Here I am."
"Perfect timing, too," Sylvia says. Indy can still hear the fuzzy, audio-fried version of a hyper pop song emanating from Sylvia's headphones. "I was just about to text you."
Indy closes her eyes, only half-listening. "Yeah?"
"I think I found Irene Meskill."
Indy pauses, the message processing in her weary mind. She sits up, so quickly she sends blankets flying, scrambling to take a look at Sylvia's computer screen. "You did?" she asks. "Who is she?"
"It's not a who, but a where," Sylvia says, tilting the screen so Indy can see. The picture before her is a long, flat building, red brick, green roof. The pixelated sign out front reads Welcome Back, Falcons!
"Irene Meskill is the name of a middle school in Erskine," Sylvia says. "I think it's the one Elizabeth's daughter might have gone to."
find irene meskill
Before now, Elizabeth's entries have all been cryptic, vague, messages utterly without contextâwords floating in the ether. This is the first one that is a command. Indy feels the weight of it, sitting like a stone in the center of her chest.
Indy has yet to say a word, and nor does she need to.
Sylvia sighs and closes her laptop. With the same cadence as a tired mother at her wit's end, she says, "Okay, Sherlock. When do you wanna go?"
Jude drives them the next afternoon. Today is even colder than the day before, so he's bundled in a scarf and skullcap, hair jutting from it at awkward angles like straw out of a burlap sack. Indy, too, has wrapped herself in as much wool as possible. Sylvia's only defense against the biting chill is a thrifted bubble goose.
Irene Meskill Preparatory Academy looks the same as it does in the photos, if not more lackluster: a flat, geometric design whose barbed wire fences make it resemble a prison more than a school.
Jude pulls Dog into the visitor lot, parks, yanks a pack of gum from his pocket and rests a piece between his teeth without unwrapping it. "How long do you think this will take?"
"As long as we need," Sylvia says, leaning forward from the backseat and snatching a piece of gum before Jude can offer it. "Thanks, Cherny. See you eventually."
The car door thuds behind her.
Jude shakes his head. "My name gets curioser and curioser each time she says it."
Indy also takes a stick of gum, popping it into her mouth. Spearmint, sharp and earthy. She feels renewed, but not any less afraid. "Sit tight, Judie."
An eyebrow raises towards his skullcap. Indy laughs as she hops out to catch up to Sylvia.
Somewhere between Jude's car and the academy's cobalt blue, fogged-glass doors Indy realizes it probably would have been best to make some sort of plan beforehand. Besides the ghost who told her to go here, Indy has no connection to this school, no reason at all to be here. No one is expecting her or Sylvia's presence, which is in the least foolish, at worst dangerous.
"Wait, Sylvia." Indy grabs at the edge of her hoodie. "What are we gonna say?"
Indy's not sure the question computes. Sylvia just blinks. "I don't know. Can't we just ask them if they know anything about the Dobbs family?"
"No," Indy says. "That's so suspicious. Are you kidding me?"
"I don't see what's suspicious about it," Sylvia says, frowning. "I think it's a fair question. And if they ask anything else, we can always just tell them Elizabeth's ghost sent us."
Indy exhales, glances back at the car, at Jude's murky silhouette behind the glass. She wonders if it's too late to forget about all of this and run the other way.
Sylvia hooks an arm around Indy's shoulder, shuffling her towards the door. "Don't worry about it. Just follow my lead."
From what Indy's observed, Sylvia's ideas are either chaotically terrible, or so chaotically terrible they actually work. Today, Indy can only afford the latter. As Sylvia holds open the door and waves Indy into the rubber-scent, linoleum floor school, Indy whispers a low prayer under her breath.
They step into a rotunda, a main office behind a pane of glass ahead of them, two long hallways rimmed by skinny blue lockers on either side of them. What Indy figures is the academy insignia is painted on the floor in the school colors: spring green, navy blue. Sunlight pours over it from the glass dome overhead, but it's cold, wintry; it gives no warmth.
The place is somehow familiar and foreign at once: the distant, disembodied sound of lockers opening and shutting and the thud of a basketball slamming against the gym floor reminding Indy of a time both simpler and more restricting. The smells, however, are odd: floor cleaner and tinned tomatoes, flowery sweet perfume.
Indy follows Sylvia to the main office in silence, trying to put on an air of ease, like she belongs there. Still, the receptionist's eyes track them as they enter, not necessarily friendly, but not perfectly welcoming, either. The woman's voice is slightly terse as she says, "Hello there. What can I do for you?"
Sylvia rests an arm on the counter, leaning against it like a cowboy against a saloon counter. Indy fights the urge to run away from this entire situation. "Hi. We're two apprenticing journalists for the local paper? Just an internship for now. But they've asked us to cover the history of this academy since it boasts such impressive test scores and alumni. Is there an archive or something we could take a look at?"
No way, says a small but insistent voice in Indy's head. No way this is going to work.
"Sure. Do you have some sort of identification?" the receptionist asks, clacking away at her computer, nails like shiny red plastic. "An employee ID, or a business card?"
Sylvia shrugs. "We're not officially employed there, so no, not yet."
The clacking stops. The receptionist looks back up at Sylvia, faking a smile so wide it's nearly comical. "I'm afraid I can't let you back without some sort of identification. You understand, don't you? Here at Meskill we're very serious about our security."
"Surely the archives are public records, aren't they?" Indy asks, shouldering up beside Sylvia. Sylvia gives her a brief side eye, but Indy ignores it.
"Meskill is a private academy, love. All of our unpublished records are confidential to protect the integrity of our students and faculty. I'm very sorry," says the receptionist, in a voice that communicates she is not sorry at all. She takes a pen from a wire holder on the desk, taking out a hot pink stack of post-it notes. "If you leave your name and the name of the paper, maybe I can call and see about getting approval for you? It's justâ"
"Lydia Rice was a student here, wasn't she?"
Now Sylvia openly glares at her. "Indy!"
"She was before she disappeared. We want to know what happened to her. We need to know," Indy says, and the receptionist's face has gone blank, whether from shock or anger she can't be sure. Nevertheless, she keeps going. Elizabeth sent her here for a reason, and she's going to figure it out. "What classes did she take? Did she have a circle of friends, or was she involved in a club at all? Please. This isn't a story that deserves to be buried. Don't you care what happened to her?"
There is a strange look on the receptionist's face then, something deep and engraved and authentic, something that tastes of regret. Indy has her. She's sure she has her.
The office bell dings, and a police officer saunters into the room.
When Kelso sees the two of them standing there, he freezes in place like a rodent caught out of its burrow. He's out of uniform, in a quarter zip dark sweater and dark jeans, worn leather loafers. As if they're old friends, as if they're anything but reluctant acquaintances, he asks, "What are you two doing here?"
"Research," Indy answers coldly. "You?"
Kelso shrugs. "Errands. Dropping something off," he answers, and then sighs. "By the way. Tell your friendâPercy, right? Senator's kid. I really did try to find that invoice he was looking for, but it's really strangeâwe have no record of it. It must have been lost over time."
Indy's eyes narrow, but she otherwise doesn't allow herself a reaction. More so, doesn't allow Kelso one. "That is quite strange. The most important things are always conveniently going missing, aren't they?"
Sylvia clears her throat, hooking an arm through Indy's. "We appreciate you looking anyway, Officer. We were actually just leaving, though."
"Detective," Kelso says, voice low, but his mouth squirms into a half smile. "Take care."
Indy stays there a moment, examining Kelso's face, trying to pull from it everything she wants to know and he refuses to tell. Sylvia physically has to remove her from the office.
The moment the door shuts behind them, Indy shakes her head. "There's no way that was a coincidence. He was following us!"
"Don't be dramatic, Indy. What reason would he have to follow us?"
"I don't know. Maybe there's something here he doesn't want us to find."
Sylvia blinks at her. "God, you really do think you're Sherlock Holmes," she says, then sighs, pulling her phone from her pocket and glancing at the screen. "Oh, look. Chernenko texted me. He was trying to warn us, I think. Clearly very effective."
Sylvia tilts her screen in Indy's direction, but Indy's gaze has shifted, landing on a tall glass case stationed by the front doors, hiding there beneath the staircase. She is drifting over to it before she truly understands why, the trophies and plaques and certificates gold and glittering like war spoils. Indy scans everything, every basketball championship, robotics award, cheer and dance competition.
She points at a trophy in the far corner: a small, golden replica of a Greco-Roman style statue, a goddess curled elegantly on a rock, the sheen of her skin coated in dust.
"Found you," she says to no one.
District Visual Arts Competition First Place Winner:
Lydia Rice.