vanished last Wednesday, were discovered alive early Saturday morning, with only a few scrapes and bruises, trapped within a collapsed mining tunnel beneath a condemned activity park.
Another local, a sibling and close friend of the missing persons, had reported suspecting their whereabouts after receiving a tip via her Ouija board, according to Officer Riley Hughes.
“Normally, I don’t put much stock in spiritual hokum,” Hughes said. “But the girl had been fully cooperative with police during our monthlong investigation for her missing brother and next-door neighbors. She was insistent we at least look. Since several cave-ins took place at the park on the eve of the Pleasance High prom weeks earlier, and considering it was the missing persons’ last reported whereabouts, we thought it was worth a follow-up. We went there expecting to find nothing. Score one for hokum.”
“Al, are you kidding me?” Jenara’s piqued voice pulls my attention from the four-year-old newspaper article. An ornate glass bottle filled with the stones I collected during our “rescue” from Underland sits next to me on the wicker couch. I rub my temples, fuzzy from my trip down memory lane.
Jen rushes across the threshold and shuts the door behind her. “I can’t believe you haven’t even put on your underskirt yet! What’s with you? Twenty-one years old today and already showing signs of senility. Maybe you need some fresh air.”
She cracks the window behind me. A salty breeze drifts in, stirring the turquoise starfish-patterned curtains above my head. My hair flutters, the platinum waves skimming across my bared shoulders and lacy white corset.
I trace the hem of my matching lacy boy shorts, surprised to be sitting in nothing but my underthings. What was I doing before I sat down? First, I ate the birthday cupcake Mom left next to her card on the bedside table.
As if triggered by my thoughts, the paper cupcake liner flutters to the floor on a gust of wind and blows over to Jen’s bare feet. She picks it up and frowns at me. “Ummm?”
“Cupcake from my mom.” I smack my lips, still tasting the bright blue, cloyingly sweet, honey-anise icing.
Jenara crumples the paper and tosses it into the trash. “So, this is you coming down from a sugar high?”
“Maybe?” I attempt to recall the rest of the afternoon’s events. After my snack, I took off my robe to get dressed. While digging through my suitcase for the brand-new choker necklace I had borrowed from Jenara for today, I was sidetracked by the keepsakes I’d packed. Somehow, I ended up on the couch under the window with scrapbook and bottle in hand.
I study the newspaper clipping again. Is this me crashing from a sugar rush, or is it something else?
I feel so strange. My body and mind are relaxed, but my blood is the opposite. It races through the veins under my skin—white-water rapids branching off into a thousand tributaries.
“Come on, zombie girl, let me see some sign of life,” Jen says, only half-teasing. “It’s one hour to sunset, and we still have to fix your hair and makeup. And FYI, that icing stain around your lips does not count as your ‘something blue.’ That’s what the garter is for. How are we supposed to get that off?” Her gaze falls to the bottle of stones beside my thigh. She picks it up and rattles it in front of me. “Unbelievable. Jeb’s out there with Corbin getting sand between his toes, pacing the shore to check every little detail. And here you are, reminiscing.”
Jenara’s wound up about more than just the wedding details. She had to leave a fashion show in New York two days early to get here for this. She’s been in constant contact with her design partner, and their line is stirring up quite a buzz. I have a feeling her career is about to take off big-time. We tried to plan the wedding around her schedule, but this was the only week the beach house was available. So we compromised and made it for the tail end of the fashion show. I told her she didn’t have to come, but she said she’d die before missing it.
Even now, when she’s hitting me with her harshest green-eyed glare, I can tell there’s no place she’d rather be. She’s a vision of softness in her shin-length, flowing periwinkle sundress. Her pink hair sits atop her head in a chic chignon. Dark blue pygmy roses are tucked in at strategic intervals, forming a halo. A few stray pink