“I’ll send it as soon as I can.” The call ended, leaving Jack about to jump out of his skin. Wherever that call had come from, he needed to get there. If Jess was being held captive, wouldn’t the kidnapper move her somewhere else if he knew someone was tracing them? He might not have much time to dial this in.
Probably a wrong number.
But it hadn’t felt like a wrong number. Jack knew that if Jessie was in danger, he would be her first call. Not nine-one-one, not Mom, not any of her friends. Him. He’d been her protector ever since…well, not since she was born. Initially, she’d just been an annoying red-faced baby. And then she’d turned into a watchful toddler who didn’t ever speak—“non-verbal,” his mother called it—but who cried silent tears if he didn’t share his toys.
No, he’d become her protector here on the island, when one day, after he scolded her for playing with his favorite toy race car, Jess had wandered into the woods and gotten lost.
His mother had been frantic, hysterical. “You were supposed to watch her! It was only ten minutes while I took a shower! What is wrong with you?”
“I…I…” He’d been reading the new Batman Gotham Adventures, but he couldn’t admit to that.
“You know she’s not like other children.”
“Yeah, she’s dumb.” In his own panic, he’d lashed out. “She can’t even talk.” He himself talked all the time. He loved to talk, to the extent that he drove his parents nuts.
“She’s not dumb, she’s different. She has special needs.” He’d heard that term bandied about, but never known what it meant. “And she needs better from you.”
The disappointment in his mother’s teary gray eyes had cut through him like a knife. He’d jumped to his feet.
“I’ll find her.”
“No! You’ll get lost! Come back!” she’d yelled after him.
But he’d kept going, determined to redeem himself. With his imagination filled with all the ways Jessie could be hurt, he’d walked through every inch of those woods, with the towering trees that barely seemed to let any light in. He’d walked until his feet ached and scratches from pine branches covered his face.
Then he sat down on a pillow of moss and thought, really thought about his sister. She wasn’t just an annoying baby anymore. She was “special,” but not in the way his mother meant. Who else laughed at his clowning the way she did? Who else looked up to him like she did? He was older and therefore responsible for her, but not in a bossy kind of way because she didn’t like that.
“Jessie, I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said out loud. His words sounded echo-y in those quiet woods. He heard a soft squeak and wondered if it was Jess. Was she close enough to hear him?
“Why’d you run into the woods? You aren’t even scared of them, are you? I wish you’d tell me why. I wish you’d tell me why you don’t like to talk. Is it because I talk so much? Mom always says I make her head hurt. Do I make your head hurt too? I promise I’ll shut up if you just come back, and then maybe you can say something.”
Those forlorn words drifted into the silent forest and vanished as if he’d never spoken them. He imagined her curled between the gnarled roots of a pine, hands over her ears. Why hadn’t he been nicer to his little sister? Why was she so annoying? If she came back, he’d never ignore her again. He’d protect her the way Mom wanted.
He buried his head on his arms, which were propped on his bent knees and prepared himself to head back and face everyone’s wrath. Then a soft tap on his shoulder made him look up.
Jessie stood before him, her eyes wide and grave. “Are you crying?”
She asked the question in a soft but perfectly clear voice. He gaped at her. Then swiped the tears off his face. “Where’d you go? I looked all over for you.”
“There was a ghost.”
“Huh?”
“He wanted to tell me something but I couldn’t understand. Why are you crying?”
“I thought you were lost! I was really scared.”
Her expression told him how silly she thought that was. “I’m not lost. I’m here.”
“Yes, but…I couldn’t find you.”
“I was busy.”
“With the ghost?”
What even was this conversation? He’d wanted to snap at her, but he remembered his promise to himself. Listen. Don’t snap.
As Jessie nodded, her eyes wide and wary, he stopped his automatically scornful words from forming. “What did the ghost tell you?”
