Beyond that, how would I even get my parents to agree to let me go?
It would be such a stupid, reckless thing to do. But the more I sink into the idea of knowing what really happened to them, toreallyknow what I would’ve died from had my friends actually liked me, the more I need to know the answers like I need the oxygen in the air.
I exhale and fidget with the straw wrapper on the table. Going there is a last resort. It would only happen if the proper authorities won’t do it for us. But they will. Paisley’s a rich white girl, their favorite demographic to investigate.
“Deal,” I say. “I’ll send the video to the cops once I get home.”
For the first time since I saw Beck that night at the Mystic Museum, she smiles at me.
“Then let’s get you home.”
We grab our drinks and head toward the exit. A couple immediately takes our seats, chatting about the latest round of layoffs at one of the studios. Our surroundings swallow up any proof that we were there, leaving smooth ground for someone else. Just like the woods did to Paisley, Harlow, and Opal.
Come hell or high water, we’ll find the truth.
Ten
True to my word, I send the Investigative Services Branch (ISB) of the National Forest Service the video as soon as I get home. The house is empty, my family still presumably at Paisley’s burial. I already feel like I’m living in another reality with Beck Horne, and my family’s absence as I send that tip only makes it more pronounced.
I savor that disconnect before the inevitable questions come about how I’m physically feeling and how Beck’s doing, showering off my funeral makeup, tears, and guilt and locking myself in my bedroom. My desk beckons to me, my art supplies almost down to their nubs. The irony of my forced separation from my friend group is that I spent most of junior year purposely sequestering myself from my peers. Lunches with Paisley, Harlow, and Opal were replaced by lunches holed up in the art room churning out piece after piece. My Winona Ryder movies and interviews and this art have become lifelines in a much more violent storm, but they’ve worked.
I can’t focus on whether the police will reply to my tip, so I clear my pencils and acrylic paints off the desk to set my tablet downinstead. Besides AP Art, I do commissions in physical media, stylized reimaginings of movie posters and iconic character mashups mostly. It’s actually a little business Paisley set up for me, a thought that tugs at my throat if I sit with it too long. But tonight’s work is for me and a small portion of the internet, luckily. It took quite a learning curve, but sometimes my work gets attention if I post it at the right time in the right fandoms.
Tonight, I pull up a poster I’m doing forGirl, Interrupted. The original 1999 poster only features a hyper close-up of Winona Ryder’s face, with a few variations including one of Angelina Jolie. I already drew one featuring all the girls in the movie, but I wanted to try something else. I always wanted one that put the queerness on full display, something that could bring the queer girls of today to the movie without second guessing. I guess it’s more fan art than poster, but it makes me happy to draw Susanna and Lisa kissing. It was the first Winona Ryder movie that really sunk into my bones, made me feel seen while I watched the work of someone I admire and find so gorgeous. There’s always one piece of media that makes me gooh,this person is going to occupy my brain for a long time,and this was it for Winona.
It’s also the last piece I was working on before I found out about Harlow and Opal. I haven’t touched it in eight months, but the inspiration flies through my fingertips tonight. Dad’s heavy footsteps sound from the living room, bringing along with them the aroma of fresh pizza, so I don’t know how long my parents will let me be before insisting I deal with my base physical needs. Even as my stomach rumbles, I stay put. Pop music pumps out of my headphones, comforting and familiar.
“Emma?” someone calls from behind my door. I ignore them, deep in the zone.
As I fill in the brown of Winona’s eyes, I catch my mom saying Beck’s name. They’ll be in here before I finish Winona’s face.
Special interests always oscillate between two extremes for me: feeling shameful about them and hiding what I love or feeling the desire to mention them to coworkers and customers on the off chance they want to chat with me about them. Every day I inch closer to seeing if illustration is a real career path, one rabbit hole at a time. I know I could potentially illustrate in the context of graphic design and even get lucky and illustrate book covers. But deep down, I yearn for the ’60s solely because of the illustrated movie posters. It’s one piece of the film industry I don’t see coming back enough for me to snag a job.
So for now, I mostly draw for myself, hum in agreement when folks say I could expand the online storefront Paisley set up, and construct memorials to all the posters I drew during all my previous hyperfixations. Paisley, Harlow, and Opal kind of knew I drew, but never to what extent, I guess. I gave Paisley a realistic rendering of a lovely candid Harlow took of her during a beach trip, and she loved it. From there, Harlow and Opal would ask me to give them sketches of themselves in lieu of gifts.
I don’t think I properly thanked Paisley for helping with the commissions. And now I never will.
“Emma?” Dad calls from the hall, louder this time.
“Yeah?”
“Come out for dinner, hon.”
I wince. I’m not ready. “Let me finish shadowing. Ten minutes?”
There’s a long pause. A sigh. “We’ll be counting the time.”
I wasn’t even working on shadowing, but I do a bit around Winona’s cheekbone.
It’s strange to think that if there is an afterlife, Paisley, Harlow,and Opal will find out all this information about me through osmosis. Trapped in Slumberland, able to spy on any mortal on Earth. If they’d even deem me worthy to spy on. The idea is actually pretty funny. A laugh escapes my lips, ringing and brief as reality settles back down over me.
They’re dead.
But there’s a new piece of information that still hangs in the back of my mind.
Their deaths might not have been accidents.
What will the ISB say about the messages we received? What does that anonymous person know?There’s something wrong with this town. I know it’s so dangerous to agree to Beck’s deal. She’s grief-stricken, not thinking straight. Hell, the person who sent us that message could be some creep using the tragedy to lure us to town. They might not know anything at all.
