Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

“Really?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not.”

Josefina laughed. So did Alicia.

“Honestly,” Josefina said, “it wasn’t one thing that got me sent here. I mean, I’ve put my mom through a lot.”

“Yeah?”

“My dad left when I was little, and she raised me by herself. And we fight. A lot. Like, full-on shouting matches. I think she just needed a break. And she had no idea this place was as nuts as it is.”

“That sucks,” Alicia said. “I’m sorry.”

Josefina shrugged. “Thanks, but I’m looking forward to making her feel pretty guilty about it when I get home.”

Alicia laughed again before getting sad thinking about her own parents and needing to change the subject. “Really, though, what is this room?” She stood up and looked at one of the framed photos on the wall. “Who is this girl? Ruby.”

“I don’t know, but we should go,” Josefina said. “Lights out is in five minutes.”

“Yeah,” Alicia said, transfixed by the little girl’s long blond hair and slightly crooked smile, thinking she recognized her from somewhere.

—

“YOU KNOW, I’M pretty sure a kid escaped from here,” Josefina said the next night at their third meet-up. “Like, from the school, I mean.”

“What?” Alicia said, propping herself up from the bed with an elbow.

“Yeah,” Josefina said. “Not even that long ago.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“I mean, there was this kid who was here. And then one day he was gone.”

“You keep track of everybody here?” Alicia asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, no, but he was sort of my friend. He was a sneaker like me. I found him in the basement one time and we promised not to tell on each other.”

“This place has a basement?”

“Then he told me there was weird stuff going on at the spring behind the school. Like weird ceremonies or something. I’m pretty sure he was just trying to seem cool.”

“Huh.” Alicia sat up, swinging her legs off the side of the bed. “How do you know he escaped? Maybe he just got to go home. Maybe he was reformed…”

“No way. The helpers hated him. He was sent to the Roll at least twice, one of those times like a week or so before he disappeared.”

“But isn’t it possible that he…?”

“Died?” Josefina said. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. But then, on my phone call with my mom, she didn’t bring it up.”

“So what?”

“Well, if a kid died in school, it would have to be in the news, right? That’s what happened with the kids who died here in the past.”

“I guess…”

“But if he escaped,” Josefina said, spinning back and forth on the rolly chair, “they wouldn’t want to put that in the news. They’d probably just be trying to catch him and bring him back before they’d have to tell his parents anything.”

“And, if he went back to his parents—”

“They’d have just sent him back here.”

“So how do you think he escaped?”

—

ALONE AT THE table as usual, Alicia finished off a bland bowl of grits, slid her tray onto the rack, and left dinner at the same time as everyone else. This after-dinner ritual had become a routine, her favorite part of the day by a long shot, and she tried not to smile as she headed down the hall to the girls’ room.

Since the night before, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the idea of escape. She was convinced that if she could just get to her parents, it would be different. In person, she’d be able to convince them that this school was a horrible place where no kid deserved to be sent. Whatever method that boy had used to escape likely wouldn’t work twice. Whitewood and the helpers weren’t idiots. But it meant there was some crack in the school’s defenses, and that alone produced so much hope.

She waited in the bathroom the customary three minutes, then headed down the hall, past the curtain, and to the Secret Bedroom.

“I think I have a plan,” she said as she walked through the door.

“Great. I can’t wait to hear it,” a voice said.

Wayne Whitewood stood from the rolling desk chair and walked toward her.

12

“OH, LORD, I didn’t know you meant an interview that would be filmed with your camera,” Aunt Roberta said, nervously playing with her wedding ring as she watched Janine unpack her tripod on the kitchen floor.

“Oh,” Janine said. “Is that…a problem?”

“Well, no,” Aunt Roberta said, smiling. She had the same sunny disposition as GamGam and the same determination to maintain it at all costs. Janine’s mom—and, by extension, Janine—must not have gotten that gene. “It’s not a problem . I just…Well, I thought you’d be takin’ notes to write an article for a newspaper, somethin’ like that.”

“Nope,” Janine said. “I’m making a documentary.” She had to stop herself from unleashing any sarcastic barbs that might further ruffle her aunt. But, come on: Aunt Roberta knew Janine went to film school. Why would she be writing a newspaper article? She felt a pulse of shame, realizing that she was blood related to someone who could be so dense. That was followed by a bigger pulse of shame as she recognized that she, in turn, could be so judgmental.

“Oh, wow, so you’ve been filming people? In town?”

Again, Janine bit her tongue. “Yes, Aunt Roberta. That’s what you do when you make a documentary.”

“Who have you been talking to?” Aunt Roberta seemed jumpier than usual, even as she kept up her shiny, happy façade. Janine didn’t want to make her nervous, but she didn’t want to put her completely at ease, either. What she wanted was answers. She knew that the string of deaths at Whitewood had begun after Donna’s time there, but surely Aunt Roberta had an opinion about them. And there had to be a good reason she’d never told Janine about Donna attending the school. She was determined to find out about it.

But now, standing in the house that Roberta and Donna shared, watching her aunt fidget and flutter like a hummingbird, Janine felt more inclined to gently pry than ruthlessly interrogate. She reminded herself that Roberta probably never expected Donna to come back from the school as broken as she had, and also that Uncle Jim had been dead for almost ten years, leaving her aunt to deal with the new Donna all alone. Suddenly Janine felt terrible for her. Damn you, empathy . It was much easier to just be pissed.

“I’ve only spoken to a couple of people so far,” Janine said.

“And what is it exactly that you’re interviewing people about?” Aunt Roberta said now. “I think GamGam mentioned you’re asking folks about kidney stones…?”

Janine couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something about Aunt Roberta’s clueless questions that tipped her off. Aunt Roberta was deliberately deceiving her.

“I was at first, yeah,” Janine said, humoring her aunt, thinking she should wait to reveal the truth until the camera was on, and then deciding it would be kinder not to. “But now I’m interviewing people about the Whitewood School. I believe you’re familiar with it?”

“Oh, really? That school on the edge of town?”

“I know, Aunt Roberta,” Janine said. “I know that Donna went there.”

Aunt Roberta kept smiling, even as something in her eyes crumpled.

“And you never told me,” Janine added.

Her aunt’s smile slowly wilted, and she began to shake.

“Are you okay?” Janine wasn’t sure what was happening. “I didn’t mean to…It’s okay, we don’t have to do this right now.”

Aunt Roberta silently beckoned her to come closer.

As Janine walked forward, she looked into her aunt’s eyes and saw it: pure, paralyzing fear. “You can’t make this movie,” Aunt Roberta said, her voice only slightly above a whisper.