Lisa Smith: The Struggle

“I’m not sick,” she cried, pulling away.

“And I’m not crazy, either—whatever you think. Stefan didn’t run away and he didn’t kill Mr. Tanner, and I don’t care if none of you believes me…” She stopped, choking. Aunt Judith was fussing around her, hurrying her upstairs, and she let herself be hurried. But she wouldn’t go to bed when Aunt Judith suggested she must be tired. Instead, once she had warmed up, she sat on the living room couch by the fireplace, with blankets heaped around her. The phone rang all afternoon, and she heard Aunt Judith talking to friends, neighbors, the school. She assured all of them that Elena was fine. The… the tragedy last night had unsettled her a bit, that was all, and she seemed a little feverish. But she’d be good as new after a rest.

Meredith and Bonnie sat beside her. “Do you want to talk?” Meredith said in a low voice. Elena shook her head, staring into the fire. They were all against her. And Aunt Judith was wrong; she wasn’t fine. She wouldn’t be fine until Stefan was found.

Matt stopped by, snow dusting his blond hair and his dark blue parka. As he entered the room, Elena looked up at him hopefully. Yesterday Matt had helped save Stefan, when the rest of the school had wanted to lynch him. But today he returned her hopeful look with one of sober regret, and the concern in his blue eyes was only for her.

The disappointment was unbearable. “What are you doing here?” Elena demanded. “Keeping your promise to ’take care of me’?”

There was a flicker of hurt in his eyes. But Matt’s voice was level. “That’s part of it, maybe. But I’d try to take care of you anyway, no matter what I promised. I’ve been worried about you. Listen, Elena—”

She was in no mood to listen to anyone. “Well, I’m just fine, thank you. Ask anybody here. So you can stop worrying. Besides, I don’t see why you should keep a promise to a murderer .”

Startled, Matt looked at Meredith and Bonnie. Then he shook his head helplessly. “You’re not being fair.”

Elena was in no mood to be fair either. “I told you, you can stop worrying about me, and about my business. I’m fine, thanks.”

The implication was obvious. Matt turned to the door just as Aunt Judith appeared with sandwiches.

“Sorry, I’ve got to go,” he muttered, hurrying to the door. He left without looking back.

Meredith and Bonnie and Aunt Judith and Robert tried to make conversation while they ate an early supper by the fire. Elena couldn’t eat and wouldn’t talk. The only one who wasn’t miserable was Elena’s little sister, Margaret. With four-year-old optimism, she cuddled up to Elena and offered her some of her Halloween candy.

Elena hugged her sister hard, her face pressed into Margaret’s white-blond hair for a moment. If Stefan could have called her or gotten a message to her, he would have done it by now. Nothing in the world would have stopped him, unless he were badly hurt, or trapped somewhere, or…

She wouldn’t let herself think about that last “or.” Stefan was alive; he had to be alive. Damon was a liar.

But Stefan was in trouble, and she had to find him somehow. She worried about it all through the evening, desperately trying to come up with a plan. One thing was clear; she was on her own. She couldn’t trust anyone.

It grew dark. Elena shifted on the couch and forced a yawn.

“I’m tired,” she said quietly. “Maybe I am sick after all. I think I’ll go to bed.”

Meredith was looking at her keenly. “I was just thinking, Miss Gilbert,” she said, turning to Aunt Judith, “that maybe Bonnie and I should stay the night. To keep Elena company.”

“What a good idea,” said Aunt Judith, pleased. “As long as your parents don’t mind, I’d be glad to have you.”

“It’s a long drive back to Herron. I think I’ll stay, too,” Robert said. “I can just stretch out on the couch here.” Aunt Judith protested that there were plenty of guest bedrooms upstairs, but Robert was adamant. The couch would do just fine for him, he said.

After looking once from the couch to the hall where the front door stood plainly in view, Elena sat stonily. They’d planned this between them, or at least they were all in on it now. They were making sure she didn’t leave the house.

When she emerged from the bathroom a little while later, wrapped in her red silk kimono, she found Meredith and Bonnie sitting on her bed.

“Well, hello, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,” she said bitterly.

Bonnie, who had been looking depressed, now looked alarmed. She glanced at Meredith doubtfully.

“She knows who we are. She means she thinks we’re spies for her aunt,” Meredith interpreted. “Elena, you should realize that isn’t so. Can’t you trust us at all?”

“I don’t know. Can I?”

“Yes, because we’re your friends .” Before Elena could move, Meredith jumped off the bed and shut the door. Then she turned to face Elena. “Now, for once in your life, listen to me, you little idiot. It’s true we don’t know what to think about Stefan. But, don’t you see, that’s your own fault. Ever since you and he got together, you’ve been shutting us out. Things have been happening that you haven’t told us about. At least you haven’t told us the whole story. But in spite of that, in spite of everything, we still trust you. We still care about you. We’re still behind you, Elena, and we want to help. And if you can’t see that, then you are an idiot.”

Slowly, Elena looked from Meredith’s dark, intense face to Bonnie’s pale one. Bonnie nodded.

“It’s true,” she said, blinking hard as if to keep back tears. “Even if you don’t like us, we still like you .”

Elena felt her own eyes fill and her stern expression crumple. Then Bonnie was off the bed, and they were all hugging, and Elena found she couldn’t help the tears that slid down her face.

“I’m sorry if I haven’t been talking to you,” she said. “I know you don’t understand, and I can’t even explain why I can’t tell you everything. I just can’t . But there’s one thing I can tell you.” She stepped back, wiping her cheeks, and looked at them earnestly. “No matter how bad the evidence against Stefan looks, he didn’t kill Mr. Tanner . I know he didn’t, because I know who did. And it’s the same person who attacked Vickie, and the old man under the bridge. And—” She stopped and thought a moment. “—and, oh, Bonnie, I think he killed Yangtze, too.”

“ Yangtze ?” Bonnie’s eyes widened. “But why would he want to kill a dog?”

“I don’t know, but he was there that night, in your house. And he was… angry. I’m sorry, Bonnie.”

Bonnie shook her head dazedly. Meredith said, “Why don’t you tell the police?”

Elena’s laugh was slightly hysterical. “I can’t. It’s not something they can deal with. And that’s another thing I can’t explain. You said you still trusted me; well, you’ll just have to trust me about that.”

Bonnie and Meredith looked at each other, then at the bedspread, where Elena’s nervous fingers were picking a thread out of the embroidery. Finally Meredith said, “All right. What can we do to help?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, unless…” Elena stopped and looked at Bonnie. “Unless,” she said, in a changed voice, “you can help me find Stefan.”

Bonnie’s brown eyes were genuinely bewildered. “Me? But what can I do?” Then, at Meredith’s indrawn breath, she said, “Oh. Oh.”

“You knew where I was that day I went to the cemetery,” said Elena. “And you even predicted Stefan’s coming to school.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in all that psychic stuff,” said Bonnie weakly.