Elliott Holt - You Are One of Them

Once we find our first sign, we start spotting them everywhere. In our neighborhood of Cleveland Park, we find ten signs that day. They are on the outsides of apartment buildings, mostly. There is one on a church. My mother notes their locations in a small blue book. Civil defense, she mumbles like a mantra. She says there are hundreds of deserted shelters all over the city, including one below Dupont Circle. A few years ago, she says, they excavated all the food from that one and sent it to starving people in Pakistan. Recently I went back to Washington and discovered that most of the signs—at least in neighborhoods like ours—are gone. Reminders of the nuclear threat were probably bad for real estate prices. I never asked my mother why she wanted to document the location of the shelters. I learned long ago not to ask why.

DURING THAT SPRING OF 1982, Jenny and I spent a lot of time in the woods. Just a few blocks away from our street was a tributary of Rock Creek Park. Around the stream was a wooded haven with a trail through the middle of it. We weren’t supposed to go there alone, but we told her mother we were off to the playground on Macomb Street and then we kept going to Rodman Street, where the woods began. Sometimes I brought Pip with us. We’d go after school and stay until the light started to fade and shadows filled the hollows under the trees. We teetered across the fallen trunks that bridged the stream. We collected stones from the sandy creek bed and arranged them in sculptural mounds. Sometimes we just sat on a mossy stump and pretended we were camping. We could see the tops of the houses on Rodman Street through the trees—we felt safe because we were so close to home.

“What if we got lost in the woods?” Jenny said once. It was April. The trees were still half bare—their new leaves were coming in, shimmering in chartreuse, not yet thick enough to block out the sky—but the underbrush was vibrant and lush. There were little yellow flowers in bloom in the ivy along the creek. There was still a chill in the air, but the sky was the true blue of spring.

“We won’t,” I said. “We know the way.”

“We could leave a trail of bread crumbs,” Jenny said. “Like Hansel and Gretel.”

“Squirrels would eat the crumbs,” I said.

“Or Pip,” she said.

But Pip wasn’t with me that afternoon.

“Let’s play hide-and-seek,” Jenny said. “I’ll hide first.”

We were too old for hide-and-seek, but we often played it in the woods, where the stakes seemed higher. I counted to twenty, sent my voice far and wide. When I opened my eyes, there was no sign of Jenny. I listened for a rustle in the trees, trying to discern in which direction she’d gone. She had managed to slip away in silence. I looked behind the thick bushes near the stream’s head. I checked the cavities in rotting tree trunks. I walked all the way to the end of the trail—just half a mile, but at nine years old it seemed like a long way—to see if she was lurking there. I found stepping-stones to the other side of the creek. The underbrush was so dense on that side that I couldn’t see my feet. I was afraid I’d step on a snake. I knew they came out of hibernation in the spring.

“Jenny!” I called. I didn’t realize I was scared until I heard the plaintive wail in my voice. It was hard to believe she’d come to this side of the stream. We always stayed near the trail. I tiptoed along the creek bed, trying not to get my sneakers wet. “Jenny!” I shouted again. “Tell me if I’m hot or cold!” But my lonely voice boomeranged back to me.

I didn’t have a watch, but I could feel the heavy approach of dusk. I wondered if Jenny had been kidnapped. There were a lot of missing children in the news. The six-year-old boy in New York City, the one who disappeared on his way to school in 1979, still hadn’t been found. Jenny would be a face haunting me from lampposts. It would be my fault. “You told me you were going to the playground,” her mother would say.

As it grew darker, the trees lost their crisp outlines and blurred into menace. The woods seemed bigger, less familiar without light. I couldn’t see the houses on Rodman Street. The air turned cold, and I didn’t have a sweater. I found my way back to the path, gnarly with roots, and stumbled toward our entrance to the park. “Jenny!” I cried, but fear tamped my voice to a whisper. I dared not make noise in the dark. I crept through the encroaching black, brambles clawing at my arms. I knew I was almost home when I saw the streak of headlights on Reno Road. The cars rushed past, oblivious to my plight. As soon as I reached the sidewalk, I started running. My mother could come back and help me look for Jenny. I sprinted the rest of the way.

But when I finally made it back to our street, I heard Jenny’s voice call out to me. “Slowpoke!”

She was on her front-porch swing, a silhouette against the inviting yellow lights in the windows. “It’s seven-thirty,” she said. “We’ve already had dinner.” I had been gone for two hours.

“Where were you?” I said. “I looked everywhere.”

“I left the woods right away. I wanted to see how long it would take you to find me. I can’t believe you stayed there so long.” She seemed amused by my stupidity.

“I was afraid you were kidnapped.”

“Nope.”

I paused at the bottom of the steps to her house. She remained on the swing, moving back and forth, steady as a pendulum.

“Weren’t you worried about me?” I said.

“I knew you’d figure it out. I didn’t think you needed someone to hold your hand every second.”

“Weren’t your parents worried?”

“I told them you went home,” she said.

“My mom didn’t call looking for me?”

“No. Why are you so upset?” she said. “You know your mom is a total space cadet. She probably has no idea what time it is.”

“Something terrible could have happened.” We were so young. Even now I can’t believe she didn’t see the danger.

“Jeez, it was a test,” she said. “It was only a test. Don’t be so dramatic. You’re a nervous freak like your mom.”

“It’s not funny,” I said. “And she’s not a freak.” I knew I was starting to cry. It was humiliating. I was too sensitive. Why couldn’t I let things roll off my back?

The door opened, and Mrs. Jones leaned out. “Jennifer,” she said. “Time to come inside.” Then, sensing my presence, she looked down at me. “Sarah? What are you doing on the street in the dark? Did you have a good dinner?”

“Yes,” I said, choking back tears. “Thank you. We had chicken pot pie.”

“See you tomorrow!” Jenny said as she trotted after her mother into the house. After the door closed behind them, the porch swing continued to sway. I stood there frozen, watching it. When it finally came to a standstill, I went home.

ONE NIGHT NOT LONG AFTER THAT, Jenny got her mother’s old Ouija board out of the wooden chest where the Joneses kept games. It was late; her parents had already retired to their bedroom. She took one of the candelabra from the dining room and a box of matches from over the living-room fireplace and told me to follow her. In her room she locked the door behind us and lit the candles. Then she turned out the light. She sat down cross-legged on the floor and opened the box.

“We’re going to contact Izzy,” she said.

“Izzy my sister?”

“Don’t you want to talk to her?” she said.

Of course I wanted to talk to her. I would have given anything to hear Izzy’s voice. My mother said it was sort of hoarse and made her sound older than she was. “It’s just a game,” I said. “You can’t actually talk to dead people.”