A minute later, as I continued to plead with her, Couri slowly lifted one hand to brush the hair out of her eyes. She managed to open her eyes halfway, but she was so exhausted, that effort was all she could manage. “Ellie?” she murmured, struggling to stay conscious, her voice rough and weak, like she’d forgotten how to shape words in general. “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Couri,” I said. “It’s Ellie.”
She began to lift her head a little higher on her neck then, and blinked a few times, her strength slowly returning while she peered around her room as if it belonged to a stranger. Who was that strange woman on the poster with her legs wrapped around a cello? Who was that strange girl looking back at her when her eyes met a nearby mirror?
“Where…,” Couri said, pausing for a moment, wincing as she finally made herself say the name. “Where’s Adrienne?”
“Gone,” I said. That’s all. I didn’t tell her how or why right then. After a moment passed, I said, “You’re just yourself now.”
“Gone?” Couri said. “Are you sure?”
I could tell that she didn’t really believe me. How could she, though? Why would she? For the past few weeks, the spirit of her older sister had lived inside her, had controlled her like a puppet. For the past few weeks, from what I could tell, Couri had been stuffed back into some dark closet of her own consciousness, so that Adrienne could live inside the rest of her.
“I’m sure,” I told her. “Just listen and I’ll explain.”
* * *
I told her about everything that had happened, just as Adrienne had described it to me. I even told Couri that I wanted her to believe me when I said, “Adrienne didn’t mean to hurt you.” Not really. Not like that. Maybe Adrienne had some underlying issues when it came to Couri, but it wasn’t Couri herself that had made her feel second best; in a way, Adrienne had already spent most of her life as a ghost.
As Couri sat on the other side of the screen, listening to me frantically try to explain her own sister to her, tears sprang to her eyes. Then she shook her head and said, “It’s okay, Ellie. You don’t have to tell me. I know all of this. She was inside me, remember?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s not your fault,” Couri said. She put her hands on her face then, as if she was trying to get used to the feeling of her own flesh beneath her own fingers again. “I knew how she felt even before I let her in. Actually, that’s why I let her in. I saw. I saw. I knew how they treated her. I knew how she felt about it. And after she died, I felt bad for never doing something to change things. I don’t know what I could have done, really, but I felt guilty for letting it be that way, not saying anything about it.”
“I understand that feeling,” I said. “The guilt, I mean.”
Couri nodded. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, she said, “You mean you feel guilty about him, right? About Noah. About what happened that day.”
My whole body tensed, hearing her say those words. “How do you know about what happened that day?” I asked. “I mean, how do you know about our fight?”
“Because of Adrienne,” Couri said. “And because of Noah, too. She was inside me the last time they talked.”
* * *
At first, hearing those words, I felt something fill me up inside, like helium in a balloon, making me feel lighter, as if I might float right out of my chair. Couri had seen him. She’d seen him while Adrienne had possessed her. She’d heard him. It wasn’t just my dad who’d seen him. Noah was here, lingering, like the others. And even though he wouldn’t come to me, just knowing that he was here filled me with a desperate hope that I might still have a chance to say what he needed to hear, and to listen to what he needed to tell me. Everything we didn’t get a chance to say before he was taken away. All of the ways I wanted to say I’m sorry, and all of the ways I wanted to hear him say I love you.
And goodbye. A proper goodbye, I mean. A goodbye that made me feel like I could move on to whatever might be waiting next for me, here on earth, without him.
For one brief moment, I thought everything would be easier. That Couri would know where I could find him.
But as Couri continued to talk, all of that lightness, that floaty feeling, began to fade. By the time she’d finished, I was a sagging sack of flesh and bone sitting in a desk chair, facing a laptop, the bright glare of its screen the only light in my dark room. I was hollow again. Empty. And somehow, despite that emptiness, I felt more weighed down than ever.
Because what Couri explained, in the end, was that Noah had only come to see Adrienne, after she possessed Couri, to try to talk her out of it, to try to reason with her.
“He told Adrienne she wasn’t thinking clearly,” Couri said. “He pleaded with her for a long time. But Adrienne didn’t want to hear it. I remember her telling him not to judge her. That I’d given her the space inside me, that she hadn’t taken it from me. And I remember Adrienne telling him if he’d go to you, you’d probably do the same for him.”
I sat there for a long time, in shock, not knowing what to say, looking down at my hands on my desk near the keyboard, running that idea through my head on a loop. Before finding out Adrienne had taken refuge inside Couri, the idea that something like that was possible had never entered my mind. And now it had. The impossible had become possible. And even though I’d just helped Adrienne find a way out, release her from the gray area all of my friends kept describing, I started to think about doing it, too. Giving him a space to live inside me. If he’d just come to me.
I looked up from my hands and said, “Noah would never ask me to do that for him.”
Couri nodded, then said, “That’s actually what he told Adrienne.”
“Do you know where he is?” I finally asked. “Do you know how I can find him?”
Couri shook her head. “No,” she said. “He visited Adrienne here, in my room, after she came to me. They didn’t talk about where he’d been. He was just trying to get her to leave me.”
I was back at the edge of the hole that opened up inside me during the early days after the outbreak. There I was again, looking down into a dark and fathomless pit that seemed to go on forever, where only cold wind swirled in the emptiness, howling.
I don’t know what I must have looked like then, but it must have been pretty bad. Bad enough for Couri to say, “Ellie, wait.”
And I looked up, blinking, trying not to push the button to disconnect before she could tell me more things I didn’t want to hear.
“Listen,” Couri said, then took a deep breath afterward. “I don’t know how to say any of this. And I’m afraid anything I say might be wrong. But here’s the thing. I have these memories. Memories of Adrienne. No, wait. That’s not it. Not exactly. Not memories of Adrienne, but what I think must be Adrienne’s memories.”
“What do you mean?” I said, narrowing my eyes.
“It’s like,” Couri said, “her memories and mine got mixed together, while she was living inside me. They’re all patchwork, though, and confusing.”
“Tell me more,” I said, starting to back away from that hole a little.
And then Couri went on to tell me about memories she’d had that weren’t hers.
A memory of Adrienne holding a flute up to her mouth during an audition for a university music program she wants to attend. Her nerves making it hard for her to catch her breath as she stands in front of the panel of professors waiting for her to start. Adrienne putting her lips to the mouthpiece, but not being able to fill it with breath. All she can think of is Couri. Couri’s cello performances, Couri’s acceptance to a summer music program at a school with an even better reputation than the one Adrienne’s trying to get into. And then, afterward, walking out of that room to meet her parents in the hallway. Saying nothing to them, but shaking her head to let them know she’d failed.
A m
emory of Adrienne sitting in the bleachers during a football game, her hands folded between her knees. It’s the halftime break, and instead of being down with the marching band, she’s sitting between her mom and dad, who are standing up and clapping along to the music as they watch Couri march across the field. Adrienne had quit the marching band a month earlier, after the audition for the music program went so badly. Her father looks over at her mom and says how amazing Couri is, and her mom beams in agreement. Adrienne watches Couri march with the others, twirling a baton, and tears sting in her eyes while everyone around her is cheering.
“I don’t want to tell you something that won’t turn out to be true,” Couri said, after sharing those memories. “I don’t want to disappoint you any more than you are.”
“Anything,” I told her, “is better than nothing.”
She nodded, then said, “From the bits and pieces of memory floating around inside me, my best guess for finding Noah would be to find Ingrid.”
“Ingrid Mueller?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Couri. “In Adrienne’s memories, he was always with her. Afterward, I mean. After they died. In every memory of Adrienne’s that I have, Ingrid’s always right there beside him.”
After Couri and I finished talking, after I disconnected the call and closed up my laptop, I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, unable to get them off my mind. Unable to turn off my memories. Memories of Noah and Ingrid Mueller.
Ingrid Mueller turning a corner of a hallway in school, meeting my eyes. Me saying hello, her face seeming to twist in on itself in response, the shadow of a scowl. Her contempt for me so obvious.
Noah and me, the night before the outbreak. The night the fight started. We were watching television in his living room. His parents were upstairs, letting us hang out without bothering us. At some point in the evening, I saw something flash out of the corner of my eye and turned to see that a light had just come on across the road at the Mueller house. The porch light. And beneath the light stood Ingrid, hands at her sides, not moving. Just standing there, facing our direction. Watching us, I remember thinking. That’s when I turned to Noah and said, “I don’t think Ingrid Mueller likes me very much.” And that’s when he looked over at me, his arm, curled around my shoulders, suddenly tensing, and he told me I was imagining things, that I shouldn’t even think about her. Then me pushing the issue, telling him how she acted around me at school. How, no matter what I did to be friendly, she wouldn’t let me. Noah shook his head and said he couldn’t believe how insecure I was. And then, after that, we just kept going back and forth, our voices ratcheting up another notch in tension each time we dismissed each other’s feelings.
Until I stood up, grabbed my things, and stormed out.
And then the continuation of the argument the next day in the school parking lot. That was the memory I’d been playing on a loop ever since. The memory I was trapped in: the two of us saying horrible, petty things to each other. Not knowing what would happen later that day. Not knowing I’d never see him again. Not knowing we could never say, I’m sorry.
* * *
I cried enough that night, turning those memories over and over in my head, until finally, out of sheer exhaustion, I fell asleep. The next day, when I woke and went downstairs, I found my mom waiting for me at the breakfast nook table. A cup of coffee steamed in front of her, and she’d already set out another one on the opposite side of the table for me. Between the two mugs, in the center of the table, she’d propped up a large mailing envelope against the cups of sugar and cream. And as I sat down to lean in closer, I saw that it was addressed to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, wrinkling my nose a little, an instinctive tic I had whenever something unexpected came my direction, postal surprises or otherwise.
“I don’t know,” Mom said, shrugging but wrinkling her nose a little at it, too, as if she wanted to affirm my instincts when it comes to surprises. “It’s for you. The return address is from a town in New York called Salamanca. Do you know anyone who lives there?”
I blinked and looked off to the side, trying to think if I did, but eventually I turned back to Mom and said, “No. I don’t think so.”
Then we both sat in silence, staring down at the envelope like its contents might be highly dangerous. White powder from terrorists. A magic spell that might call down another disaster to wreak havoc on us, like the tornadoes. We’d had too many recent surprises that had turned out to be horrific. So we sat there and didn’t move, not wanting to disturb the world any further with some kind of butterfly effect, just by opening that envelope.
“Well?” Mom said after a while, not very enthusiastic. “Are you going to open it, or do you want me to?”
I didn’t say anything. But I reached out and picked up the envelope, then brought it closer to look at the fine, looping cursive the sender had used to write my name and address. After a moment, I finally unsealed it and shook out the contents.
Pictures—photos, to be exact—slipped out, one after another, onto the table in front of me. Photos I’d taken. Photos of people from school. The basketball team after they made it to regionals. The principal shaking hands with a novelist who grew up in Newfoundland, who’d come to speak to us about his career. The concert choir performing a routine in the auditorium: the girls’ dresses twirling as they spun, the guys in the midst of reaching out to grab their dancing partners’ hands.
And photos of Noah. Photos of Becca and Rose. Photos of Adrienne. A picture of them all at a basketball game, sitting in the bleachers, chanting a fight song. Another from a soccer match, where I’d caught Noah in action, bouncing the ball off his head, his hair flying midair, with beads of sweat rolling off it. A photo of Becca and Rose and Adrienne laughing at a table in the all-night diner in Cortland, where we sometimes went after seeing a late movie on the weekend. Selfies of me and Noah, my outstretched arm holding the camera up in front of us as he kissed my cheek, me beaming as his lips pressed against my skin.
And then, last to fall out, a folded piece of paper that turned out to be a letter, handwritten in the same looping cursive as on the envelope, from a woman named Margery Addison, who lived in Salamanca, New York, about 175 miles away from Newfoundland.
To Miss Ellie Frame,
It is with great pleasure that I write this letter. The other day, I was working in my garden when I came across a tattered envelope containing these lovely photographs. I think you must be the photographer, as there was a receipt from the place where they were printed along with them, with your name listed for pickup. I’m not someone who knows all the ins and outs of the internet, but my granddaughter has helped me locate you, based on the information on that store receipt. I’m confident that you’re the correct person, as she also found your high school newspaper online, where you’re credited with many of the photos. If we’re incorrect in our conclusions, would you please be so kind as to send these photos back to me, so we can try to find the correct Ellie Frame once again? And if we are correct in our internet sleuthing, could you please write to confirm that you received these? The photos are beautiful. Such young and happy faces. I said to myself as soon as I saw them, someone will be missing these faces right now, and that’s why I hope to know if they have found themselves back in the right hands.
I don’t know how they ended up in my garden, nor how long they’ve been there waiting for me to find them, but my granddaughter says she believes they were carried here on the wind. I’ve read about the horrible storms that came through your town recently, and so we have no other way to explain it. If this is the case, I hope you and yours are safe and well.
With warm regards,
Margery Addison
* * *
One of the letters in Margery’s name—the n in Addison—suddenly blurred, and I realized I was crying. A tear had fallen onto the page and turned her ink into a messy blue
spiral.
“What is it, honey?” Mom said, and I looked up, shook my head, unable to say anything right away. My throat was tight and seemed to close tighter with every passing second. I shook my head again, felt more tears spring hot to my eyes, and handed her the letter.
By the time my mom finished reading it for herself, she was wiping tears away from her face, too. “Ellie,” she said, looking across the table at me. “What a gift this is. What a beautiful gift this woman has given you.”
I blinked and clenched my teeth, not feeling the same way as Mom just then. The last time I’d seen those photos, they’d been in my locker at school. They must have been carried away by the tornadoes, like Margery and her granddaughter imagined. Sent in their original envelope like a flying carpet on high winds, only to land in the garden of an old woman nearly two hundred miles away. And all I could think about as I looked at them now was how horrible things must have been for them—for Noah. For my friends. For everyone there that day, even the people who were safe in the east wing. If the door of my locker had been ripped off, allowing this envelope of photos to be torn out of the building, along with the concrete and bricks and metal and glass and all of the other materials I’d heard Becca and Rose and Adrienne describe being sucked out around them, what had they gone through? How afraid must they have been? And then how terrifying it must have been to wake up and still find yourself there, in this world, but at the same time not there and with no way of leaving, of moving on from this place, even though they felt compelled to?
They’d told me their stories, but they spared me so many horrific details, even in death, trying to be good friends to me. The one who’d come closest to giving me graphic details had been Adrienne, but even now I realized that in her desperation over what happened, she must have still held some things back. Things she might have said but didn’t. Things that might have disturbed me even more than what she did tell me.