Chat Room - Linda Hall      © Multnomah Publishers

Prologue

An hour earlier and I would have been dead. An hour earlier and I wouldn’t have been standing there with my plastic shopping bag from Wal-Mart at my feet where I’d dropped it, the bottle of conditioner rolling across the wooden floor and into the blood. I left it there.
That morning I’d gone to town. I was the only one whoever left. But I wasn’t like the others. I even wore jeans. I wasn’t really part of the group anyway. It was just my friendship with Coach that allowed me to hang out at the farm in the first place.
Still, Coach frowned on my going. “He won’t like it,” he told me.
“Do I look like I care?”
“I’m just telling you. I’m the one who gets in trouble when you leave.”
I needed shampoo, conditioner, Pop Tarts, Oreos, whole wheat bread and peanut butter. So I rode my bike, like I always did, to the end of the road, laid it in some bushes, and then hitched the rest of the way. I’d been late getting back. Which saved me.
After cruising through Wal-Mart, I had caught the bus to where my friend works, and we went to Starbucks and talked and talked. I had a lot on my mind, a lot she needed to know. By the time I was riding my bike down the road toward the farm, the light was fading.
Closer, I knew something was wrong. Too quiet. It’s never this quiet. And no lights. I would have expected one of the girls to be on the porch reading out loud, arms in motion, practicing in the half-light. But nothing.
“Hey!” I called. “Coach? Anybody here? Breanne? Jo?” My sneakers crunched on the gravel as I made my way toward the darkened farmhouse.
And that’s how I happened to be standing there watching my bottle of Pantene conditioner roll as if it were a living thing toward Deidre’s leg. There was so much blood that it actually flowed, little rivers of it like after it rained.
I picked up my bag, swallowed hard, and backed away. I pedaled crazily down the path, zigzagging, losing my balance and getting up again. I forced myself not to throw up, swallowing, swallowing. I rode all the way into the city, but when I got there, I didn’t call the police. I didn’t call my friend. I didn’t call anyone. I rode my bike up and down unfamiliar streets, not thinking, not breathing. Every once in a while a little sound would escape my mouth that was somewhere between a groan and a cry.
I ended up in a neighborhood of square houses with windows lit like eyes in the night. A house at the end of the street was dark, and I made for it. I pushed my bike up the driveway and around the back where I huddled inside my jacket against a metal garden shed. I shivered and cried and hugged my knees. I was cold, so cold.
I slept fitfully, a night full of dreams and images and the taste and smell of blood. I woke once, my mouth sour, so thirsty, my stomach hurting. I chewed on half an Oreo and went back to sleep.
I came awake fully in the predawn, and by the time most people were up and at work, I was at Georgina’s. Georgina runs a sort of rooming house in the city. She’s a tough lady, and her rules are worse than any of the foster places I’ve ever lived in, but she doesn’t ask questions. I liked it there. I slept all day that first day.
A few days later I found out what happened. It was all over the news by then. Every channel. Every night. In all the papers. Coach had shot and killed the four of them, and then turned the gun on himself. It was all a part of some sort of religious commune cult group and this was a group suicide.
I got to wondering about the money. I read all the papers, and there was nothing about the money. So on a warm afternoon, I got on my bike and rode all the way out of town and back to the farmhouse.
There were no police cars there, although the house was still strung around with yellow tape. But I wasn’t going in there. There was a path out back that led half a mile up the hill to an old well. I hid my bike behind some trees and hiked up. I pulled the moss away, moved the rock, pulled out the brick. And there it was. No one had been here. I pulled out the backpack and unzipped it. It was all there. I zipped it back up, dusted it off, folded the flap over the top, and took it with me.
I rode all the way back to the city. It took an hour each way, and by the time I got back to Georgina’s I was so exhausted I fell onto my bed and slept, clutching the backpack like a teddy bear.
So His Highness hadn’t found this. That was good and bad. Good because now it was mine, but bad because His Highness was known for his tempers. He would not stop until he found it. Or me. Or both.
I would have to disappear. I’m good at that.