Long Lost, стр. 3
Fiona tiptoed toward Arden’s bedroom door.
The door was shut but not latched, revealing a sliver of the room within. When they were little, Arden and Fiona had always kept their bedroom doors open, so the two of them and their shared books and toys could float easily from one room to the other. Now Arden and Fiona usually kept their doors closed.
With a toe, Fiona bumped the door wider.
She glanced around Arden’s new room. Dozens of figure skating medals already dangled from the closet doorknobs. Awards and dried bouquets filled the shelves. Pictures of Arden hung everywhere: Arden jumping. Arden mid-spin. Arden waving to the crowd. Arden, Arden, Arden.
Fiona crept toward the closet. She lifted the topmost medal in the dangling bunch. It was gold, and heavy, with frilled metal edges and a blue-striped ribbon. This stupid little piece of metal was why Fiona was here right now, in this house, in this town. So that Arden could spend more time skating and win more stupid little pieces of metal.
Fiona stared down at the medal for another moment. Then she crossed the floor, crouched down, and slid it beneath Arden’s bed. The darkness under the bed was thick. The mattress was low. With the dust ruffle in place, no one would spot the hidden medal at all.
A flutter of something that could have been excitement whirred to life in Fiona’s chest.
She hadn’t planned to do this. But it felt right.
Arden would find the medal eventually. She would wonder how it had ended up beneath her bed, and who or what could have moved it. Maybe she would wonder if this house was haunted. She might begin to wonder if she should have dragged everyone to this weird little town after all.
And that too felt perfectly right.
Fiona tiptoed back down the hall into her own bedroom.
The door creaked behind her once more.
This time, Fiona ignored it. She reached into a box and lifted out another heavy stack of books.
Chapter Two
Early on Monday morning, Fiona sat slumped in the back seat of her mother’s car. The seatbelt’s shoulder strap dug into her neck. Fiona let it dig. It was just one more unpleasant thing in a pile of unpleasant things.
Her dad had started summer coursework at the college that morning. Fiona had gotten up just in time to see him hurrying out the door, his neon-green sneakers on his feet, his hair still damp from the shower. Half an hour later, Arden and her mom were hurrying out the door too. Arden had skating practice, and their mom was staying to watch, bringing her laptop to squeeze in a few minutes of work. Faced with the choice of going along or sitting alone in a creaky old house in a strange town, Fiona had picked up her backpack and slouched to the car after them.
Arden sat in the passenger seat. Being thirteen made her officially old enough to ride in front, while Fiona was still confined to the back. It was just a couple of feet and a couple of years, but to Fiona, the gap between them felt like a chasm. She was stuck on one side, in the land of little kids, and Arden had leaped across to the other.
Slumping deeper into her seat, Fiona pulled the map of Lost Lake from her backpack pocket.
Maps lay at the intersection between facts and art—just the kind of spot that archeologist-historians liked to explore. Fiona had torn this particular map from a town guide that had been left on their front stoop by something called the Lost Lake Welcome Committee, along with a packet of coupons that said things like “Twenty percent off first dental cleaning!” and “Enjoy a bowl of oatmeal at the Perch Diner!” Fiona unfolded the map and studied its tiny print. Some of the street names were ordinary, like Main Street and Maple Street, but some were weird, like Chill Butter Brook Road, and Old Joyous Ridge Road, and Old Fitzwilliam-Fox Road. Now that she thought about it, a lot of the names started with “old.” Old Turnpike Road. Old Minister’s Road. Lost Lake was a town that really, really wanted you to know it was old.
“Weird,” Fiona said aloud. “Old Hog Bristle Road.”
“What about hog bristles?” asked her mom distractedly.
“There’s a road here called Old Hog Bristle Road.”
“Huh,” said her mom.
Arden, who was looking at her phone, didn’t say anything at all.
Arden had been allowed to get a smartphone for her thirteenth birthday. Fiona had a cell phone for emergencies, but it was basically just a calculator that could send texts.
“Wow,” said Fiona. “There’s a road called the Witches’ Curve.”
This time, nobody answered. Their mom turned from Lane’s End Road onto Washington, and Arden went on staring at her phone.
Fiona slumped even lower.
“Why are you studying a map of the town?” Arden asked, after such a long pause that Fiona wasn’t sure the question was addressed to her at all.
“Because it’s interesting, first of all. And because we live here now.” Fiona stopped herself before the words “because of you” could fly out too. “If you got lost somewhere in your own town, wouldn’t you want to be able to find your way home?”
“I’d probably just use my phone,” said Arden loftily.
Fiona stuffed the map back into her backpack. “How long is this practice going to take?”
“I’ve got off-ice class, then warm-up time, then my coaching session. Maybe four hours, if I practice my program for a while afterward.”
“Four hours?” Fiona exploded.
“You knew it would be a long morning, Fiona,” said her mom.
“Not that long.”
“You can read, if you’re bored,” said Arden. “Or play games on Mom’s phone. Or you could actually