I was found and buried in a stupid white dress. The woods thawed and filled again with snow. I’m transparent and pale. The dress falls to my ankles and gets in my way. The dead girls blink against the wind. I scrape away the snow to look into their faces.
I don’t want to be like you, I cry.
It gets worse, says one. Some will say it’s your fault. For getting in the car. Or being alone. Or wearing a leotard that was cut too low in the back.
Clouds tear apart. The narrow stream gurgles in the distance, strangled by reeds and rotting leaves. Everything is silver and blank like the back of a mirror. The girls’ arms are forced above their heads, strained into branches in terrible positions.
I hate this dress, I say, plucking at the hem.
You’ll hate being a tree more, says the one who almost got away. I can tell by the shape of her branches. It’s like she’s running in air.
They say I have to find someone who will look at me, someone who is willing to see what happened to me.
Someone who loves you, says one. Someone brave enough to learn what happened.
Then you’ll be free, says the youngest. Not trapped like us.
My parents? I ask.
You can try, says the one who kept watch. They’re usually not up to it.
But I try anyway, and when I leave the woods for the first time since I’m transparent and flat, I slide between atoms. Electric charges dance on my skin and let me pass.
Porch lights glow a weary amber. Dead leaves and grasses are tipped in ice. I edge between a crack in the bricks into my house. My parents don’t see me in the hall. They don’t sense me following them into separate rooms—my father in the study, my mother in my bedroom. She opens drawers and runs her hands over my clothes. She pulls strands of hair from my brush, buries her face deep in my pillows trying to catch my scent. She can’t pick up the clothes I left scattered or wipe away the stain from my last cup of tea. She sleeps on the floor in my room, twisted in blankets, dreaming about finding me before I die. Her own room is silent. Clothes hang in her closet. Her shoes are perfectly arranged.
At his desk, my father searches the internet for support groups for parents of murdered children. He thinks my mother is the one who needs it most. The computer casts his face in blue light. His posture, as always, is perfect. Nearby are sharp pencils and a pad of yellow paper. He needs duties and goals to list and cross off. I lay my hand on his shoulder and breathe close to his ear, but my breath is an absence, empty as a zero, a spot of nothing in the air.
Dejected, I tell the girls they were right.
Think of someone else, says another. A friend, not a relative.
My mind sorts through faces and names. I didn’t realize how lonely I was in my life. My last true friend was Eve, but then we had a fight and never made up. The girls at gymnastics pretended to be my friends, but I knew they were happy when I injured my knee. At school I maximized my time, working on homework during free periods and at lunch instead of hanging out with friends. I stopped going to games and plays. I quit working on the newspaper.
Think! says the youngest. Or else you’ll be like us. Who was the last person you enjoyed spending time with? Who was the last person who made you laugh?
Nyetta, I say.