Night Road

Prologue

2010

She stands at the hairpin turn on Night Road.

The forest is dark here, even in midday. Ancient, towering evergreens grow in dense thickets on either side, their mossy, spearlike trunks rising high enough into the summer sky to block out the sun. Shadows lie knee-deep along the worn ribbon of asphalt; the air is still and quiet, like an indrawn breath. Expectant.

Once, this road had simply been the way home. She’d taken it easily, turning onto its potholed surface without a second thought, rarely—if ever—noticing how the earth dropped away on either side. Her mind had been on other things back then, on the minutiae of everyday life. Chores. Errands. Schedules.

Of course, she hadn’t taken this route in years. One glimpse of the faded green street sign had been enough to make her turn the steering wheel too sharply; better to go off the road than to find herself here. Or so she’d thought until today.

People on the island still talk about what happened in the summer of ’04. They sit on barstools and in porch swings and spout opinions, half-truths, making judgments that aren’t theirs to make. They think a few columns in a newspaper give them the facts they need. But the facts are hardly what matter.

If anyone sees her here, just standing on this lonely roadside in a pocket of shadows, it will all come up again. They’ll remember that night, so long ago, when the rain turned to ash …

Part One

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

—DANTE ALIGHIERI, THE INFERNO

One

2000

Lexi Baill studied a Washington State map until the tiny red geographical markings shimmied in front of her tired eyes. There was a vaguely magical air about the place names; they hinted at a landscape she could hardly imagine, of snow-draped mountains that came right down to the water’s edge, of trees as tall and straight as church steeples, of an endless, smogless blue sky. She pictured eagles perched on telephone poles and stars that seemed close enough to grasp. Bears probably crept through the quiet subdivisions at night, looking for places that not long ago had been theirs.

Her new home.

She wanted to think that her life would be different there. But how could she believe that, really? At fourteen, she might not know much, but she knew this: kids in the system were returnable, like old soda bottles and shoes that pinched your toes.

Yesterday, she’d been wakened early by her caseworker and told to pack her things. Again.

“I have good news,” Ms. Watters had said.

Even half-asleep, Lexi knew what that meant. “Another family. That’s great. Thanks, Ms. Watters. ”

“Not just a family. Your family. ”

“Right. Of course. My new family. It’ll be great. ”

Ms. Watters made that disappointed sound, a soft exhalation of breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. “You’ve been strong, Lexi. For so long. ”

Lexi tried to smile. “Don’t feel bad, Ms. W. I know how hard it is to place older kids. And the Rexler family was cool. If my mom hadn’t come back, I think that one would have worked out. ”

“None of it was your fault, you know. ”

“Yeah,” Lexi said. On good days she could make herself believe that the people who returned her had their own problems. On bad days—and they were coming more often lately—she wondered what was wrong with her, why she was so easy to leave.

“You have relatives, Lexi. I found your great-aunt. Her name is Eva Lange. She’s sixty-six years old and she lives in Port George, Washington. ”

Lexi sat up. “What? My mom said I had no relatives. ”

“Your mother was … mistaken. You do have family. ”