Page 131 of The Lost and Found Girl

She knew why she was back. To find herself. To be with her family. To connect with this town who loved her so much, almost as much as she loved it in return.

Why would you come back to a town that hated you?

Well, probably because he needed money, and he needed to fix up the house and the land to sell it. That would make the most sense.

Her eyes were prickly, and she was sleepy.

I don’t know what this is going to do for me.

Well, maybe it’s not about what it would do for you.

That was all fine for Dahlia to say, but it was Ruby’s life that was being excavated.

She sighed heavily and got up from the bed, stretching. She surveyed the tidy, small space. The light wood floor was clean and uncluttered, the few open shelves on her wall were filled with books. Her bed was made and ready for her. As ready for her as she was for it.

She pulled the blankets back, crawling beneath the covers. But she kept seeing newsprint behind her eyelids. And in spite of herself, she was trying to read it until she finally lapsed into unconsciousness.

And when she did, there was no rest.

Because she felt like she was awake again, standing there on the backside of Sentinel Bridge. The path behind her looked impossibly long and unfamiliar. The trees overgrown. There were fall leaves on the ground, and the wind was cold. She had a sense of foreboding that stretched all around her, and she didn’t want to go into the bridge. She was afraid of it.

But she had no choice other than to keep walking forward. As if each footstep was compelled by a force more powerful than herself. But the passage through the bridge was dark. And still, she kept walking forward. She wanted to tell herself to stop. But she couldn’t. It was like the body wasn’t hers.

She took her first step into the bridge. Then another.

And the darkness swallowed her whole.

8

Chase dared Mac to climb up the rocks at the park and he could have fallen and smashed his head. I told Mrs. Spencer and she grounded him. Mac said that was mean of me, but I don’t care.

LYDIA MCKEE’S DIARY, AGE 13

LYDIA

When Lydia got back to the property from dropping her kids off at school, he was already there.

She wasn’t in the mood for Chase. She wasn’t in the mood for... Much of anything. And she had agreed to go over to Marianne’s house tonight for a girls’ dinner. Which was very low on her list of things she wanted to do.

She loved her sisters. She did. Marianne was a rock, but Marianne also made it clear Lydia didn’t have to be. She was so understanding and wonderful, to a degree that made Lydia feel guilty because she never felt like she could quite give Marianne what she expected.

Then there was Dahlia, who was bracing, and honest, and somewhat too close to the truth for Lydia’s taste right now.

And Ruby...

Oh, Ruby. She loved her baby sister so much.

But...

Ruby had a way of unintentionally making other people’s feelings about her. Ruby didn’t want anyone to be unhappy, and she made it her mission to cheer people and Lydia just didn’t want cheering.

The way she looked at Lydia... Like she wanted to see into her head, her heart, and examine her grief. It made Lydia want to hide from her.

But Ruby had helped with the kids all day Saturday, so there was that.

Oh, she was so tired of herself. She was so tangled up in everything. Her own feelings, her own resentments. And Chase wasn’t helping.

Mac’s best friend and foster brother had never really been her favorite person. She found him crass. And his laconic manner and extreme confidence hit her in all the wrong places. Not only that, his grief was just a bit much for her to bear. It was clear in the way that Chase mourned Mac. It was pure. In a way her own grief wasn’t.