There was a pause before the girl said, “Agnes?”
I blinked and tried to make my eyes adjust. I’d been too shaken to recognize the voice, but now, with my vision coming into focus, I saw the girl standing a few yards away. At least, I saw her red-gold hair.
Bo Dickinson.
I scrambled to my feet, embarrassed all of a sudden.
“What’re you doing back here?” Bo asked.
“Just … taking a walk,” I said, trying to sound casual. That’s when I realized I wasn’t holding my cane anymore. I looked down, but the grass was too high for me to see anything on the ground. “Crap.” I knelt down and started feeling around for it.
“What’s wrong?”
“My cane.”
“Oh.”
Then she was next to me, her hands bumping mine as they searched. With the added bonus of some sight, though, she had better luck finding it.
“Here.” She put the cane in my hands, and we both stood up. “Sorry about Utah. She just likes people a whole lot.”
As if to illustrate this, Utah began rubbing against my legs, her tail wagging hard enough that I thought she might bruise my calves.
“It’s okay,” I said, stepping back from the dog. “She just startled me. I’m not real used to dogs. We’ve never had one, and big ones make me nervous.” I didn’t know why I was telling her all that. Bo Dickinson probably didn’t give a damn about my anxiety around dogs.
“All right,” Bo said. “Well, Utah and me oughta be heading back, so …”
“Okay,” I said. “See you at school, I guess.” I looked back at the woods and swallowed. Now I was really embarrassed. “Actually, Bo?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you … Can you help me?” I tried to smile. “I took the path less traveled and didn’t fare quite as well as Robert Frost.” Bo was quiet for a long moment, and I realized she might not know what I was saying. “I’m lost,” I admitted. “I can’t remember how I got here, and—”
“Oh. Okay. You want me to walk you back to your house?”
“You … know where my house is?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time out here,” she said. “I know where all the paths go. Come on.”
I followed her out of the clearing and back into the trees, Utah the dog running along beside us. Part of me was paranoid she’d turn and jump on me again, and I wished Bo had her on a leash. I stared straight ahead, watching Bo’s wild hair as it wove between trees, guiding me like some sort of fairy in a children’s story.
Neither of us spoke for a while, then, out of nowhere, Bo broke the silence. “Can I ask you something?” I didn’t have time to answer before she went on and asked anyway. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Um … well, I’m legally blind.”
“I know that. I ain’t stupid. I mean, why? Were you in some kind of accident as a kid or … ?”
“No. I was born this way,” I said. “It’s called Leber’s congenital amaurosis, but doctors usually call it LCA. It’s genetic. My parents carry the gene and just didn’t know it until they had me.”
“So they can’t fix it?”
“Nope. Not as far as we know.”
This was the part where people usually said something like “I’m so sorry” or “Wow, Agnes, you’re such a trouper.” But Bo didn’t say a word. She just kept walking, not bothering to warn me about tree roots or uneven ground. She didn’t need to, that’s what my cane was for, but most people still did.
We didn’t say anything else until we reached the end of a path, and Bo stopped, letting me catch up to her. “That’s it,” she said. “Straight ahead is your backyard.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It would’ve taken me forever to get back.”
“No problem. Come on, Utah.” She turned and started walking away, down the wide path, but I called after her.
“Bo?”
“Yeah?”
“How come you were in the woods behind my house?”
“Because,” she said. And I thought she might laugh. “They’re the woods behind my house, too.”
“You said they wouldn’t call the cops!”
“I didn’t think they would— Bo, slow down.”
“We gotta get the hell out of here.”
“Yeah, but getting pulled over won’t do us any good.”
She’s right. I take a deep breath and ease up on the gas. Utah whimpers in the backseat. She’s probably curled up in a ball, scared half to death by my frantic driving. I’m a real piece of shit.
I make a sharp turn, and the Chevy swerves onto a bumpy back road. We gotta get off the highway.
“I should’ve known,” Agnes says, her voice about to break. “I told them not to call the police in my note, but I should’ve known they wouldn’t—”
“It don’t matter,” I say. “All that matters is that we get as far away from Mursey as we can. Before someone sees us. Goddamn it. We were on the news. We’re so fucked.”
“Maybe … Maybe not a lot of people watch the Sunday news? I mean, a lot of people are still in church.”