Of course, by the time Dad turned around during our FaceTime talk, she had vanished. There was no one standing behind him.
“Dad—I saw her so clearly,” I said, my voice trembling, my chest tight with emotion. “It was Marissa. I’m not crazy.”
“The lobby is crowded,” Dad said. Holding the phone unsteadily, he gazed all around. “You want to see her so badly, Harmony, you imagined that someone else was Marissa.”
“No. No way,” I insisted. “I know my own sister. Dad, she looked right at me. As if she could see me on your phone.”
“Here. Look for yourself,” he said. He turned the phone so I could see the lobby around him. I saw a woman with a baby stroller. Two teenagers with hockey sticks.
“Dad, I’m coming there,” I said. “Please reserve a room for me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The next morning, I flew to Boulder. Then I took a taxi from the airport, and we made our way up the sloping green hills to the lodge. The driver, a young guy with piercings all over his face, wanted to talk about baseball. He was a Dodgers fan.
I buried my face in my phone and hoped he would take the hint.
It was a sunny day up on the mesa, but windy. Gusts blew my hair straight up as I climbed out of the taxi, and my sweater fluttered around me like a flag or something.
Dad had reserved a room for me. I checked in at the front desk. Then I hurried to meet him. I had so much to tell him. The problem was where to begin.
Two girls about my age, both blond, passed me in the main hallway. They were both staring at the phones glued to their hands, white earbuds in their ears. I stared hard at them as they hurried by me.
I studied everyone I passed. I don’t know what I expected. Did I really think I’d just bump into Marissa in the hall?
I know she’s here. I saw her.
I’ll search from room to room if I have to.
Crazy idea.
The lodge café stood in an alcove halfway down the long hall. I stepped inside and waited for my eyes to adjust to the bright light.
Yellow afternoon sunlight filtered into the restaurant from three tall windows at one side. Black-and-white-checkered tablecloths covered the tables in the center of the room. Framed paintings of cows lined the walls. The whole place was light and bright and homey.
It was nearly two in the afternoon, and only a few tables were filled, people lingering over their coffee or dessert. I spotted Dad in a booth against the back wall. He waved and I trotted over to him.
We hugged and he kissed my cheek. “How was the trip?”
“Fine,” I said. I slid across from him. I studied his face as I arranged myself and lowered the napkin to my lap. His eyes told the whole story. Dark circles around them and the eyelids red and puffy, as if he’d been crying. New wrinkles creased his forehead.
“Harmony . . .” He spun his water glass between his hands. “How are you holding up?”
I waited for the waitress to fill my water glass. Then I shrugged. “Okay, I guess. It’s been hard.”
“And how is your mother doing?”
“Not great.” I had to be honest. “I think she really needs you at home.”
He nodded. “So . . . are you going to ask me why I’m still here?”
“I don’t know, Dad. I hadn’t really planned—”
“Well, I don’t really know why I’m still here,” he interrupted. “It’s like I’m holding on to something, I guess. I keep thinking maybe if I stay here, I’ll be able to fix things. I mean, not fix things, but . . .” His voice trailed off.
“What can I get you?” The waitress loomed over the table.
Dad ordered a cheeseburger. I ordered a grilled cheese.
“You want chips or fries?” she asked.
I want my sister back.
“Chips,” I said. I really wanted fries, but I was thinking too hard about everything else to say what I meant.
We watched her stride across the room to the kitchen.
I took a long sip of water. “Dad, I don’t know where to start,” I said. “I saw Marissa. I know you think I’m crazy, but I saw her standing behind you in the lobby.”
“Harmony—”
I grabbed his hands and squeezed them. “Let me talk. I know it was her, okay. And I know when you turned around, there was no one there. But there’s something strange going on here, Dad. In this lodge. Something that doesn’t make any sense at all.”
He sighed. “What does make sense?”
I told him about Walter the red-haired valet and Mr. Himuro at the front desk. I told him how I saw them and spoke to them when I saw Aiden arrive at the lodge. And how I couldn’t find them later.
“They were in an old staff photo behind the front desk,” I said, still gripping his hands. “A photo from 1924. But I talked to them, Dad. They were here.”
I squeezed his hands. Mine were ice cold. I had the strange feeling that if I let go of his hands, I would lose him somehow. That the only way to get him to believe my crazy story was to hang on to him.
Dad blinked a few times. He didn’t move. I felt his hands flinch under mine. I finally let go. I slumped back in the booth, breathless from telling my story.
I waited for him to speak, to react to my story. But he remained silent for a long while, and I could see his eyes narrow as he was thinking hard.
“You and I should both be locked up somewhere,” he said finally.
I gasped. “Huh? What does that mean?”
“It means your story is crazy, and I actually think you’re telling the truth.”
“You believe me about Walter and Mr. Himuro. But you don’t believe me about seeing Marissa?”
He fiddled with the collar of his blue polo shirt. “I want to believe you, Harmony. I want to believe everything. But it all just spins and spins in my mind. It’s like the whole world is out of control, and only one thing remains true.”
Across the room, I saw the waitress bringing our food on a tray. “What’s that, Dad?” I asked. “What’s the one thing?”
“That Marissa is gone.”
I spent the afternoon hanging around the lobby, watching for Marissa. The lodge wasn’t very crowded. July isn’t a big month here. Most people come up for the skiing in the winter.
I sat in an armchair by the window and tried to concentrate on the Jane Austen book I’d brought with me. It was on the reading list for my senior Honors English, and I knew I would enjoy it if I didn’t have to glance up every time someone passed by. Truth was, I couldn’t concentrate at all, and the time slid by as if in a slow-motion haze.
I had come here for one thing only, and that was to find my sister, my sister who had gazed at me through Dad’s phone yesterday, who had stood in this lobby, clear as day.
After a few hours, I’d read only twenty pages. Tired of sitting in one place, I left my perch and walked the long halls. I started on the first floor and covered all three floors. I didn’t return to my room until the sun was lowering behind the trees.
Dad had some business things to take care of in town. I had a lonely room service dinner in my room. I texted Robby but he didn’t reply. So I called Sophie, just to have some human contact, just to use my voice for a few minutes, to hear someone who lived in the real world and wasn’t in this nightmare dream world of people appearing and mainly disappearing.
What time did I fall asleep? I guess it was early.
I was still in my clothes, and I just conked out with the TV on and the dinner tray still at the bottom of my bed, and the lights all on. I guess the stress of everything just wore me out, and I fell into a deep black dreamless sleep, sprawled on my back on top of the purple bedspread.
Such a deep sleep, I was surprised when the voices woke me.
At first, I didn’t know where I was. I gazed up at the unfamiliar ceiling light, realizing I wasn’t in my room at home. Then I recognized one of the Real Housewives shows on the TV, and saw my half-eaten dinner congealing on a tray at the bottom of my bed.
I’m at the lodge.
The voices broke into my consciousness. I heard them through the wall. Was it two women? Two girls? Their voices sounded young.
Were they arguing? I was still half in the heavy blackness of my sleep.
But I was startled completely alert when I recognized one of them. With a gasp, I jumped off the bed. Totally awake now, I hurtled to the wall and pressed my ear to the flowered wallpaper.
My head buzzed. I shut my eyes and concentrated. And listened to the voices in the next room.
“This isn’t a good time. Listen to me.”
“But I warned them. What more can I do? I don’t want to hurt them.”
“Do we have a choice?”
“If we stay hidden . . .”
I couldn’t hear the rest of that sentence. But I definitely recognized the voice.
How could I not recognize my own sister’s voice?
