The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

It was dated nearly thirty years ago, and most of the terms were in medical jargon or a slanted chicken scratch that made it impossible to read. A small black-and-white photo was paper-clipped on the back page in one corner, a small group of children, no older than five or six based on their size, stood single file along an evergreen hedge outside. The photo was grainy, but each of the kids wore their hair cropped short and had little matching dark uniforms with white collars. One child in the front row was circled, another with the slash of a red X over the face.

I shuddered, afraid to consider what that X meant as I closed one file and moved to another. I scanned the pages, losing time as I tried to decipher the different health reports and medical procedures the kids were subjected to—some of the children seemed to have psychological issues and others run-of-the-mill behavioral problems that I would think were typical in an orphanage or boarding school setting.

I continued flipping, fingers growing more frantic as my eyes grew weary with the tiny lines of handwritten notes. Finally, I reached the last folder.

Nate.

I opened it, eager to know more about the student I was convinced was the owner of my cryptography book. I moved slowly down the page. The details were slim, no last name, only an age—fifteen—and a hometown listed as Shelter Island, New York.

I continued to travel down the file, notes indicating that he had a criminal record for petty theft by twelve, a night in jail at fourteen, and kicked out of school a final time for bringing cigarettes and alcohol on campus. Usher House was Nate’s last option.

I flipped to the final page. Another grainy, sepia-toned photo, tape yellowed at the edges, was paper-clipped to the corner along with one line:

Status: Runaway - PLt

I brought the paper closer to my eyes, squinting, before I moved to the desk and angled the thin paper over the light.

A faint red X was drawn over the face of what looked like a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy. He stood out in the photo because he towered over the rest, his arms and legs long and lanky like a teenager. I assessed him shrewdly, from his scuffed work boots to the mischievous twinkle in his eye. His gaze was trained off camera, and while the rest of the kids were unsmiling, if not downright sickly looking, he looked strong and healthy. One side of his mouth even curled like he shared a private joke with whoever he was watching off camera.

Nate stood out among the children at Usher, that was for sure.

I lingered over the term PLt, wondering what it indicated. I had the urge again to finish reading Lilies in the Cellar, but I hadn’t found it in my bag earlier, which wasn’t a surprise because I’d left it on my desk, untouched and unwilling to delve into what horrors were nestled among the pages.

I tucked the medical files into my bag, pulling out Zara’s journal and Nate’s tattered book. I opened the red journal first, flipping halfway through its penciled-in pages until I reached the first mention of Nate by name.

I read eagerly, soaking up the stories of a budding crush. Lingering thoughts about his past were rambling, irritations that her mother insisted they not speak, until finally the day she found out he was missing.

I read with emotion gripping my throat as her budding love story turned to heartbreak. Some days, Zara’s words were loopy, her tone one of numb indifference, but with time, the loops turned to tight, run-on sentences. The slashes of her Z’s nearly violent and she became convinced that Nate hadn’t run away from her. That her mother had lied, or worse done him harm and covered it up after she’d discovered broken shards of greenhouse glass the morning after his disappearance.

I flipped to the final page, one last sentence. One I’d seen before.

When does the caged bird sing?

I gulped, not sure what I was seeing or why it was both here and on Thax’s note.

I set the journal down, exchanging it for Nate’s crypto code book, suddenly feeling like I held a piece of them in my hands, my need to know exactly what had happened compelling me forward as I flipped the pages. They were flimsy, some cracked and broken-cornered pages where someone long ago had dog-eared them and then forgotten.

I continued to flip, the smell of the paper filling my nose as the margins began to fill with penciled scratch. Back and forth, notes in a coded language I didn’t understand, like the owner of this book had practiced its craft in its margins. I began to grow more interested in the notes, clearly written by two different people—the loops of one hand very similar to another.

A few more pages and realization dawned—Zara and Nate had exchanged coded communications via this book. An artifact to their budding love story before it was snatched from them. I flipped the pages more quickly, eager to find a key that might help me decode the array of letters and nonsensical words that flowed together.

They’d become fluent at their coded language, and I smiled with excitement when I reached the final pages of the book to find a large key they’d been using to decode their messages. I began to decode in reverse, eyes searching for anything familiar or profound or...devastating?

I scoffed inwardly, realizing I was playing some impossible game of Usher House Clue, the outcome impossible to be known as the hero and heroine exchanged their stolen moments ages ago. My eyes grew heavy as I flipped back and forth between the margined notes and the key—most seemed to be inside jokes or reviews of books or gossip about the other kids in the house, until I came across a code repeated over and over along the bottom margin of multiple pages in a row.

The code read: Krryhg sxulwb lv wkh fhqwudo