Shattered Read online

  the AMANDA project

  Shattered

  BOOK THREE

  BY AMANDA VALENTINO

  AND LAURIE FARIA STOLARZ

  Dedication

  Alex and Talia

  A Special Note of Thanks

  Nia and I would like to give special thanks to Alex and Talia Grimaldi, the owners of Caffe Luna in Orion, Maryland. Nia and I loved meeting at your cozy café to discuss Shattered: to review chapters, get our facts straight, and go over details and edits. We greatly appreciated your hospitality and kindness: all the times you opened early for us and stayed late; for always having the very best espresso (for me) and café mocha (for Nia); and for all the tasty treats. Alex, the vegan anise-and-apricot biscotti was simply amazing-thanks so much for altering your recipe just for me. And Nia swears by your pignoli nut macaroons. Now that the book is finished, we’ll certainly miss our time spent with both of you, but Nia promises to stop by at least once a week, and I’ll be sure to come visit the very next time I’m in town.

  Big hugs to you both,

  Laurie Stolarz & Nia Rivera

  Epigraph

  “Life is partly what we make it,

  and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”

  —Tennessee Williams

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  A Big Round of Thanks

  How I Met Amanda

  The Amanda Project Concludes with Unraveled . . .

  About the Author

  Credits

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  “When was the last time you really looked at the buildings in town—really appreciated them for their architecture?” Amanda asked.

  “Hmmm . . . that would be never.”

  “Exactly.” She laughed. “‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.’” She pointed out a snakelike figure carved above the door of the bank, informing me that the buildings with the bowl-and-serpent markings were once owned by the Orion College of Pharmaceuticals and used for various administrative offices and student housing.

  “And now they’re being used for places like banks and bakeries,” I said.

  “But things aren’t always as they appear.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning there’s more to the markings than meets the eye. Symbols and codes aren’t at all accidental. Everything has a purpose.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Once upon a time, there was a girl named Amanda, the physical and emotional equivalent of a glass of sparkling champagne. And one day, Amanda dropped into Nia’s life, jumbled it around, shimmered it up, and forced her to look at life from a totally new perspective. Then Amanda disappeared without a word. And Nia’s fairy tale turned into a nightmare.

  Hello, faithful readers, Nia here. It’s finally my turn to take over. Not that I don’t trust Hal’s and Callie’s accounts, but we all know who is really on top of things around here. I thought I would start off with the above. Because it explains exactly what Amanda did: She took my life, upended it, and vanished. To be fair, she did leave me with friends I never expected to have and, well, a ME I never expected to be either, but that is what I intend to tell you about.

  Now, to our developing story . . .

  Location: My room

  Players: Hal, Callie, and me. And some surprise characters.

  Time: 4:30 P.M. Tuesday.

  Hal and Callie were there, in my deep purple hideaway that my mother had carefully decorated with framed posters of movie goddesses and freedom fighters of the mid-twentieth century. My heroes. This gathering would have been unthinkable only weeks before—the loner artist and the former I-Girl spending time with the ultimate outcast? But Amanda had changed all that. Because Amanda had asked them to be her guides, too.

  At the moment, her guides were pondering the crumbs she had left for us, a rich and creamy nougat-filled Pandora’s box of mystery—a glossy, black-buttoned coffer, recently liberated from the House of Bragg, much the worse for wear.

  “Check this out.” Callie laughed, flashing us a photo of what appeared to be Amanda, around age five, dressed in a pixie costume for Halloween.

  The photo was from Amanda’s box.

  We’d unearthed the box among Amanda’s other belongings at Play It Again, Sam’s, a thrift shop downtown. The owner was an impressively imposing, almost Delphic woman named Louise. Louise had steered us toward the box, but refused any elaboration.

  Initially the box had been nearly impossible to open, but finally, working together, we were able to push its mysterious buttons in precisely the right way . . . and we were in. Today was only our second opportunity to scrutinize the contents. The first time had been rather rushed—only enough time to be tantalized.

  The box was full of Amanda puzzle pieces of all sorts—pieces that made little sense on their own, but perhaps all together would start to form a clearer picture.

  We also found a congratulations-on-your-recent-addition-to-the-family card from someone named Dr. Joy (apparently the same someone who signed our vice principal out of the hospital after he’d been attacked in his office); the death certificate of a woman named Annie Beckendorf; and a custody document placing Annie’s younger daughter under the guardianship of Annie’s older daughter, Robin Beckendorf (what had happened to the father was a complete mystery to us).

  After seeing the words “Beckendorf Girls” written on the back of a photo with a woman and an older and younger girl—we had deduced that Amanda was the minor listed in the custody document; that Annie Beckendorf must have been Amanda’s mother; and that after Annie’s death, Amanda’s older sister, Robin, had gotten legal custody of Amanda.

  A stark contrast to all the familial tales she’d told us.

  But, at this point, how could we really be surprised?

  As if things couldn’t get any more perplexing, flipping through the photos, we came across one that had the people’s heads cut out. My first thought: morbid, possibly even sadistic . . . but no—never, not Amanda. Maybe she’d pasted the heads someplace else, like in a collage, or an art installation, or even in a locket, perhaps.

  The box also held a plethora of bizarre collectibles: a pouch of scented dirt; old airline and bus tickets for places like Denver and Washington, D.C.; tourism brochures for the town of Orion; as well as an old hospital bracelet that someone had doubled up, possibly to wear like a ring.

  It was all very puzzling indeed. But one thing was clear: These items must have been important to Amanda because she’d enshrined them in the box and kept them as she migrated across the country.

  Right?

  We hadn’t kept the box stashed at my house for fear that my fastidiously neat mother would find it in my closet. But since my mother had been so preoccupied organizing an auction event at our church, and we needed someplace safe to ke
ep it (our house has a security system), my closet seemed to be relatively safe territory, particularly the area behind my towering collection of Encyclopedia Britannicas.

  “Whoa,” Callie said, holding up a photo of a thirteen-year-old Amanda getting baptized in a lake. “I didn’t even know Amanda was religious.”

  “She’s not,” Hal said. “She told me that she was raised Unitarian, that her parents didn’t believe in looking for answers to all of life’s mysteries, but to explore those mysteries from different perspectives.” He smiled at his own memory. “Somehow it’s not hard to remember what Amanda says. Why doesn’t it work that way with teachers?”

  I chewed my thumbnail down to the quick (much to my French-manicured mother’s chagrin), remembering that Amanda had told me she’d been looking for a Catholic church to continue her confirmation studies, and I’d suggested she join mine. “In other words, she was lying,” I said, glaring.

  “There’s a surprise.” Callie rolled her eyes.

  In some respects, it was odd to think of Amanda as a liar. She always seemed so resolute about everything, like there was never any reason to doubt her for a moment. And yet, ever since I’d met Hal and Callie, it felt like I was doing nothing but.

  The crazy thing—as if finding your friend’s belongings in a thrift store after she disappears isn’t crazy enough—was that we had just gotten the box back after it had been stolen from Hal. Heidi Bragg, leader of the I-Girl pack and one of the most popular girls at Endeavor High School, had batted her eyelashes at Hal and snatched it right out from under his nose. No sour grapes here; that is exactly what happened, almost like she’d hypnotized him with her charm—boom, box gone. The fact that the box was now dented and scratched suggested that Heidi and/or her mother had tried and failed to get inside.

  Fortunately, we managed to locate the box in Mrs. Bragg’s secret home office during the post-play cast party. It was sitting on a chair not far from vials of disturbing blood samples. The whole situation seemed increasingly diabolical.

  While Callie and Hal continued to sort through Amanda’s box, I reached for the book on my bedside table, knowing that it was about time I made my own confession. I’d found the book under my pillow, left for me by Amanda shortly after she’d gone missing—but I had never told Hal and Callie about it.

  Wrapped in layers of silver wax paper, it was a first-edition copy of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. I took a deep breath, confident that the book was a message, and replayed in my mind the first time I met Amanda.

  It was in the rare books room of the library; I had been trying to get away. From time to time I escaped from everyone and everything, sitting at the way back behind the stacks, to lose myself. There was something both comforting and enthralling about all those old, well-worn books with their tattered pages and well-kept secrets. It was the closest thing I’d found to pushing the pause button on my life.

  So, there I was, minding my own business, when this girl walked in. “Well, hello there,” she said right away, somehow spotting me despite the fact that I was partially—though strategically—obscured by a large marble column. A mysterious smile stretched across her heart-shaped face, as if she couldn’t have been happier with the world, while I, on the other hand, for more reasons than I could possibly list, couldn’t have been more irritated by it.

  “Hi,” I muttered back, noticing right away the dress that she was wearing. Her whole look was straight out of a 1920s black-and-white movie, something starring Rudolph Valentino or Greta Garbo. The dress was sleek and simple on top, but very flapper-girl-esque at the bottom the way it bellowed out. Her hair was bobbed and jet-black with blunt-cut bangs, circa 1926.

  She made a beeline to the rarest of the books, kept under lock and key only a few feet away from me. “Ariel by Sylvia Plath,” she purred. “Palpably powerful, don’t you think? They say that poets are the nurturers of the soul. Would you agree?” She pointed to a copy behind the glass.

  I looked around to make sure she was talking to me, that she wasn’t simply murmuring to herself. And then I shrugged, definitely intrigued, because it wasn’t every day—or even every year—that another student piqued my interest, at least as far as anything literary goes. “I haven’t read it,” I confessed, feeling my face turn pink. I wondered how I could possibly have missed it.

  “Really?” She cocked her head. “These were some of the last poems that Sylvia ever penned . . .”

  “I know,” I said, fully aware of the history, since I’d practically memorized most of Plath’s other work. Had I been spending too much time reading the works of Chaucer and Baudelaire? James Joyce and Henry James? Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Neruda? Had my temporary obsession with the Romantics and Victorians—Jane Austen, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde—kept me away? Or perhaps (embarrassing as it is to admit), it was my slightly longer detour with the Beat poets?

  “I’m Amanda, by the way.” She turned to me, perhaps waiting for me to get up and shake her hand, but instead I remained firmly in place.

  “Nia,” I said, finally.

  “Nice name. You know that it means ‘radiance’ in Gaelic, don’t you?”

  “As well as Welsh.” I nodded. “And ‘purpose.’ My mother finds that appropriate.”

  Amanda scratched her chin, as if in thought, which is when I noticed the dark brown mole on her upper lip. I wondered if it was fake, if her whole look might indeed be fake.

  “Is there a party somewhere?” I asked, gesturing at her outfit, not intending for it to come out rude—but then again, not really caring if it did. Luckily Amanda didn’t take it that way. She simply tilted her head, as if confused by the question. “Funny that you would ask that . . .”

  “Right,” I said again, making an attempt to put my nose back into Sartre’s No Exit, the original French version.

  “So, this was Anne Sexton’s copy of Ariel?” she continued, turning back to the book, still talking to me.

  Finally I got up to join her. I was enthralled to see—though angry at myself for missing it before—all that I had been missing by sitting at the back of the room.

  “Anne and Sylvia went to school together,” Amanda whispered, her intimacy contagious. “They were both rebel-poets with serious depression issues.”

  “And they both ended up killing themselves,” I added solemnly.

  “Tragically fascinating, isn’t it?” Her black-lined eyes grew wide. “So, do you suppose that if we inquire at the desk, the librarian will let us see the actual pages? Because I’ve heard that Anne’s notes are scribbled in the margins.”

  “They would never let us—” I started to answer, but Amanda cut me off.

  “Never hurts to try,” she interrupted, holding up a bejeweled finger.

  I couldn’t help but take her whole look in: the glitter sprinkled over her cheeks, the antique silver key around her neck, and the pretty purple pumps that matched the feather clipped to her headband. I glanced down at the layers of darkness draped over my body: an old, baggy T-shirt, pants so long that the hems got caught beneath the heels of my shoes, and an all-weather trench coat.

  I was surprised by all she knew, and by how much we seemed to have in common despite how obviously different we appeared. We ended up standing there for a good hour that day in front of the glass cabinet, never moving from it, comparing insider information about famous dead poets and our shared love of classic movies and vintage sound tracks. I discovered that Amanda had recently moved to Orion, and that we’d be going to school together at Endeavor High.

  It was then that she asked me to be her guide.

  CHAPTER 2

  I opened the Ariel cover, mindful that I hadn’t really handled the book much—perhaps just a couple of times since I’d found it—mostly because I knew how valuable it was. Shortly after I had received it, I went to the library, borrowed a copy, and read through the poems at least a dozen times.

  What Amanda had told me about the collection was true: It was stunning. I mean, really stunning: “Stasis
in darkness. / Then the substanceless blue / Pour of tor and distances. . . .”

  How was it that I’d never read these lines before? And yet, as beautiful as they were, I still didn’t have any answers.

  While Hal and Callie kept busy sorting through Amanda’s precious belongings, I thumbed through the first few pages of Ariel, knowing that a first-edition copy must have cost Amanda a fortune, and wondering how she possibly could have afforded it.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine where she bought it. An old bookshop? A random yard sale? EBay? But for some reason I pictured a small antique shop that sold knickknacks as well as books, and a tiny, frail man at the front desk, ringing up orders using a calculator and a notepad rather than a cash register or a credit card scanner like everybody else.

  In my mind’s eye, I could see this man handing the book to Amanda without so much as a bag, despite its value. I then flashed to a scene earlier in its history: being passed around a group of girls, all dressed the same in 1960s plaid bib jumpers, probably from a prep school.

  I dropped the book and opened my eyes, my brain whirling with questions. Those visions had been so intense . . . so specific. “This is all too peculiar.” I exhaled.

  “Well, peculiar or not, it’s not like we have any other choice but to piece this stuff together,” Callie said. “How else are we going to find Amanda?”