After one is hollowed out by suffering, one might expect something to rush in to fill the new, unoccupied parts of yourself – but that’s not how it’s been for me. Nothing rushed in. Instead, I sometimes look in the mirror and see not a different person, but no one at all. Not a canvas. A canvas has potentiality, a promise, an ability. Just nothing. I’m no one.

But the stories are always there. Celeste’s lack is always there. Roxy Raines is always there. This is what’s left of me. The ignition and flame and ash, all at once. I’ve decided the only way to make it all count and fill what’s empty is to find her.

I close my eyes again, the birdsong distant and hysterical, the heat prickling in microscopic eruptions across the breadth of my skin. Inhale for eight seconds, exhale for ten.

I need to know what happened to Roxy Raines.

HOW TO DISAPPEAR

Episode 21

Narrator: Of course, the investigation having been open and shut in an official capacity means nothing to web sleuths. Multiple theories have been postulated regarding what happened to Roxy that night: brawl gone wrong; police cover-up; jealous competing musician.

I’m reminded of the case of Ken McElroy – a bully and repeat criminal who terrorized a small town in Missouri for years until, apprehended by a crowd, someone’s shot hit him square in the chest and killed him.

When questioned, no one had anything to say.

To this day, nobody’s said who shot the gun, nobody tried for his murder. Thirty pairs of eyes, at least, who watched every part of what happened but didn’t see a thing.

Of course, McElroy was a violent criminal. A veritable villain, compared to Roxy Raines and her harmless if persistent verbal lashings. But his case proves people are more than capable of keeping quiet if they think it important enough; if they’ve got something to protect – a person, or a way of life; if they have enough of a reason to, above all else, believe what they’re doing is right.

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

Indiana feels so far gone. At home, with the same backgrounds and sights and ghosts, everything reminds me of the worst. Here, I’m already addicted to the new anonymity, the unfamiliarity, the view; any sense of the way things ought to be has been discarded entirely in favour of whatever this is. I am anything here. A vessel. I slip into this sense of anything with disarming ease, lying in the new bed, then leaning over the balcony, keeping an eye on the quiet treelined road, sweat beading on my lip. Mona is what I’m called but maybe I am something else.

Though it’s not long before this becomes unnerving more than welcome and I decide to get to work.