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Back When the Light Went Out Save as PDF
Chapters (46)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. July 11
  8. 2
  9. July 11
  10. 3
  11. July 11
  12. 4
  13. July 11
  14. 5
  15. July 11
  16. 6
  17. July 11
  18. 7
  19. Part Two
  20. 8
  21. July 11
  22. 9
  23. July 11
  24. 10
  25. July 11
  26. 11
  27. July 11
  28. 12
  29. July 11
  30. 13
  31. July 11
  32. 14
  33. July 11
  34. 15
  35. Part Three
  36. 16
  37. 17
  38. 18
  39. 19
  40. 20
  41. 21
  42. Acknowledgments
  43. Excerpt from What You Left Me
  44. About the Author
  46. Back Cover

“On a dare,” she countered, sounding more annoyed than sentimental. “I believe you also had to kiss Teeny. And the bottom of your own foot?”

Ruby picked up Marley’s box, surely thinking of our own—filled with all the rejected trinkets we used to collect when the big kids left the room. She rubbed the lid of the new Marley box. It was plain, unpainted wood. No special puffy paint swirls and doodles on it like the one we’d made.

I took the red notebook and showed the two pages to Bigs and Teeny. Then I opened the folder. In it were six sheets of computer paper, each with a name in the header. A paper for me was on the very top of the pile.

OLLIE STANTON

Welcome to the Adventure. Eyes on your own paper, please.

I started this in my notebook, but it’s much easier to type. Words find me faster this way. Plus, I can erase the sentences I don’t want. Isn’t that powerful? To erase things and have them disappear for good.

Congratulations on getting here. I trust you will do what I wish, and I trust you will find this at the right time. You have a knack for getting the goods. Consider this your belated props. Well, maybe. If you’re here, you probably haven’t gotten to everything else yet.

Come on, Ollie. Make the right choices. Now’s not the time to mess things up.

Remember, to pay attention to me is to pay attention to details. Everything is Something.

So go on and make something memorable.

What are you waiting for?

Love always,

Marley

July 11

Five Years Prior

When we arrived at Arbor Street’s dead end, desert and weeds waiting beyond the road, Marley climbed onto the aluminum barrier intended to stop cars from driving into the desert. It was a precarious balance, I learned. And it hurt. Much more than the pebble in my foot had. The top of the barrier had a fine edge. Staying put required looping my legs into the space between the two rails, then leaning backward to counteract the forward pull. The threat of falling was constant. The only way to hold still was to let the railing dig into the back of my thighs.

Farther to the left of where we sat, the abandoned train tracks were a little nicer. The tracks here had been swallowed up by brambles and covered in sand, only peeking out in sad fragments. Farther to the right of us was the POINT OF NO RETURN sign. We were in the undesirable middle ground.

“Cadence is different, isn’t it?” Marley asked. She looked comfortable atop the barrier. Balanced and carefree.

I thought again of the bird. “Yeah,” I said.