The Girls of No Return Read Online Free PDF Page B

been marked off with big, black Xs. I noticed that today’s date already had one diagonal line drawn through it.
    What else? Dirt. A shoe here and there. The room was pretty much empty, aside from a small pile of clothes in the middle of the floor.
    And on four of the six beds, there were girls. I tried not to look too closely at their faces, but a swift scan revealed that yes, there were four of them and no, they were not smiling. At least not the ones I could see clearly. The light was angling in through the window in such a way that one of them was hidden in shadow on her bunk.
    Margaret went on as though oblivious to the fact that the temperature had dropped about fifty degrees since we entered the cabin. “We’ve lost a couple of girls in the past few weeks,” she said.
    I wondered what she meant by lost .
    â€œAndrea and Desiree had both been here for a year. They left within a week of each other.” She smiled, as though to say See? Not a prison! I wasn’t convinced. “Anyway,” she went on, “this is one of the less-populated cabins right now, so you all have some extra space. Your bunk, Lida, is here.” She walked over to the top bunk along the back wall, directly across from the door. Margaret patted the bare, plastic mattress.
    Good, I thought. I’ll be the first thing anyone sees when they walk in. Maybe that’ll keep the number of visitors to a minimum.
    â€œYou’ll share the dresser with Karen. Right, Karen?”
    The girl lying on her back on the bottom bunk waved one of her feet in a lazy circle in response. I couldn’t get a good look at her — she had draped one dark arm over her eyes — but her foot looked nice enough. Some sort of trail-running shoe. Small. Neatly laced.
    Margaret began to walk back over to me, but stopped next to the pile of clothes in the middle of the floor. “Whose are these?” she asked. She bent down and fingered a T-shirt. “Gwen, are these yours?”
    A small girl on a top bunk with black hair and perfectly razored bangs shook her head, just as the low voice, the one that had called me a genius, spoke up again.
    â€œI wouldn’t get too close, Margs. We’re just starting our laundry pile, and Jules walked through some poison ivy yesterday.”
    It came from the bottom bunk on the right. I strained my eyes to see the girl behind the voice, which despite sounding bored and nonchalant nevertheless sent a chill across my shoulder blades. I could see now that she had her back turned to the rest of the cabin and was talking to the wall. I wondered how she had managed to braid her hair in such a long, even, black rope so that it stretched perfectly all the way down her back. More than that, though, I wondered how she knew what Margaret was doing without looking at her.
    â€œAh,” said Margaret, rocking back on her heels and releasing the T-shirt. “I see.”
    â€œThought I’d warn you.”
    Margaret straightened. She came over and stood next to me, placing one hand on my shoulder. “Well, Lida,” she said, “I think you’re in good company here. These girls —” She paused and looked at each girl on each bed for a long moment, staring longest at the girl with her back to us. She cleared her throat and started again. “These girls are strong, able, thoughtful, smart, and, though they might not want you to know it yet, kind. They’re the best that Alice Marshall has. I’m sure they’ll treat you how they would like to have been treated when they first got here.” She kept staring at the girl’s back. “I’m sure of it.” Margaret took her hand from my shoulder and walked out the door.
    There was a long moment of silence. No one moved; no one spoke. I shuffled my feet a little more and then shrugged. “Well, maybe I’ll just . . .”
    The door opened again quite suddenly, before I had even managed to pick up my