The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Author:Tananarive Due
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press
Published: 2023-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

23

Robert could barely catch his thoughts after he left the warden’s office and told Mrs. Hamilton everything was fine and saw relief soften her kind face. His shock at seeing Blue in the photo made him doubt the sight of the twilight sky above him and every blade of grass beneath his feet. Warden Haddock wasn’t lying this time: Robert had seen with his own eyes! If Blue wasn’t alive, if Blue wasn’t real, could he trust in anything he thought he saw? He had touched Blue. Talked to Blue. Robert’s skin rang with the memory of Blue’s fingers around his ankle in the cornfield. And the way he’d laughed and laughed.

Who was real and who wasn’t, then? What about Redbone? Did Redbone know Blue was long dead? Of course he did! So many things made better sense: how Redbone had lied to Boone the first night and said he’d been the one telling stories about boys running away, not Blue. How Boone had ignored Blue when he took him and Redbone out to the Funhouse. How Blue had slipped out to the cornfield. And Redbone’s last words to him had been Don’t say anything about Blue. Robert wondered if Redbone might be a ghost too.

And who else? Was he a ghost himself?

Robert didn’t want to be near the other boys until he saw Redbone, so he stood waiting for him beside twin pines outside of the cafeteria near the supper line. He stood near the garbage Dumpster that was so close to the cafeteria door that it was hard to separate the smell of their dinner and rotting food, both clogging his nose. He’d been hungry most of the day, but now his appetite was gone.

As they passed him, two boys he’d warned in the cornfield when Boone and the watchers were near nodded and said, “Hey, Robert,” but Robert barely noticed them. He also barely noticed when Cleo brushed past him with a rough bump of his shoulder and a sneer. He’d been afraid of Cleo in the cornfield, but not anymore. Robert didn’t glance Cleo’s way, staring straight ahead, and he barely heard Cleo say, “Yeah, you better not do nothin’,” before he moved on. Robert stood statue still while all around him boys jostled and joked in line for supper. Robert kept looking for Redbone, afraid he’d see him, afraid he wouldn’t.

But he was more afraid he might see Blue.

As soon as Robert thought Blue’s name, Blue appeared like the ghost he was in a row of boys walking toward him, grinning from ear to ear. But when Robert gasped aloud, choking on his own tongue, he realized the boy was much younger than Blue, and he and his friends had nearly identical plaid shirts he had never seen Blue wear. No, it wasn’t Blue, Robert reassured himself three or four times to try to calm his heart.

Robert had considered Blue almost a friend, at least on the way to being one, but now every moment he’d spent with Blue felt like a violation.

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