Essential Maps for the Lost by Deb Caletti

kidnap baby in mind.
    â€œCap-a-bility,” Mads sings, a song that just comes to her. She tries to rhyme it, but oh, well. She buckles the car seat into Thomas’s truck and lifts the strap over Ivy’s head. “What do you think about that, missy?”
    â€œBurble gah.”
    â€œBurble gah! I’d have said the same thing myself.”
    Ivy rides along next to Mads. Mads has her window rolled down a bit, and Ivy’s wispy hair waves farewell. The baby slaps the glass with her hand, two smart smacks.
    â€œBah,” she says.
    â€œGood riddance.” It’s an old-fashioned expression Mads remembers from scary, hunched Grandma Mary, Mom’s mom. It’s no wonder Mom is the way she is. Still. Mom had a bad childhood, which means, so did Mads. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
    She has no plan, but Thomas’s truck does. It zips through Wallingford, where Claire and Thomas and the Bellaroses live, and then it heads toward the adjacent neighborhood of Fremont.
    â€œLook, Ivy. See the water? See the boats?”
    â€œPree.”
    Mads smiles. Ivy’s new words have lately been falling like snowflakes. “So pretty.”
    God, it feels great. It feels fantastic, to get out of there, to flee. She’s as thrilled as Harrison was on the last day of school, his papers and school supplies already part of the past by the time Claire poured the celebratory Gatorade. Joy rises up, and Mads could fly on that joy forever, but Thomas’s truck has other ideas. It pulls off into the little park just before the Fremont Bridge. The lot is right underneath it, and the cars roar overhead. Mads feels the rumble and shake of metal.
    She needs to stop and think. Stop a minute and think . Sure, running off is an understandable plan, but it’s not a good plan. They’ll arrest her, and she’ll be a terrible prisoner. She’ll be terrified and she’ll cry every day. Jumpsuits are a bad look for anyone. This whole thing made her feel good for all of five minutes.
    Mads gets out of the truck. She unbuckles Ivy from her seat. She carries her to the grass by the water. From where she stands, she can see two bridges, the friendly, blue-towered Fremont right beside her, and the high, intense Aurora Bridge beyond.
    â€œBoat,” she says as one chugs past. She jiggles Ivy on her hip. Her mind is not on boats, though. She knows where she is, of course. She knows exactly what she’s looking at. Anna Youngwolf Floyd jumped from that huge bridge, and her body floated across the lake to where Mads swam that day. It was all too horrible, and it’s too terrible for Ivy to see. She isn’t sure why Thomas’s truck led her here. There’s a park with a few geese walking around and gawking, and there’s a guy eating his lunch, and a mom with a pair of twins tossing rocks into the water, but there’s that bridge, too.
    â€œTell me,” she says. Who knows who she’s even asking. Or what she’s even asking. There are just questions and more questions here. That’s the way it is a lot of the time. No one tells you how often you just have to sit in the not knowing.
    â€œIves, I’m sorry,” Mads says. “We’re going to have to go back. I forgot your sunscreen at home. And Kitty is there. And I didn’t bring Blankie.” Mads feels a crush of failure. She isn’t sure how anyone ever saves anyone.
    And then . . . she sees something. When coincidence is that beautiful, you might as well go ahead and call it fate. Because, just before she crosses back over that goose-pooped lawn, she glances up at the Fremont Bridge, and she swears it’s him. William Youngwolf Floyd. She’s not sure. Her eyes are bad. She should wear her glasses all the time, but she doesn’t.
    It seems crazy. Is it even possible? It’s a fast-pass of rebel hair that gets her attention, and a bunch of dogs. Tons of them! She