Lark

By Tracey Porter

When sixteen-year-old Lark Austin is kidnapped from her Virginia hometown and left to die in a snowy forest, she leaves behind two friends who are stunned by the loss. As Lark's former best friend, Eve can't shake the guilt that this tragedy was somehow her fault. Meanwhile, Nyetta is haunted each night by Lark's ghost, who comes through the bedroom window and begs Nyetta to set her soul free. Eve and Nyetta realize that Lark is trapped in limbo, and only by coming together to heal themselves will they discover why.

Tracey Porter's stunning narrative about love and loss demonstrates that forgiveness can never come too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9780062080110

Tracey Porter

Tracey Porter is the author of Treasures in the Dust and A Dance of Sisters. Her most recent novel, Billy Creekmore, was named to Oprah.com's Kids' Reading List, compiled by the American Library Association. For the past twenty years she has taught middle school at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Nyetta

First he hit her, then he stabbed her with a small knife, but Lark didn’t die from this. She died from the cold. She was naked, and he tied her to a tree so she wouldn’t run away. He left her there uncovered, and the storm came and she died because it was too cold to live through the night. The police found her in the woods near my house. The story was in the paper. My mother took it away from me, but I found it in her desk cut out and folded under envelopes and string.

Since then I’ve had trouble sleeping. I keep the light on, but even then I’m still afraid, so my mother reads her book in the chair in my room. If I can’t close my eyes, she crawls into my bed and holds me till I sleep.

Lark wants me to see her. She needs me to see where the knife went in, because if no one knows what it was like for her, then her spirit will be trapped in that tree. I’ve read about girls like this, the ones who live in trees. Every part of them changes to wood but the heart. Their fingers and hair turn into leaves. Their arms become branches. There is not much time left.

Sometimes I hear her.

Look, she says, spreading her hands. The tips of her fingers are blue from the cold. Her hair glistens with ice. She starts to lift her dress, but I tell her to stop.

I can’t, I say.

Oh, she says, then turns away. It’s easy for her to come and go right now, but it won’t be for long.

She doesn’t want to scare me, but she can’t bear being trapped in that tree.

Chapter 2

Eve

The last time I saw Lark, it was almost dark. She was limping up the driveway with a brace on her knee and a huge bag over her shoulders. Her hair was clipped in a twist. I was at my desk, drawing a windmill in a field scattered with leaves. Some were like crumpled stars, others like hands. I drew them tiny and distinct, each one the size of a dime. I knocked on the glass, and Lark looked up and waved. I thought she looked tired. Maybe her knee was hurting.

That was weeks ago. Days later, she went missing. My parents called me into their room to tell me. The news was on, but the TV was mute.

Lark’s father just called, said my dad, still holding the phone. He wanted to know if you knew where she is.

No . . . I was annoyed. I had a chem lab to finish.

She wasn’t at the gym when her father went to pick her up, he explained.

And? I asked

Her parents thought you might know where she is.

No idea. I shrugged.

Does she have a boyfriend? my mom asked. Her face was puckered, like she was trying to keep something inside.

Not that I know of. But that doesn’t mean anything. I haven’t talked to her in a while.

Sometimes girls share things they wouldn’t tell their parents, my mom said.

No. I shook my head. Lark and I haven’t been close in a long time.

Outside it was snowing. Huge flakes fell thick and heavy. I think about that night in drawings, little squares of a story—Lark with a brace on her knee, me at my window, my parents talking to me from their bed, snow falling, the tree by the river.

The next day at school, a circle of girls gathered outside of World Civ. She probably ran away after a fight with her parents, said Alyssa.

Maybe she’s with some guy she met online, said Beth, Alyssa’s best friend.

I know Alyssa from the swim team, back when I used to swim. She’s tall, still a serious swimmer, drowning in her boyfriend’s letter jacket.

She wouldn’t do that, I said. I know her. She’s my neighbor.

Well, I know her too, said Beth. She flipped her Goldilocks hair and glared at me. She was my sister’s best friend until she got so obsessed with gymnastics.

Did the police question you? asked Alyssa. I heard they went to every house on her street.

No.

With this I became less interesting. If I had lied, the circle would have opened for me. But I don’t lie.

The bell rang, then the new girl from Boston stepped in front of me. She’s clumsy and chatty, long curly brown hair parted in the middle. Alyssa and Beth find her accent hysterical. In class, they goad her to ask questions so they can crack up.

She’s probably been kidnapped, said Boston, chewing her gum. By a serial killer.

A hush fell. Alyssa blinked. My stomach fluttered and jumped, like a bird was trapped inside. And then Mr. Haus put his head out the doorway and told us to come in. He wasn’t angry, so I figured he knew about Lark.

In class, everyone was quiet and well behaved. No one texted or played Tetris or whispered to a friend. Mr. Haus pointed to the Tigris and the Euphrates on the frayed map. Some kids asked questions, and all of us took notes. In the margins of my notes, I drew a circle of girls. Girls talking and listening. One clutching her binder. Another holding her hand to her mouth, afraid. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about what Boston said and how she was probably right.

Girls who go missing for more than a few hours are usually found dead. Three summers ago, in different parts of the country, two girls went missing the same week. One was riding her bike home from a friend’s house. The other was taken through her bedroom window. Their school portraits smiled at us from the magazine racks in grocery stores. Our mothers turned off the news when we walked into the kitchen. They didn’t want us to know about things like this yet. I bet every girl in my high school remembers that summer. In the end, the girls were found dead, both killed by men who had already been in jail.

Two days later, Lark was found dead. Her parents called mine and told them she was found in the woods near our street, the same woods we used to explore when we were best friends. Since then, I’ve been waiting for something to happen, some kind of meeting or conference where all kinds of experts get together to figure out why this sort of thing keeps happening to girls. I keep wondering if the police have put up a warning sign in the woods.

MISSING GIRL FOUND DEAD

JANUARY 25: The body of a 16-year-old Arlington girl missing since last Monday was found yesterday in a heavily wooded area of Potomac Overlook Park. Medical examiners report the girl had been beaten and stabbed, but the likely cause of death was exposure. The girl had been tied to a tree, then left during the night of the area’s first major snowstorm.

Lark Austin was reported missing when she disappeared after her gymnastics lesson at the Virginia Gymnastics Academy. She was

Reviews for Lark

[sarahlh-41506 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was beautifully written, yes, and had moments of brilliant commentary on rape culture and how we address violence against young women. But a lot of the meaningful moments fell flat and it feels like I never got to know Lark, even through the eyes of her friends, well enough to understand her. An interesting mythos about young girls and trees is introduced but it seems almost wasted. A quick, pretty, but utterly forgettable read.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A dark, distinctive, haunting work of magical realism.

[angelafristoe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Let me start off by saying I hate sad books, and if I'd read the blurb before reading the book, I probably wouldn't have picked Lark up. As it was, the cover reminded me of Maggie Steifvater's The Wolves of Mercy Falls series. That said I am so glad I did. This was my first read of 2012 and I managed to finish it in under three hours. The chapters are short, and it is an extremely fast read.Part of the fast read is that the characters are engaging. The three points of view made everything even sadder by how close they were to what was happening. There is very little in the way of extras. We learn about Lark's relationships with Eve and Nyetta, what they were like together, what drove them apart and ultimately how they really felt about each other. Nyetta's perspective was especially moving because she is younger and struggling with something that the adults in her life can't even begin to comprehend.Listening to Lark relive her death and her relentless efforts to get Nyetta to help her move on was heartbreaking. The idea Porter builds around what happens to girls who die in the woods was really interesting. I don't want to say more for fear of giving away too much, but this is definitely worth a read.

[ekanderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow. I’m starting this review not really knowing what to say. I’m so infrequently rendered speechless, and, yet, LARK by Tracey Porter blew me away to the point that I’m not really sure what I can say about it other than this: Wow. I’m thinking that I could tell you it’s the story of a girl, but it’s not…not quite. It’s the story of three girls: One who died, and two who survived. When Lark was murdered she left behind friends and family. But perhaps it was the girl she used to babysit, Nyanna, and her ex-best-friend, Eve, who are most touched by her absence. 12-year-old Nyanna is visited nightly by Lark, speaks to her, scaring her mother who takes her to a therapist. Nyanna believes that Lark is turning into a tree, that her soul is being trapped there, that she will never escape without her help. Of course, this makes her crazy, right? But she knows she’s not. And Eve, whose falling out with Lark in middle school has already left her feeling a strong sense of loss, doesn’t know how to deal with the grief. She can’t even cry, even though all the girls at school seem to be freaking out. And of course there’s Lark, whose violent death has left her stuck between planes of reality. This book was blurbed by Francesca Lia Block, and Tracey Porter‘s writing is remeniscent of her work — fluid, lyrical, sparse, brilliant. I can’t recommend this book strongly enough. It’s haunting, beautiful, and leaves a mark. Still, I don’t think anything I have to say could possibly do right by LARK. I hope you’ll read it for yourself and find out why.

[absconditas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Don’t let this book’s small size deter you. It packs a pretty mean punch, straight to the heart. I flew through this within two or three hours.Admittedly, I stayed far away from this until I felt like I had plucked up the courage to finally read it. I needed every ounce of that courage for the story that was waiting for me within these pages. Lark is a very real and heartbreaking account of a young girl who is abducted, raped, and left for dead in the woods of her small hometown in northern Virginia. Each girl has her own distinct voice. Eve is recovering from sexual harassment, while Nyetta is recovering from her parent’s tumultuous divorce coupled with the fact that Lark’s ghost is visiting her from the grave. I thought that the alternate narrations between Lark, Eve and Nyetta were handled seamlessly and flowed easily. Would I recommend this? Absolutely. However, there is some violent and graphic imagery that might not be suitable for more sensitive readers.

[renkellym · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Lark Austin has been found dead—she was stabbed, tied to a tree, and left there in the bitter cold. Eve, Lark’s former best friend, struggles with the loss of Lark—she’s not sure if she should feel anything. Nyetta, a young girl Lark used to babysit, knows that Lark needs her to set her free. The stories of these three girls are woven together in the most lovely way possible, and leave a lingering feeling of hope.My thoughts: Haunting and shiver-inducing, Lark paints a vivid picture of a kidnapping and eventual murder. We get to experience the event through the eyes of a victim, and it is very, very frightening. Tracey Porter handles the subject with finesse—she does not gloss over any part of Lark’s rape and murder, but doesn’t dwell over the more intense parts, either. Though the book clocks in at only 170 pages, it certainly packs a punch.After Lark’s death, the subject of blame comes to the surface. Eve and Nyetta, the two other narrators, have certain parts they play in Lark’s lives, but Tracey Porter also brings up how society tends to blame the victim. Porter subtly criticizes society for this tendency, and thus raises awareness in the reader.Though Lark’s voice is the most powerful, Eve and Nyetta are distinct, interesting characters. Eve is recovering from sexual harassment, and Nyetta is convinced that Lark is speaking to her from beyond the grave. It sounds like a plot overload, but everything ties together nicely, and nothing seems rushed.I would highly recommend Lark. It’s beautiful, poignant, and it really made me think about victims of sexual assault and murder.