Where I Lost Her (9 page)

B
ack at Gormlaith, I have Effie leave me at the search site. “I can drop off the girls at home and come back here,” Effie says.

“No,” I say, turning and smiling at Plum, who has fallen asleep in the backseat of Effie's car. She leans against Zu-Zu's shoulder. Zu-Zu looks out the window, studies the yellow tape.

“Stay with them. It looks like Devin's still here.” I motion to his truck, which is parked down the road. “I'll get a ride back with him and Jake.”

There are only two police cruisers now. The news vans are still here though. A Fish and Game guy sitting in his truck. A fire truck and a half dozen cars I assume belong to the volunteers are parked on the edges of the road. I can hear the distant sound of leaves crushing under their feet, imagine them traipsing through the forest, looking under rocks, inside hollowed trees. The officer who spoke to the volunteers said that the search should start within a small perimeter and slowly grow wider. Imagine a pebble thrown in the water, he'd said. Start with the small circle and then span out in ripples.

I get out of Effie's car and stand in the road, aimless. The air is swarming with black flies. I swat them away, wish I'd worn spray. I remember noticing a rusty can of Off! on the windowsill in the guest cottage.

Effie leans out of her open window. “You sure you don't want to come back with us? We could go for a swim. Cool off a little? It keeps the black flies away anyway.”

“I'm making brownies!” Zu-Zu says.

I go to the passenger side, and she rolls down her window.

“I'll see you back at home in just a little bit,” I say. “Will you save me a corner piece?”

Zu-Zu nods. I can see her eyes are glassy with tears.

“Do you think they'll find her?” she asks.

I nod.

“What if they don't?” Plum says sleepily, rubbing her eyes. Yawning.

My chest constricts. “We'll all keep looking until we do. I promise.”

 

This time, when I scramble down the embankment I am careful not to step into the little creek. No one seems to notice me as I slip into the woods. I follow what I think I remember as the path I took through the trees last night.

It's like I am now in a different place entirely though. And I wonder if I am somehow mistaken. Maybe this is
not
the spot at all. I look at the moss-covered log and can't recall seeing it before. The area I stand in is not at all familiar. Even the strong smell of the woods seems different than it did last night. Was it really here?

I close my eyes and try to visualize where I would go if I were a scared little girl. Where would I run? I try to imagine being four and terrified, alone. And something about this very act of imagining makes my heart begin to race. I feel sick. I wonder if this is some delayed nausea from the wine last night, my body only now remembering it ought to be hungover.

I come to a small clearing where it looks like someone has recently had a campfire. There is a clumsy circle of rocks, the charred remains of a couple of logs in the center. Beer cans, cigarette butts. The air smells charred, feels charged. I don't know which is worse: thinking that she is alone out here in the woods or that she isn't.

Panic informs every muscle of my body, and I feel like I might pass out. I sit down on the ground, feel the dampness from the needles and leaves seeping through the fabric of my shorts.

I put my head in my hands, feel my blood pulsing in my temples.

Then I see something on the ground, obscured by pine needles. Orange tip, plastic cylinder. I kick at it, uncovering it, and suck in my breath.

It's a
syringe
. What the fuck?

And for one confused moment, I think of the needles. Of Jake, of that old futile ritual. But then I realize how absurd this is.

I look around, as though whomever it belongs to might still be there. But I am surrounded by trees. Jesus Christ. I've seen discarded needles in New York, but here? What is wrong with people? I try to figure out how to pick it up, to dispose of it, without pricking myself. I think about the girl again, wandering around out here. Could whoever left it here have seen her?

Then, as I bend over to pick it up, something touches my shoulder.

“Jesus!” I say, sitting up, pressing my hand against my chest.

It's the psychic.

“You okay?” she asks softly.

I nod, gesture at the syringe on the ground. “Nice, huh?”

“Shit,” she says, then rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She sits down on the moss-covered log next to me and stretches out her stubby legs.

I swat at a mosquito that buzzes near my ankle.

She reaches into a fanny pack she's wearing and hands me something that looks like ChapStick. “It's citronella oil and lavender. Put this on your wrists, and the bugs will leave you alone,” she says.

I do as she says and hand it back to her. She smells powdery. Like church, I think strangely.

“So have you, um . . .” I start, not having the vocabulary for this. “
Seen
anything? Like visions or whatever?”

She smiles. “It doesn't really work like that.”

“Then how
does
it work?”

She tilts her head, as if she is deciding whether or not she can trust me. I smile weakly. A poor assurance.

“I'm mostly an empath,” she says. Her voice is deep, somber. “Which means that I am able to sense both the missing person's emotions and bodily states. But I am also a psychometrist.”

“What's
that?
” I ask.

“
That
's why I asked if you kept anything from her. I can gather information from objects. Things in the physical world. They can lead me to the person they belonged to.”

I think of the sweater I left by the road. The tutu and boots. But there is nothing. I have nothing.

“So if you don't have an object, then how do you find her?”

“Have you ever had déjà vu?” she asks.

I nod. “Sure.”

“It's like that. Like a sensation. A vague feeling, but also sort of specific. Like trying to remember a dream.”

“How does that help anybody?” I ask.

“Well, dreams slip away; they get fuzzier and fuzzier the more you wake up. I've taught myself how to stay in that dream state long enough to hold on. To remember.”

“Have you
remembered
anything then?” I ask.

“A little. I see red, and water. I have the feeling of something being underground. But there's a word I keep hearing too.
Sharp
.”

“What does that mean?” And I think of the cut on her hand. The blood. The red could be blood?

“I don't know. It's confusing. I also feel hunger and fear. I think she's very afraid.”

My eyes sting. This woman is a crackpot, but she's all I've got.

“Then you think she's alive?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, and stands up, brushes the leaves from her ample bottom.

“What are we supposed to do?” I ask, choking back tears now, feeling gullible and stupid.

She shakes her head. “I guess just keep looking,” she says, bending over and gingerly picking up the syringe, which she seals inside her fanny pack.

We leave the woods together, make our way through the trees. Strickland is standing at the edge of the tree line, as if he's been waiting for us.

“There's a campsite,” I say, a little breathless. “In the woods. Somebody's been out there. We found beer cans . . .”

“Yeah, lots of teenagers party in the woods here. No place else for them to go.”

“We found a
syringe,
” I say.

His eyebrow rises nearly imperceptibly, but then he just shrugs. “Drug of choice these days,” he says. “Listen, the lieutenant needs to speak with you.”

When we fully emerge from the woods, I sense right away that something is very, very wrong.

Then I realize what it is. It's the
silence
. The helicopter has disappeared. The constant whir and buzz that I have grown oddly accustomed to since last night is gone, and the absence of sound feels like a hole. As I strain to hear, I realize that the wild sound of the dogs, the jangling of their tags, their insistent breath, has also faded.

I feel anxious, panicked. My entire body is filled with a new, horrific fear.

Even before I see Lieutenant Andrews motioning for me to join him at the edge of the road, I know what has happened.

“Where is the helicopter?” I ask. “The dogs?”

“We're scaling back the search, ma'am,” he says.

“What does that mean?” I say, and my voice sounds foreign to me, strange. Almost childlike. “You're not looking for her anymore? It hasn't even been twenty-four hours.”

“I didn't say that, ma'am,” he says, and smiles condescendingly. “I said we are
scaling back
the search. We've still got officers out. We've got divers scheduled at the lake tomorrow. But if I'm going to be honest with you, the story just doesn't hold water.”

Water
. I think of the psychic. At least
she
believes me.

“How so?” I say.

“Any trouble going on with you at home?” the lieutenant asks.

My eyes widen. I think of her,
Jess,
of her voice on the other end of the line. I shake my head. And I wonder if the lieutenant is some sort of
empath
too. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“I've been a cop for a long time,” he says. “I've seen just about everything there is to see.”

I have to resist rolling my eyes. This is
Vermont
. He's acting like he's some jaded cop from Detroit, Chicago. I have watched the nightly news here. Read the papers. Just last night the headline was
TRACTOR TRAILER STRIKES DEER ON I
-89.

He continues. “And believe it or not, this isn't the first time I've been sent on a wild goose chase.”

I am using every bit of self-control I have not to tear my hair out. Or his.

“Most of the time, it's because something's going on at home. It's a cry for help. I had a woman who faked her own kidnapping. Turns out her husband was about to leave her, and she figured her getting kidnapped might make him stick around.”

“Did he?” I seethe.

“Long enough to help get her admitted to Waterbury,” he says.
The state mental institution.

Something about this feels like a threat.

“This has nothing to do with me,” I say.

Again, that patronizing smile. “Ms. Waters, please consider what we have. No kid reported missing. No evidence found at the site. No witnesses.” He ticks each item off with his thick fingers and then curls those fingers into a zero. “We've got nothing.”

“Wait,” I say, feeling my heart throbbing in my temples. “There might be another witness. There was a truck, a white pickup truck with Massachusetts plates that passed me right after I saw her.”

“And you're just now remembering this?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I came to tell you earlier but you were on your radio.”

He sighs, rubs his face with his hands. I can see the shadow of a beard. He probably wants nothing more than to go home and shower and shave.

“I remember, because I thought it was strange that a car with out-of-state tags would have landscaping equipment in the back. I saw the guy at Hudson's earlier when I stopped. He had overalls on and long hair. My friend, Devin, the one who lives here, said maybe it's somebody with a camp at the lake. Maybe he was getting it ready for the summer.”

“So he was inside the store?”

“Yes,” I insist. “You can ask the kid who was working last night. I think it's Billy Moffett's son. Check the register tape. He bought forty dollars' worth of gas and a twelve-pack of Bud longnecks. And when he drove past me, he was headed toward the lake, not away from it. So he wasn't headed out of town.”

He sighs again. It's as if he's been waiting for my permission for him to call off the search. My confession that I made it all up. But like a child caught up in a lie, I keep insisting that it's the truth.

“
Please,
” I say. “I'm not doing this for attention. I'm not
insane
.” The word makes me stiffen, and I hope he can't see the way my entire body reacts to it.

T
hat night, Jake goes to the cabin not long after dinner, says he needs to prep for the auction, though I know he's been over all of the editors' most recent acquisitions. He's ready, but I don't argue. Instead I stay with Effie and the girls in the camp. Devin disappears upstairs to read, leaving us alone.

We play a game of Clue, but Zu-Zu and Plum are bickering. Plum doesn't get the deductive reasoning aspect of the game, and Zu-Zu's patience is thin.

“I want to make an accusation!” Plum says gleefully, clapping her hands together. “Miss Scarlet, in the library, with the revolver.”

“You already know it didn't happen in the library,” Zu-Zu says, exasperated. “Remember? I showed you the library card the last time.”

“You don't know everything, you know,” Plum says, pure sass.

“I know it didn't happen in the
library
.”

“Stop,” Effie says, rubbing her temples. “One day without fighting. That's all I ask.”

“Well, I'll be gone soon, and then there will be nobody for her to fight with,” Zu-Zu says dramatically, crossing her arms.

“Good,” Plum says. “Because you're mean.”

“Whatever, Plum.”

“Seriously, stop,” Effie says. “We've got company.”

“I'm not playing anymore,” Plum says then, and slips under the table. I can feel her at my feet. I reach under the table, fingers poised to tickle.

“Get out from under the table, Plum,” Zu-Zu says, the little mama. “Don't be such a baby.”

“I'm not a baby,” Plum starts, and then there is a hard knock under the table, a brief moment of silence, and then wailing.

Effie sighs heavily and then ducks under the table. Plum crawls out, crying and clutching the top of her head. Plum crawls up into Effie's lap and Effie studies the spot on her head. Kisses it.

“I need to pack,” Zu-Zu says, rolling her eyes. “Are we still leaving on Sunday? I mean, now that all this stuff is happening?”

She's asking me, but I look to Effie for help.

“We'll make sure you get to New York on time,” Effie says.

“But what about that little girl?” Plum asks. Her eyes are red, her cheeks streaked with tears.

“People are looking for her. She's probably just found a safe warm place to hide,” I offer.

“Who does she belong to anyway?” Plum asks.

“We don't know yet, punkin',” Effie says, and buries her face in Plum's hair. Something about this makes my chest hurt. “She's probably just lost.”

“Well, if I was ever lost in the woods, I'd stay in the same place. That way you could find me. Or I'd use my echo.”

“You don't use an echo,” Zu-Zu corrects. “Your voice
makes
an echo.”

“Mom, she's doing it again.”

“Stop correcting,” Effie says.

“Where are the tights you ordered?” Zu-Zu asks.

“Upstairs, with the pointe shoes and slippers.”

Zu-Zu stands up and starts to head upstairs but then stops, goes to the freezer, and pulls out a bag of frozen raspberries. She brings them over to Plum and gently rests them on her head before skipping into the living room and then up the stairs.

 

After the girls have gone to bed, Effie and I sit outside in two Adirondack chairs facing the lake. My feet are bare and the grass is cold, but I don't want to hunt for my shoes.

“You have good girls,” I say.

Effie nods. “Thank you. I need to be reminded of that every now and again.”

“Sometimes, I wonder how things would be different . . .” I say. I don't even need to finish my sentence, because she knows exactly what I am thinking about. This is the same conversation we've been having for eight years. “Maybe if we had a child, if we were a real family, then Jake wouldn't have done this.” This is what I have to think, because the alternative is even worse. What if we had a child and he did this anyway? What if his selfishness, his lack of regard, extends beyond me? What if he is capable of hurting everyone?

“How did you find out?” Effie asks quietly, pulling the comb that holds her hair up and letting it tumble down.

I take a sip of beer from the bottles she brought out for us. It's bitter, but the only thing that seems to be taking the edge off. The sharp edge that seems to border everything now.

“Texts,” I say. “A whole string of them. He didn't even bother to delete them.” But this is not how I know. I think now that I knew long before the note. I sensed it, the way you can smell rain before it comes. I felt it in my skin, smelled it in the charged air between us.

“Who is she?” she asks. “Anyone you know?”

I shake my head, and wonder if I have met her. I'm sure I have, though all of the assistants blur together. They all have the same hungry eyes, the same eager smiles. They share the collective longing, the marvelous ache of ambition and youth.

“I'm going to stay here,” I say.

She turns to me, her eyes widening. She thinks I mean forever. “Of course you'll stay here. Stay as long as you like. We'll figure out what to do.”

“No,” I say, smiling. “I mean, yes. But I just mean until they find the girl. I know Jake is going to say he has to go back to New York. But I can't go. Not until they find her.”

Effie reaches out for my hand, and I let her take it.

The sky is filled with stars. I look up, feel dizzy. Disoriented.

“I still dream about her,” I say. “The same dream. I must have had it a thousand times.”

And Effie knows exactly what I mean now too. I don't have to explain. This is friendship, I think. This is sisterhood.