She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

by J. D. Barker

  “So?”

  Stella’s gloved fingers slipped gingerly over the cover of her copy. “Great Expectations was first published by Mr. Dickens in July of 1861 as a magazine serial, then later as a full novel. One hundred years after his death, the novel entered the public domain, meaning it became free for all and could be published by anyone. As a result, hundreds of editions have been published since, all over the world, with so many attempting to capitalize on his wonderful words. If you were to walk into a bookstore, you would no doubt find numerous copies on hand, printed by various publishers. The underlying text will be the same in all, the only thing to differentiate them would be the packaging—the dust jacket, the binding, the quality of the book itself. From cheap knockoffs to insanely expensive original editions dating back over a hundred years. Many people own a copy of this book, but few of those copies are alike. The numerous print runs are fleeting as publishers repackage and print again, out with the old, in with the new.” Her fingers paused, her thumb running along the edge of her book. “This copy belonged to my parents. It is the only original possession of theirs I own, and I treasure it above all other things in this world. This book has been with me every day of my life and will be there for my last day, of that I’m sure. The memory of my parents, their essence, travels with me within the covers. Through this book, I keep them close.”

  Stella’s hand moved to the edition I found in my father’s grave. “This one was in the possession of your father, hidden in his grave with the Penn State yearbook. Important enough to him that he would go through such trouble to conceal it from the world in a fake grave, hoping you would eventually find it. Look at the maps—he told you exactly where he’d be, Jack! Do you see it?”

  I leaned in closer. The maps were beautifully rendered, both detailing various cities throughout the UK. Nothing necessarily specific to the novel, just a map the publisher felt filled the space nicely. No doubt just an afterthought by the marketing department to fill blank space and help their edition stand out from all the others Stella mentioned. We were in Manchester, California. My eyes found Manchester on each of the maps, but it wasn’t until I read the names of the other cities that I realized what Stella had discovered. “That one is spelled wrong.”

  “It is, Pip. Isn’t it?” Stella beamed. “On my copy, we have Exeter, London, Manchester, Whitby, Newcastle upon Tyne, and all the others. On your edition, the one your father hid away so brilliantly for you, Whitby is spelled W-H-I-D-B-E-Y. Whidbey, not Whitby. There is no Whidbey in England.”

  “There’s an island off the coast of Washington State called Whidbey,” I said quietly, studying the two images closer.

  Stella was smiling. “Yes, there is. A very secluded, beautiful little place.”

  “Auntie Jo used to tell me my mother wanted to live near the water,” I said.

  “Whidbey Island is in Puget Sound, off the mainland, not far from Seattle,” Stella said. “The south end is only accessible by ferry or boat. There’s a bridge at the north end. I believe it’s called Deception Pass. The island is largely undeveloped—mountains, lakes, thick forests…so many places to hide.”

  “Deception Pass,” I muttered, thinking that fit my father perfectly.

  “Jack, we can be there in twelve hours. We’ll need to take I-5 again. Back roads would take too long, but we can be there in twelve hours, if we hurry.”

  Stella looked hopeful. I didn’t want to take that from her, but this seemed like such a long shot. “He left that book twenty years ago. Do you really think he’d still be there? They would have found him by now.”

  “We have nowhere else to go.”

  She was right, of course. We were driving around California aimlessly in a car borrowed from someone who would eventually miss said car and most likely report it to someone not fond of the recently growing “borrowed car” movement.

  I looked into the rearview mirror. Hobson’s blank stare looked back at me. “What do you think, Dewey?”

  He licked his lips, then turned to the window.

  “Clearly, he would like to go,” Stella said.

  “Clearly. Can I eat my sandwich first?”

  She handed one to me and handed another to Dewey.

  He took the sandwich from her but simply held it, more of a reflex than a thoughtful action.

  “You should eat, Dewey. You’ll need your strength to kill Cammie.”

  “Okay.” He peeled back the plastic and began to eat.

  “Christ, this is weird.” I started the car and made a right back onto US-101 in search of signs for I-5.

  I had been worried about Stella’s condition when we left Manchester, California. By the time we crossed the border into Oregon at a little after four in the afternoon, I was downright frightened.

  Her skin looked paper white and her lips had taken on a purplish hue. Her hair grew damp with sweat and hung limply around her face. She’d slept for the better part of two hours, and I was thankful for that because before she finally drifted off, she had been doing her best to pretend everything was okay and I had been doing my best to agree with her.

  Everything wasn’t okay, though. Things were far from okay.

  Yesterday, prior to the lake, she became nearly delirious in her sleep. More of a fevered state than actual rest, and I knew she was closing back in on that again. At one point, I asked her if I should find another lake and she told me that wouldn’t work again, just keep driving. Then I remembered what she said back in Manchester—

  We’ll have to take I-5 again. Back roads would take too long.

  I had no idea what she meant by that. Even if by some miracle we managed to find my father, what did she expect him to do? I seriously doubted he had been standing by for twenty years, holding some miracle cure for a girl his son would bring by two decades later. We were rushing into a giant nothingness, a void. A fool’s errand.

  I’m not going to lie. I considered finding someone she could take. Some lowlife. I saw two hitchhikers outside Medford, and I slowed down. God help me, I nearly stopped. I didn’t, though, and two hours later when she began groaning in her sleep, I cursed myself for not stopping, for not picking one of them up. Every truck stop. Every rest area. I slowed, then talked myself out of it. I knew if I actually did it, there would be no coming back. I’d officially be a cold-blooded killer. Killing in self-defense was one thing, but killing an innocent—regardless of how unsavory or easily forgotten they might be—was not something you returned from.

  I couldn’t lose her.

  I wouldn’t lose her.

  Near Eugene, I started glancing back at Hobson, at the bullet wound in his shoulder. Part of me hoping it would reopen, grow infected, give me a reason… That didn’t happen, though. His shoulder remained free of new blood. He hadn’t even acknowledged the wound. Hobson spent the entire drive in complete silence, lost somewhere in his own head. If he slept, I didn’t see it.

  Every hour I didn’t see Hobson sleep, I grew more tired.

  I finally pulled over at a deserted scenic rest stop near Longview, Washington, at a little after midnight. I drove to the far end of the parking lot and shut off the engine.

  I only meant to sleep for thirty minutes or so, long enough to catch my third wind.

  I didn’t wake up for two hours.

  And when I did, Stella was gone.

  Relief filled me as I found her at the metal guardrail, staring out over the deep ravine, water rushing past far below, surrounded by some of the tallest trees I had ever seen. She didn’t turn to me when I approached, but she knew I was there.

  “That’s the Cowlitz River down there. Isn’t it beautiful?” she said.

  “You’re beautiful.” I was so happy to see her awake. Such words would have embarrassed me a few years ago but felt so natural now, so right. If a void existed within me, it filled when she was near—this place in my heart belonging to only her, a room only she could enter.

  Stella wrapped her arms around me and I, her. She wore her long
black gloves, the ones that reached her elbows, over those she had pulled on a sweatshirt. Not a bit of her flesh was exposed, and even if it were, I’m not sure I cared. She was careful, though. A lifetime of practice behind her. The warmth of those arms, the feel of her fingers in my hair, her breath caressing my neck. I so wanted to pull her close and kiss her. Knowing I could not was maddening. Knowing I never would, more maddening still.

  “I am to die soon, my dearest Pip. You know that, right?”

  “Don’t say things like that, please.”

  “The hunger will consume me again soon, and this time there will be no satiating it. I’ll grow so weak, I’ll become delirious. My thoughts will be lost to nothing but nonsense and babble. I’ve been there so many times. It’s like an ancient enemy knocking at the door, an unwelcome guest smiling at the window when I refuse to let him in.”

  “You can use the river, this forest.”

  “It won’t be enough.”

  “Then we find someone.”

  We have someone. Hobson, sitting patiently in the back seat.

  No. I forced that thought from my head. Hobson was a victim, no less than us.

  He’s broken.

  No.

  “I’ve told you, I won’t. No more.”

  “Stella, I can’t lose you.”

  “Yet, you will.”

  “If those people in white find us again…one of them. Or maybe my father will know—”

  “Life is not mine to take. My existence is selfish. All those years, they convinced me I was doing the right thing, but I knew in my heart it was never true. I still did as they asked, I killed for them. So many died at my hand. There is no atonement for my sins. I see their faces whenever I close my eyes. I hear their cries. Even the monsters, and many were, not even they deserved the pain I brought upon them. I think I welcome death, I welcome the silence of death. They’ll be waiting for me on the other side, and I’ll need to answer to all of them, and as frightening as that is, I know I must face them if I am ever to find peace.”

  “You’re just being stubborn, Stella. We find someone bad, someone deserving…a killer, a rapist…someone who wouldn’t hesitate to kill us or someone else—”

  Stella placed a gloved finger over my lips, silencing me. “I won’t, Jack. No more. I don’t want to talk about such things. I don’t want to think about them.” She smiled up at me, her eyes catching the moon. “Let us just enjoy this moment, this time together, the time we have left. A moment can be an eternity, if we let it.”

  My God, she is so pale.

  “I love you, Stella Nettleton,” I said softly.

  “And I you, John Edward Jack Thatch. My Pip.”

  I pulled her close. I held her so tight.

  “Dance with me?” she whispered, burying her head in my shoulder.

  And we did.

  We danced at the edge of that cliff, we danced to a song only we heard.

  I honestly couldn’t say if five minutes passed or an hour; time was lost in that moment. When she finally whispered we should go, I could only nod. If I spoke, I knew the tears would come. I followed her from the water’s edge back to the car, where she curled up with her copy of Great Expectations in the passenger seat.

  Hobson continued to stare from the back.

  We left the Cowlitz River behind us.

  Three and a half hours to Whidbey.

  Stella drifted off again about an hour outside of Longview. Her seat back, she had pulled her knees up close to her chest. Her dark hair obscured her face. She looked so small, so vulnerable. I’m not sure when she started shivering. I imagine it began about thirty minutes from our destination, because I had been watching her closely and I hadn’t noticed until then.

  When the sun started to rise, I saw the dark sweat stains on her clothes. I pulled the sleeve of my shirt down over my fingers and used the material to brush the matted errant strands of hair from her face. The newborn sunlight seemed to bother her. She buried her eyes in the crook of her elbow with a soft sigh.

  We left I-5 for WA-525 North, which became Mukilteo Speedway, and followed signs for Whidbey and the Clinton-Mukilteo ferry terminal. While traffic leaving the island on this Monday morning appeared heavy, very few seemed to be heading from the mainland back to the island. I imagined the opposite was true in the afternoons, when the businesses in Seattle shuttered for the day.

  At a small tollbooth, a pleasant woman in her mid-fifties took our fare and told me to follow the car in front of me into row two and pull up to the front. The next ferry would be arriving in under five minutes.

  “How long is the ferry ride?”

  “Fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the waters.”

  I considered waking Stella, but figured it was best to let her sleep. I had no idea what waited for us on the other end.

  Six other cars waited with us, only one of which was white. A mid-seventies Ford pickup truck with an elderly man behind the wheel, wearing a navy blue down jacket and a Seahawks cap. He was reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee perched precariously on his dash. When he caught me watching him, he smiled, nodded, and went back to his paper.

  I had never been on a ferry before, and when the Kittitas arrived, I couldn’t believe how many cars disembarked. I had no idea the vessel would be so large. When the last vehicle finally disappeared back down Mukilteo Speedway in the direction of Seattle, the row of cars beside us was ushered onboard. A man in an orange vest motioned for me to follow. We parked on the lower level. I shut down the engine. When we pulled away from the dock a few minutes later, I finally closed my eyes, allowing the exhaustion to wash over me.

  PART 5

  “I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

  ― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

  1

  If I slept, I did not dream, and for that I was grateful.

  My eyes snapped open with the quick yelp of a horn behind me.

  “Jack? Is this Whidbey?”

  Stella was awake, too, sitting up and leaning forward in her seat to get a better view.

  The ferry had butted up against the dock. The row of cars beside us had already disembarked. Another man in an orange vest waved impatiently at me, gesturing toward the dock.

  The horn behind me yelped again. Longer this time.

  I started the car, put it in gear, and followed the taillights of the last car to leave the ferry off the edge of the boat and back onto solid ground. A large sign read:

  CLINTON FERRY TERMINAL

  WELCOME TO WHIDBEY ISLAND

  To my left sat a squat gray building with a green roof and a sign that simply said WELCOME CENTER; I pulled into one of the empty spaces beside it. The rest of the terminal was nothing more than a large parking lot with at least three dozen vehicles lined up ready to board the ferry back to the mainland. The moment the cars from our row finished exiting, traffic reversed, the waiting vehicles filed in, and the ferry pulled away. A practiced dance.

  None of the other disembarking vehicles lingered. They quickly maneuvered the various painted lines of the lot and disappeared down WA-525 North at the back. Five minutes after arriving, we were alone.

  “Now what?”

  “We go inside,” Stella said, scooping up both copies of Great Expectations and the Penn State yearbook.

  When she opened her door and stood, I thought she might pass out. She swayed and gripped the roof of the car for support.

  I raced around and held her, kept her upright. She was shivering again. “Maybe you should wait in the car.”

  “I’m okay,” she assured me.

  She wasn’t, though.

  Leaning back into the car, she looked at Dewey. “Mr. Hobson, do you need to use the facilities?”

  “Yeah,” Hobson replied, his voice flat.

  Without another word, he got out of the car and went inside.

  Stella and I followed after him, moving
slow. She tried to put up a strong front, but much of her weight fell on me. Her breathing seemed labored.

  The welcome center was unattended. There were two vending machines, one with soft drinks, the other with various candy bars and snacks. They were flanked by a women’s restroom on one side and the men’s on the other. Posters about the island covered the opposite wall along with a large map and several racks of pamphlets for area attractions.

  Stella sat the books down on a bench, and the two of us studied the map.

  “Any idea?”

  She opened both copies of Great Expectations to the image of the map in the inlay. “Other than the spelling of Whidbey and Whitby, do you see anything else different?”

  I leaned in closer and compared both maps—the lines, the colors, the remaining city names, and other markers. I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Me either. But I don’t believe your father would go through all this trouble to get us here and not give us some kind of clue as to where to go next. There’s something, we’re just not seeing it.”

  I returned to the map of Whidbey. The island was huge. Most of the land was undeveloped, though. There were several large farms, beaches, a few small clusters of businesses, and residences along the coast. Nothing stood out, though.

  Behind us, a toilet flushed in the men’s room. Then Hobson came out, walked past us out the door. He got back in the car and stared forward.

  “That is so weird.”

  Stella moved on from the map and sifted through the tourist pamphlets. Her finger slipping from one to the next. “Beaches, parks, wineries and vineyards, restaurants, art galleries, museums, sightseeing tours, a lighthouse…”

  I was beginning to think this was hopeless when one particular pamphlet jumped out at me. A picture of a large house on a cliff overlooking Puget Sound filled the front. It advertised tremendous views, a friendly staff, and spacious rooms. None of this mattered to me, because my eyes were locked on the name.