He stood crouching beside her, his arms hanging limply, his torso moving up and down with the heavy, quick rhythm of his breathing. He didn’t understand. Her eyes were closed and she did not move. The pain from the back of his neck drove him to his knees. He reached forward and touched her face as gently as he could, but she didn’t stir. When he looked around, the forest seemed to be closing in around him. He pulled his head back and looked up at the tops of the trees until he could see the sky, and then he released a cry so deep from the depths of his being, that even he thought it came from another creature, one too horrible to imagine.
When Cy Baum came out of his house and saw that his granddaughter was not where he had left her, he had a terrible sinking feeling, even though it was very possible she had simply gone around back or to the other side. His immediate sense of panic weakened him and he could barely raise his voice or take a step. He felt his face grow pale and cold, so he took two deep breaths to regain his composure. Then he called.
And then he went around the back; and then he went around to the other side; and then he came to the front, all the while moving like an old stone savage, his steps deliberate and awkward, his shoulders hunched up. His shouts grew louder, his voice more intense. It finally brought Hilda to the front door.
“Cy? What is it?”
“Is she in there?” Her facial expression told him the answer. He went back to the basement. When he was confronted with the dark, empty room, his panic became unleashed. He stumbled up the cement steps, bruising his left hand when he reached out to keep himself from falling on the stone. Hilda was waiting on the front porch steps.
“What is it?”
“She’s gone,” he said He was breathing hard now.
“Gone?” Hilda grimaced as though the word were ridiculous. “Did you look out back?”
“She’s not there.”
Hilda brought her hands to her throat. She shook her head in disbelief and began calling, herself. She came down the steps and went around the house. He followed some distance behind, calling and shouting whenever she left a gap. They stopped when they reached the basement door again.
“What does this mean, Cy? Where could she be? She wouldn’t go far from the house.”
“And the rabbit’s gone, too,” he said, but she didn’t understand why that was significant.
“The rabbit? Who cares about that damn rabbit?”
“Huh? No, I mean … let’s check inside once more. She might have slipped in behind us or …”
“And not hear us doin’ all this calling?” Skeptically, Hilda followed him in. They called and called and checked all the rooms and bathrooms. Then they confronted each other, the panic, the fear, and the sorrow equally painted on their faces.
“I’ll phone Eddie Morris,” he said.
“Hurry,” she said.
He fumbled twice with the dial, impatient with his own clumsy, thick fingers. It wasn’t until he made the connection and the phone began to ring that he felt any sense of hope at all. He got his words out quickly.
“I’ll be right there,” Eddie said. “Don’t panic,” he added, as much for himself as for Cy. He had already begun to wonder if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake by not doing what Barbara had suggested, by not telling the chief about the strange events that had occurred on Wildwood Drive.
He reported a missing child, called for some backup, and headed out as fast as he could, his lights blinking and his siren, the anthem of danger and trouble, flowing freely from the patrol car as he rushed over the country roads.
FOURTEEN
At first Faith was unaware of the morning. She had fallen asleep on and off and now, when she opened her eyes, it occurred to her that she might have passed away the night. The room light had been left on continuously, but she figured out how she could test the time. She rose from the bed and flipped off the light. Light penetrated the boarded windows. It was indeed another day. Why hadn’t Mary come to wake her?
She put on the lights again and listened. The stillness was frighteningly complete. There wasn’t even a creak in the house. She hoped Mary was outside her door again, but when she put her ear to the crack between it and the jamb, she heard nothing.
“Mother?” She waited and listened. Then she went to her knees and put her ear to the floor, desperately trying to pick up the vibrations of movement downstairs. There were none—no pans rattling, no dishes clinking, no radio, no footsteps; just deep, empty silence. Had Mary left the house?
Faith used the chamber pot again and then sat thinking on the bed. Surely Mary would bring her water … something. It couldn’t last much longer; it couldn’t. She wouldn’t want to keep me out of school, she hoped, but that hope was weakened when she considered Mary’s priorities. Mary wanted her to do well in school, but she also thought there were too many temptations there. And now with what she knew and thought about Bobby O’Neil … she might never want me to go back to school again, Faith thought. She knew Mary was capable of such radical decisions, especially if the decision had come to her through some kind of divine communication.
It was hard not to succumb to panic now. She was trapped and she felt helpless. She went back to the boarded windows and pressed the tips of her fingers hard against the sides of the slabs, pulling and tugging at them. But she couldn’t get enough of a grip to work them away from the window casing, and the tips of her fingers became raw with the effort. She went back to the door and tried sliding her fingers between it and the floor to get some kind of grip and pull it open. She succeeded in getting the tops of her fingers through, but this gave her no advantage, and her efforts barely shook the heavy wooden portal.
Growing increasingly frustrated, she felt so closed in that she thought it was affecting her breathing. The panic continued to build in her. She slammed her fist into the wall and screamed, but when she waited silently afterward, she heard nothing. She stood up and kicked the wall. She did it again and again and again. Small indentations formed in the faded wallpaper, but the inch and a half Sheetrock backing didn’t crumble.
She made her hands into fists and went to the windows again, this time pounding the boards that Mary had nailed to the casings; but they barely rattled. Tired, she sat on the bed and stared blankly at the wall across from her. She had cried herself out; she couldn’t produce any more tears and her throat ached from the screaming.
She lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. The silence was having a different effect on her now. Twice she thought she heard voices. She yelled, but all that came in return was her own echo. When she heard the voices again, she seriously thought they might be spirits trapped in the walls, trapped in the structure, trapped in the history of The Oaks.
She began to hallucinate.
Faces from the past came in and out of focus on the ceiling. A younger Mary smiled and spoke softly to her. She was saying nice things about her hair and her eyes and she was singing pretty little hymns. Her father, handsome and young, untouched by the inner turmoils that would eventually destroy him, told her stories. She could even hear herself as a little girl, laughing.
She remembered her father’s cousin from Philadelphia who had come to visit them only once. She and her husband brought their little girl, who was two years younger than Faith. Even so, they had a good time together for the short time they stayed at The Oaks. Even in the early days, there weren’t many times when she had friends over here; and after a while, there were none. There was a doll she and her little cousin both loved, and she had kept it all these years, preserved in her closet, a memory of a time when she shared make-believe and felt a child’s happiness. Her cousin and she never wrote each other; they never called; they never communicated. Whatever happened that weekend was enough to drive her relatives away for good. Mary wouldn’t even talk about them, especially after the accident. All her father’s relatives died with him that day as far as Mary was concerned.
As she lay there thinking, she increasingly began to see herself as a younger
child. Images and memories rolled by, faces and things juxtaposed with no apparent logic. It was the free flow of memory, as though her entrapment had lowered the dike and permitted the escape of anything warm, touching, and significant—all that had been dammed up in the recesses of her mind.
She moved from these memories to thoughts that Mary would have forbidden—sexual thoughts, erotic images, fantasies that had begun to recur with more urgency each time. She closed her eyes and imagined Bobby O’Neil climbing up the outside wall, as he had climbed up her fire escape. She saw him open the window and pound out the boards Mary had nailed to it. She saw him crawl in and come to her here on this bed.
As she sat up, he took her in his arms and they kissed a long, passionate kiss that brought a delightful weakness into her. He knelt down before her like her knight and put his head in her lap. She stroked him and stroked him until he looked up at her with those deep blue-green eyes. He was asking her, calling to her, softly demanding.
“Yes,” she thought. “Yes, yes …”
He sat back as she began to unbutton her blouse. When she unfastened her bra and her breasts shook freely, he stood up and took her hands into his. She stood before him and they kissed again, this time his lips moving off hers and down over her cheeks to her neck and shoulders. She lifted her breasts to him and the tip of his tongue grazed her nipples. She moaned and felt his fingers travel down her stomach to unfasten her jeans. As they slipped down her legs, she sat back on the bed. In a few moments he was beside her, his own shirt and pants off. They embraced; they caressed and murmured their love for each other, and then they became completely naked and moved under the blanket.
To her, the eroticism was another form of prayer. In it she found hope and warmth. She wanted to give herself up to it as completely as she would give herself up to God, no matter how terrible a sin that might be. These thoughts took her mind away from any regrets. In fact, the entire erotic image became her act of defiance. In it, through it, she would strike back at Mary for what she had done to her.
Yes, she thought, this is right… yes, yes …
She moved harder, faster. She ran her hands over her body, fumbling with her clothing, until she aroused herself to a pitch of excitement. It was better than anything she had done before and when the climax came, she exploded with deliberately loud moans.
Perhaps Mary would hear her. She didn’t care; she wanted it. Good, she thought, good, good, good.
When it was over, she lay still in anticipation.
But God didn’t punish her and Mary didn’t come. There was only that deep, heavy, and now frightening silence.
Cy and Hilda were waiting on the front lawn when Eddie arrived. He grabbed his megaphone and joined them quickly. Their expressions of fright were somewhat lessened when he appeared. He only hoped he could do something for them and do it quickly. Before he spoke to them, he remembered his training—act cool, professional, and deliberately casual. It would calm them.
“So, what do we have?”
“She’s gone, Eddie. She’s gone,” Cy said. Now, in this bright sunlight, under this tension, he looked every minute his age. Time had caught up with him swiftly, almost instantaneously. It reminded Eddie of the Edgar Allan Poe short story, The Strange Case of M. Valdimar, the story of a man hypnotized at the point of death and kept that way until he was awakened to degenerate right before the hypnotist’s eyes. Eddie was afraid Cy would crumple and become dust in the course of a few moments.
Hilda looked a little more in control.
“He left her out here for a few minutes when he went into the house to fix a circuit breaker. By the time he returned, she was gone. We’ve gone around the house and out back, calling and calling; and we’ve checked every nook and cranny inside. She’s nowhere to be found.”
“She was with the rabbit,” Cy said, eye to eye with Eddie. He nodded.
“Why do you keep talking about that rabbit?”
“Oh God,” Cy said. He buried his face in his hands.
“Hey, take it easy. Take it easy. We’ll find her. She wandered off, that’s all.”
“I just can’t imagine her doing that,” Hilda said, shaking her head.
“All right,” Eddie said. “I’ll start in the back. Help’s on the way, only minutes behind me.”
“Should I call Arnie?”
“No, not yet,” Eddie said quickly. “Let’s not panic everyone. This could be something very simple.”
“I pray to God.”
Eddie started for the backyard and Cy followed closely behind. When he came to the edge of the lawn, he brought his megaphone to his mouth and called.
Out front, Chief Sam Cobler arrived in a patrol car driven by Officer Burt Rosen. Cobler, a lifelong resident of the area, knew all the permanent residents, so Hilda went right into her story. Then they all joined Eddie and Cy in the back.
“Well?”
“Nothing, Chief. We’ll have to fan out and search.”
“All right. If we don’t find her in fifteen minutes, I’ll have them ring the fire siren in town and bring up some volunteers.”
“Oh, God,” Hilda said.
“I’ll go in with you,” Cy said.
“No,” Eddie said. “You better wait here in case she calls from another direction.”
Cy looked disappointed, but he remained behind as the three policemen went into the forest. Periodically, Eddie called through the megaphone.
The noise and the amplification of Eddie’s voice turned the imp away from Gina’s limp form. He scurried deep into the bushes and crouched low to the ground, forcing himself to hold down his moans of pain by biting his lower lip and squeezing his body tightly. After a few moments he saw Eddie appear.
When Eddie spotted the little girl, he lunged forward, crashing through the saplings. He was at her side in seconds. He put the megaphone down quickly and checked her pulse. He lifted her head gently and turned it to study the bruise just above her left temple. It looked like a nasty scrape. He saw the small boulder nearby and imagined what had happened. Then he raised the megaphone to his lips and announced that he had found the child.
As he carried Gina back through the forest, she began to regain consciousness. He tried to reassure her, but he had never seen such a look of terror on a child’s face.
“She’s all right,” he called, as soon as Hilda and Cy caught sight of him. Nevertheless, Hilda began to cry.
“Grandma.”
Hilda took her into her arms quickly and hugged her. Cy stood by, his eyes watering. “Looks like she took a fall in there,” Eddie said. Burt and Sam came out behind him.
“What did you do? Why did you go in there?” Hilda asked her and tried wiping away some of the streaks of dirt formed by her tears.
“My rabbit…” She pointed to the forest.
“Is that what you did? You went into the woods for your rabbit?” Eddie asked. His wide smile captured her attention.
“Look at her,” Hilda said. “Oh, she needs a bath and hot milk, and your hair, Gina … we’ve got to shampoo.”
At the mention of her hair, Gina began to cry again. She touched her head to be sure nothing was still there.
“A bird went into my hair, but he took it out.” They all looked at Eddie, but he shook his head.
“Who did?” Hilda asked. “Eddie?”
“No, that bad boy. He made me lose my rabbit. He made me. Make him get it back, Grandpa. Make him.”
“Bad boy?” Cy turned to Eddie.
“Call the station,” Sam Cobler told Rosen, “and tell them all is well up here.”
“What do you mean, Gina?” Eddie asked, stepping closer to her. “There was a boy here?” She nodded. “Was he bigger than you?” She shook her head. “He wasn’t?”
“He smelled,” she said.
“I’ll bet,” Sam Cobler said. Gina stared at him. She was momentarily taken with the way his rubbery lips moved around the cigar.
“I better get her cleaned up,” Hilda said. “T
alk to her later. And forget that rabbit,” she added, her eyes wide as she looked at Cy.
“All right. All right.”
They watched her take the child back to the house. Eddie looked back at the woods and Sam Cobler lit the cigar.
“What do you make of that bird in the hair stuff?” Eddie asked, not looking at either of them.
“Kids imagine things when they’re lost,” Cobler said. “I’ll bet she has an imaginary friend, too, right Cy?”
“She never said nothing about one before.”
“Well … birds in the hair, smelly little boys …”
“Only kind of bird that might get caught in your hair is a bat,” Cy said. “But it’d hafta be trapped and disoriented. Never could stomach them. Got one caught down my chimney last year and killed it with a broom.”
“There shouldn’t have been any kids around here now. School’s in session,” Eddie said, mostly to himself. “Maybe I’d better take a little walk in there and look around.”
“Don’t get lost yourself,” Cobler said. Eddie turned and looked at him as though first realizing his boss was still there.
“I’ve got to talk to you, Chief. There have been a few odd things going on around here.”
“Why should this place be any different from the rest of the township,” Cobler said dryly. “Maybe you oughta take the child over to your doctor, Cy, just to have her checked out. Not a bad precaution after something like this.”
“I will.”
“After you come back from your nature hike, see what else you can do for them, Eddie. I’ll be at the station all morning and we can talk there.”
“OK, Chief.” He and Cy watched Cobler walk off.
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