Chasing Amanda

by Melissa Foster

  Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I see it! Tracey’s heart pounded in her chest. A smile stretched across her face as the narrow tunnel opened wider and came to an end, slowly narrowing back to the size of a car tire, and winding its way up toward the outside. Streaming in, like a savior, was the sun—the glorious sun! Tracey wanted to jump, to climb through that hole and rush into her parents’ arms. She was sure they would be there, waiting, like this had all been a planned-out game of hide-and-seek. Her hands clenched into fists, her arms became rigid at her side, and she bounced from foot to foot, biting her lower lip to keep from squealing. Mummy stood in front of Tracey, looking up toward the beam of light, a smile on her face. Their bodies were so close that Tracey could smell her, a slight metallic, sulfuric smell. It was not so bad, really. Mummy had washed up that morning and had let Tracey wash up, too. They had used a big bucket of water, towels, which appeared to already have been slightly soiled, and a little soap. Tracey had kept her back to Mummy so she wouldn’t see her with her clothes off. She had pretended to be playing clean up with Emma, though she didn’t think Mummy was watching her at all. Mummy had been hunched over her journal, writing quickly and in deep concentration. Tracey’s own mother kept a journal, too. Her mother, her real mother, had always told Tracey and Emma that it helped keep her sane, whatever that meant. Tracey thought it meant that it helped her to yell less when she was mad at them. Sometimes, when her mother was really mad, she’d count to ten, tell the girls to go to their rooms, and then her mother would go write in her journal. Tracey really wanted to read that journal one day. She wondered if her mother wrote about how bad she and Emma were sometimes. Maybe she wrote about when they were good, too. Thinking of her mother made Tracey sad. She made a silent promise to herself—she promised that if she got back to her real mommy, she would never be bad again. Do you hear me, God? she wondered—and hoped—as she looked up at the beam of light.

  Her captor was silent. She looked back at Tracey, and Tracey’s eyes grew open wide, she clamped her mouth shut. Mummy smiled, and Tracey shivered with relief and anticipation. Mummy spun around and crawled along the dirt opening. The passageway seemed to engulf her. Tracey wasn’t sure Mummy would even fit through the tight cavity, but the sun was shining at the end of the tunnel, pouring in around Mummy’s wriggling, large body. Tracey crouched down and enthusiastically began crawling behind her. The dirt was cold and damp, seeping through her leggings and onto her knees, but she didn’t care. She was going home!

  As she neared the top of the passageway, Mummy reached down, grabbed her hand tightly, and swiftly pulled her up and onto the ground. Tracey took a deep breath of the fresh air; tears of happiness ran down her cheeks. Relief swept through her. Mummy smacked her enormous hands against her jeans to rid them of dirt, and the sound startled Tracey. She flinched, and stepped backward, almost falling back into the passageway, letting out a frightened shriek.

  “Hey!” Mummy yelled. “Watch it!”

  Mummy clasped her hand around Tracey’s spindly arm, yanking her firmly onto solid ground. Tracey instinctively ducked her head and pulled away. She stole a quick look up through her eyelashes and was surprised to see concern, perhaps even empathy, in Mummy’s eyes. “I…I’m sorry,” Tracey’s words were barely more than a whisper.

  Mummy released her arm and dusted off Tracey’s knees. Tracey stood stock still, her eyes wide. She took in her surroundings, the brambles, thick with thorns, and tangled branches that grew so high they formed a shelter above them. A mottled tapestry of light formed the ceiling where the sun streamed through.

  Mummy straightened up and backed away from Tracey. She stood in the middle of the strange den. She stretched her arms out to her sides and then reached for Tracey, pulling her quickly against her body. Tracey flinched, fought the urge to back away. She hated to be touched by Mummy. Unsure and scared, she clenched her eyes closed.

  “Tracey, isn’t this wonderful?” Mummy whispered. “We are finally outside! Look how beautiful of a day it is!” she let go of Tracey and spun in a circle with her arms stretched out to her sides, her hair lifting off her shoulders.

  Tracey wondered if she should run and scream, like Mrs. Tate had told them to do if they were ever in danger, but what if she didn’t get away and Mummy took her back to that dark chamber? What if her captor hurt her because she was such a bad girl? Tracey formulated a plan in her young mind. Her mother had always taught her to find an adult when she was in danger. How she wished she had never followed Mummy into the woods in the first place, but she couldn’t change what she had done. She couldn’t have known that the woman who had played and laughed with her at the park would ever steal her. She remained still, concentrating on her plan. When Mummy took her out of the bramble—when they saw people—then Tracey would run straight to another adult and ask for help. She’d holler and insist they help her. No matter how much Mummy pretended to be her mother, she was not. She was NOT!

  Mummy had stopped spinning and smiled at Tracey.

  “Where are we?” Tracey asked quietly. She was afraid to ask loudly, afraid that Mummy might turn mean again, and they’d retreat back underground.

  Mummy rolled her eyes, a look that Tracey had seen her mother do hundreds of times when Tracey asked a question that had an obvious answer, “We are outside, of course,” she said.

  Tracey swallowed the “duh” that rang in her seven-year-old mind.

  “This is where I come to exercise sometimes or just to read. Once, I even saw a family of deer playing right over there,” she pointed to a distant thicket.

  Tracey searched for something familiar—a parking lot, the park, people. Her hopes were quickly dashed. She looked up, searching the sky through breaks in the branches. Standing directly under a circle of sunlight, she saw a bunch of birds flying overhead in a circular motion. They weren’t flying together or in a pattern—they flew in random circles nearly running into each other. She blinked a few times and realized that the birds were actually little airplanes—the smallest airplanes she had ever seen. A smile stretched across her face as her mind settled on an odd noise, a noise that had been there all along, but that she had been too upset to hear: A hum. Tracey concentrated on the humming noise and separated the hum into two distinct sounds—an mmm and an rrrrr. The sounds varied in pitch, drifting from very high to something softer, more distant.

  Tracey began to point to the sky, then quickly brought her hand back to her side. Airplanes meant people, and somehow Tracey knew that if Mummy had known there were people nearby, she would take Tracey back to that awful place. She walked around the small clearing, watching Mummy out of the corner of her eye. It was no bigger than the cave where Tracey and Mummy slept. Tracey remembered her father telling her that she was as tall as her arms were long. Mummy was sitting on the ground, fiddling with sticks and looking the other way. Tracey stretched her arms out as wide as she was able, but was not big enough to reach both sides. I bet me and Emma and Mommy all hooked together, holding hands, could reach both sides. Tracey decided to see how many of her it would take to reach each side. She spread her arms, then moved to where she thought her fingertips had been. She was sure she was mistaken in where she stood and went back to the side of the bramble and started over—stretching her fingers, then hurrying to where her extended fingers had been. She was startled when Mummy laughed. In spite of her initial habitual flinch, Tracey laughed, too. It was fun being outside. Mummy got up and stood next to Tracey.

  “Reach, Tracey,” she said, kindly.

  Tracey smiled and reached her arms out, the sound of the airplanes faded away in the distance, but Tracey was concentrating so hard on figuring out how many Traceys it would take to cross the bramble that she had forgotten all about the airplanes. Her fingertips neared Mummy’s.

  “Put your fingertips on mine, Tracey,” she said. “We’ll see if we are long enough to reach the sides.”

  Tracey stretched her fingers further, until they were touching Mummy’s. Mummy smiled, and Trac
ey did, too.

  “Nope, not quite!” Mummy said. “This is like a mansion for us, huh? Our place isn’t this big, is it?”

  As Mummy spoke, Tracey’s heart sank. The reality of her situation came tumbling back. Her mind ran through the images of the rank mattress where she had slept for the last few nights, the horrid odor of the bad spot, and the worst realization of all—that she wasn’t going home. She’s talking about our place, Tracey thought. Her limbs began to tremble, her lower lip quivered, and she frantically scanned the enclosed area. I don’t want her place to be my place. I want to go home! Tracey dropped her arms and looked up, searching the empty sky for the planes. She listened, silently pleading that she would hear them—find some connection to the outside world. Gentle scamperings across the forest floor and her captor’s breathing were the only sounds she heard. Her shoulders slumped and her head dropped heavily forward. She stared at her sneakers which used to be white but were now soiled with mud, and grime, and red dirt, upon which she now stood. She stared at the ground as a glimmer of hope crawled through her body. Red dirt! The ground looked like the dirt that was in the backyard of her friend Cindy’s house. Cindy lived by the church in Boyds, and her mother always got mad when she and Cindy dragged that ugly red dirt into the house on their bare feet. Tracey spun around and again searched beyond the trees. Cindy’s house was nowhere to be seen. Tracey backed up until her back brushed against the prickly brambles. “Ouch,” slipped from her lips, and her captor turned to face her. Tracey closed her mouth tight and tried to keep from crying. She sank down, wrapped her arms around her knees and began to rock.

  Mummy walked toward her, stopping just inches in front of Tracey’s feet. Tracey stopped rocking. She did not look up. She kept her eyes trained on the ground, feeling Mummy’s presence looming. Mummy sat down beside Tracey, and Tracey began to cry, fearfully.

  “There’s no need to cry, Tracey,” Mummy said in an even, flat voice. “I have saved you.”

  They sat in silence for what felt to Tracey like hours, until the sun dropped behind the middle of the trees—until her captor told her it was time to go home.

  I can’t go back in that place, I just can’t! Tracey remained, huddled and silent, on the cold dirt.

  “Tracey,” Mummy insisted, “we have to go. Now!”

  Tracey remained still, paralyzed with fear. Her captor reached down and yanked her to her feet.

  “Move it, Tracey,” she ordered. She pushed Tracey from behind toward the opening in the ground. Tracey leaned her body backward, pushing into the ground with her heels as hard as she could. She blindly grabbed behind her, taking purchase of her captor’s jeans.

  “No!” Tracey shouted. “No! I can’t!” She kicked and scratched at her captor, hitting her with all of her might.

  Her captor grabbed hold of Tracey’s shirt, catching it on a bramble, and tearing it apart as she dragged Tracey into the dark hole.

  “Get off!” Tracey screamed. She swung at her, slamming her hand into her ribs. Her captor doubled over, keeping her tight grip on Tracey’s arm.

  “You little brat!” she screamed at Tracey, her eyes as vicious as a cold-blooded animal’s.

  Tracey’s fear turned to rage—the anger of being taken from her parents fueled her with renewed energy and strength. She fought with all the might of her sixty-three pounds, screaming, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” She broke loose and tried to wriggle back up the hole toward the last of the fading light, but was pulled back down by a quick yank of her ankle. Tracey shrieked, “No! I want to go home!” She clawed at the dirt, kicking fiercely at her captor’s face, “I’m not going back in there!” Tracey felt her arm being pulled and twisted behind her back.

  Her terrified screams were absorbed by the dirt walls of the tunnel.

  Eleven

  Molly pulled on a gray cotton sweater and her favorite blue jeans—the ones with several patches of mismatched fabric on the knees. She was excited about the upcoming evening, and as she heard Cole’s footsteps on the stairs, she was glad that he had made it home at a reasonable hour.

  “Hi, honey,” she cheerily called out. “I’m getting ready for tonight.”

  “Tonight?” he asked, as he entered the room. “What’s tonight? I’m so tired.” He fell backward on the bed, his arms and legs spread wide. His feet hung off the bottom of the bed, and his arms were just shy of the edges of the king-sized mattress. His rumpled scrubs top inched up and revealed an enticing swathe of his toned stomach, speckled with dark hair.

  Molly walked over and sat down on the bed next to him, running her fingers over the rough pattern on his cheeks, up around his forehead, and down the soft skin next to his eyes. She smiled, thinking that his face held the innocence of a child and yet the sexiness of a man.

  “Mmm,” he moaned. “That feels good. Can’t we just stay like this all night?” he asked.

  “Mm-hmm,” Molly responded. She stood up, sighed, and said, “No, no, we can’t.” She turned away to glance in the mirror, fluffed her thick hair, and scrunched her face in disapproval.

  “Why not?”

  “We have to go. Newton Carr is speaking about the history of Boyds at the Boyds Negro School tonight. Remember?” She put her hands on her hips, “Don’t you remember? We talked about this.” Molly was used to Cole’s mind, which, though she knew was like a sponge at work, she believed suddenly turned into a sieve when he left the hospital each afternoon.

  He made a face, groaned, and said, “Do we really have to?” He stood and walked toward Molly, reaching his arms around her, and looking at her with his big, dark eyes. “I’ll buy you Japanese and rub your feet if you let me stay home,” he coaxed.

  “Honey!” she smiled. “I want to go. We loved his other discussions, remember? Besides, you always like it once you’re there.”

  He made another do-I-really-have-to face.

  “C’mon. I’ll buy you Japanese and rub your feet if you come with me,” Molly urged.

  Cole smiled and relented. As he walked toward the shower, he said, “You owe me.”

  Molly snickered, “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  While Cole showered, she told him about Pastor Lett’s brother, his link to Kate Plummer’s disappearance, and his untimely death. She paused, waiting for a reaction, listening to the sound of the water being shut off, the remaining drips making their way to the shower floor. “She said Rodney knew things about the girl,” she hesitated, “I think he was like me.” She closed her eyes, not sure if she should continue, but could not control her impulse to share her thoughts. “I don’t think he was guilty.”

  Steam rose off of Cole’s body, a thick towel tied around his waist, his dark mass of hair sticking out in every direction, “What do you mean, like you, Mol? And what do you mean, not guilty?” he asked with a serious tone.

  Molly looked down at the floor. “You know,” she said sheepishly, kicking her foot out and back, off the side of the bed, “like I do? Like with nine-eleven? Remember?” She lifted her eyes and met his, she saw in them his recollection of her visions before the planes had crashed, the fear she’d conveyed, and his disbelief when the event finally occurred.

  “Yeah, I remember,” he sighed heavily, and sat down next to Molly. “Baby, why are you doing this? Why are you getting involved?” He put a protective hand on her leg.

  “I have to. I don’t know why.” She looked into his eyes, trying to convey her determination, the seriousness of what she was saying, “I dreamed about it, too.” The words rushed out of her before she had time to think about if she should say them or not, “I saw a little girl, curled up on the ground, and these...these...underground caverns or something. I saw a lady on a log.” She turned and opened her nightstand drawer, removing her dream journal. “It’s all in here,” she held the journal out to him. He didn’t move to take it. She pushed it toward him, “Take it! You’ll see.”

  Cole finally took the journal, looking at her with disbelief.

  “And look at t
his, Cole,” she unwrapped the bandages from her hand, “a perfect T.”

  He continued to look at her, his furrowed brow and his eyes portrayed a certain empathy, as if he felt sorry for Molly.

  “Cole! I know what you’re thinking,” she pleaded. “Look, it’s a T—like Tracey—T!” she said emphatically.

  “It could all be coincidental.” He watched her hopes deflate and suddenly realized how important this was to her. “Okay, okay, so you are serious, and maybe you know some things. Just be careful, okay.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close against his side, and kissing the top of her head. “You’re what matters to me. Everyone else is just peripheral.” He released her and stood to get dressed. “Let’s go listen to Newton.”

  Molly’s stride down the stairs revealed an exhilarated little bounce, happy that maybe Cole was beginning to believe in her, not realizing that he never even opened her journal.

  Newton Carr reminded Molly of a schoolboy making his first public appearance. Seventy-seven-year-old Newton’s skin was as dark as chocolate and smooth as butter, in stark contrast to his pale and appropriately-wrinkled wife, Betty. He stood before them, avoiding eye contact with anyone and fumbling with his papers—his hands moving from paper to pocket and back again. His short, thick, gray and white hair, small-framed glasses, and semi-nervous behavior accurately reflected his kind, soft-spoken demeanor. He had kept in relatively good shape for a man of his years by walking his little terrier every day. Although he was the unofficial historian and the keeper of all facts relating to Boyds, one was hard pressed to get an opinion about current events out of the man.