The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  “Ungrateful.” She shut off the sink and flushed the bowel. “Filipa, I swear, if you don’t answer me, you’re grounded until your next reincarnation!”

  Filipa was learning about world religions in school. She was, as she put it, “all about that reincarnation game.”

  Getting angry, getting anxious, Linnéa stomped her way down the hall, around the corner, and mountain-climbered up the staircase, calling her daughter’s name with every forceful step.

  Maybe good cop would work, so: “Hey, Dad found something funky in the garden. Come check it out.”

  Not a peep from Filipa’s room.

  So, she switched to bad cop: “I saw a switch outside with your name written all over it. What the heck are you doing?”

  Linnéa skipped the last few steps, vaulting onto the second floor. She was winded, and her heart was beating something fierce, but that had nothing to do with the stairs or that little bit of weight she couldn’t shake. It was the silence of the house, and the silence of her daughter, and all the voices inside Linnéa at this moment, all sounding off, all at once.

  Panic quickening her pace, Linnéa made it to Filipa’s room in no time flat and elbowed the door in.

  Filipa’s room was Filipa’s kingdom. An aquamarine court of velvet and frills. Aside from the band posters and corkboard of print-off cut-outs of inspirations, aspirations, hotties, and hotties that inspired aspirations, the room could’ve easily passed for one of those roped-off, price-tagged ‘slices of life’ you might find in some antique shop, in some antique town. A four-poster bed with a canopy made of stars; a chest of drawers covered in trinkets and odd, little boxes; several trunks stuffed with all sorts of pre-teen treasures. There was a typewriter in one corner, and a vanity in the other. And on one wall, all by its lonesome, a bookcase stood stuffed and buckled with novels whose spines were so worn you had to write their titles in with the dust that’d gathered there. It was all junk from Linnéa’s mother, stuff she’d left behind when she’d left them all behind. She’d been gone awhile now.

  But she’d just seen Filipa. Where the hell was she?

  Pits turning into sweaty swamps, Linnéa went red in the face, and then went down on her hands and knees and looked under Filipa’s bed. Not there. Linnéa hurried to her feet and opened the closet. Not there.

  Shouting Filipa’s name, Linnéa ran into her own room and searched every corner and crevice, but she wasn’t there.

  Crying Filipa’s name, Linnéa checked the second-floor bathroom and spare closet, but she wasn’t in either of them.

  Jesus Christ, where the hell was she? Linnéa doubled back to Filipa’s room, gave it a once-over, and then bolted down the stairs.

  “Stephen!” she cried, going into the living room, going into the family room.

  “Stephen!” she screamed, going into the kitchen, going into the basement; hating, for the first time since they’d moved in, how small it was, how there were so few places someone could hide in it.

  “Steph—”

  Stephen met her at the top of the basement steps, taking on her terror almost instantaneously.

  “I can’t find her.”

  “What? Did you check her room?” Stephen moved aside as Linnéa bashed past him, back into the living room. “Filipa!”

  “I checked everywhere, Stephen!” Linnéa shot him a damning look. “Go check that fucking van!”

  Stephen nodded and hurried out the back door.

  Linnéa told herself that Filipa was fine. That she was either hiding, or that she had gone back outside. The girl was quiet. If being a Brainiac didn’t work out for her, then a life of thievery surely would. But as much of a pain in the ass as she was, Filipa would’ve responded by now. She wasn’t mean like that, wasn’t cruel. She wouldn’t—

  Linnéa stopped in the living room. Her nose twitched. She smelled something. She couldn’t place it, but it had no place here. She sniffed the air. Something earthy, almost creek-like. That faint sewer pipe water smell. And then… oil. And rubber. Dirty smells. Manual labor smells. It was the kind of smell she associated with a certain kind of man. The kind that spent their Sundays at the bar, and their Mondays on the floor.

  Linnéa crept towards the front door, but for all her efforts, she never seemed to close the gap between it and her. It was like the house was recoiling, or she was from it. Something was wrong about it, like there was something wrong about the air inside it. Someone’d been here.

  She looked back up the stairs, and every hair on her body stood, as if just around the corner, someone was waiting. She glanced towards the first-floor bathroom, and couldn’t remember if that light was supposed to be on or off. Through the hardwood floor, she felt subtle vibrations, from her soles to her soul. She leaned farther, caught half the kitchen in her gaze—half the table with it—and her stomach flopped as she imagined someone sitting at it, just out of sight.

  “Filipa!” Stephen’s faint shouts carried in from the backyard. Each one was a cold confirmation of Linnéa’s fears.

  “Filipa!” His voice was getting quieter and quieter, as he undoubtedly drew nearer to the street, to the van.

  Linnéa started towards the kitchen again, but stopped. She’d heard something else. Shouting, but not Stephen’s shouting. It was a woman’s voice. Or maybe a girl’s. Yes, maybe a girl’s.

  Linnéa ripped open the front door and ran out onto the porch. “Filipa?” she wailed, looking left, looking right. “Filipa?”

  But it hadn’t been Filipa screaming.

  Down the street, Ellen Cross was standing on her porch, shouting “Darlene,” which was her daughter’s name.

  On the opposite side, farther down, Bethany Simmons was doing a tour of her house’s perimeter, calling out for Jimmy, her son.

  And then, as each teary-eyed woman acknowledged the other in communal horror, two houses over from Linnéa’s, Trent Resin hurried down his driveway and shouted to her, “Hey, Lin, have you seen Charles? I can’t find him anywhere.”

  SUNDAYMONDAYTUESDAYWEDNESDAYTHURSDAYFRIDAYSATURDAY

  She had not seen Charles, nor she had seen Darlene Cross or Jimmy Simmons; nor had any of their parents seen Filipa. It was Sunday when the four children had gone missing. And now it was Sunday again, one month later, and none of them had seen their children since.

  Dario Onai, the social worker who Ellen Cross had sought out for today’s and the previous weeks’ group therapy sessions, slipped into the room and gave each of the parents gathered here a neutral smile. He was on their side, it seemed to say, but he wasn’t their friend.

  Linnéa rubbed the crust out of her eyes and polished off the coffee in her thermos. Before she could ask, Stephen, sitting next to her at the conference table, took the thermos, got up, and went to refill it. He was always doing things like that these days—anticipating her wants, fulfilling her needs.

  Ever since Filipa had gone missing, an eternal winter had fallen over their lives, and it was in trivial movements they kept the fire burning in their bones. There were things that needed to be done that had nothing to do with finding their daughter, like paying bills or taking baths, or remembering to laugh at the television. But to do anything that didn’t involve bringing their baby girl home didn’t sit right with them. How could they go to work when, instead, they could take another tour of the neighborhood, or the outlet mall the unmarked van had been spotted at hours after the children had vanished? How could they kiss one another, hold one another, when it was Filipa who needed all the kisses and all the hugs? So everything they did, even something so simple as a husband getting his wife some coffee, was, in essence, tiny tributes to the altar of Filipa. Small promises that they’d go on living, doing as the living ought to do, but only because that was the only way in which this could all come to an end. If they breathed just to breathe, then it was settled; might as well be over. They’d freeze before this summer’s winter’s end.

  Mr. bigshot social worker, Dario Onai, would applaud Linnéa and Stephen for thei
r “self-determination” and “healthy, coping skills.” The other parents, though, didn’t seem to be faring as well.

  Trent Resin, single parent and proud taxpayer, wasn’t big on talking these days. He’d never been much of a chatterbox, but by the time the town threw together a second search party to scout out Maidenwood, there was nothing a scowl couldn’t get across that some fancy word could do better. Those woods were dense and dominated the north, northeastern, and northwestern stretches of Bitter Springs, Brooksville, and Bedlam combined. Even with the tracking dogs having a nose full of Charles, Darlene, Jimmy, and Filipa no one expected to find much out there. But they did. They found Charles Resin’s pool pass impaled upon a deadfall. Inside the pile of rotting tree limbs, they discovered a pile of clothes—T-shirt, jeans, socks, boots, and underwear—similarly speared. After Trent had stopped screaming, he finally managed to mutter to the party and the sheriff that those’d been the clothes Charles had been wearing before he disappeared.

  Now, for group therapy, Trent Resin was generally posted up by the coffeemaker, getting fat on caffeine, sugar, and stale snacks. Sometimes, he’d talk to Stephen about football or gardening, but the conversations never lasted more than a minute or two. Neither man cared enough about what the other had to say to carry on longer than what was needed.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Dario said, settling in at the head of the conference table. He glanced at Linnéa and Stephen, Ellen and Richard Cross, and Trent. “Anyone spoke with Bethany today?”

  On cue, the hot mess that was Bethany Simmons spilled into the room. She looked like a coat rack, and everything fit on her like it would on a coat rack. A rabid subscriber to all catalogues “Mom,” she was as basic as milk, and yet her enthusiasm couldn’t have been any more acidic. It ate through situations, etched out outliers, until only her and her opinion remained.

  “I am… so sorry!” Bethany smiled at everyone and waved vigorously. “God, so sorry.”

  Dario waved off her apology.

  But that didn’t stop Bethany from stealing the spotlight and giving the group a full update on how she was doing, what she was doing, and what she was going to be doing once this session of therapy was over.

  Linnéa tuned her out. She’d heard it all before, and she’d just as soon not hear it all again. Bethany Simmons wasn’t a bad person, but she was like one of those old TV shows doomed to an eternity of mid-afternoon reruns—enjoyable in small doses, until you can tell the time by it. The script might change, but the story was always the same. Two days after Jimmy’s disappearance, she’d aligned herself with Geneva, a self-proclaimed social activist. Using the girl’s online influence and her husband Todd’s checkbook, she launched a campaign to “Bring the Children Home.” Flyers. TV spots. Ads and blog posts. A hotline for people to call into with tips or sightings. T-shirts, pins, patches, and even raincoats, with countrified blue jeans in the pipeline. Bethany tended to be the one the local and national reporters spoke to. Sometimes Stephen would joke that people knew her face better than the faces of the children. Sometimes, Linnéa would laugh; other times, she’d just be glad it was Bethany brute-forcing their cause into the social psyche, and not her.

  “Todd couldn’t make it.” Bethany rolled her eyes in that kind of men-will-be-men sort of way.

  Todd couldn’t make it, Linnéa knew, because Todd was busy putting together the projects Bethany would eventually take credit for. During the first search of their neighborhood, and also their town of Bedlam, Todd had broken down into tears and started punching his fists into windows, until he fainted. His act of self-mutilation had been the catalyst for this group therapy business, but like most men who needed help, he wasn’t here to get it. Just the woman who loved him. Vicarious healing.

  Powering down, Bethany gave the floor over to Dario.

  “How is everyone?” he asked out of formality.

  Trent detached himself from the coffee maker and sat a few seats down from Stephen.

  Bethany started, “Well, I’m—”

  Linnéa cut her off. “Just taking it day by day.”

  “Day by day,” Dario reflected back at her. “How about you Stephen?”

  “Been writing in my journal,” Stephen said.

  “Has that been helpful?”

  Stephen’s mouth twitched. His personality would have him pried open, to prattle on, in detail, about the details of his journal. But his journal wasn’t his journal, but also Linnéa’s. And the journal wasn’t a journal, but one wall of their house completely covered in notes, pictures, print-outs, and a map of Bedlam. For a few days, they’d gone the second-rate, movie detective route and thrown-up string all over the place, too, to show connections. But it was more of a mess than it was worth. And it cheapened the whole thing.

  “I hate how quiet it is at home,” Linnéa said, bailing her husband out.

  “Have you tried playing music like we discussed?”

  A single tear slid down Linnéa’s cheek. She quickly caught it.

  “Does it remind you too much of Filipa?”

  Linnéa nodded, said, “Yeah,” and then: “I don’t know.” She pretended to play the guitar with her hands. “That’s okay, I guess. Just… can’t listen. She used to play her music 24/7.”

  “Keep playing, then,” Dario said. “It’s a good coping skill. Do you ever play for Stephen?”

  “Can’t afford her concerts,” Stephen said. “Have to listen from the nosebleeds.”

  The other parents laughed, probably because it seemed like the right thing to do.

  “I used to play a mean recorder back in the day,” Bethany said. “Lin plays guitar? Didn’t you used to do the drums back in high school, Rich?”

  Richard Cross looked at his wife, Ellen, before saying, “Uh, yeah.”

  Beaming, Bethany belted, “We ought to put a band together!”

  Linnéa squeezed her hand, until the tear she’d caught in it evaporated.

  Dario nodded at Bethany, but to Ellen, said, “The last time we spoke, you shared with us that you hadn’t been sleeping. You look tired.”

  Ellen rubbed the rosary around her neck. “We didn’t stay in a motel like I said we might.”

  “That’s good,” Dario said. “I know that must have taken a lot strength and courage for you to do that.”

  Richard shifted beside her. Either he disagreed, or he had something to add to the conversation.

  “You could stay with Todd and I if you wanted,” Bethany offered. “We have a lot more room now.”

  Stephen stared at Linnéa.

  Trent shook his head.

  Bethany cringed, and for a moment, she lowered her guard. With it, went the color from her face, and she bit her lips until her teeth had red #5 all over them.

  Dario wasn’t an idiot, though. Linnéa could give him that much. As a social worker, he was a human filter that caught the bullshit that often made it through for daily consumption. So, he rewound time on the lot of them and let out: “Richard—”

  Richard looked at his wife again, with daggers.

  “—were you going to say something just now?”

  Ellen and Richard Cross were their group’s resident holy rollers. Though they weren’t local missionaries like some of the zealots from their church, they were comfortable enough in their beliefs to interject them into every conversation; the same way someone might say “like,” “um,” or, “uh”—it was, for them, fulfilling filler that, to others, bordered on gibberish. While Bethany was busying herself with the material world, Ellen and Richard had turned to the spiritual for guidance and support. Linnéa couldn’t complain. Church-folk could get something done something fierce when they put their mind to it. She didn’t know what she was going to do with all their prayers, necessarily—as her father used to say, “If you can’t even wipe your ass with it, then what’s the point?”—but she appreciated the extra eyes and ears in the tri-county area. The donations were decent, too, but when she and Stephen started turning a profit off the foo
d and cards they were getting, it felt awfully indecent.

  “Well, go on and say it,” Richard said, folding his arms over his pregnant belly. “It’s what he’s here for.”

  Ellen seemed like the kind of woman who’d seen her fair share of brimstone before turning to the other side. Maybe it was the darkness under her eyes, or the way her freckles came together in blotches, like Rorschach blots. Or maybe it was because she was as severe as stone, and her skin was lightly fuzzed, as if molded. Her hair was always blown back, and her tongue was always white from dehydration. Crazed would’ve been the best way describe to her, but she was kinder than most anyone else. Sure, she looked as if she’d crawled out of hell through a twenty-year-old vent of bad stints, but that was alright in Linnéa’s book. At least she wasn’t the holier-than-thou type like her husband was.

  Problem with Ellen was you couldn’t tell how she was taking all of this. When you’re already eroded to the core, not much else damage is going to show.

  And then she said this: “I’m starting to hear voices.”

  Trent Resin straightened up. It was the first thing to have gotten his attention in the last two weeks.

  “Voices?” Dario asked.

  Ellen said, “Yes. I hear Darlene. She talks to me. It’s not my thoughts. It’s really her. I thought it was god at first, but it’s her. I know that sounds crazy—”

  Dario shook his head.

  “—but I think she’s trying to reach me from… wherever she is.” Ellen started to cry. “She feels so close, it’s killing me I can’t find her.”

  “It’s nerves,” Richard said, like every shitty doctor in every old school, Hollywood thriller. “That’s all it is.”

  Ellen, rubbing her rosary, shook her head, like a stubborn child.

  “Whatever it is,” Dario said, “if Ellen is hearing it, then it’s real to her. Ellen, what does Darlene say to you?”

  “I can’t make it out yet. I get bits and pieces—”

  Richard huffed and fingered his bellybutton.