If I Disappear

by Eliza Jane Brazier

  “Hello?” I say, afraid to say your name, afraid someone is watching. “Hello?” I bang on the door. When no one answers, I try the handle. We don’t lock doors here—your mother’s voice comes back. There’s no point. Your door is locked.

  I stand under the eaves, looking plaintively up. I move to peer through the windows. My heart palpitates, and I realize I am expecting to see your body. I am looking for your bones: a cool, smooth shinbone, the eye of a hip. I am expecting to find your skull waiting, mouth ajar to tell me your story and the story is this: It’s Murder, it’s Missing, it’s Conspiracy.

  Then I hear her breath behind me. Her steps follow my steps. I turn abruptly and I see your mother glowering at me in the dark.

  Episode 17:

  She’s Being Watched

  It started with a feeling, like she was being followed. Then the notes appeared, little letters in her mailbox. They started off innocuous enough. “I think you’re pretty” or “You looked good today.” But over time, the content changed: “You stuck-up, dirty bitch. I’m going to saw your fat tits off.”

  We walk back up the trail in silence. I think about the passage in the burn book: Either she’s a fucking psychic or she’s spying on EVERYONE. When your mother sees me hesitate outside my cabin, she says, “There’s something I’d better tell you,” and I follow her across the ranch to the main house.

  The inside is lavish—not modern or flashy, but clearly a rich person’s house. There is a grand piano, an ivory statue of Christ flashing the holes in his hands, polished wood floors, a mudroom and a sitting room and a formal dining room. I follow your mother to the kitchen.

  “Would you like a cup of tea? It’s my own recipe.” My chest contracts as I think of the bottles in the greenhouse, but I remind myself I have no evidence that she is a murderer. She may be tough, but she is probably not going to kill me. But she could. She could and I would be out here alone. How long would it take them to find me? What if they never did?

  “I talked to my parents today,” I say, just in case. “Told them all about this place. They’re excited for me. My friend too.” I never know what to call my ex-husband. “Ex-husband” feels too grandiose.

  She puts the kettle on, fills two tea strainers with her own leaves. She takes her time with the tea and I watch her, reminding myself to breathe.

  When she finishes, she brings the tea over—deep purple liquid in white cups on white saucers. She sets one in front of me. She takes the chair across from me.

  “I did tell you.” She taps her fingernails on her teacup. “Not to go down there.”

  She actually told me the trail didn’t exist. “It was an accident. I got lost. It’s easy to get turned around here, like you said.”

  I’m lying and she knows it; she must know it. I could lose everything now. I could lose everything for this mistake. You and my job and my place here and my tenuous grasp on your world. All because I wasn’t careful. I feel thick with the guilt. I have let you down.

  Your mother sits back. She exhales deeply. “I didn’t want to tell you this.” She leans forward. A light steam curls under her chin. “My daughter.” My vision sharpens: the wooden chairs, the table and the paperwork piled on the desk in the corner, the lights over our heads break into a dozen hard shapes. “Was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” I can’t believe it. Your mother said it, but I still can’t believe it. “How? By who?”

  “A gang.” She nods slowly, soothing herself. “Down by the creek. That very creek.”

  “But what do you mean, ‘a gang’?”

  “They’d been harassing her for years.” You never mentioned it.

  “Who?”

  “They had a big black truck. They dressed all in black. They wore balaclavas.” I thought this was an unexpected word. “And white surgical gloves.” It is like she is trying to block me from asking for evidence. She stops for so long, I think the story is over. Then, “My daughter was a great hostess. She was great with the guests—the guests all loved her. She was the kindest person. She was my best worker.” She wipes at her eyes but I don’t see tears. She doesn’t look sad, but her face radiates terror; it positively glows with it. “She didn’t want to make a ruckus, even when they—” She gasps and moves her fist toward her mouth, overcome. “They threatened her. They stalked her and harassed her until she was terrified.”

  I am shocked. I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe you never told me. All this time you were trying to save other people when you were the one suffering. How could you not tell me? How could you keep this to yourself?

  “What did the police do?”

  “The police?” Her eyelids squeeze out the light. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “She couldn’t describe them, because their faces and their hands were covered.” This is both convenient and incredible. “The police said there was nothing they could do.”

  “How could they do nothing?” Yes, we are familiar with police error, the mistakes and the cover-ups and the conspiracies, but to do nothing?

  “They told her to get over it,” your mother spits. “That’s what they’re like out here. They don’t care. They don’t care about us.” She adjusts her grip on her teacup. “This happened. But my daughter is strong. She wasn’t going to let them run her off the land, her home, so she stayed. She refused to carry, even though Emmett and I begged her. She was so brave. But they came again and again. They attacked her by the creek. They followed her when she was driving. They ran her off the road. She tried to be strong, but it kept on happening.”

  “But who were they?” I interrupt, confused. It is as if your mother has taken your narrative, dragged it in a new direction, a direction I didn’t anticipate. Maybe a direction I didn’t want. A faceless gang? It’s too far-out. It doesn’t sound real. You told me, there is a tier: first the husband, then the family, then the lover. Those are the primary suspects. Not faceless gangs in the middle of nowhere. Not strangers with no motive. “I don’t understand. She must have known them. Why would they target her?”

  “I told you. They don’t like us. The people in town don’t want us here. Never have.”

  “But why? Why her? Who are these people?”

  She shakes her head. “We don’t know.”

  I squeeze my aching knuckles. “But this is a small town. What about the truck? She must have recognized the truck?” I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t have noticed the details, that you would have been terrorized and not known by whom. You are a true-crime expert. You would have followed the clues.

  “She didn’t know,” she hisses. My questions are irritating her. And I don’t mean to victim blame. I just want answers. I just need to understand how all this could happen and you never said, you never told me anything.

  “What happened next?” I grip my cup and the warmth turns to burning on my skin.

  “They killed her.” It gushes like cold water all through me, like I have been dipped into the Klamath.

  “Was there a body?” My question is so clinical, it jars us both, but these are the questions, these are the questions we have to ask.

  Your mother takes the hit and collects herself before she says, “I don’t need to see a body to know my daughter is dead.” A rush of relief. No body. No body means no crime, not yet. There’s a chance you’re still alive.

  “Have you—have you looked for her body?”

  “Where?” she says like there’s nowhere beyond this house, beyond the perimeter in this place she doesn’t trust. In here, we are alive. Beyond us, nothing is.

  “Everywhere. Anywhere. You should be looking. Everyone should. If you truly believe she was murdered, the police should be involved.”

  “They don’t believe me.” She folds her arms, lifts her chin and shakes her head. “But a mother knows. A mother knows her child perfectly, the way God knows all
of us.” The way she says “God” gives me the creeps. “It’s not safe out here.” Her eyes dim and her chin drops. “That’s why you should never go down to the creek alone. That’s why you shouldn’t shop in the stores or go into town. They could be anywhere.” My instincts tell me “they” is a concept she constructed to control me. A way to keep me here inside the perimeter, the way she did with you, the way she made you feel like you could never leave. She knows that thoughts are contagious out here, and she wants me to catch her virus. “You’re safe on the ranch, but you’re not safe anywhere else. Do you understand me?”

  I nod my head. “I’m so sorry. . . . I can’t believe it.” She sits back in her chair. And I slide closer. I put my arms around her, going through the motions. “You poor thing,” I say. Her body stays rigid as I hold it against mine. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

  I don’t believe you are dead. I can’t believe it. I need to go beyond the perimeter. I need to talk to the people she doesn’t want me to talk to. I need to find out what happened, and fast. I don’t believe you are dead. But I do believe you are in danger.

  * * *

  —

  I lie in bed and listen to Episode 37: Your best friend should carry a list of names, a list of people to question, if something happens to you. And I think, Who is your best friend? Who carries this list? There is no one here. I don’t trust your mother, and I don’t think you would choose her. There’s your father, but I sense it is someone outside the family you would turn to. You never mentioned Jed. You never mentioned anyone outside of your immediate family, and I suppose I always thought you were like me: alone.

  I need to find your best friend and your list. I need to go to Happy Camp, to talk to the police, to quiz the locals. And I need to get inside your yellow house. I don’t believe what your mother said. You told me not to trust anyone. Stories are contagious out here, and I can’t let myself be infected with anything but the truth.

  I fall asleep listening to you. In my dream I am running through the woods. They twist and re-form like a kaleidoscope in front of me, like a shifting maze. And then I see my own street up ahead, the street I grew up on, narrow, pedestrian, and I run faster. I run home. And when I am close—so close I start up the drive, so close my hand reaches out toward the doorknob—my body loses gravity. It lifts, a weightless thing untethered, and I float up into the sky. I hover there in a basin of stars.

  Then I feel you behind me. Your fingers slide over the crook of my elbow. I hesitate, then slip my hand over yours. Your chin hovers over my shoulder as you lean forward and whisper in my ear, “Take this man or any man you can get your hands on.”

  It’s like no dream I’ve ever had before. It feels so real. And I think we have crossed into another realm together, and I think, just as fast, that it’s my own hand. I am touching my own hand and believing it’s yours. And then you disappear.

  I fight my way awake, through the various chasms of sleep, through paralysis, into one world where I wake up, sit up in bed only to realize I am still asleep, then dive back into a dream, then fight back, until finally I awaken and search for my phone to write down your words before I forget, only to find that I am still asleep.

  * * *

  —

  I think of your words as soon as I wake up the next morning. And it’s clear in the cold light of day that they are the same gibberish as any other dream directive. Dreams have a way of marrying intense emotion to absolute nonsense. Are you telling me your killer was a man? Are you telling me to get married? Sleep with any man I can find? Out here, that may be difficult.

  I want to write the words down, even if they are nonsense, but I forgot to charge my phone. I think of the journal, and I slip my hand under the mattress. My chest hurts, like I’ve swallowed something whole.

  I get out of bed. I lift up the mattress. My knees shake. My head feels light. The book is gone. I check the floor. I run my hand along the bottom of the mattress. I must have moved it, must have forgotten, must have taken it, half asleep, and hidden it somewhere else, but where? Why?

  And then I think of your mother, of what all those people said, how she is always watching. Maybe she came to my cabin before she found me; maybe that’s how she knew I was gone. Maybe she discovered the book. Of course she would want to get rid of it.

  But it still bothers me. Why was she in my room? Why was she looking under my mattress in the first place? But then, it’s not my room; it’s not my mattress. Everything on this ranch is hers. I work for her. Even I belong to her, in a way.

  My breath feels trapped in my throat, like I need permission to breathe. I have never felt so WATCHED.

  What am I doing here? Your mother thinks you’re dead. And there is no one around to contradict her. I should leave, try to put the pieces of my life back together. That is what the old me would do. Go back. Start over. End up in the same place.

  But you wouldn’t leave. You wouldn’t give up. You would know this is only the beginning. The first clue. You wouldn’t let one witness write the narrative. You would keep searching, putting all the pieces together, until you had a whole mosaic of truth.

  My ears prick at the sound of an engine. There are trucks that pass on the highway, more often than I would expect, and because there are no other sounds, I can hear every one with startling clarity, but this one seems to roar right into my bedroom. I hop out of bed and walk outside. The horse fields are dewy in the half-light; the barn still holds deep shadows.

  A black SUV has pulled up outside your mother’s house. The dogs bark and circle as a man climbs out, with black hair and a curled body that hops as if walking over coals. He opens the back and starts to unload boxes from the car. Your mother appears at the door, rushes down to meet him. She doesn’t greet him but moves straight to the boxes. Their voices bounce back and forth. This must be your father.

  I don’t meet him right away. Your mother wants me to take over feeding the horses, so I head over to the barn first.

  The job is harder without her. I am supposed to slot two bales of alfalfa into the tractor loader, and I can’t make them fit. I try to force them down. I try different angles, but no matter what I do, the flakes balance precariously, so if I move the tractor at all, they will fall off. I am wearing gloves, but the air is cold and biting and little stalks of alfalfa collect inside my jacket, down my shirt and in my shoes, poking me. The dust makes me sneeze.

  Eventually I settle for the best I can do and climb into the driver’s seat. I turn the engine twice, so the motor revs and crackles. I press the reverse pedal. The tractor doesn’t move. I push harder. The engine crackles again, and I realize I have left the parking brake on. I release it and reverse. I come to a stop. The flakes sway but don’t fall. I adjust the speed and press the forward pedal. Six flakes fall to the ground. I run them over.

  I am near tears. I know it’s silly, but I feel like an idiot. I am not the best employee; I tend to crack under pressure, lasting two weeks at one job, six at another. I have never felt so watched, even though your mother and father are inside the house. I am sure that I will be fired. That I will lose my place at the ranch and my connection to you. I will never find you. I will fail, like I always do. And you and I will disappear.

  I give up on stacking the loader, and I carry a pile of alfalfa flakes by hand to the first pasture. I throw them too close together, and the horses fight, rearing up, snapping their teeth, tearing skin from withers and leaving bright patches of pink. Panicked that your mother will see, I crawl under the fence to separate the flakes. The alpha horse, a blood bay Arabian with nostrils flared, charges me. I wave my hands in the air to scare him, but he tosses his head and runs faster. I dive back under the fence. He skids to a stop behind it, then rears up again.

  I lean against the tractor, heart pounding in my ears, adrenaline coursing through my veins. My head spins, like I can feel the highway twisting all around me.


  These horses are not like the tame, stabled horses I grew up with. They are herd bound, with room to run and fight and ignite their instincts. And I can’t do this, and I don’t know why I thought I could. I have never worked at a barn, and I am afraid of horses, I suddenly remember. That was why I stopped riding. Because one day I woke up terrified of dying, and every time I got on a horse, horrific accidents would run through my mind, in Anxiety Technicolor. I would see myself flip over the horse’s head and land on my shoulder—crack—and snap my collarbone. Or I would slip off the side with my foot still trapped in the stirrup and get dragged beneath the horse’s pounding hooves. Or the horse would rear up and fall sideways on top of me, crushing all the bones in my legs to powder.

  I force myself to stare straight ahead, to regulate my breathing. I startle at a shrill whinny, and then I see Belle Star. She is prancing with a limp. With every step her shoulder dives and snaps up abruptly. There is blood streaming from her nose.

  Episode 21:

  Something’s Not Right

  We all know when something is truly, deeply wrong. We know it in our bones. Sometimes we blame it on other things—our jobs, our lives, ourselves. But the truth is, there is evil around us all the time, infecting us. . . .

  I stumble off the tractor and start toward the house, panicked. I run, like I ran in my dream, picking up speed so my lungs swell. I don’t know if there is too much oxygen or not enough, but I can’t breathe. I can’t catch my breath, and the muscles above my heart contract like a fist. As I pass the lodge, I hear the plaintive cry of a phone ringing off the hook, but it only makes me go faster. I run all the way to your mother’s house. I rap on the back door so electrified, I am shaking.

  “Come in.” Your mother’s voice. I open the door to the mudroom. Beyond it, your mother and father sit at the breakfast table.