Dr. Young frowned. “Her moonbeam? What’s her moonbeam, Audrey?”
“A bunny,” Audrey said. “A little stuffed bunny I made just for her when she was small. It’s dark blue, like the sky at night, and has silver stars for buttons down its front. She holds Moonbeam tight, and I tell her we’re going on an adventure.”
“An adventure to where?” Dr. Young asked.
The room held its collective breath.
Audrey leaned forward, and Dr. Young did the same.
Jenna’s heart was beating in her throat.
“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret,” Audrey said in a slow, exaggerated whisper. “We can’t tell anyone. Especially not Daddy.”
She held a finger up to her lips and whispered, “Shh.”
Every set of shoulders in the room dropped, and Jenna exchanged a glance with Lars, who looked like he was balancing on a precarious edge.
Without considering the consequences, Jenna turned back to Audrey. “Can you show us?” she asked.
It was the first time she’d spoken during the sessions, and Dr. Young sent her a cutting glance.
“We’ve got to hurry, turtledove. And be very quiet. We don’t want anyone to see us,” Audrey said.
Then she rose, her eyes unfocused, and walked slowly toward the door.
The small crowd in the room stared, transfixed.
Audrey turned back to face them.
“Come on, slowpoke,” she said with a small smile. “What are you waiting for?”
51
“Oh my God,” Owen whispered as they came to a stop.
Jenna was seated behind him on a snowmobile she hadn’t known was hidden beneath an old cover in the Jorgensens’ garage. Her cheeks were stinging from the cold, though she and Owen had taken a slow pace, far back from the four figures that hiked in snowshoes through the drifts and the trees.
Jenna marveled they’d managed the herculean feat of getting the small group outfitted and on their way.
Dr. Nordquist, who’d been mostly silent during Audrey’s previous few sessions, had finally found a place to stick his oar in.
“I really must protest,” he hissed at his colleague. “This is highly irregular and shockingly unprofessional. You can’t possibly intend to take a hypnotized patient out into the snow to go haring off to God knows where!”
The man’s face had gone an alarming shade of red, and despite Dr. Young’s proven ability to stand her ground, she appeared torn.
“Perhaps it would be best to begin again on another day.” She looked apologetically in Lars’s direction. “When we’re better prepared.”
Lars didn’t pause.
“No,” he said. “We do this today. I’m going to follow Audrey wherever she chooses to lead. Jenna, if you could help Beverly dress Audrey for the outdoors, I’d appreciate it. I’ll be right back with what we need.”
Jenna nodded, powerless to stop this train now that it was barreling down the track.
“Dr. Young, you can come with me or not. That is entirely your decision.”
And with that, Lars walked out of the cabin.
Sergeant Allred exited on his heels, but if he thought he was going to talk Lars out of the madness, Jenna could only wonder if he was prepared to use the gun holstered at his side.
Audrey was pliable, though not necessarily helpful, as Jenna placed layers over her clothing and wrapped her yellow scarf around her neck. The doctor hadn’t brought her out of her hypnotic state. Instead she’d asked her to wait. Jenna had no idea how well that would work, and wasn’t entirely sure the doctor did either.
After a moment’s indecision, Dr. Young also began donning her winter clothing. Wherever her patient intended to go, it apparently wouldn’t be without her.
“Dr. Young—” Dr. Nordquist started again, sounding scandalized.
“Oh, shut up,” Dr. Young replied, standing firm now that her decision was made.
The sergeant and Lars returned to the cabin together.
“I only have three pairs of snowshoes,” Lars said. “Sergeant Allred has a pair for himself. Owen, you follow with Jenna on the snowmobile. Stay back a fair distance. We need to let your mother lead the way.”
Lars looked apologetically in Beverly’s direction.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You go.”
He nodded, then looked Dr. Nordquist up and down.
“We don’t have room for you.” He dismissed the man while the doctor stood with his mouth gaping, looking like a fish.
And so they’d set off, the doctor, the policeman, Lars, and his wife, whom they supported along the way.
It had taken a few minutes for Owen to get the snowmobile from the garage, but there was a clear path to follow, and they soon saw the others in the distance.
Owen did as his father asked, keeping well back, following their trail.
They’d been doing just that for nearly half an hour before Jenna felt Owen stiffen.
“What’s the matter?” she’d asked loudly over the whine of the engine.
For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer, then she heard his reply.
“I know where she’s going,” he’d called back.
Jenna had no chance to ask more. Owen twisted the throttle, and they set off with more speed than she’d anticipated, forcing her to throw her arms around him while they caught up to the group.
They’d come around the opposite side of the lake from where Lars had shown Jenna such a spectacular view just days before. Here the elevation felt lower, and the stand of trees the group had disappeared into was thick, creating a wall that was difficult to see through.
Owen slowly took the snowmobile between the trees, following through an open space just large enough for them to fit.
He cut the engine, and the sudden silence was shocking. Everything was muffled, blanketed in white. Jenna wondered if her hearing had been left somewhere on the trail behind them.
She was relieved to hear Owen’s soft exclamation.
Then Jenna heard a sound that stole her breath. It was a deep, almost grinding moan that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was followed by a sharp, thundering boom.
She flinched, and her eyes widened as she gripped Owen’s arm. He glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of her expression.
“The lake,” he said, gesturing with his chin. “It’s just on the other side of those trees.”
“The lake is making that sound?” she whispered.
He nodded, but his attention was on his parents.
The clearing was small, no more than ten feet by ten, and crowded with four adults standing side by side and the nose of the snowmobile jutting in.
Owen stepped into the snow and sank to his knees in the white powder.
“Stay put,” he said to her unnecessarily. She had no intention of getting off the seat.
“Audrey, is this where you stopped?” Dr. Young was asking. She sounded different outside the confines of the cabin. Smaller. Less assured.
“You’ve got to stay here, turtledove,” Audrey replied. “Be a good girl for Mommy, okay. We’ll be safe here, where no one can find us. This place is magical, remember. Like I told you. Like the fairy tales.”
“You and the children know this place, Audrey?” Dr. Young asked. She looked uncomfortable on the snowshoes, but she was handling the situation admirably.
Audrey smiled, glancing around, though Jenna thought she was probably seeing the place not as it was, but as it had been that summer so long ago.
“We play here. On the good days,” she said. “We read stories and make up games. This is our place. Owen and I found it when he was little, but he never wants to come here with me now.”
Audrey’s smile lost its shine and slowly dissolved.
“And this is where you bring Francie and Will?” Dr. Young forged on.
“Yes,” Audrey said, her voice soft and nostalgic. “Nothing bad can happen to us here.”
Audrey opened her arms wide and sl
owly turned in a circle, clumsy in her snowshoes. A chill swept through Jenna that had nothing to do with the weather.
Suddenly, Audrey dropped her arms and looked frantically around.
“I have to get Owen,” she said. “I have to bring him here, where he’ll be safe with me and his brother and his sister. No one can take them from me while we’re here.”
Audrey looked from face to face, searching for something. Or someone.
Her gaze landed on Owen, who stood mute and unmoving.
She tilted her head and stared into his eyes, this man she didn’t recognize as the boy he’d once been.
“I have to get Owen and bring him here too,” she said directly to him, while a small smile played across her lips. “Then we’ll all be safe, together. Happily ever after. Forever and ever. Amen.”
52
Jenna sensed they’d gone past a precipice.
Once back at the cabin, a great many things hung between them, unsaid.
Sergeant Allred phoned for a patrolman to escort Audrey and her doctors back to the hospital, then stepped farther down the small porch to make other, more pressing, calls.
Beverly took one look at the faces of those gathered and caught Jenna’s eye, gesturing silently toward the spare bedroom down the hall.
Jenna followed, then told her in hushed whispers what had taken place at the clearing on the far side of the lake.
Watching her face, Jenna marked the moment concern drained from Beverly and fear grew to fill the empty space.
“I think I should stay,” the older woman said, holding one delicate, fluttering hand to her throat.
Jenna wished she had reassurances to give her. In the end, all she could say was “That would probably be best.”
When the women reemerged, only the three men remained, having a somber discussion of their own.
Lars nodded gravely, then reached out to shake the policeman’s hand.
“I’ll be in touch,” Sergeant Allred said, then took his leave as well.
“What is he going to do?” Beverly asked in a shaky voice.
Lars and Owen exchanged a glance, then Owen faced his grandmother and said, “He’s going to coordinate a search of the area Mom led us to.”
“A search . . . for . . .” Beverly couldn’t go on.
“For Francie and Will, Bev,” Lars added gently.
“But they searched before,” Beverly cried. “If there was anything to find, they would have—”
But Lars was shaking his head. “Yes, they searched, we all did, but they could have been anywhere between here and Iowa, Bev. And there were sightings, remember?”
Beverly’s fear was palpable, but she struggled visibly to rein it in.
“I remember,” she agreed quietly.
There was so much more that could have been said. An infinite number of words and combinations of words that remained resolutely locked behind closed mouths.
All they could do was wait.
The Jorgensen family was well versed in the tortuous art of waiting. All of them, so stoic in their own ways. Jenna couldn’t help but wonder how they’d fare if Sergeant Allred were to call with news that the remains of the children had finally been located.
Or—a potentially more disturbing thought—news they had not. That, after everything, Francie and Will Jorgensen were still, and possibly forever, lost.
Within hours, the phone rang. Everyone in the cabin stared as if it were a cobra rising from a basket.
Lars took a deep, girding breath and walked toward it.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely into the receiver. A pause followed. The old man’s sober face gave away no clues.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I understand. Thank you.”
He turned to Jenna and his family. He looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looked tired.
“They brought in a team to shovel the snow from the clearing.” His voice was devoid of emotion. “Using ground-penetrating radar—” He stopped to clear his throat before he could go on. His eyes were pointed somewhere above their heads. “They believe they may have found indications of something buried beneath.”
Beverly gasped and covered her face with her hands.
Owen stood and took a step toward his father, but Lars held up one hand and gripped the back of a kitchen chair with the other. His head dropped low, and Jenna’s heart bled for him in places she’d believed drained empty and left for dead.
“They won’t know for sure until tomorrow. They need to go back to the site with a grave heater before—”
But Lars had reached the end of his endurance. His voice broke cleanly in two, and he dropped to his knees on the kitchen floor.
53
The earth continued to revolve around the sun at the same pace it always had, but Jenna had rarely experienced a night so interminably long.
There were no hypnotherapy sessions the next day and little to do to fill the time.
Lars had spoken hardly at all since the day before. He’d waved off their concerns about his heart, saying only, “The damn thing is going to quit when it quits.”
Standing at the windows, Jenna watched Lars, who’d gone out to the lake just before sunrise. He’d found a large bucket from somewhere and tipped it on its end to use as a seat. Occasionally he pulled a rock from his coat pocket to skip over the ice.
Mostly he sat. Silent, still, and alone.
Owen came to stand at Jenna’s side. “It kills me to see him like this,” he said.
It would have been hard to say if the devastation coming from Owen was more grief or self-inflicted guilt.
“There was nothing you could have done, Owen.” It had been said before, but was worth repeating.
“I should have known.” He watched his father, worry etched on his face. “I should have looked. I should have said something. There are so many things I should have done, Jenna.”
She turned to face him.
“Owen, you were ten. You couldn’t have known.”
He leaned his shoulder against the window jamb.
“But I did,” he said. “At least, I knew she believed that place was special.” He glanced back out the window and gave a humorless chuckle. “Hell, it was special. That was where my mother became magical. Where all the forgotten dinners and the manic flights of irrationality and the bouts of crippling depression were gone. Like all that was the imaginary side of her, and when we were there, at the hideaway, that was what was real.”
Jenna reached out and took Owen’s hand into hers. She gave it a squeeze.
“I couldn’t go back after they were gone. Without her and Francie and Will . . . I couldn’t do it. Not for years. And then only once. It still looked magical, but it made me feel empty. I never went back again. And the whole time . . .”
Owen let go of her hand. He gave her a sad almost-smile before he pushed his hands into his pockets and walked away.
Without the desire to read, and with no one in the mood for a meal, Jenna cleaned the cabin instead.
It killed some time. Still the phone didn’t ring. Owen left to run an errand, though she didn’t ask if it pertained to the garage or his daughter.
Beverly stayed closeted in the spare room. Lars refused to come off the ice.
Jenna sprayed the counter with disinfectant and wiped it down a second time for good measure.
She was almost grateful to hear Cassie’s voice.
“You’re missing something, Mom,” her daughter said.
Jenna glanced down at the countertop. It sparkled, as it should after the double treatment she’d given it.
“Not the counter,” Cassie said impatiently. “Why are you cleaning anyway?”
“Because it needs to be done, Cassie,” Jenna muttered aloud. There was no one in the room to give her a sideways glance.
“Mom, you’re not paying attention.”
Jenna regretted welcoming Cassie’s company in that moment.
“Jesus, Cass, let me be.” J
enna leaned one hand against the edge of the counter, and her head drooped on her shoulders.
“But why does it need to be done?” Cassie asked, unwilling to let it go.
Jenna had no idea what she was getting at.
“All that time you spent, plotting and planning for a novel you never wrote. What happens when, what comes next . . . And you never got it. You still don’t get it.”
Jenna blew out an irritated breath and shook her head, her eyes narrowing.
But Cassie wouldn’t leave it alone.
“A story only matters if the people in it matter. The people. The plot is irrelevant. Secondary, as long as you allow the people to guide you where they can’t help going next.”
“What is your point?” Jenna’s voice rose with a frustration she couldn’t contain.
“Every character has their own agenda. Their own wants and needs and loves and hates and fears.”
Jenna threw the sponge into the sink of soapy water, and suds splashed onto the countertop. “If you have something to say, just spit it out.”
A knock on the door made her jump.
She straightened her blouse and tried to slow her racing pulse as she walked slowly to the door.
“Every character,” Cassie whispered, just before Jenna turned the knob.
54
Lars saw the detective pull up and hurried to the house. Beverly, who’d heard the knock, emerged from her room. Owen, with impressive timing, arrived and parked in the drive just behind Sergeant Allred, completing the group.
They fanned out, the Jorgensens and Jenna, facing the sergeant, dreading whatever news he’d come to deliver.
Any doubts they might have had were swept away when he removed his police cap and held it in both hands.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Jorgensen,” Sergeant Allred said, looking Lars in the eyes.
“Say what you need to say.”
“We’ve excavated the place where radar indicated a possible grave.” The policeman took a deep breath and plunged on. “We’ve discovered what appear to be bones.”
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