The Whispering Hollows

by Lisa Unger

  When Eloise looked back at Agatha, the old woman was frowning. In their many years of friendship and mentoring, Eloise wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Agatha look worried.

  “I don’t like this one, Eloise,” she said. She gave a decided nod. “I have a bad feeling. Keep your distance.”

  It did have a bad feeling. The Burning Girl was raw power, all childish rage. She was loneliness and misery. Eloise didn’t say anything.

  “Children are the most dangerous in this type of situation,” said Agatha. “They are the most unpredictable.”

  “But how?” Eloise asked. “How do I keep my distance?”

  Agatha sat up, gave Eloise a stern look. “You need to tell her that you can’t help her and that she must go home.”

  “I’ve never been able to do that,” said Eloise. “They don’t listen.”

  Surely, if it were that easy, she would have told it to all of the women and girls who had come to her over the years—the missing, the murdered, the abducted, the imprisoned, the abused. She had tried to help them all in the ways she had been asked. Eloise had located missing children, even led the police to a compound where girls and their mothers were being kept as slaves. She had uncovered long-buried bodies and given some measure of peace to parents who had spent years wondering about their lost loved ones. She helped bring killers and other evil men to justice. She’d helped Pennsylvania police locate a child who’d accidentally fallen down a well.

  She’d never once turned anyone away. What right did she have to do that when people needed her?

  “You have to mean it,” said Agatha. “Like children and dogs, they know when you don’t mean what you say.”

  Agatha was still frowning as she reached forward to take Eloise’s hand. Eloise felt her power, it was a current running from Agatha’s hands to hers. The woman was a force, some kind of anomaly of energy in the universe, a vortex. Eloise had never bought Agatha’s line about being seventy-five percent theater. Not at all.

  Agatha held on to Eloise tight.

  “You’re giving them too much,” Agatha said. “It’s eating you alive, Eloise. You don’t have to give them everything. You have a right to live.”

  Eloise blew out a breath.

  “I don’t know how to stop,” Eloise admitted.

  Agatha gave a gentle nod. “Or is it that you don’t want to stop?” she asked. “Grief has such a powerful pull toward destruction. And the living have it so much harder than the dead.”

  Her words touched some kind of chord, and Eloise bit back tears.

  “I don’t know,” said Eloise. “I just don’t know.”

  Agatha drew away, giving Eloise’s hands a final gentle squeeze as she did. “Think about it.”

  They sat in silence for a minute, a blue jay singing in the trees, a woodpecker knocking somewhere. Then:

  “A haunting is a relationship. It’s a give and take. Energy adheres—to people, to places. It seeks fertile soil. Then it burrows in and plants a seed. If conditions are right, the seed grows. It might literally be the land that The Burning Girl is attached to. You said that Miriam is depressed; that makes her vulnerable. It might be her that The Burning Girl wants.”

  Eloise listened.

  “It’s not about slamming doors and cold spots, demons dragging you from bed. That’s for the movies.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  It was true that in all her years doing this, Eloise had never seen anything like what she saw in the movies. In Eloise’s experience, this thing (whatever it was) was all about people needing help or justice, people who were lost and wanting to be found. It was about people who didn’t have voices or about unsettled energies broadcasting themselves. Only certain people could pick up the signals. But The Burning Girl was not like the others.

  Agatha shrugged. “What is any relationship about? People act out of only two motivations—love or fear. Everything else—greed, revenge, jealousy, sadness, kindness, generosity, passion, desire—are products of one or the other of those two motivators. Of course, it’s often hard to tell the difference.”

  “What do you think The Burning Girl wants?” Eloise asked.

  “It could be anything,” said Agatha. “But it doesn’t matter because you are going to stay away from her. Don’t let her get her hooks into you. You can’t help her. Right?”

  “Right,” Eloise said. She tried to make herself sound more certain than she was. Agatha frowned, unconvinced.

  This wasn’t the kind of answer Eloise had expected from Agatha, but she felt better than when she’d arrived. Agatha had given her something, some love, some kind of energy infusion. And Eloise was grateful, because Agatha was the only person who never took anything from her. Even Ray wanted and needed so much from her. If it hadn’t been for Agatha, her guidance, her friendship, her advice, Eloise wasn’t even sure she’d have survived the last fourteen years. She often felt bad that she had nothing to give Agatha. Eloise hoped that the old woman had someone or something that filled her up.

  “Don’t let them have everything, Eloise.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  Neither of them believed it.

  • • •

  When The Burning Girl came to call that same afternoon, Eloise told her, “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. You have to go home.”

  But The Burning Girl wasn’t having it. She proceeded to set everything on fire—the couch, the curtains, the clothes in Eloise’s closets. The whole house smelled like smoke, but of course only Eloise could smell it.

  Eloise still hadn’t told Ray about the girl. He had taken on a cold case, and he was consumed in the way he always was when he had a new one. Ray was always certain that he would be the one to find what no one else had been able to find. Eloise loved his confidence and his passion—until she didn’t.

  Ray’s new client, Tim Schaffer, had been searching five years for his missing wife, Stephanie. She’d simply failed to come home from work one night. Schaffer suspected foul play, had various theories that he had gone over in depth with Ray. But lacking any hard evidence, the police had closed the case. Tim had hired no fewer than five other private detectives since—one a year. He refused to give up on the woman he loved.

  There were so many cases like that, thousands of people a year who just went missing and were never found—though it was getting increasingly hard these days simply to disappear. When people couldn’t be tracked through cell phones or credit card use, the police generally assumed that they were dead. Possibly an accident—car off the edge of a cliff, maybe. Maybe a stranger crime—a seamless abduction, murder, and body disposal—though it was less likely. Or suicide—though most suicides left a note.

  But sometimes the missing person had actively sought to disappear. Which wasn’t a crime. An adult has the perfect right to walk off the edge of his or her life and never look back. Of course, most people don’t walk out on spouses, kids, relatives, jobs. Most people cling to those things. But some just toss it all away—depression, mental illness, or maybe they just get fed up with the day-to-day grind. For them, running away is the answer to those crushing questions: Is this it? Is this all there is?

  Ray wanted Eloise to meet the client, and she had agreed. She got in her car and drove to Ray’s office on the ground floor of a restored town house near The Hollows Historical Society. She usually didn’t love interfacing with clients, and Ray wouldn’t have asked her unless he was unsure about something. But today, Eloise was just happy to get away from the smell of smoke.

  She parked and walked up the tree-lined street, climbed the porch steps, and went inside. The office was a two-room space, consisting of an anteroom where a receptionist might sit, but in which there were only two folding chairs and a magazine rack containing back issues of National Geographic and nothing else. A doorway led to Ray’s space, which was furnished sparsely with a desk an
d chair, computer, phone, locked filing cabinet, and two more folding chairs. Eloise thought he should fix it up—paint, hang some art, get a few pieces of nice furniture.

  “Why?” he’d asked. “Are we hurting for business?” He had a point. Ray Muldune was a low-overhead kind of guy.

  She felt Tim Schaffer before she saw him. He gave off an unsettling kind of frenetic energy. When he shook Eloise’s hand, he pumped it as if he were trying to draw water. Eloise felt her shoulder crack.

  “Our life was perfect,” he said to Eloise when she sat down across from Ray’s desk. “We had just bought a house. We both had good jobs. We were talking about starting a family.”

  Schaffer never stopped moving, pacing, gesticulating as he ran down the details Ray had already shared. How his wife had simply not come home from work on a Wednesday night five years ago. She’d taken no money from their accounts, had never used their credit cards. Her car had never been recovered. His energy wound down as he finished his story, until finally he slumped his tall, lean form into the chair beside Eloise. His eyes kept moving, though, drifting from one point to the next, hardly ever settling until they eventually rested on Eloise.

  “Are you getting anything?” he asked her again. His hazel eyes bored into her.

  “It doesn’t work like that, Mr. Schaffer,” Ray said. “What Eloise does—it takes time. She may not get anything at all. I do the work of a private detective, and if Eloise gets something, it can be a big help.”

  “But are you?” he asked. He leaned so far forward, Eloise thought he was going to topple his folding chair. “Getting anything?”

  Eloise shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Schaffer was a man on broadcast, one of those that only talked and never took anything in.

  “I met with a man who talks to the angels,” Schaffer said. He ran a large hand through wheat-colored hair. “He said that my Steph was out there, waiting for me. He said that she was praying I would find her. He promised I would if I just kept going, if I never gave up.”

  Eloise struggled not to roll her eyes. There was no end of frauds out there, exploiting the desperate. She wondered how much that visit had cost him.

  Eloise could feel Schaffer’s sadness, his desperation. And something else, something darker. A childish wanting, an inability to release.

  “I see,” said Eloise.

  “Would it help if I brought you something of hers?”

  Eloise was about to say no. But Ray said, “Sure, that would be great.”

  “Are you going to be able to help me, Ms. Montgomery?”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Eloise. She beat a hasty retreat after that. Something about him was suffocating. Out on the street, she felt her breath return.

  • • •

  Meanwhile, The Burning Girl would not be ignored. Eloise had promised Agatha that she would tell the girl to go, that she would be firm. And she’d tried, she really had. But after a few days of fires in her house, Eloise finally got in her car and drove. What choice did she have?

  When Miriam came to answer the door, she didn’t seem to recognize Eloise at first. The young woman had that vacant look of fatigue that all new mothers had. In the thrall of little ones, all personal needs neglected or delayed, young mothers were a special breed of givers.

  Eloise remembered so vividly when her girls were small. There was almost nothing else in her life—just the kids and the house. These days, women wanted to work, too, wanted to achieve something. They had educations and grand expectations of their lives. Eloise had never wanted anything but a family and a happy home, which used to be normal but was now something laughable. The stay-at-home mom had somehow become an object of (subliminal) disdain. As if the job of raising children wasn’t an important vocation, as if it was something one should subcontract like the cleaning of your house or yard work. No, these days, you had to earn or be valueless.

  “Miriam,” said Eloise as the woman stared at her blankly through the screen. “Do you remember me? Eloise Montgomery.”

  “Oh, Eloise!” she said, her face lighting with recognition. “Of course. I’m sorry. I’m such a mess.”

  The young woman cast an exhausted but loving glance down at the cooing infant on her hip. “Ella’s so fussy.”

  “Ah,” Eloise said. “I remember those days.”

  “I don’t think my older one was ever this cranky,” she said with a smile. “But he was a baby such a long time ago now. You forget, don’t you?”

  The doughy, sweet baby was transfixed with Eloise, her big eyes staring, a little drool gathering in the corner of her Cupid’s bow mouth.

  “You do forget,” said Eloise.

  Miriam held the door open for Eloise, who walked inside. The house was tidy, plain. Eloise expected to see The Burning Girl there. But no.

  Miriam offered coffee. But Eloise declined, and they sat on matching plaid love seats, facing each other over a coffee table.

  “So,” said Miriam brightly. “What can I do for you, Eloise?”

  The baby fussed, and Miriam shifted her onto her thigh, bouncing her a little in that way that babies seem to like. Little Ella smiled at Eloise, and Eloise felt such a sudden grip of longing and sadness, she had to look away from the child.

  Eloise didn’t know why she’d come exactly, and she had no plans about what to say. But she just wound up telling Miriam about the girl she’d seen. Eloise only knew how to be direct.

  She could see by the pallor that came over Miriam that the young woman knew exactly who Eloise was talking about.

  Miriam didn’t say anything right away. And Eloise wondered if she should just leave. Then:

  “I saw her for the first time in the woods out back,” Miriam said. “I used to take a walk back there while my boy was napping. We’re so isolated here; it always seemed safe to do.”

  Miriam told Eloise how she saw the little girl dancing through the trees and followed her to a graveyard on the property that edged their property.

  “I looked forward to seeing her,” said Miriam. “It was a hard time in my life. We were trying for another baby. I had stopped writing. And I had suffered a number of miscarriages. I was struggling with depression. She was a bright spot.”

  Eloise nodded, made all the right affirming noises.

  “Then I made the mistake of telling Nick about it,” she said. “He flipped out.”

  “Why?” asked Eloise.

  “I don’t know,” said Miriam. “He was afraid, I think. He wanted me to stop going out there. And I did. Shortly after I stopped, I became pregnant with Ella.”

  Eloise got a flash vision, a quick view of the woman leaning over the bathtub, and her heart started to thump. She heard a child crying. But then it was gone, as quickly as it came. She’d broken a sweat, though.

  “Are you all right?” Miriam asked. “Eloise, what is this about?”

  “I’m fine,” Eloise said. “Sorry.”

  Miriam stood and handed the baby to Eloise. “I’m going to get you some water.”

  People were always rushing off to get Eloise water. Was it just a way to get away from her and the uncomfortable nature of the things that happened to her? Ella came to Eloise easily, gave her a big gummy smile, some soft gurgles. Oh, how fat and fragrant she was, what a bundle of raw energy. Eloise wanted to nuzzle her but settled for holding her around the middle, balancing her on her lap, and giving her a bumpy little ride.

  “Aren’t you precious, Ella?” she asked. “Aren’t you the sweetest thing?”

  Ella released a happy squeal.

  “That’s a compliment,” said Miriam, placing the glass on the table in front of Eloise. She lifted the baby off of Eloise’s lap. “She usually fusses.”

  Eloise had loved her baby time with Emily and Amanda. She remembered so vividly their wonderful little baby bodies
, their tiny hands and belly buttons. She remembered Alfie walking and walking them when they cried, giving them their baths, the midnight feedings. They were so worried all the time, hoping they were doing everything right. No one tells you that those years are the easy years. Physically harder, more exhausting, sure. But easier in every other way—you hold them in your arms, you can kiss all the hurts away. Their needs are so simple.

  Eloise watched Miriam unselfconsciously give Ella her breast. She felt better watching them, natural and beautiful, at one with each other. Agatha was wrong. Everything was going to be fine.

  “Miriam, if you see her again,” said Eloise, “you have to tell her to go away. Tell her you can’t help her.”

  She hadn’t planned to say this. But, yes, this was what she had come to say. She had to pass along Agatha’s advice to the person who needed it most. She felt that blessed rush of relief when she had done what she was intended to do.

  But Miriam’s eyes traveled to the window, and Eloise heard the sound of a car in the driveway, then a door slamming. A moment later, the door opened quietly. Nick walked in, holding a bouquet of flowers and a small plush bear. He moved carefully, obviously trying not to wake the baby if she was sleeping.

  “Hello?” he called quietly. “Where are my girls?”

  “In here,” said Miriam. Her face brightened with love; she instantly looked ten years younger.

  As soon as Nick saw Eloise, the happy expression he wore dropped into a frown. She knew the look of angry skepticism. The people who didn’t want to believe were the most hostile. Those who wanted to believe were open, accepting. The ones who didn’t believe at all might be mocking, or humoring, or just dismissive. But the people who were afraid that she might actually be what she said she was, and were afraid of what that might mean? Well, they could be downright dangerous.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked. He walked into the room purposefully and took Ella from Miriam.

  “Nick,” said Miriam. “Relax.”

  “What are you doing here, Ms. Montgomery?”

  “She just wanted to talk,” said Miriam. “About the girl in the woods.”