Hideaway

by Nicole Lundrigan

  Susan’s mouth was a straight white line.

  “Well, why wouldn’t someone call that in?”

  “Not everyone has phone service around the lake. Maybe she didn’t want to get involved. Or maybe she explained it away. Didn’t believe her own eyes. People see all kinds of things, ma’am, but just don’t think it’s worth reporting. And most often they’re right.” He coughed. “Her husband stopped over in the morning, but no one was there.”

  The porch was creaking and creaking as she walked.

  “This is not the news we wanted to bring you. It truly isn’t. Our team of officers has worked very hard. They’re distraught over what’s happened. They send their condolences, Mrs. Janes. We’re very sorry.”

  “Very, very sorry,” Susan said. She held her hands tight. The toes on her shiny shoes were touching each other.

  “That man’s demented. You can’t trust what he says. Things’ll be okay. Telly’s coming. Everything’ll be okay.”

  “Ma’am, I know this is so hard to accept. He’s confessed. Signed a statement. Our officers found a T-shirt at the bottom of a rowboat. There was an image of a donkey on it, consistent with Maisy’s description, and it appeared to be bloodied. We’re confident the T-shirt is Rowan’s. And there was blood and hair on the oar, Mrs. Janes.” He rubbed his face again. “We’re searching now. Got the best divers out there, I guarantee it.”

  “So they had a fight. Rowan would’ve taken off.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “Have you checked the bus stations? Is his photo up by the trains? He’s run away. I know it. He might’ve been with that man, but he didn’t stay. He’s run away. He could be who knows where by now. Far away from Little Sliding. We need to make the search bigger, not turn it into nothing. He didn’t drown. That’s not what happened. If you don’t keep looking, you’re not going to find him. You need to search. Telly will say the same thing. You’re not taking this seriously and he’s just getting further and fur—”

  “Ma’am!” He squished his eyes like he had a headache. “We’re taking this very seriously, Mrs. Janes. It’s not the news we wanted to bring, but we’re confident we’re on the right path here. Ansel’s Lake is a large body of water. We want you to know we won’t give up searching. Trying to recover your son.”

  Then Telly’s truck growled and crunched down the driveway. Rocks popped out under his wheels. I could see the busted red light. He jumped out and ran up onto the porch. “What’s going on?” he said. He lifted his hat straight up and pulled it back on. It was the same one with the car on it.

  “Oh, Telly. Where’ve you been?”

  “Dealing with Dian,” he said. “She’s had— Well, she hasn’t had a good day.” He looked hard at Gloria.

  “How unfortunate,” Gloria said. “But that, that, whatever you call that woman, and what type of day she had should be the last thing on your mind.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  The man stood up. “Do you want us to—to share things with your husband?”

  “No, no. I should tell him. I’ll, I’ll try.”

  “What’s happened? Glow?”

  “They got this terrible idea. But trust me, you won’t believe a word of it.” Then everything fell out of Gloria’s mouth. A huge splat. All the same words that the man without the tie said.

  “Jesus.” Telly’s mouth was wide open now. I could see his new white teeth. “For the love of Jesus.”

  “It’s not true, Telly. We can’t stop waiting for him to come back. I promised Maisy. We’re going to be a family. Rowan’ll come home and we’ll be a family again.” She grabbed at his arm. “We can’t stop searching for our boy. Far and wide, Telly. The police looked at this Carl person, but they never looked nowhere else. We got to stay together on this!”

  Telly didn’t seem to hear her at all. He rubbed at his face and paced around. Then he pulled his fist back and was going to punch the side of the house. He stopped a tiny bit from the wood. I jumped. He said swear words.

  “Mr. Janes,” Susan said. “Sir. You need to keep a cool head. Please. I understand your shock and your rage, but your daughter is right here.”

  She squatted down next to me and touched my shoulder. I twisted away.

  “What’s going to happen to that bastard? Hey? What’s going to happen?” Telly bounced up and down.

  “You’ve got my word. Howard Gill will remain in custody.”

  “Jesus,” Telly said again. “None of this makes no sense to me. What was Row following him for? What put that in his head?”

  “He’s a teenager, Telly. Acting out. Got no sense of what’s dangerous.” Gloria shut her eyes. “He needs his father around. We all do.”

  “He came to the garage. Remember I said, Glow? Wanting to talk to me. But I never—I never. I never gave him no time. Just got rid of him.”

  “Mr. Janes. No one can predict—”

  “Why’d I do that? Why didn’t I show him I cared? I loved him, I did. I loved him so, so much. And I didn’t do nothing.” He was shaking hard all over. Gloria hugged him. “Just too worried about my own shit. That’s all I was. Thinking my own shit mattered.”

  “Oh, Telly,” she said. “Oh, Telly. Sit down. Sit down for a minute. I’ll get you a drink. We can’t give up. We can’t. I just don’t believe it. I won’t.”

  He took Gloria’s special chair. His greasy hands were on his knees. “Glow. C’mon. Listen to yourself. They got his statement. No matter what’s going through a man’s head, no way he’d lie about killing a child.”

  Then he started crying. I never seen Telly cry before. His mouth was open and sounds popped out, like old towels getting ripped up. It made my heart go super fast.

  Gloria got down in front of him. She put her head in his lap. He patted her hair. Her back was twitching. “Now, now,” he said. “We’ll get through this. We will. We’ll see each other through, Glow.”

  The man’s voice was cotton-ball soft. “We’re going to go, Mrs. Janes. Give you all some privacy. I’m certain Channel 2 or Channel 6, once they get wind of what happened, will be trying to get another interview. You’re under no obligation to talk to them. Or anyone else, for that matter. Absolutely none. It’s your choice.”

  The man and Susan went down the steps and got in the car. When they drove out of the circle they never turned their lights back on.

  “I want you home, Telly. I need you home.”

  Telly wiped his face hard. “You hear yourself? Is that all you think about?”

  “You need to be here, we’ve got to make a plan.”

  “He’s gone. Gloria. The boy can’t swim a single stroke. I—I never taught him.” More towels ripping.

  “I can’t get through this without you.”

  Telly stood up and bumped Gloria back. “I need to see Dian.”

  “What? All you got to see is right here. Your wife and your daughter.”

  “Is that what you got on your mind? Really? Really? Right now? Destroying what’s left of my life?”

  “I never—”

  “Our son is gone, our son is drowned, and you’re going to get your goddamned teeth cleaned and telling her all kinds of shit?”

  My heart was tak-takking like crazy.

  “Telly. I told her what happened. That’s all. Listen to me.”

  “No, I’m not listening to nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, Telly.” She grabbed him. “I’m sorry. Please. I wasn’t thinking. I’m not thinking straight. Please, Telly. I’m not.”

  “I got to go, Glow. I can’t, I can’t even look at your face right now.”

  Telly kissed my forehead and said “I love you, Bids,” and then he walked away.

  “You can’t leave,” she called out. “I won’t let you!”

  But he started his truck.

  Then she screamed, “She didn’t believe me. I told her the truth and that bitch didn’t even believe what I said!”

  When Telly was driving away I ran around to the side of the
house. Chicken was there in the shade. Sniffing and pawing at Gloria’s pile of stones on top of the dead bird because she forgot to feed him again. I took the good-luck ball of metal out of my pocket and threw the tiny thing into the pile. Carl lied. Something terrible had happened even though I didn’t lose it.

  Then I put my face in Chicken’s warm fur. Rowan was gone. My brother was gone. I pushed my face into his ribs and I cried and cried. Where was Rowan now? Where was his laugh? And all his ideas and his secrets? What about his skin? The map of islands never got finished. But maybe those white patches weren’t islands at all. Maybe he was gone because all his white spots got huge and turned him into a ghost. A beautiful speckly dead ghost.

  ROWAN

  I roll onto my side, knees bent to my chest. Pull my hands inside the sweater Carl gave me to wear. He made me shoes too. That fit my feet perfectly. He cares. He cared?

  Carl?

  I need to go home now. Everyone is waiting for me. Expecting me.

  “He’s a most wonderful boy. He’s such a good big brother.”

  Gloria said that. She misses me.

  Don’t you remember?

  Behind my back, the creek is trickling. A sharp stink of pine needles and turpentine stings my nostrils. Makes me retch.

  Are you there?

  Can you hear me?

  I put my hands on the ground. On the wall of the bridge? Everything is shifting. Am I lying down? Leaning against the bridge? There is nothing to hold. Which way is up?

  Carl?

  Listen to me. Please.

  My head pounds.

  Maisy was sad. You saw her too, didn’t you? That’s my sister. That’s Little Fawn.

  Telly was holding her hand.

  And Gloria was crying. She was crying on TV.

  Carl?

  Even in the blackness, I know I am alone. I pull the sweater over my bent knees.

  Listen! Listen to me!

  I want to go home!

  No one answers.

  I lie still. I am sliding.

  MAISY

  After the bad fight with Telly, Gloria stayed in bed for a long time. Her hair got shiny and there were crumbs on the blanket. Tiny black ants crawled around. Gloria smacked at them, but most times she let them crawl. Mrs. Spooner and Mrs. Murtry knocked on the door, but Gloria wouldn’t get up. Everyone said they were real sad about Rowan, but Gloria told me she didn’t want anyone in the house. Sticking their nose in where it didn’t belong.

  Lots of days went by and then Gloria got a phone call from work. When she hung up she said, “Two girls are off sick. They can’t manage without me.”

  “Do you got to go?” I said.

  She did a sigh. “I don’t have to. But it’ll be good for my head, Bids. To get out of here for a few hours.”

  She made me go over to Aunt Erma’s. It wasn’t that bad. Me and Shar watched a movie and played games. It stank, though, because Aunt Erma smoked tons of cigarettes. When she dropped them in a can with a sip of soda in the bottom, they sizzled up. After lunch she heated up cookies for us. I liked them even if they tasted a little bit like cigarette smell.

  Shar was winning checkers, and she said, “I can’t believe your brother was murdered. Drowned in the lake.” I didn’t say nothing back. Even though Shar was my best friend, sometimes I didn’t like her very much.

  “Why don’t we go and find him?”

  “What?”

  “We’ll go at night so no one’ll catch us,” she said. “We could steal a boat and row out and take turns diving down with a flashlight.”

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t want to find your own brother? What a scaredy baby.”

  Then Darrell’s door opened. He told Shar to shut up. “That’s a stupid idea,” he said. “And kind of shitty to even say, Shar.”

  I wanted to push against Darrell. I wanted to hug him and put my face on his shirt and tell him how good he was.

  After she was done work Gloria came and got me, and we walked home. I told her I had fun and I tried to forget what Shar said. But that night it went into my dreams. Me and Shar and Darrell went out to the middle of a big circle of black shiny water, and I dove down first. The flashlight in my hands gave out because water got in, and I knocked it, but it didn’t get fixed. I was afraid, but I touched around in the dark and I heard Rowan clear as day telling me, “I’m here, Turtle. I’m right here. Under your nose. Come find me.”

  I found him, too, with my fingers. I found his hair. Then his neck. Then his arms. But when I tried to yank, handfuls of him came off and I could feel it floating past me, touching me. “Don’t give up,” he yelled. “I’m here, Turtle!”

  Then I woke up crying and choking on pretend water. Gloria rushed in. She gave me an extra spoonful of green medicine because she said it was hard to tell when I might catch a cough.

  I didn’t dream no more after I swallowed that.

  * * *

  —

  “Just stay in the backyard,” Aunt Erma said the next day. “Okay, girls? I’m having the carpets shampooed. And I can’t have you tracking in dirt.” Then she smiled at me. “I don’t mean you, Maisy, sweetheart. I know you’d never do that.”

  Aunt Erma closed the back door and I heard the roar of a cleaning machine.

  “Not you, sweetheart,” Shar said in a mean way. “You’d never do that.”

  I went over to the sandbox with the fallen-down sides and started digging with a plastic shovel. Gloria was gone to work again. I asked her not to work as long as yesterday but she said it wasn’t up to her. “Besides, they’re not pushing me. The girls are being real supportive. It helps screw my head on right.” I dug some more. I tried to make a castle with the sand, but it kept rolling down the sides.

  “I saw Mrs. Spooner’s cats poo in there,” Shar said.

  “Oh,” I said, and I put down the shovel.

  “It’s so lame out here.” Shar twisted around.

  I picked up a tangled-up rope from the ground. “We could do a skipping contest.”

  “Hardly. I’m too old for that.” Then Shar was flapping her hands all over the place. “I know what we can do,” she said. “Let’s go see the spot. The exact spot where Rowan was grabbed.”

  “He wasn’t grabbed,” I said.

  “How d’you know?”

  I didn’t know. “We’re not allowed in there anyway.”

  “Yeah? Says who?”

  “Aunt Erma. She told us to stay in the yard.”

  “Well my mother said Aunt Erma’s not the boss of me, and I shouldn’t forget it.”

  “Well, I don’t know how to get there.” I’d only ever gone that far in the woods with Rowan.

  “I do. Me and Darrell went a bunch of times.”

  “Really?”

  “No, not really. But so what?”

  My heart was thumping. “I don’t want to go. I want to skip.”

  “You’re just a scaredy cat, scaredy cat.” She was singing.

  “Am not scared.”

  “Is too.”

  “Am not.”

  “Well I’m going.”

  Shar opened up the gate and she was stomping down the circle to my house without even looking back. I went behind her, and she kept going down our driveway and across our grass. “Wait up,” I said.

  “You hurry up.”

  On the ground, I saw some old squished-up sandwiches with bugs on them. Me and Shar had long skinny shadows. Mine was longer and skinnier than Shar’s because Shar’s mouth was always full of junk and trash. That was what Gloria said.

  I tried not to think about it because Shar was going extra fast. Her broken shoe was flopping. Then she disappeared behind some bushes, and I ran to catch up. Inside the woods things were humming and buzzing and croaking. Twigs cracked under Shar’s big sloppy feet. She was way up ahead. I didn’t like being in the woods without Rowan. Everything was trampled down. I kept hurrying, but I couldn’t see Shar no more.

  “I’m going back!” I yelle
d.

  Then her head popped out from behind a tree. “Scaredy cat!” she yelled back. She called me that a lot.

  She stopped and waited. When I got where she was I saw the ground was kicked up and strings of soft green moss were yanked off the trees. Someone had ripped new leaves right from the branches and thrown them down. Maybe it was the searchers looking for Rowan, or some strangers just messing up the woods.

  “I bet the bad guy did this,” Shar said real loud. She sounded like that helicopter. “What if murderers are still in here?”

  “In the woods? I don’t think so.”

  “There could be, Maisy. You don’t know everything. A whole bunch of them might be watching us right now.”

  Me and Shar walked together then. Shar kept slapping my back or my cheek or my arm saying there was a fly on me. I wondered how she saw flies because it was getting harder and harder to see anything. The trees were going gray and fuzzy. And finally we got to the bridge. “Found it,” Shar said, like the bridge was something lost. I heard the creek trickling along near us. It was giggling. That sound made me mad. The creek should’ve shut itself up.

  “Come on,” Shar said, and she stomped through the bushes.

  “Wait,” I said, and then gravel crunched behind me. There was a loud crack. A branch whizzed through the air and shook. My heart tried to burst out of my throat and I ran behind Shar. Branches scritched at my legs.

  “I heard something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was…” A wolf. I think it was a wolf.

  I couldn’t tell Shar that. She’d just laugh.

  “The bad guy?”

  “I want to go home,” I said. It was darker under the bridge than when I came with Rowan. It smelled like pee and there was garbage all over. It wasn’t like that when Carl was there.

  Shar picked up a stone and threw it in the creek. A frog hopped off a rock and swam underneath some bubbly green scum.

  “Do you think he kidnapped him when he was sleeping?”

  “No,” I said. I was too filled up with sadness to tell Shar anything. Have a seat in one of these fine chairs, Little Fawn. It was forever ago when Carl said that.