The Unremembered Girl: A Novel

by Eliza Maxwell

  From the corner of Henry’s eye, he could see Alice shifting on her stump next to Del, probably regretting urging him to come that morning. He’d overheard her speaking to Mama when they’d walked into the service.

  “He didn’t want to. And frankly, I can’t blame him. But it doesn’t really matter how much of an ass Livingston can be, he’s still his father. God willing, he’ll be our children’s grandfather one day.”

  Mama had hugged her. “I’m glad you’re here. Both of you.”

  “I traded a shift at work. I didn’t think Del would come on his own.”

  Alice was a labor and delivery nurse over at the hospital in Cordelia. She normally worked Sundays, giving her a legitimate excuse to miss out on these weekly shenanigans.

  Henry felt Alice was probably grateful for that.

  He saw Del tug at the collar of his dress shirt. The temperature was creeping up as the sun rose to take its rightful place above the trees, and it was too damn hot out to be wearing a tie. A gathering in the middle of the sweltering humidity of the pine woods didn’t exactly call for a dress code, but Del was clearly trying to make amends with his father.

  “The son that forsakes his earthly father shall be cast away from the heavenly father, not worthy of his kingdom.”

  Del’s efforts seem to be working out for him, Henry thought.

  But seeing Del brought Henry’s thoughts back to the night before.

  His mother hadn’t mentioned anything about the stranger in the woods to anyone, as far as Henry knew. Livingston, he could understand, perhaps. But she was barely speaking to her husband, who had refused to call Del and Alice and apologize.

  Henry wondered if he should say anything to Del. He’d heard all the rumors about what went on at the shack next to their place. Everything from Satan worship, to prostitution, to a traveling band of gypsies. None of the stories could be verified, of course, but that had never stopped a small-town rumor before.

  If anyone would know the truth, it was Del. And the more Henry thought about it, the more convinced he became that the girl creeping around the woods must be associated somehow with the people who came and went at the old shack. It was the only thing that made any sense.

  And that didn’t make him feel any better.

  Mama wouldn’t like it if he spoke to Del about the matter behind her back. But he couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding that had gripped him since he’d spotted those neatly stacked plates.

  As if his wandering mind had brought the ghost girl into being, Henry spotted a shadow floating through the trees. He kept his head aimed at the book in front of him, cutting a sideways glance toward the woods that surrounded them.

  His heart picked up speed, adrenaline spiking in his veins.

  She was here.

  Playing it calm and unconcerned, Henry debated his next move. Should he charge after her, demand answers?

  As Livingston brought his sermon to a close and people began to rise and gather, full up on their weekly dose of sanctimony and bullshit, Henry made a calculated decision.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She saw them gather within the odd clearing in the woods.

  At first, she hung back, worried they were coming together to hunt her down and send her back to the men who’d brought her there.

  But it became clear soon enough that their agenda had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the brash little man who made a great deal of noise.

  She’d heard his words, clanging about like dented pots and pans banging together, but words alone, even loud ones, had long since lost their ability to frighten her.

  Instead, she’d turned her attention to the others, studying them from a distance, as she kept herself back within the pines.

  When the little man was done with his stump preaching, and the small pockets of people stood and drew together then apart, heading out of the clearing back to where they’d come from, the girl kept herself still and quiet behind the brush where she was hiding. Still and quiet she could do very well.

  The young man left quickly, trotting off to catch up with some of the others.

  When the field was clear and the voices had faded to nothing, the girl crept forward slowly, making her way into the quiet den of green and sunlight.

  She ran her fingertips over the cut stumps the people had used for chairs, feeling the ring of bark that circled the outside and must cut into the backs of their legs.

  On the ground, next to the place the young man had been sitting in the back row, she spotted the cover of the white book he’d held in his hands, forgotten and left behind.

  Unremembered.

  Kneeling, she dared not pick it up, but she couldn’t help but caress it, her dirty fingertips a sharp contrast against the worn, but pristinely clean, white cover.

  There were words on the cover, and she wondered what they said.

  “That was my sister’s,” came a quiet voice from much too close.

  Her head whipped upward, and she fell back onto her butt in surprise.

  The man’s hands came up slowly, palms outward, and his voice was gentle, but still she scrambled away from him until her back came up against another piece of tree trunk, stopping short her retreat.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said slowly.

  Although she understood the words, she couldn’t stop the slow rumble that came from her throat when he took a small, slow step toward her. Her eyes darted around as she desperately calculated her options for escape.

  He was close. Too close, and moving closer.

  Her breath quickened in anticipation.

  Able to see her fear, he stalled, looking like he was searching for the right words.

  His image began to blur in her mind with men who had come toward her at other times, their steps slow, their intentions clear. None of them had ever cared about her thoughts on the matter.

  She knew instinctively that this was her best chance. This brief split second when he was second-guessing himself.

  Launching herself from the ground, she flew at him, catching him by surprise, turning the tables.

  The two of them tumbled backward onto the ground, and her hands found his throat.

  She could feel the power of him beneath her, knew that he had the advantage. She was small and weak in comparison. She’d never last against him once the element of shock was gone. She had to run, she had to do it now.

  And yet . . .

  His hands came up to hers, and she squeezed, almost involuntarily, against his vocal cords. Not to hurt him, but in anticipation of those hands hurting her. It was inevitable.

  Her breath was hot and ragged, her eyes wide as she met his gaze. He did nothing. Simply looked into her face.

  He laid his hands, palms up, on the ground next to his head.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again, quiet and intense.

  Those eyes. That face. She’d never seen eyes look at her like that. He stared, his eyes begging her to believe him, while his body followed his words, lying still and prone beneath hers.

  He had the power. He could hurt her if he chose to. All he had to do was reach up and take hold. She wasn’t strong enough to defend herself this close for very long, not without a weapon of some kind, and she had nothing. She’d always had nothing.

  Yet he was giving that power to her, holding back, waiting to see what she would do. And all the while, he was looking at her. Really looking. She couldn’t seem to move away from the raw newness of that. Had anyone in her life ever actually looked at her before? She couldn’t remember a single time.

  There was something alive in that connection, pulsing and electric. It shocked her, and held her. She felt exposed before him, like he could read her past and present and future right there.

  She let go of him and pulled away as if his skin were on fire and to stay too close would mean burning alive.

  She turned to run. She didn’t want to be near this man, who’d already seen more of her than anyone ever
had. She had to get away.

  With a start, she realized the woman was standing between her and the route back to the safe anonymity of the forest. The stranger’s face was set in a picture of compassion, and the girl’s heart seized at the expression she barely recognized. Her legs stalled, and she had trouble staying upright. Her senses were overloaded with the proximity of these two people, both so different than anyone she’d ever known.

  She felt as if she’d wandered too close to the surface of the sun.

  Losing her will to run, the girl felt her legs fold beneath her, and she dropped to the ground. Her face crumbled and she tried in vain to hide her head, to hide her heart, from whatever pain would inevitably come from getting too close to such searing warmth.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mama fed the girl, of course, after they’d led her back to their home. While his mother was occupied with the task, Henry had taken the opportunity to step outside and call Del before his brother had a chance to get too far down the road. He was going to need backup. For what, he wasn’t sure yet, but it sounded like a good idea to plan ahead, all the same.

  When he entered the house, Mama was stepping out of the kitchen to come find him, a concerned look on her face.

  He met her in the living room, but his vantage point from where they stood allowed him to glance through the doorway into the kitchen. Henry was shocked to see the girl hunkered down on the floor in the far corner of the room with a plate of food balanced on her knees. A curtain of greasy dark hair shrouded her face, and she was busy scooping food into her mouth with her hands, looking warily up from time to time.

  The kitchen chairs sat empty and ignored.

  It made Henry profoundly uneasy.

  “Mama, I really think you should reconsider feeding the strays around here,” Henry said in a low voice.

  A snort broke from his mother, and she raised a hand to her mouth, shocked at her unladylike display.

  He took a good look at her face, which was pale save for the two spots of color high on her cheeks, but if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a definite spark in her eyes. A spark he hadn’t seen there in a long time.

  “That was unkind, Henry,” she said, gathering herself in a cloak of dignity.

  “Unkind or not, that girl needs help we’re not qualified to give.”

  The front door opened, bringing Livingston into the room with them. As usual, he paid little attention to anything other than whatever it was he was planning to say next.

  “Caroline, I’d like to speak with you, if you could spare a few minutes,” Livingston began when he spotted his wife. “In private,” he added to Henry.

  His timing was laughable.

  Mama turned to him, squared her shoulders, and boldly stated, “Livingston. There is a girl in our kitchen who’s been living in the woods, for whatever reason. She is my guest, and I expect you to treat her as such. Anything less, from you or any other member of this family,” she said with a hard glance in Henry’s direction, “and I assure you, you will answer to me.”

  And with that declaration, she turned and walked away from the two men, heading back into the kitchen to join the girl.

  Livingston blinked at her retreating back. He looked at Henry, but all Henry could do was shrug and tilt his head toward the kitchen, where the girl in question was handing her empty plate back to Mama for a second helping.

  Livingston followed his gaze.

  “What in the Sam Hill?” he said in a low voice.

  Henry was saved the necessity of an answer by the opening of the front door, and just like that, they were three.

  “Hey,” Del said as he joined them. He clearly had matters on his mind as well, if the determined look on his face was any indicator. “Now, Dad,” Del began with a hand raised in Livingston’s direction. “I know you said you don’t want me here, but Henry called and Alice had some errands to run, so I told her to leave me here and pick me up when she was done, so if you insist on holding a grudge, I suppose I could sit out on the front porch, but that’d be awful uncharitable for a man who . . .”

  Del trailed off when he realized that neither Henry nor Livingston was sparing more than a glance in his direction.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, craning his neck to see what had them so interested. “What in the Sam Hill?” Del asked.

  The two men looked at Henry, expecting an explanation, but he could only shrug and shake his head.

  He’d be a fool to even try.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So she just showed up in the woods?”

  Henry nodded. It was the third time in as many minutes that Livingston had asked the question, each time with a touch more disbelief than before. The answer hadn’t changed, in spite of that.

  The three men had moved outside after Caroline had glared at them, but they kept their voices low, not interested in incurring her wrath.

  “She must have come from the shack,” Del said.

  “That was my thinking as well,” Henry agreed.

  Del shook his head. “That’s not good, man. Not good at all,” he mumbled.

  Henry squinted and took in the sight of his brother’s growing discomfort with the strange situation.

  Del tugged at his tie. Henry got the sense his brother was missing his sheriff’s uniform, a thing he usually wore like a mantle of superiority about his shoulders, pulling confidence from it almost unconsciously.

  Henry had always had doubts about Del’s suitability for his chosen profession. It seemed to him that a man with a gun ought not be the same sort of man who thought dick and fart jokes were the height of entertainment. But he couldn’t argue that Del had flourished in the job.

  At the moment, though, Del had an uneasy expression on his face that struck a sharp chord, chiming with Henry’s own misgivings.

  “Isn’t there somebody we can call?” Livingston asked.

  Henry inclined his head toward Del. “Like the Sheriff’s Department?”

  Livingston turned on his son. “Well? What are you gonna do about it?”

  Del ignored his father. “Has she said anything? Why she’s here? How she got here? Who she came with?”

  Henry shook his head. “Haven’t heard her say a word, actually. She did growl at me.”

  “She growled at you? You let your mother bring home a woman who looks like she’s been dug out of a shallow grave, and you’re telling me she growled at you?” Livingston asked.

  Henry threw a look at his stepfather’s scandalized face. “For the record, I didn’t let my mother do anything. When’s the last time you managed to talk her out of something her mind was set on, Livingston?”

  The little man drew himself up, words shooting out of his mouth like they were under pressure from his puffed-up chest. “Well, she can’t stay. That’s all there is to it,” he said with a dramatic finality.

  “As much as it pains me to say this, I agree with you,” Henry said. “The trouble is going to be convincing Mama.”

  Del shook his head. “It’s not just a bad idea, buddy. It’s a real bad idea.”

  Henry waited for him to say more, but Del just stood there shaking his head and looking like he’d swallowed a mouthful of something past its expiration date.

  “You know something about this you’re not saying?” Henry prompted. “Because if you do . . .”

  Del shook his head again, but he wouldn’t meet Henry’s eye.

  “No. No,” he said. “Nothing official anyway.”

  “And unofficially?” Henry asked.

  Del ran a hand across his face. “An unsubstantiated report. A rumor really, that’s all.”

  It didn’t look like Del had any intention of saying more, but Henry’s frustration was starting to grow teeth. “Care to elucidate, brother?”

  Del sent him a blank look. “What? Don’t hit me with those college words, Henry. What the hell does that even mean anyway?”

  “Just spit it out, Del!”

  “Fine! Fine. Jesus. There may have b
een a . . . an incident. With that group out at the shack a few nights ago.”

  “What kind of incident?” Henry asked.

  “A man was attacked. Supposedly, he was hurt pretty bad. We got a source, Brady and me.”

  “A source? You and Brady have a source?” Henry asked, one eyebrow up.

  “Yeah, a source. This badge didn’t come out of a cereal box, you know.”

  Henry held up his hands at Del’s defensive posturing. “All right, Del, all right. I’m sorry.”

  Slightly mollified, his brother went on, “Apparently, after this scuffle, they packed up and moved on again.”

  “And what did you and Brady do about that?” Livingston interjected. “Why weren’t you out there arresting somebody? Too busy harassing Clayton and watching reruns of Miami Vice?”

  “Dad, lay off already. Nobody made a report. We didn’t even hear about it until after the fact.”

  “Hmph. From your source?”

  “Yes, Dad. Look—”

  “They may have packed up and moved on, but it looks like they left some of their baggage behind,” Henry said.

  He had approximately zero interest in watching these two go at each other again.

  Del nodded. “And that’s the problem. Because rumor has it, the attacker was a female.”

  Henry nodded. He’d had an idea where this was headed. Only Livingston was taken by surprise.

  “A female? That female? The one sitting alone in the kitchen with my wife?”

  Del shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s a possibility.”

  “A dangerous possibility,” Henry murmured, glancing back at the window to the kitchen.

  “She can’t stay. Henry, you can’t be around every minute of the day, and it’d be irresponsible to leave the woman here. Caroline’s sick and Dad can’t . . .”

  Del trailed off, realizing that he’d stepped in it, yet again.

  “Dad can’t what, exactly?” Livingston said.

  “Look, I didn’t mean . . . ,” Del began in a placating voice, but at the stubborn set of his father’s jaw, he could see that wasn’t going to work.