by Lauren Wolk
“Yes, it is,” I said, handing it over.
He looked at it front and back. “What were you doing with it? Outside? In the dark?”
“I was reading to the dogs,” I said, taking off my boots. “They especially liked the part where Black Dog comes looking for Bones.”
“Very funny, Annabelle.”
James had come out to the mudroom to investigate the possibility of something more interesting than Cavalcade of America, which my parents listened to through the cold months. The radio warbled away from the sitting room.
“Hey, that’s my Treasure Island,” James said, and in an instant they were tussling over the old book.
“You two make a fine pair,” I said, edging past them. But I stopped when something fluttered from the pages and landed at my feet.
“What’s that?” James said.
“A note from the dogs,” I replied, slipping it into my pocket. “It says Go to bed.”
“You’re a riot,” Henry said.
“You go to bed,” James said.
“I think I will,” I said.
After I brushed my teeth and washed my face, I spent a moment at the bathroom mirror. It was amazing, but I looked just the same as always.
“Good night,” I said to my parents, grandparents, even Aunt Lily, who considered Cavalcade of America “an example of fine programming.” Not like Red Skelton or The Shadow, though she sometimes sat in the kitchen at the end of the table nearest the sitting room when we listened to such “trash.”
Safe in my room, I pulled from my pocket the picture that had fallen out of the book and studied it in the light from my bedside lamp.
The photograph was marbled with rough handling and shadows, but I could still see the sunstruck surface of a fishing hole as if I were looking down from the bridge above it.
I wasn’t sure at first why Toby would have taken a picture of still water, or why he would have left such a picture for me to find.
But when I flattened it out on the tabletop and tipped it just so in the lamplight, I could see a vague reflection in the water, of the man with the camera on the bridge.
A self-portrait. The kind Toby would permit himself. How he looked, but secondhand, transformed by the water.
There was nothing on the back but the scar from where he’d pulled it off the smokehouse wall. Perhaps, if he’d had a pen, he might have written something.
As I tucked the photograph under my mattress, I heard a car crunching on the gravel in the lane. A door slamming. After a moment, someone knocking at the door.
Officer Coleman had arrived.
The house trembled with a migration to the mudroom door, the entrance of the big trooper, the excitement of my brothers, who must have forgotten, in the fray, that Toby had never done them any harm.
I hoped they would remember soon.
My bedroom window did not face toward the barn, so I was spared the temptation to watch as the trooper followed the beam of his spotlight in that direction, my father surely with him.
It took me a long time to fall asleep, but they had not yet returned before I did.
I slept so long and hard that when my mother woke me the next morning I was a stranger to myself. Whatever I had dreamed had taken me out of my life, and I spent a long moment coming back.
“You sure were tired,” my mother said as my eyes cleared.
“I guess I was.” I yawned loudly and stretched my arms over my head. “Do I have to go to school today?”
She picked up a stray sock from the floor and tossed it in my hamper. “I would think you’d be happy to get back to school.”
“I will, when all this is over.”
“It is over, Annabelle. For you. You won’t want to be part of what comes next.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
My mother sat down on the edge of my bed.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Officer Coleman checked the barn. He didn’t find anything.”
“Of course not. Toby’s long gone.” I had not told her about his return, and I wasn’t sure I ever would. With his picture under where I lay, I felt a little like the princess and the pea.
“Yes, but then Officer Coleman went down to the smokehouse to have another look around. And he did find something there.”
I remembered that Toby had gone back to get his photographs.
“He left one of his guns behind. And it definitely wasn’t there when Officer Coleman looked the first time, after Betty went missing.”
I sat up.
“But here’s the really odd part, Annabelle. The gun he left behind is a working gun, still loaded. The only good one Toby had. He took the other two broken ones, but he left the one that worked. Which makes no sense at all.”
I wondered if he was afraid that he’d use it if they caught up with him. Or maybe he was just laying down part of his load.
I didn’t believe in either answer. But I didn’t have a third.
My mother was watching me curiously.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Did he leave anything else?”
“No. In fact, he took something. Photographs from his walls.”
“That part makes sense.”
She worried the edge of my blanket. “So now they know that he was in our barn at some point, because he left his camera and his hat there. Which, by the way, is another problem, since the hat wasn’t in the barn anymore when they searched it last night.” My mother ran her hands through her hair. “This is crazy, Annabelle. It’s getting harder and harder to remember what we’re supposed to know and what we’re not.”
“Why do you think I went to bed before Officer Coleman got here last night?”
She nodded. “I feel sorry for your father. He had to go out to the barn and act surprised that the hat wasn’t where he’d left it. So now Officer Coleman is convinced that Toby’s still right close by. And disturbed. And dangerous.”
“But we know he’s not,” I said.
“We do. Which is why your father told Officer Coleman that Toby’s other two guns are broken, so they wouldn’t consider him armed.”
“And shoot him,” I said. I lay back down. “I hope he’s miles from here by now.”
“So do I. But they’ll have bloodhounds.” She didn’t need to say anything else.
I pictured the dogs straining against their leashes, braying frantically, as they dragged their handlers through the woods.
“You’re right,” I said. “I do want to go to school.”
My mother sighed. “Annabelle, I wish you could. But Officer Coleman has issued an order that everyone stay inside with their doors locked until Toby’s found.”
I sat up again. “What?”
“They don’t want anyone to get hurt, by Toby or by accident. And they don’t want him to have anywhere to hide.”
“They can’t lock every henhouse and oil shack, can they?”
“No, but they’re not worried that Toby will take a bunch of chickens hostage.”
“Hostage?” I scrambled out of bed. “They’re the ones who are crazy. Mother, this all started because Betty lied about Toby hurting Ruth. And then about him pushing her down the well. Everyone’s acting on her say-so. That’s just not right. You know it’s not.”
“Annabelle, you can stand there in your nightie and make all the proclamations you want, but I don’t see what we can do. It’s out of our hands. Betty’s not going to change her story. Why should she? Everyone thinks she’s the victim. And I really can’t blame them. She looks like one. And Toby looks like a villain, whether he is or not.”
“So we just have to sit here in the house with the doors locked and wait for them to catch him?”
“I’m afraid so. Women and children inside. Men in the hunt.”
I didn’t know if
I could take one more lousy surprise.
“Men in the hunt? You mean Daddy has to go hunt for Toby?”
My mother nodded. “He doesn’t really have to. But he’s the one who insisted that Toby’s not armed. Dangerous, maybe, but not like he would be if he had a good gun. So they’re asking any grown man to join in. We know these woods better than the troopers do, and the hounds are going to have a lot to sort out before they get it right. So in the meantime, it’s a few policemen and a volunteer army, with whistles instead of guns. Nobody wants a shooting. And nobody wants Toby to get his hands on a proper weapon.”
“Whistles?”
“So they can let the others know if they see him.”
I tried to picture it. A bunch of farmers with whistles.
I was sure at least a few of them would arm themselves with something more, no matter what the trooper said.
Every year, some deer hunter shot his buddy by mistake, so I found it easy to imagine how a hunt like this might end.
“I’m glad that James and Henry are too young to join in,” I said. “And boys like Andy, who would shoot anything that moved.”
“And your grandpap, too old for anything but sitting in his truck with a thermos of coffee.”
I pulled some pants and a sweater from my closet. “Maybe they should put Aunt Lily on a leash and let her snuffle one of Toby’s gloves.”
“Annabelle, hush,” my mother said, trying not to smile.
And I did hush then, to listen to the echo of what I’d just said.
“You know . . . we should hide Grandpap’s coat. The one Toby wore. And the gloves, too. They’ll smell just like him.”
This time my mother did smile. “You think the bloodhounds are going to be in our mudroom?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? They might. A bloodhound can track through water,” I said. “Even a flood. And it can pick up the trail of someone who’s not even touching the ground, being carried by someone else.”
“How do you know that?”
“Toby told me.”
My mother frowned. “I wonder how he knew that.”
“I have no idea, but he was in our kitchen just yesterday, so there’s a trail from his smokehouse, to the barn, to the house and back, and then off into the woods.”
My mother stood up. “Good grief,” she said. “This gets better and better.”
Neither of us said anything more as I got dressed. Brushed my hair. Began to make my bed. “They’ll figure it out,” I finally said. “They’ll figure out that Toby was Jordan.”
“You think so?” My mother straightened out my bedspread. “I suppose they will. If the hounds come to our door. But the freshest trail is from the barn and away, into the woods. They shouldn’t come near the house.”
“I’m still going to hide Grandpap’s coat and gloves up here in my closet.”
“All right,” she said. “I suppose it won’t do any harm.”
And we both went downstairs to start one of the oddest days we’d ever spent, locked inside the house like prisoners ourselves.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Betty Glengarry died at 10:18 that morning.
We didn’t know about it for another hour.
Henry was the one who answered the telephone.
“It’s Mrs. Gribble,” he said, holding out the receiver to my mother.
My mother took the phone, her hand over the mouthpiece. “What does she want?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “Maybe she has a call for you but didn’t want to put it straight through.”
My mother put the receiver to her ear and leaned into the mouthpiece. “Hello, Annie?”
I could hear Mrs. Gribble, but not what she said. Just a babble, louder than usual, urgent, but not eager, the way she usually sounded when she had news.
My mother listened for a moment before suddenly gasping, her free hand flying to her cheek.
“Oh no,” she said. “But how can that be? Oh, the poor thing. How is that possible?”
My mother wasn’t a crier and she didn’t cry now, but the look on her face was worse than tears.
I thought this was news that Toby had been killed.
I felt hot and terribly cold at the same time. Henry stood close beside me. He smelled like maple syrup and dog. I fiercely wanted to trade places with him.
“I’ll tell him,” my mother said, her voice breaking. “He and John are out with the hounds, but I’ll tell him when I see him. I will, Annie. Thank you for letting us know. Good-bye.”
My mother slowly hung the receiver back on its hook.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“No,” she said, turning to look at me. “Betty is. She died of infection. It spread everywhere and they couldn’t stop it.”
She sat down in the nearest chair.
Henry inched closer to me. I could hear him breathing.
“Hey,” James called, galloping in from the mudroom where he’d been making a saber out of cardboard. “You wanna play pirates with me, Henry?”
“Sure. In a minute,” Henry said. “But let’s go find Grandma first. I think she needs us to help her with something.”
He gave me a long look, as if he were seeing me for the first time, and then he left the room, James trailing him like a noisy shadow. “Like what?” James said. “Does she need us to carry something? Henry, does she want us to carry something?”
The boy-sound grew distant.
I sat on the floor at my mother’s feet and laid my head in her lap.
She stroked my hair as if I were a cat.
One of us was trembling. Maybe both.
“I could’ve found her faster,” I said.
My mother’s hand went still.
“Don’t you dare do that,” she said sternly.
She pushed my head off her lap and leaned down to look straight into my face.
“Do you think you’re God?” she said impatiently. “Do you think you control things? Well, you do not. And it’s arrogant to think that you do.”
I was so surprised that I had nothing to say.
“Betty’s dead, and that’s terrible. Terrible. But you didn’t do it, Annabelle.”
She sat back. “In fact, if you hadn’t led the way to that well she’d have died down there, alone and afraid. And we might never have found her at all.”
I pictured Betty in the dark, cold, terrifying well, badly hurt. And dying, all by herself.
I pictured someone coming upon that well, years later, and filling it in with earth, burying her old bones deep in that accidental crypt.
“Come here,” my mother said, opening her arms.
She was warm.
“Sometimes things come out right,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t.”
I heard an echo of Toby in her voice. Something he had once said. Something about guilt or blame.
My grandmother did cry when she heard the news. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t known Betty.
I cried, too, the sight and sound of her tears spurring my own.
James didn’t cry. When he heard that Betty had died, he laughed instead.
“Don’t be silly,” he said, waving his saber over his head.
It took my mother some time to convince him, and then he became very serious and went with Henry to make an “I’m sorry” card for the Glengarrys.
As he was leaving the room, Henry turned in the doorway. “Do you want to come with us?” he asked me.
The way he said it, the way he looked at me, took me aback. “I’ll be up in a minute,” I said.
“Annie Gribble asked me to tell the constable about Betty if I see him,” my mother said.
“You can be sure everyone in the county will know it before he does,” my grandmother said, drying her eyes. “Annie will see to that.”
“She called it ‘murder,’” my mother said quietly.
My grandmother cleared the tears from her throat. “That’s exactly what it is,” she said. “If Toby pushed that poor girl down a well, that’s exactly what it is.”
I clung to the if with all my might, but few people were as patient as my grandmother.
She might be willing to wait for certainty, but I doubted that the constable would be, or the police either, to say nothing of the Glengarrys.
If helping Toby had been important before, it was more so now. They would shoot him. Or, if they didn’t, they would cuff him to an electric chair and cook the life out of him.
I prayed that he had let go of those old guns finally, tossed away his coat and hat, borrowed others from an unlocked house, and made his way to a road where a kind trucker might pick him up and take him to Ohio, maybe farther, before setting him down into a new life.
But I didn’t think he’d done that.
I wasn’t sure he’d even left these hills yet. He hadn’t seemed at all afraid. Just sorry to be blamed for what he hadn’t done and weary with the burden of what he had, but not inclined to do much about either. Perhaps he was convinced that there was nothing he could do.
I felt like I was suffocating.
I paced from window to window, like James did every Christmas Eve, seeing nothing but his own reflection in the darkened glass but sure, nonetheless, that Santa Claus was out there somewhere, winging his way toward our farm.
I watched instead for farmers with whistles, or policemen with guns, but I didn’t see anyone.
The horses in the pasture, like guardsmen, were the first to know that something was coming. They lifted their heads sharply, both at once, and stared into the woods leading down toward Cobb Hollow.
We heard the dogs, too, even through the locked doors and windows, long before we saw them. But it was our dogs making all the noise.
The bloodhounds, just two of them, were all business as they came into view, their long, droopy faces sweeping the ground ahead of them, one of them up from below the kitchen garden, the other across the horse pasture.