Girl From the Tree House

by Gudrun Frerichs

  The two men took the next fifteen minutes buying tickets and checking in our bags. In the meantime, I’m standing in the large airport hall like a lost piece of luggage. I wonder who among the hundreds of people rushing in and out of gates, hauling their luggage around, is suffering human tragedies and hardships, just like me. There must be many, and yet, we are sailing past each other like ships in the night, going about our lives and putting a smile on our face, as if nothing is the matter.

  “Are you coming?” Scott walks up and hands me my boarding pass. “We have two hours to kill. Let’s find a quiet corner.”

  Airports are not the first places that spring to mind when you think of cozy, quiet corners, but we spot a table in the Mezzanine restaurant, that looks private enough.

  I’m dying to hear what Thomas Aldercroft meant with his last comment in the taxi, but the waiter seems determined to make a mission out of putting the food and the drinks on our table. When he finally leaves us alone, I put a giant question mark onto my face. You know, the one where you raise both eyebrows way up to your hairline and the head jerks almost into the other person’s face. He laughs. Well, at least that’s some reaction. Do I have to explain that patience is not my middle name?

  “I’ve tested your restraint long enough. I traced Patrick’s research. He was right. Helen Reid and Horace were married, and your marriage was never legal. The guy who performed your wedding was the accountant of the NGYD group in Waitakere Flats. The police are looking for him now.”

  “Does that mean I’m now officially Elise Seagar?”

  “Elizabeth Seagar, yes.”

  “That’s what I meant, Elizabeth.” Isn’t it funny that the name Elizabeth has lost its unpleasant association since Sky showed us the child a few days ago?

  “It’ll take a while for the authorities to correct the records with your legal name. To trace where your parents’ assets disappeared to is a more complicated matter, but I’m sure we’ll sort that out. The land register lists West Coast Holdings as the owner of the house you lived in with Horace and Helen Reid. The company is a subsidiary of… Let me not bore you with details. Just know that I’m onto it. It’s difficult to follow the money trail, but I’m confident I’ll succeed with that.”

  Thomas Aldercroft is not just a pretty face, by the looks of it. Elise thought he’s younger than her. I think he’s in his early thirties. Sometime soon he’ll have to tell me how he and Scott became friends.

  “What’s missing is evidence of the historical child abuse and the sex trafficking.” Just hearing the words turns our stomach to mush again. Some people say it gets easier the more you talk about it. I’m still waiting for that to happen.

  “Unless the children from the boat talk, depending on how much they were brainwashed, we are not much further with that side.” Scott is forking a huge piece of the steak into his mouth. I struggle to concentrate on what he says while most of the tribe watches in disgust how he tackles the near raw piece of meat, leaving a pool of blood on his plate.

  “Didn’t they find the seaplane that waited for us?”

  “Not that I know. We can only hope Helen will spill the beans during the interrogations. She better talks if she wants a lenient sentence.”

  Thomas swallows the last bit of his steak and puts his cutlery down. “From here on I see my main task as following the trail of your parent’s assets. I thought it would be interesting to see what the connections of the New Gateways group are. Who owns what, how they are structured? They operate a registered rehabilitation and education center for young people. There must be information I can access.”

  “When Elise is ready, we’ll collect names and dates of what happened, who was involved, and so forth. Whatever she remembers. Maybe that’ll give us a hint in which direction to look further.” Scott looks at me as if he wants to gauge the depth of my cooperation.

  The thought of going back into my childhood memories causes an immediate exodus of parts. I can see them speeding into their rooms in the tree house. It makes me grin. It’s like the rats leaving a sinking ship. Well, we aren’t rats, and we aren’t cowards, but when Elise is ready might be a bit further away than Scott imagines.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Elise: 4 February 2016, Wright’s Homestead

  Almost three months ago we left Waitakere Flats and came to Wright’s Homestead. Is it possible? It feels like a century has passed since. My life with Horace and Helen has become part of a distant past, unreal, like a bad dream that leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I think about it. Putting a full stop at the end of the last thirty years wasn’t easy. It shaped us in so many ways. Nowadays we all work hard to move on.

  Through the open door I hear Prince in the backyard, chasing the wind, or loose leaves, or the scent of a wild rabbit. Now and then he strolls in and checks on me, something he started to do since the kidnapping two months ago. He nudges his cold nose against my arm to score a reassuring scratch behind his ears.

  My hands glide over the piece I’m working at. It will be my best yet and not for sale like the others I’ve sold in the Galleria in Port Somers. It’s a modest income, but it pays for the essentials I need.

  I put the shuttle aside and thread a fat strand of raw sheep wool through the weft. This new piece is special. It stands for a new beginning, for my time at Wright’s Homestead. The sheep wool stands for Scott, who is still asleep upstairs in the second bedroom, the one that auntie Amanda used.

  He stays with me two nights a week and calls it searching for proof days. At first, I didn’t like it. But he’s respectful and never asks, always waits for me to bring up issues, which often I don’t. I appreciate that he’s not ripping apart the fabric of my protection. We’ve agreed to wait for memories to surface without any prodding.

  I started this weave with a patch in lots of different shades of purple. It represents Miss Marple. Scott asked her to visit after they released us from prison. She stayed with us for three days. I wish she could have stayed longer, but she only had the weekend. I’m glad she came at all and helped us to process more of the trauma memories.

  In most of those sessions, she worked with Maddie and Amadeus. I wasn’t aware of how much trauma both carried. They worked hard and I’m very proud of them. Miss Marple was full of praise about our progress and often said, “I’m amazed by how far you’ve come.”

  I don’t think I did anything out of the ordinary. The moment I decided to get to know the Tribe, it happened by itself, like cogs aligning in a complicated machine learning to function again. I hear more of the voices and I remember more things. Some memories felt so incredible, so unbelievable, I often doubted whether they were real. Perhaps I’m making them up to find someone to blame for my shortcomings and misguided decisions?

  When I told Miss Marple so, she reassured me, “Our mind is a funny old thing, it strives towards wholeness and health. Once you’re on the road to getting to know yourself, all the parts of you, I think nature takes care of itself.”

  I’m sad she’s gone. I guess she was right. We are much better now; there is a flow to us. When we get up in the morning and make breakfast and clean up, I know it’s Ama doing so, but it’s like I’m there too, maybe with just a small step to the side. It’s hard to tell the difference between Lilly and me. Sometimes I feel we are like the Siamese twins, joined at the hip and the upper body. It’s like flipping a coin, one of us is out, with the other never far away.

  I let out a sigh and look at the work in front of me. It’ll be a large wall hanging. My fingers fly over the silky texture of green mohair wool, which reflects the time we arrived at Wright’s Homestead and celebrated our newfound freedom. Everything was new and exciting, like discovering the tree in the backyard.

  The patch of strands in black and dark brown wool is for the time they captured us. It has shells and seaweed woven into it for the time they held us on the fishing boat. Even a starfish made it into this piece to show the lightness we felt when the police found us.
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  The strangest thing happened with the money. We keep finding some between the cushions of the couch, under the pillow in the bed. I even found a hundred-dollar bill in my gumboots the other day. I swear we looked everywhere and found nothing, but the bills pop up like mushrooms after a warm summer rain. Even Sky has no idea where it comes from, and she usually knows everything.

  The first few times I accused Scott, but he denies having anything to do with it. I believe him because the money shows up even when he’s not staying the night. Together with the sale of my woven art, the occasional money surprise covers what we need for groceries and other living expenses.

  It’s as if a group of leprechauns prints the money in the basement. Only this cottage hasn’t got a cellar and leprechauns live in Ireland, not in New Zealand. Today I found a hundred-dollar bill under the vase on the dining table. I’m tempted to scrunch it up and weave it into my piece.

  Prince comes inside with a stick between his teeth. He puts the stick down, looks at me with his big eyes, and nudges me to play with him. It doesn’t look like he’s taking no for an answer. That gives me an idea. I grab the bill and hold it under his nose.

  “Find, boy, find the money.”

  He looks at me as if to say, what kind of strange game are you playing with me? I’m not one of these airport dogs that sniff all day for drugs and other stuff.

  But I’m not giving up. I’m on a mission and rub the note under his nose again.

  “Find the money, Prince. Go.”

  He sniffs throughout the room, from the loom to the dining table, to the stairs, and to the cooking range. He stops, crouches down, and reaches with his paws under the range. It seems like such an unlikely place. The silly dog is chasing mice again. I might as well give up. I get up to pull him away from the range when I hear a voice loud and clear as if a person is standing in front of me.

  “No, you are not allowed to take it. It’s my treasure.”

  But there is no one. Then something happens to me. It’s like my body doesn’t belong to me anymore, as if I’m standing outside while it has a life of its own.

  “Oh, no, Mikey. What have you done?” My other half of the coin, Lilly, is talking to what seems to be a young lad.

  “I have done nothing bad. When the police came, I took the money and found a place to hide it. Ama hid it under the bed. It was ridiculous. Everyone would look there first.”

  “Show me your hiding place.” Lilly is clever, she doesn’t even argue.

  He bends down and reaches under the range. I hear how he lifts a wood plank and comes up with the shoebox we took from Horace’s wardrobe and a rusty old Griffin’s cookie tin tucked under his arm. He plunks the shoebox on the dining table but holds on to the tin.

  I try hard to get back into the body, but his energy is much stronger than mine.

  “That looks like a wonderful treasure, Mikey, why don’t you show it to us.” Lilly is wonderful. She finds just the right words for the boy. I know she’s just as excited as I am about the treasure. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. She regrets not having thought of hiding it herself. It would be just the kind of stuff she does for fun.

  When he opens the lid of the tin box, I see a stack of yellowed photos and old documents. One glance at the photos and my inside erupts into mayhem. Everyone is rushing to be in the body and take a look. The pressure inside my head is unbelievable. Desperately, I press my fists to my temples to keep my head from exploding. Mikey is long gone. I’m not sure who’s in the body. I am, but it doesn’t feel that it’s just me, or even the me I know.

  In front of me are over a dozen photos, depicting young children, boys, and girls, including me, in sexual acts involving men and women. Lots of men and lots of women. The children look dazed and lifeless like dolls. They’ve drugged them, I’m sure. I’m about to faint when I recognize my father among a group of other men and women. All naked, all… there are Helen and Horace, the redhead policewoman, Heather, Patrick’s receptionist, Martin, Scott’s friend.

  I push the tin away from me and gag. I want to be sick. I rush to the basin in the laundry. Bile rises from my stomach; its sour stench is lining my throat and taking away my breath.

  “Oh, no!” I hear an agonizing cry, it must have come from my lips, but I’m far from being aware of what is going on. I’m floating, wrapped in a merciful cloud of semi-consciousness, half there, half not, praying to God—if there is one—to take me to where the other half of me disappeared to. But when did he ever answer any of my prayers?

  Scott comes racing down the stairs and is at my side with a few steps.

  “What?” He stops and stares at the pile of photos that fell out of my hands and scattered onto the tabletop.

  “Oh, my God.”

  He turns white like my bed sheets upstairs.

  I don’t want him to look, don’t want to see the pity in his eyes. I told him about the abuse months ago, but this is different. Abuse is such a sanitized word. It covers a range of things and therefore nothing. Rape is much harsher. To see the humiliating circumstances of how we and other kids were raped, molested, and used to satisfy the primitive pleasure of a group of dirty pedophiles, is altogether on a different level of ugliness and disgust. I’m violently sick.

  Some things you just can’t un-see. Those pictures fit into that category. I understand now how important it was for us to split into different parts just to cope and get by. I want to pull Scott away from the table, but my legs seem to have stopped listening to my commands.

  “Do you know what you’ve got here?”

  What a stupid question that is. Since when did he turn stupid? I want to punch him or push him away or both. Amadeus would be a good person to have around at this moment, but since Miss Marple visited us and worked with him, he lost much of his bite. None of my faculties are working, not my brain, not my legs or arms. I collapse onto a chair like a dead slab of meat.

  “No, you obviously don’t. I’m sorry you saw the terrible images of the children. I’m very sorry. Are you aware, with these photos you can put all of these people into prison for a very long time? This is the evidence we were looking for.”

  The idea of having these photos viewed by strangers is turning my stomach and I run for the sink in the laundry again. When I return, he’s shoved the photos together and put them upside down on the table. There they lay, innocent pieces of paper with the power to spread horror and terrible pain.

  “It’s sickening, disgusting, repulsive.”

  He nods, his face a grave mask. “Where did you find them?”

  “One of my young parts had hidden the tin they were in under a loose floorboard beneath the cooking range.” I’m surprised I have a voice, even though it’s breaking up and choked.

  “What a clever hiding place. If those police officers had found it when they searched your house, all the evidence would have been gone.”

  He looks at the other papers in the tin.

  “What else have we here? This is a letter from your mother to your aunt. Oh… wow.” Scott’s hands sink to the table and he stares at me.

  “What?”

  “You have 1,000 Apple shares from 1981. Do you have any idea how much they are worth?”

  “No, how much?”

  “Millions. You are rich, my girl.”

  I roll my eyes. What does it take for him to get it? I don’t care about money. I would give it away if only I could get my peace of mind back, make the memories go away, and sleep without nightmares. What would I do with it? I hear Lizette giggling in the back of my mind, “I could think of a few things.” I’m sure she could. I reach for my mother’s letter. If we are making a clean sweep, I might as well get it over with.

  Dear Mandy,

  I know we haven’t spoken for a long while. I’m sorry for what I have put you through. I am too weak to stand up against Eugene. The Gateways council is launching disciplinary action against us. Me for not taking part and Eugene for not making me. I’m afraid. They won’t shy a
way from… I don’t know what to say. If something happens to us, it will be their fault. We wouldn’t be the first people to disappear. Everybody is too afraid to stand up to them. Hide this letter and the photos and documents - hopefully, someone has the courage to use it. Please look after my daughter.

  Your loving sister Sarah

  My head is spinning. My mother tried to get away from Gateways and wished us safely looked after. She didn’t have as black a soul as I always imagined. She wasn’t the most affectionate mother, but it looks like she tried the best she could.

  Oh, mum. Unspoken words stick in my throat, making it hard to swallow. Tears pool in my eyes. Regret and a wave of unrelenting grief rise inside me, until I break down, sink to the ground, and hug poor befuddled Prince.

  I weep and cry an ocean of tears.

  It takes a while for me to notice Scott kneeling on the floor next to me and putting his strong arm around my shoulders. It takes even longer for my tears to dry up. So many lives destroyed. So much pain.

  It takes a long time until we get up off the floor. I long to remain in his arms but I feel so dirty and ashamed. How can he still want to be my friend after seeing these disgusting photos?

  I’m empty.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Lilly: 24 November 2016, Wellington, High Court

  Guilty! The jury found twelve members of the New Gateways Council guilty on all accounts. The judge dished out the longest prison terms in New Zealand’s criminal history. Many of them will end their lives behind bars.

  “Come on, Kiddo, it’s over. Let’s go somewhere and celebrate.”

  I look up to Scott. I want to pinch him and me, to be sure this is real and not just a dream I will wake up from. Did we really put Sebastian Feldman and his disciples behind bars?

  We are standing on the steps of the High Court in Wellington. He’s like a rock in the surf letting the stream of people pass us, protecting me and standing by my side, as he has done over the last year. The sun appears undecided whether it should be a good or a great day, and plays hide and seek with a bunch of fluffy white clouds. Even the legendary Wellington wind feels playful today and settles for chasing a few leaves across the pavement.