Big Woods Page 9

  When I pull in the drive, Mom and Dad are both waiting for me out on the lawn. Mom’s arms are crossed tight across her chest, her face is creased with worry, and as I step out of the truck they both stride over to me and fold me into their arms.

  They lead me inside. “You must be starving, sweetie,” Mom says and busies her panicky hands by warming up butter in a skillet to make my favorite lunch, grilled cheese. Dad leans back against the counter, his pale blue eyes searching mine. My stomach grumbles at the smell of the sizzling butter. I keep expecting them both to explode on me, but they tiptoe around me, treating me not like I ran away, but as if I still have a stomach bug. I’m grateful for whatever the sheriff told them.

  I scarf down my grilled cheese and move to the living room. Mom hovers in the doorway, biting her nails. I can tell she has something to say but doesn’t want to say it in front of Dad, so she makes an excuse about folding the laundry and leaves the room. Dad’s got a football game on and I stretch out on the couch next to him and put my cold feet on his warm lap. When I’m sure Mom’s out of earshot, I ask, “Dad, you believe me, don’t you? About the dreams?” His eyes are far off, staring somewhere between the Texas Longhorns football game and the fireplace.

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore, baby,” he says, his voice soft and distant, the sturdy knot he’d tied himself back into already beginning to unravel after my stunt this morning.

  I roll over on my side and curl up and drift to off to sleep.

  I wake to the sound of my parents chopping vegetables. It must be near sunset, because the room is a dark cave with just thin slits of sunlight creeping through the shutters. Mom and Dad are talking in hushed tones and the radio is on, tuned to a classical station.

  I step into the dining room and the table is set for dinner so I sink down in my chair. Mom and Dad carry in platters of food and just after we start to eat, Mom clears her throat and sets down her fork and says, “Now that you’ve had some rest, we’d just like to say that we’re not mad at you, Leah. Your father and I are just thankful”—her eyes fill with tears—“that you’re here, back home, safe, with us.” She looks at Dad expectantly, but he just nods quickly and chokes back his own tears.

  After supper Mom brings out dessert, the apple pie left over from the picnic, and is just beginning to serve it when the phone rings. Dad wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin and leaps for the phone.

  “Spencer residence,” he says, breathless. “Yes, yes, she is … hang on.” He’s standing between the kitchen and the dining room where the wall phone hangs. Mom jumps up and pushes away from the table, but Dad shakes his head. “It’s actually for Leah. It’s the sheriff.”

  I take the phone from Dad and step into the kitchen, cradling the phone to my ear.

  “Listen, Leah, I’m sorry but I drove out to Mr. Haines’s property this afternoon myself and he checks out. The children you heard were his foster children, and I’m absolutely certain he in no way had anything to do with Lucy’s disappearance.”

  “But what about the greenhouse?” I ask, stepping farther into the kitchen until the cord strangles the wall. “Did you investigate that?”

  He sighs. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but there was nothing there. I had a look around inside and it’s just an old greenhouse. They don’t even use it anymore. And there’s no trap door, it’s just a big mound of sod with weeds growing over it—the land hasn’t been recently disturbed.”

  I slump into the wall, still holding the phone.

  “I’m sorry, kiddo, I wish I had more good news,” he says. “Would you mind putting your mom on the line for me?”

  “Sure,” I say, my bottom lip quivering. “And thanks for checking it out anyways.”

  I walk out of the kitchen and pass the phone to Mom, who’s already standing. She takes it and steps into the kitchen, gently pushing the door shut behind her. I can hear soft murmurs, and I can picture Mom twisting the phone cord around her finger like she does when she’s having a serious conversation.

  Later that evening as I’m about to drop into sleep, Mom comes in my room and sits next to me in bed. She’s wearing a lavender cotton nightgown and smells like pink Dove soap. She smooths down my bangs and strokes my hair for a while before saying, in a low voice, “I can’t believe you went out there all by yourself!” She shakes her head as much as a reproach as wonderment.

  “But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. Your father and I both know that you’ve been through enough already,” she says, still stroking my hair. “The sheriff, umm … Tommy, well, he suggested,” she says, fumbling around for words. “He thinks that maybe you should go and talk to a counselor. About the dreams, about Lucy, just about everything you’ve been through. Your father and I agree with him. We think it might help, Leah. Just think about it, okay?”

  I roll over, turning away from her. I’m silently counting the yellow wildflowers on my wallpaper, fighting back tears. I’m stung that the sheriff doesn’t believe me, that Mom and Dad don’t believe me.

  Mom starts to rub my back, and at first, I want to twist away from her, to punish her, but I don’t have the energy. I stare at the wallpaper feeling foolish and betrayed. She rubs in small, soothing circles. My eyelids grow heavy and I fall into a numb sleep.

  39

  Sylvia

  According to Delia, these men were all part of a secret society—a sex ring, presumably run by the sheriff—and every Friday night they would meet out at a cemetery where they would conduct dark rituals and force women into performing sex acts with them.

  On the first night she was raped, the sheriff and his deputy led Delia out of her cell and out the back door of the police station. At first she thought she was going be released, but then they dragged her by the handcuffs to a black Chevy Blazer, threw her in the back, and shackled her legs.

  They drove out of town and turned down a long blacktopped road, then down a red-dirt lane. Her hip bumped against the metal truck bed as they hit craters in the road.

  They yanked her out of the car and dragged her toward the cemetery. There was a fire pit with a huge bonfire raging and a great big circle of stones around the fire. There were other women there, all strapped to the stones, naked and terrified. The preacher seemed to be the master of the ceremonies, and when they tied Delia to a stone and unshackled her legs, he started to say strange, mysterious words over the fire, words she didn’t understand.

  That first night, she struggled to break loose. She fought them and kicked at them when they removed the shackles and tore off her clothes. She screamed until they stuffed a filthy rag in her mouth, but after that first night she learned to stop fighting—they would be finished with her quicker that way and there’d be less punishment—so she learned to let her body go slack and let them have their way with her, their stale, putrid breath fuming in her face.

  They treated the women like animals, she told me. While they were tied to the stones, the men would force themselves into the women’s mouths, and then rape them and do other horrid, vile things that she couldn’t even tell me about. I could tell she was ashamed, but I tried not to make her feel any shame—I wouldn’t shudder in front of her or blink. Instead, I’d say, “Go on, dear.”

  She told me about the rituals, about something called a blood ritual that the preacher would perform. One Friday, under a full moon, she saw him slit the throat of a white bunny and wipe the blood over the throat of one of the women. The next Friday, the woman had disappeared. Delia felt like they had murdered her during a sacrifice, and that they would all eventually be murdered.

  Delia thought she was next; that’s why she was so desperate to escape.

  No one came looking for these girls. They were the forgotten, the “trash” in their small Christian town.

  “I’m safe here, right?” she would ask me every night, heartbreakingly so, like a child, jittery and manic. Her thin body
rocking back and forth in bed, her bony knees pulled tightly into her chest. It broke my heart to have to keep telling her over and over, “Yes, you’re safe here. You’re safe.”

  40

  Leah

  Sunday, November 5th, 1989

  Lucy missing 5 weeks, 2 days

  I wake to warm fingers brushing across my face. It’s Lucy; she’s giggling and trying to wake me up. Her breath smells like hot cinnamon; she’s just brushed her teeth with her favorite toothpaste, Colgate Red. She tugs at my pjs and brings an index finger to her lips and says, “Shhhhh.”

  Other than that shhhh, we don’t talk, or can’t talk. She just keeps giggling. She’s wearing her pink nightgown, the kind that collects static so that her hair stands up at wild angles, and every time I touch her, it shocks us. I can hear music playing in another room, and Lucy grabs me by the hand and pulls me out of bed.

  My face is wet with tears. I’m just so happy to see her and we stumble into our yellow playroom. It’s morning and the sun has filled the room with warm, silky light. The turntable is spinning and it’s the soundtrack to Xanadu.

  Lucy smiles when I realize it. It’s our thing. We used to spend hours in our roller skates, skating up the drive to the side of our house, trying to gather speed so we could bust through the brick wall like they do in the movie, to get to the mystical place of Xanadu.

  Olivia Newton John’s voice purrs at me to take her hand, to believe we are magic.

  Lucy dances around the room, smiling and giggling and then runs over to me and we start waltzing around the room.

  The record keeps spinning, but Lucy breaks loose and runs out of the room. I go to follow her, but when I get to the landing, it’s dark and there’s no railing to the stairs. I stop because I could tumble down and when I wake up, I’m screaming her name.

  41

  Sylvia

  That Saturday I drove out to Hattie’s. It had snowed the night before; the ground was coated in a thick white layer as creamy and rich as vanilla frosting, so we spent all day huddled inside Hattie’s kitchen, sitting around her enamel-topped table drinking coffee and trying to figure out what to do about Delia.

  We knew we wouldn’t have her forever. Our unit was a temporary one, a place to move on from.

  “Let’s wait and see about Dr. Marshall’s diagnosis,” Hattie said, clinking a tiny silver spoon against the inside of her coffee mug as she stirred in more cream. “He’s going to evaluate her Monday morning.”

  We knew that based on his evaluation, Delia would be transferred soon, to the state hospital in Rusk or, if her case was less severe, she would be sent back to family, if they could find any, and seen on an outpatient basis.

  We both fretted over either possibility. Nowhere seemed safe for Delia, unless she was with us. We talked about me taking her home and hiding her there; I was certainly willing to do it.

  “Isn’t it time we go to the police, tell them what we know?” I asked.

  “Mmm … no, I don’t think so, not yet.” Hattie shook her head. “They’ll just wanna know if she’s crazy or not, so we have to wait for Dr. Marshall.”

  I knew she was right.

  I didn’t want to leave Hattie’s, but outside the sky was turning a deep purple and snow flurries began skipping through the air, so I gathered my heavy winter coat and said goodbye.

  That Monday I went into the hospital during the daytime, just before lunch, and requested a meeting with Dr. Marshall. He was in his office, hunched over paperwork, a pen jammed in his fat hand. He barely looked up when I walked in and motioned for me to take a seat.

  “I want to talk to you about Delia,” I said, my voice suddenly teetering.

  “Yes, what about?” he said, the overhead fluorescents bouncing off his waxy, bald head.

  I felt my throat harden—Delia had confided in me and Hattie, but I had to tell him what I knew. I didn’t go into too much detail, but I told him that Delia believed her life to be in great peril, that she had managed to escape from a sex ring led by the Starrville sheriff.

  He held my gaze for a moment, but then looked bored and continued filling out paperwork.

  “The girl is not in her right mind,” he said, licking the tip of his stubby index finger and flipping through paperwork. “I did a full evaluation this morning, and she’s displaying all the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia—”

  I opened my mouth to speak but he waved his hand, dismissing me.

  “And I’m going to recommend that she be transferred to the state as soon as possible.”

  “But she’s not crazy!” I said. My hands were shaking. “Her story is real, and it’s our opinion—”

  “Our?” Dr. Marshall asked with a nasty smirk on his face.

  “Nurse Banks and I believe that she’s a victim and yes, she may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but she’s definitely in her right mind. We need to be going to the police, we need to keep her safe, we need—”

  Dr. Marshall was up out of his chair, hands on the desk, lunging toward me. One thin strip of black, greasy hair ran over the crown of his head. “She’s delusional!” he was practically shouting at me. “That’s my diagnosis and it sticks! No more of this nonsense!” he said, waving me out of his office.

  “But I’m willing to take her home! She can come and live with me,” I said.

  “Look, I don’t know what is going on between you and this girl,” he said, a distasteful look spreading across his face, “but you need to let this go.”

  That night and for the rest of the time Delia was with us, I stopped giving her the meds. It occurred to me later that of course Delia might’ve acted out more in front of Dr. Marshall, wanting him to believe she was truly insane so she could stay in hiding, but I wanted her to be as lucid as possible, to get as many facts for the police as I possibly could before she was transferred.

  Her shots, though, were carefully measured out and recorded—controlled substances are monitored under a tight watch—but I would turn and empty the syringe into a wadded up towel on top of the laundry bin. One night, as I turned to do it, the door was still open and Laverne, another nurse, walked by and a look passed between us.

  42

  Leah

  Friday, November 1oth, 1989

  Lucy missing 6 weeks

  Ever since the sheriff called, I’ve decided to start keeping a diary. I want to record everything that happens, especially my dreams, so I went to the top shelf of my closet and pulled out an old baby blue diary I haven’t touched since fifth grade. It has a silver lock on it, and I wrote on the inside flap with magic markers, “NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO READ THIS. ESPECIALLY LUCY!” It had just three entries in it: what grades I had made that semester, what movie Lucy and I had just watched, and an entry about Jason Wesley, a boy I thought was cute.

  I flipped to a fresh page and at the top I wrote: SUSPECTS. I wrote down the name Mr. Haines, even though the sheriff swears he’s innocent.

  On Tuesday, Ali came bounding up to me in the locker banks after fourth period. Her hair was pulled back tautly in a big red bow with frizzy rings forming around her face. She was wearing a multi-colored baggy sweater and she sashayed toward me and passed me a note. I read it during English:

  Leah! Want to come over this Saturday night? I know things have been SO hard for you, but I would love it if you’d say yes. Brett and Scott are coming over to watch a movie. Well, Scott actually asked me to ask you to come, but I really want you to, too, and I really think you should! Mom says you can spend the night. Let me know!

  I folded the note back up into its ruler-perfect shape and let out a sigh. I had no desire to go to Ali’s, to get nauseous from eating too much popcorn and Cool Ranch Doritos and to spend the night trying to fend off Scott while Ali and Brett stayed lip locked underneath a blanket, but I found myself unfolding the note, and scrawling YES on the bottom.

&
nbsp; I needed Scott to drive me to Big Woods.

  That night I waited until Mom and Dad were asleep and I snuck into Dad’s darkened study and turned on the computer. I looked over my shoulder to make sure I was alone before I started typing:

  Lucy,

  I know you’re out there. I know the dream was real. I went out to Big Woods to find you, but I couldn’t. But don’t worry, I’m coming out there again Saturday night—I’m going to ask Scott to take me. If you can, tell me more, tell me where you are, anything.

  I love you,

  Leah

  I left the message up all night so she could see it, but I made sure I erased it before Mom and Dad woke up the next morning.

  On Friday night, the night before Ali’s sleepover, I decided to sleep in Lucy’s room. I walked over to her closet and turned on the light, like she used to at night, and pulled the door just so. Her room was starting to smell musty, so I turned the ceiling fan on low, even though it was cold outside. I climbed in her bed and turned toward the window. The moon was nearly full and so bright it glowed pink and had a halo around it. I stared and stared at the pink orb until I fell asleep.

  I had a dream that night that Lucy and I were playing in the woods behind our house. It was chilly out, and Lucy was all bundled up, wearing her thick wool toboggan. She was tracing a circle in the dirt with a stick, but then tossed it aside and went into the house. A moment later she came back and held out her gloved hands and handed me a bracelet. It was her favorite: a silver cuff with a butterfly on it made out of turquoise. Mom and Dad brought it back from a vacation in Cancun as a souvenir. They’d given me a matching pair of silver turquoise earrings. The butterfly’s wings are spiky, and Lucy and I used to pretend that it was her “weapon bracelet,” like the one Wonder Woman wears.

  “Here,” she said, solemnly. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. She looked forlorn and vacant.