The
remainder of the night whirled by me in a series of images with no solid
recollection. The men who helped walk me
back to the warm house, local farmers from the nearby Amish community, I would
later be told. How I’d welcomed the warm
blankets and hot cider, sent by their
wives, harried with worry for a local girl lost in the woods. That night, they
would hold their own daughters a little tighter.
Then there was Greg, leading the pack and
squeezing my hand, telling me I was safe now.
Even in my disheveled state, I could tell his demeanor towards me had
changed. He was looking at me intently. Was that sincere concern I saw in his eyes? No whispered words of warning or bitter premonitions this time, only his warm,
calloused hand steadily leading me home.
I sobbed as
the old, be-draggled farmhouse came into view.
Each well-lit window shining like a yellow beacon. First I was overcome with hugs from a tearful
Grandma, guilty for having asked me to call for Shadow. Then scalding, black coffee was forced into my
chapped, quivering lips by Libby, who’d been the first to realize I’d never
come back . Aunt Helen was quietly
pacing back and forth in the sitting room, her right hand clasped so tightly to
her cane that I thought she might lose circulation to her fingers. I could only imagine what they had thought.
First Vanessa, and now Aubrey…
I remember
trying to speak, descriptions of Vanessa’s makeshift shack on the tip of my
tongue, shining pink behind my eyelids.
My cousin, my best friend, my childhood folly…now gone. No words would come. Only wretched, choking sobs that tore
from my throat in waves.
Hysterical
beyond comprehension, and babbling like a mad woman, I remember someone calling
Doctor Sturgill. And mere minutes later
an old kind man, eyes crinkled at the corners in a permanent smile, savior who
gently sedated me with a shot I didn’t feel at all. And then nothing but a blessed blackness as I
fell into slumber.
I awoke with
a start. The dream was in the back of my
head, a secret place behind my eyes, yet I couldn’t fully recall it. Someone
screaming. Their eyes frozen open. A scream forever silenced in the cold, open
‘o’ of their mouth.
I raised up,
slowly, wincing from the stiff twitch in my lower back. I guess that was to be expected after a
one-hour trek through snowy woods.
“Not so
fast, there. Doc says you gotta take it
easy.”
I looked up
to see Greg sitting in the armchair across the room, his creamy skin and blue
eyes a sharp contrast to the floral upholstery.
I wondered how long he’d been there and instantly concluded he must have
held vigil the night before, when I’d been guided to the room in hysterics. He smiled and tipped his hat as he sauntered
towards me. Perhaps I was still dazed
from the events of the previous night, or the sedative, or both, but his eyes
seemed to hold a certain, mischievous twinkle.
I shook my
head. No way was I going to get fancy on
the house help. Particularly one who
hadn’t given me a very friendly reception.
“Nonsense,” I shot back.
“I’m perfectly capable of getting out of bed on my own. Besides, I’m starved.”
He might
have played a hand in rescuing me, but I wasn’t going to be so quick to forgive
the way he'd treated me when we met mere days ago.
He smiled a
little and tilted his head, as if he were secretly making a decision. Then he gently sat beside me. He wrung his hands nervously for a few
moments, then touched the frizz of my hair in a brotherly way that embarrassed
me.
“Listen
now,” this was the first time I took notice of his Southern drawl. He scratched the stubble on his chin
thoughtfully and then went on. “I know I
wasn’t the nicest to you the other day, but this whole thing
with your missing cousin has been grating on my nerves for weeks.”
“But
whatever can you mean?” I said, worry
furrowing my brows in a way that made my head begin to ache.
“Something
around here just isn’t right. And you
seem like a nice girl. Right now just
wasn’t the most opportune time for you to walk in here, on this whole mystery.
“ His eyes crinkled, pointedly boring
into my own. “Or this crime, which I
think it is…I’m not sure your cousin would have just up and ran off without
telling me. We’ve been friends for
years.”
I laid back
against the pillows and sighed. So
there, I had it, someone else who had suspicions. Maybe I wasn’t so crazy after all.
“I think
someone’s done something to Vanessa, and I think it’s someone who is closer
than you might think, Aubrey. And I want
you to be careful not to go letting anyone know that your suspicions have been
aroused.”
“But
someone, they chased me last night,” I spat out. “Chased me until I was lost, delirious from
the cold. Once they got me out into the
woods with no idea how to get back home, I heard them walking away.”
“Are you
sure of that?” Greg stood up and began to pace, his arms crossed, face pinched
in concentration.
“I’m one
hundred percent positive, Greg,” I shot back.
And then I told him of the cabin, which he’d already known about long ago. He reassured me he’d already went through it with a fine-toothed comb, yielding no evidence and no clues. And while it was fresh in my mind, I told him of the grotesque thing that had lured me into the hallway, it’s eerie warning, the way it had knocked me down and ran off into the shadows of the corridor. He listened, his eyes wide and angry.
And then I told him of the cabin, which he’d already known about long ago. He reassured me he’d already went through it with a fine-toothed comb, yielding no evidence and no clues. And while it was fresh in my mind, I told him of the grotesque thing that had lured me into the hallway, it’s eerie warning, the way it had knocked me down and ran off into the shadows of the corridor. He listened, his eyes wide and angry.
“Someone
doesn’t want you here, Aubrey. I think
they know something and they are trying to spook you away. We don’t know who it is yet, that’s why
we’ve got to be careful,” he said again,
gently touching my hand. “And I don’t
want you roaming around in the woods alone again, you hear me? At least not in the dark, and not without
keeping the farmhouse in sight, okay?”
I assured
him I would not and he left the room to give me privacy, promising that Libby
would have a hot plate of breakfast awaiting me once I was dressed and ready to
go downstairs.
“Oh,” he
said, reappearing in the doorway. “I
have to drive into town tomorrow morning, need to swing by the hardware store
and the post office. Your grandmother
said you might be interested in getting out of this house for a while. What do you say we make a day of it and have
lunch, maybe do a little sight-seeing?”
“Hm,” I
pondered for a moment, my smile a dead ringer.
“I think that sounds lovely.”
