A policeman came inside. “We need something Erica has worn recently so we can set the dogs on her trail.”
“And a recent photograph,” Detective Shank added.
Dad went upstairs and came back with a pair of red socks Erica had worn the day before. Mom gave the police one of a recent set of school photographs.
“Beautiful little girl,” Detective Shank said. “But such a sad expression.” She looked at us with narrowed eyes, as if she were blaming us for everything.
The policeman went outside with the socks. Through the window, I saw the dogs sniff the socks before the police led them into the field.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Mom said. “It’s like a nightmare.”
“I know. I know.” The detective patted Mom’s hand. “Would you like tea?”
Mom nodded, and the woman went to the kitchen.
“Make yourself useful, Daniel,” Dad said. “Show her where things are.”
“Please don’t blame me for this, Dad.”
Dad looked around the room. “I don’t see anyone else to blame.”
In the kitchen, I went to the cabinet over the stove and got out cups and saucers. Detective Shank had already found tea bags and put the kettle on the stove.
While we waited for the water to boil, she looked at me. “When you and Erica were fighting, did you hit Erica, Daniel? Knock her down or hurt her somehow?”
Her question really upset me. Did she suspect me of harming Erica in some way or leaving her unconscious in the woods?
“I shoved her,” I admitted, “and she fell down, but not hard. She jumped up and ran away from me.”
“Are you sure that’s all you did?”
“I’d never hurt my sister.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Not on purpose.” She looked at my face closely and touched the scratches on my cheek. “Did Erica do this?”
“It was a branch. She pushed it out of her way, and it swung back and hit me. The thorns scratched me, not my sister.”
“What were you fighting about?”
“I told you. She was mad about the doll. She said it was my fault it was gone.”
“Why did you prevent Erica from picking up the doll yesterday?”
“It was almost dark. We had to go home.”
“I don’t understand what difference it would have made to pick up the doll.”
I started crying. I couldn’t help it. “I should have let her get the doll. She really loves it. I wish I had, but I, I—I don’t like being in the woods when it’s dark.”
The teakettle started whistling while I was trying to explain. Mom heard it, I guess, and came to the door. “What’s going on?” she asked the detective. “Daniel’s a minor. You have no right to question him without my permission.”
“I’m just trying to understand why the doll was left in the woods yesterday, ma’am. It seems peculiar.”
Mom turned off the stove, and the kettle’s shrill whistle stopped. She put an arm around me, and I leaned against her, incredibly grateful for her protection. I’d begun to think that my whole family, as well as everyone else in Woodville, hated me, including Detective Irma Shank.
“I was scared,” I finally admitted. “I was scared to stop for the doll.”
“What were you afraid of?” Detective Shank shook her head, as if she didn’t believe me. “You don’t look like the sort of boy who’s easily scared.”
“I thought I saw something in the woods, in the shadows,” I told her. “I was scared it was coming after Erica and me.”
Detective Shank seemed unconvinced. Probably she’d already decided I had more to do with Erica’s disappearance than I was saying.
Mom spoke up. “The children have been nervous, anxious. They’re not used to living in the country with no neighbors. It’s so dark at night. They’re imaginative. They, they—”
Mom held me tighter. She was crying again. “Daniel has told you all he knows. Please spend your time searching for Erica. She’s out there in the cold, and you’re sitting here questioning Daniel as if you suspect him of harming his sister.”
Detective Shank got to her feet. “Children often know more than they let on,” she said with a glance at me. “I’m trying to understand all the aspects, ma’am. Believe me, I want to find your daughter as much as you do.”
With that, the detective left the house and joined the police, who were now searching the shed.
“Do you still want tea, Mom?”
She nodded, and I made us both a cup. “Do you think Dad wants one?”
“He’s outside, no doubt making a nuisance of himself.” Cup in hand, she went to the window and stared past the reflection of the kitchen into the darkness beyond. “Where can she be, Daniel?”
Suddenly Dad barged into the kitchen with a couple of cops. He was holding Erica’s knit hat, the one she’d worn yesterday. “One of the dogs found it caught on a branch,” he said, “about a mile from here. A mile! How could she have gone that far?”
Mom took the hat and pressed it to her face. Crying softly, she continued to gaze into the darkness beyond the window.
“Where are the dogs?” I asked. “Are they still on Erica’s trail?”
Dad gestured toward the squad cars and the ambulance still parked near the house. “Out there. They lost her scent not long after they found the hat.”
I stared at Dad. “But they’ll find her, right?”
“Yes, of course. Tomorrow they’ll ask for volunteers to form lines and search the woods. It’ll be better in the daylight. They can . . .” His voice dropped, and he stared out the window. “I can’t believe this.”
Before the police left, the officer in charge told us to get some sleep, to hope for the best. Erica was probably lost, but with the help of volunteer searchers, they’d find her tomorrow.
I can’t speak for my parents, but I doubt they slept much that night. I certainly didn’t. For hours, I sat at my bedroom window, willing Erica to find her way out of the woods.
I’ll never tease you again or get mad at you, I promised. Just come home. Please, Erica, please come home. I’m so, so sorry.
Ten
In the gray light of dawn I woke to the sound of voices in the kitchen. Mom was serving coffee to the volunteers who had brought doughnuts and Danish pastries and sticky buns. The whole house smelled like sugar, but I had no appetite for any of it.
Mom gave me a cup of hot chocolate. “Drink it,” she said. “It’s cold outside. Take some doughnuts or something.”
She was pale, her eyes red and puffy from crying, and she was smoking. A woman from the Realtor’s office told her to go back to bed, she looked terrible, but Mom insisted she was fine. “We’re going to find Erica today,” she said.
To please Mom, I took a doughnut and went outside. The police were talking to a bunch of people I didn’t know, telling them what was expected of them. Form lines, walk an arm’s length apart, examine every inch of ground. “If you see anything that may be connected with Erica, stop and call a policeman. Do not move it, do not touch it, leave it in situ, and wait for a policeman.”
I edged away toward the woods. No one noticed me go. I had a crazy idea I could find Erica myself, be a hero, make up for leaving the doll and all that it had led to.
In the clearing where I’d last seen my sister, a crow perched in the dead tree. He cocked his head at me, cawed, and flew away. I sat down on the log and tried to think about where Erica might have gone.
I sat there for a while, but no ideas came to me. I stood up and called her, again and again, until my voice was as hoarse and raspy as a crow’s. Her name rang in the air, bounced from tree to tree, echoed back to me. But she didn’t answer. Nor did she come running out of the woods, her red curls in a tangle, her parka muddy—breathless, cold, hungry, elated to see me, Daniel, her rescuer.
“You won’t find her that way.”
I spun around, startled to see Brody standing a few feet away. He wore a ratty fringed
suede jacket that looked as if it had once belonged to his mother. His bony knees stuck out of holes in his jeans, and his hair straggled over his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“My dad’s in the search party, so I thought I’d come along over and see what’s going on. I heard you calling your sister’s name. I doubt she’ll hear you, no matter how loud you yell.”
“She might hear me. Nobody knows how far away she is. She could be trying to find her way home right now. She could have fallen into a hole or something.”
He edged closer to me, shuffling through leaves as he came. “Listen,” he said in a low voice, “there’s stuff about this place you don’t know, stuff nobody’s told you, mainly because you’re such a stuck-up snot.”
I stared at him suspiciously. His nose was running, and his eyes had a moist, pink look. If I was such a stuck-up snot, what did he want with me? Why was he here?
“What kind of stuff?” I found myself lowering my voice too.
He shrugged and took a quick look around. His eyes lingered on the dead tree. “You know what happened to Selene Estes, right?”
“You told me about her. Remember? On the bus—the first day I came to school.”
Brody was almost whispering now. He kept looking at the dead tree. “Well, folks are saying your sister’s been took, just like Selene was. And you won’t ever see her again.”
Took—there was that word again—how had Erica picked it up?
“Don’t be so stupid, Brody. Selene disappeared more than fifty years ago. Whoever took her is dead by now—and so is Selene.”
“Maybe,” Brody said, “maybe not.”
“Next you’ll be telling me Bloody Bones took her.”
“Nah, Old Auntie’s got her. Ask anybody in Woodville. They’ll tell you.”
“Old Auntie lived a long time ago,” I said. “She’s definitely dead. If she even existed—which I doubt.”
Brody shook his head. “She lives way back in the woods, up on Brewster’s Hill. Every now and then somebody sees her at night, walking along the highway, collecting dead things. Her and Bloody Bones. That’s what they eat. Roadkill.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You want me to take you to her cabin?” Brody asked, his eyes still boring into mine. “That’s where everybody thinks she kept Selene. Maybe that’s where your sister’s at.”
“I know where it is. I’ve been there with Dad and Erica. It’s an old, falling-down ruin—nobody lives in it.”
“In the daytime, yeah, but at night it looks like it used to.”
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“I’m going up there,” he said. “You can come if you like. Or not. Makes no matter to me what you do.” He turned and started walking away.
I followed him. The fringe on his jacket blew in the wind. The little beads sewed to it rattled and bumped together.
“What do you mean at night it’s like it used to be?” I asked him.
“I mean,” he said slowly, without bothering to look at me, “that it looks like it did when Old Auntie was alive.”
“You just told me she’s alive. Now you’re saying she’s dead?”
“No. What I’m saying is Old Auntie’s a haunt come back from her grave.”
I grabbed Brody’s arm and made him stop and look at me. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
He shrugged. “Believe what you like.” He turned his back again, but I wasn’t through with him.
“This is what I think,” I said. “You’re dragging me up here to play some kind of trick on me. Which is really awful because my sister is missing and the whole town is looking for her and you’re taking advantage of that to get me to go with you. I bet your friends are already up there, getting ready to scare me or something. What kind of kid are you?”
Brody backed away from me. “I’m not up to anything. I want to help you find your sister, that’s all.”
We’d reached the steep part of the trail. The trees had thinned out, and the wind was blowing hard enough to knock me over the edge of the hill.
“Ghosts, monsters, places that are ruins in the daytime, but not after dark,” I said. “It’s all stupid lies, fairy tales. I’m going back to the house. Maybe they’ve found my sister.”
“We’re almost there,” Brody said. “At least take a look.”
I hesitated, stuck between climbing downhill and climbing uphill. I’d come this far, why not go a little farther? What if Erica really was there?
Eleven
From the trail, Brody and I climbed down into the hollow. Now that the leaves were gone, the cabin was more visible, but it looked as bad as it had the last time I’d seen it, maybe a little worse.
“Somebody’s been here.” Brody pointed at Dad’s finds—broken stuff, old bottles, animal skulls, still lined up on the stone wall.
“My dad’s a photographer. He was taking pictures of those things.”
Brody stared at me as if I were even weirder than he’d thought. “You kidding me? Why would anybody take pictures of junk? You got all them beautiful mountains and you waste film on busted plates and broken bottles?”
“Dad’s got a digital camera, so he’s not wasting film,” I said, “and besides, anybody can point a camera at a mountain. My dad’s pictures are original. They tell stories.”
“Well, let me tell you something. Nobody with any sense messes with Old Auntie’s stuff. In fact, hardly anyone ever comes near this place.”
“You’re here.”
“I ain’t touched nothing of hers, and I ain’t going inside. I’m just trying to help you, that’s all.”
Brody looked at the cabin’s dark doorway. “You went in there, didn’t you? That’s why the door’s open.”
A cold wind riffled through the fallen leaves, sending them scurrying through the open door. I shivered, remembering the cabin’s dark, damp, creepy atmosphere.
“I didn’t stay inside long,” I told Brody, “and Erica didn’t go in at all. But Dad, well, he poked around, taking pictures, hauling stuff outside, and taking more pictures.” I remembered how Erica and I had sat on the wall, barely speaking to each other. Her absence stabbed me with guilt.
Brody kicked at piles of dead leaves and watched then fly up into the air when the wind blew. “Harm’s done, I reckon.”
“What do you mean? What does all this have to do with my sister?”
He continued to kick at the leaves. “I ain’t sure,” he said, “but folks say Old Auntie takes a girl and keeps her fifty year—then lets her go and takes another one. It’s been going on since folks first came to this place.”
I wanted to hit him in his lying mouth. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“All I know is, fifty years before Selene disappeared, a girl was took, and one was took fifty years before that.”
I sat down on the wall where Erica and I had sat. Brody was an ignorant, superstitious idiot, and I didn’t believe a word he said, but I wanted to find my sister, I wanted her to come home, and I wanted us all to go back to Connecticut, to the life we had before we came to this horrible place.
Brody shuffled through the leaves and sat beside me. “Here’s what you should do,” he said. “Come back here at night. Sneak up real quiet, and don’t get too close. The cabin will be like it was two hundred years ago. Old Auntie will be in there, and your sister will be with her.”
“How can I believe anything that crazy?”
“’Cause it’s the truth.” Brody was so close to me I could see his little gray teeth and the dirt rings in his neck. His pale eyes peered out from his tangled hair. “I swear.”
The wind died down, as if it were waiting to blow my words across time and into Old Auntie’s ears.
“Will you come with me?”
He shook his head and got to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Shouldn’t we look inside before we go?”
He edged away from the ruins
. “Not me,” he said. “You go in there, she might take you, too.”
“You’re afraid,” I said.
“So what if I am?” Brody’s nose was running. He wiped it on his sleeve, leaving a slimy trail on the suede. “At least I ain’t stupid.”
“Won’t you at least wait outside?”
“Nope.” Brody turned away. “I told you what you need to know.”
I watched him climb out of the hollow. For a while I heard him on the trail, and then it was just me and the wind and a pair of buzzards circling overhead.
I went to the door of the cabin. “Erica,” I called softly. “Erica, are you in there?”
The ruins were silent. The only things moving were the dead vines blowing in the wind and three or four crows cawing to one another from the trees.
I should go home, I thought. But why? Everyone except Mom was out searching for my sister.
“Erica,” I whispered. “Where are you?”
I heard a muffled noise, as if someone were moving around inside the cabin. What if Erica was trapped there? Not by Old Auntie but by a fallen rafter or something. I walked slowly through the cabin door. Please please please, let it be my sister, let her be all right.
It took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the dark. “Erica? Are you in here?”
More noise, frantic sounds, as if someone were trying to hide or run away. “Who’s here?” I hoped my voice didn’t give away my fear.
Scrabbling sounds. An animal, I thought, a fox or a raccoon.
I started backing toward the door when I saw a flash of green in a shadowy corner, red hair, a blue scarf.
“Erica!” I climbed over a rafter, ducked under a tree that had fallen through the roof, and stumbled across the uneven floor. “Erica, wait! Don’t run. It’s me, Daniel!”
But she was climbing up a pile of rubble and trying to squeeze through the splintered remains of a window. Frantically, I grabbed her foot and tugged.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shouted. “I’ve come to take you home!”
Suddenly she fell back toward me, and I saw her face. She was not my sister. Sickly and pale, her skin grimy with dirt, she had the look of a wild creature.