The Missing

23

Wispy bright clouds cover the sun, and a light haze hovers over Marhem. I shove open the glass door to the deck and take a good look around before going out in the yard. The grass is damp. It must have rained in the night. It’s pointless to look for tracks, but that’s what I do all the same. I’m chewing on a stale cracker to counter the nausea. As my body moves around the property, my eyes search the lawn. Yet it’s as if I’m watching myself, surprised I can behave so calmly, so normally, considering everything that’s happened over the past few days.

Part of me thinks my agitated brain could have easily misinterpreted what I saw last night. That sort of thing happens when a person is under stress. What I saw outside the living-room window could have been a deer, or even the shadow of a tree. But another part of me knows. It knows exactly what I saw, who I saw. And somehow that makes me feel relieved rather than scared.

I redo my makeup, applying extra powder to my throat, and manage to eat half a bowl of yogurt. I tear off a piece of paper and start writing a grocery list. Milk, fruit, bread. Then I put down the pen and stare at the banal words on the page. If I’m planning to buy food, it must mean I intend to stay here. The thought leaves me surprisingly unmoved. All right, I think. All right, then that’s what I’ll do. I feel something stirring inside me. Something is about to happen. An itching sensation, as if I’m about to slough off my skin. Soon I’ll shed the old husk and step forward as my true self. As the person I’ve always been but have tried to hold back.

My gaze shifts to Smilla’s Barbie dolls, which are still lying on the kitchen floor. I note with amusement that one of the blond girls is lying on top of Ken’s face, covering his nose and mouth with her body. His arms are stretched up, as if flailing wildly for air. But he’s not going to get away. Barbie has him in her power. Closing my eyes for a moment, I take a deep breath, summoning renewed strength. I made a difficult decision. I did the right thing, chose the only possible option. There was no alternative. Then I think about Smilla, and the guilt returns at once. I can’t get rid of it that easily. I steel myself, stand up, and cast another glance at the dolls on the floor. You have to let go of Smilla. You know that in your heart. You have to.

Slowly, I go back to the living room and over to the window facing the yard. I stand so close that the tip of my nose touches the pane. For a long time, I stare at the spot where the dark figure stood. I stare so hard that my vision finally splinters and blurs. Just like the other day, when I stood in front of the hall mirror, I suddenly see another face, a face that seems to merge with my own. Her eyes and my eyes fuse, and we are staring straight into the darkness inside both of us. The darkness that we share. She is me. I am her. Maybe there’s something I can do, after all. Maybe it’s not too late.

Before I leave the cabin, I go to refill the cat’s bowl but suddenly stop. Where is Tirith? He didn’t sleep on the bed with me last night. In fact, I haven’t seen him all morning, haven’t heard his companionable meowing like I usually do. I look in the living room again, but there’s no soft ball of fur curled up on the sofa. Then I remember that I put him outside. When was that? I frown. Yesterday? It must have been yesterday. But I can’t recall the exact time of day. The hours are all jumbled together, and the more I strain to sort them out, the more they blur, sliding in and out of each other.

On the road outside, it’s now impossible to see any marks in the gravel from the nighttime visitor. The rain has washed away all trace. A sheen of rain covers the windshield of my car, and I imagine that someone used their finger to draw a pattern, connecting the drops. A pattern or a greeting. I wish I could take the car, but that’s not possible where I’m going. The forest road around the lake is too narrow in places, besides being very bumpy. But my lower back and hips are aching, so walking isn’t an option either.

There’s a dilapidated shed behind the cabin. Back there, I find things that Alex must have cleared away, intending to throw them out. A rusty watering can, an inflatable wading pool faded from the sun, and a single oar. Leaning against the wall is an old bicycle. I bend down to test the tires. They seem to have enough air, so I roll the bike out to the road, get on, and start pedaling. I pass the same deserted cabins, the same abandoned patio furniture that I saw yesterday. The bicycle creaks and clatters. The closer I get to my goal, the faster my heart is hammering. And it’s not just from physical exertion.

I don’t really know what I was expecting, but when I reach the spot where I first met those kids, no one is there. For a long time, I simply stand still, wondering what to do next. All my senses are on alert, and I listen intently, but the only thing I hear is the distant roar of heavy traffic. On the other side of the tall, densely packed trees that surround the lake is the highway leading to town. That’s nearly impossible to believe from this location, which feels so remote and far away from everything called civilization.

I lean the bike against a tree trunk and cautiously make my way to the ditch where I first saw the girl yesterday. Even though I’m careful, the damp quickly soaks through my sneakers. My sandals with the straps and heels are still back in the front hall of the cabin, and the T-shirt I have on is old and faded. Marhem is slowly wearing me down, peeling off my armor. Exposing me. My daily practice of putting on mascara and powder and blush will soon be the only routine I have left. Habits. Rituals. A means of fighting back, a desperate effort to keep from losing my grip altogether.

Finally I reach the lake, right where those boys were standing before the girl noticed me, before the boys rushed up to surround me on the road. I shudder, but then quickly brush the memory aside. I can’t let the memory stop me. A short distance away, at the water’s edge, are two rowboats. Are those the boats I saw moored at the island yesterday? The ones the kids used to row out there? They must be the same ones. I touch my shoulder, feel the tender bruised spot. I flinch when, out of the corner of my eye, I see something move. I catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure among the trees, but when I blink and then look up again, it’s gone.

A suffocating pressure builds in my chest. I shouldn’t be here. I really shouldn’t. And yet I refuse to leave. I move closer until I’m standing next to the boats. One of them is an old wooden flat-bottomed rowboat. The other is more modern, made of plastic and fiberglass. Once upon a time, it must have been white, but now the bow is a dirty gray. The scratched stripes painted on the sides look like they were originally navy blue. Something pulls me even closer, and I peer over the gunwale. The bottom of the boat is filled with a few inches of water, probably from last night’s downpour. But the water isn’t clear. It’s streaked with red. Lying under the seat in the stern is a clotted lump smeared dark red. As big as an aborted fetus.

I lurch back and bump right into a tree. Except it’s not a tree. It’s a person. I spin around, and there we stand, face-to-face.

“I had a feeling you’d come back,” says the girl. “But this has to be the last time.”