There’s No Place Like Here

13

Helena added another log to the dying fire and its weight sent a pile of adolescent ashes racing one another down the side of the burning tower. The flames were awakened from the embers and sleepily began to climb up the log, giving off heat to Helena and me.

I had been talking to her for hours, filling her in on all the details of her family life that I knew of. An unusual feeling had stirred within me, as soon as I’d realized whose company I was keeping. It washed over me in waves, each wave relaxing me, making my eyes that little bit heavier, causing my mind to tick that little bit slower, and for the tension in my muscles to relax just a little bit more. It was just a little bit, mind you, but it was something.

Throughout my life people had told me that my questions were irrelevant, my over-interest in cases of missing persons unnecessary, but right there in the woods every stupid, embarrassing, irrelevant, and unnecessary question I had ever asked about Helena Dickens meant the world to her. I knew there had been a reason for my endless searches, my infinite interrogations of myself and of others. And the greatest thing of all was that there wasn’t just one reason for it all; sitting next to me by the campfire there were four others.

Oh, the relief. That’s what the feeling was. The first sense of relief my mind had felt since I was ten years old.

The sky was growing brighter; the tips of the trees that had been burned by the sun by day had been cooled by the night and now shaded the cool blue sky. The birds that had been silent during the dark hours were now warming their vocal cords, like the idiosyncratic rendition of an orchestra tuning, pre-performance. Bernard, Derek, Marcus, and Joan lay asleep in their sleeping bags, covered by blankets and looking how they should have the night of their school camping trip. I wondered, had they slept soundly through that night instead of venturing into the woods, would they have been back in their families’ arms all those years ago or would the secret door to this world have welcomed them in regardless?

Was it an accident that we were all here? Did we stumble upon a blip in the earth’s creation, a black hole on the surface, or was this just a part of life that remained unspoken throughout the centuries? Were we lost and unaccounted for, or was this where we truly belonged and our normal lives the original error? Was this a place for those who felt like outsiders in life to belong, to finally feel relief? Despite my own relief, my questions kept flowing. The world around me had changed but some things remained constant.

“Were you happy?” I looked around at the others sleeping. “Was everybody happy?”

Helena smiled softly. “We’ve all asked the question of why, and there is no answer that we know of. Yes, we were happy. We were all very, very happy in our lives.” She paused. “Sandy…” She broke the silence again, watching me with that amused expression as if enjoying a private joke. “Believe it or not we’re very happy here too. We’ve spent more years living here than anywhere else. The past is a distant but pleasurable memory for us.”

I looked around the campfire. They had nothing. Nothing but small overnight bags packed with teabags, unnecessary chinaware and biscuits, blankets and sleeping bags, wraps and jumpers to keep warm, all of which they undoubtedly retrieved from the piles of belongings scattered around us. These five people had slept under the stars, swathed in blankets with a fire and a sun as their only source of light and heat. For forty years. How could they be truly happy? How could they not be clawing their way back to existence, back to material belongings and craving the companionship of others?

I shook my head as I looked around.

Helena laughed at me, “Why are you shaking your head?”

“I’m sorry.” I was embarrassed at being caught pitying a life they seemed content with. “It’s just that forty years is such a long time to settle”-I looked around at the clearing-“well…here.”

Helena’s face opened in surprise.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I backtracked. “I didn’t mean to offend you-”

“Sandy, Sandy,” she interrupted, “this is not our whole world.”

“I know, I know.” I backed off. “You have each other and-”

“No.” Helena started laughing and her forehead crumpled in confusion. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew this wasn’t a permanent thing. We go camping together once a year on the anniversary of our disappearance. I thought you would recognize the date. This clearing is the first place we arrived at forty years ago-well, the first area where we realized we weren’t at home anymore. We all stay in touch during the year but we live more or less separate lives.”

“What?” I was confused.

“People go missing all the time, you know that. Wherever people gather, life begins, civilization exists. Sandy, fifteen minutes’ walk from here, the woods end and a whole new life begins.”

I was stunned. My mouth opened and closed but no words would come out.

“Interesting you should arrive here today of all days,” Helena said, deep in thought.

I scrambled to my feet. “Come on, let’s go now. Show me this place you’re talking about. We won’t disturb the others.”

“No.” Helena’s voice was hard and her smile quickly faded. Her hand sprang up to grab my arm. I flinched and tried to pull away, not liking the human contact, but this did not rattle her. I couldn’t move; the force of her hold was so strong. Her face was stony. “We do not just leave each other like that, we do not disappear from one another. We will sit here until they wake.”

She loosened her grip on my arm and wrapped her pashmina tighter around her body, retreating to the guarded woman she had been earlier in the evening. She watched her friends intently as though on duty and I realized it wasn’t just me that had been keeping her awake all night. It was just her turn.

“We stay until they wake,” she repeated firmly.

Jack sat on the corner of the bed and watched Gloria sleeping with a small smile on her face. It was the early hours of Monday morning and he had just returned home. After Sandy Shortt’s no-show he had spent the entire day checking B &Bs and hotels in all the nearby towns to see if she had checked in anywhere. There were so many things that could have prevented her from arriving at the café he convinced himself her no-show that morning didn’t mean it was the end of their search. She could have just overslept and missed their meeting or gotten caught up in Dublin and couldn’t leave for Limerick that night. There could have been a death in the family or a sudden lead in another case that took her away from Limerick. She could be heading toward him now, driving through the night to get to Glin. He had thought of endless possibilities, but not one of those theories was the idea that she could have deliberately let him down.

A mistake had been made, that was all. He would return to Glin later today on his lunch break to see if she had arrived. He had lived all week for that meeting and he wasn’t going to give up now. Sandy had given him more hope in one week during a few phone conversations than anyone else had succeeded in doing over the entire year. He knew from their talks that she wouldn’t let him down.

He was going to tell Gloria, he really was. He reached out to touch her shoulder and shake her gently but his hand stopped in midair. Maybe he should hold off on telling her until he made contact with Sandy again. Gloria sighed sleepily, stretched her body, and turned over.

She eventually settled on her side, her back toward Jack and his outstretched hand.