There’s No Place Like Here

49

Hello, Sandy.” Grace Burns smiled at me from behind her desk. Her office was a cubbyhole at the back of a planning office. Inside were models of buildings and layouts of future plans for the surrounding lands.

I took a seat before her desk. “Thank you for saving me from the angry mob last night,” I joked.

“No problem.” But her smile quickly faded. “Tell me what’s really happening, Sandy. Is your watch missing?”

After talking to Joseph, Helena, and Bobby late into the night about what was the best thing do, they all agreed that I should lie. I didn’t agree.

“Yes, it’s missing,” I responded. Her eyes widened and she sat up straight in her chair. “But the last thing I want to do is make a big deal of it,” I warned. “I cannot explain how it disappeared, just as I can’t explain how I arrived here. No amount of questions from your colleagues or scientists or people who consider themselves to be experts can help this situation. I don’t want that G.I. Joe following me around anymore either. I don’t know anything. You must give me your word that you won’t spread this news because I will not be cooperative.”

“I understand,” she said. “In the time that I’ve been here there have been a few people I know of who have reported the same thing, but we have been unable to learn anything, just as all of our studies have had little success in discovering how we arrived here. The people I knew of either moved out of town because word got out and life became too difficult under the gaze of everybody in the village, or else it was a false alarm and they found whatever it was they thought they’d lost. The two people that we did actually have the opportunity to work with closely just couldn’t provide us with anything solid to work on. They knew nothing about why and how it was happening and most of us have realized that it’s an impossible thing to understand.”

“Where are they now?”

“One passed away, the other is living in another village. You’re definitely sure your watch is gone?”

“It’s gone,” I assured her.

“Is this the only thing that has disappeared?”

This is where I chose to lie. I nodded. “And believe me, there’s no better person at searching than me.” I looked around her room while she studied me.

“What is it that you do back home, Sandy?” She rested her chin on her hand and gazed intently at me, trying to solve the puzzle in her own mind.

“I run a missing-persons agency.”

She laughed first, but her smile faded when she realized she was laughing alone. “You search for missing people?”

“And help people reunite, find long-lost relatives, adopted parents, adopted children, that kind of thing,” I rattled off.

Her eyes widened with each example. “So your case is certainly very different from the others I spoke about.”

“Or it’s coincidental.”

She mulled that over but didn’t comment. “So that’s how you know so much about the people here.”

“Only some people. Only the people in the play. By the way, the dress rehearsal is on tonight. Helena wanted me to invite you.” I remembered how Helena had hammered it into my head before I left the house that morning. “It’s The Wizard of Oz but it’s not a musical, Helena is stressing to everybody. It’s just her and Dennis O’Shea’s interpretation.” I laughed. “Orla Keane is playing the role of Dorothy. I’m actually quite looking forward to it.” I realized this, as I said it, for the first time. “The idea for the play was initially just my way of having a chance to talk to the potential cast without raising suspicions. We thought it would be far cleverer than knocking on doors and relaying stories of home, but perhaps we should have put a bit more thought into it. I didn’t realize how quickly people talk here.”

“Word gets around fast,” Grace replied, still in a daze. She leaned in further and said, “Were you looking for someone in particular when you arrived here?”

“Donal Ruttle,” I said, still hoping I’d find him.

“No.” She shook her head. “The name isn’t familiar.”

“He’s now twenty-five years old, from Limerick, and would have arrived here last year.”

“He’s definitely not in this village, anyway.”

“I don’t think he’s here at all, I’m afraid,” I thought aloud, feeling instant sympathy for Jack Ruttle.

“I’m from Killybeggs in Donegal, I don’t know if you know it…” Grace leaned forward again.

“Of course I do.” I smiled.

Her face softened. “I’m married here but my maiden name is O’Donohue. My parents were Tony and Margaret O’Donohue. They have passed away now. I saw my dad’s name in the obituaries in a newspaper I found six years ago. I’ve kept it.” She glanced over at her wall cabinet. “Carol Dempsey,” she started up again. “You know Carol. She’s in the play too, I believe. Well, she’s a Donegal woman too, as you well know, and she informed me of my mother’s death when she arrived a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, well…” she said gently. “I’m an only child,” she explained, “but I have an uncle Donie who moved to Dublin a few years before I arrived here.”

I nodded along with her, waiting for the story to begin, but she fell silent and watched me. I shifted uneasily in my chair, realizing she was giving me information about her life to refresh my memory.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” I said softly. “That might have been before I set up the agency. How long have you been here?”

“Fourteen years.” I must have looked at her with such pity because she quickly explained, “I love it here, don’t get me wrong. I have a wonderful husband and three gorgeous children and I wouldn’t go back in a heartbeat, but I was just wondering…I’m sorry.” She sat upright again and composed herself.

“It’s OK. I’d want to know too,” I said gently, “but I’m not familiar with the people you’ve mentioned. I’m sorry.”

There was a silence and I thought I’d upset her, but when she spoke again she seemed fine.

“What made you want to find missing people? It’s such an unusual career.”

I laughed. “Now, there’s a question.” I thought back to when it all began. “Two words,” I said. “Jenny-May Butler. She lived across the road from me when I was a child in Leitrim, but she went missing when she was ten.”

“Yes.” Grace smiled. “Jenny-May is as good a reason as any. What a character.”

It took me a moment to catch what she’d said. My heart leaped into my throat with the surprise. “What? What did you say?”