“Abe,” she called. When he didn’t respond, she yelled louder.
“Abe!”
He appeared on the trailhead, wiping his hands together and shaking off the dirt.
He didn’t ask why she called for him, but jogged to where she stood and squatted in the grass. He pushed his fingers along the ridge and lifted. A large chunk of intact earth pulled away revealing, recently tamped soil.
Abe reached into the loose dirt.
Hazel stepped back, breath catching as she watched him pull something loose, an edge of familiar fabric - a pair of red and orange floral-patterned shorts. Orla’s shorts.
“No,” she murmured, turning away into a web of branches. She screamed as the branches caught in her hair. She fought them away, a sob erupting in her throat.
“Whoa, it’s okay. Stop moving.” Abe braced a hand on her shoulder. With his other hand, he untangled her hair. “Maybe you should go to the car.”
“Is she in there? Is Orla in there?” Hazel pleaded.
He shook his head.
“I don’t think so. I need a pair of gloves and my camera. I want a closer look, and then we need to call it in.”
“Call it in?”
“The police.”
She tried to follow his words, but beyond him, Orla’s shorts lay crumpled and dirty. Her stomach rolled and cramped.
“I think I might be sick.”
Abe glanced behind him, and then stepped into Hazel’s view, blocking the clothes. He steered her back toward the car, one hand resting on her back.
Images swarmed in her mind. Orla in those shorts the last morning Hazel saw her, smiling, long black hair like a silky stallion’s mane down her back. Why hadn’t Hazel grabbed her friend and asked where she was going, given her a hug, suggested they sit together and have coffee instead?
The image was accompanied by visions of her mother those final days. Her mother’s sunken, feverish eyes, and hands more like claws gripping Hazel as if she might hold on and not be pulled from the world. Hazel remembered, in her sleeplessness and grief, a momentary terror that her mother would grasp so hard she’d take Hazel with her, down and down into the darkness.
I can’t, she thought. I can’t go through this again, and yet she was. Death comes for us all, her mother had said days after the initial diagnosis of stage four cancer. But still, we never know his face.
“Hazel,” Abe spoke her name.
Hazel snapped her head up, realizing she’d stopped on the trail. “Just a few more steps.”
He settled her into the car and started the engine.
“I’ll be back soon,” he told her, grabbing his camera and disappearing into the woods.
Abe
Abe left Hazel in the car, air conditioner blasting, though she looked more cold than hot.
He returned to the woods, snapping pictures along the way. He took shots around the perimeter of the hole and of the clothes themselves.
Wearing gloves, he dug deeper, but found no other evidence, no clumped dirt that might imply blood, no tangles of hair or bits of bone. He patted the clothes and reached his fingers into Orla’s pockets. In the left pocket, his finger struck something hard, and he pulled the object out. At first, he thought he held a tiny stone, but when he lifted it closer, he realized he was staring at a tooth.
“Damn,” he grumbled, shaking his head.
The tooth did not bode well for Orla’s fate.
Chapter 46
Orla
“I have good news, Orla,” Crow announced when he swept into the room.
He held a bag of oranges in one hand and a pair of women’s jeans and a t-shirt in the other.
“You’re going home.”
She swallowed and glanced toward Ben, who stood in the corner avoiding her eyes.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Crow arched his dark eyebrows and smiled.
“Jaded, are we? I understand. People with mental illness rarely believe it when good things come their way. We have one final journey together. Remember that neat little place in the woods? I need you to walk there with me. No funny business, okay? Today is a very important day. You can eat as many of these as you’d like, and this afternoon, after a few other doctors witness your extraordinary abilities, you get to put on these brand-new clothes and go home to your family.”
“How can I trust you? After everything you’ve done to me…”
He laughed and shook his head, as if she’d made preposterous claims.
“What I’ve done to you. I’ve merely been treating you, my dear. But let’s not waste our last few hours together arguing semantics. I have a very special object for you today. I want you in tip-top shape for the presentation. Benjamin, help me unstrap her.”
Before Ben could move to the table, Crow stuck his hand out, catching him in the chest.
“On second thought, let’s wait a few more minutes. Dr. Frederic is joining us. He’ll accompany us to the chamber to ensure we don’t have any problems. But we won’t, will we, Orla?” He stared at her.
She thought of Ben’s words from the night before - go along with it. But what if she went along with it, and Ben couldn’t save her? They’d do the electro-shock and whisk her to another asylum, and perhaps another after that. How many were there? Could they keep her in captivity forever if they chose?
The forest was muggy, and Orla fought the urge to break free and run. Her eyes were blindfolded, her arms strapped to her body. Ben held her on one side, Crow on the other, and Dr. Frederic moved along behind them. Orla felt his eyes on her back, on her body.
The blindfold slipped down. She glimpsed a towering Willow tree and woods in every direction.
“The key, please?” Frederic said.
Crow jerked Orla to as stop, and she stumbled, steadied by Ben’s hand on her back.
She tried to see the entrance to the chamber, but Frederic appeared to be reaching into a large bush.
Suddenly, she was moving again, being pushed through leafy branches into the damp quiet of a tunnel.
The coolness of the chamber was a relief, though Orla would have preferred the humid forest to the dank stone room.
Crow thrust her into a wooden chair, removing her blindfold.
“Strap her,” he commanded Ben, who quickly knelt by the chair and secured leather straps to Orla’s wrists and ankles.
Crow gazed at her proudly, as if he’d accomplished some great feat and expected heaps of praise for his efforts. She glared at him.
“I’d like an orange now,” she told him.
He shook his head.
“After the presentation,” Crow stated, checking his watch. “Dr. Frederic, I have two patients to see, and then I’ll return. Ben will prepare the room for the brotherhood. If you could keep an eye on our patient.”
“My pleasure,” Frederic told him, scooting a chair close to Orla.
Ben opened a black leather bag and took out a small metal safe. He set it on a bench, and then removed a series of unrelated items - a stethoscope, a bottle of pop, a book.
Frederic’s fingers brushed Orla’s knee, and she cringed away from him.
“Pity you won’t be with us anymore,” Frederic whispered, leaning close to Orla’s ear so his breath moved hot against her skin. “Though I visit the sanitarium in Pennsylvania regularly.”