A chill ran through her like ants crawling along her skin. She shivered and drew her legs in tighter, swallowing the sounds of fear that vied for release as she thought about the person who had lured her there with empty promises and lies. Her eyes spilled tears from the pain in her legs and the fear that consumed her. She shifted her body, making a slight scratching sound against the stale mattress. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her hand flew instinctively to cover her mouth—but it was too late. The terrified sound had already escaped her trembling lips.
Her captor stirred.
Three
Molly desperately wanted to talk to Pastor Lett before leaving to help with the search. She needed to flush out her feelings, to feel safe, and Pastor Lett had always managed to help her wash her mind clean of the demons. Pastor Lett was the only one in Boyds who knew about Amanda, and Molly was thankful to have her to lean on. Now she pushed through the crowd and saw Pastor Lett walking toward the cemetery, glancing backward every few minutes. “Pastor Lett!” Molly called out, noticing that her pace had quickened. She jogged up the hill, “Pastor Lett! Wait, I need to talk—”
Pastor Lett had vanished. A moment later, Molly reached the field and spread the dead stalks with her hands, wondering why in October they were still standing. The fields around Boyds were usually harvested by late September. “Pastor Lett?” she yelled. There was no response. The stalks were still, there was no rustling of husks, no crunching of leaves and stalks under hurried feet—just the noise of the crowd in the meadow below.
The grassy fields of the Adventure Park were spotted with volunteers searching for Tracey. The playground equipment stood unused, unnaturally empty, and eerily quiet. Molly knew she was on dangerous ground and hoped she was strong enough to handle the emotions that swirled within her. She turned her thoughts to Celia Porter, shuddering as she remembered the look on Celia’s face as she had told the crowd of volunteers that it was her fault that her daughter, Tracey, was missing.
“Tracey wanted one more chance to play hide and seek. It’s her favorite game. I found Emma right away. I ran to her and she laughed, and we just sort of ran around for a minute. Then we started looking for Tracey. We found her. She was in the tall grass on the other side of the ship. It’s just that…something was wrong. We found her, but she wasn’t herself.” Celia had wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I should have known. I saw that she was quiet and forlorn, but I just thought that she had seen me laughing with Emma and was jealous or something.”
Perplexed, someone had asked, “But you found her? She didn’t go missing at the park after all? Was she hurt when you found her?”
“No,” Celia had said. “She wasn’t hurt. She was just—”
Mark Porter had interrupted, “She was scared shitless. That’s what she was. Something happened in that tall grass, and we have no idea what it was.”
Molly had seen the guilt consume Celia, had seen her shoulders slump.
“Emma and I both asked her what was wrong. She just gave us this look. So I just thought—”
Mark reached out and held her, and she had continued, “After we found Tracey, I said we had to go. We walked to the car. I was talking to the girls about what we were going to do that evening and about what they wanted to be for Halloween, and Emma’s hair got caught in the clasp of her dress, so I was focused on that for a few minutes.” Her husband had pulled her closer, giving her a look that told of years of support. “When we got to the edge of the parking lot, I reached back for Tracey’s hand, and she wasn’t there. I thought she was still upset about me and Emma. I figured that I had made it worse by just ignoring her sulking.” She looked away. “So I started shouting her name.
“I kept calling her and looking everywhere—in the slides, under the ship, inside each of the little playhouses on the opposite side of the castle. I was thinking that she was there, just hiding from me.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, “I called and called for her. A woman had been sitting on the bench when we were playing hide and seek, and she told me that she’d seen Tracey walking toward the long grass. The woman said she asked Tracey if she was alright and Tracey just nodded,” Celia said. “I should have known.” Melting like wax in the sun, Celia’s body collapsed against her husband’s. Celia had looked at the volunteers, pleading, “It’s my fault!” she sobbed, uncontrollably, “I thought she was hiding.”
Her fault! Molly seethed to herself. It’s not her fault! It’s the fault of whatever sick fuck took her! Molly looked for a path, some hint that a little pair of feet had ventured back into the field or beyond. She tried to ignore the growing unease within her, the old feelings rushing back in. She stopped and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and reminding herself of how far she’d come, Coping mechanisms. She turned and scanned the volunteers who wore mixed looks of fear and concern. She wondered if one of them was the abductor, acting as if he or she was there to help, but really listening for clues that the police and volunteers had found. Some volunteers carried sticks, batting at piles in the dirt. The thought that they might be looking for a body suddenly occurred to Molly, setting loose anxious thoughts of the past. She turned her thoughts inward, repeating the mantra that what had happened to Amanda was not her fault. Then she reassured herself about Tracey, She’s not dead! I saw her alive.
Every few minutes someone called to Tracey, and each time, the crowd silenced for a moment—a hopeful pause in the midst of the search.
Yellow police tape roped off sections of the field, creating an illusion of a maze. The police hadn’t made public any findings. By simply allowing volunteers to traipse through the field where Tracey had gone missing, Molly assumed they had found it devoid of any clues.
Molly reached the end of the field where it eased into the woods, thorns gnarled with trees and bushes. The density of the forest was forbidding and lonely at the same time.
The voices from the volunteers carried in the cool fall air, leaves crackled under their feet. Molly lifted her right leg cautiously and stepped out of the sunshine into the shadow of the tree line.
The forest summoned her. She took a careful step. A tingling sensation whispered across her skin. An oppressive feeling, like an invisible balloon, pushed hard against her sternum. The air felt warm against her pounding chest, making breathing difficult. She’d never encountered anything like this before, but she somehow knew it was all part of the Knowing, and she was determined to continue on, to find Tracey. She pushed into the aura and was surrounded by the smell of cold dirt and wet rocks, the smell of a creek bed after a storm when the dirt begs to be touched by the sun. Feeling faint, she crouched down and let her head hang low, resting her elbows on her knees.
C’mon, damn it! Be clear, she thought. You’re not doing this to me again! She cursed the malediction that possessed her. Damn it! Give me more or go away! She loathed the obscurity of her visions. Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. She silently urged herself to pay attention, to read the signs that she’d so obviously missed years ago.