As they drove into town, Greta watched the people walking up and down the sidewalks. The girls wore bright clothes and had long feathery hair. The boys mostly had shoulder-length hair like Matt. The stores sold everything from candy to shoes.
She’d only passed through town on the school bus, and she’d barely noticed what went on behind the window displays. Now she could see people talking and laughing, filling their baskets. It reminded her of the movies, strange fake worlds — when at home people screamed and hit, raped and murdered.
“Where are you headed? I’ve got to run into a few stores in town. We could grab a burger if you’d like? On me.”
Greta looked at Matt and wondered if he was joking.
“Why?” she asked.
He laughed uncomfortably and looked away. “In case you’re hungry. I’m hungry and you’re new in school, so…”
Greta flung open the car door while it was still rolling down the street.
“Whoa. Hold on.” He pulled the little car to the curb as Greta jumped out.
She didn’t look back. She ran down the sidewalk, attracting the startled looks of a mother and her young child when she nearly collided with them.
Tracing the route her school bus took every morning, she turned down another street and ran until she’d reached the little park that edged the high school.
She was relieved to find it empty, except for an elderly man watching the trees through a pair of binoculars. A little notebook rested in his lap.
Greta slowed to a walk and turned onto a trail. She’d been to the park in gym class. Once a week the class walked to the park to jog on the trails.
She found the place where a tall oak tree had been split by lightning. Half the tree lay toppled over, the other half reaching its sharp, serrated trunk toward the blue sky. Behind the oak, deeper into the forest growth, stood a clearing.
In the glade, someone had arranged five large boulders in a circle. In their center was the charred remains of a fire and two blackened beer cans.
Greta had found the spot two weeks before, after veering off the path during her run to throw up. Peter had raped her that morning before school, and he’d punched her in the stomach when she’d resisted. Running had caused her stomach to cramp and seize. She didn’t want the boys and girls running behind her to see her vomiting, so she’d slipped into the trees to hide.
When she’d come upon the rocks, she’d felt instantly at ease. The space reminded her of the asylum field, the secret spot held by the surrounding forest.
She sat on a rock and unzipped her backpack. She pulled out the shears and gazed at them in the sunlight. The light glinted off the blades. They were dull and dirty. She could see the smudges of whatever her aunt had chopped most recently. Probably something disgusting like the slimy bologna she and Peter lived on as if the modern world provided no greater variety. Her father would have slapped Greta if she ever used scissors and returned them to the drawer without cleaning them first.
She’d gone from an immaculate, simple house to a filthy trailer with a pedophile and television addict. The transition had left her reeling. She existed in a state of suspension, able to do little more than wake up, push through the day, and fall asleep each night.
But then there were the dreams. Dreams so powerful the land of the asylum seemed to call out to her, as if it were reaching through an alternative dimension to summon her home.
Greta pulled out a handful of her long, silver-blonde hair and opened the scissors. She squeezed the handles, hacking when the blades struggled to cut through the strands. She chopped and cut until a pile of pale locks coated the rock she sat on and lay in a heap on the grass at her feet.
When she reached a hand to her scalp, her hair stuck out in sharp tufts. In some places, she’d cut so close to her head only a bit of fuzz remained. As she cut, her heartbeat had grown faster, her rage bigger. The end of her hair did not abate the feelings.
She dropped to her knees and plunged the scissors into the dirt. They sank in the soft ground. She did it a second time and a third, not realizing she’d started screaming until something moved at the corner of her eye.
The old man she’d noticed on the bench watched her from the trees, his eyes wide with shock.
“Are you okay, miss?” he asked uneasily.
When she looked at him, the fury and hatred palpable in the small space she occupied, he took an involuntary step back.
She saw the fear in his ugly and weak face, and she wanted to lunge at him and sink the scissors into his chest. She wanted to give the earth beneath her its due. But before she could spring to her feet, the man blinked and backed away.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” he murmured.
He turned and hurried from the woods.
She could have caught him, dragged him back into the clearing, but she was not a fool. Her hair was everywhere. They’d catch her that very day.
Greta slumped against the rock, exhaustion overtaking her like a sudden storm.
She nodded off and when she woke, the sun had begun its westerly descent. The forest was lit with the orange-gold light of a day’s end.
Her arms ached, and some of her cut hair stuck to the side of her wet cheek. She plucked it off and stared at the hair. She thought of gathering it in her bag and taking it with her. Instead, she left it.
She hated the hair.
Peter had sunk his hands into the hair, used her hair to wrench her head back. She wanted it gone almost as much as she wanted him gone.
43
Then
“Weston bought this for you,” Greta told Crystal, pulling out an opal ring. “But I slipped it out of his pocket. What could he say? ‘Where’s the ring I bought for my mistress?’”
Crystal watched Greta tilt the ring back and forth, trying to catch the sun. She had a distant, sad look in her eyes, but when she shifted back to Crystal, she’d replaced it with stony indifference.
“You’re one of many. Did you know that? Probably five at least, maybe more. He’s one of those weak men who fall for their students. Some men aren’t cut out to be teachers; they have no heart, just that thing between their legs. You probably thought it was love, that you were his soulmate. I know Wes. I know the stories he tells, the words… black magic. They seduce you, blind you to the truth. The truth…” Greta paused and leaned in so close, Crystal smelled the coffee she’d drunk that morning, “is that Weston was a heroin addict, a user, a lowlife. He ever tell you that?”
The smell made Crystal’s stomach turn, and though she tried to quell it, the instant oatmeal Greta had fed her spewed out and onto Greta’s black trousers.
The woman looked at the vomit, studying it. Rather than disgusted, she seemed curious.
“That’s twice now.” She held up one, then two fingers. “Tick-tock.”
She frowned and looked at Crystal’s stomach.
Crystal tried not to follow her gaze.
“I get sick when I’m scared,” Crystal lied.
Greta cocked her head to the side.
“Bungee jumping, cliff diving. You’re lying to me, Crystal Childs. The question is why?”
Crystal saw the bucket inside the toilet and stopped abruptly.
“I’m okay, I don’t have to go.”
“Go,” Greta hissed, shoving her into the little bathroom.
Crystal stopped, digging her heels into the hard tile floor. They slid as Greta pushed her. It took effort, but she forced her bladder to release. The warmth of her pee washed down the insides of her thighs and over her feet. Greta had dressed her in a skirt without underwear to make using the bathroom easier.