“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She threw back her head to shoot the rest of the drink.
This is more than a binge. This is how she copes. “I would believe you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Was he abducted?” I asked carefully, seeing the woman’s eyebrows rise lazily. “By something that most people… don’t even believe in?”
“But you do?” Verna asked quietly, refilling and taking another swig.
I swallowed. “I’ve seen a lot.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen anything. You haven’t seen people show up in a field, some wearing suits, some wearing jeans, some wearing hijabs. Kids, too. Your boy. All in a field behind White Crest.”
“A field?” I asked, horrified at the thought of little William standing in the cold, lost and confused.
Verna was starting to drink slower now. “He’s a sweet boy, that grandson of yours. All the kids love him, they just flock around him. Took to me real quick, too. Now I understand why. He has a maw maw who loves him. Never had kids of my own, so they’re all my grandkids.”
“Then you know how I feel. Of course you know.”
“The docs always give the line—and I bought it for a long time—that the patients come here from all over the country to get help. And once they became functional, they’d return to their families. Except, they weren’t coming from all over the country, it turns out, just from a field out back. And their families never came to get them; they just get driven away from the hospital. And I never see them again.”
She sighed.”I never expected to do it my whole life. I felt so sorry for them, still do. But about ten years ago, I wanted to retire. At the beach. I was too old to drive in the snow anymore. That’s when they told me I couldn’t leave. ‘No, Miss Cliff, we can’t lose you. No, Miss Cliff, the kids need you.’ And they sat me down and showed me what was really happening. I didn’t even have a choice. They even set up this new house for me so I could get to work easier. It became very clear I wasn’t leaving. Hell, I’d been there longer than anybody else. Everyone else at that damn place leaves after a year or so, even the docs. They say they can’t handle it, or they’re too sick to work anymore. They won’t even get close to the kids. But honestly, I couldn’t leave my babies. Poor things don’t even realize they don’t have amnesia. None of them do. Or did.”
“What’s happened to them then?”
“Their memories are straight up gone when they come back. Blank as a slate, standing there in the field. But then, there are the special ones,” she said, raising her wrinkled index finger. “Those are the ones who present a problem.”
“Special ones?”
“They don’t know why for sure. But unlike the adults, a few of the kids remember. I’ve heard the docs whisper—’cause they don’t think I can hear—that it’s a genetic thing that their memories are stronger than whatever those bastards in the cosmos do to them. And if those kids come back, well, the Suits have all kinds of good drugs to make those memories, and everything else, go away. Remember that drug that Michael Jackson OD’d on? They love that one, cleans out those memories real good. Can’t risk those kids getting out and talking and causing a mass panic.”
I was so horrified all I could do was watch her sip.
“All those families… they deserve to know what happened. What’s been done to them,” I finally said.
“They wouldn’t want to know.” Verna licked her lips. “They’re vegetables, most of the grownups. Whatever they do to wipe out their memories, most adults can’t handle. Only a few even learn to talk again. The kids, for some reason, are different. They can learn what they’ve forgotten. There are very few exceptions with the adults, like that young Sarah up at the inn, and, of course, Joe.”
Verna scowled after a sizable slurp of her drink. “Is he the one who ratted me out? Is that how you got here? Caught the eye of that old fart, and he dumped you off?”
“I swear to you, I will tell no one that I was here.”
“They’ll kill me, you know,” she said, her eyes bulging in her attempt to stay awake.
I leaned forward. “They wouldn’t kill you.”
“Why do you think they won’t let me retire? They won’t let me leave, Mrs. Roseworth. And they can’t erase my memories because they need me to take care of the kids. You still don’t get it? If word of this gets out—what will the world think? That those assholes in DC have known about the abductions for decades? Mass chaos, lady. It’s why your boy won’t leave. It’s why you won’t ever leave.”
“You don’t have to do anything more than what you’ve already done. I need to know how to get to the hospital.”
“No need for much security. No one remembers anything, so they have nowhere to go. There’s no way you’ll get in. You do have to have a code to get in. And it changes every month.”
“If I could just get that code… And just an idea of how to get to the hospital.”
“Hell, you won’t survive walking. It’s below zero out there.”
“Joe should be back soon….”
“There may not be that much time.” She looked out at the windows in the dining room. “The snow is letting up a bit. They’re going to move him.”
“Let me have your car. I beg you. I’ll never find him again. You said you considered all them your kids. There’s nothing more important than William getting home.”
Verna took a long slurp. “What do you think will happen? Alan—I mean William—won’t know his parents. He won’t know you. You are jusht a shtranger to him….”
Oh God, don’t fall asleep. “Then I’ll spend the rest of my life reminding him that he’s ours, and we never stopped looking for him.”
The teacher narrowed her eyes and then closed them, leaning back into the chair. “They’ll find you,” she said, her eyes closing. “And you’ll be like the rest of them.”
“May I take your car?”
“My car is under two feet of snow… you’re shit out of luck. And you… you can’t go my way… our way… you’ll get lost…”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll never find him,” she said, yawning. “I can’t even remember the number of his room… they probably moved him to the second floor. You’ll never find him….”
“Tell me the code. How do you get to the hospital?”
“Hell, I don’t remember the code.” She wiped her mouth.
“How do you get in?” I wanted to shake her.
“First thing… I do… when I walk up… put it on the fridge. First thing… every time… I walk up.”
“Walk up?”
“First… thing,” she muttered.
I started to ask more, then held my breath. After a few moments, the woman’s mouth opened a bit, and her chest began to rise and fall deeply.
I fought the urge to slap her. She was so far gone, even if I woke her, she’d be incoherent.
Make some coffee. Make her drink it.
I went to the hall, looking around frantically. The green lights from an ancient microwave revealed the kitchen to the right. I entered and turned on a light above the stove.
The light illuminated an olive-green fridge. On its door were a few magnets, including a small dry-erase board with a dangling marker attached. Scrawled hastily on the board were the numbers 16-0-19-8-25-30.
I found a pen in a junk drawer and wrote the numbers on the back of my hand. But what good would the numbers do if I couldn’t even get to the hospital? I could wait for Joe to return, but that could be another hour. And if Verna was right, and they were preparing to move William when the storm broke, I had only a small window of time to find him.