Seeing no coffeemaker, I hurried out of the kitchen. Verna had said that when she came in tonight she had written down the code, which meant she had to have gotten here through the snow. I walked down to a back door, hoping that she had been lying, that there was a covered car park, or maybe even a garage. Instead, I could just make out a Buick with snow tires parked around back, its fading blue paint barely visible under the mounds of snow.
Did they shuttle the workers back and forth? Was there some kind of hospital bus service that operated even in this weather? And if there was, what was I going to do? Put on one of Verna’s wigs, throw on her coat, and call for a pick up?
I went back into the living room where she now snored softly. I hated to do it, but I found a purse on the closed lid of a piano. A row of pictures sat on top of the piano, watching as I violated a woman’s most private of belongings.
Her wallet was mostly empty except for some cash and an ID that read “Verna Cliff. White Crest: child care.” Nothing was written on the back.
I scavenged through the rest of the purse and found only an empty minature bottle of Bacardi at the bottom. I sighed, glancing at the photos witnessing my transgression.
It took me several moments to start breathing again.
In the center of the photos was one badly aged with time, yellowed on the edges, featuring a heavyset woman wearing an apron, with a small child on her lap. The woman appeared stern, clearly the auntie Verna had described. The girl on her lap had dark hair and a gap-toothed smile.
I had seen the girl before. Only a few days ago, sitting in the Nashville library, in an old photograph next to a newspaper article from August 5, 1934, about a girl who went missing from the woods behind my house.
That girl sat on Auntie’s lap.
In the photos, Amelia Shrank turned eight, then ten, and finally became a teenager. But it was the photo of the Amelia as a young woman, probably in her midtwenties, smiling, leaning on a post, that bore a strong resemblance to Verna Cliff.
I covered my mouth with my hand while looking at Verna’s slumbering body.
You don’t know who you really are. That you once had a family so devastated by your disappearance that they made a grave for you in the woods where you vanished. That you, and me, and a hunter, and my grandson, and God knows how many others all vanished from the same clearing in those trees.
I doubt very much that you showed up on a firehouse stoop. I bet the military gave you to your auntie because they weren’t equipped to deal with you. You weren’t a baby—you were a three-year-old girl without a memory. I bet your auntie was the first in this town to start caring for a child who remembered nothing. And then so many kids and people started showing up, they had to build that hospital….
I rushed back into the kitchen, scanning the refrigerator for phone numbers; anything to show how Verna got to the hospital in this weather. I searched the entire kitchen again. Nothing.
I started going through a utility drawer in desperation when I saw the boots by the pantry door. They’d clearly been tossed there and abandoned for the thick, plaid house shoes on Verna’s feet. But there was no puddle, not even a drip of moisture on them.
I looked at the pantry door and saw it had a dead bolt.
I walked over, turned the bolt, and opened the door. Steps led down into the dark, barely illuminated by orange bulbs placed above a railing. The metal stairs went down far too deep to lead to just a basement.
The lights steadily increased in brightness. I could now make out the metal circular sconces holding the bulbs in place, and how, in a very clear, precise stamp, each was marked with the words, “Property of the U.S. Government.”
NINETEEN
The tunnel at the bottom of the stairs extended in two directions, with metal casing on the floor, ceiling, and walls. My fears were no longer fluid, no longer intangible; they were rooted in this man-made tunnel buried underneath a town whose silver mine shafts had been remade into bunker-style passageways.
Roxy was probably far along on the interstate now, closing in on a gas station with a working phone. Whatever communication disruption occurred in the town when this kind of storm hit, it couldn’t happen all throughout the mountains. Once Roxy reached Tom, nothing would stop him from getting here.
If Verna was right, my grandson would be gone when they arrived.
I had to find William, convince him to come with me, and find our way back to Verna’s home. Even if she refused us, I would have to beg her to let us through so we could hide in Joe’s house until the storm was over.
The tunnel stretched before me, with no indication which way would lead to the hospital. I was terrible with directions anyway, and I had no idea in which area of town the hospital stood. All Joe had said was that it was on the outskirts.
Stepping around the stair lift that was obviously put in place to allow Verna easy passage up and down the long staircase, I moved into the tunnel, looking for any markings, any pattern of the lights that would indicate which direction to take. There appeared to be nothing—no arrows, no signs—nothing. And how did Verna get to the hospital? At the pace she moved, it would take her a day just to walk a mile. It didn’t make sense.
Just like in the snowstorm. One foot in front of the other.
I chose left and started walking. What if I encounter another security guard? What would I possibly say to explain myself? Did the houses of other hospital workers lead into this tunnel? I could feel heat, but I was still so chilled I kept my hood up and my hands in my gloves.
I passed another stairwell identical to Verna’s. At least hers had the stair lift, so it was clear which one I would need to take when I returned with William. If I returned with William—
The dead end came up so suddenly, I actually held up my hand to stop myself from walking right into the wall. Angrily, I hurried back down the opposite direction. How much time had I wasted?
Fifteen minutes later, another tunnel opened up to my right, snaking into a long darkness, again lit only by orange lights. How many tunnels were down here? Had the military used the same shafts of the miners? Or did they do all this as the town slowly declined into near abandonment, the locals unaware of what was being dug beneath them? There had to be questions as to why the workers at the hospital never left their homes but somehow got to work every day—
Stop it. Stop trying to make sense. Just find William.
I had no choice but trial and error. I could only guess the new tunnel headed towards town and the hospital was farther out. But how far? Yards? Miles? It couldn’t be; someone of Verna’s age couldn’t walk that distance every day.
I kept walking down the tunnel and noticed in the near distance how it began to expand quite dramatically, its walls receding into the darkness beyond the reach of the meager lights. The sound of my footsteps disappeared into the space without an echo. As the far end of the tunnel came into view, another metal staircase emerged, not off to the right or left, as had the others, but in the center. The answer as to how Verna arrived here each day was a golf cart parked to the side, right by another stair-lift chair. Verna didn’t walk to work. Someone came to get her.
As I approached, I could see, at the top of the stairs, a door leading to an upper level, somewhere above ground. I hurried towards it, looking up at the now familiar orange lights above.
When I reached the first step, the sides of the hallway suddenly flared with fluorescent lights. I stumbled in surprise, seeing now how the orange lights at the top of the stairs were also glowing brightly. I’d triggered a sensor of some kind.