Nothing would stop them. Nothing deterred them.
Carry on; she would giggle to herself.
That's what the men down in the landing were doing. They called each other and scrambled in place, moving around quickly. She knew something terrible had happened. You could feel it in the air. Every breath was harder to take, and it seemed like the pressure in the atmosphere was pushing down around her until she might be crushed. She needed somebody to talk to her. Somebody needed to come up onto the steps and tell her what was going on so she would be able to let the air go and move. But they didn't. Nobody did. Not even her father.
She saw him once. Among the men in the dark suits scrambling around the foyer. He was there, just for a second, a bright spot in pale blue striped pajamas among all the unfamiliar darkness. All the men spoke to him with respect and dignity, like they didn't notice he was in his pajamas. She couldn't tell what they were saying, but the way they held their bodies and leaned into him when he spoke said he was in charge, if only for those seconds when he was there. And then he was gone.
She didn't see him again until much later. Long after the strange metal bed draped in white wheeled out of the back room and through the foyer out of the house. She knew what it was. She was old enough to have seen a stretcher before. She even rode on one when she fell and broke her wrist during a game of kickball. But the blankets weren't pulled up over her then. They didn't even make her lie all the way down. Half the bed sat upright, propping her tiny frame up while a woman in blue clothes far too tight for her body and a smile just wide enough for all her bright white teeth talked to her and took her blood pressure.
But she knew what it was. She knew why it was covered all the way up and why no one was hurrying to get it outside. They only didn't hurry when there was nothing they could do. Even when she broke her wrist, they hurried. They hurried her onto the stretcher, and they hurried her into the ambulance. They even hurried her through the emergency room and to the little cup of liquid Tylenol the nurse gave her to lessen the pain.
But they weren't hurrying this time. Which meant the stretcher was holding someone who didn't need help anymore.
Her mother. Her mother didn't need help anymore.
Later that night, her father came back home. He didn't leave her alone. One of his friends stayed there with her, but she didn't talk to him. She didn't even see him. He was just downstairs in the living room with the TV sending up the sounds of a game show and commercials for Easter candy and Spring Break. She didn't move. She stayed right on the step, gripping the spindles, and watching the door for her father to come back in.
When he finally did, he didn't notice her. The door closed behind him, and he pressed against it, his head falling back as he slid down to sit on the floor with his knees pulled up high to his chest. His elbows rested on his thighs, and he combed his fingers back through his hair, holding it so tight it looked like he was trying to pull it out of his head. He wasn't wearing his blue striped pajamas anymore. She didn't know when or where he changed his clothes, but he was suddenly in one of the dark suits like the ant-men who roamed around before the stretcher was wheeled out of the house. She wished he was still in his pajamas. She had never seen her father cry, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him and bring him to bed, to tuck him in and give him something warm to drink.
She would get her mother. Her mother would know what to do to make him feel better. She almost got to her feet before she remembered. She couldn't get her mother. Her mother wasn't there anymore and was never going to be again. She wasn't a little child, but she felt like one. There was no other way to feel. She walked down the steps and sat on the floor to cry next to her father.
She didn't know she fell asleep until she woke up the next morning in a bed she didn't recognize. This wasn't home. This wasn't where she slept just the night before. Sunlight streaming through the window told her it wasn't really morning anymore, and the smell of a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup said she missed breakfast but was getting her favorite lunch. She hated getting out of bed and not knowing where to walk. This wasn't the first time it happened to her, and deep inside, she knew it wasn't going to be the last. There was no permanence. There was nothing she could hold onto long enough for it to really feel like hers.
Even the sunlight changed. From place to place, wherever they went, the sun wasn't the same. Sometimes it was hot and strong, stinging on her skin and warming the ground beneath her feet. Sometimes it was weak and milky, seeming to barely even get all the way down to the ground before fading out. And sometimes it was a trick, looking bright and vibrant, but giving no warmth when she walked outside.
All she had was her family. And now she knew that changed, too.
Chapter Three
Now
“No, I don't know him. No, I don't know who he is and have never seen him before. Yes, I'm sure.”
I have answered the exact same questions over and over and over and over again. Not that it's a surprise. I've been the one to ask this question so many times before. But I've never stopped to think of just how obnoxious it could be to have someone staring me right in the face and demanding me tell them information I couldn’t possibly give them because I don't know it. I've been standing in the doorway to the rental cabin for over an hour now, watching what amounts to a police department in this tiny little town shift around the front porch and try to make sense out of the body still lying on the wood. The heat from inside keeps the back half of me at least partially warm, but the chill outside keeps getting sharper, and I'm quickly losing patience.
But at least I'm getting the opportunity to see these men at work. This department is why I was sent to Feathered Nest in the first place. They aren't handling the investigation into the disappearances and murders as they should be and refusing to accept help from any of the agencies and departments in surrounding areas.
“I'm gonna have to ask you to come down to the station with us and answer a few more questions,” one of the officers tells me.
He never introduced himself, so I have nothing to call him. His coat covers up his nametag and badge, so for all I know, I'm letting the local chimney sweep investigate the body on my porch. I reach into the cabin to grab my bag and close the door behind me. It feels strange just walking away with the body still there. The paper with my name on it is inside, hidden out of view, and I have no intention of telling the police about it until and unless the right time comes up.
I follow the officer to his car and climb inside with him. We make our way through the town, and I take the opportunity to look around and try to get a little more familiar with it. Everything seems fairly quiet, like the entire place has already gone to bed, except for one stretch of the main street. Cars fill most of the space for at least a block, and lights pour out onto the sidewalk. I lean forward and point through the driver’s side window at it.
“What's that?” I ask.
The officer looks at me like he's shocked I would dare speak to him, then remembers I'm not actually a suspect, and he didn't arrest me. He swallows and adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.
“That’s Teddy's. Some people around here call it a bar. Some call it a tavern. It’s a place to go get a bite to eat and a drink at the end of the day. See friends. Maybe even do a little bit of dancing,” he tells me. “It’s owned by a guy named Jake Logan. You'll always see him up there. He doesn't trust even a day to go by without overseeing the bar himself for most of the time. Pretty good man, all considering.”