Fifteen minutes later they were at a cruising speed of 150 knots. Jean Shelley sat silently by her side and watched out the window as the ground slid by far below their feet. Jess wondered again about her professor; what did she do on her off-hours? The legends continued to grow. When she'd mentioned to a fellow student that she was working with Shelley outside of class, the girl had looked at her as if she'd just sprouted an extra head.
Some said Shelley belonged to a cult. It was rumored that she had spent a month in the Himalayas, searching for spiritual peace on the back of a donkey. There were stories of strange-looking bag lunches and greenish liquid in thermoses. And yet none of these things seemed to damage her professional reputation. She remained as aloof and unreachable as ever. It was as if her students were afraid to ask, for fear of what she might say.
***
They rented a car in Binghamton for the drive to Gilbertsville, passed through narrow, shadowed streets lined with two-story clapboards and Victorians with new plastic gutters and sagging front porches. Dogs napped in long grass. Swing sets moved gently in the afternoon breeze.
Jess stopped and asked directions at a gas station with two pumps and a sign that said please pump, then pay. The girl behind the counter looked at her for a long moment and then got out a map. She ought to know better, the look said. We protect our own here. But Jess's clothes and manner of speaking seemed to convince the girl she was up to no harm.
The Voorsanger family lived in the foothills on land that looked rippled from above, crests of tree-covered forest and valleys with silver streams twisting through the depths.
On the ground the area looked tired, as if the land were molting. The leaves were changing on the trees, some of them already littering the earth and turning the shoulders of road into brown, soggy resting places.
A dirt road led through a copse to a wide yard and a farmhouse with a long, narrow barn in back. The house was slowly falling to dust. A station wagon sat listing to one side on the lawn. Pulled off the shoulder was a pickup truck with wooden slats in the bed. Mud caked the wheel wells and spattered across the fenders.
When they stepped from the car the air was crisp, clear, with a hint of smoke. Jess recognized the scent of burning leaves. Smoke curled up from behind the barn and they moved quickly in that direction.
Damn but it was cold. Jess wished she'd brought gloves. Stuffing her hands in her pockets would keep her warmer, but she knew it would not look friendly.
A dog barked from somewhere inside the barn. As they cleared the back of the house a man came into distant view, wearing overalls, a plaid hat with earflaps, and strong leather work gloves. He was throwing leaves and branches onto a fire already piled high and smoking thickly. His breath puffed silver in his face. At the sound of the dog he stopped and brushed his hands together and then turned in their direction.
"Mr. Voorsanger? Excuse me, Mr. Voorsanger."
The man stood motionless for a moment, as if deciding something; then he strode toward them. The front of his overalls was stained a dull brown. He was a tall, older man, grim-faced, with deeply lined cheeks and chapped skin. The lines in his flesh were so deep it looked as if someone had carved them with a knife. He looked worn and serious, a man who expected everyone to work as hard as he did.
When he got near them he stopped; then, looking long and hard at Shelley, he said, "Thought we had a deal. You wasn't supposed to come back here."
"That's my fault, Mr. Voorsanger," Jess said. "I'm the one responsible for bringing her here. We've come a long way to speak to you. If we could just have a moment?"
"That ain't possible," the man said abruptly. "We don't want nothing to do with you like we said before. Nothing's changed. If that's all, I got a lot to do."
He started to turn away, then stopped again at the sound of a screen door banging, and a woman in a faded dress and apron hurrying out of the house. Jess saw his eyes change. "You're gonna catch cold, now, go on back inside," he said to her.
"Just a moment, Ed." The woman had her arms wrapped around herself. She was plump, in her sixties, with shoulder-length white hair and a soft, expressive face. Her eyes darted from face to face, fishing for something. "You here to tell us something about our girl?"
"She needs your help," Shelley said. "I wouldn't have disturbed you if we had any other choice."
"She hasn't. . . done nothing, has she?"
"We're worried about her own well-being."
The woman nodded. "That's the way it is, then. Why don't you come inside? Ed, you go on now. I'll call you when we're done." She looked at him and he didn't move; then finally he walked away, and didn't look back. They all watched him until he had returned to the fire again, and he bent and started throwing leaves and branches to the flames.
"Please forgive Ed," the woman said as the screen door cracked shut and they walked through a mudroom full of boots and hanging clothes, into a large, brightly lit kitchen. "He's watching out for me is all. And it's slaughtering time for the chickens and that always gets him in a mood."
"This is hard for you," Shelley said. "We do appreciate it."
The woman waved a pink-scrubbed hand. "I knew you'd come. I wondered what was taking so long." She smiled but her eyes were dark. She shrugged. "I suppose I figured everyone would want to know where something like that comes from. Not that I got the answer."
"Something like what, Mrs. Voorsanger?"
Cast-iron pots bubbled and hissed on the stove. Next to the stove crouched a deep metal sink, a cutting board, and the gray-pink carcasses of birds. The air smelled of bones boiled clean and white.
"Well, you know." She searched Jess's face with eyes that seemed desperate. "After all this time? You must know what she is?" She turned to Professor Shelley. There was sudden bitterness in her voice when she spoke again. "Oh yes, I remember. My Lord. Nine years and you still don't believe a word."
"I think Jess would like to hear what you have to say."
"I see." The woman stuck out her hand. "Well now, aren't you a pretty little thing? Jess, is it? Forgive my manners. I'm Cristina. Would you folks like some tea? I was just about to make a pot."
Mrs. Voorsanger showed them through the kitchen and hallway and into a low-ceilinged room. The room had the feeling of unfinished business. The walls were bare except for a large silver cross, mounted over the old fireplace mantel. A faded plastic recliner sat in front of a folding table and large console television, and couches crouched at right angles, the patterns long since blurring into a uniform grayness that was either age or dirt, it was difficult to tell. The arms and backrests, where people rested their heads or put their feet up, were slightly darker than the rest.
The best pieces in the room were matching glass-fronted cabinets, which held what seemed like hundreds of painted trinkets: trolls, elves, fairies and dolls, toadstools, collector plates. Glass eyes winked at them from everywhere, peering over the tops of others. Little figures crouched and smiled as if holding secrets.
"My collection," Mrs. Voorsanger said with pride. "I get them through the mail. Why don't you sit down? I'll bring in a pot of tea in a minute."
They sat waiting on a couch as dust turned and drifted through the still air. "What did Mrs. Voorsanger mean in the kitchen?" Jess asked. "'Nine years and you still don't believe a word'?"
Shelley seemed to consider whether to answer the question. She glanced to the hall, and when she spoke it was in a soft way, under her breath. "This is delicate, you understand. One of the reasons I took Sarah away was for her own good. The whole family seemed to be suffering from a delusion. I'd heard of it before, a kind of mass hysteria, but I'd never seen it firsthand."