The Mountains Wild

by Sarah Stewart Taylor

  Then you settled in.

  I had come to love Dublin at night. It wasn’t romantic, exactly, not Paris or even New York. When I think of Dublin now, I think of empty stretches of sidewalk, skittering leaves at dusk, sideways rain. Lights on the Liffey. The looming darkness of the Dublin mountains on one side and the wide emptiness of the sea on the other. The sudden burst of sharp yeasty warmth that hit you when you got inside the door of a pub.

  I spent a lot of time sitting in warm pubs, thinking, counting hours, talking to people I’d never talk to again, old men and girls made up to look old enough to order pints, and married couples out for a treat. I listened to a lot of sessions, the circular rhythms of traditional tunes taking me out and back again, letting me out, reeling me in.

  But the waiting was getting to me.

  The phone rang one night at the house and when I answered it, there was only silence on the other end.

  “Hello?” I couldn’t hear anything but static.

  “Who’s there?” I shouted. “Erin? Erin?”

  When I turned around, Daisy had come out of her room and she was standing there with a terrified expression on her face.

  “Are you all right?” Her eyes were wide. “Was that…?”

  “I don’t think so. I thought…”

  She went back to her room.

  One night, I drank at Brogan’s on Dame Street and then walked around Temple Bar, tipsy and sad, hoping I’d see Conor, but he never materialized from the darkness, never stepped out of the café. I went home, fell into a drunken, dreamless sleep that left me with a headache and a healthy dose of self-disdain the next morning.

  Emer and Daisy watched me warily that week. When they asked how the investigation was going, I answered with platitudes about the long game and having patience.

  I kept looking for Brenda’s family in the phone book.

  I was walking home from the pubs one evening when I got the feeling that I was being followed. It was still pretty early, people heading for home after work, and I slowed down right around Bolands Mills and bent down to tie my shoe. When I turned my head, I saw someone walking quickly on the other side of the street.

  I turned onto Barrow Street and walked straight along to the house. It was dark; Emer and Daisy were out. I went inside and, leaving the lights off, I looked out the narrow panes of glass next to the door.

  He didn’t come onto Gordon Street, but I saw him stop at the corner of Barrow and find a doorway to turn into. He stood there, his back pressed against the door, and casually lit a cigarette. He didn’t look in the direction of the house.

  I rummaged in the drawer next to the kitchen sink and took out a Phillips-head screwdriver. I tucked it into my coat pocket. Outside, I stopped in front of the house for a minute and buttoned my jacket up around my neck, to give him time to see me, and then I set out again, walking east on Gordon Street.

  There weren’t many people out and about now, and when I turned left, I saw him walking slowly, the cigarette a distant red glow. He was keeping his distance.

  I was scared now and I thought of finding a phone booth and calling Roly to come meet me. But I was worried he’d take off if he saw me make a call and it felt like this might be my only chance to figure out who he was and why he was following me.

  I turned onto Irishtown Road, wanting to stay where there was more traffic for a little bit so I could think. Finally I decided to try to draw him out. I turned down one of the little streets just off Irishtown Road and waited to make sure he was behind me before I made another turn and then sprinted to the end of the street and darted into one of the lanes. There was a knee-high cement wall and I hid behind it, waiting to see what he’d do.

  He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t sprint after me and stand on the corner looking in both directions. He just came down the street, walking very quickly, still smoking the cigarette. He looked the opposite way down the street, toward a little shrine to the Virgin Mary, and then reversed direction and walked past my lane. I looked up at the windows above me. The lights were blazing in most of the houses. I was pretty sure someone would come out if I screamed.

  I waited until he was almost to me and then I swung out of my hiding place holding the screwdriver in front of me. “Why are you following me? Did you know Erin?” I asked him.

  He barely started. He was young, close to my age, with thick dark hair and a pudgy face. He was wearing a dark overcoat and underneath I could see a light shirt collar peeking out.

  He watched me for a long moment, his body relaxed.

  “I think you’ve got it wrong, miss,” he said in a quiet, controlled voice. Dublin accent. “I’m not following you. I’m just walking home from the office. Taking a stroll, like.”

  “You’ve been following me. I recognize you,” I told him. “Who are you? Why are you following me? Did you know Erin?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d take care with that, if I were you.” He nodded to the screwdriver, then he winked at me and walked off, slowly and deliberately, in the direction of Irishtown Road.

  When I start high school, I think Erin and I are going to get close again. We’re riding the same bus and I assume we’ll sit together the way we did the year we were in junior high with each other.

  But when I get to the bus stop, she’s already there and she’s already talking to Jessica. She says hi and asks me if I’m ready, but when we get on the bus she and Jessica sit together and immediately start whispering.

  I walk into the building alone.

  The first couple of weeks are fine. Once in a while, Erin and Jessica talk to me on the bus. They sit in a group with the boys in our neighborhood, Brian and Chris and Devin and Derek. They make fun of each other and talk about our teachers, about how they dress and how lame they are.

  Devin O’Brien is telling a story about a party his older brother, Greg, had at their house, about how out of hand it got. Brian tells about how his older brother, Frank, lied to their parents about where he was and then his dad took the dog for a walk on the beach and found him passed out in a dinghy by the club pavilion. They’re all laughing.

  “How about you, Maggie?” Devin says suddenly. “You like to party?”

  I look up from my book, terrified. It feels like a trap. If I say yes, they’ll laugh. I can’t say no. I stare at him for a minute.

  Then Erin says, “Maggie doesn’t party, guys. She thinks we’re all just so ridiculous. She’d rather stay in and study.”

  There’s a moment of utter quiet. She meant it as a joke, but something in her voice tells us all that it’s not. I flush and look back down at my book, tears springing into my eyes.

  “You’re such a bitch,” Jessica says.

  “I’m totally kidding,” Erin says, too loud.

  When the bus gets to the high school, I get off first and walk straight inside. I ask my mom to drive me the next few days, without telling her why. She doesn’t ask, but after a week she says she has a doctor’s appointment and I’ll have to ride the bus.

  When I show up at the bus stop, Erin’s head is bent over something in her hands. Jessica’s not there.

  “Hey, Maggie,” Erin says, too brightly. “Hey, you know I was just kidding, right?” She watches me. “That time. Totally joking around.”

  “Yeah.” I can’t look at her. If I do, I’ll start crying.

  I can hear Devin and Derek joking around as they walk down to the bus stop. They’re almost here.

  “Hey,” she says. “Look at this.”

  She’s holding a piece of paper out to me. I look down. It’s a photocopy of a phone book page. I’m confused until I read down the names and find “Flaherty, Brenda M.”

  “Where is this?”

  “The city,” she says. “She lives in the city.”

  29

  1993

  The morning after I was followed, I woke up to a note by the phone in Emer’s writing: Erin’s da rang. Talked to Detective Byrne. Ring him when you can. When I went out
to the corner shop for eggs and coffee, I picked up an Irish Times as well, and I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, eating scrambled eggs, when I read the small headline on an inside page: “Garda“í Say No Indication of Foul Play in Erin Flaherty Case: Active Search Suspended.”

  The Gardaí say they have moved on from the initial stage of their investigation into the disappearance of American student Erin Flaherty and will suspend active searches. Detective Superintendent Ruarí Wilcox says that the working theory is that Flaherty is traveling and hasn’t been in touch with family and friends, and that there’s no evidence of foul play. Nonetheless, the Gardaí have been unable to definitively rule out an abduction in the Wicklow Mountains. Wilcox says that any members of the public with information about Miss Flaherty should call the Gardaí Helpline on 1-3045672.

  The receptionist at the Irishtown Garda Station saw me coming and stood up as though she was going to physically prevent me from getting through.

  “I need to talk to Detective Byrne and Detective McNeely,” I said. “I know they’re here.” The look on her face told me I’d gambled right.

  “I’ll just check now,” she said. “I believe they may be in a meeting, however.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said. I sat down and picked up an Irish Independent. It had a longer version of the same story, with a quote from a criminologist at Queen’s University Belfast saying that, with no evidence of foul play, the case does seem to be that of a “young woman who has decided to disappear of her own accord.”

  It was Roly who came down to talk to me, sheepishly opening the door and coming to sit next to me in one of the hard plastic chairs.

  “You called my uncle and told him you’re stopping the investigation.” He was staring straight ahead, not looking at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Now, we’re not stopping the investigation, D’arcy. We’re—One phase has been suspended, pending further developments, now, and then we’ll see where we are. We’ve thoroughly investigated every lead there is, and if new ones emerge we’ll investigate those, too, but—”

  “What about Niall Deasey? Have you thoroughly investigated him?” I said, too loudly. Roly winced. “And why didn’t you tell me? I’ve just been waiting for someone to call me back, like an idiot. What about her mother?” My head was pounding and my stomach actually hurt. I felt like I was going to throw up.

  “D’arcy, you’ve been a bit erratic. There’s a feeling that you’re too involved. Now, I know that may be my fault, but for the good of the investigation, we need you to be patient and wait a little. Maybe you could go home for a bit and then check back with us when—”

  “Erratic? You think I’m being erratic? Do you know what happened to me last night? Some guy followed me. He was there all the way home and when I got back to the house, he waited for me. I went and got a screwdriver because I thought if he tried to attack me I could—”

  “D’arcy, please tell me you didn’t fight with some fella on the street.”

  “No, but I waited and sure enough he followed me. I asked him if he knew anything about Erin and I swear he did. He had this look in his eyes.”

  Roly ran a hand through his hair and said, “D’arcy, you’re making this very difficult for me. If there really was someone following you, you’d no right to confront him. It’s mad. He might have been a mentaller and he might have attacked you.”

  “He might know something about Erin. I wrote down a description.”

  “D’arcy.” He leaned in, his voice very low. He glanced up at the receptionist and said, “My job is on the line here. I’ve been told to keep you away from the investigation. I need you to stay away.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry, D’arcy. I’ll be in touch if there’s anything new.”

  He stood up and started to walk away, but before he opened the door, he turned around again. His eyes were shadowed and I could see the strain on his face. He looked years older than the Roly Byrne I had met when I reported Erin missing. He said, “I really am sorry, D’arcy,” and then he was gone.

  * * *

  I went for a long run, nearly six miles, and took a hot shower in the empty flat when I was back. I had that light, anxious, hollowed-out feeling you have when you’ve just recovered from a hangover. I knew I should drink lots of water and have a quiet night in.

  Instead I went to the Raven. The red-headed barman was behind the bar, and I sat on a stool and chatted with him while I drank cider and got the update on his girlfriend and told him about Uncle Danny and the bar.

  A couple of older guys joined us and we all shot the shit for a while, until I was good and tipsy and the sun was gone and the streets of Temple Bar were full of people. I walked for a bit, feeling the hard elbow of my loneliness in my side. And then I took a right onto Eustace Street.

  He was there, locking up, and when he saw me, he didn’t say a word. He just put the keys in his pocket. It was a dark night and his face was in shadow. I stood in front of him on the empty street. I was suddenly sober, the chilled wind coming off the river a jolt of adrenaline.

  “Let’s walk,” he whispered.

  We started walking, along the quays, and we didn’t touch until we were past the DART station. On City Quay, he took my hand. The sky was dark gray above the river. We could see our breath on the air.

  Once we got to Gordon Street, I let us in and we stood for a minute in Erin’s silent room, staring at each other in the low light coming in the window, breathing, before he reached for me.

  For years, I would remember almost everything about that night, the way the light came through onto the bed, the way his lips brushed my shoulders, the blur of his face above me, the feel of the corded muscles along his back, and the way he smelled—sweat and smoke and the cold metal tang of the outside air still on his cheeks and hands.

  We talked in hushed voices all through the dark night, murmuring into each other’s bodies, skin on skin, lying tangled under the sheet. I memorized the shape of his neck, his shoulders, his stomach.

  He said, “I can feel your heart beating.”

  I put his wrist to my lips and said, “I can feel your pulse.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  When the sky began to lighten, I asked him, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

  He was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “I can’t.”

  I traced the line of his jaw with my index finger.

  I said, “One time, when I was ten, I had to go looking for Erin. My uncle woke up and she was gone and he called us. My mom went door to door and she told me to go down and check the beach. Erin loved the beach. I walked for a long time and then I saw her. She was sitting on a log and when I got to her, she didn’t even look up, she just said, ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to go back.’ I told her everyone was worried about her and she didn’t say anything. She was stacking these rocks on the log and she kept stacking them, making little piles. I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there. Finally she got up and started walking. I just followed behind her, until we got home.”

  He stroked my hair away from my temples.

  “Did you ever ask her? Did you ever ask her why?”

  “She would never say. I always thought it was … my fault somehow. Because I had a mother and she didn’t. Because … I just thought it was my fault.”

  “You can’t think that,” he said. “Where do you think she is?” His body was warm against my cheek.

  “I don’t know. I keep thinking if I could just remember more about the last time I saw her, then I would know.”

  “What was the last time?” he asked quietly.

  “She told me she was moving over here and I accused her of doing it just because I was supposed to come here, because I was supposed to come and then I couldn’t because my mother got sick. And I … I said some awful things to her about my mother and how Erin made her last weeks worse.” My voice caught and he rolled over and
pulled me in closer.

  “You have to forgive yourself,” he said after a long moment. “You have to forgive yourself for everything.”

  We slept until a thin cold light came in through the windows. I opened my eyes to find him dressing. He wouldn’t even look at me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have. I can’t do this again.”

  I went back to sleep and when I woke up I was crying.

  I’m taking the trash out when I see Erin standing in front of our house.

  “Hey,” she says. “Can I ask you something?” She looks smaller, hunched down into her blue flannel shirt, her hair tucked into the collar.

  I nod. I’m in tenth grade now, Erin’s in eleventh. I haven’t been alone with her in nearly six months. She gets rides to school now and we’ve only seen each other a few times in the last year, when she and Uncle Danny come over for dinner or in the hallways at school.

  “What?”

  “Will you lie to your mom and come into the city with me on the train after school tomorrow?” She waits a minute and then her face breaks into a wide grin. “I know that sounds super weird.”

  I just look at her.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Because I want to go look for Brenda Flaherty and you’re the only one I can ask. But your mom can’t know because, like, my dad can’t know.” She’s holding the photocopy of the phone book page.

  She’s beautiful. She’s tan from the summer and her hair has bright blond highlights. She has it in a ponytail but it’s falling down around her face. Her flannel shirt is soft, worn, the blue pulling out the blue of her eyes. She’s thin, her jeans loose around her waist.

  She looks tired, but the bruises under her eyes and her messy hair only make her seem more romantic, wild. I’ve seen how boys at school are drawn to her, tried to figure out why I don’t have the same effect.