Big Woods

by May Cobb

  He told me that Lucy had said I would come for her, had warned them about me, and here I was. He shook his head as if in wonder. “I have been waiting for a sign that it’s time to leave, time to move on from this place, and you, Leah, you are that sign.”

  He had a dark green jug and took a long swig off it, wiping his mouth afterwards. He shook it toward me, asked me to have some with him. “It’s wine,” he said. I didn’t trust him but I took a small sip to appease him, the wine actually feeling good as it warmed my damp body.

  “Your sister is very special,” he said, his eyes shining with glee. He told me that when he found her, he wasn’t even looking for more children. He was driving through Longview and just happened to be cutting through our neighborhood to run an errand. But when he saw her—all alone, walking down the street, her head shaking with golden curls as she listened to her Walkman—he said it was like seeing an angel, and he knew that she was the chosen one. His plan was to groom her to be his virgin bride, to keep her innocent until her thirteenth birthday, when he would perform an elaborate ceremony. It would be a long wait, he said, but he knew she would be worth it.

  The wine soured in my stomach but I stared at him as if I understood, and then he led me back down to the cave.

  73

  Leah

  The following night, Wednesday, as Heather was slapping all of our empty cereal bowls together, stacking them into her box (dried Cheerios were all we got for dinner, with slices of processed cheese), she announced to the wall that we’d be leaving Friday, just before daybreak. “I want everyone to be ready. No fussing or whining, this is already hard enough on Papa.” And she looked at me accusingly, as if I were the sole reason four children (now five) were living in an underground pit and being forced to move on.

  Lucy and I panicked. We knew there was no way we could dig ourselves out in time, and we were exhausted from staying up the past three nights. “We have to try,” I told her. So that night, I lifted her up on my shoulders and as my knees knocked together from exhaustion, I thought of Mom and Dad and tried to imagine us all together.

  The next night, after Heather latched the door and the rest of the children were asleep, Lucy wriggled on my shoulders and started digging again. After a few moments, I looked up and showers of powdery earth dusted my eyes and then started roaring down onto our heads. The dirt was mixed with grass and once it stopped falling, we both gasped and looked through the hole to a tiny circle of night sky.

  Adrenaline flooded my body and Lucy climbed down and gave me a tight, sweaty hug. I grabbed her face and kissed her and we sat there for a second, grinning crazily at each other. She then crept quietly around the cave to make sure everyone else was still asleep before climbing back on my shoulders, her small feet muddy and cold. I stood on the cot and she stuck her arm through the hole and clamored her way through it. I was staring up when she stuck her dirty face back through and said, “C’mon, Leah!” But even on my tiptoes, my hands only made it part of the way through. I felt like a moron. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought about this earlier.

  Panicked, I grabbed our thin sheet and tied my shoe to the bottom of it and threaded it through the hole to Lucy.

  In the distance, we started to hear a dog barking.

  “C’mon!” she cried, and tried to pull me through with the sheet, but she wasn’t strong enough.

  Her voice was so loud that she woke Nate and he stumbled out of bed, dreamy-eyed and looked over at me. I wanted to lift him through the hole and take him with us—I wanted to take all of the children, actually—but I knew they’d slow us down and so I vowed to get to safety first and come back for them.

  I walked over and crouched down and smoothed back his bangs, “Go back to sleep, sweetie,” I whispered, kissing the top of his head and stroking his back until his eyes drooped and he gave way to sleep.

  Walking back to our bunk, I passed by the piss bucket and prayed it would be tall enough for me. I set the urine-crusted bucket upside down on our bed and climbed on top. I could reach farther, but I still wasn’t going all the way through without someone pushing me upwards like I had Lucy.

  “Lu, you’re going to have to get me through!” The dog was barking louder now. “Tie the sheet around your waist and crawl,” I shout-whispered at her.

  She dropped the end down with my shoe on it and I grabbed the sheet and she slowly pulled me through the hole until I could hoist myself out. I laid on the cold, wet ground for a moment, panting, my lungs burning.

  I untied the sheet from Lucy’s waist so it wouldn’t slow her down, then tied it around my own and grabbed her hand and we started running. Behind us, the dog was getting closer and we heard a door from the house slap open, and a light came on, but we were down the hill and I doubted we had been spotted.

  We ran across the pasture and even though it would’ve been faster, we didn’t drop each other’s hands; we weren’t letting go. So we ran lopsided together across the field—which was vaster than I had imagined—and down the wet slope of pasture, and didn’t stop running until we came upon a tall barbed-wire fence. So tall that we couldn’t get over it.

  We stood there, both of us bent over, winded, trying to catch our breath.

  “Can we throw the sheet over and try to climb it that way?” Lucy said, her eyes filling with panic. The dog was at our heels, barking and barking.

  I was just about to unravel the sheet and fling it over then fence when I heard Owen, his voice jagged with anger, shouting, “GIRLS!”

  I opened my mouth to respond but my voice evaporated, my heart pounding in my ears. He was almost upon us and I could see the bulk at his hip—a shiny pistol grabbing the moonlight. I held Lucy’s hand. We were both shaking. I was trying to decide if we should make a run for it when Lucy cried out, “Papa!” and broke away from me and sprinted toward Owen. I watched as she leapt into his arms and leaned her face into his. At first I was confused, but then I heard her brilliant lie.

  “Heather didn’t give us enough to eat for dinner, Papa!” she said, cocking her head to the side, twirling her hair with a finger. “And the cellar door was unlocked so Leah and I went up to the house to find you but the dog started chasing us and I was so scared!” She buried her head into his shoulder and I could hear her crying.

  Owen rubbed her back and ran his hands through her hair, consoling her. He kissed her on the cheek; my stomach was filled with revulsion and he looked at me then and must have saw the open disgust on my face because his eyes narrowed into thin slits and I knew that he didn’t believe us.

  My feet were leaden but I walked over to them and Owen placed a rough hand on my shoulder, guiding us up the hill with Lucy bouncing on his hip.

  We reached the cave, but he marched us past it toward the house. When we got to the porch, I saw Heather from behind the screen door, her mouth crimped into a tight line. She stepped aside as we walked into the house, stomping off down a darkened hallway.

  Owen shut the door behind us. An ugly corner lamp cast feeble light around the living room. The house was small with unfinished wood floors, and my eyes roved over it, taking it in. Above the tatty sofa hung a framed cross-stitch picture of the Serenity Prayer. The coffee table was drab with only Owen’s thick Bible splayed open across it. I could see into the next room, which was the kitchen, and could smell a whiff of Pine-Sol mixed with the flat smell of stale frying grease. The white stove gleamed, though. The house appeared spotless: the shabby yet kempt look of a country preacher’s home.

  Still carrying Lucy, Owen jabbed a sharp finger into my back, pushing me into the hallway that Heather had disappeared down. He led us to a bedroom in the back of the house. He flicked on the light. The bedroom was dreary and odd with three twin beds parked next to each other, all of them covered with dark olive bedspreads. The room smelled musty, closed-up, and he ordered us to sit down on the bed next to the far corner before he left, shutting the door
behind him.

  I looked around the room for some place to escape, but the only way out was a window that was lined with black iron bars. In the hallway, I had noticed duffel bags lining the floor, the house presumably packed for the move in the morning.

  From the next room, I heard what sounded like an argument building. Heather hissing at Owen. Owen shouting back. I could only catch certain words but I heard him say, “No … the girls and I are leaving. Now!” Followed by the sounds of slamming doors.

  A bad feeling crept over me. I knew it was odd that it was just the three of us going. I knew he was going to take us back to the cemetery and kill us, or have someone else kill us.

  I pulled Lucy into me and kissed the top of her head. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to soak up our last few minutes together, trying hard not to let her see me fall apart. I thought of Mom and Dad, and my vision blurred with tears, and then I saw Owen open the door.

  “Come, girls,” he ordered, his gaze vacant and trained on the floor. “We leave tonight. You will be riding with me, the rest will follow behind. Heather’s fixed a plate of sandwiches; you can eat in the van.”

  I clasped Lucy’s warm hand in mine and led her out of the room. Owen waited for us to pass then trailed closely behind us. When we got outside, the van was already running, spewing streams of white exhaust across the black night sky.

  As we got closer to the van, I squeezed Lucy’s hand, sending her an urgent signal for us to run. But Owen stepped between us and lifted Lucy up, tearing her away from me. He opened the passenger door and set her on the seat and slammed the door shut. My stomach turned to acid and I wanted to punch him, to rip his hair out, to fight him as best I could, but then I saw his hand move to the pistol, adjusting it in his waistband, his face darkening with rage. He slid open the side door and shoved me. “Get in.”

  A hot lump formed in the back of my throat, my eyes pricking with tears, and I looked up to the sky and said silently to myself, Goodbye, Mom. Goodbye, Dad, before gripping the sides of the van and climbing in.

  74

  Leah

  The van was stifling—the heater was roaring and the windows were fogged up. I watched as Owen shooed the grungy dog away with a kick and he was just about to slide the door to the van shut when I heard a loud noise above us.

  Owen froze and stood there, looking startled, and as the sound got closer, I could tell it was a helicopter, the womph, womph, womph of the blades cutting over the noisy engine of the van. Adrenaline coursed through me and soon the van was bathed in a blinding white light.

  I turned and saw Owen sprinting back to the house, the searchlight trailing him. He leapt onto the porch and disappeared inside the darkened house.

  I jumped out of the van and opened Lucy’s door and grabbed her, hugging her into me. The helicopter started to descend, and Lucy and I crouched down to the ground together, shielding each other from the sharp gusts of wind from the blades.

  Before we knew it, two officers in black SWAT team uniforms were at our side leading us into the warm, safe helicopter. They wrapped us in heavy blankets and slapped warmed bottles of water in our hands.

  “We’ve got ’em!” one of the officers radioed back. “Ten-four!”

  “There’s three more kids down there! In a cave!” I shouted above the loud noise.

  “Don’t worry,” one of the officers said, “we’ll get them, too.” And I then saw another helicopter dive bomb out of the air and three black Suburbans bust through the front gate, all racing for the house.

  As we were lifting off, I saw Owen running out into the pasture, his hands turned up, and he fell to his knees with a look of pure terror in his eyes.

  Lucy was frightened of the take off so she jumped her bony butt into my lap and I wrapped my arms around her waist and rested my head on her shoulder. The two officers who rescued us sat on either side of us, and across from us was Sheriff Greene, who shouted at me, “Hey, kiddo!” and gave me the thumbs-up.

  I looked down and saw Owen’s house, and the land, shrink away and blur out of focus. We coasted above the trees and their broccoli tops became a blur.

  It was too loud to talk in the helicopter, but Sheriff Greene kept grinning at me, his head resting on his hand as if in disbelief.

  The helicopter circled over the municipal airport and stopped, hovering over the landing strip before finally descending. As we sank down to the ground, as if in an elevator, Lucy leaned forward and strained out the window. I tucked my head around hers, to see what she was looking at, and together we saw our parents, their hair thrashed wild by the chopper, huddled into each other, waiting to take us home.

  Sheriff Greene would explain it all to me the next morning, over steaming cups of hot cocoa around our breakfast table, after I had gotten some rest. Mom and Dad had Lucy to themselves upstairs, Lucy still curled in a deep sleep, nestled between them in their bed.

  How Carla Ray hadn’t been that far off, after all. That Owen’s church, as it turned out, was very similar to the church in Kilgore we had searched—an eerie parallel.

  How it was Sylvia—his voice catching on her name as he said it—who tipped them off about Owen.

  How Owen squealed on everyone the minute they booked him: Sheriff Meeks, his deputy, and the oil man. How Owen confessed to the kidnapping of eight children total, and admitted they were all part of the plot to stage the children’s murders in Big Woods, on the oil man’s lease.

  And the sheriff would tell me, also, that it was Sylvia who had given him my diary, marking the passages for him to read. And as he said this, he would get choked up and swallow a cry and look across the table at me and say, “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.”

  The night before I left to find Lucy, I’d had one last dream, and it was this dream that told me she was still alive, and that she, too, could also see me. It was simple, and short, and in it, I heard her voice, clear as a bell. She said, “Tell Dad to come home; I’m coming home.”

  75

  Leah

  Thursday, January 4th, 1990

  Lucy and I are sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor in our pajamas. Our hands are sticky with cookie dough, our hair is dusted with flour, and we sit parked in front of the oven, waiting for our next batch of chocolate chip cookies to be ready. Snowflakes the size of thumbprints pelt the wavy glass windows and stick for a moment before dissolving.

  Mom and Dad are in the next room, around the breakfast table. I can hear the rustle of newspaper as they trade different sections to read and the pleasant thud of their coffee mugs striking the wooden table.

  We’ve spent the past week like this: all of us huddled at home together, spending bottomless days in our pajamas. Dad cooks all day, frying bacon in the morning and making teetering stacks of pancakes. He then chops vegetables and marinates assorted cuts of meat for stews while Mom leads Lucy and I in various baking projects: Christmas cookies iced in red and green frosting, trays of gooey chocolate brownies, and sugar cookies topped with candy-colored sprinkles. Yesterday we spent the afternoon making Shrinky Dinks. We made so many that they’re heaped on the center of my bed like a stash of jewels.

  We spend our evenings together in the living room, playing board games and roasting marshmallows in the fireplace for s’mores.

  Lucy sleeps in my room now, and I wake up during the night to find her tangled around me, her bony legs beginning to turn back into a healthy plump. We’ve spent the past seven days luxuriating in the basic fact of our togetherness. Braiding each other’s hair, painting each other’s toenails, and taking languid naps together on the couch.

  So it’s not until just now, as I click on the oven light to check the cookies, watching the dough flatten with heat and the chocolate chips begin to melt and pool, that I think of Sylvia for the first time since our rescue. Her face pops into my head and I’m seized by a longing to fill up a Christmas tin and bring her s
ome cookies.

  Lucy cracks open the oven and stands on her tiptoes to peer in, leaving cookie dough smear on the handle.

  “Not just yet, Lu. But they’re almost done,” I say, hopping up and going into the breakfast room. “Can I take Sylvia some cookies later today?” I ask, leaning against the doorway.

  No one has left the house all week except when we all took a single trip to the grocery store to stock up.

  Mom closes the paper and sets it aside. Dad grabs their drained coffee mugs and moves to the kitchen. I plop down in a seat across from Mom.

  “Sweetie,” Mom says, glancing toward the kitchen. “There’s something I need to tell you.” I hear Dad slide the sheet of cookies out of the oven and then he scoops Lucy up and tickles her, chasing her up the stairs, out of earshot.

  “Sylvia,” Mom starts, her eyes trained on me. “Sweetie, Sylvia died.”

  I gulp and the room spins. My lips start to quiver as I ask, “How? When?”

  Mom stands and walks over to the sideboard. She takes down her wooden letterbox, opens it, and slides a clipping from the paper to me.

  It’s Sylvia’s obituary. Mom stands behind me as I read it, her steady hands planted on my shoulders. It’s short, with no cause of death mentioned, only saying that she passed away on Christmas morning. Sylvia Louise Parker. Age 75. Proceeded in death by a husband, John, and survived by a sister, Evelyn, in Florida. There was no funeral, no memorial service for Sylvia, and this pains me, but the obituary mentions that her final resting place is in the cemetery at St. Paul’s, where she used to attend church.

  I’m openly crying now, my body shaking with sobs and Mom leans down and grips me into a tight hug, letting me cry it out. When I’m finished, she smooths my bangs back and tucks my hair behind my ears.

  “The sheriff thought you had been through too much already,” she says, “so we decided to wait as long as possible before telling you.”