by Karen Harper
Tess prayed she’d be able to keep her head in this. She counted the turns of the stairs, lit by only a ceiling light on each tiny landing. The steps were narrow and steep. Coming down, she could easily fall, especially if she was pulling a child behind her.
“Now, Teresa, I expect you to apologize to Mama Sybil for running off the way you did, when you knew she loved you. It hurt her terribly. Hurt me too in more ways than one. I’m going to leave you with her and Sandy while I finish something outside, but it won’t take me long, and then I’ll be back. You, of course, will be tied, and Sandy will be on Mama Sybil’s lap. Finally, she’s learned to obey. Spare the rod and spoil the child, you know. You learned that much slower than Sandy. You were quite an independent little miss when you first came to live with us.”
Again, Tess had to force herself not to answer back, to tell this demented woman off. It made her sick to her stomach, but she murmured only, “Yes, Miss Etta.”
“Actually that old saying, Spare the rod and spoil the child, only takes its inspiration from the book of Proverbs, but verbatim it goes way back to a poem called Piers Plowman in 1377, and then the adage showed up in another poem in 1662.”
Tess wanted to scream. This seemed a nightmare from which she must surely wake. She longed to tell this woman her trivial knowledge was nothing—nothing!—because she was a monster. But she had to hold herself together. At least Mama Sybil would be in her wheelchair, and she should be able to overtake her when Miss Etta went to finish her business. Of digging graves? Even if Miss Etta locked them in, even if she tied Tess, surely, with Sandy’s help—if she wasn’t drugged—she’d be able to get away, break out, rush downstairs with Sandy, or at least get to a phone in the house to call 911. She’d bet her life—which was probably what she was doing—that this house had a landline, maybe with an old dial phone.
The other thought Tess had as they reached the chained attic door was that she was still terrified to face that horrible old lady again. If Mama Sybil had a pistol too, would she be risking a bullet to the brain, like Dane?
* * *
Even after all the negative reports came in from the volunteer teams, Gabe had exhausted himself searching. He was running on sheer adrenaline, guts and fear. He’d explored Tess’s house, attic to cellar, and about jumped out of his skin when his flashlight had illumined a dummy on the floor of the basement. He remembered that Grace had done sewing and alterations to earn extra money before they moved to the Hear Ye compound. It was an old dressmaker’s mannequin, but it had looked like a woman on the floor at first.
He was so desperate that he had requested another search warrant, this one for Bright Star’s compound. He was afraid he was getting to be persona non grata with the judge, but he didn’t care anymore. Not about his health, his job, his life—he just wanted to find Tess, Jill and Sandy safe. Had someone taken Tess off Main Street outside the library?
He drove to the burned-out site of Marva Green’s old house and searched the back buildings again. Nothing but trash, owls and rats. He sat down on an upturned tin tub and tried to think about where else he could search.
He decided to go back to the office, make that call to the church woman who had counseled Tess. His hope was that maybe she’d kind of debriefed little Teresa and could shed new light on what happened all those years ago. He remembered his father saying that Tess’s mother thought it best if no one mentioned the horrible experience, but just tried to go back to normal. Normal? Nothing had ever been normal again.
* * *
Miss Etta unlocked the padlock on the chain holding the attic door closed, and it rattled as it uncoiled itself. Tess was tempted to shove the woman down the stairs, but that pistol could go off. And would it endanger Sandy if she was with Mama Sybil on the other side of that door? If only she could get her hands untied like her feet.
Tess steeled herself for what she’d find within, but she also realized that, if Miss Etta locked them in again, they weren’t getting out of this chained door without an ax.
With the pistol still pressed to her side, Tess shuffled into the dim attic. She scanned the length of it, built with a long center section and two wings. A small bed under the eaves, a few toys—and another Mr. Mean leaning against the slanted wall under the eaves. Two bare lightbulbs dangled from the ceiling. Old hump-backed trunks were stored here. Stacks of old-fashioned hat boxes, several old, cracked paintings, bedsprings and a headboard, all suddenly, horribly familiar.
But why would Miss Etta keep her mother up here? Those stairs must be close to impossible for a crippled person in a wheelchair. It was chilly here too, so wouldn’t she keep her mother downstairs? Tess recalled that it was the first floor where she’d been forced to climb onto the old woman’s lap to be cuddled and petted—and held down to be beaten when she disobeyed, all under the watchful eye of a stag head mounted over the fireplace mantel.
As Tess’s eyes adjusted, she saw Mama Sybil at the far end of the room sitting slumped in her wheelchair. And Sandy—she was alive!—sat in her lap.
Miss Etta prodded Tess closer with the gun still in her ribs. Her first instinct was to comfort Sandy, who, thank God, turned her head and moved one leg to show she was alert. She must be drugged or too terrified to speak.
Miss Etta prodded Tess. “Apologize to Mama Sybil for escaping!” She stopped Tess about ten feet from Mama Sybil. “Get on your knees and tell her you are very, very sorry!”
Tess dropped to her knees with the pistol now pressed to the nape of her neck. Before she could speak, a deep voice behind her spoke. “Is this our Teresa come back to us, Etta?”
Tess gasped and jerked.
Sandy stirred on Mama Sybil’s lap and sniffled.
“I’m sorry I ran away, Mama Sybil,” Tess said. “Can I come closer?”
“All right,” the voice from behind intoned. “But you behave or else.”
Miss Etta was speaking for her mother. Tess thought maybe the old woman had suffered a stroke and couldn’t talk.
“On your knees, forward,” Miss Etta said, in what Tess recalled was a perfect rendition of her cruel mother’s voice.
Tess scooted forward. She forced a smile at Sandy and mouthed reassuring words. Sandy, hello.
Then she gasped. There was no woman holding Sandy. She—it—had no face except an enlarged photograph of Mama Sybil with stuffing behind it and a nylon stocking pulled over it to which a white wig was tied or sewn. The body was maybe wood sticks, like a scarecrow, wrapped with cloth, or stuffed, with fake arms and legs. The gown was old-fashioned and smelled stale and musty. A crocheted afghan was over the legs clear down to a pair of old black, laced shoes. It was so grotesque, yet so real from a distance, that Tess felt she’d been punched in the stomach. She almost screamed.
“She’s not...not there!” she cried. “Is she downstairs? Did she die?”
It was the wrong thing to say. The blow to her head was hard. It stunned her. She heard the child squeal. And then she hit the floor.
30
Tess felt a small, gentle hand brushing her hair from her face. Her head hurt horribly. Where was she?
Then she remembered. She opened her eyes. Sandy Kenton was bent over her, her little face wet with tears.
“Is she gone?” Tess asked.
“Miss Etta carried Mama Sybil downstairs to put her to bed. She said Mr. Mean would hurt me if I talked to you, but I just want to ask one thing.”
Tess groaned and struggled to sit up. Her hands were still tied behind her back and her feet were bound again. Only Sandy’s hands were tied, but the girl was tethered to the empty wheelchair, which she’d dragged close enough to reach Tess.
“Ask me,” Tess said, trying to sound calm and quiet when she wanted to sob and scream. “I’m your friend. My name is Tess.”
“Do you know my mommy?”
“Yes. Yes, I
know her, and she wants you to come home.”
“I can’t go home. I can’t even say it or Mr. Mean—”
“I know because they kept me here too once, but I got away from them and Mr. Mean and went home to my mommy. And you can too, if you help me.”
“But Mama Sybil is my other mommy now.”
“Mama Sybil isn’t real. Have you seen her walk and talk since you’ve been here?”
“No, she’s always like that, a big doll. But I have to say she’s real.”
“Sandy, turn your back to my back and let me try to untie you. Then you untie me so we can both go home. Your mommy and daddy want you to come home with me. Come on now, turn around back to back, okay? We might not have much time.”
“We don’t. Miss Etta said soon you are going to go to sleep with someone named Jill and some pioneer people, her family.”
Tess steeled herself to stay calm. Jill really was dead and buried out back. “Okay, good job, Sandy,” Tess said, as the child got close enough that she could begin to fumble with her ties. But her own hands were bound so tight she couldn’t grasp a cord to loosen Sandy’s. Maybe she should have studied the knots before trying to undo them. At least Sandy’s hands were small and sweaty and not tied quite as tight as her own.
As she tried to loosen the girl’s ties, Tess spoke to her about the two searches for her, told her that the police would give back the Barbie doll she left behind. Tess fought the worst headache she’d ever had and prayed that Etta Falls, who must be digging another grave, would not come back in time.
Finally she managed to free one of the child’s hands, and then they both popped free.
“Sandy, turn around and see if you can untie my hands.”
“I have scissors I cut out paper dolls with, but they don’t have sharp points.”
“Yes, get them. Try sawing at my ties. Hurry, please.”
“But they’re in the corner with Mr. Mean.”
“Mr. Mean isn’t real, and I won’t let him hurt you. Let’s run away from here and go see your mommy and daddy! Hurry, honey, please!”
She scurried away but was back fast, sawing away at Tess’s wrist bonds. “Miss Etta shoots her old guns out in back sometimes. I hear them go bang!”
Tess tried to stretch the ropes as the girl cut and sawed. Her hands were completely numb. She heard the slam of a door downstairs—surely not the gunshot Sandy had mentioned. Miss Etta must be back in the house.
“Sandy, never mind that. Try to cut my leg ties. Hurry. Saw at them while I stretch them,” Tess urged the child as footsteps echoed on the stairs. Tess knew this sort of scissors well, good only for cutting colored construction paper. This wasn’t going to work.
“Listen to me, Sandy. I want you to go over behind the door Miss Etta will come through. Hide behind it and keep really quiet when she opens it. I’ll do something to get her attention, and then you run down the stairs and outside. Can you open the downstairs door if it’s locked?”
“It’s dark outside.”
“But if we can’t both run, you have to get away. That’s what I did and someone found me, took me home to my mommy. Can you do that?”
“I don’t want to go without you. Miss Etta said you and me can be next to her pioneer family. I don’t want to be there alone.”
Tess was not only panicked but furious. She yanked at her fraying bonds in a frenzy. The footsteps stopped and Sandy kept cutting. Maybe Miss Etta had gone to the second floor to visit her mother, if she was an invalid. But Tess had the surest feeling Sybil Falls was dead. Miss Etta had probably buried the old woman out back and told no one. She couldn’t bear to let the past go and tried to hold on to it any way she could.
Suddenly the ties around her legs gave way! Jumping up on numb feet, Tess stumbled like a drunk, almost lost her balance. Pulling Sandy tight to her, they huddled together behind the door.
“Listen to me now, honey,” Tess whispered. “When she opens this door, don’t hold on to me. I’m going to hit the door back into her. Maybe knock her gun away, maybe even push her down the stairs. Then I’ll get on my knees and you get on my back like playing horsey.”
Wide-eyed, the child nodded solemnly.
“Okay, then. When we play horsey, you try to wrap your legs around me. But if you can’t because of my tied hands, you just stand on the ropes between my wrists. But there is just one rule. When you put your arms around me for the ride downstairs and outside, don’t grab my neck so I can’t breathe. Okay? Promise? And—if I fall, or something bad happens to me, you run fast away from here and hide in the cornfield until daylight when a car comes by. Make sure Miss Etta doesn’t find you.”
“I’m afraid of cornfields at night. Scarecrows can be in them.”
“I know, but don’t let her find you again. If you see a car going by, you yell your name to them, say that they should call the sheriff. Okay? Promise?” she repeated as the footsteps sounded on the stairs again.
Making a little X on her chest, the child whispered, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
* * *
Gabe thought Melanie Parkinson’s voice was calm, almost soothing. He was sure she must have been a comfort to little Teresa years ago. Had his father even known the child had been counseled at church? That information was never recorded, and he wondered if it could have been some sort of help.
“I’m asking you to think back twenty years to the Lockwood kidnap case,” he said to Mrs. Parkinson after he explained the situation.
“The so-called Cold Creek kidnapper. Yes, I remember the events and little Teresa Lockwood well. She’d been brutalized and terrified, so much so it had changed her personality. Inward, shy, afraid, when her mother said she’d been so bold and outgoing before that.”
“What would help me now,” he said without explaining Tess was missing again—it pained him to even say it—“is if you can recall anything specific she might have said about the place she was held or the person who held her. Anything!”
“Yes, all right. Several of her drawings we did for therapy were of a room with a deer head on the wall and a huge, oversize window. I assume she was wishing she could have gone out it, or that might have been how she actually escaped, because she was iffy on that. Out the window, she drew small gravestones.”
“She recently recalled that view. Anything else?”
“She once drew a scarecrow and then crayoned through it with near violence. Oh, and for such a young child, I think she referred to the cemetery once as a pioneer cemetery.”
Gabe sat up straight. He knew of only two in the area, one in the very back of the Glen Rest Cemetery outside town, but the only place Tess could have seen that from was the caretaker’s house. Clemment Dixon was surely no kidnapper, and he’d been in the hospital in Chillicothe when Tess was taken. And the other such cemetery—a little, old, one-family graveyard—was behind the Falls house on Blackberry Road.
A chill raced up Gabe’s spine. It didn’t seem possible and yet... The library was just two doors down from the shop where Sandy had disappeared. That old rattletrap of a bookmobile was always parked out back. Tess recalled the sounds of trains and the waterfall...but that cemetery was the thing.
“Sheriff, are you there? I just thought of something else. Teresa’s mother told me she didn’t like to read, didn’t like to be read to, but several of her drawings had rows of books on shelves lining the walls and—”
“Thanks, Melanie. You’ve been a big help, maybe more than you know. I’ll call back later.”
Disconnecting his phone, he leaped from behind his desk. It couldn’t be, and yet it made horrible sense. “Peg,” he shouted as he ran down the hall, strapping on his gun belt. “Call Agent Reingold and Jace. Tell them no lights, no sirens, park on the road, but they need to meet me at the Falls house on Blackberry Road.”
�
�But I didn’t get a 911 from her—”
“Now!”
* * *
Tess heard the chain rattle loose on the other side of the door. Sandy was holding on to her, but it was too late to remind her not to cling to her when Miss Etta stepped in.
The door opened. “I’m back,” she sang out. Tess could see her through the crack between the door and the frame as it opened, as the librarian stepped up to their level.
Tess threw herself against the door. It slammed shut. She heard the woman scream, bounce down the stairs, but how far? And what about the gun?
Tess turned her back to the door, grabbed the old knob, twisted it and opened the door. Miss Etta lay on the second-floor landing, looking stunned. In the dim stairwell, Tess couldn’t tell if she had the pistol or not, or even if she was conscious.
“Get on my back,” Tess told Sandy, bending down. “Horsey time.”
The child obeyed. She was heavier than Tess had expected. At least she could stick her skinny legs between Tess’s ribs and her tied arms. Trying to flee, desperate not to fall, Tess started down the steps just as Miss Etta moved, tried to right herself.
Tess kept going. The woman had the pistol, raised it and pointed it. They would never dodge a bullet in this narrow space. At least Sandy was behind her, so Tess would take the shot, but that could still leave both of them buried out back.
Scraping her shoulder along the stairwell wall, Tess rushed toward Miss Etta, tried to brace herself with the extra weight behind her and kicked at the woman. The pistol went off, but the gun fell to the floor. Tess waited for the pain but felt nothing. Leaning against the staircase wall, she kicked at Miss Etta again to get her out of the way, then edged past her and fled.
Down, turn, down, turn. No doubt the back door would be locked. It was, but the old skeleton-type key was in it. “Get down, get down!” she told Sandy. “I have to turn that key so we can get outside.”
She nearly dumped the girl on the hall floor, turned her back and fumbled with the lock. But she heard footsteps on the stairs. Miss Etta could still have the gun, or did those old ones only have one bullet?
