The Possession

by Michael Rutger

  So why are some walls—like those around Modoc and parts of Shasta—formed of dotted lines? And what’s the deal with the ones that go up sheer hillsides, twenty miles from where anybody’s ever farmed?

  Then there’s this.

  Around the time Fryer and French were penning their curiosity pieces, the walls also allegedly attracted the attention of Sister Mary Paula von Tessen of the Dominican Order at Mission San Jose. She studied them for twenty-five years, reportedly producing a number of maps and drawings. And yet when Dr. Robert Fisher—who’d been personal physician to the order for decades before starting to take his own interest in the walls—asked to see the late Sister Mary’s notes, then (if you’ll pardon the pun) the mission firmly stonewalled him.

  The order’s archives still hold her writings on religious subjects. But the product of a quarter century’s obsession with the walls has completely disappeared.

  “Okay,” Ken said. By now we were within forty miles of Birchlake, steadily ascending into the mountains and forests. It was getting dark and the wipers were on against a persistent light rain. “So there’s a bunch of walls. And in typical Nolan fashion, you’ve provided a bunch of non-explanations—things that you say that they are not. So what are they?”

  “No idea.”

  “Mate—unless you can say those two words really fucking slowly, it’s not going to fill an hour-long show.”

  “What do the walls look like?” This was from Pierre, now awake once more.

  “Well, stone walls, I’m assuming.”

  Ken turned his head ominously. “You haven’t seen them?”

  “Not these exact ones.”

  “Have you seen any of them?”

  “Sure. The ones outside Berkeley. Once.”

  “Are those…not very good walls?”

  “They’re fine.”

  Ken was still staring at me. “Then why the hell aren’t we doing this back down there, near one of California’s highest concentrations of excellent restaurants, past which I drove over an hour ago? Why are we instead going all the way up to this Birchlake shithole?”

  “These are…better walls,” I said, holding on to my seat as the car started to veer into the other lane. “Ken—eyes on the road, maybe?”

  He gave me one more deeply suspicious glare, but then turned his attention back to the dark highway.

  Chapter

  7

  Getting a new phone had required Kristy driving thirty miles to the Chico Mall. She walked down the central concourse without looking in any of the stores. She didn’t like malls. Everything about them, from the drearily predictable array of potential possessions, to sparsely occupied food courts dotted with people whose shape suggested they shouldn’t be eating fast food at eleven a.m., made her feel lonely and sad. And snide, and body-shaming, and elitist. A bad combination.

  The guy in the Verizon store confirmed what Kristy already knew from fiddling with the phone. It was bricked. “And you dropped it, you say?”

  “Well, it slipped out of my hand. As I was getting it out of my purse.”

  The guy frowned at the device. He had sandy hair and glasses and appeared determined to get to the bottom of the problem. Kristy didn’t care about the bottom line, only the executive summary: she needed a phone that worked.

  “Weird thing,” he mused. “It doesn’t look like an impact shatter. See the initial break? It’s way up on top, near the edge—where the case protects it best. You’d’ve been super-unlucky for it to land on something at that exact spot.” He turned it over in his hands. “It looks more like it cracked from an energy surge or something.”

  “Maybe,” Kristy improvised. “It did feel warm when I got it out of my bag.”

  The guy was nodding now, as if sensing a mystery that would raise him above men and women of similar occupation, perhaps into the exalted echelon of Awesome Phone Dudes that are celebrated in legend and song, and on Reddit. “Never heard of that happening on this model before, though. It would probably be a good idea to—”

  “It’s an enigma,” Kristy agreed cheerfully, to divert him from whatever horrifically protracted process he was about to suggest. “I should set my ex-husband on the case.”

  The guy looked up at her over his glasses, as though sensing the threat of a rival. “Is he a tech?”

  “No. He hosts a YouTube show called The Anomaly Files.”

  “I’ve seen that. It’s…well, it’s kinda, not very…”

  “I know. Look—so what happens next?”

  He started to explain that he could maybe get her a replacement sent in a couple days. Kristy in turn explained that wouldn’t work for her, and directed him to look at her account, where she knew that—courtesy of previous encounters with customer service—there was a note saying something along the lines of “Give this woman whatever she wants, right away, seriously: pissing her off is shit you don’t need.”

  She walked out of the mall with a brand new phone fifteen minutes later.

  On her way out of Chico she stopped at the sheriff’s department. The sheriff was grateful for her previous tip concerning Alaina’s second Instagram account, but other than confirming that his men were keeping a close watch for any sign of the girl, seemed disinclined to discuss the matter further.

  She grabbed an early lunch in the Stone Mountain Tap back in Birchlake, working through a plate of surprisingly good nachos and waiting for her replacement phone to download all her crap back down out of the cloud. No sign of the old guy who’d spoken to her the night before. No sign of Val, either. Two guys were holding down the bar, one middle-aged and bald, the other a very good-looking dude in his twenties that Kristy immediately guessed might be the missing bartender from the previous night.

  She heard him referred to as Kurt. The number of reminders required to get Kristy’s check, however, suggested Val’s nickname summed him up better.

  After that she walked to a park on a bluff above the river. The sky was clear and blue, and she was glad to have her coat. Glad, too, for the coffee she’d bought from the place by her apartment. The roast was green and sour, an affectation she found annoying, but it was hot.

  Apart from a scattering of benches the park held a faded-looking play structure in primary colors and a short, low section of old-looking stone wall of no evident purpose. A rusted chain fence on the bluff spoiled the view down to the rocky river. A sign at the gate indicated that it was dedicated to someone in particular, a woman who had doubtless achieved notable civic things in days of yore. It felt like the space had been somebody’s brainchild a decade or two ago and the subject of many hard-fought town meetings, but had received little or no attention since.

  Kristy saw two MISSING posters, both already weather-worn. The photo of Alaina Hixon made her look as if she couldn’t possibly ever go missing.

  After a while she saw a harried-looking figure striding down the path, so she got out her notebook and pen, and laid her phone next to them on the picnic table.

  “I’m not sure what I can tell you,” Principal Broecker said, taking a hurried slurp from a small thermos. His coffee smelled better than hers. “And I’ve only got twenty minutes. Sorry I’m late. Hi, by the way. Call me Dan.”

  He thrust a beefy hand across the table, and Kristy shook it. She suspected Broecker was one of those men who would always be running late, though not for want of trying. Forty-something, a little burly, a little hectic, shaggy dark hair and a beard. New-looking jeans, shirt in an ill-advised shade of mustard, a tweedy jacket that wanted nothing to do with either of the other garments. Either he dressed in the dark or was canny enough to give his students (and staff) an easy target for covert derision.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m on vacation.”

  “Huh,” he said, looking at her shrewdly, and she knew he’d seen right through that. “Well, so, what would you like to know?” He shivered. “It’s chilly.”

  “Why didn’t you want to do this at the school?”

  “
You know what they’re like,” he said. “Or maybe you don’t. Schools are a little universe to themselves, and as such very alert to any disturbance in the force. It’s taken this long to get back to where it feels anything like stable. If I’m seen talking to an unknown person on campus—or anywhere, because I’m Principal Broecker wherever I go—the bush telegraph would start jangling. And look, issues of privacy and confidentiality apply, as I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Then fire away.”

  “What was your impression of Alaina?”

  The principal exhaled. “It’s a small school. A hundred and fifty students, from here in town and houses further up in the mountains. I have a name for every face.”

  “But you’re busy.”

  “I am busy,” he said, not defensively. “And apart from a class I teach on early US history—which I know for a fact is universally regarded as the most tedious elective available—I’m an administrator. I don’t have the day-to-day contact. Some pop out, naturally. The kids who’re more often sent to my office—one of whom is, disappointingly, my own son. The academically exceptional. On the opposite extreme, I try to keep an eye on the children who disappear, and Alaina definitely isn’t one of those.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry—terrible choice of words. Look, do you mind if I have a cigarette? I allow myself one during working hours. I can go stand over there, if you prefer.”

  Kristy smiled. “Doesn’t bother me.”

  He pulled out a battered pack, lit up, and quickly looked more relaxed. “Thank you. Obviously I didn’t mean ‘disappeared’ in that way. I meant…”

  “The ones nobody notices.”

  “Exactly. The kids who don’t excel but aren’t tanking. Who don’t speak up in class but aren’t self-evidently experiencing issues. Who are neither popular, nor loners.”

  “And Alaina wasn’t that kind of kid?”

  He shook his head. “Grades in the upper middle of the pack. Plenty of character. Perfectly noticeable. She was taking my class and actually appeared to enjoy it, which is very unusual. Enough friends—she and the Hardaker twins seemed very close. I’ve discussed her a great deal with the staff in the last ten days, but none seem to have much more than that, even Gina.”

  “Who is…”

  “In eighth grade each student has an advisor who’s charged with keeping an overview of their progress. In Alaina’s case, it’s Gina.”

  “Can I talk to her?”

  “I’m not sure why you’d need to. What with you being on vacation.” He smiled briefly, and knocked out the end of his cigarette on the side of the bench. After confirming that the fallen embers were extinguished, he neatly folded the butt and stowed it back in the pack, each motion a fussy little secret. “Anything else?”

  “Did she ever say anything about being bullied?”

  “What?”

  Kristy took out her phone and unlocked it. The picture was ready on screen. The principal stared at it. “Have you told the police about this?”

  “I called them yesterday morning.”

  “Uh-huh. That explains why the sheriff came to see me in the afternoon. I told him what I’d told him before. That we’d never seen anything of that sort. In the school. Ever. So how come they didn’t find this?”

  “That’s not her main Instagram account. I spent a few hours tracing back from her regular one. Seeing who’d commented. Where else they’d commented. If the commenters seemed to have secondary accounts—which kids do, to slip around prying parental eyes. Eventually I found this.”

  “What’d the police say?”

  “That they’d look into it. I stopped by earlier. They say it’s a dead end, and probably doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Well,” Broecker said. He was still frowning at the picture. “I guess there’s not actually much there.”

  “Nope.”

  “And the last line could just be a mean joke.”

  “It could.”

  “Any idea who the commenters are?”

  “No. For all I know they could be sock puppets owned by Alaina herself, to make hers look more popular, or play out a role. It’s unlikely the site would give me any information, and I haven’t asked because I don’t want to trigger them into taking the accounts down. It doesn’t look like the police have, either. I got the sense they weren’t taking me very seriously.”

  “I’m not sure they’ve ever taken Alaina’s disappearance as seriously as they should, to be honest.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “That’s not fair. They had a lot on their hands with the mess in Chico. I’m sure they’re doing everything they can.” The principal put Kristy’s phone back on the table. “But, so, what’s your interest? And drop the ‘on vacation’ malarkey. I googled you. You’re quite well-known online. Good, too—that piece on permafrost was very sharp. Are you intending to write something about Alaina’s disappearance?”

  “No. Or at least, not yet. She happened to pop up on a search when I was looking for something else.”

  “Los Angeles is a long way from here.”

  “I was bored.”

  “You must have been,” Broecker said. “Look. I can see why you’d find that image intriguing, but I don’t think it proves anything. Certainly not a culture of bullying.”

  “I didn’t say anything about a—”

  “No,” he said, politely but firmly. “You didn’t. But other people will. There are no ‘isolated incidents’ when it comes to bullying. It’s always a ‘culture.’ A disaster for a school. It’s appalling that Alaina has gone missing, and I’ll do everything in my power to help anybody trying to find her. But right now it seems to me there’s no additional story worth telling the rest of the world. Let me know if that changes.”

  He stood. “And one more thing. You asked what kind of girl Alaina was. So far as we know, she still is, yes?”

  Kristy watched him stride away back up the path, a man on his way to be slightly late for the next thing, feeling as if she’d narrowly avoided being given a detention.

  Chapter

  ​8

  Afterward Kristy walked along the forest-lined road into the mountains. About half a mile along was a cleared space in the forest on the right. A large, wooden two-story building stood there, a partially overgrown parking area behind, a creek running down to the river along one side. It had once been a restaurant and/or bar. Possibly somewhere to stay, too—there were tattered curtains hanging in the three pairs of windows on the upper floor. A sign indicated it had been called Olsen’s. It looked like it had been out of business for years, but had long ago been a place you could reliably find a good time—to a possibly disreputable degree.

  Kristy walked around it, including the back. At one end was a river rock chimney. The remnants of a 1940s sign on one gable said FOOD, and a matching one on the next said COCKTAILS. All the windows and doors had been covered from the inside with wooden boards.

  She left and walked farther along the two-lane highway. It took her ten minutes to find the narrow road she was looking for, snaking off into the woods.

  Fifty yards up it was a driveway with a weathered mailbox, HIXON written on the side with Sharpie.

  The drive had been blocked by three rusted oil drums. Back in the trees she could see one corner of an old, two-story wooden house. It hadn’t been repainted in many years. A deceased pick-up truck lurked in the bushes, on flats.

  It was very quiet in the trees. Also cold. A bank of low cloud promised more rain. With the positioning of the drums as a barrier, Kristy knew this was not the time to call unannounced on the family of a missing teenage girl.

  She walked back to town. On the way an idea occurred to her. She got out her phone to do some quick research.

  Twenty minutes later she walked up to a house a couple of blocks off Birchlake’s main street. Broecker had mentioned a first name. The school’s website provided a surname, along with
a picture of a pleasant-looking brunette in her mid-thirties, smiling in that blandly reassuring way teachers do. Finding an address for the only Gina Wright in the county had been the work of moments on a website Kristy subscribed to.

  The woman who opened the door was instantly recognizable from the school website. The resemblance was eerily exact, in fact, as though the teacher had just come from having the picture taken. A brighter smile, though that faded quickly, to be replaced with uncertainty.

  “I wondered if I might ask a couple questions?”

  “About what?”

  “Alaina Hixon.”

  The teacher looked apologetic. “It’s heartbreaking. But I honestly think I’ve told everything I know.”

  “It’ll only take a moment.”

  The inside of Gina’s house was tidy—the portion Kristy saw, anyhow. The hall showed no signs of kid detritus or dust. The living room was tastefully decorated, a large 1930s-style radio on the mantel the only discordant note. The cushions on the couch were plump and perfect and precisely equidistant. Kristy sat. Gina remained standing.

  “Just three things,” Kristy said. “Two of which you’ll already have covered. But I wanted to get my own impression.”

  “Of what?”

  “Alaina at school.”

  “High middle of the pack. Better in humanities than math/science. Not backward in self-advocating. At all.”

  “What about her home life?”

  “So far as I know everything’s hunky-dory, given the circumstances. I’ve met her dad at school events, and he seems nice enough. Though stretched a little thin. You know what happened to her mom?”

  “Died a year and a half ago. Car accident.”

  “Right. The rumor was alcohol was involved, and I certainly saw Jenny in the Tap from time to time. Alaina’s dad has been by himself since. I think recently maybe there’s been a little friction. But she’s a teenager, so…”