Into the Woods (Anomaly Hunters, Book One)

by J. S. Volpe

  “Right. Bye.”

  After hanging up, she sat there on her bed a minute, lost in thought, then got up and headed for the door. She hadn’t had a chance to talk with Donovan about the Roger Grey debacle last night. Maybe discussing it, and the hunt for Emily in general, might help her sort out her feelings.

  She opened her door, stepped out onto the balcony, and then stopped, staring at Donovan’s closed door across the way.

  He was playing music, some death metal band she didn’t recognize. Crap. He eschewed his headphones for his iPod dock only when he was in a really bad mood. Or when he had Violet in there and he was trying to hide the sound of her voice. It was too early in the day for Violet to be visiting (or to be conscious, for that matter), so he was probably only cranky or depressed. Either way, he wasn’t going to be very talkative.

  Her eyes slid to the door to the left of Donovan’s. Emily’s door. Taped to it was a sign with a skull and crossbones and the words “Keep Out” in big red letters. Emily had made the sign herself.

  Impelled by an urge she didn’t understand, Cynthia circled the balcony to Emily’s door and stood there gazing at the sign. She could feel the bass from Donovan’s music thumping along the floorboards and up through her feet. She heard the TV chattering away in the living room downstairs. The cutlery drawer rattled open in the kitchen.

  Cynthia grasped the doorknob, then looked at the sign again. Keep Out. She felt a twinge of guilt about going in. She had gone in there with everyone else when Aunt Wendy was here the other day, but that was different. That intrusion had had a point. Cynthia was here for no reason she could understand. It was pointless. Yet it was also somehow psychologically necessary. She didn’t know why, though.

  “Sorry,” she muttered at the sign, then opened the door and stepped inside.

  The music was louder in here. Donovan kept his iPod dock right on the other side of the north wall. That was one of the few causes of discord between Emily and Donovan. Cynthia couldn’t begin to count the times she had heard Emily pounding on the wall with one fist and shouting, “Turn it down!”

  Cynthia shut the door behind her, then stood in the middle of the room a moment, looking around at Emily’s things. Her gaze finally settled on Emily’s stuffed elephant, which lay on the floor next to the bed. Cynthia picked up the elephant and sat down on the edge of the bed with the elephant in her lap.

  This had been one of Emily’s favorite animals. She had named it Otto and given it a fanciful history, making it the leader of the animal army in that weird Zoo Wars game she was obsessed with a couple of years ago.

  But Cynthia remembered it better from another context, one much more recent…

  2

  One day in mid-September Emily had come home from school in a rotten mood. For the rest of the afternoon she shut herself in her room, an odd thing for her to do on such a pleasant, sunny day. When she came down for dinner at six, she was quiet, almost surly, responding to questions with terse monosyllables, her eyes rarely rising from her plate. She claimed nothing was wrong and said she was fine. No one believed a word of it. After dinner she vanished back into her room.

  Concerned, Mom asked Cynthia to check on her.

  “Why me?” Cynthia asked.

  “It might be something she doesn’t want to discuss with, you know, parents. Besides, you’re good at that kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Helping people feel better.”

  Cynthia was flabbergasted. “I am?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. Just go on.”

  Cynthia went upstairs and knocked on Emily’s door.

  “What,” Emily said, her voice small and muffled through the door.

  “It’s me. Can I come in?”

  “Whatever.”

  Cynthia went in and shut the door behind her. Emily sat on her bed. She had lain one of her old Monster High dolls on the coverlet and was moving Otto the elephant back and forth over it, manipulating the elephant’s gray legs in an imitation of walking. With each step Otto took, Emily blew a short, sharp raspberry: Pppp. Pppp.

  Cynthia watched this in bafflement for a while. Otto went back. Otto went forth. Pppp. Pppp. Emily never once looked up at her sister.

  “What are you doing?” Cynthia finally said.

  “This is Miss Dryer,” Emily said, nodding at the doll. “Miss Dryer is slowly being stomped to death by Otto the elephant. She is in horrible, horrible pain, but nobody cares, and nobody will help her, and they will just laugh and watch as she bleeds all over everything and gets turned into mashed potatoes.”

  Cynthia sat down on the bed next to Emily. Up close she could see that Emily’s eyes were red and her cheeks were faintly shiny with tear tracks.

  “Okay, what did Miss Dryer do?”

  Otto stopped walking.

  “I dunno…” Emily mumbled. She absently plucked at one of Otto’s big floppy ears.

  “Come on. You need to tell it to somebody; otherwise you’re gonna end up going on a tri-state shooting spree or something. I can tell.”

  Emily let out a choked giggle. “It’s nothing,” she muttered. “It’s just stupid stuff.”

  “Well, of course. If it has to do with Miss Dryer, it must be stupid. I remember her. She was a dried-up old bag.”

  Emily’s head shot up. Her eyes were bright with relief that she had found someone who understood.

  “Yeah!” she exclaimed. Then her eyes narrowed into black slits. The points of her jaw bulged as she clenched her teeth. “She’s a cunt.”

  Cynthia was too shocked to respond. She had never seen Emily look so hateful. And she had never heard Emily use the C-word before. Cynthia fumbled about for something to say, but then she found she didn’t have to: Emily’s outburst had opened the gates, and the whole story came pouring out.

  “Miss Dryer wanted us to write an essay about what we did this summer, right? So I started writing about our trip to New England, but it didn’t turn out long enough. It had to be three pages, and all the stuff about the trip came out to only one and a half, so I had to think of something more. But I couldn’t. I mean, I wanted to write about something cool, something worth reading, you know? What was I gonna do, write about going to the dentist? So I made up a story about going into Spirit Cave and finding a doorway in the back and going down underground and having adventures with fairies and trolls and visiting a city made of crystal and stuff like that. I mean, I know it didn’t really happen, but it was better than writing about getting my teeth scraped. So I turned it in yesterday, and then today, when we were going to recess, Miss Dryer told me to stay behind. I didn’t know what for, but then she pulled out my paper.”

  Emily dropped her voice to a peevish, geriatric rasp in uncanny imitation of Miss Dryer. “‘What is this?’ she said. And I told her, ‘It’s my paper.’ And she was like, ‘It’s nonsense. It’s garbage. This is not an acceptable paper. You did not do this over the summer.’ And then…”

  Emily paused to take a deep breath.

  “Then she ripped it up right in my face, ripped it in half and threw it in the trash. And I started crying. I couldn’t help it. But she didn’t care. She just said, ‘I want you to write it again, only this time I want you to write it without monsters and fairies and other infantile nonsense. I want a real paper, not this imaginary hogwash. Ten-year-old girls are old enough to know the difference between reality and fantasy.’ So I said, ‘I know the difference. I just wanted it to be fun and interesting.’ And she said, ‘I don’t want it to be fun and interesting. I want it to be true.’ So then I told her I really did see fairies in the woods once when I was little. I told you about that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, so I told her that, but she just huffed like an angry cat and said, ‘No. You did not see such things, because fairies do not exist. What you think you saw was only the product of a childish, undeveloped mind. Fairies do not exist. Trolls do not exist. Dragons do not exist. Therefore you did not see
them. A girl your age should know better. I want a real paper about real things on my desk tomorrow morning.’ And then she sent me out onto the playground.”

  Emily hugged Otto to her chest and mumbled, “Stupid old bitch. I hope she drops dead.”

  “I wouldn’t take it too much to heart,” Cynthia said. “Miss Dryer’s been pulling this stuff for years. Everybody hates her guts. And when she dies a bitter, lonely old biddy, she’ll have no one to blame but herself.”

  “Yeah…” Emily glanced at Cynthia, her lower lip pinched between her teeth, then said, “So, uh…do you believe it?”

  “Do I believe what?”

  “Fairies and stuff. Do you believe in them?”

  Shit. How was she supposed to answer that?

  Cynthia thought carefully for a moment, weighing every word, then said, “I don’t know. Honestly, my gut instinct is to say no. But that’s probably just because I’ve never seen one. I mean, I’ve never seen Antarctica or an electron either, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. So…” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Emily nodded. The answer seemed to satisfy her. Then her eyes narrowed again.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Even if they’re not real, I don’t care.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, like, why are true things supposed to be so much better than not-true things? And how can you say something’s not true if it feels true, you know? If it makes a person feel something, then it must be true somehow, right? A feeling’s a true thing, isn’t it? So how can something that isn’t true produce a thing that is?”

  “Um…”

  “And besides, if something’s really cool, who cares if it’s true or not? Just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’s any good.” Emily frowned. “Of course, I still have to write my stupid paper anyway.”

  Emily looked more annoyed than depressed now. It was definitely a step in the right direction. Telling her story to a friendly ear had had a cathartic effect. Cynthia remained with her a while longer to help her take a few more steps out of Miss Dryer’s drab shadow and to help her with her paper by showing her how to artfully pad out the tale of their New England trip to a full three pages…

  3

  Cynthia held up Otto in one had. He was threadbare and stained, one glossy black eye was coming loose, and his trunk was limp and floppy where some of the stuffing had fallen out through a gap in the stitching.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  She was sorry because she had lied. Deep down, she hadn’t really believed in fairies. Like Miss Dryer, she had regarded Emily’s claimed sighting of them to be nothing more than childish wishful thinking. Now she knew that she had been wrong. She knew that there were more things in heaven and earth than she had ever thought possible. She knew that Emily could very well have seen fairies. Especially in these woods. Hell, Cynthia herself had seen that weird silvery light in the clearing the other day, though of course the light was only the merest glimmer of whatever Aunt Wendy had seen…

  Cynthia shot to her feet with a gasp. Otto tumbled to the floor, forgotten.

  Aunt Wendy. The visions.

  Cynthia remembered Aunt Wendy standing right there in the middle of the room and having her seemingly meaningless vision of a yellow box. A big, shiny yellow box, maybe made of metal or plastic.

  Just like the chest freezer in Roger Grey’s basement.

  That was the connection her mind had been trying to make ever since she saw the freezer last night.

  Then the full implications of this connection hit her. Her breath caught in her chest. Her eyes filled with tears.

  If Wendy’s vision was true and meaningful, it meant that Emily was probably dead. You don’t put a live body in a freezer.

  But maybe there was another explanation. Maybe Grey was keeping Emily somewhere else, and the freezer contained something else of importance, like…like…

  She couldn’t think of anything.

  A teardrop slid down her cheek and dripped off her chin.

  “God damn it,” she said in a husky voice. She suddenly didn’t want to believe in Wendy’s visions. Maybe everyone was wrong about them.

  Maybe. But she had to do what she had to do.

  After knuckling her tears from her eyes and snuffling back the snot that was threatening to drip from her nose, she got out her phone and dialed the number for the police station. A woman with a high, chirpy voice answered. It wasn’t Anna West’s mom.

  “May Police,” the woman said. “How can I help you?”

  “I need to talk to somebody involved in the Emily Crow case. I’m Cynthia Crow, her sister. I need somebody who’s, like, in charge or something. Chief Krezchek or—”

  “Special Agent Rowan of the FBI is right here. Would he—”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Hold, please.”

  There was a hollow clunk as the phone was handed off. The woman said a few words in a voice too low for Cynthia to make out.

  Then Agent Rowan’s calm, even voice said, “Hello, Ms. Crow. How can I help you?”

  “Um, hi. I just remembered something. Or, well, I made a connection about something.”

  “Yes?”

  “When I was in, um, Mr. Grey’s basement”—she grimaced at calling him “Mr. Grey”; it afforded him a measure of respect she felt sure he didn’t deserve—“I saw a chest freezer in one room. A big yellow one. It was the only thing down there I didn’t get a chance to check out.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And, um…look, I don’t know if you believe in psychics, but my aunt Wendy, who died just a couple of days ago”—crap, did mentioning her aunt’s death make it sound like she was fishing for sympathy or something? Oh, well; there wasn’t anything she could do about it now except forge ahead—“she had a vision in Emily’s bedroom. She said she saw a big yellow box that seemed to be made out of either plastic or metal. She didn’t know what it meant. Nobody did. But it just dawned on me that it sounds exactly like that chest freezer.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. It went on so long she started to wonder if he had hung up or the call had been lost.

  But then he said, “I see. Well, thank you for letting us know, Ms. Crow.”

  She could tell from his tone that he didn’t believe it. Oh, he believed that Aunt Wendy had said she saw a yellow box, but he didn’t believe in the validity of psychic powers.

  “She’s had lots of visions before,” Cynthia blurted out. “And they always turned out true.”

  “I understand,” he said. “Thanks again. We appreciate it.”

  He hung up.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said. He hadn’t believed her. He wasn’t going to check out the chest freezer. “Son of a bitch!”

  Her gaze fell on Otto the elephant, who stared up at her from the floor with one beady black eye. She remembered Emily spitting out, “She’s a cunt.” Her lips curled into a grim and bitter smile.

  “Those authority figures always let you down, don’t they?” Cynthia said to Otto and, through him, to Emily.

  She sat back down on the bed and called Mr. May.

  The phone rang and rang. Five times. Eight. Ten. Didn’t he have voice mail?

  She was about to hang up when he answered.

  “Yes?” He sounded winded and a little testy.

  “Um, Mr. May? It’s me, Cynthia Crow.”

  “Oh! Is everything all right?” His testiness was gone, though he still sounded out of breath. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you right now.”

  “Um, actually, I…” She heard a man’s voice in the background. She couldn’t identify any words, but the deep, hearty tone was clearly that of Stephen Krezchek, the police chief’s son and the town’s most prominent lawyer.

  Mr. May put a hand over the mouthpiece and said something to Krezchek All Cynthia caught was “won’t be too long.”

  Cynthia frowned. “You’re not busy, are you? I don’t want to interrupt anything.”
/>   “Is it important?” he asked.

  “Maybe. I think so.”

  “Then it’s worth the interruption. What is it?”

  She told him about the chest freezer and its possible connection with Wendy’s vision. She also told him about her call to Agent Rowan, and the FBI agent’s tepid response. When she was done, he was as silent as Agent Rowan had been, but when he finally spoke, his response was very different.

  “Good Lord,” he muttered.

  “I wish I’d gone ahead and opened that freezer,” Cynthia said. Then she thought about it and added, “No, wait. Maybe I don’t.”

  “Yes. The implications are rather…distressing, aren’t they?” He heaved a shaky sigh. He sounded as affected by this as she was.

  She forced herself to ask the question she didn’t want to ask: “Wendy’s visions—are you sure they were always accurate?”

  “I would love to say she was often wrong. But I can’t recall her ever having had a vision that proved untrue. That said, I do remember a few that were somewhat misleading, suggesting one thing when the truth proved more complex. That, I suppose, could give us hope.” He didn’t sound terribly hopeful, though.

  Stephen Krezchek spoke up again. He sounded closer and louder now, and this time Cynthia caught the words “more appointments this afternoon.”

  “Yes, yes.” Mr. May called out to him. Then, to Cynthia, he said, “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have…business to take care of. Can you come by later?”

  “I don’t think so. Donovan and I are grounded until we’re, like, twenty-four. Calvin said he’d probably be able to stop by your place after school, though.”

  “Well, perhaps when Calvin gets here I can call you, and you can participate via telephone. Maybe your brother, too.”

  “That would be awesome.”

  “Till then, take care.”

  “Yeah. You too.”

  She hung up. She thought she was going to return to her room, but instead she only sat there staring down at the stuffed elephant on the floor with a blank, dead expression.

  Then out of the blue her face crumpled up, and she burst into tears. She wrapped her arms around her chest and laid her forehead on her knees and cried till her eyes and throat were raw and the knees of her jeans were damp. She let it all out, every last drop of anguish, grateful that Donovan’s music was there to hide the sound of her sobs.