When I Find You

by R. A. Casey

  “Everything will be okay.”

  She steps away.

  “What will?” I ask.

  She never answered me as she stood there in the middle of the maize fields. The place we’d always run to. The place we’d always get lost.

  But I know now exactly what she was talking about.

  I’m back in the darkness of the attic, and Freddie and Moira are standing opposite me.

  Freddie looks down at me. Smiles.

  I see the burn mark on his neck, and I know.

  “You’re remembering,” he says. “Aren’t you?”

  I shake my head.

  I want to fight the memories.

  I want to resist.

  “You’re remembering how it played out. What happened. And what you did…”

  It’s a week after the conversation with Elana, and I am in the maize fields.

  I’m supposed to be meeting her. It’s a warm, stuffy day. She told me she has something to tell me. Something important. And as I sit there, twiddling daisies, I wonder if it’s good news.

  News about the baby.

  But she isn’t here yet, even though it’s getting later, and it’s a bit chilly.

  I think about turning back and walking when I see him standing there in the maize fields.

  I don’t see his face because he is wearing a red demon mask.

  All I see is that he is naked.

  And he has this mole.

  Right on his neck.

  I try to turn, and I try to run, but I don’t get very far.

  I don’t like to think about what happened next.

  Him holding me down.

  The tight pain around my wrists.

  And the words he whispers into my ears.

  “Everything will be okay, my angel. Everything will be okay…”

  It’s nine months later, and I am heavily pregnant.

  Mum and Dad give me more attention. Everyone gives me more attention. Even Elana has been particularly nice to me, which I find weird because she usually loves being the centre of attention. They’re all so happy I’m having a baby. That I’m adding a new member to the Family.

  But I can’t tell them all how scared I am.

  And how much I want to get away.

  It’s because I’ve met a boy. Gregg, he’s called. He’s nice. Sweet. We got matching rings with elephants on. I wear it sometimes, and I don’t think anyone has noticed.

  But he’s on the outside.

  I sneak off into the maize fields some days and actually end up sneaking into the outside world. The world outside the sect I’ve grown up in. It’s only when I see Gregg that I realise the life I’ve been living in the Family is so different from everybody else’s. It’s like I have been sheltered from a normal life. And yet, weirdly, it’s the world outside that seems like the weird one, and the life I’ve been living seems like the normal one.

  But everyone is nice with me now.

  So much nicer.

  Yet beneath the smell of flowers and the happy smiles, something still just feels so… rotten.

  And then before I know it, I’m holding a screaming baby in my arms, and I don’t know what to do because I’m only sixteen now. Just turned sixteen and no idea what to do for this little boy, for the best.

  I am exhausted. People have stopped being kind to me, and keep on telling me how much harder everything is going to get. I have been left to my own devices. People keep telling me I need to step up my act. That I’m going to have to go out into the wider world and find a job because I’m a mother and I need to provide for my baby.

  But then there’s Gregg, too.

  Gregg, who keeps telling me to escape with him and my baby.

  That the pair of us can start our own family.

  But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand.

  He doesn’t see that I am trapped and that I can’t run.

  It’s when the baby is just three weeks old that Elana finally comes to me in the woods, right by the stream.

  “Don’t you think this is too much for you?” she asks.

  I sit by the babbling brook, Elana by my side. She has been sweet these last few months as I sit there, baby in my arms. Really, it feels like she’s the only person I can trust anymore.

  Like the baby has brought us closer than we’ve ever been.

  So I speak to her.

  I confide in her.

  “Yes,” I say. “I… I really do.”

  Elana puts a hand on my back. “Don’t you think maybe… maybe it would be better if I had him?”

  I look at her, and I frown. “What?”

  “The baby,” she says. “Charlie. That’s the name I wanted for him. Charlie. You haven’t even named him yet.”

  I take in a deep breath and look down at this little life I don’t know what to do with, and I wonder if my sister could take better care of him after all.

  “Just think about it, Sarah. You can live your life. The life you want to live. With Gregg.”

  I look at her. Narrow my eyes. “You know about him?”

  “Of course I know about him.”

  “Don’t tell Mum. Dad. Anyone.”

  “Sarah, I won’t tell a soul. You know how much trouble it would get you in, seeing someone secretly. Someone without the Family approval. And that’s not the kind of trouble you want to face when you’re on your own with a baby, no world skills, is it?”

  I don’t know the word “blackmail” at the time, but I get the sense that my sister is doing it to me.

  “But then you’ll be on your own.”

  Elana leans closer to me. “That’s where you’re wrong. Andy. Me and him are still together. We’re going to get married. And we can be a family. Me. Him. And baby Charlie. And you can go off with Gregg and live your perfect life. And I won’t tell a soul.”

  I look at my sister, and I want to believe she’s helping me.

  I want to believe she’s got my best interests at heart.

  I look down at my screaming, wailing baby, and I almost see the logic in what she’s saying.

  Almost.

  That’s when I hear her say the words that change everything.

  “Everything will be okay, my angel. That’s what Andy always says to me when I’m sad. Everything will be okay, my angel. Everything will be okay…”

  They hit me like a punch to the gut. “That’s what he said.”

  Elana narrows her eyes. “What?”

  “The—the boy. The man. The one who did this to me.”

  “Sarah, calm down—”

  “I think it was him, Elana. I think it was Andy. We need to tell Mum. We need to tell Dad—”

  “Sarah.”

  “I don’t think you’re safe. Because he did this to me and…”

  And then it clicks.

  I don’t know if it’s the way she’s looking at me.

  I don’t know if it’s the memory of her sitting there, a glaze to her eyes when she asked when I’d last bled nine months ago.

  When I told her a week ago.

  And when a week after that—at my most fertile—it happened.

  I don’t know what it is, but I just have an instinctive sense at that moment that I know.

  “You knew about this. Didn’t you?”

  I can see her prepare to tell a lie she’s planned on telling me for so, so long.

  But then something slips. Something slips, and suddenly, it all becomes clear.

  “You—you arranged this. The pair of you. You arranged this.”

  “Sarah—”

  “You made him rape me. Made him—made him get me pregnant. So you could—so you could have the baby for yourself.”

  “It wasn’t rape.”

  “It was rape,” I spit. I’m angry. I have never felt anger like this before. “You did this. God knows how many of you did this. How many of you knew about this.”

  “I did it because I was desperate, Sarah. I—I didn’t think. I just wanted a child more than anything in the
world. But I… I can’t have them myself. I know because me and Andy were trying for a long time.”

  She’s saying all these words, but I can’t take them in. Because as much as I’ve always known she hates me… this. This is something different. This is something else entirely.

  “But you have a chance now, Sarah,” she says. “A chance to start again. A chance to be free.”

  I stand there holding my crying baby, and I want to run away. I want to vomit. I want to throw everything up.

  “Hand him to me, Sarah. Hand him to me, and nobody finds out about you and Gregg. Hand him to me, and we can both be happy. In our own ways.”

  I want to tell her I hate her.

  I want to tell her how much trauma I’ve experienced.

  The compartments I’ve created in my own mind to lock away the memories of the man in the demon mask pinning me down in the maize fields.

  Squeezing my wrists.

  And saying those words.

  “Everything will be okay, my angel. Everything will be okay…”

  The mole on his neck.

  I want to tell her all of it, but all I can do is listen.

  “Hand him over. And this ends. All of it ends. Or go running to Mum and Dad. Your choice. We can see who they believe. Who everyone believes. And then we’ll see how a single mother at sixteen gets on all on her own in the world with a baby she doesn’t know how to look after, hmm?”

  I can barely believe the words coming out of her mouth. “You don’t care about him. Not at all. Do you?”

  Elana shakes her head, sighs. “I care. Of course, I care.”

  “You care about having a baby. But not about him. Not about… about my baby.”

  She looks at me, and I see her eyes are bloodshot now.

  I see her threatening glare.

  “Hand him over. Right this second. It ends, one way or another, right now. Do the right thing.”

  I stand there, and I want to run. I want to run and keep running, forever.

  I see this opportunity.

  I see this chance.

  And as much pain as I am in, as much as I want to stand my ground… I find myself reaching the baby towards my sister.

  Her eyes widen as I hand him to her.

  Her hands outstretch, grab him from me. Like he’s a little toy.

  She stands there, baby in her arms, and I see her face light up.

  “Thank you,” she says, a smile on her face. “Now you can finally leave us alone. Now, you can finally go. And you can leave me, Andy, and Charlie, and everyone else in peace.”

  She walks past me, my baby in her arms.

  I look at the edge of the woods.

  At the maize fields.

  And I know this is my opportunity.

  I know this is my chance.

  But then I turn around.

  I see Elana walking away from me.

  Baby in her arms.

  And I stand my ground.

  “No,” I say.

  She stops. Looks around.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said no. Because that’s my baby. That’s my son. Not yours. Even if he’s hard work. Even if I don’t know how to look after him. I’ll learn.”

  She looks at me, and then she scans me from head to toe, and she smirks. “Well. Not a lot you can do now, is there?”

  She turns around like I am nothing, and I can’t control my next actions.

  I can’t control the anger.

  I reach down and grab a rock from the babbling brook.

  I walk over towards Elana.

  Clenching the rock in my hand.

  I walk towards her, and I lift that rock.

  And I feel his hands on my body.

  His breathing on my back.

  His fingers on my throat.

  “Everything will be okay, my angel. Everything will be okay…”

  “I said no!”

  It all happens so fast.

  The rock against Elana’s head.

  The sound of cracking. Like an egg.

  And then lifting that rock over her head, again and again, and again.

  “Don’t you remember now?” Freddie says. “Don’t you remember what you did to her? To my beautiful Elana?”

  I see her lying before me.

  I see the way her skull is crushed.

  The way her dark red blood seeps through her bright blonde hair.

  I see her eye dangling out of her eye socket. Staring up at me. Bloodshot.

  And then beside her, I see the baby.

  My baby.

  I see him lying there. Crying. And I know that time is running out.

  So I pick him up.

  I pick him up, and then I turn to the maize fields, and I run.

  I see all these memories.

  I see Freddie standing before me.

  Moira by his side.

  “Oh,” he says. “How rude of me not to introduce myself. The name’s Andy. Although I figure you’ve probably worked that out by now, hmm?”

  I see the scar on his neck.

  Right where my rapist’s mole used to be.

  And I understand.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  “You remember now, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. You remember. And for real this time. The whole truth. Don’t you, Sarah?”

  I look at Freddie, and suddenly, I don’t even see him as Freddie anymore. I don’t see him as the man who has been so supportive to me for so so long. I don’t look at him as the man who proposed to me just yesterday.

  I look at him, and I see Andy.

  The man who raped me when I was fifteen.

  The man who was dating my older sister, Elana. Who was destined to marry and have kids with her, but she couldn’t get pregnant.

  The man who Elana wanted to steal my baby to be hers and his.

  And the man who loved the girl I killed.

  “I knew it was you,” he says. “The second I found her body lying there. I knew it was you. There was just… something about it. The way the pair of you always met up out there. I could tell you were a fighter. Right from the first time we met.”

  He smiles. And I can almost see him with that mask over his face, hiding him from me.

  “The mole on my neck,” he says, smiling a little, rubbing it. “You keep looking at that. Well, I figured I had to do something. Nothing a little surgical removal can’t do to cover up a really fucking visible mole, hmm?”

  I sit there on this chair. Stare at Freddie. Stare at Moira. Both of them looking back at me, here in the darkness.

  “You look a little speechless, Sarah,” Moira says. “It’s almost like you weren’t expecting this. After all these years and still, you weren’t expecting it.”

  I close my eyes. I want to disappear. I want to run away.

  Just like I ran away that day into the maize fields.

  The skeletons.

  The skeleton with the crushed skull.

  And the smaller skeleton.

  That baby skeleton.

  I see myself in the maize fields.

  Charlie in my arms…

  No.

  I don’t want to think about that.

  That’s the last memory.

  The last door.

  The one that I will never open.

  “There was no absolute proof it was you,” Freddie says. “And of course, the Family, some of their activities were… let’s say, not so legal. So drawing the eyes on us with a murder investigation wasn’t exactly top of the list.”

  “But we never stopped searching for you,” Moira says. “You were notoriously hard to find. But eventually… yes. We found you. Living a nice, comfortable little life with your husband, Gregg. The man you left the Family for, I believe. And where? Right here in Preston. And all we needed then was to break you. A little seductive encouragement from one of the school dads. Who didn’t take much convincing. Not really.”

  I think of Glynn.

  I think of the bruises on his n
eck.

  The fear in his eyes.

  I think of the whole affair, and I feel betrayed.

  “He’s not so involved, don’t worry. Let’s just say we paid him well. But in the end, the whole affair situation was beside the point. Because you gave us a gift. You cracked. You proved your mental health wasn’t where it should be, back then, three years ago. And you proved there was a chance. A chance for us to use that. To exploit it. A chance to have some… well. Fun, along the way.”

  I feel sick. I feel betrayed. By everyone.

  “In the end… you broke yourself. Gregg took off. It all fell so neatly into place for us. It was perfect. At that point, well. We just had to be practical.”

  I don’t know how she knows this. How can she know this? That was between Elana and me all those years ago.

  “We spent some time working on you. Breaking you down. Building you up. But when we found you, you were at a low ebb.”

  “And that’s when I stepped in,” Andy says. “Your knight in shining armour. I thought it was going to be difficult. And trust me. Living with you and keeping up the guise was difficult sometimes. But we got here, in the end, didn’t we? Fourteen long years later, and here we are. And yet somehow, it still feels like I haven’t punished you enough for what happened to Elana. For what you did to her.”

  I think of meeting him in the bar that day. Of how different he seemed to the other blokes.

  I think about how he just seemed to know my sense of humour.

  How much we clicked.

  How patient he was.

  I think of making love with him, and I feel sick…

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “For what I did. To her. And I… I live with it every day—”

  “That’s a lie,” Andy snaps. “Because I know you, Sarah. You push things away. Push things into the deepest corners of your mind. So far down, you convince yourself it isn’t even real. So you haven’t been living with it every single day. And that’s the unfair thing. But you’re living with it now. Boy, are you going to live with it now.”

  I look around at Moira. Look at her in her white dress. And I realise why she looked familiar, now. The woman who waved at me and smiled the day Elana killed the rat. Who reassured me.