The Lost Girls of Devon

by Barbara O'Neal

  “‘Check it out,’” he repeated with the faintest smile. “Very American.”

  “And Americans think I sound British.”

  “You’re such a jet-setter.”

  I allowed a small smile to break through. It was an old joke between us, a thing he’d used to ease my sorrow at being yanked back and forth.

  The group started moving into more order, taking seats, and the unrest in my belly awakened. “I’m so scared that something terrible has happened to her.”

  “Me too.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know.” The veneer of politeness fell from his face, leaving behind weariness and a wreath of crow’s feet etched into the weatherworn skin around his eyes. “I mean, she’s been missing nearly two weeks. If she’s not dead, it’s worse than that.”

  “What’s worse?”

  “I don’t know—kidnapped, held in some bloody awful place.”

  “Kidnapped! Who would do that?”

  He shook his head. “Who would kill her?”

  For a moment my body froze from feet to scalp, fear and sorrow winding through me in a horrified twist. I hadn’t really been thinking she’d been murdered. But where was she, then?

  “Why would anyone want to hurt her? She’s so kind.”

  “Murder doesn’t have to be logical. People do terrible things all the time.”

  “I know. I mean, I do know that.” As a mother, I’d imagined every possible ill that could have befallen my daughter in order to try to prevent it—and that had not gone well at all. A wash of anxiety made my stomach hurt. “I just want her to be okay,” I said. Talking about Isabel as much as Diana.

  “So do I. I’m just trying to prepare myself.”

  I scowled. “I’m going to believe she’s alive until I have proof that she’s not.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  I had to say it. “No.” I thought of the two unanswered texts, hanging out there in the ether, waiting. “What about her boyfriend? Maybe she really did just go somewhere with him.”

  “And not tell anyone? Leave your gran without notice? Leave Jennie to fend for herself?”

  “Who is Jennie?”

  His attention sharpened. “You don’t know about Jennie?”

  A bad feeling moved through my gut. “No. Should I?”

  He narrowed his eyes, inclining his head slightly. “She’s been living with Diana for six or eight months. Pregnant teenager.”

  I closed my eyes. Shook my head. “Wow.”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “No.” I took a breath, let it go, admitted the truth. “I didn’t really give her much space to tell me anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was angry with her.” I was going to leave it at that, but the reason wove through the crowd, apparently speaking to every single person there. “She made friends with my mother.”

  His clear eyes saw far too much, and I couldn’t hold his gaze. “You probably should know I’m friends with her too.”

  A sharp burn pierced me. He had even more information on what my mother had done than Diana had. “Whatever,” I said with effort and straightened. “What was she doing for Gran?”

  He shrugged. “Little things. Shopping and the like. Checking on her.”

  For a moment, I absorbed that. How much had she been doing for Gran? Cooper lifted his chin toward the side of the room. The constable—or I supposed he must be an inspector, judging by his uniform—was a fit man in his fifties with luxurious dark hair he probably didn’t notice. “Thank you for coming, everyone. I’m Inspector Hannaford, as most of you know.”

  The milling few settled, sitting or leaning on a wall. Waited.

  “We’re all here because we want to find Diana Brooking.”

  Murmuring traveled through the crowd.

  “The facts are thin. There are no signs of violence. Her home is undisturbed. But no one has seen or spoken to her since two weeks ago Friday at about four p.m. Unless someone here has had a later contact?”

  People looked at each other, hopeful. Nothing.

  Inspector Hannaford consulted a notebook in his hand. “Her phone hasn’t been found, and according to her carrier, no calls have gone out since roughly five p.m. that same day. Her last point of triangulation pinged right from the tower behind the Rose and Crown.”

  He paused, and his wrinkles grew deeper. “As most of you know, she was a highly social, highly visible member of our community, which leads us to an assumption of foul play. We’d like your help. Talk amongst yourselves. See if you have a bit of the puzzle that might help us put this together. Share it with us on the website we’ve set up, no questions asked.” He waved a sheaf of printed papers. “I’ve the address here.”

  Two of the men in golf shirts had come over, including the yacht club president, and listened while they sipped their pints. A very thin woman with red hair crossed her arms next to them. I wondered if that was the older sister of Gina Luscombe, the one my gran had mentioned. “You should ask that fellow of hers,” she piped up. “The Londoner.”

  “We’d like to,” the constable said, “but he hasn’t turned up.”

  “It must be him,” the woman continued. There was something stiff in the way she held her neck, as if she’d had an injury, and it gave her a brittle aspect. “No one else would harm Diana.”

  A murmur rose in the room. The inspector raised his hand, and the polite group settled immediately. “It may well be that he’s got something to do with her disappearance, but let’s keep our minds open. Assumptions can derail an investigation.”

  Matt licked my forearm, and I realized that I’d been clinging too hard to his fur. “Sorry, baby,” I whispered, and I kissed his head.

  A few people raised their hands and asked questions, nearly all procedural, as if they’d know what to do with the information. Diana’s mother petulantly asked about her daughter’s bank accounts and whether they’d been frozen. I glanced at Cooper, and his mouth tightened.

  Inspector Hannaford answered all the questions patiently, and when they were exhausted, he said, “We’ll keep looking for her, but Saturday we’re going to sweep the forest by the river. If you want to help, be at the car park at twelve noon. Thank you all for coming.”

  Cooper stood immediately, and Matt snapped to attention beside him. He gave me a simple nod. “Good night, Zoe.”

  I’d hoped he might sit and talk with me for a little while, compare notes on Diana, see what we might come up with. A small hole opened in my chest, and I watched him go, taller than every other person in the room by half a head, the ridiculous tumble of hair on his shoulders, dog faithfully trotting beside him.

  Water under the bridge, that one. I stood, too, and was getting ready to make my way out when I remembered my mother was in the room. I looked around for her, afraid she’d come talk to me if she saw me now that everyone was filing out. Instead, she was deep in conversation with Diana’s mom, Joan. I stared for a long moment, feeling a strange, sad thing move through my soul, deeper than I liked to go.

  I pushed it away and hurried out into the night.

  Chapter Ten

  Lillian

  Something awakened her. For a long moment she listened, but the house was utterly silent. After a long stretch lying in bed, she realized she wasn’t about to go to sleep again and got up, creeping through the house like a mouse, cloaked in her thick, warm velveteen robe and slippers. Poppy had given her a pair that had rubbery soles that had a good grip on the old wooden floors of the manor, and it was easy now, too, because cell phones all had the flashlight button so you could use it that way anytime you wanted, though sometimes she couldn’t remember where the button was. They’d changed it, and now it was something she had to stop and think about every time.

  Tonight she shined the bright light in the hallway from her bedroom to the tower and climbed up the stairs to her office. It was cold. She used to light a fire in the office, b
ut that had been forbidden a few years back by one of her carers. Which one? Janet? Alice? They all blurred together.

  She did have a portable heater that clicked on with a button, and she turned that on, along with a lamp by her desk. Her hips were aching and her hands hurt, but they’d be better once the room warmed up.

  Something was nagging her. It had awakened her, a piece of information that had helped make sense of Diana’s disappearance. It was there, right on the edge of her brain when she woke up, and she scrambled to write it down, but it slipped away before she could. Something about the Romanian boy, the one who’d delivered her groceries for a while and then went to work for the yacht club.

  She couldn’t remember.

  Frustrated, she stood by the window and gazed at the sea. Everything looked still and ordinary, but when she tried to piece together why she thought that, she couldn’t seem to find the path again. It was like walking through the forest and suddenly forgetting where you were, or even that it was a forest that surrounded you.

  It broke her heart to be losing her memory this way. She’d always imagined it would be a smoother thing, that you’d lose this, then that. Instead her memories had become like a box of toys tossed together—this one bumping that one in no discernible order at all. She was nine, then forty-eight, then back to twenty, all in the space of an hour. Or a minute.

  Moonlight made patterns over the water, dancing bars of light that seemed solid enough to walk over. She’d been looking at this scene, those cliffs, that water, that sky, since arriving at Woodhurst as a young married woman, madly in love with her dashing Richard, the musical youngest son of the family. They’d met in London in the grim, lean days after the war, when everything was rubble and rations. They loved to dance, and he loved to play the horn, and she thought they’d live a life of excitement and adventure. He’d traveled the world and told her stories of the places they’d visit and the adventures they would experience. Lillian had only wanted to escape London and all the deprivation, have a life with some color in it.

  So when he’d unexpectedly inherited Woodhurst six months after they married at the registry office, at first she’d been secretly delighted. A manor house! An old family! And they’d live in the West Country, which people said was one of the most beautiful areas in England.

  Dancing on the moonlit cliffs, she thought, imagining herself spinning in a ball gown on that silvery light. They’d been happy enough, even in the provincial landscape where they’d landed, throwing parties and bringing music into the hall. For three or four years, it was fine.

  And then she got pregnant.

  Was that it? Getting pregnant? Was thinking about that what had awakened her? She’d been so much better a grandmother than a mother. It was one of the bittersweet truths of her life. What if she’d been better to Poppy?

  Poppy. That was it.

  Lillian snapped her fingers and wrote down the link between the youth at the yacht club and her daughter. Then, with the room nicely warmed, she sat down in her office chair and started to write.

  Chapter Eleven

  Isabel

  I woke up out of a dead sleep, sitting straight up in bed so that I knocked Mósí right off me. Sweat poured off me, and I couldn’t breathe. I stumbled out of bed and bent over, coughing.

  After a few coughs I took in a breath, but my heart was still racing so fast it made my hands shake. I turned on the light and paced, trying to calm down, but after going back and forth a bunch of times, it didn’t get any better, and I remembered this thing Dr. Kerry taught me: five, four, three, two, one.

  Gasping, I looked around. Five things I could see. The window had six panes. The curtains were blue. The rug was thin and old. Mósí was looking at me like I was crazy. My sheet had flowers.

  Four things I could feel. My pajamas were soft and warm. The floor was cold. I plopped down beside Mósí and stroked his soft fur. He headbutted me and his nose was a little wet, but when I kissed him and he rubbed my chin and I kissed him again, my heart started to feel a little better.

  Three things I could hear. Mósí purring, really loud. That made me smile, and I kissed him again, and he crawled up in my lap and I hugged him. His purr was so loud I couldn’t really hear anything else, but I guess silence is a thing. And when I listened very, very hard, I could hear the sea.

  Two things I could smell. I breathed in and tried to name it, like I was one of my characters. It smelled like dampness and stone. And Mósí, who always smells clean and sweet and nice. I kissed him again, closing my eyes, and felt tears stinging my eyelids. I love him so much. He is the best cat ever in the world.

  I was supposed to think of one thing I could taste, but I didn’t want to get up, and anyway my heart felt better. My dad did a good thing with Mósí. My cat doesn’t care what happened to me, what I did. He just wants me to love him.

  So I did that. I left the light on, just in case, and crawled back under the covers with him, and he settled against my chest, purring very softly, his paw on the outside of my thumb.

  I fell back asleep.

  Despite the bad night, I woke up feeling a lot better.

  The bluebell woods. My new story.

  I couldn’t wait to get back there, to the woods. I packed my camera and all three lenses into the vintage camera bag my dad bought me last Christmas. It’s an army reporter’s case, made of green canvas with leather belts. The camera itself is a mirrorless Nikon, lightweight and easy to transport, though nothing is ever as easy as a smartphone, especially now that they’re getting so scary good. You can get great effects with a very small amount of effort, which means everybody is taking great shots and posting them all over the internet.

  But my dad says I’m way better than everybody shooting moody selfies with filters and effects. One of the lenses he gave me is a manual focus, so you have to figure out when you want a shallow depth of field (which is the thing that makes portrait mode so great on smartphones) and how to get it, along with a bunch of other things.

  Gigi was in the kitchen when I came down. She looked kind of tousled, her hair unbrushed and sticking up, and no makeup on her face. She still wore her robe and slippers, which is not the way she does things at all. “Hey, Gigi,” I said, setting my camera down on the table. “Have you had some breakfast?”

  “Good morning, dear,” she said. “I was just thinking we might want to go over your school uniforms before you go back next week.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I mean, obviously I’m not going to school here, but I didn’t want to make her feel bad. My mom told me she’s having memory problems, and to just go with it. “Okay,” I said, like it was normal. “You want some tea and toast?”

  “That would be lovely. The boysenberry jam, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Got it.” I filled the kettle and scoured around the pantry to find bread and jam. One jar was dark red, and I guessed that might be boysenberry, but she probably wouldn’t care anyway.

  My mom had picked up waffles and almond milk for me, so I poured a glass while I waited for Gigi’s toast. She was sitting there at the table, looking so, so small, like a Shrinky Dink version of herself, and it made me feel sad and afraid. I sat down next to her and tried to think of something to say. “Hey, Gigi, what’s your favorite part of writing?”

  She looked at me, her eyes gigantic behind her glasses. “When I finish,” she said, and just like that, her voice was back to normal. “It’s always good to be done.”

  I laughed. “I can see that.”

  The toast popped up, so I covered it with jam, edge to edge, the way she likes, then made my waffles. We sat there eating, and finally my mom came down.

  “I’m going back to the bluebell woods,” I said, standing up to put my dishes in the sink.

  For a second she frowned, and I thought she might be about to tell me I couldn’t go. “Dr. Kerry told me to get exercise every day,” I said.

  “Text me every hour or so,” she said, “and then I won’t have to
worry about you.”

  “You can track me on Find My Friends,” I said.

  She ducked her head, her hair swinging down to cover her expression, a trick she uses a lot. Mine won’t do it, not like that curtain she swings down to hide behind. “I know. I’d rather you just texted me so I don’t have to feel like a freak.”

  I drank the last of my milk. “You don’t have to worry about me anyway, but I will.”

  “Take some good shots,” she said.

  So finally I escaped before the lump of sadness in my gut could grow very big. Carrying the bag slung crosswise over my body, I hiked down the steep hill that ran down to the mouth of the river in one direction, and then up to the hill fort on the other. I’d googled hill forts to find out what they were, since I’d seen zero sign of any kind of building in there. It turns out they were Stone Age settlements, like ancient forts, and the bluebells grow well there for some obscure reason I don’t quite get.

  I was a little afraid, approaching the grove, that I’d only imagined how amazing it was.

  The first glimpse showed me I hadn’t. But unlike last time, when it had been late in the day, there were quite a few people there this morning. Most of them were old, walking with canes or leaning on each other for support, and that made me feel sad all over again. Was Gigi getting senile?

  I saw a bus in the parking lot and heard some of the old people speaking German. Maybe they were there on a tour. There are always German tourists in town at different times, and they park in these giant buses at the hotels along the cliff. I imagined color brochures in German grocery stores, advertising tours of the English countryside. Bluebells and seaside walks.

  Avoiding the main group, I waded through knee-high grass beneath trees that stretched branches overhead, like they were fingers lacing together. I stopped to take out the camera and decide on a lens. I used the 50 millimeter and shot the fingers overlacing, the long view of the forest itself. The light was soft gold where it fell through leaves, and I shot that too. When I checked the photos, I saw that they really did look magical, and I could feel my story moving around in the back of my brain. I was already writing an Insta post, too, something clever that—