The Lost Girls of Devon

by Barbara O'Neal

  Darkness, darkness. It made me ache for all the things that break and all the evil afoot in the world.

  Isa was on my mind too. She was everything fifteen made wondrous and strange—as fey as the fairies, all limbs and hair and shining eyes, and a quick temper, and so easily offended and chased away. Fifteen was mercurial and shimmering, and I was glad I could know her at this stage.

  But something hanging about her disturbed me. A secret, something she was hiding, perhaps, but maybe something else. Danger, perhaps, or only foolishness. The trouble with being only slightly gifted in the realm of the spirit was that one could never decide whether there was genuine trouble or only the vague worries we all felt at times.

  Like Diana, who was so alight with new love, but every time I read for her, the secrets were showing. She had been hiding something. At first I thought perhaps her lover had had a wife, but as time went by it seemed to be something more, something she herself was hiding.

  Now my granddaughter. She’d been wounded. Anyone could see that, with her oversize clothes and skittishness. But was that a sense of danger clinging to her, or was I only on high alert because of whatever was going on in the village?

  The rising moon leaked bright-white light into the landscape, throwing everything—house, garden, fence, barn—into sharp, defined shadow. The cool light bathed me and all the land around me as it emerged like a sacred egg from the womb of the earth.

  Once upon a time I had believed that the moon had called me, called me to be an earth witch, a wise woman. I’d followed it around the world, to Glastonbury and New Mexico and India and Thailand and back to Glastonbury before wandering, at last, back to my home village.

  Now I was of an age when I longed for wisdom and had no idea what that meant. I sometimes wondered if I’d wasted my entire life on a quixotic quest. Had I done anyone any good, ever?

  Dark thoughts indeed.

  Some of the thoughts stemmed from Isa’s questions about my ex-husband. Ben of the beautiful eyes, which both my daughter and her daughter had inherited. Long velvet eyes with arched brows over them. I could see him on the land, as he’d been once upon a time, feeding the chickens and clucking his tongue to bring them close. All animals loved him, dogs to pigs to sheep to birds, which would practically fall out of the air for him. They sensed his love and kindness.

  Only I had resisted that loving care. It felt smothering, impossible. I dreamed of the far away, and he wanted only to return to his home in New Mexico, where he could visit a hundred relatives each day. He believed in the land, his land, and in family, and in hard work. He believed in art, but not very much in his own. He believed in making love to smooth fights over, and he’d been very right on that front.

  What did I believe in?

  The weight of that question made it hard to breathe. What did I believe in? After all this time, after all the trouble and wandering and study and teachers, what did I believe? What had been true, and what had proved to be false, over time?

  The question centered me. I believed in nature. In the moon, rising like something brand new and something ancient—all over the world the same. Sunrise. The chuckle of a brook and the sharp cry of a woodpecker and lunchtime.

  Love. Sexual love and motherly love and sister love and friend love. Love for the earth and all that was sacred.

  I believed in wisdom, though I did not own it.

  I believed in my daughter. She’d been born with a thick shock of dark hair, so much hair it made her look six months old. I had adored her. That’s the truth. I spent hours just looking at her, smelling the crown of her head, nibbling on her fingers.

  I’d been bored too. Bored with the endless sunshine of the desert, bored with the same chores and tasks day in and day out, bored with Ben and his serious nature, bored with myself. His family did not love me, with good reason, as it turned out, and that made me feel judged and even more alone. After a year I was ready to chew off my foot to get out of New Mexico. We moved to Devon and found the farm, and there we stayed.

  But Ben was as unhappy in England as I’d been in New Mexico. He loved me and loved his daughter, so he did his best to adjust, making a place for himself among the locals, who admired his knowledge and his grit.

  Moving did not solve my unhappiness. I was unhappy with him. Everything about him that had seemed interesting now only irritated me. His quiet seemed dour. His moodiness, once so romantic and artistic, only exasperated me. By the end, we loathed each other.

  Why did I leave my Zoe, though? That’s the part that’s hard to remember. How could I have left her behind?

  I was pulled to India, just as I’d been lured to Glastonbury and then to New Mexico and back to Devon.

  For years, India had called to me. This was the late eighties, well past the days of the great hippie tour, but plenty of people I knew had gone or were going. They talked about it. Sometimes I dreamed of it at night, of what I might see, who I might meet. It started to burn in me, and when one of my girlfriends announced that she was going in a month, I made up my mind to go with her.

  But I couldn’t take Zoe. I asked my mother, who doted on the child, to watch her for a month, and she agreed. We both knew Ben was drinking and smoking too much weed to be a good father—and to his credit, he knew it too. When I asked him to go back to New Mexico and give the relationship some time, he agreed.

  How selfish I’d been! So breathlessly, cheekily selfish!

  I thought it would be a month, maybe two. A woman had as much right as a man to explore the world and herself and her choices, after all. I was desperate to avoid the stale repetitive lives of the mothers I saw around me.

  And left my daughter to grapple with the world on her own.

  Before that bit of recognition could settle, I shoved it away. I’d done what I had to do to escape the life the world had told me I should have, and indeed, I’d walked a path of adventure.

  I couldn’t imagine who I would be if my life had not taken me around the world, to my teachers, to Ravi. Would I even be myself at all? I didn’t see how.

  I’d been selfish, it was true. But standing there under the light of that enormous moon, I knew that I’d also been brave. It had taken courage for me to reject the life girls of my generation were taught to want, and then take steps to find something else.

  But I was beginning to understand that my freedom had come at a great price for my daughter. What had I stolen from her?

  And how in the world could I ever hope to make amends?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Isabel

  I’ve always thought moors are like the prairies, grasslands that are open and vast. They are nothing like that. The moor is wild and full of animal life, and I shot a billion photos out there.

  But what I was dying to do by the time we got back to Woodhurst was write. I dropped my camera on the bed and fired up my laptop and started writing about the girl in the forest and her Dartmoor ponies. I wrote a character description that is my grandmother as a wise woman on the human side, and about Sage, who is an elf, on the other side.

  My FaceTime app dinged with my granddad’s face, and I opened it eagerly. “Hey, Grandad!”

  He snapped into focus, sitting at his desk in his house, his long black and silver hair in one long braid down his back. “Hi, Isa. It’s nice to see your face!”

  “You too. How are you doing?”

  He looked over his shoulder when the dog barked, and he picked up the iPad to show me a slim brown dog. “Jesse wants to say hi. He misses you. Nobody to spoil him.”

  “You should spoil him!”

  “Nah, you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.”

  I laughed, rolling my eyes. “Ha ha, old dog.” He always makes silly puns like that. It made me miss being in his house, eating whatever amazing thing he’s cooked.

  “You look happier, kiddo. England must be agreeing with you.”

  I paused, cocking my head. “Maybe so. Guess what I saw today?” I said. “Ponies! They were
amazing. Do you remember them?”

  “Sure. The Dartmoor ponies, right?”

  “I loved them.” My eyes filled with tears in a strange way. “Like, I feel like I should have known they were in the world before this.”

  “They’re proud and strong, like you.”

  I felt the opposite of proud and strong, and I’m pretty sure he knew it. “Thanks.”

  “You like it there, I can tell. The bluebells and the ponies.” He gave me a sad smile. “Like your mom. She loved it there.”

  “And,” I said, smiling, “guess who I met?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Tell me.”

  “Poppy!”

  His expression didn’t change.

  “Poppy Fairchild,” I said. “Your ex-wife? My mom’s mother?”

  Still he didn’t even flicker an eyelash.

  “Don’t you care?”

  “I care if you care. Is she nice to you?”

  “I wanted to hate her,” I said slowly, “because of how she treated you and my mom, but when I went to her shop, I liked her. A lot.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “Good. She has a house on top of a hill, and a gigantic garden, and goats. And some sheep!”

  Something changed in my grandfather’s face. Not quite a smile, but everything lightened. “She fat?”

  “A little, like all old ladies, but not that much.” I raised an eyebrow. “She’s really pretty.”

  “You’re like her in a way. Same energy.”

  “Really? You never told me that.”

  “I forgot.” He drank something out of a mug. “How is your mom? Did they find Diana?”

  “No. But she’s okay. She’s been looking for her every day, with her friend Sage.”

  “Sage, huh? Boy, those two have been friends since they were tiny babies.” The dog started barking behind him. “I gotta go, kid. My sister is here. Be good. Send me a picture of the ponies.”

  “I will. Love you!”

  But he was already gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Zoe

  Poppy showed up early the next morning, by arrangement. I knew she was coming and steeled myself to open the door to her without speaking. She wore a white wool coat and carried a basket of what smelled like fresh croissants. To her credit, she didn’t try to make conversation, but I could see that she was very comfortable in this kitchen. That she spent a lot of time there. I picked up my jacket.

  “You don’t have to leave,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I need some exercise and didn’t want to leave Gran alone.” I buttoned my coat. “Isabel is asleep, and I just checked on Gran, who was writing in her office.”

  “Good.”

  “How long will you be here?”

  For the first time I saw how sad she was. “A couple of hours, I suppose. I have to open the shop at ten.”

  “Make sure Isabel eats breakfast.” I pulled on my gloves and stepped up close. “And just a warning. If you break my daughter’s heart, I will pluck your fingernails out with pliers.”

  “Zoe!”

  “Just so we’re clear.”

  The encounter left me feeling slightly breathless. In the crater where I kept my memories, I had a sense of things trying to climb out, but I’d ignored them for a long time, and they knew better than to bother me. Shoving the zombies back down into the dark, I set out walking.

  It was a sharp, brisk sort of day, and I found my body easing as I hiked along the South West Coast Path for an hour, putting my mother out of my mind by focusing on all the information I had collected about Diana, every scrap of everything I’d heard. I shook it apart and worked it one way, then another, but no matter how I pieced the facts together, nothing made sense. I’d honestly believed that once we talked to Henry, everything would become clear, and now it was foggier than ever.

  I wondered if he was still in town. I wanted to ask him some more questions.

  The morning was cool and foggy, threatening rain, and by the time I made my way back toward the village, I was chilled to the bone. Poppy would still be at Woodhurst Hall, so I’d find a cup of coffee and waste a bit more time before I went back.

  As I rounded the last turn, it was plain something was happening on the beach. A small knot of people, along with a pair of constables, was gathered around something I couldn’t see.

  Dread gripped me. I walked as close as I dared. “What’s happening?” I asked a fisherman, his head covered in a navy stocking cap.

  “Found a body.” His accent was thick, local. “Right here on the beach. Girl, looks like.”

  A chill ran up my spine. “Do they know who it is?”

  “Nah. Body’s pretty chewed up. Probably been in the water awhile.”

  I pushed forward, feeling my gut roiling, but a constable stopped me. “Stay back, please.”

  “Wait, I’m a friend of Diana Brooking, the woman who went missing two weeks ago. Is it her?”

  “Sorry, Miss. You have to stay back.”

  I tried to peer over his shoulder. “You don’t know?”

  “We don’t know anything yet.” He glanced toward the body, mostly obscured by the legs of the examiners or whatever they were, then took pity on me. “Too young for the woman who went missing.”

  Too young.

  Relief rushed through me that it wasn’t Diana, followed by pity for the young victim.

  I stood back to observe whatever was going to happen and then took out my phone. I texted Cooper. Body on the beach. Not Diana, but do you think it might be connected?

  A text came right back. I’m here on the beach. Where are you?

  I lowered the phone and looked around, and there he stood, head and shoulders above the others, not ten feet away. He saw me at the same moment, and I gave him a half smile as he approached. “I didn’t even see you,” I said. “What are you doing in town so early?”

  “I came down to see if I could talk to Henry.”

  “Did you?”

  “Not yet. Saw all the commotion.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “Some fishermen, I heard.”

  “It’s not Diana?” I wanted to be sure.

  He shook his head. “No. Smaller. Dark hair.” His eyes had shadows, and he suddenly wiped a hand down his face. “Christ.”

  “Let’s go find Henry.”

  “I know where he is—at the Barrow Harbour Hotel. I dropped him off there after the trip to the constable.”

  We walked up the hill in silence. The mist hushed the world, and by the time we’d climbed half the stairs from the beach to the village, the noise of the investigation had been swallowed. At the top of the stairs, I turned and looked back. A row of multicolored beach houses stood against one side of the cliffs, facing the jagged rocks on the other side of the beach. In between was the milling investigation. Lying on the beach, looking very small, was a body, facedown. Red coat. A fist squeezed the air from my lungs. Where was her mother? “She looks so young.”

  “They think maybe a drug overdose.”

  “Is that a big thing in Axestowe?”

  “It’s a big thing everywhere, Zoe.”

  Chastened, I silently walked with him. Had drugs played a part in what had happened to Isabel? Could that be part of why she didn’t want to tell me? I knew she’d been hanging around with a new crowd, and I also wasn’t naive enough to believe that teenagers didn’t experiment, but Isabel was a great student, and she’d seen enough alcohol and drug abuse among her father’s set to know it wasn’t a cakewalk.

  Martin had said he’d talked to her about her secret, too, and also hadn’t gotten anywhere. It did seem logical, honestly, that she might have been roofied or blacked out or—

  A vision of her, so vulnerable, doubled the fist around my lungs. Damn.

  A scent of coffee curled in the air and snagged my desire, but we walked past the coffee shop and around the corner and up another slope to the hotel. It was a classic 1960s tourist spot, sitting high on t
he cliff overlooking the sea. Glass enclosed the main level. A tour bus waited in the parking lot.

  “That’s his car,” Sage said, pointing to a sporty black BMW.

  Inside the lobby, a group of older German tourists milled around, finishing breakfast or maybe getting ready to go in. Sage went to the desk. “Hey ya, Bill. How’re you?”

  “Great, man. How y’been?”

  He nodded. “I dropped Henry off here last night . . . don’t know his last name. He was my friend Diana’s boyfriend, you know who I mean? Big guy, solid.” He jabbed a thumb backward over his shoulder. “The BMW is his car.”

  “Oh, sure.” He punched something into the keyboard. “Room twenty-six, right up at the top of the stairs.”

  Sage slapped a palm down on the counter. “Thanks.”

  As we came around the corner, he flashed me a surprised expression. “That was easier than I expected.”

  “The boys always wanted to please you.”

  “Not the girls?” He was just behind me on the steps, which put our faces on nearly the same elevation. His eyes glittered, though his mouth showed no smile.

  I inclined my head. “The girls too. So much charm.”

  For an instant, we connected again. Just us, stripped of all the bullshit and all the years and judgments. Mine and his.

  Then we were walking down a clean hallway that smelled faintly of boiled cabbage, and the moment was gone. Sage knocked on the door. “Henry? It’s Sage Cooper.”

  The door opened, revealing a Henry who was considerably more haggard than he’d been the day before. It was as if the air had been let out of him—he had bags under his eyes, his jowls sagged, and his shoulders slumped. “Hello. What can I do for you?”

  “Can we come in?” I asked. “I’m hoping we can figure something out about Diana’s disappearance if we share what we know with each other.”