The Wildlands

by Abby Geni

  “I hope they find her soon,” the clerk said.

  She hurried outside. The wind blew gritty and dry, trying to tug the bags from her hands. The trees swayed overhead like kelp in a current, stars flickering in the gloaming. The night was awash with the screech of cicadas. These insects had reached the molting stage of their annual transformation. They first emerged in May as sluggish, flightless, dun-colored beetles, but after enough exposure to heat and sunlight, they would undergo an unpleasant metamorphosis. First they would find a tree or a house or a telephone pole and start to climb—slowly, clumsily, driven by mindless instinct—until they reached a particular height known only to themselves. They would cling tight, hold still, and gradually become translucent. Their outer skin would slough away. They would burst out through the napes of their former shells and rise into the sky as steel-spun creatures with wings as loud as joy buzzers. They left their spent husks everywhere.

  Once, long ago, Cora took it upon herself to collect cicada skins. She hid them in a drawer in No. 43 until she amassed twenty or so, at which point Darlene stumbled upon them, unnerved by these grotesque symbols of change.

  For a moment, her mind was filled with Cora. Images of her little sister flashed behind her eyes like the whirling frames in a slide carousel projected on a screen. She saw Cora shuffling resignedly up the front steps of Mercy Elementary School. She saw Cora climbing the highest tree in Shady Acres, mounting into the branches without hesitation or fear. She saw Cora lying on her belly in the dirt, her skin painted gold in the afternoon sunlight, her gaze intense and focused, holding a spider in the hollow of her palms. She saw Cora making her favorite snack of peanut butter and pickles. She saw Cora running across the playground. Her sister was athletic, even graceful, yet unaware of it.

  In some ways, Cora was a mysterious child. She had a group of friends at school but never formed the kind of passionate attachments that Darlene remembered from her own youth. (She wondered if this was her fault too—after all, the McClouds had not yet been “the saddest family in Mercy” back when she was young.) In truth, Cora never seemed to mind being on her own. Unlike most kids her age, she said nothing without forethought, never giving too much of herself away. She kept her exterior as placid as a pond, and as reflective too, mirroring back whatever people expected to see. You might assume she was happy unless you noticed her slumped posture. You might forget she was in the room until you caught the gleam of her watchful eyes. Darlene was aware that she had often taken her sister for granted. Life was hard enough without plumbing the depths of a quiet child. It was simpler to take Cora’s calm, impassive exterior as a sign of contentment. It was easier to assume that all was well, to focus on other things.

  BY THE TIME DARLENE RETURNED to the motel, the parking lot contained only her pickup truck, no more news vans. Night had fallen, and the reporters returned to their roosting places like falcons after a hard day on the hunt.

  When Darlene reached her room, Roy was there. She was pleased to see him. Over the past few days, he had transformed from a threat to a neutral party to a touchstone of sanity in a bizarre, sideways world. His square, honest face and coffee-colored eyes were a relief to the senses. Darlene set her groceries on the floor. Roy was sitting on the edge of the bed, playing a card game with Jane.

  “Any news?” Darlene said.

  “No,” he said. “But the crime scene guys are hard at work. We’ve got wiretaps on all your phones. It’s only a matter of time. Hey now!” This last part was directed at Jane, who had just smacked his hand, evidently as part of the game.

  “I win!” she cried.

  “Winner cleans up,” he said, rising to his feet.

  Obediently, Jane gathered the cards into a pile. Her hair was still tinged with green from the pool. She had not been to soccer practice in several days. Darlene knew that the lack of physical activity was starting to wear on her sister.

  It was understood within the family that soccer would be Jane’s ticket out of Mercy. She was a strong player, religious about her participation and compliant to her coach’s wishes, neither a grandstander nor a sore loser. She would be a perfect candidate for a scholarship. Darlene had gone over the cost/benefit ratio many times as she paid for new cleats or shin guards or yet another uniform. It would all be worth it the day she saw her sister boarding a bus for college.

  Roy stepped close. “Take a walk with me.”

  “All right,” Darlene said. “Jane, eat. Before it melts.”

  Her sister nodded, grabbing the carton of ice cream and the remote control.

  Darlene and Roy stepped together into the hallway, which was both dingy and dark. She could never decide whether its shabbiness came from accumulated filth or insufficient lighting. Roy led the way toward the exit sign. They passed through the lobby, where the clerk was nodding off behind the desk, his cowboy hat tipped forward over his eyes, his shotgun leaning against the wall. Roy waited until they were outside to speak.

  “We’re past the forty-eight-hour mark,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing good.”

  There was a bench beside a bush. Roy took a seat, and Darlene followed suit. He was wearing khakis and a button-down shirt, the collar open to reveal a swatch of fur. As always, he smelled like a tea shop, spicy and sweet. There was a gap between his front teeth. He tugged a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  “Do you mind?” he said.

  “No,” she said, though she did.

  He lit up and took a long drag. He was polite in his exhalations, blowing the stream away from her. Darlene saw something twitching on the bench beside her. A cicada had left its skin there, still latched to the wood and shifting in the breeze. With a grimace, she flicked it into the bushes.

  “The crime techs found blood at your place,” Roy said.

  “What?”

  “They found it—well—everywhere. All over the bathroom. All over the kitchen floor.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “It’s Tucker’s,” he said hastily. “None of it seems to be Cora’s. It didn’t show up, you understand, until they used a chemical spray and a special lens. You wouldn’t have seen it with the naked eye.”

  Darlene did not reply, struck dumb by the image of No. 43 awash with blood.

  “We knew Tucker was injured in the bombing,” Roy said. “So it’s not really a surprise. It wasn’t a life-threatening amount, but he did make one hell of a mess.”

  “He does that,” Darlene said wearily. “My Category Five brother.”

  Roy took a final, contemplative drag on his cigarette, then ground it out on the bench.

  “Listen,” he said. “I have to ask this.”

  Darlene frowned. She thought she knew where he was going.

  “In most kidnapping cases, it’s a custody thing,” he said. “One parent will snatch a kid from the other when they have the chance. But this . . .” He broke off. “An older brother taking his younger sister . . .” He paused again.

  “Tucker isn’t like that,” Darlene said.

  Roy let out a quick breath. “You’re sure? One in five little girls—”

  “Not Tucker,” she said.

  “It’s often a family member who—”

  “Trust me on this one. Tucker might be a lot of bad things, but he isn’t that.”

  She met his gaze steadily. She did not blink. Roy stared at her as though trying to see through her to the wall behind. Then he nodded, satisfied. He leaned back, running his hands across the crown of his head.

  “So what’s your take?” he said. “What’s Tucker going to do?”

  Darlene shrugged.

  “All right, he stops by the old homestead,” Roy went on. “He finds Cora there. She helps him patch up his wounds. But why would he take her with him? Why bring her on the run?”

  “You said it yourself—he was still in bad shape. He needed help. He’s always been good at getting other people to take
care of him.”

  “Right,” he said. “But there are police checkpoints all around Mercy. They won’t get to the next town without being stopped. Cora’s picture is on every TV screen in Oklahoma. What’s Tucker’s plan?”

  Darlene laughed without warmth. “What makes you think he has a plan? I reckon he’ll keep Cora with him as long as he needs her. Then he’ll dump her somewhere and move on. He’s never had much use for family.”

  Roy glanced at her, his face filled with compassion.

  “I just hope . . .” she began, then sighed. “He’d never hurt Cora on purpose. She was always his favorite. But he’s reckless. So careless. I just hope he remembers to feed her. Make sure she wears a seat belt. Brushes her teeth.”

  “Yeah.”

  “God, poor Cora. She must be so confused.” Darlene shook her head. “I don’t know what Tucker told her to make her run off with him. Some guilt trip. His life in her hands. I’m sure she didn’t think she had any choice.”

  She wrung her fingers in the fabric of her shirt. The wind swirled around her, carrying the floral scent of the prairie.

  “He’s the most selfish person alive,” she said. “Whenever I think he can’t do anything worse, he tops himself.”

  “I get that.”

  “Just pray that he has enough sense to find a safe place for her when he leaves her behind. That’s all we can hope for.”

  For a moment, Darlene was too angry to breathe. For years, she had considered her brother with a mixture of heartache and jealousy. This cocktail of emotion was so much a part of her makeup now that she could not remember who she was without it. Rage burned in her chest like the flame of a lantern. She had nourished it tenderly since Tucker’s departure, sheltering it from the wind, keeping it alight.

  Darlene found herself thinking about Mrs. Hamilton, a social worker from long ago. She had not seen the woman in years, but she still remembered the flounce of her ponytail and the rainbow of bracelets she wore, jangling with every gesture. A week after the tornado, Mrs. Hamilton brought all four of the McCloud orphans to her office. In a chaotic time when everything ran together like blurred ink, her face stood out clearly in Darlene’s memory.

  Mrs. Hamilton had asked questions, her voice deceptively kind, her eyes bird bright. She missed nothing. Darlene recalled the smell of the woman’s lavender perfume, the feeling of being given an exam she had not studied for. She and her siblings sat in a row of plastic chairs, unsettled and fidgety. Tucker was playing cat’s cradle with a rubber band. Jane was picking her cuticles. Cora was staring out the window, looking for shapes in the clouds.

  Mrs. Hamilton was the one who had laid out their options. There was no extended family to take them in. They could stay together, but that would mean Tucker and Darlene “stepping up in a big way.” The two of them would have to provide for their sisters. They would have to help the girls with their homework, make sure they got enough food and sleep, attend parent-teacher conferences, and look after their emotional needs, too. Darlene and Tucker would have to become grown-ups overnight—not just adults, but guardians.

  As Mrs. Hamilton spoke, Darlene glanced at her brother. They locked eyes over the top of Jane’s head. Tucker nodded solemnly. He reached across the space between them and squeezed Darlene’s shoulder—a gesture as reassuring as a promise.

  Then Mrs. Hamilton talked about foster care. She did not mince words as she described “the system.” Darlene, at nineteen, was exempt, but her siblings would be carted away from her, carrying their worldly goods in garbage bags. They would be placed in a group home at first. Tucker, a few months shy of the age of majority, would probably never find a foster family. Teenagers were always a tough sell. He would live in the group home until he turned eighteen, at which point he would be spat out into the world on his own. Cora and Jane were more likely to be fostered, but even if they found a family of strangers to take them in, they would almost certainly be separated from each other. They would not be able to remain in Mercy, maybe not in Oklahoma. It might be years before the four of them saw one another again.

  “Together, together, we’ll stay together”—they answered in one voice. No hesitation. Nodding desperately. Reaching for one another’s hands.

  Later, Mrs. Hamilton asked to speak to Darlene on her own, so Tucker took Jane and Cora to get some lunch. Alone in the social worker’s office, Darlene tried to sit up straight, to look mature and responsible. Mrs. Hamilton came around the desk and leaned in close, her broad face caked with sedimentary layers of makeup.

  “Are you sure about this, Darlene?” she said. “Tucker can help, but it all falls on you. I need you to really consider what your life will look like.”

  “I am.”

  “Nobody will think less of you if you say no. Foster care isn’t so bad. There might be a rough few years, but y’all will get through it. Your siblings will be fine in the end, no matter what you decide.”

  Absently, Darlene touched the place on her shoulder where Tucker had laid his hand. In that moment, she felt certain. Her parents would have wanted them to stay together. The future would be difficult—she knew it would be difficult—but at least she would not be alone.

  “We can do it,” she said. “Tucker and I can do it.”

  Now, remembering, she closed her eyes tight. She heard the echo of her own words again. Back then, she was so young. She trusted her brother implicitly. It was painful to look back on how innocent she had been. Though she had already suffered a great deal—death and accidents and tornadoes—she had only encountered tragedy, never human cruelty. She had not yet seen the depths of what one person could do to another.

  Three months after that conversation, Tucker ran away.

  With a weighty sigh, Darlene wondered how she would have answered Mrs. Hamilton’s questions if she had known then what was coming. She wondered if the social worker had seen something in her brother that she herself had not. A restlessness. A fickle streak. A capacity for savagery.

  17

  June now moved like a freight train. Soon enough, Darlene was back in the trailer, back at work. The summer wind was hot and dry, flash-frying the grass and filling the air with iridescent mirages of buttery light. She spent her days ringing up other people’s groceries and dodging the reporters in the parking lot. She spent her nights pacing the trailer in the darkness. There was an empty chair at the kitchen table. Over pizza one evening, Jane smirked and said, “And then there were two.” A moment later, her face fell, and she and Darlene both looked away. One by one, the McClouds were vanishing.

  Darlene avoided the news. She and Jane stuck to their guns, refusing to give even a single interview, but their reticence did not make much difference. The full story paraded across the TV and the internet in exhaustive detail. Darlene tried to shield Jane—and herself—from it. She did not want to hear the newscasters interviewing psychologists, lawyers, or environmental activists. She did not want to hear speculation about what her brother’s motives might be. She did not want to hear Tucker referred to as a sociopath or a terrorist. Most of all, she did not want to hear about Cora. The announcers invariably described her in angelic terms—“a heart of gold,” “popular with her classmates,” “loved by all.” This kind of talk was unbearable. It was a preemptive nostalgia, a retroactive remembering, a halo bestowed on a child who everyone seemed to believe was as good as dead. Darlene did not want to hear any of it, but she caught hints against her will as she changed the channel or walked past a radio blaring in the storeroom. The story was in the very air she breathed.

  Every few days, Roy would call to check in, his voice a little darker each time. No news, no word. The cops were still on the case, the FBI would keep up their wiretaps as long as possible, and he personally remained hopeful. But the focus of the law was no longer trained on Tucker and Cora. The FBI dismantled the checkpoints around Mercy. Tucker’s name was one on a long list of similar criminals, just as Cora’s was one on a long list of simi
lar victims.

  Still, Darlene jumped every time her phone rang. She would stare at the little screen, and invariably her heart would sink. It might be Jane needing a ride home. It might be Fred calling from the supermarket. Every now and then, she could hear a soft click on the line that told her the FBI was listening too.

  A week passed, then two. At last, the reporters moved on. They followed the scent of decay to fresher kills. Darlene noted their absence with pleasure and regret—she was glad to see them go, but their departure meant nothing good for Cora.

  Before leaving No. 43 each morning, Darlene would stare into the bathroom mirror and steel her features into a polite mask. She would practice a few noncommittal responses: No word yet. Thanks for your concern. I’m afraid I can’t talk now. She would armor herself against the inevitable onslaught of the day. The reporters might be gone, but the people of Mercy were nearly as relentless. They all seemed to address Darlene in exactly the same way, their voices lilting, their heads cocked at a sympathetic angle. There was something robotic about the precise repetition of it, so many different people behaving identically. They were particularly irrepressible when she was at work, behind the cash register, unable to flee, required to be civil. They would ask her how she was doing and whether there was any news about Cora. Then they would grin solicitously and falsely. It grated on her nerves.

  In the past, Darlene had often heard talk about the Oklahoma Standard. After the bombing at the Murrah Building, there was an outpouring of support for the victims. Strangers became a community overnight. People used their own cars as ambulances and emptied their wallets. They gave their time, their blood, the clothes off their backs, the shoes off their feet. Darlene had heard the tales all her life. She had observed her neighbors’ vicarious pride, even the ones who were not in Oklahoma City at the time, who were not yet born.

  Now, in the wake of her own tragedy—yet another in a long line—she wondered. Perhaps the Oklahoma Standard would have applied to her life if the circumstances were different. Perhaps the people of Mercy wanted to be considerate and helpful, rather than curious and stilted. But there was no script for this. If Cora had returned home safe and sound, everyone would know what to do: calling with congratulations, cheering in the streets, bringing food. If Cora had died, everyone would know what to do: calling with condolences, sending flowers, bringing food. But as things stood, Cora was a question without an answer.