by Tom Ryan
She closes her eyes and shakes her head, not as if she’s denying it, but to get rid of a bad thought. She goes on.
“I just…I think that I saw her several years ago, like five or six years ago.”
“Sibby would have been eleven or twelve,” I say. “Are you sure it was her?”
She shakes her head. “It was a few years ago, but I was pretty sure at the time.”
“Where was this?” I ask, and she sits back and runs her hand over her face. She’s obviously unsettled, and I worry that she’s going to clam up.
“I already told you I really don’t want anyone to find out who I am either,” I say. “But I didn’t tell you my reasons.” I take a deep breath. “I was the girl in the woods with Sibby.”
Her mouth drops open, and I keep talking, hurrying to explain to her before I run out of nerve.
“I always blamed myself,” I say. “That’s why I started the podcast in the first place. To do something. But I could never bring myself to do a podcast about her, until…”
“Until that other girl went missing,” she says.
I nod.
“Please,” I say quietly. “Please tell me what you know.”
She sighs and puts her hands on her knees, bracing herself.
“When I was in my early twenties,” she says, “I was involved in a lot of bad stuff. Drugs, stealing, you name it. I left home. Eventually, I ended up in a bad place. A very bad place.”
I wait for her to continue, but the silence seems to stretch out in front of us. A feeling of dread floats down to sit on my shoulders.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask finally. “A bad place.”
She grimaces. “I met a guy,” she says. “He was really charismatic. Told me I was one of the more interesting people he’d ever met.” She laughs bitterly. “At that point, it was important to me, to hear that I was interesting, because I felt about as opposite of that as you can imagine.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“At the park,” she says. “Can you believe that? I’d been messed up, so messed up, for days. I woke up on a dirty mattress on some floor in some half-unknown apartment, and there were people all around me, tripping out quietly in the corner, sleeping some sleep that seemed deeper than death, and I sat up and realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I pulled a T-shirt on, somehow stood up, got myself into my boots, a coat—wasn’t even mine—and I left.
“It was late spring, but one of those really cold days that pop up when you don’t expect it. I wasn’t warm enough, and I just started walking. I had no job, no place to go, no roommates or friends, other than the people I’d left behind, the people I used to call friends. But I couldn’t go back to them. So I stopped at this park.
“I found an empty bench, dropped onto it, tried to lie down and sleep, but I was past that. It wasn’t happening. I sat back up and just watched people. It must have been around seven thirty or eight o’clock in the morning. There were so many normal everyday people walking to work. Just doing their thing, sipping coffee, looking at their phones. Shaking themselves awake into the day. And I wished…I wished I was one of them, that I was walking somewhere where I was supposed to be, you know? Have you ever had that feeling where everyone else in the world has a purpose except for you?”
She looks at me, desperate for an answer, and I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “I have definitely had that feeling.” And it’s true.
“Then this guy just showed up,” she says. She makes a gesture to indicate a magical appearance, someone emerging into a space. “He was tall, and…not exactly good-looking, but he had serious presence, like he was used to being the most important person in a room. The most dynamic. And he appeared out of nowhere, and he smiled at me—a soft, kind smile—and then he reached toward me with his hand.”
I realize that I’m breathless, waiting to hear what happened. Although I think I know exactly what happened.
“And…I took it,” she says. “I didn’t even hesitate. I just reached up and took his hand, and he pulled me up and off of the bench. And that was how I met Barnabas.”
My heart begins to pound. A name. Barnabas.
“Who was he?” I ask, not wanting to jump ahead.
“He was just…some guy. But so charismatic. He told me that he knew of a place where I could stay awhile, get my head straight. He said they were always looking for people to help. To get right with things. He told me I should come with him.”
“A place?” I ask.
“A farm,” she says. “Or, more like a commune.”
“A cult?” I ask.
She laughs. “I didn’t think it was a cult at the time, but now.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. Barnabas was really charismatic. He told me it was a farm with a bunch of people working on it, and that’s what it was. There was a big farmhouse, and a pretty simple wooden bunkhouse, and there were barns and outbuildings, of course. I don’t know a lot about cults, and I never felt like I was being brainwashed, but Barnabas had some really big ideas, and people really fell head over heels for what he had to say. I guess I kind of became that way too. Does that make sense?”
“I think so,” I say.
“Anyway, they put me to work and fed me, and I made friends and fit in. Soon a week had turned into a month, and then a month had turned into a year and I was still there. Everything would have been normal, except for the girl…”
“Sibby?” I ask. I realize that I’m leaning forward anxiously, expectantly, and I will myself to relax, pull back in my seat. “Did she live on the farm?”
She shakes her head. “No. We had a weekly market during the summers. The markets would bring in the occasional drifter who’d heard about the farm and wanted to check it out. Some would end up staying for a while, but mostly it was people from the surrounding area who were curious about us. I’d see a lot of the same faces every week. There were always some kids around, and there was nothing special about this girl. I don’t even know who she came with, but she was there once in a while. One day I found myself looking at her playing with some of the other kids, and suddenly it was like a clue being revealed on Wheel of Fortune. The thought just came into my mind: That’s Sibby Carmichael.”
She looks up at me, and she must see the skepticism on my face. “I know it sounds weird,” she says. “It’s not like I’d been obsessed with that case or anything. I mean, I’d paid attention to the news when it happened, like everyone else, but I didn’t think much about it afterward. And then, there she was. Or at least, I thought it was her. It was a few years after she’d gone missing.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
She shakes her head ruefully. “There wasn’t a lot I could do. That day after the market, I told Barnabas about my suspicions. He sounded surprised, or at least he acted that way. He said he was sure I’d been mistaken. The girl never showed up again, and I assumed she’d been with one of the families who would come to the farm to try out the services. It happened all the time, people drifting in and out. It’s amazing what people will do to find some peace of mind. I figured they were all like me: they’d heard big things and ended up disappointed. The services weren’t much to write home about. I think even Barnabas had moved past believing by the time I got there. He just needed the money.”
“Money?”
“The farm was always in danger of falling apart,” she says. “Money was tight. We ate what we could grow and raise ourselves, and the rest was from what we could sell at the market.”
“You never saw her again?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, but that wasn’t so weird. Eventually, I forgot about it, and about two months later, I left.”
“And you just let it drop,” I say. It comes out a lot more aggressively than I intend, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“More or less,” she says with a shrug. “But then I heard about this missing girl, and I started reading about the connection to the Sibyl—Sibby—case. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, that I might have se
en Sibby. Finally I called the police.”
“What did they say?” I ask.
“They took me seriously,” she says. “They said they’d look into it and let me know what they found out. A week later, I got a call from the detective I’d spoken to. She said they’d gone to the farm and spoken to anyone who’d been there when I was, but there was no evidence that Sibby had ever been there.”
Alice smiles sadly. “I told myself that maybe I’d imagined the entire thing. Like I told you, I hadn’t been in the right state of mind at the time. But I couldn’t drop it. I was googling her, trying to learn more, to see if there was some kind of clue that would prove to me that I hadn’t imagined it all. That’s how I found the podcast. I stumbled across it one night and started listening to all of your old episodes, and it seemed like the Seeker…like you really cared about the people you talked about. So I emailed you.”
I remember something, pull my phone from my pocket, and scroll through my photos. I find what I’m looking for and hold it out to her to look.
“Did the girl look anything like this?” I ask.
She takes my phone and peers at it, then looks up at me.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Greta Carmichael, Sibby’s little sister. She’s about twelve or thirteen in this picture.”
She stares at the picture again, shaking her head. “The girl at the farm,” she says finally, “looked exactly like this girl.”
I’m holding my breath.
“It was her,” Alice whispers, more to herself than to me. “It was really her.”
“How do I get to the farm?” I ask.
34.
Sarah insists on coming with me. After I filled her in on Alice and her revelation, she was pissed that I hadn’t told her about my visit to the city: “It could have been dangerous!” But she put her foot down when I told her I wanted to visit the farm myself.
“You need someone to drive you,” she’d argued, “and to know where you’ve been the whole time.”
Eventually, because she’s probably right that some backup—and a chauffeur—would come in handy, I agree to let her come with me. It takes some convincing to get my parents to let me spend the night away from home, but I tell them that Sarah and I are going to be in the city with some friends because we need to get away from the media circus, and they eventually buy it. I feel really bad about lying to them, but there’s not a lot I can do about it. I need to get in there, and if I have to lie to make that happen, so be it.
It isn’t as easy to find the farm as I would have liked. They don’t have a website or any kind of social media presence. Any mention of them that comes up from a Google search is usually some kind of disgruntled ex-member, but those are few and far between.
Alice’s only real memory of the place is that it was in the countryside outside of Finley, a small town about forty miles north of us. It’s not ideal, but it’s enough to point us in the right direction.
We wake up really early and pack the car. It’s easy to tell Mom and Dad that we’ll be shopping in the city, might stay late to have dinner and catch a movie. To be honest, I think they’re just happy that we’re not going to be in town for a little while. The distraction will do her good, I can imagine them saying to one another.
It’s still dark out when we leave, that kind of dim, crisp morning that’s lit from the distant ambient glow of a sun that’s still far, far away. I step quietly out the front door and crunch down the stairs onto the walkway, then cross the street to Sarah’s house. She’s already in her car, warming it up, and when I get in, she leans over and kisses me.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks. “I really don’t know if it’s the best idea.”
“If we don’t at least go up there and ask some questions, we’ll never know,” I say. “At the very least, we can just ask around and see if anyone’s seen anyone who looks like Sibby. I doubt I’d be able to get in, no matter how hard I try.”
She looks relieved, and I turn away to look out the passenger window as she pulls out of her driveway. I don’t want her to see my expression, to be able to tell that there’s no way I’m leaving without getting a look at that farm.
By the time we reach the highway and turn west, the sky is lightening, and the fields and forests we pass are bathed in the light of a beautiful, lingering sunrise.
“You get to deejay,” says Sarah, pointing to a shoebox in the backseat full of old tapes.
Soon we’re spinning along the road, singing along to oldies and laughing. At certain moments, I’m able to forget where we’re going, what our mission is, and it’s so nice to have this sensation of being with someone, just out on the road. Someone I like, who likes me back. I reach out and put a hand on hers, squeeze it, and she glances over and smiles at me, surprised.
“Feeling romantic?” she asks with a grin. “I could always pull off somewhere.”
I laugh. “Not yet,” I say. “Maybe when we’re celebrating finding Sibby.”
“Yeah right,” she says. “As if you’re going to want to make out with me when your long-lost best friend is hanging out in the back seat. I mean, awkward, right?”
We’re joking, obviously. Alice’s story left no room to imagine that she’s still at the farm, but I fall silent, imagining. If I do find Sibby at the end of this wild-goose chase, how will that feel? For me…more importantly, for her?
It takes us until almost lunchtime to get to Finley, which is even smaller than Redfields. Really, just a street with a few businesses along it, and a few dirt roads lined with trailers and old bungalows.
“Yowza,” says Sarah as we creep along. “This place is creepy.”
I murmur in agreement, staring out at the dilapidated buildings. I spot an old woman staring blankly out from between some lace curtains, but other than that, there’s nobody else in sight.
“That place could be a good place to ask,” I say, pointing at a small, low building. Tacked to the side is a large, hand-painted sign that reads Groceries, Feed and Dry Goods. “Feed means they probably supply most of the local farms.”
There are only a couple of vehicles in the gravel parking lot: an old beige van and a little KIA hatchback. Sarah puts her signal on, preparing to turn in, but I point to the other side of the street, to an abandoned service station.
“Park over there instead,” I tell her. “We can pull in beside it and stay kind of hidden. This car isn’t exactly inconspicuous.”
She follows my suggestion, doing a quick turn in the parking lot so she can back into the space beside the old cinder block building. From here, we have a clear view of the grocery and feed store, but someone would have to look carefully to see us.
“Better safe than sorry,” I say, “right?”
I undo my seat belt, but when Sarah moves to follow my lead, I reach over and put my hand on hers to stop her.
“I’m here to help you,” she says. “I don’t want you going in there by yourself, asking strangers questions. What if you piss the wrong person off?”
I try to smile reassuringly. “Who am I going to piss off?” I ask. “I’m just asking where the farm is. If anyone asks why, I’ll come up with something. If we want this to work, I have to seem like I’m here on my own.”
She looks like she wants to argue, but I give her hand a light squeeze. “Seriously,” I say. “Don’t worry about me. What could happen?”
She flips my hand over and weaves her fingers between mine, looking down at them as she rubs her thumb carefully over mine.
“Okay,” she says. “But be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t. I’m just asking some questions.” I lean across the seat and kiss her, then reach into the back and grab my backpack, pull my hat down low, and get out of the car.
On the sidewalk, I look both ways to see if anyone is around, but there’s nobody in sight. The sidewalks are empty, the buildings look dark and unoccupied, and there isn’t even so much as a car on the street. I run t
o the other side and take the three steps up to the store. Bells jingle on the back of the door as I pull it open and step inside. The counter is just a few steps from the door, and an old guy sitting on a stool and the middle-aged woman he’s counting out change to both look over at me with a mild expectation that they’ll know who I am and a short-lived curiosity when they don’t. They go back to their exchange, and I take in the rest of the shop.
It’s dimly lit, just a few heavy, old florescent fixtures hanging between the aisles to reveal the sparse goods lined up on white plywood shelving units. A door at the back of the shop appears to lead into a fenced-in back area, and I guess that’s where the animal feed is kept.
“Thanks, Frankie,” the woman says, and I turn back as she scoops up her bags.
“Later,” says the guy, turning back to his laptop before she’s even pushed her way, after one last quick look at me, outside. “Can I do something for you?”
He’s still looking straight at his laptop, and it takes me a moment before I realize he’s talking to me.
“Maybe,” I say, walking over to the counter. “I was wondering if you’ve ever heard about a communal farm around here?”
“Hey, Barney,” says the man, looking behind me. “This girl’s asking about that damn hippie farm of yours.”
I turn around and realize that there’s been someone in the place with us all along. A tall, bearded man wearing a flannel shirt is standing in the corner of the shop, next to a shopping cart that’s piled with clear plastic bags filled with dried beans and rice. Canned vegetables. The man called him Barney. Could this be Barnabas?
“Is that right?” asks the man. He walks around from behind a shelf and saunters up to me, and my heart goes still with fright. He’s good-looking in an angular, underfed kind of way, and he’s smiling, with a mouth full of big white teeth. It’s his eyes that make the biggest impression on me though. His eyes are insane. Intense and black and piercing.
He stops in front of me and looks me up and down.
“What’s your name?” he asks. His voice isn’t aggressive at all, but it’s firm, matter-of-fact, as if he’s used to getting answers when he asks for them.
