by Ira Robinson
If Cassie had been there at some point during the night, that meant she could be close by. Why did she not knock on the door? Or had she, and in her sleep, Liz missed it?
Why, then, would Cassie leave her most precious possession on the step? Why did she, herself, not wait there until she was found?
Cassie, please, Liz plead in her heart. Where are you?
She sniffled, a choking in her throat hitching her breath, as her heart despaired. She felt her shoulders slump as the knowledge Cassie had been so close ate its way into her core. So close, close enough for her to have been able to reach out and grasp her, and yet she was still nowhere for Liz to see.
Her fingers clutched together, trembling uncontrollably. She brought them to her chest, grabbing at the fabric of her jacket and pressing inward. A small whimper made its way through her lips, unbidden and out of her control.
So close. She had been so close.
Her legs trembled as she came to her feet. She left the doll where it was, though, as she backed away from it and went back through the doorway to the house, she kept staring at it through the haze of tears.
When it was out of her sight, she turned and crept to the phone.
"This is Elizabeth Barlowe," she said to the woman who answered. "I need Sheriff Miller here right now."
A moment later, she heard, "He's on his way right now. What's going on?"
"My daughter was here," Liz replied. She heard a small gasp from the other side of the line.
"Was? What do you mean?"
"Just get him here," Liz said, hanging up the phone before more questions could be asked. She did not want to answer anything else until the sheriff saw what was there.
She returned to the porch, standing in the doorway until Bart finally came, ten minutes later.
She watched him exit his car, slipping the Stetson cap on his head as his large body got out of the front seat.
He stopped short of climbing the stairs when she pointed to the doll.
"Liz?"
"That's Cassie's," she said. "She left it here. She was here, dammit."
He kept his eyes on it for a moment, and then hesitated as he bent to pick it up when he heard the hiss of her intake of breath through her teeth.
"Are you sure it's hers?” he asked as he continued, pulling the doll up from the step.
"It's hers." She watched him turn the doll over a few times. "She was here. She was so close. We have to go out again and look for her."
"Liz,” he said, bringing his eyes even with hers, "there's some things we need to face here."
She crossed her arms in front of her and spread her feet slightly, becoming defensive. "Sheriff..."
He interrupted her before she could say anything else. "It's been three days and cold nights." He put his hand up as she started to open her mouth. "She's been out there with no food, no water and no way to keep warm. Now, we had a lot of people out trying to find her, and there was no sign of her."
"But..."
"We looked for days, covering as much ground as we could, and there was not one sign of hope that she was going to be found." He could see her rising anger at his words but he did not stop. "I'm sorry, Liz, but there’s no way we can sustain a search like that for long, especially where there's no evidence that it would do any good. She's gone."
"She's not gone! She was here! Look at what you have in your hands! Can't you see she is alive?"
"What I see," he said, glancing down at the doll before coming back to her again, "is a grieving mother who does not want to face what has happened."
He put the doll back on the step again. "Why would your daughter come back to leave you this, only to leave again? What makes more sense? That? Or that, in your grief, and understandable desperation, you put it here yourself so the search could go on?"
"I didn't do that. I swear she was here!" She came forward and got in his face, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
He took a step back but did not make any moves to hold her back. "I believe you believe it," he said, trying to remain calm in the face of her ire. "You may not even remember doing it. It happens more often than you might think..."
She smacked him across the face. "Damn you! You're leaving her to die!"
He grabbed her wrist and held it tight. A small pain went through her arm as he twisted it slightly, edging the anger away.
He stared into her eyes, his own emotions plain on his face. His nostrils flared and his eyes were wide.
After a moment, he said, "Go inside, Liz. Yell at the walls. Hate me. Grieve for your daughter. But there is nothing more we can do."
He let go of her arm and stepped back, waiting for her next move.
She stared at him with her other hand around her wrist, rubbing where he held her. When she made no moves to come at him again, he turned around and started back toward his car.
"What if you're wrong?" she asked as he reached his door.
"Then we will take it from there," he replied, tossing his hat into the passenger seat. "But I don't think I am."
She spat on the ground as he drove away, once more leaving her to face everything alone.
Liz picked up Cassie's doll and went back inside, closing the door behind her.
She went to the kitchen and sat set the doll on the table, taking the chair beside it. She stared at it for a moment, trying to think of what she could do next.
It was, without a doubt, real. The sheriff touched it, picked it up and spoke about it. She was not imagining it.
How, then, could he think it was anything other than what she told him it was? Cassie had left it for her to find, knowing her mommy would do something about it.
Right?
What he tried to convince her of could not be true. There was no way she had awakened during the night and put the doll on the porch herself. Dirt and grime covered the thing, the same way Liz, herself, had been after her night in the forest.
She would have had to take the doll outside and rolled it around in the dirt, spent time getting it good and covered, before leaving it on the stair for her own self to find in the morning. It made no sense to her.
She searched her memory, trying to find some kind of gap there that would explain it, but there was nothing.
She went to bed, slept, and awoke the next morning with no break she could remember between.
No, Cassie had left it there. There was no other sane possibility.
She would figure out the reason why Cassie left it and then went away after she found her again. There would be plenty of time for explanations then.
Could it be something else entirely?
She picked up the doll and stared into its eyes with her own as her mind explored the possibility something else was happening to Cassie.
Could someone have found her? Could they be holding her daughter against her will, and left the doll on the porch for her to find, knowing it would terrify her?
What could they hope to gain, though, by doing it? Money? Liz had very little of it. Barely enough was there for to even get by, let alone pay someone who kidnapped her girl.
Did they do it just for the sake of tormenting her? Why would someone want to do that?
There were sick people in the world, she knew, but could someone really be that cruel?
Her mind reeled from the possibility and she was tempted to call the police back and tell them there was a chance of it happening. Would it even do any good? They would probably all roll their eyes at her and think her even crazier.
"Oh, poor Liz," they would probably say. "Look at how pitiful she is, trying to have hope..."
She did not want to give them that satisfaction. For all she knew, they could be in on it, too.
It would go far to explain why they gave up on the search so easily.
Was she just being paranoid? Was she really going crazy with all of it? She had to admit the possibility, but the more she thought about it, staring at the doll Cassie adored, the more real it felt.
Why her, though? Why her little girl, out of all the possible children in town? How could they have chosen her above all others?
A pain in her hand distracted her, and she glanced down at it. She unkinked her fingers, letting them stretch out one by one. She turned her wrist over and found her nails had cut into the flesh of the palm of her hand.
It was only a little, and a small daub of blood weltered out of the slice from her middle finger. She swiped it across the front of her shirt, ignorant of the smear of red it made.
It cleared her head, a bit, though. She tried to grasp the train of thought she had going, but after a few minutes, the idea seemed grotesque and difficult to swallow.
Could there really be some big conspiracy against her daughter and herself? What would be the reason?
No. While it was always something within the realms of the real, the idea that Cassie had been kidnapped just did not seem to fit in with it all.
It seemed to fall apart, just as the thought of Liz, herself, putting the doll on the step outside did. There had to be something else going on.
There had to be.
So many potentials and she had no way of knowing for sure which one was the reality.
No matter which way she spun it in her head, she had once more failed Cassie. Her daughter had been there, shown up at the door and Liz failed to make sure she stayed.
Knowing she had been so close, Liz was torn as to what to do.
Should she go out into the woods, as she planned, to continue the search for her? Should she remain at the house in case Cassie came around again? If she left, and Cassie did come back home? What then?
With more help, she might have further options, but, as things stood, she was without much choice.
She had to stay. The doll was proof.
For whatever reason, Cassie did not stay. Maybe she was afraid. She might have thought Liz was angry with her for leaving and was just too afraid to come back
She could even have been out so long she was not thinking straight and did not know what she was doing. Maybe some instinctive part of herself led her back home and, though she did not consciously recognize it, some part of herself did and left the doll there as a cry for help.
Either way, Liz thought she might be able to do something to help Cassie recognize this as being home.
She spent the afternoon getting her small plan of action in place.
By the time evening came, she set the large plate of food on the front steps and stepped back, overseeing her handiwork.
She put a few of Cassie's favorite things on the white ceramic plate. They still smelled nice and strong, and Liz hoped the scent would stay for a while.
Thick chocolate chip cookies sat on top of the pile of goodies, along with a small cherry pie and two donuts. Next to the plate was a bottle filled with grape juice, the same kind Cassie liked best.
She put a red ribbon around the plate, tying it into a small bow.
Maybe it would be enough. She did not know for sure, but she felt desperate enough to try.
She left the front door ajar, enough to keep the warmth inside of the house for the most part, while, at the same time, making it easy for Cassie to slip into the house when she came back.
Wherever it was she had gone, Liz was sure Cassie would return again. Liz had to hold on to hope.
She cleaned up the mess she made in the kitchen in her baking efforts and picked up the debris scattered around the house. Cassie would feel more comfortable in a clean home, a clean place she could come after being outside in the dirty woods.
When she was done, she sat on the chair at the kitchen table and waited, hoping it would all be enough to bring her child back home.
Evening came on, and with it, the sound of crickets and other night life began in earnest. Frogs droned their siren song throughout the darkening haze in the air, while soft whispers of bugs tapping against the window, seeking entry into the house to get to the lights in the kitchen kept her attention rapt.
The loudest were the moths, big white things slapping their wings against the glass, but the occasional beetle crawled along the edges of the pane. A small, industrious spider spun a thin web at one of the corners, a hopeful trap to catch its next meal.
Watching it was semi-hypnotic. She watched as its legs set to work, pulling small bits from the spindle at its back end, laying the web out inch by inch. It was slow going, but a fascinating endeavor on its part.
The darkness outside grew in intensity until there was nothing left of the ambiance of the setting sun, leaving only her light spilling forth into the blackness, a glowing bastion against the night.
Her back ached terribly from the work she did during the day, and the rest of her body protested against her, as well. She let her head rest on her arms, laying them in front of her on the table.
She turned her head, staring out into the web the small spider was making. The thing was nearly invisible from the darkness behind it, but Liz caught a glimmer of its legs moving every few seconds, weaving in and out of the light from her kitchen.
A loud snort jerked her out of sleep.
Her heart raced as she tried to discern what she heard, pounding in her chest and her ears. She sat upright and then remained as still as she could, focusing on figuring out what happened.
It took her a moment to realize it came from herself, and that she woke herself up with her snoring.
Liz relaxed, letting her back rest and her head drop slightly as she took a few deep breaths. Then she sat back and rubbed her face with both hands, washing away the vestiges of sleep.
She had no intention of passing out. How long had she been asleep? An hour? Maybe a little more.
She came to her feet, with a slight wobble. Her lethargy made her dizzy, but she cleared her head with a shake and walked to the front door.
It was still as it had been, ajar enough for some light to spill out to the porch, yet keeping the head, for the most part, indoors.
She opened it all the way and glanced around, but there was no movement she could see. Liz looked to the steps leading to her home and her heart dropped, stopping in an instant.
The food on the plate she left outside for Cassie was gone, leaving only the plate itself.
She squinted, taking in the darkness away from her porch, desperately hoping she would see Cassie there, but there was nothing she could discern. The muscles in her legs and stomach tightened, braced to burst into motion at a moment's notice, but there was nothing to go after.
She took a hesitant step, then two, until she was at the stairs. She crept as quietly as she could, bending her head around the corner.
She saw nothing there, either.
She relaxed, but only enough to look at the empty plate on the step. Even the pretty red ribbon she left for Cassie was missing, which only went to prove, to Liz's mind, that it had, indeed, been Cassie who came and took the food.
If it had been something wild, some animal or other attracted by the scent of the baked goods on the plate, it would have left the ribbon as being useless.
Why had Cassie not come inside? Why had she taken the food and the left again?
What was going on with her little girl?
A soft rustle from behind her made her spin around. "Cassie?"
She stared into the blackness at the spot she thought the sound came from. There were small bushes there, which she could barely make out, but her eyes tracked no movement. Nothing at all made her think it had been anything other than, perhaps, something from her own imagination.
"Cassie? Is that you, honey?"
She stepped toward the area, hesitatingly. When she was only a few feet from the bushes, a burst of movement made her reel backward and drop to her rear.
The sound of a bird flapping wildly shattered the night, flinging itself toward the sky with a desperate cry.
Liz picked herself up and rubbed at the ache that sparked in her back at the bad landing. She winced and grit her teeth, embarrassed and hurt.
She returned to the stairs and picked up the plate, the ache spiking as she bent. She tried to swallow, feeling a soreness there, as well.
She stepped inside, again leaving the door open a bit, and put the plate in the kitchen sink. She ran water over it, letting the crumbs remaining there wash down the drain.
After turning it off, she put her dried hand to her forehead and felt the heat of it. Her fever was growing stronger, though the intensity of her activity after waking made it easier for her not to notice.
