SW01 - The Edge of Nowhere

by Elizabeth George

  It came to Becca as Diana asked the question that, as on the day she’d met her, Diana had no whispers at all. Yet she should have had whispers because the one thing Becca knew about whispers was that if you didn’t have them, you were dead. But this woman Diana was clearly alive, she had no whispers, and she wasn’t reciting listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere or anything like that to prevent them.

  Diana said again, “Which way did he go?”

  “Seth? I don’t know. We got separated.”

  “This is the trail over to Putney Woods and Metcalf Woods,” Diana said, using her thumb to indicate the way she’d come. “Did he come this way?”

  “I don’t think so. I couldn’t tell. There was noise and . . . Sorry. I’d better go after Gus.”

  “Here then,” Diana said, “take the leash. You can return it later. You know where I live.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Becca turned in the direction she’d last seen Gus lope. He was gone, of course, but she set off after him anyway. She went up one trail and down another. She called for Gus. Then she called for Seth. Finally she saw the dog lying in a mass of ferns up ahead of her, deep in the shadows but visible because of his yellow coat. He was panting, his paws were clotted with mud, and his fur was filthy. His expression was completely blissful.

  He let her approach and for a moment she wondered if he’d hurt himself. But it was only exhaustion that had finally slowed him down. It was also exhaustion that encouraged him to allow the leash to be attached to his collar.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Becca told him. “Game’s over. Let’s find Seth. Take us back to the car.”

  THEY WERE NOT far from the trailhead where they’d first come into the woods when Becca realized that the whispers had stopped. She paused and listened. There was no birdsong either. There was no barking, and there was no shouting. Every feeling on the breeze had died.

  Worse than the silencing of whispers, though, was the matter of scent. Becca realized that there was none, where earlier there had been that sweetness to the air. What there was now was the absence of everything. Becca’s stomach began to churn.

  She said, “Derric.” Then she said, “Derric?” And then because she knew without knowing what it was she knew, she cried, “Derric!” and she began to run.

  She wasn’t sure where she was going or why, but Gus seemed to know that something was wrong. He also seemed to know where to go, because he took the lead. They tore down the trail and burst into the meadow at the edge of Saratoga Woods. But instead of pounding across the meadow to the parking lot, they veered to the right.

  They raced along the edge of the woods toward a farm that began on the south side of the meadow. But before they reached it, Gus took a turn into the woods again. Another trail began here, at the far southeast edge of the forest. It was narrow and it rose at once, first climbing the hillside above the farm and then turning into the woods where it climbed again, quickly and steeply, higher and higher.

  “Derric?” Becca called out as she ran. Gus strained against the leash. “Derric!”

  Gus surged and barked and Becca couldn’t keep up with him, so she released her hold on the leash and off he went. He loped a good fifty yards up the trail and just as she thought she might lose him again, he stopped and began snuffling on the ground in a frenzy.

  It came to Becca that it might be Seth they were looking for, that Derric might be gone from the woods and this would be the reason that she couldn’t hear or sense him. So she shouted, “Seth! Seth!” just as she’d called for Derric.

  When she reached the dog, he began to take off, but this time he didn’t continue to climb. He also didn’t stay on the trail. Rather, he began to crash down a slope. As he did so, Becca saw what he’d been snuffling on the trail.

  It was the very distinct print of a shoe with a strange-looking sole. Right next to this was a huckleberry bush with broken branches. Below this bush was the sign of impact.

  Becca didn’t want to look. She certainly didn’t want to know. But then she heard the whining of the yellow Lab, and she knew that something was wrong at the base of the steep slope.

  It was a boy. He lay motionless, far down in the gully. He was against a tree and his leg stuck out at an all-wrong angle.

  She cried, “Derric!” for she saw immediately who it was, although she didn’t know why Gus lay next to him in the drop position, with his yellow head resting on Derric’s badly twisted torso.

  * * *

  ELEVEN

  Becca wasn’t aware that she was screaming for help as she crashed down the slope to get to Derric. Later she would learn from others that her voice had echoed though the trees, causing the crows to chatter, the great barn owls to take flight, and several eagles to begin to soar above Saratoga Woods.

  Somewhere in the distance she thought she heard Seth yell. Gus began to bark. He’d risen from his crouched position next to Derric, and his hackles were raised. She realized she was frightening him, so she stopped screaming, and just said Derric’s name.

  There was a lot of blood. This came from his head, and Becca knew better than to try to move him. But she had to touch him, so she bent and put her cheek to his. No whispers were present, but then how could there be?

  All of this had taken less than a minute. But it seemed like twenty, and Becca knew time was of the essence. She rose and looked around. She needed help.

  She remembered her cell phone and dug it out. No signal, she saw. Too many trees, too much cover, too far down in the gully, too deep in the woods. She had to get out. She had to find a signal. She said to Derric, “I’ll be back. I’ll get help,” and she added, although she wasn’t quite sure why, “Derric, don’t go,” before she started to climb.

  On the path once more, she began to run. Gus followed her, but she couldn’t worry about Gus. He was going to go where he was going to go. The important thing now was Derric.

  She burst out into the meadow. She looked at her cell phone and finally saw the signal.

  Becca dialed the number 9-1-1 and she could barely make her fingers connect with the buttons. A woman’s voice spoke.

  “Help us,” Becca said to her. “We need help in the woods. An ambulance. A boy’s been hurt. He’s hurt bad and I think his leg’s broken in a bunch of places and there’s blood—”

  “Name please?”

  “His name’s Derric Mathieson. He’s on a trail—”

  “I mean your name.”

  “But—”

  “Your name and your birthdate, please. Your address as well.”

  Becca went with the last. “Saratoga Woods. We’re in the parking lot. Across the street from the water. It’s Saratoga Woods. D’you know where that is? On Saratoga Road?”

  “I can see your location. I need your name and home address, miss.”

  See her location? Becca looked around frantically. Were there cameras or something? How could she . . . ?

  “You’re on my screen, miss. Your cell phone registers. I can see where you are. I need your name and address.”

  “You need to send an ambulance,” Becca cried. “That’s what you need and you need it now.”

  She ended the call and looked around frantically. She couldn’t be here when the ambulance arrived. She had a feeling the police would be following. The strangeness of her 911 call was going to alert them.

  Seth was coming out of the woods. Gus saw Seth and began to run toward him. Becca began to do the same.

  Seth cried, “Hey! What’s going on?”

  She reached him, breathing hard. She said, “Nine-one-one. I called. Up in the woods. Derric’s hurt. There’s that trail—” She pointed to the trailhead at the far end of the meadow. “I had Gus and he started to run and . . .” She grabbed Seth’s arm. “There’s an ambulance coming and I can’t be here, Seth. You’ve got to stay. Show them the trail.”

  Then she turned and ran because running was the only thing possible
now. Questions were going to be asked when the ambulance got there. Names were going to be taken down. It was bad enough that she’d made a call from her cell phone because now that cell phone was going to be traced. Every cop show in the world showed that. You make a call from a cell phone, and they track you down.

  She knew the worst in that instant. She had to ditch the phone. The only call she’d made on it other than to Laurel and now it could be what destroyed them both. As she pounded across the meadow and into the parking lot, Becca looked around for a place to toss the phone. She hoped against hope that she could come back for it later, so she needed a spot out of sight, where the rain couldn’t touch it.

  The information board, she thought. The same place where the bike that had to be Derric’s bike was locked against a pole that held up the roof. The structure wasn’t tall so it was a simple matter to stand on her toes and to put the cell phone on a rafter. She wiped off the cell phone first, however. Just in case.

  BECCA WAS A long way from the Cliff Motel, and she knew she couldn’t run the distance. She wasn’t in that kind of shape. But she set off running and went as far as she could at a steady jog. She heard the wailing of the ambulance when she was about a half mile from Saratoga Woods. Here she found a thickly wooded driveway that split in two directions: One coursed up the hill and looked like access to someone’s property and the other disappeared into the trees, this one posted as a means to get into Metcalf Woods. A sign said no one was supposed to park there, but someone had and this was just as well. Becca stepped behind a pickup truck with SMUGGLERS COVE FARM AND FLOWERS on the driver’s door. She crouched and was thus hidden as the ambulance tore past to go to Derric’s aid.

  When it was safe to do so, she set off again. She hurried along the road, and she began to pray.

  Where Saratoga Road ended and Second Street began, Becca veered to the right. She paced quickly across the pebbly parking lot of the local Catholic church. This gave onto Third Street and a descent into the village.

  A footprint meant nothing, Becca told herself. There were probably a billion footprints in Saratoga Woods. That the one she’d seen was fresh and perfect only meant that someone had hiked on that path. That the print was right above the spot from which Derric had fallen . . . ? Coincidence, pure and simple. And besides, Derric was going to be okay. He was going to be okay.

  At the bottom of Third Street, Becca crossed a thick green lawn, and she climbed its slope up to Cascade Street, which ran east to west along the edge of the grass. A few fat rabbits were placidly chomping the lawn to bits along its left side, but they didn’t scamper off as Becca surged past them. They were too busy getting themselves ready for the coming winter.

  Just as Becca reached the parking lot of the Cliff Motel, a helicopter roared overhead. It was flying low, and she could tell it was heading in the direction of Saratoga Woods. She wanted to think this was just another one of those coincidences she’d been considering a couple of moments earlier, but she had a feeling that it had to do with the ambulance, Derric, and Derric’s condition. She thought of that blood that had been seeping from his head. It was serious and she knew it. But she also knew that he was still alive or they wouldn’t have needed a helicopter to get him out of there.

  BECCA KNEW SHE had to tell Debbie she was back. Debbie hadn’t liked her going to the woods with Seth. All her whispers had pretty much indicated bad stuff could happen, and it had. But this was something she didn’t want Debbie to know, so she had to be careful. She tried to compose herself by taking a few deep breaths. Then she went inside.

  She found them all in the kitchen. Debbie and the kids were at the table, and each of them had a paper in front of them. On the paper they had each drawn a pumpkin. On the pumpkins they were making designs.

  Chloe cried out, “Becca’s here!” and Josh said, “We’re making plans. Check mine, Becca,” and she saw that they were planning how they were going to carve pumpkins in advance of cutting them into jack-o’-lanterns at the end of October. “We get ’em up on Third Street, and we’ll get you one, too,” Chloe said. “Grammer said we c’n buy extra big ones this year. Josh wants one as big as this table, but Grammer says they all got to be the same size.”

  “They’re from someone’s garden,” Josh confided. “So they’re not perfect or anything.”

  “Which means they’re cheap,” Debbie said. She got up from the table and said, “Which one of you guys wants a quesadilla?”

  Becca felt the tentacles of Debbie’s suspicion slithering toward her. She heard the whispers that accompanied them: all scratched up . . . brambles in your socks . . . where you been . . . up at the erratic, huh? . . . let me see your eyes . . . done to you? Becca was scared of the suspicion and worried about the whispers and, more than anything, afraid because of the loss of that cell phone. All of this piled into her and made her hungrier than she’d ever been before.

  She told Debbie she’d like a quesadilla very much and could she cut up the cheese for it or something? Debbie said no, just sit down and make a design for a jack-o’-lantern, darlin’, because eventually they were going to have a pumpkin carving contest and the winner would be decided by Tatiana Primavera. Debbie started the quesadillas and for a moment Becca thought all was okay. But then as she had them heating on the stove, Debbie turned to Becca and said, “Seth bring you home, darlin’? I didn’t hear that old Vee-Dub.”

  Becca said, “I walked from Useless Bay Coffee. Someone’s playing guitar outside there,” and she hoped from this that Debbie would conclude that Seth was still there listening to the music.

  Debbie looked at her closely. Becca turned her head away and pulled some paper toward her. She studied it as if she was trying to decide on a design. But what she knew was that the topic of Seth Darrow wasn’t finished between her and Debbie Grieder.

  PART TWO

  Saratoga Woods

  * * *

  TWELVE

  When Seth Darrow watched Becca King run off toward the parking lot of Saratoga Woods, he didn’t know what to think. Luckily, though, he knew what to do. He took Gus to Sammy, he put the dog inside, and he gave him a bowl of water. Had the car not been there, Gus would have been trouble. As it was, he’d stay right there in the passenger seat till Judgment Day waiting for Seth. He needed training to be free on the forest trails. When it came to the car, he was perfect.

  Seth returned to the meadow then. Mrs. Kinsale was just coming across with her dogs. Seth met her halfway and told her what he knew: Derric Mathieson was hurt in the woods. He also told her an ambulance was on its way.

  “Where is he?” she asked him.

  “Didn’t see him. All’s I know is he fell up on Meadow Loop trail and it’s bad.”

  Diana Kinsale didn’t ask him how he knew this, although she looked at him sharply. “I’ll go back,” she said. “Send the paramedics when they get here.” She ran to her truck and stowed her dogs in the back. She headed to the trail at the far end of the meadow.

  A few minutes later the sounds of sirens in the distance grew louder as the ambulance approached. Because of the sirens and how insistently they shrieked, other people began to emerge from Saratoga Woods. Kids came down from above where an old landing strip had long overgrown a developer’s dream of houses for rich people in possession of airplanes to fly them to the island for weekends. The local dopers stumbled down from a boulder the size of a house, an erratic buried deep in the forest and marking the Ice Age that had deposited it there from Alberta, Canada. Hikers came over from Putney Woods, connected to these woods by a winding trail that passed through acres of salal, ferns, brambles, and firs.

  Among them was Jenn McDaniels, who blasted out of the woods at a run. She was sweaty from the top of her head to her ankles, and she was dressed for her training for the island triathlon. She ran and she biked in the woods, and Seth knew this. But she usually did this much closer to her home, which was at the far south end of the island. So why she was here didn’t make sense to him, nor did it mak
e sense to see the girl who emerged from yet another trail, off to the right, at a run.

  This was Hayley Cartwright. This was Hayley who lived nowhere near these woods. This was Hayley whose family farm truck was not in the parking lot at all, so what, Seth wondered, was she doing here?

  Seth didn’t have a chance to ask her a thing although he looked at her and she looked away and the color in her face told him that she had more secrets from him than she’d had the day they’d broken up. They didn’t say a word to each other because Jenn ran up first and said, “What’s going on?” and the stoners sauntered over behind her.

  He said to Jenn, “Someone fell in the woods.” Deliberately, he did not tell her who.

  “Heavy, man,” came from among the dopers.

  Someone snickered and Seth glanced their way. They were lit up like candles on a birthday cake, stifling grins and looking fully finished. He said to Jenn, “Ambulance is coming,” which, of course, was obvious from the approaching noise. He added, “Mrs. Kinsale’s up there. I’m waiting to tell them where to go.”

  “You the local traffic cop?” one of the dopers asked.

  “I’m way impressed,” another said.

  “Shut up, Dylan,” Jenn snapped at the latter boy. “Go back to your cage.”

  “Oh, baby, I’m scared.”

  “Come on, you guys,” Hayley said. She was, Seth noted, not looking at him. The rawness of their breakup was still fresh and bloody. Six weeks past, and she’d cheated on him. He should have expected it, but he hadn’t. He should have had brains to see it wouldn’t ever have worked between them once he dropped out of school, but he had none.

  The ambulance swung off Saratoga Road. Seth approached it as it sent up gravel and dust in the parking lot. One of the paramedics got out, and Seth told him the situation tersely. He pointed across the meadow to the trailhead, which was dimly visible from where they stood. The paramedic nodded, got back inside the ambulance, and they drove it straight across the meadow. They pulled to a halt right at the edge of the forest and took off at a run with a box of gear and a stretcher.