Ink and Bone

by Lisa Unger

  PART TWO

  ANGELS IN THE SNOW

  You cannot hide in snow

  No matter where you go

  You leave a trail behind

  That anyone can find.

  —Anonymous

  Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; Who looks inside, awakes.

  —Carl Jung

  Snow falls on The Hollows, a silent silver glitter through the starless night, resting on trees, coating roofs, dusting the ground. The wind whispers through the branches and the temperature drops. Where water was, ice forms. Winter has arrived, bringing death with it. Everything green and bright will fade to brown, then rot to black, then return to the earth as all things must.

  The Hollows sleeps; houses are dark and shops are closed. Most people are tucked into bed, dreaming. But out deep in the woods, a girl, small and barefoot runs through the trees. No one can hear her, and no one knows where she is. Except the boy who follows her, wailing for his lost mother who lies still and lifeless far behind them both.

  Another girl with hot-pink hair and pictures on her skin kneels over the dead woman, getting blood on her hands, her clothes. A young man stands beside her, watching, saying that they have to go, that they need help and can’t go on alone. It’s too cold; they’re lost, and the phone isn’t working. They have to go back the way they came and find help.

  Wake up, Finley, he says, pulling at her. But she can’t hear him.

  Off in the trees, he hears something, the sound of a little girl crying. He follows the sound.

  Who’s there? he calls. “Hello?”

  The darkness swallows him. And the girl with the pictures on her skin doesn’t notice, because she is there and not there.

  A truck drives up the rural road from town. The man who drives it is as much a part of this place as anyone. His bones are as old as the trees, grown from this place, roots dug deep. He has lived here all his life, like his father before him, and his father’s father and so on. He will never leave, and when he dies, his body will become one with the ground. He will be part of The Hollows forever. He will be a blade of grass, a knot in the trunk of an old oak, the blossom on a flower. What he is in life matters little to The Hollows, which never judges its children.

  Outside of town, Eloise Montgomery stirs in her sleep, troubled. Maybe it’s the wind moaning through the eaves, or The Whispers in the trees telling her that something is not right. In her yard, the oldest oak in The Hollows grows. Its branches reach high up into the sky, its roots dig deep, deep into the earth, burrowing, fingers taking hold. The leaves that were fresh and bright green in the summer have turned from gold to brown and fallen from the branches. What hasn’t been raked away returns to the ground. Even as the death of winter comes to The Hollows, already it is that much closer to the rebirth of spring.

  She wakes up with a start and sits up in bed, listening. She walks from her bedroom and moves down the hall. Standing at the doorway to her granddaughter’s bedroom, she heaves a long worried sigh when she finds it empty. She hesitates, then goes back to her own room and starts to dress, pulling on warm clothes and heavy boots. Downstairs, she dons a coat and scarf. She stands a moment in the hallway, as if considering her actions. From the table by the window, she picks up a photograph and looks at it for a long time. Then she puts it down and walks out the door, careful on the slick porch, taking mincing steps up the snowy walk to her waiting car. She climbs inside and starts the engine, even though she doesn’t like driving in bad weather. She doesn’t see well in the dark anymore, and the going will be slow.

  Off the main square, Jones Cooper gets out of bed and gets dressed, quietly so as not to awaken his wife. Sleep, which never comes easily to him, has eluded him altogether. He walks quietly down the stairs to the kitchen, where his files are spread out on the long table. The biggest part of him doesn’t believe in psychics or visions, or anything beyond what he can see or touch. He is a man whose feet rest solidly on the earth. He knows, however, that there are no secrets in The Hollows. And if you just look hard enough at the facts, you will find the trail of evidence that leads you to the truth, no matter how ugly.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Run, Abbey! Run! The day was clarion blue and cool, the trees in Van Cortlandt Park a fire show of color. Abbey’s track team was racing against Riverdale Country Day School. And they were all there together—Wolf, Merri, and Jackson—to cheer their girl on. It was one of those rare moments when everything was right. Where how they looked from the outside—happy, successful, intact—was how they felt on the inside. The air was clean, the wild chorus of voices cheering and shouting, lifting up high.

  And the girls! So young and leggy! With focus and determination beyond their years, huddled together, whispering seriously to each other, sizing up the competition. Most of them didn’t know how beautiful they were, certainly not Abbey, who wouldn’t even comb her own hair if Merri didn’t daily chase her down with the brush.

  What amazed Merri about her children, both of them but maybe especially Abbey, was how self-possessed they were. Abbey and Jackson were both strong-minded, full of their own ideas and not afraid to put voice or action to those ideas. Where Jackson had said definitely no to sports, opting instead for Young Scientists’ Club and Chinese, Abbey wanted to run; she came to Merri and told her so. Prior to that it had always been Merri suggesting—piano, ballet, horseback riding? All of which Abbey had gamely tried, quickly losing interest.

  “I want to join the track team,” she told Merri after school one day. “Coach says I’m fast.”

  “Oh,” Merri had said, surprised. Competitive sports? Really? She’d dodged the soccer bullet with Jackson, who would rather take out an eye than participate in sports. He was a creature of the mind. Abbey was more physical.

  Wolf wanted to know: “Does that mean we’re going to be standing around on fields every Saturday? Driving all over the state if she’s any good?”

  “I suppose,” said Merri, equally unenthusiastic about the prospect.

  “All right then,” he assented.

  Whatever their differences in parenting styles, they were both on the same page when it came to supporting the kids. They were not into pushing extracurricular activities. (They were not those parents. They had no illusions, weren’t thinking that their kids were going to win sports scholarships like everyone seemed to think no matter how middling the talents of their offspring.) But they were always present for what Abbey and Jackson wanted to do. That was their job, they figured, more than anything else, just to be there. A job at which they’d ultimately failed.

  And so they found themselves at Abbey’s first meet. Merri watched with fascination as her beautiful, lithe, and yes, super-fast daughter left everyone in the dust that her neon pink sneakers kicked up.

  “Oh, shit,” said Wolf, watching as Abbey sped by, jaw dropping. “She’s amazing.”

  “Wow,” said Jackson, looking up from the book he was reading. “She’s really fast.”

  And Merri watched with the terrible mingle of pride and love and fear and sadness that was motherhood. As that girl raced past them, her family cheering from the sidelines Abbey was just Abbey. Not their daughter, their baby, not Jackson’s little sister, not just those things. She was all herself. Merri remembered Abbey’s plump little fingers, how they would grab for Merri’s face and hair, how hot they always were. Now those long, thin fingers interlaced with Merri’s. But one day, Abbey wouldn’t need or want to hold hands anymore. And still Merri cheered like crazy, because Abbey was awesome.

  That day was perfect, blue and crisp. They were so happy. Maybe we’ve turned a corner, Merri thought. She was in denial about the pills still that day, not even acknowledging that she was still taking them even though her knee no longer really hurt. It wasn’t even a thought in her head. Things had been better with Wolf, or so she believed. And the kids were happy and healthy.

  Run, Abbey! Go, Abbey!

 
Merri woke with a start, the happiness of her dream memory lingering. She grasped at it, but it faded away, blue draining to black. Joy replaced with a heart-pumping unease, those words hanging on the edge of her consciousness. Run, Abbey!

  She reached over for the phone to check the time and saw that Wolf had texted her. She must have been so soundly asleep that she hadn’t heard.

  I’m coming up. Don’t bother saying no.

  She felt a mingling of relief and annoyance. They were joined together, wrapped around each other whether they always liked it or not. There was too much history, the children, shared investments, joint property. The very idea of legal divorce was as enervating as it was heartbreaking. It was one thing to drift like she was doing, neither here nor there. It was another thing altogether to bring the axe down on everything they shared, splitting it cleanly in half. Of course, nothing like that was ever clean.

  It was midnight.

  She picked up the phone and dialed. He answered after one ring, as if he had been waiting for her to call.

  “Hey,” he said. Merri could hear Claire’s voice in the background. He answered her gently. “It’s Merri.”

  Is she all right? “Are you okay?” he asked, echoing his wife’s question.

  “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “She’s okay,” he said.

  Merri listened to the covers rustling, heard their bedroom door close. She could envision their apartment as clearly as she could bring to mind her own. She could see the runner on the hardwood floor, the night light glow from the chaos of the girls’ room. He probably walked into the gourmet kitchen, the white door swinging.

  “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. The sound of his voice calmed her. “No news. I’m sorry. I was just dreaming of Abbey.”

  He breathed on the line, and she could see him. He’d be hunched over the phone, leaning against the counter, his brow wrinkled with worry. He’d be wearing a tee-shirt, some kind of flannel pajama bottom. Not like Wolf, who always insisted on sleeping naked. It’s the only time I’m ever free, he’d say. What if someone breaks in? What if there’s a fire? Merri wanted to know. That he could allow himself to be so vulnerable always annoyed her.

  Blake had never touched her except as a friend—a warm embrace, a kiss on the cheek. The night they met didn’t hover between them, not really. There was no wondering: what if? It simply didn’t matter. The currents of their lives had swept them along parallel paths, close but never to touch. Neither of them could ever be unfaithful, even if they wanted to—which they didn’t. Now there was friendship, deep and abiding. Somehow that was more solid than anything else in her life.

  “I saw Wolf tonight,” said Blake. “He’s a wreck.”

  “He’s coming up here,” she said.

  “Good,” he said. He had a kind of relief in his voice, a tone he got when Wolf managed to do the right thing. “He should. You shouldn’t be up there alone.”

  The wind was wailing outside, and Merri pushed back the covers to walk over the creaky floor to the window.

  “It’s snowing,” she said, peering through the curtain. The streetlamp across the road gave off a weak amber light, the flakes glittering as they fell. The sight of it filled her with dread. Abbey. The second winter.

  “He asked me about that missing real estate developer,” said Blake.

  This surprised Merri. It wasn’t like him to indulge Jackson that way.

  “Jackson told me about it, too,” Merri said.

  “Well, apparently the guy had some kind of chip in his car put there by the leasing company. It’s a new technology, allows them to locate and even disable the vehicle in the event that someone doesn’t make their payment.”

  She didn’t quite know why, but she felt a little lift, a rush of hope. It was ridiculous to think this had anything to do with Abbey.

  “When I got home, I made some calls,” he said. “I was debating whether to call Wolf or not. It’s probably nothing.”

  “What is?”

  “The leasing company released the GPS coordinates, and local police are mobilizing, probably as we speak if they’re not up there already.”

  “Where?”

  “About twenty miles north of The Hollows.”

  “Do you have the coordinates?”

  “Merri,” he said. “This probably has nothing to do with Abbey.”

  “I know that,” she said. And she did know that. But then why was her whole body tingling? And why had she hired a psychic? And why had Abbey been dreaming about a monster in the woods? And why did Jackson know that something bad was going to happen that day? And why was he obsessed about the missing developer?

  She thought about those pills all the time. She was thinking about them even now as she pulled on her jeans and her boots, her long-sleeve tee-shirt, and fleece, putting the phone on speaker and setting it down on the desk. Those pills that dulled her fears and her anxieties, that numbed her anger at Wolf and at herself, that quieted all the million shitty things she had to say about herself. Those pills, and the white sheet it draped over her ragged thoughts. If she had them, if she popped two in her mouth right now, in an hour she’d be sleeping or at least lying down, knowing that there was nothing she could do for Abbey, wherever she was. But she didn’t have those pills. All she had was this vibrating feeling that wouldn’t be quieted.

  “What are they, Blake?”

  “If I tell you, do you promise not to do anything reckless?”

  She thought about it. They were too close, their friendship too strong for her to lie. “No,” she said.

  He told her anyway.

  *

  The first time Wolf did it, it was a big nothing. Honestly, it was little more than an embellishment. Everybody did that; it was part of being a storyteller, wasn’t it? Your interviewee was somewhat less articulate than you might have hoped. You rearrange sentences so that they come closer to what the moron actually meant, so that the words on the page have more impact. It wasn’t lying, not really.

  It was a piece about New Orleans after Katrina, how the city was struggling back to its feet. The article he wrote wasn’t even for a major publication, just an online travel blog called The Road Less Traveled. Wolf liked writing for them because they were light editors. They basically proofed his pieces and posted them. They paid peanuts, but the trips were always covered—air and ground transportation, and decent lodging—and they weren’t looking for the kind of fluff that trade magazines wanted. Sure, those trade assignments were plum, all expenses paid trips to spas and resorts, guided excursions, luxury treatments. It was unspoken, but it was expected that the articles written after such star treatment be complimentary. Otherwise, you no longer got invited on press trips. But there wasn’t much negative to say about five-star luxury, was there? The scallops were a little chewy? The massage therapist didn’t use enough oil?

  What Wolf liked about the smaller publication was that they let you do your own thing. The Road Less Traveled let him wander and find the article he wanted to write about a certain place. They sent him down to Jazz Fest a few years after Katrina. Attendance was back up, and though the city was still struggling, the music scene was making a healthy recovery. He talked to artists, music lovers, and bar owners, everyone echoing the same sentiment, that New Orleans was coming back, and that the music scene was alive and kicking. It’s just that no one really said that exactly. So he just fudged something an old trombone player said. Most of the people who Wolf talked to had been drinking; hell, he’d been drinking. So what if the old guy didn’t say exactly what Wolf wrote?

  The only person who picked up on it was Merri.

  “He really said this?” she asked when she was editing the piece. She read all his work, and he didn’t feel good about anything until she liked it.

  “Who said what?” he asked, even though he knew exactly what she was talking about. Merri had an eagle eye. She missed nothing.

  “This quote: �
��It’s been hard, no one’s denying that. But New Orleans is back, better than before. You can’t crush the soul of a place like this.’ ”

  “Why?” asked Wolf.

  “It’s just such a perfect quote, such a great way to end a story.”

  “Sometimes you just get lucky.”

  The guy had said something like that. But it had been somewhat less eloquent. What did it matter if you made people sound better than they actually did? No one ever complained about that.

  Then, over the years, it just started to become a habit. You kind of knew what people were going to say, didn’t you? After you’d been to enough places and talked to enough people and seen enough things, you had an idea of what you were going to find before you ever got where you were going. Nearly twenty years as a travel writer, and real surprises came few and far between. Except he was surprised when he finally got caught.

  *

  After he texted Merri, Wolf woke up his mother and told her that he had to go help his wife. She agreed completely and even seemed relieved to hear it.

  Then Wolf pushed into Jackson’s room and found him awake. As ever, the kid’s room was weirdly neat. Jackson kept all his books organized by size on the shelves. He’d laid out his own clothes for the next day. Wolf didn’t even bother asking whether or not he did his homework. He was a perfect student.

  “You’re going up there?” said Jackson when Wolf sat on his bed.

  “I have to, buddy,” he said. “Your mom shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Maybe on the weekend, okay?” said Wolf. “But what I need you to do is to stay with your grandparents and go to school. We can talk every afternoon and you can call when you need me.”

  Jackson was such a trouper. Wolf remembered being his age; he’d never been half as smart or kind or mature as his son. He still wasn’t.