by Diane Hoh
None of it seemed familiar to Nora. Yet it hadn’t been a dream. She was wide-awake. And although nothing else in the vision had seemed familiar, Nora was convinced the woman at the sink was her mother.
She realized then, why her mother had been crying. Nell was Nora’s grandmother’s name. The episode, if it really had happened, must have taken place shortly after they’d moved the first time, away from Nora’s grandparents and the town where Margaret Mulgrew had grown up, had spent her entire life. It must have been hard for her, moving away from family and friends. How could Nora’s father ever have thought such a move would help her mother?
She knew the crying couldn’t have been caused by her grandmother’s death, because her grandmother hadn’t died until Nora was fifteen, and the child standing at her mother’s side at the sink was very small. So it had to be simple homesickness that had made Nora’s mother cry out her own mother’s name with such sadness.
Later, they had moved back to that town so that Nora’s grandparents could take care of her during her mother’s bouts of illness.
But that move hadn’t helped, either.
It wasn’t that the sight of her mother crying at the kitchen sink was so shocking to Nora. It wasn’t. On “bad days,” her mother had often cried. But Nora had never before had such a vivid memory of one of those incidents.
She found it very upsetting. Whatever it was that had caused her mother’s unhappiness, the child at her side had clearly thought it was her fault.
And her mother hadn’t told her that it wasn’t.
I do remember thinking her “bad days” were my fault, Nora reflected as she squeezed soap from the sodden crocheted animals, but I thought that came later, when I was ten or eleven. I don’t remember thinking it when I was very small.
But then, she remembered so little of when she was very small.
Nora rinsed the animals thoroughly, squeezed the excess water from them, wrapped them in a heavy towel, and took the bundle outside into the hot, sunny afternoon.
But she opened the back door very slowly and didn’t take one step outside until she had peered around her intently to make sure she was still alone.
She saw nothing, heard nothing, out of the ordinary. Only normal sounds. The birds chirping in the woods behind the barn, the distant hum of tires on the highway below the front of the house, a steady dripping sound from a hose attached to a faucet on the side of the barn. No threatening voice. No whoosh of a swing or a pitchfork flying at her.
Reardon and the other police officers had found nothing because there was nothing.
She was alone.
She opened the door all the way, and dripping towel in hand, hurried across the yard to the clothesline.
There were no clothespins on the line strung between two T-shaped metal poles. Nora had been drying her own laundry in the industrial-sized machine housed behind white louvered doors in the kitchen. But she was afraid the foam rubber stuffing inside the toys would melt under the dryer’s intense heat. Besides, they would smell much fresher if they were hung outside, even on such a hot day.
Finding no clothespins on the line made her anxious. She hadn’t planned to be outside more than a minute or two. Amy could call at any moment, and the ring of the telephone might not be audible out here.
Where did Mrs. Coates keep the stupid clothespins?
Unwilling to risk missing a phone call that could make all the difference in her life, Nora refused to waste time hunting for clothespins. Instead, she affixed the animals to the line by twisting their tails or legs around the plastic-coated rope. If the wind didn’t suddenly pick up, all four animals should remain in place until they were dry.
It was hot enough that they just might be dry by the time Mindy was brought safely home. Then Nora could take them to her, smelling fresh and sweet. Professor Donner would apologize, and maybe Mary would do the same, although that seemed unlikely. At least she couldn’t possibly bar Nora from the house now. Not with Mindy safe at home and the person who had taken her safely behind bars.
What if the kidnapper wasn’t there, at the house on Fourth Street when the police arrived?
The footsteps behind her, crackling on the hot, dry ground, appeared as suddenly as if an intruder had been dropped from the sky.
Nora’s heart stopped.
She hadn’t heard the footsteps coming up the grassy hill from the highway or crunching on the gravel driveway or clattering down the wooden steps from the garage apartment or hurrying out of the barn or climbing up the wooded hill behind the property. She had heard nothing. They were just suddenly there behind her, crunching purposely toward her.
What if the kidnapper was in the backyard at Nightingale Hall?
Her back still to the footsteps, her body at full alert, Nora called over her shoulder, “Jonah? Jonah Reardon? Is that you?”
But she knew that it wasn’t.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that cop?” the voice she had heard at the top of the stairs as she had toppled backward whispered now in her ear. “I saw him here, just a little while ago. No uniform, but it was him, all right. You shouldn’t ignore my warnings. That was very foolish of you.”
Nora had already begun to turn, but she was stopped in mid-spin and lifted off her feet by something smooth and strong wrapped around her neck and tugged backward.
The only sound she had time to make was a strangled, gasped, “No!”
Chapter 16
NORA’S HANDS FLEW FRANTICALLY to her throat, pulling, clawing at the slick rope around her neck. At the same time, she kicked wildly, struggling to get her feet back on the ground. But her captor was stronger, angrier, hauling her backward with determination, like someone dragging a sack of trash to the curb.
As she fought, Nora tried valiantly to scream, but the rope around her neck was too tight. It hurt, and the harder he tugged on it from behind, the harder it was for her to take a breath.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” Muttering, low, hoarse muttering, behind her. “More than once I warned you, and you wouldn’t listen. You are so stubborn, so arrogant. I knew you were spoiled rotten. Someone should have taught you to pay attention when other people speak.”
The sun was still shining brightly directly overhead, the sky pale blue and cloudless. A bird sang somewhere in the woods, and a sudden gust of wind tore the petals off a dying rose beside the house. They flew past Nora as if to say, “See? We’re free to go where we like, and you’re not.”
It was an oddly peaceful, tranquil scene that met Nora’s eyes as she fought for her life.
Fighting, flailing desperately at the air with one arm while the other kept fingers at her throat struggling to loosen the rope that was strangling her, Nora memorized the scene before her eyes. If it was going to be the last thing she ever saw in her life, she wanted to hold onto it as long as she could. It was already rapidly fading from view as her lungs continued to be deprived of oxygen. Her dazed mind told her she only had a few seconds left to live.
Inside the house, the telephone rang. The shrill, insistent sound echoed out into the back yard, circling around the struggling pair like an alarm.
Nora’s captor hadn’t been expecting the sound, any more than Nora had. The sound startled him. He paused, just for a moment, and released his grip slightly on the rope.
She felt the pause, became aware of a slight easing of the tension on the rope around her neck. It couldn’t last more than a second, she knew that. The sound was only a ringing telephone, after all, not a police car’s siren.
No time to waste. Nora threw herself sideways, the rope still around her neck, knowing she was risking strangulation by jerking away so swiftly. Such a move could break her neck. But she wasn’t passing up this one chance. Her hope was that the sudden pull on the rope when he least expected it would yank it from his hands. It was a weak, desperate hope, one she hadn’t thought out clearly, and she knew even as she flung her body sideways that if the sudden move snapped her neck in two, she
would die.
But if she didn’t do something now, in this one single moment of distraction, she would die, anyway.
It worked. Her sudden, unexpected, vigorous movement ripped his end of the rope out of his hands, and then Nora was up on her feet again and running toward the house, knowing she couldn’t be more than a step or two ahead of him.
She had never run so fast in her life.
The rope was still around her neck, but it had loosened slightly. Still, tiny spots of navy blue danced before her eyes and the pain in her chest hadn’t eased. But if she could make it into the house, snatch up the phone before he caught up with her, and if Amy was still on the other end of the line, if she hadn’t already hung up, there was hope …
One hand still tugging at the painful rope digging into her flesh, Nora threw herself at the back door. It burst open under her weight and she fell onto the small back porch. Then she whirled quickly to drop the latch in place, surprised that she hadn’t been grabbed from behind before she could do that. The old, flimsy screen door wouldn’t keep anyone out, but she locked it, anyway.
Then, as both hands returned to her throat to further loosen the rope, Nora found herself staring out across the back lawn in confusion.
There was no one following her.
There was no one out there.
The sun was still shining, the sky still blue, the breeze still active, stirring the animals dripping from the clothesline. But there was no one racing after her, no one stumbling up the steps in a fury, no one trying to force the screen door open to get at her, no one screaming at her in rage.
He was gone.
The front door was locked. He couldn’t get in that way. And there was no other door at the back of the house. The only other entrance was through the cellar. Those doors might be unlocked, but the door from the cellar into the kitchen was firmly locked. Nora had checked it herself after Amy and Reardon left.
She threw the heavy, wooden back door shut upon the screen and locked it.
He couldn’t get in, If he was only playing possum, hiding around a corner of the house, biding his time before his next attack, he’d be disappointed when he tried to enter the house.
Nora staggered into the kitchen and yanked a sharp knife from a drawer. As carefully as she could, she sawed at the thick rope around her neck until it gave. She nicked the skin on her neck twice, drawing blood, and sliced the index finger on her left hand, but she didn’t care. What were a few minor cuts compared to strangulation?
The rope fell to the floor. Nora leaned against the sink, drawing huge, gulping mouthfuls of air. When the pain in her chest had eased, she filled a glass with water and drank it slowly to soothe the raw ache in her throat. Then she sank into a kitchen chair and reached down to pick up the wicked noose that had almost taken her life.
She knew right away what it was. Not just a plain old rope. Of course not. There was a message here, just as there had been with the child’s swing and the child’s pitchfork and the child’s roller skate.
A jump rope. The thing around her neck that had come so close to choking the life out of her was a child’s jump rope. Red and white striped, thick but flexible.
A jump rope.
Nora sat at the table, her head aching, her throat sore, the little cuts on her neck stinging. Why hadn’t he followed her into the house? He could have caught up with her easily. But he hadn’t. He must have known there was no one else in the house, or he wouldn’t have attacked her in the back yard in the first place. So if he knew the house was empty, why not follow her inside and finish her off? It wouldn’t have taken long. No more than a few seconds.
But he’d run away instead.
Why?
He wasn’t trying to kill you, came the answer. He never intended to kill you. Think about it. What are the chances that a wooden swing would take someone’s life? Or a child’s pitchfork? Why not a real pitchfork? There’s one in the barn. He could have used that, right? And if he’d truly meant to kill you by placing a roller skate on the stairs, wouldn’t he have stuck it on one of the top stairs instead of halfway down, where the chances of a fatal injury would be much smaller? He wasn’t trying to kill you. He was just torturing you. That’s all he meant to do. For now …
That seemed, in a way, almost scarier than the thought of dying. Because it was clear that he hadn’t finished with her. There was more to come, she was frighteningly certain of that. That’s why she was still alive.
But she was equally certain that when he had finished “punishing” her, he would finish her off. He wouldn’t leave her alive to tell the tale.
It did have something to do with Mindy, she was sure of that, too. Every instrument used to “torture” her had been a child’s thing. A swing, a youth-sized pitchfork, a child’s roller skate, and now, a jump rope. That part of the message was clear.
But what was the other part? She hadn’t kidnapped Mindy. Hadn’t had anything to do with it. Shouldn’t be punished for it when she was innocent.
Then … was there some other reason she was being attacked?
A familiar sound outside brought her to her feet. Tires on the driveway again. Feet approaching the house.
Eyes wide with apprehension, Nora ran to stand with her back against the kitchen sink, her hands at her mouth. Had he come back?
He wasn’t driving, stupid, her brain said. If he had been, you’d have heard him pull up into the driveway when you were hanging those animals on the line. It’s someone else.
It was. A second or two later, a sharp knocking sounded on the front door and Amy’s voice called, “Nora? Nora, open the door! It’s okay, it’s us.”
Her face alight with anticipation, Nora hurried down the hall to unlock the door and pull it open.
Amy and a now-uniformed Reardon stood on the porch.
Nora knew the minute she saw the expression on Amy’s face. The light went out of her face and she sagged back against the door. “Oh, no,” she breathed, “oh, no. They didn’t find her, did they? She wasn’t at the house on Fourth Street. She’s still missing.”
“Yes,” Amy said, her voice heavy with regret. “She’s still missing.”
Chapter 17
I TRIED RUNNING AWAY again twice after that first time.
The first time was in the dead of winter, the same time of year that I’d been taken. I never had any Christmas that year, you know. The woman wanted someone with her for the holidays, although she never had a tree or wrapped presents. She did bake some really icky-tasting cookies, I remember. They weren’t sweet, like the sugar cookie Christmas trees and wreaths and snowmen I remembered.
I didn’t take the truck the second time I ran away. I’d learned my lesson. I had no idea where anything was, not the town or a bus station or a train. But I thought I could follow the track she drove the truck on, and that would lead to something.
It was very cold that night, the kind of cold that gets down inside your bones. I knew I should wait for a better night, but I’d been patient so long already. And I couldn’t stand the thought of spending another dark, gray Christmas in that cabin. I didn’t know where I was going. It’s not like I had a family to go back to. I hardly remembered them, and was sure they didn’t want me. I believed that even if by some miracle I could locate them and showed up on their doorstep, they’d open the door, see me standing there, and look at me like I was a creature from another planet. Then they’d make me leave. Or maybe my sibling would open the door, stare at me, recognize who I was, and call the police to cart me away.
Something horrible would happen, I was sure of that. So I wasn’t going to try and find them. Not ever. It was too late for that. Much too late. I’d been gone nine whole years.
And all that time, my sibling had been living in what I remembered as a big, beautiful house with kind, loving parents. I couldn’t remember their faces, but I could remember being sung to and read to although more and more often I couldn’t tell if those things were real memories or if I was creating lov
ely fantasies in my head.
All of those years, I’d had nothing. Nothing, that is, but misery. While the other child had had everything. Everything! Everything that was supposed to be mine, too. Without ever having to share.
By that time, I knew the woman had lied about my parents giving me up willingly. I knew that wasn’t true. But I also believed they hadn’t tried very hard to find me. If they had, they would have succeeded, wouldn’t they? And I was convinced that the reason they hadn’t tried very hard, was the other child. If they hadn’t had it, they might have moved heaven and earth in their efforts to find me. But they still had that child. Comforted by that thought, they had given up on me much too easily.
How happy that child must have been that it hadn’t called out for help in time when I was carried into the woods. How it must have relished its lovely life, while I was suffering through mine.
That fall, long before the snow flew, I started fantasizing about one day finding my family, not to reunite with them, never that, for it was much too late, but to simply seek justice. It wasn’t right that I’d had so much taken away from me. It wasn’t right.
I had no idea where they were. But I was more determined to find them than they must have been to find me. I would succeed where they had failed. And then I would face them and say, “Look what you let happen to me.”
Especially the child.
On that winter night when I was fourteen, I didn’t know if I was going to begin my hunt that night or not. All I was certain of was I couldn’t spend another horrible Christmas in that cold, grim cabin with that quiet, creepy old lady.
So, when she fell asleep in her chair after dinner as she did every night, I left the cabin.
The woods on both sides of the truck track were dark and deep, the trees bare, their limbs reaching out like bony fingers to clutch at me. I stayed well in the middle of the path. I had no idea how far town was, but I hoped the snow wouldn’t begin falling until I’d reached civilization. It would be easy, in a blizzard, to become lost forever in these woods, and I didn’t want to die that night. I had places to go, things to do, people to see. Revenge to seek …
