The Missing Girl

by Norma Fox Mazer

  BEFORE SHE WENT downstairs to make breakfast that morning, Beauty wrote in the journal she sporadically kept: I acted like a total jerk with N. last night. I don’t know what got into me. I grabbed onto him. I don’t know how I’m going to face him this morning.

  Nathan had been writing a note, too. She found it propped up on the kitchen table next to the cereal box.

  Cousins, sorry to leave this way, but I’ll lose my job if I don’t get back. Thought it best to get an early start. It’s a long drive. Thanks for the hospitality. If you change your mind about sending Stevie (or anyone) to Aunt Bernie, let me know. Anyway, keep in touch. I’m praying for you. Nathan

  So he was gone. Had she driven him away? She thought so, but she was relieved. Her nighttime confession to Mim about him seemed like part of a distant and absurd past.

  THURSDAY AFTERNOON: THE DUCK POND

  WHEN ETHAN SHOWED up at the front door, Beauty stared as if she couldn’t quite figure out who he was. “Hey,” Ethan said, a half smile slipping on and off his face, as if he couldn’t quite figure out, not who he was, but why he was there.

  Friday was the last time she had seen him. And now it was Thursday. Six days had passed. Six days which might as well have been six weeks or six months or six years. It seemed to her that she was no longer the same girl who had been in Ethan’s house and who had signaled him over his parents’ heads. How intensely that silly girl had felt the deprivation of not sitting with him! How much of her life that girl had wasted in false sorrow and self-pity. And even last night that girl had acted the fool with her cousin.

  “Hey,” Ethan said again.

  “Hey,” Beauty said.

  “I’m sorry about your sister,” he said. “I read in the newspaper—”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Is there anything I can—”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anyth—”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “No c-c-clues to—”

  “No.”

  “Sorry,” he said again. He touched her arm. “Want to go for a walk?”

  She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Wait.” She went back into the house to tell her mother.

  “Walking? Who with?” her mother said. She had the ironing board set up in the kitchen.

  “A friend from school.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “His name, Mom. Ethan Boswell. Remember I was at his house?”

  Her mother put down the iron. “When will you be back?”

  “I don’t know—maybe an hour and a half.” She ran her fingers over her mother’s forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Mom, it’s perfectly safe.” She handed her a rolled-up blouse from the basket. “I was thinking, we have to start living normally, even if—”

  “I can’t,” her mother gasped.

  Beauty nodded. “I know, but we have to at least try, don’t we?”

  Her mother’s eyes filled. She unrolled the shirt on the board and picked up the iron. Then, after a moment, she said, “Go ahead. Go with your friend.”

  Friend? Walking toward the park with Ethan, Beauty questioned herself. Why had she agreed to this? She had nothing to say to Ethan, and he seemed to have nothing to say to her.

  In the park, though, sitting across from each other on the seesaw, he had plenty to say. “My mother had a h-h-heart attack last year,” he blurted. “It was terrible. You don’t think your mother’s going to land in the h-h-hospital, almost dying.”

  “No, I guess not,” Beauty said. Why was he telling her this?

  “People kept saying to me not to worry, she was strong, stuff like that. Then they would just go off and talk about other things.”

  Like you’re doing, she thought, but didn’t say.

  “It seems like nobody really understands when something bad happens, unless it’s happened to them. I mean, maybe they’re sorry, but it’s not them, it’s not their mother.”

  “Or their sister,” Beauty said tersely.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. Take me, I’m real sorry about your sister, it’s an awful thing, but you’re living with it. I’ll just go home and do my regular stuff. I know how that sounds, callous, but I don’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to be h-h-honest,” he said.

  Beauty’s perch on the seesaw was up. She stared down at Ethan. He sounded so pleased with himself, letting her know he was smart enough to understand that Autumn’s disappearance didn’t really affect him, though he was (of course) sorry about it. Her breath came fast. She wanted to scream. “Let me down,” she said.

  “You okay?” he said, lifting his legs and going up.

  “No!” She hopped off.

  The seesaw bounced Ethan down. “Ouchers,” he said.

  She didn’t smile. “I’m going home.” She walked away, fast.

  He called her name, but she kept walking, didn’t wave, didn’t look back.

  Later she knew her anger wasn’t really at Ethan. It was at this limbo they were caught in, how helpless they were to do anything, to make anything happen, to change anything. Where was Autumn? Where? Where? Where? Later still she knew his honesty was a gift, which she wasn’t ready to accept.

  THURSDAY, LATE AFTERNOON: THE COT

  YOU’RE LYING ON the floor, under the cot. Hiding? Not now, he’s not here now. Lying low? Sort of. You stare up at the canvas and pretty soon you’re back home, and you’re in the garage hanging out with Poppy. He’s stretched out on his army cot, being restful, his hands linked behind his head. You’re sitting on the stool, near him, telling him about your problems with spelling. Poppy says you don’t get that from him, that he was a whiz speller in school. “Whiz speller,” you say. “Wow.”

  Your voice breaks the spell. You’re not in the garage anymore. You’re under the cot that’s his, in the locked room that’s his, in the house that’s his. Yesterday he told you his name. Wayne. Then he told you his secret name. Nelson. He said, “Now it’s a secret between us. You and me.” He said that you were the only person, the only one, who could call him Nelson. “If you want to,” he said. “But maybe you like the name Wayne better?”

  You said no, you didn’t like the name Wayne better, because you knew that was what he wanted you to say, so you don’t call him Wayne, but you don’t call him Nelson, either. You don’t call him anything.

  You roll out from under the cot and suddenly you’re shoving it around the room, scraping the wooden legs on the floor, shoving it and kicking at it, and then picking it up and dropping it. You didn’t even know you could pick it up, that you were strong enough. You do it again, pick it up and drop it, and then you try to throw it, but you can’t, it’s way too bulky and awkward.

  You clench your fists and spin around and scream and scream. You want to throw something. You have to throw something. You grab your sneakers and throw them at the wall and then you throw them at the window.

  And that’s when you get the idea.

  PART THREE

  FLYING

  FRIDAY, 7:30 A.M.

  “BE GOOD,” HE says. “I’m going to work now.”

  “Okay,” you say. It’s raining outside again. You hear it on the tin roof. He’s still standing in the doorway, waiting for something else from you. You probably didn’t say enough.

  “I’ll be good,” you say. You say it meekly, the way he likes.

  He nods, but he still doesn’t leave. What’s he waiting for now? You know. A smile. You produce a smile. He doesn’t know it’s fake, fake, fake. Mommy always knows, and she says that funny old-fashioned thing: “You’re giving me the phony baloney.” But it’s better not to think about Mommy or anybody.

  “Eat all your food,” he says.

  You nod. He waits. You say, “I will. I’ll eat it all.” You want him to leave. You give him another big fake smile.

  “Do you want anything else?” He twirls his key chain, and you’re almost hypnotized. The key to this room is on that chain. “Well?” he says.

  Y
ou pull your eyes away from the key chain and give him the same answer as you did yesterday and the day before yesterday. “Could I watch TV? Could you bring the TV in here?”

  “I told you—no TV.” He uses the Dad Voice. “It’s a bad influence. I meant—” He pauses to make sure you’re listening. “—do you want anything else to eat?”

  Despite his turndown on the TV, he likes it when you ask for something, so you say, “Cookies?” You know he’s going to ask you what kind, so you say perkily, “Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite.”

  He makes an approving murmur, as if you just said something clever. He’s happy. You can tell from the way his eyes change, and he has that little half smile on his face. “I’ll bring you chocolate chip cookies tonight,” he says. Now he has the Cozy Voice, the Just-You-and-Me Voice. “I’ll bring them home and we’ll share them.”

  You hate the way he says “share” and “home,” but you know it’s a good thing. It means he’s not suspicious. He looks at his watch, then beckons you over to him. Your stomach clenches. You walk over slowly. “What?” you say, but you know.

  He bends and kisses you on the mouth. “Good-bye,” he says. “Be good.”

  “Yes,” you say, and you give him one more fake smile. The last one, you think.

  FRIDAY, 8:15 A.M.

  YOU KNOW that he left. You know that he’s not in the house, but you stand near the door and listen. What if he guessed what you’re going to do and sneaked back in to catch you at it? You hear creaks and thumps. Your heart thumps, too.

  You put your mouth against the door and yell, “Hello? Hello?” If he’s in the house, he’ll hear you, and he’ll come to see what you want. “Hello! Hello! Hello!”

  You listen. Nothing. You’re alone. Your stomach is ticking like a clock.

  You throw the blanket off the cot and go to work on freeing the wooden bar at the end. The bar is joined to the wooden side pieces, and it resists you. You push and tug and pull, and after a while your hands are raw, your eyes sting from sweat, and you just want to sit down and cry. You do the sitting down part, but you don’t do the crying part. You look out the rain-splattered window at the dark sky. Is it better for you that it’s raining?

  You get up and go back to the cot and try again. You get one hand on the bar and one hand on the side piece. You take a huge breath and pull with all your might, and the bar comes free. You take the wooden bar in both your sweaty hands like a baseball bat and smash it into the wall, and that feels great. You go into a frenzy of smashing. This wall. That wall. All the walls. Time is passing. You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s the window you want to break, not the walls. The window. You stop yourself, panting, and wipe the sweat from your eyes.

  You raise the bat over your head and swing. Not hard enough. You raise it again, scream, and swing. And the window explodes. Glass is everywhere, splinters of glass on the floor and in your hair and stuck in your skin. Tiny pools of blood appear on your hands and arms, and wet air rushes in on you, and you want to whoop and shout, but you hear a noise, and you freeze.

  He’s come back. You stand there, not daring to move. Your legs tremble, your heart is going to leap right out of your chest. Minutes pass. Maybe hours.

  You start talking to yourself, telling yourself it’s okay, that every day he only comes back after dark. “Every day it’s the same thing,” you whisper to yourself. You tell yourself that’s a fact, and you can depend on facts. Poppy says so. How many times have you heard him say, “Facts are what I want, not stories.”

  You take a deep breath and you don’t whisper when you say, “He’s not in the house, and he’s not coming back until it’s dark.” You say it out loud, and you say it loud, so you can hear yourself. And you go to the window.

  FRIDAY, 9:44 A.M.

  YOU TURN THE pail over, try not to step in the pee that spills out, and put the pail upside down under the window. You step up onto it, and now you can really see out. The fresh rain splashes your face, and for a few moments it’s enough just to be breathing the air. Below you is the steep metal roof, shiny in the rain, and below that a tangle of bushes and trees, and somewhere below them is the ground.

  Shards of glass, jagged as teeth, are still stuck in the window frame. You’re afraid to touch them. You wrap the blanket around your hand and loosen one piece after another. They fall to the roof and slide down, the way you’re going to slide down. When you do that, when you slide down the roof and then jump to the ground, will you break your bones? Will you die?

  That’s when you think about not doing this, about staying in the room. You’ll have to confess, but at least it’s safe here. You can keep hoping that he’ll let you go. He tells you he loves you. He feeds you. He’s bringing you cookies tonight.

  The wind blows across your face, and now the high, living buzz of the town comes to you, and you think of your family. Two crows fly overhead and call to you. They’re saying your name. Autumn, Autumn, they shout hoarsely.

  “I’m coming,” you answer the crows. “I’m coming!”

  FRIDAY, 9:56 A.M.

  YOU THROW THE blanket across the window frame and climb up onto the sill. You crouch there for a moment, holding on to the window frame. Then you stick out your legs, close your eyes, and then you let go.

  You go down so fast you almost fly off the roof. It’s as if the roof’s a living thing and it grabs you and flings you down its slick, wet, slippery surface. Your hands scrabble frantically to hold on to something, but there’s nothing, you’re just going, and when there’s no more roof, the ground comes up to meet you. But instead of the ground stopping you, you’re still falling.

  You scream something—“what…wait…”—and your mouth is full of dirt, and you’re falling and tumbling and falling down a rocky slope. You come to a stop with your face buried in wet leaves. You lie there, breathing, and every breath you take hurts. But you’re alive, and you’re out. You’re free.

  FRIDAY, 10:16 A.M.

  YOU CRAWL TO YOUR hands and knees. Every part of you aches. You wish you never had to move again. You listen. You hear wind. You hear water. You hear your own raspy breaths. You hear rustling noises, like soft footsteps. Is it him? Is he coming? You want to cover yourself in leaves and stay that way forever, but you get to your feet and look around. You’re in a ravine with a creek winding through it. Poppy told you that if you’re ever lost, stay by the water. You limp along next to the creek, holding your ribs. You crawl over fallen trees and stumble over rocks. Once, you fall and just lie there for a while, moaning. Then you get up and keep going.

  After a while you hear road sounds above you, and you start pulling yourself back up the ravine. You go step by step, crawling and hanging onto trees and bushes.

  When you get to the top, the road is right there, and you start walking. You just pick a direction and hobble along. It’s still raining, and you’re soaked. Your jeans and T-shirt are plastered to your body. When you hear a car in the distance, you crouch and roll into the bushes, curling yourself into a muddy ball and praying that if it’s him in the car he won’t see you, he won’t hear your heart thudding. You know he’s out there looking for you. You know he wants you back. He said he wants to keep you forever.

  For a while there are no cars. The trees drip water, the wind blows, and something rustles in the underbrush. Footsteps? You choke back a scream just as a chipmunk scurries across the road in front of you. You walk again, shivering, your arms wrapped around yourself. Every time you hear the sound of a motor, you scuttle into the woods and hide and pray.

  Somewhere you lose a sneaker, so you take the other one off and limp along, telling yourself that soon you’ll find a house or see someone you can trust. A boy on a bicycle comes up on you. He’s wearing a helmet and tight black cycling pants, and he’s bent over the handlebars. He looks at you, cycles past, then swings around and comes back. “What’s the matter with you?” he calls.

  You turn and hobble the other way. “Hey,” he calls, but you just keep goin
g, and when you look again, he’s no longer in sight. But now another car is coming, and you try to hide, but you’re hurting and tired and not quick enough. The car stops.

  A voice says, “Get in.”

  FRIDAY, 12:33 P.M.

  “GET IN,” THE woman behind the wheel says again.

  You peer in the passenger side window at her. Is it a trick? What if she’s a friend of the man?

  “Where are you going?” she says. “I’ll take you there. I’m on my way to Haverhill.”

  Haverhill? That’s miles away from Mallory. You back away. You’re shivering.

  She leans over and opens the passenger door and exclaims,” My Lord, child! What happened to you? Get in this car right now. I’m not leaving you out here like this.”

  You look at her and remember how you followed the man into his house, and you don’t budge.

  “What?” she says. “You don’t trust me? I have a daughter your age. Here—you want to see her picture?” She fumbles in her pocketbook on the seat next to her and pulls out her wallet. She flips it open and shows you a picture of a smiling girl.

  You slide into the car, but you sit close to the door, ready to grab the handle, in case you have to get out fast.

  “Where do you live?” the woman says.

  You can’t speak. You’re so cold your teeth are chattering.

  The woman turns on the heat in the car. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” she says. “Just nod yes and no. Do you live in Kent?” You shake your head. “Where I’m going, Haverhill?” You shake your head. “East Mallory? No? Mallory? Ah, that’s it,” she says, and she turns the car around.

  FRIDAY, 1:03 P.M.