Island of Lost Girls

by Jennifer McMahon

  The rabbit hole was a moist, earthy tunnel that smelled of worms and grubs, deep underground smells. Here, she thought, here is where I will find what I’m looking for, but in the dream she couldn’t recall just what that might be.

  Peter! Rhonda cried in her dream, there in the dark of the cave, in the heart of his burrow, where she hoped the hidden rabbit would hear her and take pity. Peter.

  And then, he appeared. Not the rabbit, but her Peter, only he was young again—thirteen or fourteen maybe—and he was dressed in his costume from their play, covered in his green suit of leaves, a ring of them woven like a crown around the top of his curly head. When he appeared in the cave, it filled with light, as if he was imbued with the power to dispel darkness, to banish fear. She studied each detail of him, her beautiful Peter, running her fingers over the scar on his forehead just above his right eye. Even though he shouldn’t have had the scar yet, the cut came later, in the dream she didn’t question it. And there at the bottom of the rabbit hole, she threw her arms around him, thinking him a miracle. She let herself kiss him, her mouth fumbling against his in the half light, so happy to be rescued, so happy that she had realized that this was just what the rabbit was supposed to lead her to, this was where she was meant to be, now and forever. But then she pulled back and saw that he had blood on his hands and face. His cut was open again, and he was bleeding from the forehead. In his hands, he held tiny pieces of crumpled paper.

  Our fears, he whispered. Do you remember?

  JULY 4, 1993

  AFTER PETER AND Rhonda left the coffin workshop, they walked across the driveway to his house. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. Aggie was doing the dishes in the kitchen, scrubbing at the cake pan, the big plastic bowls that held the salads. Peter called, “Night, Wendy,” and walked off to his room. Rhonda found Lizzy in her own room, stretched out on top of the covers in her Captain Hook outfit, pretending to be asleep. Rhonda could tell she was faking, but didn’t feel like talking anyway. Lizzy had laid out a nightgown for Rhonda on top of the extra bed. They’d planned all week for Rhonda to spend the night, and although Rhonda wanted more than anything to go home, she didn’t want to deal with the inevitable questions from Justine—Did you have a fight? Are you okay? Lately Justine always asked a million questions anyway whenever Rhonda got back from a night at Lizzy’s: What did you do? How late were you up? Was Aggie there? Peter? Daniel?

  Rhonda slipped on her nightgown, lay down in the twin bed next to Lizzy’s. The room glowed from a rocking horse night-light plugged into the outlet next to the closet. Rhonda could see the pencil lines and dates Lizzy had scribbled on the frame of the closet doorway to measure her growth. She could see the last measurement was from July 1. So Lizzy hadn’t given up on being a Rockette. This gave Rhonda hope. She lay there listening to Lizzy’s fake snore, wondering if, once the play was over, she’d get the good Lizzy back. The door to the bedroom creaked open, then closed. Rhonda turned. No one was there. She shut her eyes and fell asleep, dreaming of a Lizzy so tall that she bumped her head on the ceilings.

  She woke up later to find that Lizzy had crawled into bed next to her and had placed the hook on her pillow, next to Rhonda’s head, so that it was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. The next thing she noticed was the foul smell coming from Lizzy: a mixture of body odor, stale urine, and breath as bad as any dog’s she’d ever smelled.

  “I have a secret,” Lizzy whispered, her fetid breath hot on Rhonda’s face. “Do you want to hear?”

  Rhonda closed her eyes and turned so that she was facedown, being comfortably smothered by the pillow. She waited, playing possum, wondering if Lizzy would tell her secret anyway, but she didn’t. Rhonda’s cheek was pressed against Lizzy’s hook, and when she awoke the next morning, she had a red mark there, like a scar.

  JUNE 17, 2006

  RHONDA WOKE UP and wrapped a blanket around herself. She watched Warren as he slept, tempted to wake him and tell him her dream about the rabbit hole.

  Instead, she stood, put on her robe, padded gently out of the bedroom, and made a pot of coffee. Then she sat on the couch with the first cup in her hand. She found the remote and pressed PLAY. There was Peter again, struggling with his shadow, about to wake Wendy from her innocent slumber, and ferry her off to the Neverland.

  “Hey,” Warren said, as he leaned over the back of the couch and kissed the top of her head. “I smell coffee.”

  “I thought you didn’t drink coffee.”

  Warren laughed. “I drink it on special occasions.”

  “Well, I’m honored, then. There’s a pot in the kitchen. Cream’s in the fridge. Help yourself.” She watched as he sauntered into the kitchen in his boxers, seeming perfectly at ease.

  I could get used to this, she thought, but then stopped herself. Who knew where this was going?

  “What are you watching?”

  “A video one of the parents shot of our last Peter Pan performance. Tinker Bell’s father, I think.”

  “No way!” Warren said, settling in on the couch. “Rewind, I want to watch from the beginning.”

  He snuggled up to her and she pointed out the key players, the best scenes, the details of each costume.

  They studied the few minutes of footage that followed the play: the parade of cast and audience through the woods, up the narrow path to Rhonda’s yard, then shots of the party in the backyard lit with luau lights and tiki torches. The camera panned the yard—the feast laid out on the picnic table; the players and audience mingling, drinking, laughing. There was Rhonda in her white nightgown talking with Aggie—Rhonda looked both embarrassed and terrified by whatever Aggie was saying. And then the camera caught Peter and Lizzy having a quiet argument. Peter’s hand was wrapped around her arm and he was leaning in, whispering something in her ear. Lizzy shook her head, the only audible words Rhonda caught were Lizzy saying, “I can’t.” She watched as Peter tightened his grip on his sister’s arm, giving it a slight twist. “You will,” he told her. Then the camera zoomed in on Tinker Bell eating cake, frosting covering her tiny nose and chin.

  WHEN THE VIDEO was over, Rhonda told Warren about her dream. “I feel like, one way or another, I’ve been chasing that rabbit for years,” she said.

  Warren nodded. “Maybe you’ll catch up to him one of these days. What were the slips of paper in your dream?”

  Rhonda reached up and touched the scar on her forehead. “It’s silly, really. We had this…this pretend funeral in the woods that summer. We buried this stuffed bogeyman. And Peter had us write down our fears on little scraps of paper, then dump them in on top of him. It was like we were having a funeral for fear.”

  “Do you remember what you wrote on your paper?” Warren asked.

  “No.”

  “You’ve given Peter an awful lot of power, both in your life and in your dreams.”

  Rhonda nodded. “I convinced myself he was innocent. I believed it so much that I refused to look at the evidence. But now I see that we can’t just go around creating whatever truth happens to suit us.”

  Warren nodded grimly and fell silent.

  “Say something,” Rhonda begged.

  “I think…” He hesitated. “Rhonda?”

  “What?” she asked, taking his hand.

  He bit his lip. “I think you’re right. We can’t just invent truths that don’t exist. We have to face the reality of the situation, no matter how grim.”

  Rhonda nodded. “That’s why I’m going to Peter with what I know.”

  Warren shook his head. “No. I think you should wait.”

  “Wait for what, Warren? I’ve spent my life waiting for shit that doesn’t happen. What if Peter knows something? What if he’s got Ernie locked up somewhere?”

  “Then you should start with Crowley. Tell him what you know.”

  “No. I need to talk to Peter first. I mean, what if I’m wrong?”

  “And what if you’re not? He could be dangerous, Rhonda. At least let me come with you.”
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  “No,” said Rhonda. “I need to do this alone. The one thing I know for sure is that there are things he’s not telling me. If we both go, he’ll feel cornered and shut down. I might have a chance of actually finding out something if I go alone. Can I meet you later?”

  “Of course. I’m going to go back to Jim and Pat’s and get cleaned up, then I’ll be at the Mini Mart. Why don’t you head over when you’re through with Peter?”

  “It’s a date,” Rhonda said.

  “We can have microwave burritos and Twinkies for dinner. My treat,” Warren said.

  “Ooh, so romantic.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he promised, taking her in his arms and kissing the top of her head.

  In spite of everything, she was happy. But still, a little voice in the back of her head warned her not to get used to it, that the rabbit wasn’t finished with her yet.

  JULY 21, 1993

  GO AHEAD, LOOK,” Peter instructed, pointing to the dark space under Lizzy’s bed.

  Lizzy and Rhonda had turned eleven the week before, and the remains of Lizzy’s balloons were tied to her bedpost, hovering sadly, half-deflated. The Rockette video, leg warmers, and the dancing doll she got were all sitting on her dresser, still in their packages. Rhonda had bought Lizzy a goldfish in a bowl with blue marbles and a little sunken pirate ship at the bottom. The fish died the third day, but the bowl still sat on the dresser, growing stagnant and giving off a foul odor.

  Lizzy shifted from foot to foot, played nervously with her coat hanger hook.

  “C’mon, you can do it,” Tock said. “Captain Hook’s not afraid of anything.”

  “Who said I was scared?” Lizzy asked.

  But that was the trouble. Lizzy was scared. And that’s why they were all there: to cure her.

  For weeks she’d been afraid, and it was getting worse. She wasn’t sleeping at night, and the dark circles under her eyes made her look like a much more sinister Captain Hook. When she did go to bed, she left the lights in her room blazing. She claimed the bogeyman was out to get her. She stuffed coats and clothing under her bed so he couldn’t hide there. Then she started to be afraid in the daytime, too. It was like the bogeyman could be anywhere: in the old garage, the trunk of a car, the hole under the stage.

  “Get down there and look!” Peter ordered.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,” Rhonda suggested.

  “Go on, Lizzy, you’ll be fine,” promised Tock.

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Rhonda said, placing her hand on Lizzy’s shoulder. But Lizzy shook it off and very gingerly got down on her hands and knees. When she peered under the bed, she let out a scream that made the hairs all over Rhonda’s body stand up, giving her skin a prickly feel.

  “Pull him out,” Peter said.

  “No!” Lizzy wailed.

  “Help her,” Peter ordered the other two girls.

  Rhonda and Tock got down on their hands and knees to help Lizzy drag the body from under the bed.

  Rhonda nearly let out a scream herself when she saw the large black eyes looking back at her. She was afraid, at first, to reach out her hand to grab it. Lizzy was crying quietly beside her.

  Peter had made a stuffed man out of his father’s old clothes filled with rags. His head was a nylon stocking filled with stuffing from an old pillow. Peter had glued huge felt eyes on the front of his face, like an owl. The bogeyman’s face was all eyes, big black felt ovals, no nose or mouth.

  “He’s scary as hell,” Tock admitted once they’d got him out into the light.

  Peter handed Lizzy a kitchen knife, and she looked at the knife, then at the bogeyman, then at Peter.

  Peter said, “Kill him, Lizzy. Kill the bogeyman.”

  At first, she hesitated, then she fell on him. She stabbed and stabbed, plunging the knife in, stuffing coming out of his head. The knife went through his body into the floor.

  She stabbed until she was exhausted and out of tears. She collapsed on the floor. Tock went to her and stroked her knotted, greasy hair.

  “You did it, Captain,” Tock whispered.

  “The job’s not done yet,” Peter explained. “Now we have to bury him.”

  They dragged the body out to the woods—they had to keep stopping to collect bits of him—and had a long funeral. Peter dug a deep hole next to the stage and they dumped the body in.

  “Get rocks,” Peter said. And they all collected stones, large and small, and threw them into the hole, on top of the bogeyman.

  “This is so he can’t rise again,” Peter explained.

  They were all sweaty and smeared with dirt. Rhonda’s hands hurt from hauling rocks. Lizzy had taken off her hat, hook, and boots and looked a little more like her old self and less like a pirate.

  Peter gave each of them a piece of paper and pencil.

  “Write down the things you’re most afraid of,” he instructed. Rhonda’s mind went blank. Then she scribbled: That Peter’s my brother. That he’ll stay with Tock. That Dad loves Aggie more than Mom. That Lizzy’s going truly crazy.

  She looked over, trying to see what Lizzy had written on her paper, but Lizzy covered it up with her hand. And what, Rhonda wondered, had Peter written? And Tock? Surely, she wasn’t afraid of anything.

  They each folded up their papers and dropped them into the hole, on top of the bogeyman.

  “Good-bye, fears,” Peter said.

  They all helped fill in the grave, then did a wild dance, waving their arms, doing Rockette kicks, laughing and howling, sure that Lizzy was cured, that they all were. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

  JUNE 17, 2006

  IT WAS NEARLY three by the time Warren left. Rhonda took a shower, did the dishes, then lay down on the couch to rest. She fell asleep and had another fuzzy dream about chasing the rabbit and falling down the hole. This time, at the end of the dream, it was Lizzy she found down in the hole. Lizzy in her Captain Hook costume, only instead of the hook for a hand, she had a bloody hammer sticking out of her sleeve.

  Rhonda snapped open her eyes and looked at the clock: it was almost seven.

  “Shit!” she said, scrambling for the phone and punching in Peter’s number.

  “Ronnie, I was just on my way out the door.”

  “We need to talk, Peter.”

  “Well, maybe we can meet tomorrow. I’m free in the afternoon.”

  “No. This won’t wait.”

  Peter let out an exasperated breath.

  “I’ve got a realtor coming to look at my mom’s place in the morning and I’ve got a shitload of work to do. I’m on my way over there now. Whatever you have to tell me is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I’ll call you then.”

  “I could meet you there,” Rhonda said.

  “No. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Even as he spoke these words, he was moving the phone away from his mouth to hang up, his voice fading out like a far-off AM radio station broadcasting from a place Rhonda may have heard of, but had never been.

  RHONDA PULLED INTO the driveway of Aggie’s house, parking behind Peter’s Toyota pickup, which was in front of the one-car detached garage Daniel had used as a workshop. She noticed the door to the garage was padlocked closed, the windows boarded over. She glanced up at the roof, shingles loose and moss-covered now, and remembered the day Peter had nearly jumped off to prove his father’s wings would work. She thought of the rows of coffins and wondered if they were still inside—she didn’t remember Aggie getting rid of them. What on earth might the real estate agent make of those?

  Rhonda turned from the memory, made her way up the front steps onto the porch of the old house. The floorboards sagged beneath her weight. Paint was peeling. The corners were full of spiderwebs. To the right of the door, an enormous orb weaver was making its way to the center of the web, where a fly had become entangled.

  Rhonda knocked. There was no answer. She turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  How many times had she come throu
gh this door, running, laughing, chasing after Peter and Lizzy, shouldering a knapsack full of Barbie dolls and pajamas, costumes from whatever play they were working on?

  She stood in the front hallway, facing the closet. On a whim, she opened it. A few moth-eaten coats of Aggie’s. Daniel’s red-and-black checked hunting jacket. After all these years, his jacket hung waiting for him. Beside it, the matching hat that Peter had worn on that egg hunt long ago.

  Where’s Lizzy? Aggie had asked.

  Still in the woods with the rabbit.

  Rhonda shut the closet door.

  “Peter?” she called. She heard a bang upstairs. Footsteps. A dragging sound.

  Something didn’t feel right here. She suddenly regretted not bringing Warren along. But it was, she told herself, simply being in the old house that put her on edge. “Peter?” she called again, her voice a little weaker this time. She made her way into the living room. Same plaid couch and matching recliner. A TV covered in dust. On the wall above the fireplace, the velvet Elvis painting Daniel was so proud of. She and Lizzy had played a game called “Elvis Is Watching You,” in which they tried to find hiding places where the all-seeing eyes of Elvis couldn’t find them, and would end up chasing each other around the room laughing hysterically. In the end, Elvis always knew just where they were.

  Where is she now? Rhonda longed to ask the dusty garage sale relic. And what about little Ernie? Could Elvis’s all-seeing eyes spot her as well? Could he see all the way to Rabbit Island?