Ruin Falls

by Jenny Milchman

  The farmhouse appeared on a rise, and Liz braked. She parked the car on a slope in front of the house and got out amidst a wake of dust, which as it settled gave rise to a man’s form. Not Paul, but an older, hardened version of him.

  Paul exuded competence and reliability; he was someone you wanted to trust, believe in. At least he had been, Liz thought, with a sharp crimp in her throat. This man also had a mane of forcefulness about him, but you didn’t so much want to obey him as feel compelled to. Her father-in-law seemed to dominate without moving a muscle.

  He wore jeans and a checked shirt whose color had long since been lost. His arms were folded across his chest.

  The fact that he was out here, waiting, proved her hunch—her one and only lead—and Liz went almost faint with relief. The air that entered her lungs felt like it came out of a steam room, and still it was the most refreshing elixir she’d ever sampled.

  “Elizabeth,” her father-in-law said. “They’re not here.”

  “No,” Liz said. “I mean, yes. Yes, they are.”

  Silence.

  “They have to be.”

  Still nothing, and Liz was filled with a howling fury.

  “They have to be!”

  She rushed her father-in-law, who held her back with the palm of one hand.

  “I said they’re not here,” he repeated.

  “But you knew I’d come!” Liz cried. “You’re not surprised to see me! So you must know what Paul has done!”

  The logic of it seemed impeccable, even to her fevered mind.

  Her father-in-law stared down into her eyes with his own flinty ones. “You’ll do best now to leave,” he said.

  He took three long strides away from her, mounting the steps of his porch.

  “Matthew!” She’d spoken her father-in-law’s name on only a handful of occasions. At their wedding. The few times he’d seen the kids.

  The kids.

  Rage that had plumed inside her began receding, leaving a solid, leaden weight as heavy as the saturated air. Sweat and tears bathed her eyes, stinging like needles. She’d been so sure. Certainty had been the only thing enabling her to keep going these last couple of hours; keeping her tethered to the earth at all. Why would Paul have suggested this trip if not to bring Reid and Ally to his childhood home, at least use his parents as allies in his desertion? Theories had begun to take shape in her mind during the drive: loosely formed, unarticulated. Paul had decided that living away from his roots amounted to depriving the children of something, but didn’t believe Liz would allow them to leave Wedeskyull. Or else her husband’s interest in survivalism had gone further than Liz ever suspected, and the culture out here was a better fit, as was the broader breadth of the land.

  But if Paul wasn’t on the farm? Then where in this whole world could he be?

  Breath escaped her, a slow, unstoppable leak. Liz sagged onto the dirt, pebbles beneath her knees, her hands splayed out on the gritty ground. Her body grew moist, lathered all over from the heat. With her children gone, all law had ceased to apply. The planetary spin could reverse; the earth might come loose from its moorings and simply float away. Reid and Ally were out there somewhere, and it was an upheaval so complete that Liz couldn’t imagine ever standing upright again.

  Matthew reached for the handle of the screen door. It gave off a dull metal glare under the punishing sun, and Liz squinted at it, bleary-eyed and lost.

  What next? She couldn’t formulate so much as a step.

  The door opened, and a woman stepped onto the sun-faded slats of the porch. It was hard to make her out at first, so well did she blend in with the rest of the landscape. Her hair and skin were dusted and worn; she looked like a small, furred creature.

  “Matthew?” Her voice, when it emerged, was timorous.

  Liz was still on her hands and knees on the ground. Her father-in-law kept her in his sights without making a move to help her.

  “Please,” Liz’s mother-in-law said. “Let her come in.”

  Liz’s eyes were arid, unblinking as she followed Matthew’s broad back into the sun-blasted farmhouse. Almost five o’clock, and the yellow orb hardly seemed to be sinking. At least the humidity was starting to lift, taking with it a low, level bank of clouds. Inside, the house felt close, fans stirring the air listlessly. The house was as spotless as picked-clean bones. Not an object out of place, nor a single dust mote floating in the shafts of sun. The floorboards were bleached bare, the walls washed in light.

  Liz took a seat on a faded sofa. The sheers on the window offered little screen from the scalding light. After a few minutes the aroma of coffee arose, and Liz’s mother-in-law returned, head lowered, holding two cups. She offered the first to Matthew, who accepted it without a word, regarding Liz as he drank.

  “I didn’t know how you took it,” her mother-in-law said, a note of apology in her tone as she held out a cup to Liz.

  Liz set it aside, untouched. “Where are they?”

  Her mother-in-law looked at her.

  Matthew placed a hand on his wife’s arm. “Mary.”

  Liz’s gaze shot from one to the other. “What aren’t you telling me?” She was aware of how suspicious she sounded, almost paranoid. On the other hand, her in-laws had to be keeping something from her. There was a reason Paul had chosen to come to Junction Bridge.

  Had he been back to this place at all? Was the hotel the closest he’d actually come?

  Neither of her in-laws spoke.

  There was a low, loose terror inside Liz, like an animal that had escaped. If she couldn’t lasso it, get it under control, she would be clawed to pieces. She needed direction, someone to tell her what to do. But she had no idea who that would be.

  She cursed Paul for putting her into this state. He’d always been the man with the answers, but the flip side of that meant that he had the power to cast her into total darkness.

  The brilliant light in here hurt her eyes, and she blinked. Liz had made the extent of her helplessness clear without mustering any sympathy from Matthew. If being at the farm was to yield anything, it would have to be because Liz accomplished it herself.

  Paul had never been close to his parents. He’d moved away after high school, wound up attending the same college where he now taught, and as far as Liz had known, never looked back.

  Until planning this vacation.

  Her gaze roved around, hunted, hungry, and her nose tickled at the blend of scents. Coffee, the slightly stale odors of an old house, and something fresher, like wood. Liz sneezed, blocking her face, and when she opened her eyes, the front door came into sight. It had been left open, the screen door the only barricade against the heat.

  Liz’s words pierced the hush of the room. “What’s that?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Liz got up, trance-like, to drift across the floor. Whatever she’d seen, or thought she had seen, wasn’t obvious. It wavered in and out of clarity as she walked. But when Liz arrived at the entrance to the farmhouse and slid her hand down the doorjamb, she knew that she’d been right.

  There was a dark scuff mark, a bruise on the otherwise pristine paint. And underneath it was a gouge in the surface, explaining the smell of newly exposed wood. There had been a disturbance in this aged home, every other inch of it smoothed and worn over, and a recent one at that.

  “What happened?” Liz asked.

  Matthew remained in the spot he had occupied when they first entered the house. One look at the hewn carving of his face told Liz that her question wouldn’t be answered.

  Paul had been here. She knew it. And from Matthew’s fierce expression, which looked capable of shattering the window he was staring at, and Mary’s meek, huddled demeanor, it seemed possible that he still was.

  Liz started for the stairs, running as if she might be chased.

  In the second-floor hallway there were two doors, one open, one shut. Sunlight shot through windows on either end of the hall. This close to the roof, the house felt like a sauna.


  The open door revealed Matthew and Mary’s room. A queen-sized bed was adorned by a single flocked pillow, and the blades of a window fan cycled.

  Liz placed her hand on the closed door, picturing Reid and Ally huddled together, and quashing the knowledge that her children would never be able to keep quiet for this long.

  The second bedroom was still and bare. A lifeless drape at the window couldn’t entirely keep out the light, and starry bursts of dust danced in its stream, as if this room was infrequently aired. Liz shielded her eyes, squinting.

  “Satisfied?” Matthew said from behind.

  Liz suppressed a start at the sound of his voice, turning around unsteadily.

  Mary stood silently in the shadow made by her husband’s body.

  Liz peered back into the room. There was a twin bed, made up flat with a blue sheet. The dresser was devoid of anything besides a few books. A stand of shelves mocked her with its emptiness.

  Downstairs an old-fashioned phone let out a squawk.

  Liz elbowed in front of Mary, then Matthew, beating them both down the stairs to a small table in the sitting room. She snatched up the receiver, its cord hitting her neck as she answered.

  “Hello? Hello? Paul?”

  There was an audible pause on the line, a sound like rushing. Then someone spoke.

  “This is Frank Mercy. I live down the road. I’m looking for Matthew.”

  Liz’s in-laws stood before her in the parlor.

  “That’ll be my neighbor,” Matthew said. “Wanting to talk to me about fencing.”

  Liz wasn’t sure which posed more of a dead end: Matthew’s stony implacability or his wife’s timid refusal to talk. She was about to hand over the phone when something occurred to her, and she quietly pressed the button to end the call.

  Matthew frowned. “You had no right to do—”

  Liz’s voice trembled. “My children are missing. I have a right to do anything.”

  Mary winced, but Matthew’s eyebrows knit, not an ounce of sympathy in the stormy expression.

  “Paul called here today,” Liz said. “At least he said he did, when we were with the cops. Was he lying? Or did you receive a phone call from him?”

  Maybe, just possibly, Paul had dialed his mother from a new phone. His old one was obsolete not because he wouldn’t have any use for a cell phone—everybody needed a cell phone—but because he wanted to hide from Liz. She looked down at the receiver in her hand, trying to make sense of the archaic technology, how you would access a call list.

  “We don’t have any of that,” Mary said, all but whispering. “Caller ID. Missed calls.”

  Liz pounced on the moment of communication. “Not missed. Paul spoke to you.”

  Matthew took the phone out of Liz’s hand. His fingers were as hot as soldering irons, and Liz recoiled from their touch. A rivulet of sweat ran down each of her father-in-law’s temples.

  “I didn’t hear from Paul. He didn’t come here for a visit or to mess up my front door,” Matthew added, eyes eagle-bright. How could Liz have imagined her father-in-law failing to notice any detail she herself was able to spot? “Now,” he concluded, “I’ll thank you to leave.”

  Liz dropped her head, beaten. Racing down the stairs, she had seen herself besting the likes of Matthew Daniels, rendered somehow strong, smarter than she had been, as any female became when her children were threatened. But Liz was in no shape to wage a fight. She was a mother without a clue how to find her children.

  A mother who had lost them in the first place.

  Heated tears traced their course, and Liz felt disgust like a boil upon her.

  Surprisingly, it was Mary who spoke.

  “It’s too close to nightfall to let her drive out,” she said in a gentle tone. “Elizabeth will have to spend the night.”

  “Fine.” Matthew spoke in a tone hard enough to split wood. “But if you sleep under my roof, if you eat under my roof, if you so much as make water under my roof, then you are obliged to follow one rule. And that is that you do not mention the son who will never do any of those things here again for as long as I live!”

  The floorboards reverberated beneath the thud of his boots as Matthew stalked off.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was as automatic as a homing pigeon’s flight. Liz went upstairs to the room that must’ve been Paul’s and plugged her cell phone in to charge. No way was she going to be without the use of it right now. The lit-up screen drew Liz’s finger, and she hit the button to speed-dial Jill without even having to look.

  When her best friend answered, Liz couldn’t speak. She sank down onto the floor, phone pressed to her ear. Perspiration pooled between her skin and the plastic backing.

  It took Jill only a second to enter the silence. “What’s going on? Where are you?”

  Still nothing from Liz. Her lips felt thick and numb, unworkable.

  “It’s something bad?” Jill said, an interpreter for the unseen.

  Always, since they had met as kindergarteners at Wedeskyull Consolidated, Liz and Jill had been able to communicate wordlessly. On that first day of school, it had been a shared fear of the bus, their entangled hands enabling them to climb the towering steps. After that, a flashed look, raised brow, or traded snort signaled anything from needed distraction when a teacher posed too challenging a question to a Get me out of here when last year’s discarded boyfriend came around again. But this went beyond words in a whole other way.

  As soon as Liz said what she had to say to Jill, it was going to become real.

  Her best friend’s voice was a soothing hum in the overheated room. “I’m not going to say something asinine like It’s all right. I’m here, if you can talk. Whenever you want to talk.”

  “Oh, Jill.” Liz began to sob.

  “Shhh, shhh,” Jill murmured.

  “Oh no. Oh, Jill. Oh no!”

  “Liz!” Jill was crying, too. “Liz, shit, you’re really scaring me. It’s okay. It’s okay. Where are you? Are you all right?”

  Liz couldn’t reply.

  “Dammit. I said the asinine thing. Liz!” Her voice hit a high note. “Elizabeth Burke Daniels, you tell me what’s wrong right now!”

  “It’s Paul,” Liz sobbed. “Paul. He’s taken the kids.”

  Silence pulsed over the connection in the wake of Liz’s statement.

  “What the what?” Jill said at last. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  Maybe it was hearing her friend talk in something approaching her usual tone. It jogged Liz back into a semblance of normalcy herself.

  “Neither do I,” she muttered.

  “That is not what I was—expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting. I’m sorry, but what the hell are you talking about?”

  Liz relayed her dire discovery, each unfolding turn that led to Paul’s act, in as clear a stream of words as she could muster. The rug felt like burrs against her thighs, and she separated herself stickily from its weave. The act of telling had amounted to exertion. Liz was perspiring and out of breath, panting a bit as the story finally wound down.

  Jill sounded blank. “But—how do you know what that means? How do you know Paul’s not—I don’t know, pissed at you, he’s seemed kind of pissy lately—and they just came back here?”

  Something let loose inside Liz. There was the matter of the disconnected cell phone, but she ignored that for now. She wiped dampness off her face and arms and neck, words tumbling out. “I—well—maybe I don’t. Oh my God. Jill, can you—”

  “You don’t have to say it.” There were fluttery sounds in the background, Jill rising, looking around. “Andy!” she called out, causing a brief ping of recrimination in Liz.

  Andy shouldn’t be disturbed at this hour, not in his current state, and not for what was surely going to turn out to be a wild goose chase.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  “It’s fine, Andy will be fine,” Jill shouted, reading her, somewhere away from the phone. “I’ll call you as soon as I ge
t there,” she added, and ended the call.

  For a few minutes, Liz switched between staring down at the phone’s blank face, willing it to light up, and forcing herself to walk back and forth across the room, saying things inside her head about watched pots. Finally she acknowledged two things. First, that it would take Jill at least twenty minutes to get to Liz’s house, even if she tore down the road that left town and snaked out to the valley, and second that Liz could smell the acrid stink of her own body, an accumulation of sweat and fear and at least one missed shower.

  She had left all her clothes in her suitcase back in the hotel; the idea of going anywhere near the fourth floor again had been anathema to her. The ones she was wearing would have to do, slack and wrinkled as they were. They felt a little fresher once Liz had located the tiny bathroom and sluiced off her skin under an icy rush of water, turning no hot on at all.

  Dressed again, hair wet upon her back, Liz stepped out into the hall. There was a harsh, rasping sound coming from downstairs, and she followed it. Her father-in-law’s form blocked sight, but the motions he was making were unmistakable. His big hand concealed a square of sandpaper, and the other held a brush that began to stroke on a fresh layer of paint.

  Mary emerged from the kitchen, twisting the hem of her apron between her hands. “It’s too hot to eat,” she said, as if she were to blame for the weather. “But suppertime has come and gone, so I fixed us all a little something. Come in.”

  The kitchen was at the back of the house, where the sun had long since passed overhead, making the temperature marginally cooler. Matthew sat at the head of the table, and Liz took a seat on the opposite side, vinyl chair cushion sticking to her thighs. A bowl of chicken salad and another of cut-up fruit sat on the speckled surface. Mary poured cold tea, and Liz, who couldn’t have taken a bite of anything solid, downed a glass gratefully.