I squint, looking around, trying to focus on the noise, to stay calm, to steady myself. There is a sudden loud snapping sound, like somebody or something has stepped on a twig. And then I realize: the noises are coming from the hayloft.
Behind me, the door creaks back and forth in the light breeze. The noise could be anything. It could be something as innocent as a squirrel or the wind coming through a crack in the wall. The smell, so pungent and unpleasant, is probably just the smell of an old barn: wood chewed away by insects from the inside out, piles of who knows what stacked against the walls, my grandmother’s random stuff collected over the decades and stashed away, unused but still wanted. She likes to hold on to things. It’s not so much a matter of being sentimental as it is a matter of her being sort of insane.
The smell is stronger now. It might as well be seeping from the walls. All of a sudden, I recognize it, plain as anything: it’s the smell of rotting apples, the odor sweet and damp and rancid. There are several crab apple trees on my grandma’s property. When my sister and I were younger, our parents used to keep us occupied during visits here by giving us paper grocery bags and sending us into the field to collect the apples that had fallen onto the ground. Usually they were rotting, chewed by bugs in places, obviously not fit to eat. But I remember the way my hands would smell after an afternoon spent gathering apples. They smelled like this place, right here and now. Back then the smell didn’t bother me; I was so happy to be outside with my sister, just the two of us alone, the rest of the world a distraction that we could simply ignore. Today, the smell is overwhelming, so unsettling that my skin feels electric with fear.
I need more light. I walk along the wall, running my hand against the wood, until my fingers find another switch. I turn it on; a bulb a few feet ahead of me glows to life in its socket, crackles loudly, and burns out almost before I have a chance to get a better look at the inside of the barn.
Almost. In the few seconds that I can see more clearly, my gaze shifts toward the hay loft, where the rustling sound seems to be coming from. And I see something: hunched, waiting, watching me: it’s a person. A girl.
As my arms go limp, the jars I’ve been carrying fall to the floor, shattering at my feet. But I don’t care; I barely even notice. Standing in the darkness, I don’t have to see the person above me in the light to know exactly what she looks like.
It’s Rachel.
Chapter Fifteen
Something is wrong. As I rush toward the hayloft, frantic, my sister tries to crawl toward the edge on her hands and knees, but she’s having trouble; she shuffles forward a few inches and then stops, pulls herself into a tight ball, and rocks gently back and forth. She’s wearing the same outfit from the night she vanished: denim skirt, tank top, leggings—but her feet are bare, their soles black with dirt, and her clothes are filthy. But she’s here. She’s alone. If I can only get to her somehow, I can bring her home.
“Where’s the ladder?” My voice is high and scratchy, echoing off the walls. She doesn’t speak, responding instead by shaking her head and pressing two fingers to her lips. Her hands are clasped, like an invisible cord is binding them together.
“Say something!” I plead, pacing back and forth beneath the periphery of the loft, searching for a way to reach her. I don’t see the ladder anywhere; I have no idea how she could have gotten up there by herself.
She presses a hand to her throat, her eyes wide and frightened, and shakes her head.
“What’s the matter? Why can’t you talk to me?”
Her fingertips flutter against her neck; she’s lost her voice.
“Rachel, what are you doing up there? Where have you been? Why did you leave me?” She’s so close to me, but I feel an oppressive sense of urgency, like if I don’t find some way to get to her right now, it might be too late.
Her gaze shifts back and forth across the barn, like she’s searching for an answer. She gives me another helpless look as she points toward the door.
“Does Grandma know you’re in here?”
Another shake of her head.
“Can you get down? Kimber’s with me. We have her car, Rachel. We can take you home right now. Everything will be okay.” I reach upward, extending my arms as far as I can, standing on my tiptoes, urging her to come closer, even though the distance between us is too far to make contact.
“I have to get a ladder. I’ll be right back,” I tell her, stepping away, preparing to run toward the house for help.
She doesn’t want me to leave; that much is clear. Her gaze is pleading, desperate, as she falls onto all fours again and scrambles along the edge of the loft. I can hear her knees scraping against the old wooden boards, the heels of her hands dragging across the dull, splintered surface as she struggles to crawl closer to me.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” I tell her, “I promise.” But I can’t bring myself to leave her alone. I glance toward the door again, at my grandma’s house on the hill. Why do I feel so afraid right now? Why do I feel like I shouldn’t go, like she’ll be gone when I return?
Sitting back on her heels again, my sister opens her mouth wide and gestures to her teeth, tapping her fingernails against her incisors. With her thumb and forefinger, she begins to wiggle one of them. I can tell the tooth is already loose as she tugs it back and forth, but the act is still hard to watch.
“What are you doing?” I shriek. “Stop it!”
I can’t believe what I’m seeing; it’s almost like I’m watching a movie play out on a screen. Her form seems to flicker right before my eyes; the light, which is already dim, recedes further, until I can hardly see anything at all. In the darkness, I can only make out her teeth now; they seem to glow as she pulls, twisting her fingers back and forth until her mouth is smeared with blood.
Rachel yanks out her tooth. My stomach curdles. I clap a hand to my mouth, muffling my scream as I gag.
She reaches into her mouth, peeling her upper lip back to expose the newly formed gap between her teeth. The act is so grotesque, so unbearable to witness, that my steps stutter backward as I turn away, running toward the door.
The tip of my shoe catches on something bumping up from the dirt floor, and I trip, falling hard. I don’t have enough time to brace myself against the fall; my body hits the ground with a hard thump, knocking the wind out of me for the second time today. As I struggle to pull a breath into my lungs, bursts of blackness appear like inkblots in my line of vision.
Finally, I find air. But I remain crouched on the ground for a moment longer, waiting for the black dots and my dizziness to dissipate, blinking as I try to regain my sense of balance. Climbing to my feet, I look around in confusion that quickly tunnels into stunned disbelief.
The barn—so dark and unsettling just a moment ago—is brightly lit now, the atmosphere cheerful and innocuous; I look up to see two rows of fluorescent bulbs running along the highest point in the ceiling, buzzing softly as they glow.
I’m still a little dizzy and confused from my fall, but I’m not that confused; I know what I saw before the lights somehow came on. I know Rachel was here. I glance toward the loft, which is bare except for several piles of hay.
What just happened? Rachel was here; I’m certain of it. But where did she go? The only explanation I can come up with is that she’s crawled behind the hay, that she’s hidden herself from me for some reason.
“Rachel!” I shout, hurrying toward the edge. “Rachel, where are you?”
But there’s no answer. Everything is still. She must be up there, I know, but she doesn’t want to come down. It doesn’t make any sense.
I should get help. As much as I don’t want to leave my sister alone in here, I have no way of getting to her on my own. Leaving the lights on—I can’t bear the thought of shutting them off and abandoning her in the darkness—I run outside, up the hill toward my grandma’s house, barely pausing to regain my footing even as I stumble through the doorway, rushing down the hall and into the kitchen.
&nbs
p; My grandmother leans against the counter as she takes leisurely puffs from a cigarette. Her clothing is covered in blackberry juice, her hands stained a deep shade of purple. Empty mason jars are lined up against the wall behind her. A huge silver pot filled with dark-purple goo simmers on the stove. The room smells so sweet that it’s almost overwhelming. She’s making jelly.
Something isn’t right; I can tell. Neither Kimber or my grandma seem the least bit startled by my breathless appearance, even as I gaze back and forth at them in confusion.
“I know it’s not like me to cook,” my grandma says, dragging on her cigarette, gesturing to the mess all around her, “but what was I supposed to do? Jack Allen’s wife, Louise, passed away a few weeks ago, and Jack is already moving up to Pine Ridge—that’s an assisted-living facility—so he’s clearing out the house, including everything from Louise’s gardens. He told me he thought Louise would want me to have the berries. Ha! I took them—just to be polite, you know—but how the hell am I going to eat them? So I figured I’d make jam.” She pauses, frowning. “Or maybe it’s actually jelly. I don’t know the difference.” She gives us a conspiratorial giggle. “I have a special recipe, though. This is medicinal jelly. I’m thinking about selling it at the senior center. I could make a killing.” She pauses. “Well—so to speak.”
“What makes it medicinal?” Kimber asks, glancing at me. All I can do is stare at them. Their words sound hollow and tinny, like there’s an echo in the room.
“You don’t know? You’re a teenager, aren’t you?” my grandma replies, grinning. “It’s pot jelly.”
What the hell is going on? Why is this happening again? It’s like the record has skipped, and I’m the only one who noticed. Even as I speak, trying to sound calm and normal despite how disturbed I feel, the words seem like they’re not mine as they’re coming from my mouth.
“You’re kidding, Grandma,” I say weakly. “It’s not pot jelly.”
“Fine. Believe what you want.” My grandma grinds her cigarette out in an ashtray. “But I’ll tell you both, that’s the wonderful thing about being old. You can get away with just about anything.”
“Grandma—” I begin, but she interrupts me.
“I know why you’re here, kiddo.” She fans the smoke in the air. “You’re trying to find your sister. Isn’t that right?”
This is impossible. It’s like some kind of sick joke. Why would they do this to me? But what other explanation could there be? Don’t they realize we just had almost the exact same conversation?
Before I can continue, my grandma presses half a dozen jars of jelly into my arms. “We’ll talk about this soon,” she says. “But first I want you to take these into the barn real quick for me, okay? Find some room on the shelves.”
“Here,” Kimber says. “I’ll help you, Rachel.”
“Oh no. Stay here with me, would you?” my grandma asks. “I love having company. I get so lonely all by myself here, day after day.”
Kimber presses her lips together, doing her best not to pout. I have to go back to the barn, I think. She’ll be there.
“You should stay,” I tell Kimber, backing out of the room with my arms full of jars. “I’ll be quick.”
Kimber shoots me a desperate look. She can’t possibly be messing around with me, could she? Maybe my grandma convinced her it would be funny. But I’m obviously not laughing—so why are they continuing to act this way?
As I’m walking down the hall, I hear Kimber ask, “So this woman who passed away—Louise—were the two of you close?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” my grandma says. “She was a bore.”
“Oh.” Pause. “May I ask how she …?”
“How did she die? Well, she was in her eighties, so it should be obvious, shouldn’t it?”
“I see,” Kimber says. “Was she in poor health?”
“No,” my grandma replies, “she was fine.” A match hisses to life as she lights another cigarette. “Her parachute didn’t open.”
The barn is fully illuminated, the bright fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. It seems empty. As I place the jars on a shelf—there is no trace of the shattered ones from just a few moments earlier—they feel oddly heavy; I have to tighten my grip to keep them from sliding out of my hand.
I stare up at the loft, expecting to see Rachel. She isn’t there. But she was—wasn’t she? Why can’t I think straight? I’m exhausted; I almost feel like I could curl up right here on the dirt floor and go to sleep.
There’s nobody here except me, I know. I can feel a goose egg forming on the side of my head; I must have bumped it when I tripped and fell earlier. Maybe I blacked out for a few seconds.
There was no ladder before, but there’s one now: silver and sturdy, leading toward the loft. I rush toward it and climb two rungs at a time, so rushed and shaky that my feet slip a few times on my way up.
She isn’t here. Not anymore, at least. But where could she have gone so quickly? How did she get the ladder? Was there someone else here, helping her?
I squeeze my eyes shut, struggling to recover my memory. In my mind, I see Rachel crouched in the loft. It’s dark. I see her pulling her tooth, twisting it back and forth before she finally yanks it out, the look on her face pleased and hopeful even as I back away, horrified.
She was here; it really happened. Why would I imagine something like that?
I take another long look around, waiting, hoping she’ll step out from behind a corner in the barn beneath me or somehow materialize in the loft, but I’m so tired all of a sudden—all I can think about is going home and getting some rest. Even if she’s still in here, hiding somewhere, she obviously doesn’t want to come home yet. Maybe I should leave her alone, give her some time. At least I know she’s safe for the moment.
Before I climb down, I crawl around on my hands and knees, studying the patterns on the dusty floor, searching for any sign of her.
“Please come home, Rachel,” I say out loud. “I miss you. Everyone is worried about you. I love you. We all love you so much.”
Silence.
I breathe a shaky sigh as I bring myself to a sitting position, frustrated by her lack of response, grudgingly accepting of the fact that she isn’t ready to leave yet, for some reason. “I love you,” I repeat, trying not to cry. “Whatever’s going on, you can tell me. I’ll understand.”
No response.
I bite my bottom lip hard. I’m still disoriented and incredibly tired, my fatigue so overwhelming that I almost feel like I’ve been drugged. The loft feels so much higher than it did just a second ago; the simple act of climbing down the ladder seems dangerous and intimidating.
As I’m crawling toward the edge, I feel something small and rounded beneath my right palm. I pull my hand away, expecting to see a pebble or a piece of glass in the dirt.
I look down. My body twitches with a jolt of adrenaline as I stare, leaning over to pluck the object from the floor. It is shiny and white in my palm, bigger than I would have expected, its pulpy roots fresh with life, their edges rough and bloody.
It’s a tooth.
More than that, though, it’s proof: Rachel was up here. And she’s still around somewhere hiding, unwilling to answer me. For some reason, the fact brings me little comfort.
Before I leave the barn, I slip the tooth into my pocket. As I pull the heavy wooden door shut behind me, I wince at the sunlight, which feels almost painful on my skin. I have no energy; it seems to take effort just to breathe, to walk back up the hill to my grandma’s house. I know she and Kimber are inside, waiting for me; I know my grandma expects to talk about my sister. She claims she wants to help me, but I’m not so sure now. She must know that Rachel is out here. Maybe this is all entertainment to her. It’s possible, I think, that her mind has deteriorated to the point that she’s nothing but crazy now, bored and alone here in this big house, desperate for a way to keep life interesting. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but it’s the best explanation I can come up with at th
e moment.
Chapter Sixteen
At first I can’t find my grandma or Kimber anywhere. The farmhouse is huge—it has sixteen rooms in total—but the ceilings are low and my grandma doesn’t clean much, so the house tends to be cluttered and dark. After I wander around the downstairs for a minute, listening, I finally hear snippets of Kimber’s voice coming from somewhere upstairs.
I find them standing in the hallway outside the only bathroom in the house. Kimber’s face is pale, her expression horrified, as my grandmother leans against the wall while she pets an enormous Saint Bernard sitting beside the bathroom door.
“There she is.” My grandma winks at me. “I was just introducing your friend to the Captain.” She means the dog. I wince, shooting an apologetic glance at Kimber. The Captain belonged to my grandma years ago. After he died, my grandma had him stuffed and placed in the hallway like it was the most normal thing in the world. She still pets him, talks to him, tells him good night and good morning every day. The fur between his shoulder blades is worn thin from so many years of her touch. Even I know that it’s creepy, but I’ve gotten used to it over time. I can’t imagine what Kimber must be thinking right now.
“Did you take care of the jam?” My grandma asks the question like it’s important.
“Yes,” I say. I tug Kimber’s arm. “We should go, Grandma. I feel bad showing up out of nowhere. You’re in the middle of … something.” My tone has a harsh edge to it. I don’t want to play this game anymore. I could confront her about what’s just happened, but I get the feeling she’d only lie to me.
Beautiful Lies Page 17
