What's Done in Darkness

by Laura McHugh

  “We can’t rule it out,” Farrow said. “But no, I don’t think she ran away.”

  I stared at a neon-green Post-it: Helen, Dairy Queen, Worm X. My most prolific volunteer would be arriving soon to get her latest foster puppies dewormed. The Dairy Queen litter. They’d been found in a dumpster behind the restaurant.

  “What makes you think I can help?”

  “She has some things in common with you, Sarabeth.”

  “Sarah,” I said. “I go by Sarah now.” He knew that, no doubt, and used my old name purposefully, in an attempt to dredge up the past, to haul painful memories to the surface, foul and dripping. I thought of my brothers playing at the muddy edge of the farm pond one spring, poking hibernating frogs to wake them. Leave them be! my little sister, Sylvie, had piped. They’re dreaming. Sylvie wouldn’t be little like I remembered her. She’d be sixteen now, my brothers grown into men.

  “Sarah,” he said, his voice softening. “You might have a valuable piece of information without realizing it. Something that could help us find her. You could bring her home.”

  He stated it with conviction, as though it was a real possibility, but he was wrong. I couldn’t save anyone. Five years later, my own survival still seemed tenuous. I’d stopped taking pills for anxiety and insomnia, not because I didn’t need them anymore, but because I worried they made me less alert. I had nightmares, the fear so visceral that I felt no relief even when I woke in my own bed, the night-light burning brightly enough to illuminate the familiar landscape of my bedroom.

  “I wish I could help, I really do.”

  “You can. All I’m asking—”

  “Look, I’m at work,” I said. “It’s not a good time.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Her name’s Abby Donnelly.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

  “Think about it,” he said. “Think about Abby. I’ll be in touch.”

  I hung up, chilled by the sweat that had dampened my skin during the brief conversation. I didn’t know for sure whether Farrow could compel me to talk to him, but I told myself that he couldn’t. I pressed my palms to the desk, breathed in the scent of disinfectant, clamped my tongue between my teeth. You’re okay. You’re safe. Despite the rituals of reassurance, I felt wobbly, like my bones had gone soft. I kept Sarabeth buried as best I could, but the grave was shallow and easily disturbed.

  “Hey,” Melissa said, pushing the door open with her elbow, an armful of crusty-eyed kittens clutched against her substantial bosom. “I need somebody to drive a crate of baby raccoons to the wildlife rehab. If we’re not there by five they lose their spot.” She made kissy faces at the kittens, murmuring baby talk. “And coccidia is spreading through the holding room again. Think Helen’ll take another sick litter?”

  I tried to wrench my attention back to where it needed to be. Orphaned raccoons. Sick kittens. Problems I could actually do something about.

  Melissa glanced over at me and frowned, her foundation creasing across the bridge of her nose. She was still wearing her summer shade, a tawny beige applied liberally from hairline to jawbone, though her neck and arms revealed the paleness of early October. Her bleached hair was gelled back into a banana clip, exposing the paw-print tattoo behind her ear, and a purple fitness tracker cut into the flesh of her wrist. The Fitbit had been a gift from her ex, a trainer who was always nagging her about diet and exercise, and from what I could tell, Melissa continued to wear it out of spite. Oh, look at that, asshole! she’d mutter. Ten thousand freaking steps before noon.

  “You sick?” she asked. “You look awful.”

  Melissa could be counted on to speak truthfully, if not tactfully.

  “Really? I feel fine.”

  She arched an eyebrow and took a step back. “If you’re sick, don’t spread it around.” Melissa had endless sympathy and tolerance for sick animals but couldn’t stand to be ill herself. She was still bitter about the time she caught swine flu and missed both the holiday adoption rush and the end-of-year office party.

  “I’m good,” I said, almost convincingly. “Just one of those days.”

  “One of those days?” She studied my face, probably trying to determine whether I was developing a contagious fever or simply having a rough morning. Her expression softened. “Why don’t you go check on the cat room,” she said. “The volunteer didn’t show up.”

  An excuse to play with the animals—Melissa’s version of therapy. She had no formal medical training, but she had good instincts and could sense when something wasn’t quite right, like when a kitten was about to fade or an employee was on the verge of a breakdown. She was a good boss, and I was grateful that she’d taken a chance on me.

  I’d shown up for my interview the same day an animal hoarder’s house had caught fire, and intake was swamped with cats and dogs in various states of neglect. Melissa had pulled me into the back immediately and was impressed by my stoicism during the onslaught of filth, wounds, and bared teeth. I had grown up on a farm, had seen worse things.

  I was nervous, at first, that someone at the shelter might recognize me from the news, though by then more than two years had passed since I’d been in the headlines, and I didn’t particularly resemble the old photo that had been circulated when I was found: teenage me at a church revival in an old-fashioned prairie dress, barefaced, sandy hair that hung all the way to my hips. By the time I started my job, my hair had grown out a bit from the drastic cut that had been necessary after the uneven shearing I’d endured in captivity, but I never let it get past my shoulders. I had dropped the extra syllable from my first name and gotten rid of Shepherd altogether, replacing it with my middle name.

  I needn’t have worried. There were no sideways glances, no whispers, no one telling me that I looked familiar. A few months ago, a new vet tech named Karim had tilted his head when I popped in for an update on a spaniel, his index finger tapping his lips. He had the charismatic smile of a talk-show host, and when he focused his attention on me, it gave me the uneasy sensation of standing onstage in a blinding spotlight. He turned his finger toward me, pointing. “Are you from the Bootheel?” I’d frozen in place, and he mistook my fear for confusion. “Your accent,” he said, grinning.

  I shook my head, looking down at his sneakers to avoid his smile. “Arkansas.”

  “Oh, Little Rock?” I’d learned that Little Rock was the only place in Arkansas anyone not from Arkansas had heard of.

  “No,” I said. “A small town. You wouldn’t know it.”

  Karim started to reply, but I’d mumbled an excuse and darted out. The next few times I saw him, he’d tried to engage in friendly conversation, but I always cut it short. I was too worried that he’d bring up Arkansas again, that he would somehow connect invisible dots and guess my secret. He still smiled at me, warmth and charm radiating from him like cartoon sunbeams, but he spoke carefully now, in soft tones and only about work, his movements slow and deliberate, as though trying not to spook a skittish animal.

  I hurried past the exam room to avoid running into Karim or any of the other techs and let myself into the cat room. Kitten season was still going strong thanks to the warm weather, and most of the cages were full of adorable fluff balls that would have no trouble getting adopted. The older cats were a tougher sell. I knelt to check on a scrawny orange tabby named Mr. Marmalade, who was yowling and digging at his cage door. He was a stray from the Swan Lake trailer park, used to roaming free. He tried to squeeze through the narrow gap as I eased the door open, but I managed to catch him and hoist him up, each knob of his spine protruding beneath his fur.

  “I get it,” I murmured. “It’s no fun being locked up.” He tensed and drove his claws into my chest, ready to launch himself out of my arms, and I hastily maneuvered him back into his cage. “I’m sorry,” I said, clicking the latch. “I hope you get out of here soon.”

  I spotted a plump tortoise
shell kitten that reminded me of a mama cat we’d had on the farm. Sylvie had liked to give her milk in the fancy china saucer we’d rescued when Mama threw out the last of our grandmother’s things. We watched the cat birth a litter of kittens in our barn, the newborns squeaking and trembling, eyes sealed shut, blind to the world.

  I hadn’t wondered back then, but I did now—what it was like when their eyes opened for the first time. If the light was painful or frightening or if it felt like a miracle, like when I emerged from days of darkness, my blindfold torn away to reveal a pink sky over a trash-strewn highway rest stop. The light had been soft and unbearably beautiful, and it made me squint. I’d hoped that it was sunrise and not sunset, because I couldn’t bear the thought of the dark returning so soon. As I lay on the cold gravel, the sun grew brighter and brighter and I’d thought of Pastor Rick’s sermons on the Resurrection and figured this was as close as I’d ever get to being born again and starting a new life. I had thought, in those first moments of daylight, that I’d put the darkness behind me.

  * * *

  —

  Helen swept in at eleven with a crate of freshly bathed puppies, the air in my office filling with the luxurious scent of her vetiver perfume. Helen’s dark corkscrew curls haloed her face, a few threads of silver creeping in at the temples. Large princess-cut diamonds gleamed on her earlobes. I’d begged my mother to let me get my ears pierced when I turned thirteen, but she’d insisted that it was a sin to defile the body the Lord had given me.

  I used to save the good jewelry for special occasions, just like my mother did, Helen had told me once when she caught me admiring the earrings. But now I figure waking up in the morning is reason enough. She’d squeezed my arm and laughed warmly.

  Helen might have looked more glamorous than the typical shelter volunteer, but her appearance didn’t get in the way of her work. She was the one we turned to for the most challenging cases. Helen would take the paralyzed terrier whose bladder and bowels had to be manually expressed; the Lab with such severe separation anxiety that he would tear apart any closed door. Helen could handle the ringworm cases, the amputees, the cats that needed Baytril injections or ointment that had to be applied directly to the eye.

  “Aren’t they just darling?” she said, reaching into the crate to extract a sleek black pup not much bigger than her hand.

  “Yes,” I said, stroking the smooth fur, noting the cushion of fat beneath. “Much better shape than when they came in. So what theme did you decide on?”

  “Greek mythology,” Helen said, rising to add their names to the list on the whiteboard. Dairy Queen litter: Ares, Artemis, Athena, Persephone, Zeus, Apollo.

  “I considered dairy-inspired names, given their provenance, but I didn’t get very far down that road.” She snapped the cap back on the marker. “Nothing wrong with being aspirational.”

  I eyed the running totals on the board. “You’re beating Dave and Evelyn,” I said. “You’re a lock for most fosters again this year.”

  Helen smiled, perfect veneers gleaming. “Oh, it’s not a competition, is it?”

  “Evelyn thinks it is.”

  She laughed. “Just give her the plaque. I don’t have room on my wall for another one.”

  That wasn’t true. I had seen bits of Helen’s home in the photos she posted on the foster page, and from what I could tell, she was not lacking in space. She bathed dogs in an enormous farmhouse sink in an airy kitchen with endless, uncluttered marble countertops. Cats lounged in a vaulted sunroom filled with potted citrus trees and an elaborate network of kitty condos. The buff leather interior of her Mercedes appeared spotless in pictures despite numerous posts about animals having accidents in the car when she took them home. Poor Oscar had a rough ride—how can such a tiny angel throw up so much?—but now he’s clean and dry and napping by the fire! I envied the animals sometimes—what it must be like to have Helen caring for them, their surroundings safe and serene, any messes promptly tidied up and forgiven.

  “So what’s new with you?” Helen asked as I got out the Worm X, her brown eyes wide. She always asked how I was doing, if I had fun plans for the weekend, always listened attentively to my underwhelming responses, which were usually “fine” and “no.” On the rare occasions that I revealed something mildly personal, like a visit to the botanical gardens for the orchid show, she would say “Oh, tell me more.” Helen was the closest thing I had to a friend, though I would have been embarrassed for her to know that.

  The closeness was illusory. She texted me every day, but it was mostly to share pictures and updates on her fosters. I knew a lot about her, but nothing terribly personal. If I wrote it all down, it would read like a breezy celebrity profile. She liked Louis Vuitton bags, the bigger the better, and had a weakness for peanut butter M&Ms. She was divorced, retired from some sort of executive position, and was now involved in philanthropy, serving on various boards and attending countless charity galas.

  “What’s new with me?” I did my best to smother Nick Farrow’s voice in my head, to ignore the memories flaring up like an outbreak of hives. I squirted Worm X into the puppies’ mouths, one after another. “Nothing, really.”

  Helen tilted her head, concern welling in her eyes. “Are you all right?”

  I stared at her, my skin itching, and wondered if my thoughts really had manifested in a rash, too virulent for my body to suppress them.

  She touched her clavicle, pointed to mine with a long, lacquered fingernail. I’d never seen her without an impeccable manicure, each nail filed into the shape of a tiny coffin. “You’re bleeding,” Helen said.

  I dabbed at the threads of dried blood where Mr. Marmalade had clawed me. The punctures were tender to the touch. “Oh—it’s nothing. I’m fine.” I forced a smile for her. “Just a stray who wanted out of his cage.”

  Helen immediately produced a wet wipe and a tube of antibiotic ointment from her massive purse. “The poor thing,” she murmured, shaking her head. “It’s traumatic, being locked up, don’t you imagine? The stress and the fear. Changes a creature, makes them do things they wouldn’t do in ordinary circumstances.”

  I couldn’t argue.

  * * *

  —

  The sun blazed in the rearview mirror as I drove home on a back road along pastures and cornfields. It felt deceptively like the countryside, even if the silhouettes of outlet malls and stadiums loomed in the distance. St. Agnes, with its quaint brick streets and farmers markets, was less than twenty minutes from downtown St. Louis. My neighborhood was nestled on the west bank of the Missouri River, rows of small but cozy Depression-era bungalows with covered porches and shade trees.

  My house was nearly identical to those tucked on either side of it, except for the thicket of lilac bushes that kept it hidden from the street. I liked the feeling of being surrounded by people while remaining invisible. I’d bought the place with a settlement from the Clayton County Sheriff’s Department, which had treated me like a criminal from the beginning, spreading baseless claims to the media that I’d faked my own abduction. Meanwhile, they lost the one piece of evidence that might have proven them wrong. I hadn’t wanted the lawsuit, fearing it would only draw more attention, but the counselor and the lawyer from the Midwest Victims Advocacy Network had explained that it was in my best interest, given my limited options and resources. They’d gotten me out of Arkansas and into a temporary shelter, but I had no diploma, no job experience aside from working on the farm, no one to provide references or co-sign for a loan.

  I’d spent most of my first two years in St. Agnes holed up in the house taking online courses, earning my GED (as it turned out, my homeschool certificate had not been legitimate) and an associate’s degree, and learning how to do normal adult things like drive a car and manage a bank account. After I graduated, Casey, my counselor, had gently suggested that it might be time to integrate myself into society—meet people,
make friends, get a job—not just because the settlement money wouldn’t last forever, but because if I continued to confine myself inside my own four walls, wasn’t I in a sense still trapped? For years on my family’s farm, and then later in that dark room, I had longed to be out in the world, living free, but when given the chance, I’d voluntarily imprisoned myself. There’s no one holding you back now, Casey had said, except you.

  My foster dog, Gypsy, a 120-pound mastiff, whined and clawed at her crate when I walked in. I let her out into the backyard and she ran the perimeter, sniffing along the privacy fence, trampling what remained of the late-blooming zinnias in the flower beds. She had arrived at the shelter with jagged pink scars across her face, a milky eye, and a wariness of men, but given time to warm up, she’d proven loyal and sweet. In the three months I’d had her, no one had shown any interest in adopting her. Her appearance was intimidating, the lingering evidence of her secret trauma scaring people away. Her scars didn’t bother me. I didn’t mind when people saw us coming and cut a wide berth. I felt safer with her around.

  The sun fell below the fence and the warmth vanished with it. It would be harvest time back on the farm, the fields glowing gold in the slanted light. I whistled for Gypsy to come inside, and she lay with her head on my feet while I ate dinner and watched TV. When it was time for bed, she curled up in her crate and I began my nightly ritual, walking through the house room by room, peering into closets and behind curtains, turning off lights, checking each door and window to make sure it was securely locked. The white walls were splotched here and there with various shades of green paint from seafoam to teal, as though the previous owners couldn’t decide which color they liked best and gave up. The realtor had breezily remarked that it would be easy to paint over, but I hadn’t bothered. In the years that I’d lived here, the only things I’d hung on the wall were a Humane Society calendar from work and a chalkboard that I’d thought I would write things on but never did. It remained a pristine black void, like a window looking out on a perpetually starless night.