The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (80 page)

“You eat up now, Dave,” Hazel told him. “You need your strength.” Then she leaned over and started cutting up his pancakes for him.

Sammy stared, eyes locked on his father like someone who sees an accident and can’t look away. Their mother shifted uncomfortably in her seat, said, “I wish you kids could have met your great-grandfather. Sometimes,” she went on, her voice low and serious again like she was telling a story, “sometimes I’m sure I see little pieces of him in each of you.”

Da took the fork Hazel handed him, stabbed at his plate, missing the pancake entirely. Hazel took the fork back and fed him herself.

Lisa’s mother winced, but when she caught Lisa looking, she forced a smile. Then her mom folded her napkin, pushed her chair back away from the table, and said, “Well, if you’re all set here, I think I’ll go out to the garden and do some weeding.”

“Of course we are,” Hazel said, feeding Da another bite. “Aren’t we, Dave?” Some pancake fell out of his mouth.

Lisa touched the ugly yellow teeth in her pocket. Wondered what it felt like to go crazy. If maybe it was a little like walking into a thunderstorm with an umbrella. Or maybe it started small—like thinking the kitchen table and candy dish were haunted, or insisting you’ve just seen fairies in the woods even though your brother and cousin, who were right there with you, seemed determined to deny it.

CHAPTER 7

Phoebe

JUNE 5, PRESENT DAY

T
hey were finishing up a breakfast of strawberry pancakes, which Evie called flapjacks. “Like my mom,” Evie said, “remember?” which gave Sam a dreamy sort of smile that made Phoebe’s stomach hurt. Phoebe had very few warm, fuzzy memories from childhood, and even if she had, there was no one to share them with. No long-lost cousins to be reunited with. Before her mother’s death four years ago, she’d talk to her three, maybe four times a year, and then it was usually because her ma was looking for money, not to share memories of old family recipes.

Phoebe smiled at Evie. She wasn’t going to let her cruddy-ass childhood cloud the fact that she was happy for Sam. While it’s true that she did feel a twinge of envy when she looked at Evie and understood all she and Sam had shared, she was determined not to screw this up. Evie seemed like the golden ticket. Just what Sam needed to start opening up about his past. And as much as she admired him for being able to move on, curiosity got the better of her. She wanted to hear about Lisa. About the Fairy King and the hidden door.

Hidden doors. Trapdoors.

Like the one the old woman must have come through last night.

Stop it
, she told herself.

“Do you come from a big family, Phoebe?” Evie asked, and Phoebe stammered a bit, said, “No, it was just me and my mom. She passed away just before I met Sam.”

“I’m sorry,” Evie said, giving her a doe-eyed look and leaning across the table like she was thinking of embracing her in yet another hug. “Were you very close?”

Hell no!
Phoebe wanted to say. Instead, she shook her head, looked down at her half-eaten pancakes. She was saved from having to explain any more when there was a quick, frantic rapping at the door.

“Jesus!” Elliot said, throwing down his fork. “Don’t tell me she’s back again!”

“I’ll go,” said Evie, reaching over to squeeze his wrist. “Maybe she’ll be less intimidated if it’s just me. You all finish eating.”

They were all silent, listening to Evie’s footsteps on the wide plank floor. Then the door opened and she said, “Hello again. Can I help you?”

This was followed by a horrible, frantic scream.

Phoebe knew the old woman in the flowered hat was back and that she’d done something awful. She raced out of the kitchen and saw Evie clutching her side, her white T-shirt stained crimson with blood. And there stood the old woman, wielding the corkscrew Elliot had pulled from his vest pocket and left on the kitchen table last night.

Phoebe was used to blood. She’d seen some pretty gruesome things at the clinic: dogs and cats carried in after hit-and-runs; a poodle maimed by a pit bull; a shepherd that had been caught for days in a leg hold trap and had gnawed his way free.

“Let me see,” she said, reaching to pull up Evie’s soaked shirt, but the other woman kept her hand clamped tightly over it.

“I’m okay,” Evie said, looking pale. “It’s not too deep. Go get her!”

“Go!” Elliot yelled. “I’m gonna get Evie into the Jeep and go for help. Catch the bitch!”

The world was reduced to a single narrow tunnel just then, and there, at the end of that tunnel, was the only fact Phoebe could be sure of: she was going to catch up with the old woman, pin her down, and get some goddamn answers. But first, she was going to throw up.

Phoebe made it through the door just in time to vomit strawberry pancakes and coffee onto the flagstone path leading up to the cabin. Through the tearful retching, she heard the old woman singing that song in a wicked, crackling witch’s voice:

Say, say my playmate

Come out and play with me.

“Who the hell are you?” Sam was in the open door behind Phoebe. The old woman, who was standing at the edge of the woods, shifting from foot to foot like a little girl who has to pee, stopped singing and winked at him.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, weak little lamb-y!” she sang. Then the old woman dropped the corkscrew and took off into the woods, Sam right behind her. Phoebe got to her feet and followed on shaky legs, stomach churning.

R
unning, running. Tripping on roots and stones. Branches scratching her face. She kept sight of Sam’s pale blue T-shirt through the trees. The old woman was somewhere in front of him, but she was losing her clothes.

At first, Phoebe saw the robe lying on the forest floor. Then the hat. Her dress. Shoes. At last, she saw a mass of gray hair. A wig.

The bitch had been wearing a disguise.

Phoebe pushed herself harder. Faster.

What if the wound was deeper than Evie admitted? And what if the nearest hospital turned out to be an hour away. How much damage could a corkscrew do? What if it had hit a major artery? Or an organ? Phoebe tried desperately to recall anatomy charts she’d once memorized for high school biology. What was even down there? Ovaries? Spleen? She was clueless. Damn. If she’d been a vet tech instead of a receptionist, someone with some actual medical training, she might have been able to help more.

How long had they been running? How far had they gone?

Her legs pumped, her breath whistled. Aside from the weekend hikes with Sam, Phoebe was not big on exercise. The old woman ran like a coyote. She was just a shadow in front of them. Then she was gone.

The trees were thinning. Up ahead, Phoebe saw a huge, unnaturally bright green meadow that reminded her of the plastic grass in Easter baskets. The old woman was running across it, naked.

Only she wasn’t an old woman. She had short red hair and the lean, taut body of a twenty-year-old. And she was screaming.

“Help! Oh God! Somebody help me!”

It
is
Lisa!
Phoebe thought. And she would have said it out loud, if she’d had the spare breath required for speaking.

“Please help me!” the naked redheaded girl wailed, her arms crisscrossed defensively across her torso, covering her small breasts. Her skin was milk white and flawless. Her cheeks were flushed but not damp. She seemed, to Phoebe, too perfect to be real.

And then, across the field came three men with golf clubs. They’d followed her out into the middle of a goddamn golf course. One of the men, the tallest one, who was dressed in plaid pants, tackled Sam. Another stood over him, golf club raised like a weapon. The third man grabbed Phoebe and pinned her hands behind her back. Phoebe screamed, “Let me go, you idiot! Grab her! She’s the one! She stabbed Evie!”

The naked woman was sobbing, trying desperately to cover herself with her arms. One of the men draped a yellow sweater over her.

“What happened?” asked the man who was pinning Sam to the ground.

“They . . . they . . .” the woman in the yellow sweater sobbed and choked. “I was hitchhiking out on Route 12 last night. They picked me up. Then they took me into the woods. And they . . . they did things . . .” Her voice crumpled.

Phoebe and Sam looked at each other, stunned. “She’s lying!” Phoebe screamed. “She stabbed Sam’s cousin with a corkscrew! We’re staying at a cabin in the woods and this old woman showed up . . .”

“What old woman?” asked one of the golfers.

“Her!” Phoebe shrieked. “She was wearing a disguise!”

She only realized how absurd it sounded after she’d said it.

“They took off my clothes and tied me to a tree,” said the woman in the yellow sweater. She showed the men rope burns on her wrists.

This is not happening
, thought Phoebe.
This cannot be happening.

“What are you?” Sam asked the redhead in the yellow sweater. He looked petrified.

“I’m calling the police,” announced the man who’d given the girl his sweater.

“Good,” Sam said. “Tell them my cousin Evie and her husband are heading into town on Route 12 and that she’s been badly hurt. They’re in a black Jeep with out-of-state plates.”

Soon they were joined by two state troopers in uniform and the town constable, whose name was Alfred and who smelled like he’d just come from chores in the barn. The golfers had released Sam and Phoebe but stood by with their clubs in case any attempts were made at escape. One of the men had gone back to the clubhouse and found a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for the naked woman. The T-shirt said
FERNCREST COUNTRY CLUB
.

The woman, thought Phoebe, whoever she was, was a wonderful actress. She knew just when to cry, when to look like a frightened child, and when to show anger. She had all the men but Sam hanging on her every word. She touched them each, thanked them, made them feel like her saviors. Their eyes were astonished, proud. And wasn’t there something else there, too, in their watery middle-aged eyes? Phoebe recognized it at once: they were spellbound. These men were clearly captivated by this beautiful damsel in distress.

“Shit,” Phoebe mumbled under her breath. She and Sam were screwed.

The mysterious victim showed off her rope burns and told her story once more to the police, who took notes. Phoebe looked over at Sam with a
what the hell is going on
expression. His eyes looked dazed and glassy. Phoebe had a sense that maybe, if she concentrated hard enough, she’d wake up back in the cabin. That she was just trapped in some nonsensical nightmare.

When they’d all had a chance to tell their stories, the police decided the only thing to do was take a walk back into the woods.

“If what you’re saying is true,” said Alfred the constable to Sam, “then we should have no trouble finding the woman’s disguise.”

“All our stuff is at the cabin. Please try to find Evie and Elliot. They’ll back up our story. And Evie was injured, bleeding all over the place. I want to be sure they made it to a doctor.”

But the trouble was, they couldn’t find any part of the woman’s disguise.

Not good
, thought Phoebe.
Definitely not good.

They fanned out through the woods and came up with nothing. Phoebe recognized landmarks: trees and rocks she’d passed, tripping over them and scratching her face, so she knew they were going the right way. But the woman’s wig and clothing had disappeared. Phoebe began to feel a new and creeping dread.

Eventually (Phoebe guessed it was an hour or so since first giving chase to the old woman) they got to the cabin. Elliot’s Jeep was gone. In its place was a battered Toyota pickup.

Sam was pounding on the closed cabin door, calling for Evie and Elliot.

An old man in green pants and a flannel shirt answered. His eyes seemed unnaturally blue and clear, like bright marbles set inside a sunken-faced, shriveled apple-head doll.

“Hello, Danny,” the constable said to the old man. Danny nodded back and Alfred continued. “Sorry to bother you so early on a Saturday. But there’s been a little trouble in the woods. These folks say they’ve been staying here. Is that right?”

The old man focused his piercing blue eyes on Phoebe and Sam. “Never seen them before,” he said.

“And you’ve been here all morning?” asked one of the state policeman.

“Since yesterday afternoon.”

“He’s lying,” moaned Sam. “We spent the night here. In the back bedroom. All our stuff is inside.”

“Mind if we take a look?” asked the constable.

The old man held the door open for them. “Be my guest, Al.”

The place had been cleaned up. But there were ashes in the fireplace from the night before and the air still smelled of pancakes. All the breakfast dishes had been put away. There was no sign of Evie and Elliot. Their room was empty, the bed made. When they got to the room at the end of the hall where Phoebe and Sam had spent the night, it too was tidy. Their bags were gone. The bed made.

“Our things!” Phoebe shrieked. Everything they’d brought was gone: duffel bags, her purse, their camera. The only things left were the clothes they were wearing. None of it made any sense, and she began to feel like a woman in the middle of a psychotic break, unsure what was real and what wasn’t.

Then she looked, and there on the windowsill was the tiny orange stone right where she’d put it. As the others turned from the room, she scooped up the stone and dropped it into her pocket, comforted to have a shred of proof.

Whatever was happening, she was not going crazy. They had spent the night here.

The state police took information from the owner of the cabin, then they headed back into the woods, the strange shape-shifting girl in the lead.

“Is there any word on my cousin and her husband?” Sam asked. “She was hurt badly.”

“Nothing’s been called in,” one of troopers said. “And no female with a stab wound has shown up at the emergency room.”

Phoebe took Sam’s hand. One of the troopers walked in front of them, the other behind them, as if they were already prisoners.

“What’s going on?” Phoebe whispered.

“I don’t know,” said Sam, squaring his shoulders, trying to play the part of the brave boyfriend.

“She knew your name,” said Phoebe. “Just before you chased her into the woods, she said your name. Maybe she saw it when she was going through our things.”

“No,” said Sam. “There’s more to it than that. That weak little lamb-y thing she said—it was a rhyme Lisa used to tease with me with. No one else knows about it.” There went Sam’s shoulders, back into the slouched, little boy position.

“So, what? Are you saying you think this girl is Lisa?”

“No! Definitely not.” The state trooper ahead of them turned to look back. Sam continued, lowering his voice. “But it’s like she knows her. Or knows things about her.”

“Maybe she’s from the land of the fairies,” Phoebe ventured, knowing how ludicrous it sounded.

Sam shook his head. “Jesus! There is no land of the fairies, Bee. Lisa was taken by a real person to a real place. Shit, she probably never even made it out of those woods alive.”

Phoebe felt a rush of guilt. She’d been so compelled by the idea of the fairies and the book that she’d forgotten the facts: Sam had lost his sister to what was most likely a brutal, and terribly human, crime. She needed to be more gentle and supportive, beginning with backing off from the crazy fairy talk.