The Children on the Hill(89)
The Helping Hand of God: The True Story of the Hillside Inn Julia Tetreault, Dark Passages Press, 1980
THE AFTERMATH
Dr. Thad Hutchins took his own life with an overdose of barbiturates one week after the fire at the Hillside Inn. Many dark secrets no doubt died with him. He was able to tell the police a few things in his first interviews.
According to Dr. Hutchins, the boy who had been raised as Dr. Hildreth’s grandson, Eric, had been born at the Inn in the fall of 1969. He was the child of an eighteen-year-old young woman with a mood disorder and a drug addiction—a long-term patient at the Inn. The child’s father is unknown. The young woman went into labor early. Dr. Hildreth delivered the child and told the mother her baby was stillborn—as her own twin girls had been so many years before. Dr. Hildreth believed she could give this child a better life than his mother could. He was, according to Dr. Hutchins, an experiment in nature versus nurture. The boy was raised to believe he was Dr. Hildreth’s grandson, that his parents had died. At this writing, he is in foster care and doing well with his new family and new identity. Any record of his biological mother’s identity was destroyed in the fire.
The girl known as Iris is also in foster care. Attempts to learn about her background have been unsuccessful. Dr. Hutchins reported that Dr. Hildreth brought her to the Inn herself. He claimed he did not know where she’d come from. Although whatever documentation there might have been about Iris was destroyed, it is clear she was part of the Mayflower Project. The child bears scars of both open-heart surgery and brain surgery. She has no memory of her life before the Inn.
Patient S—a.k.a. Violet Hildreth—disappeared without a trace. The last time she was seen was the night of the fire: July 28, 1978.
Where does a thirteen-year-old girl on her own go?
No real records remain that could tell us who she truly was. No proof that she even existed at all. No paper trail.
The police put little effort into finding her.
Using the few notes I had from Dr. Hildreth’s surviving files and my own research into the remaining members of the “Templeton family,” I believe I have identified Patient S.
Here’s what I discovered.
On October 3, 1974, a small mobile home in Island Pond, Vermont, burned down, killing Daniel Poirier; his wife, Lucy; and their older daughter, Michelle. Their younger daughter, Susan, was never found. It was reported that Susan had been sent to live with family out of state. I tracked down her birth certificate and second-grade class picture. I am convinced that this girl, Susan Poirier, born September 3, 1965, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, is Patient S.
I am also convinced that she is out there still. That she may, one day, hold a copy of this book in her hands.
* * *
Susan, if you’re reading: You are Susan Poirier. Your second-grade teacher, Mrs. Styles, remembers you as the smartest girl in the class, bright and cheerful and full of questions. You have family in the Northeast Kingdom still—aunts, uncles, cousins. None of them blame you for the things that happened. All of them hope that you will one day come home.
Lizzy
August 21, 2019
DON’T MOVE,” I ordered, my voice a croak.
The monster turned toward me, not looking very monstrous at all.
And the girl turned too, swiveling her head around, the hair on one side cut short, the other long.
“Hello, Monster Hunter,” Vi said, smiling. She had short, dark hair flecked with gray, a few wrinkles around her brown eyes. She was trim, muscular beneath her green T-shirt. She had on jeans and leather boots. She looked so… ordinary. And so much like her thirteen-year-old self that I was startled.
“Drop the knife,” I ordered, aiming the gun right at her chest.
The monster continued smiling and held up the pair of scissors she had in her hand to show me before dropping them. They clattered to the floor.
I looked down at the floor, covered in wisps of blond hair with purple tips.
She’d been giving Lauren a haircut.
“Step away from the girl, Vi.”
The monster gaze me a quizzical look, took three steps backward, her hands raised in the air. “I haven’t heard anyone call me by that name since you did last, right here.”
“Lauren!” Skink cried from behind me, running for the girl who was standing now, taking off the sheet. She was wearing yoga pants, a T-shirt. Other than the funky half-finished haircut, she looked absolutely fine.
“Skink?” She stepped forward and embraced the boy. “Oh my God! What are you doing here?”
“I came to save you. Well,” he said, smiling sheepishly, “Lizzy and I did.” Then he demanded, “Did she hurt you?”
“No,” the girl said.
“Drug you? Hypnotize you?”
“Um, no. Nothing like that.”
“I don’t get it,” Skink said. “What did she do?”
“She saved me.”
I still had the gun pointed at Vi. “Skink, I’d like you to take Lauren out of the room, please. Go back upstairs and wait for me there.”
“Really,” Lauren said, “there’s no need for all this. I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. I mean, I’m sure my hair looks a little ridiculous right now, but that’s kinda your fault, right?” She laughed.