Last Girl Ghosted(73)

“When’s a good time?” It’s getting late. I’m worried she’ll put me off until tomorrow.

“No time like the present, Miss Greenwood.”

“I’ll be right there.”



thirty-five


Then


Every time I killed a thing, it hurt a little less. I grew accustomed to watching the light die in eyes, to bodies growing slack and still, those final shuddering breaths. My body grew stronger, my aim more precise. My tracking skills became elevated—more than just seeing and following signs, I could feel the energy of my quarry.

“You’re a natural, little bird,” my father said, with something like awe in his voice.

He became a silent assistant, the muscle required to lift and carry. He did the dirty work of bleeding, gutting, skinning, preparing meat for curing, salting, and smoking.

Those days with him, spent mostly in nature, mostly in silence, often catching nothing, eating our packed lunches as we sat against a tree or perched on boulders by the creek. I hate to say it. Those were happy days. It was in the night that the demons came for him, mainly when he’d been drinking, but not always. Something about the sun setting. He was two different men. During the day as we worked, when he homeschooled me, when we took off our shoes and waded in the creek, he was at peace. In those moments, I regretted what I’d done, calling the police.

The weeks wound on and no one came.

My mother grew more silent, withdrawn. She wore one arm in a sling, favoring it, but didn’t dare go to the doctor. Jay got angrier and angrier, the fuse between him and my father quicker to ignite.

My mother took Jay into town to take his GED. Of course, they never said so, but I sensed that she was trying to help him leave. That one day they’d go to town and she’d come back without him. I knew she would never leave me and my father, but Jay was old enough to go. He could have joined the army and my father wouldn’t have been able to do anything.

But he didn’t leave us.

I wish he had.

I was sleeping the night they came. I was deep in the woods of my dreams, tracking a doe through the brush unarmed. When I came close to her, I sat and watched her graze, relieved that I wouldn’t have to kill her, that I could just let her be.

Jay roused me with a rough hand to my shoulder, the green light of the woods fading into the darkness of my bedroom.

“I need you to go to the tree house and stay there until I come to get you.”

Two crisp, sharp shots rang out, shouting voices carried on the night. I knew in my bones what was happening. Jay pulled me from the bed, threw my tattered jeans at me.

“Get dressed.”

“I called them,” I said, shifting out of my pajamas and putting on the clothes. I didn’t even care if he saw me in my underwear.

“Who?”

“The police. I called the police, told them about the guns.”

He froze. I thought he would explode like my father. Instead, he put a hand on my head.

“That’s good,” he said. “That was smart. Now go hide. I’ll get you when it’s over.”

I wanted to hug him. But I didn’t. We just didn’t do that. My brother was stiff and distant, maybe all boys were. He wouldn’t even let my mother kiss him, and I knew how much he loved her. I should have grabbed him and wrapped my arms around him. That’s a thing I’ll always regret.

“Go.”

Robin was waiting for me on the porch. Together we ran along the narrow path to the big oak where my tree house sat and scrambled up the ladder. Above us, through the slats, there were stars. Voices and shots rang out through the night. We were frozen, silent, my heart thumping.

I knew Robin wasn’t real. But she was real enough. I’ve done a little research since then, into the theories of the imaginary friend. It’s a function, often of the traumatized childhood psyche, a survival mechanism. Sometimes it comes in the form of an animal, sometimes it might be a spirit or an angel. Robin was everything I was afraid to be—at one with the woods and that place, brave, unafraid of the dark, and my father’s rages, my mother’s weakness. She observed it all with the equanimity of the wise.

My breathing was shallow, my heart an engine. I knew I couldn’t stay hidden while Jay and my mother might be in danger.

I looked at Robin.

She said, Where’s your crossbow?

Joy is waiting for me at the door when I walk up the path. She is a slim and angular woman with a steel gray bob. She smooths her pencil skirt, tugs at the collar of her crisp white blouse, every inch the elegant librarian. But as I approach, she softens and opens her arms. She smells like Miss Lovely; they wore the same perfume, L’Aire du Temps, floral and light. Her embrace is solid, strong, where Miss Lovely was soft and ensconcing. But I still take comfort in it, hold on to her longer than I would hold on to most people.

“I take it you two know each other.”

Joy pulls back and peers over her glasses at Bailey, who comes up the walk behind me. Her expression leaves no doubt that she is not impressed.

“You don’t return calls,” he says into the silence that follows.

“I do,” she says. “In time.”

She loops her arm through mine and brings me inside. I wonder if she’ll shut him out, but she lets him enter, too. The interior of the building smells of hardwood and old paper, a comforting smell that makes me think of Miss Lovely and her library of books. The more digital the world becomes, the more I find myself craving wood and paper, solid, simple things.