Nothing to See Here (34)

“Watch us,” Bessie said again, louder.

“I am watching you,” I said. “You look beautiful.”

“Aww,” Roland said, knowing that I was lying.

I felt the sun on my face, listened to the sound of the kids in the pool. It was peaceful. It was boring as shit, but it was peaceful. I closed my eyes for a second. The summer seemed to stretch out for miles, forever.

When I woke up, my whole body startling into consciousness, I looked in the pool and the kids were gone. How long had I been asleep? A minute? Eight years? Anything between these two periods of time seemed possible. My neck was killing me. “Bessie?” I said, quiet, so no one would hear me. It defeated the purpose, but I was trying to be cool, so cool. “Roland?” I said. Nothing. The pool was calm, empty. I looked around. The kids were gone. I instinctively looked toward the windows in the mansion. There was no sign of Timothy, no witness to my irresponsibility. And then I thought, What if the kids are in the mansion? What if they sneaked into it? What if they’ve got Timothy in a headlock? I felt sick to my stomach.

I stood up and started walking around the pool, checking behind the lounge chairs, making sure they weren’t hiding from me to teach me a lesson. I looked into the pool, all the way to the bottom, but it was empty. I ran back to the guesthouse, opened the door, and shouted for them, but there was no response. I checked every room: no sign of them. I looked at the phone, thought for a split second about calling Carl, but I could not imagine the judgment inherent in that interaction. I’d never live it down. It would be noted in the permanent record on me that Carl kept inside his brain.

I slipped into the mansion undetected and went to the kitchen, where Mary was making pasta, folding the dough into these intricate little purses.

“Mary, have you seen the kids?” I asked her, so casual, like I already knew the answer and was only testing her.

“Not in here,” Mary said, not even looking up at me. “You lose them?”

“Maybe,” I said, unable to lie to Mary. She smiled a little, her hands moving so effortlessly. “Better find them,” she replied.

“I guess so,” I said. “Don’t tell Madison about this?”

“No,” Mary said, the word so certain, so strong, that I wanted to kiss her. I knew we weren’t in this together. But it made me happy to be protected by her, even if just for a few seconds.

And now the world seemed to become large and overwhelming. I’d spent so much time inside this estate, which, yes, was fucking huge, but it had seemed manageable, safe. I looked around, I am not joking, to see if the kids had sprinkled bread crumbs to make their path visible to me. They had not. Goddamn, these children. Not a single crumb of bread. And now some witch was eating them. Or they were burning down the witch’s house. Whatever they were doing, I knew who would get blamed.

I kept walking, not calling out for them, trying to locate them by some kind of ESP, like I would find them just by holding them in my mind until they simply appeared in front of me, definitely not on fire. I kept looking toward the horizon, searching for smoke.

And now that I was a one-woman search party, it finally hit me that I was responsible for these children, me and me alone. This was a big fucking responsibility. Why had Madison and Jasper entrusted me with such a job? The magnitude, the lives of two children, holy shit. It’s strange that this didn’t sink in when the kids were actually on fire. Fire had seemed manageable. Disappearing without a trace, that seemed more problematic, more serious. Or at least, I knew which situation would result in my getting blamed more than the other. One was genetics. One was negligence. I wasn’t prepared for this. If someone stole a package of steaks from the Save-A-Lot, who cared? I didn’t. I most certainly did not. This was different. How had it taken me this long to realize it?

And, then, like a second bolt of lightning, it struck me with dead certainty what would happen if the children disappeared, if they died, if they simply inconvenienced everyone around us. I would be blamed. And I would be sent back home. And just like all those years ago, when I’d been kicked out of Iron Mountain, everyone would sit there blaming me, wondering why I thought I was anything other than what I was. Madison? That would be the end of our relationship. She had asked me to do this one thing for her . . . well, this second thing for her. If I couldn’t do it, if I failed her, why would she need me? I would lose her again. I had never let her down before. I felt my heart stutter in my chest. I couldn’t let this happen.

“Kids!” I shouted now. “Bessie? Roland?” I walked into the woods at the edge of the estate. “Bessie! Roland! Come back! Get back here right now!” I shouted. I didn’t care who heard. Maybe one of the gardeners would come running, help me look for them. But, no, it was just me. It was always going to be just me, walking into the dark woods, looking for these kids.

I kept following the trail that someone had blazed through the forest, though it was slightly overgrown and thorns kept sticking to my bathing suit. I wished I had something other than flip-flops on. “Bessie! I am not joking. Bessie? Come back,” I said, but there was no response. I could be going in the exact wrong direction, but what else could I do? I just kept walking, every once in a while saying their names so they knew that I was coming for them. What I’d do with them when I found them, I tried to keep that out of my voice.

After about twenty minutes, I finally saw the woods open up, and there were the kids, right where the light came in. They were standing there in their swimsuits, and it looked like they were taking and retaking this one tentative step. They were so close to running away. Just beyond the woods was a road. But they were paralyzed, right at the moment when they had to decide. And I caught up to them. I was right on them. My hands were on them, touching their weird little bodies.