The Broken Girls(90)

It took him longer to get up—she didn’t look back to see why. Gasping for breath, her throat on fire, she sprinted as hard as she could in the direction of Idlewild, adrenaline giving her a burst of speed. The ground was hard and uneven, her boots kicking through tangles of dead weeds, but for once she didn’t put a step wrong. She just ran and ran.

By the time she got to the cover of the trees, her chest was on fire, her legs weak. She could hear him shouting behind her, his voice echoing off into the open sky, but she couldn’t make out the words. Then, with a chime of terror, she heard the car’s engine. He was going to cut her off when she got to Old Barrons Road, and he wouldn’t have to do it on foot.

Fiona called up the map in her head. She knew every part of this place, every foot of the terrain. She ran past the trees and down through a steep ditch, the bottom soaked with deep frozen mud, and scrambled up the other side, fighting her way through the undergrowth. Her hands were icy cold—she’d lost her gloves somewhere; she had no memory of it—and her throat burned, but ahead she saw the south end of the fence that bordered the Idlewild property, at the far end of the sports field. She climbed the fence, her numb fingers trying to slip on the chain links, and swung herself over.

She put her hands on her knees and gasped for breath, like an Olympic sprinter. Her head and neck were alive with pain, the aching so awful it throbbed through her jaw and the roots of her teeth. Saliva filled her mouth, and she spit on the ground, hoping she wouldn’t throw up. Garrett would drive back up Old Barrons Road; that meant he planned to either climb the fence or get in through the front gates if he could. The gates were sealed with Anthony Eden’s fancy new automatic lock, but Fiona had no illusions that Garrett, who was still fit at sixty, couldn’t climb a fence. Still, it would take him precious minutes. She had to use them.

She started across the field at a quick jog, her legs protesting. The wind blew hard, stinging her ears and her neck, and after a minute she wasn’t even surprised to see the detritus of mourning at her feet—the cheap flowers and handwritten notes she’d seen before. This isn’t her place, Lionel had said of the drive-in, but here in Idlewild—this was Mary’s place. This was where she walked. Fiona knew she was nearby the same way she knew that the crows were overhead and that Garrett Creel was on Old Barrons Road.

“I’m here,” she said to Mary Hand, and kept running.





Chapter 32


Barrons, Vermont

November 2014

It was easier to ignore the flowers and the cards this time. Easier to watch her boots scuffle through them and kick them aside as she made her way across the field. Now that she knew what Mary was. But the fear didn’t go away. We were all so horribly afraid, Sarah London had said, but Fiona understood now. That Sarah London had spent thirty years in this place, with this fear. That the girls had lived with it. That Sonia had lived with it, and yet she had come running back, fleeing her killer, dropping her suitcase in the trees. Just like Fiona was running back now.

This place, she thought. This place.

The garbage underfoot fell away and she passed the gymnasium, approaching the main building with its rows of teeth. Come back, it seemed to say to her, grinning in anticipation. Come back here as you always have. As you always do. As you always will, over and over. Come back. She ran toward it without question, drawn to its grinning face.

A backhoe was parked in the gravel in front of the main hall, and a pickup truck was parked next to it, but she saw no sign of workers. Whoever it was she had glimpsed before was gone. She shouted, but her voice was only a hoarse whisper, blown away by the wind. She’d seen vehicles here earlier, movement; she was sure of it. Where had they gone?

The big black front gates were locked; there was no sign of a security guard. Had Garrett already come and gone, finding no way in? How much time had passed? She had no idea, but when she heard a car’s engine approaching from the road, she decided not to chance it. She turned and ran to the front door of the main building, trying to call for help over and over.

The front door of the main hall was locked. Fiona stared at the keypad next to it, blinking stupidly, trying to remember the code she’d seen Anthony punch in. She’d watched him do it, watched his fingers move over the keys—if only she could remember. She pulled the memory dimly from her brain and punched in a number combination, her surprise muffled with pain when the light went green and the door clicked open.

She slipped inside, closing the door behind her. A car’s engine could be heard faintly outside, and she walked hurriedly across the high-ceilinged main hall, her boots scuffing on the dusty floor. Her breath frosted on the air, and there was no sound in here except a rustling in the rafters—birds or bats.

How did anyone ever learn in this place? she wondered as she walked to the bottom of the main staircase. She stared up at the balconies above, spinning away from the staircase like a wheel, and her head throbbed. She pictured Roberta Greene here, the young teenager with a braid down her back, wearing the Idlewild uniform from the photographs. Going up and down these stairs, textbooks under her arm, her head down. Wondering when she’d encounter the resident ghost. She’s an echo, Roberta had said.

Fiona put a foot on the bottom step, thinking to go upstairs and look for the work crews from the windows, but something stopped her. She turned.

A girl stood in the shadows of the west end of the hall, watching her. She was small and slight, her face in shadow. She wore a green-and-blue-plaid skirt and a white blouse. The Idlewild uniform.