On her bed, a pair of cats lay sleeping, twined together like a French braid.
“Meet Rocky and Adrienne,” Ellie said as she crossed the room and scooped up the apparently boneless animals. The cats hung lazily from her arms, yawning. She tossed them into the hallway, said, “Go to Mommy’s room,” and then turned to Julia. “The sheets are clean. There are towels in your bathroom. The hot water still takes decades, and don’t flush the toilet before you shower.” Ellie stepped closer. “Thanks, Jules. I really appreciate your coming. I know things have been … bad for you lately, and … well, thanks.”
Julia looked at her sister. If she’d been another kind of woman, or if they’d been different sisters, she might have admitted: I had no where to go, really. Instead, she said, “No problem,” and tossed her suitcase into the room. “Now tell me why I’m here.”
“Let’s go downstairs. I’ll need a beer for this story.” Ellie started for the stairs, then turned back to Julia. “So will you.”
Julia sat in her mother’s favorite chair and listened to her sister in growing disbelief. “She leaps from branch to branch like a cat? Come on, El. You’re getting caught up in some country myth. It sounds like you’ve found an autistic child who simply wandered away from home and got lost.”
“Max doesn’t think it’s that simple,” Ellie said, sipping her beer. They’d been in the living room for the better part of an hour now. There were papers spread out across the coffee table. Photographs and fingerprint smudge sheets and missing-children reports.
“Who’s Max?”
“He took over Doc Fischer’s practice.”
“He’s probably just over his head with this girl. You should have called the University of Washington. They’ll have dozens of autism experts.”
“Yeah, God forbid someone smart should live in Rain Valley,” Ellie said, her voice spiking up. “You’re not even listening to me.”
Julia made a mental note to temper her comments. “Sorry. So, there’s more to the story than dirty hair and prodigious tree-climbing skills. Hit me.”
“She won’t speak. We think—Max thinks, anyway—that maybe she doesn’t know how.”
“That’s not unusual for an autistic. They seem to operate in a different world. Often, these kids—”
“You didn’t see her, Jules. When she looked at me, I got chills. I’ve never seen such … terror in a child.”
“She looked at you?”
“Stared is more like it. I think she was trying to communicate something to me.”
“She made direct, purposeful eye contact?”
“Hel-lo, I just said that.”
It was probably nothing, or maybe Ellie had it wrong. Autistics rarely made purposeful eye contact. “What about her physical mannerisms? Hand movements, way of walking; that sort of thing?”
“She sat in that tree for hours and never moved so much as an eyelash. Think reptile stillness. When she did finally jump down, she moved with lightning speed. Daisy Grimm claimed she ran like the wind. And she sniffed everything in this weird, doglike way.”
In spite of herself, Julia was intrigued. Perhaps she’s mute. And deaf. That would also explain her getting lost. Maybe she didn’t hear people calling for her.”
“She’s not mute. She screamed and growled. Oh, yeah, and when she thought we’d killed her wolf, she howled.”
“Wolf?”
“Did I forget that part? She had a wolf pup with her. He’s out at the game farm now. Floyd says he just sits at the gate and howls all day and all night.”
Julia leaned back and crossed her arms. Enough was enough. This had all been a ruse, another of her sister’s misguided attempts to save poor little Julia. “You’re making this up.”
“I wish I were. Unfortunately, it’s all true.”
“She really has a wolf pup?”
“Yes. And are you ready for the kicker?”
“There’s more?”
“She has a lot of scarring.”
“What kind of scarring?”
“Knife wounds. Maybe some … whipping marks. And on her ankle—ligature-type scarring.”
Julia uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “You better not be pulling my chain. This is a big deal.”
“I know.”