I got up. I went to my room, where I stood on my desk chair and reached for that shelf full of horses. There was one in particular, a horse I’d named Aurora, that came with a small compartment inside its hollowed belly. I used a dime to pry it open and pulled out the wad of money I’d stashed inside over the years. Six hundred dollars—that’s what all my work on those essays had totaled up to.
Despite Abigail’s presence in the basement, my mother had left that bare lightbulb on just as we’d agreed. When I made my way down the stairs, I saw Penny smiling inside Mr. Knothead’s old cage. I looked away and walked to that partitioned area where the light did not fall and where I found Abigail fast asleep on a cot with one of my mother’s knit blankets draped over her body. Some part of me thought to turn back and head upstairs, to forget about giving her the money. But as I stood there, staring at the moonlight shining on those bandages around her hands, I could not help but wonder what worse things she might be capable of doing to herself—or to my family—if she did not get her way.
“Abigail,” I whispered.
Her eyes opened. She sat right up. When she spoke, it made me think of earlier in the summer when it was still a surprise to hear her voice. “I’ve been waiting for you, Sylvie. Did you bring what I need?”
“Yes. But I still don’t like the idea.” As much as I wanted her gone, I couldn’t keep from saying, “How will I know if you’ll be safe?”
“It’s not your problem,” she told me. “I’ll be fine, though. Don’t worry, Sylvie.”
There seemed nothing more to do but give her the money. All of it, because she’d need more than cash for a train ticket. Abigail might have been among the few haunted people my mother could not help, but in my own way, I could. With one of her bandaged hands, she took the wad of bills from me, not bothering to count any of it. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” I told her, noticing a foggy sort of expression move over her face as she lay back on the pillow. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Well, no. Not really. I feel wiped out, I guess.”
Who knew if this was just part of her act? I couldn’t be certain, but I put my hand on her forehead anyway. Like that time I had kissed my mother’s and found it cool, I was surprised to find hers felt the same. “Do you need food? Maybe something to drink?”
“No. Your father brought dinner down to me a while ago. And there’s a glass of water right there on the floor by my cot.”
We were quiet a moment, the two of us breathing in the shadows of that basement. At last, I asked, “When will you leave?”
“Sometime tomorrow. But instead of following the path through the woods, I have a better plan. Since it’s Saturday, your mother will want to go grocery shopping. Let’s go with her, and I’ll sneak off when she’s busy at the register.”
It seemed as good a plan as any, so I agreed to it. And then, although I meant to say good night, a different word slipped out, “Good-bye.”
Abigail let out a weak laugh. “Sylvie, I just told you I’ll see you tomorrow, so it’s not time for good-bye just yet. But before you go back upstairs, can you do one last thing for me?”
“What?” I said, but then I understood. “Oh. Yes. Sure.” I looked down at her head on that pillow, hair fanned all around as moonlight shone through the sliding glass door, making her face appear ghostly but beautiful. In that moment, she seemed like the spirits my father so often spoke of, an energy trapped between this world and the next. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I whispered, “The captain has turned on the Fasten Seat Belt sign. . . .”
Abigail listened. She smiled. She closed her eyes.
“Then what?” Lynch asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. After you made the deal with my sister and drove to church, what happened next?”
Lynch rubbed his face, glancing up at the clock. Eight minutes before our visit would come to an end.
“Stop wasting time,” I told him.
“I’m not wasting time!” he burst out. “You come here! You demand this story I’ve told a thousand times. You tease me with this information about my daughter! So I need a minute to clear my head!”
Rummel’s heavy steps moved toward the table, but I held up a hand and they stopped, then retreated. “Okay, then,” I said to Lynch. “I understand. Take a minute. But we haven’t got long.”
The man blew out a breath and rubbed his hands over his bald scalp. “I parked on the street behind the church. Your parents knew my van by then, so I figured if they caught sight of it, they would turn right around and leave. Your sister told me the key was kept in the window boxes at the church, a detail she recalled from your father’s days as a deacon. Sure enough, there it was. I let myself in.”