Ruthie nodded. Maybe that explained Fawn’s choice of clothing. She took stories very seriously. She got on these kicks where only one story would do, and you’d have to read it to her over and over until she had every word memorized. And then, when she wasn’t being read to, it was like a part of her stayed stuck inside the story. She’d leave trails of breadcrumbs around the house; build little houses out of mud, sticks, and bricks; and she would constantly be whispering to herself and her old rag doll, Mimi, about which way the wolf had gone, or if the frog really could be a handsome prince.
“What are we going to do?” Fawn’s voice was faint.
“I’ll go check outside. See if the truck’s there. Then I’ll check the barn.”
“Mimi says we won’t find her.”
Ruthie took in a deep breath, then let the air come hissing out. “I don’t really care what your doll thinks right now, okay, Fawn?”
Fawn’s head slumped down, and Ruthie realized now wasn’t the time to be a complete shit, killer hangover and missing mother or not. Fawn was only six. She deserved better.
“Hey,” Ruthie said, crouching down and lifting Fawn’s chin. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I’m just really tired and a wee bit overwhelmed. Why don’t you go upstairs and get Mimi. Bring her down, and when I come back inside I’ll make us a big breakfast. Bacon and eggs and hot chocolate. How does that sound?”
Fawn didn’t answer. She looked small and pale. Her skin felt feverish.
“Hey, Little Deer,” Ruthie said, using Mom’s pet name for Fawn. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find her. I promise.”
Fawn nodded and backed away, heading up the stairs.
Then, absurdly, Ruthie thought of Willa Luce. Of how search teams had scoured the entire town—the whole state of Vermont, even—and not found a single trace.
How was it possible to disappear so completely, to be here one minute, gone the next?
Sometimes it just happens, Fawn had said.
Ruthie shook her head. She didn’t buy it. People didn’t just disappear without a trace. Not Willa Luce, and most certainly not boring old Alice Washburne, who had two girls at home, chickens to feed, and only ventured to town two days each week: to sell eggs and knitting at the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings, and to go grocery shopping each Wednesday, when the Shop and Save had double-coupon day.
This was all, obviously, a big mistake. Their mother would turn up at any moment, and they’d all have a good belly laugh about the idea that she, of all people, would go missing.
Ruthie
Ruthie spent nearly an hour searching the house, yard, and barn, but found no sign of her mother. Though her boots and coat were missing, the truck was still in the barn, keys tucked in the visor. There were no footsteps in the snow (of course, it was entirely possible that there had been and they were now buried).
Ruthie stood in the barn, gazing helplessly around at the broken-down lawn tractor, stack of summer tires, screen doors and windows, sacks of chicken feed. Nothing was out of place. Everything seemed normal.
She closed her eyes, pictured her mother looking at her over the tops of her drugstore reading glasses, her gray hair pulled back in a braid, one of her chunky hand-knit sweaters on. “Part of the trick to finding a lost thing,” her mother once told her, “is discovering all the places it’s not.”
Ruthie smiled. “Okay, then. Let’s find out where you’re not.”
Ruthie walked around to the back of the barn to check on the chickens. They were in a big wooden coop with an enclosed run of wire mesh. She unhitched the gate, walked through, and unlatched the coop.
“Hey, girls,” she whispered, voice low and soothing. “How was your night, huh?” The chickens gave anxious little coos and clucks. Ruthie tossed them cracked corn from the bucket outside, made sure their food and heated water dispensers were full.
“You didn’t happen to see where Mom went, did you?”
More clucking.
“Didn’t think so,” she said, backing out of the coop.
She left the barn and looked out across the yard, into the woods. It had snowed more in the night, covering the yard in a flat moonscape of white.
Ruthie mentally ticked off all the places her mother was not: the house, the yard, the barn, the chicken coop. And she didn’t take the truck.
“Mom!” she called as loud as she could. Ridiculous, really. The snowy landscape seemed to absorb all sound; it felt as if she were yelling into cotton batting.
Ruthie looked across the yard to where the woods began. The idea of her mother traipsing off into the woods in the dark of a winter’s night was absurd—as far as Ruthie knew, her mother never set foot in the woods. She had her set routes for chores—paths led to and from the woodpile, the barn, the chicken coop, the compost pile near the vegetable garden—from which she never deviated. Her mother believed in efficiency. Going off the path, exploring, aimless walks—these were wastes of time and energy that could be better spent on keeping warm, producing food.
But still, she might as well rule out all possibilities, however unlikely. She headed back into the barn, grabbed a pair of snowshoes, and strapped them on.
Slowly, reluctantly, she crossed the yard and headed for the woods. Like it or not, she was going to have to do it: pass by the place where she’d found her dad.