The Girl in the Woods

 

Shortsightedness seemed to be the theme for the day. In the minutes after she drove away from Kay Todd, leaving the old woman and her lies behind, Diana felt liberated from a bothersome burden, and knew, instinctively, that the feeling was a close relation to the one she felt driving away from Vienna Woods for the first time. I have my life back. This life belongs to me, and I won't be weighed down by the needs of others. But just like the day she drove away from Vienna Woods, a second, stronger emotion crept into Diana's psyche as the day wore on, and it was one she knew all too well from her days dealing with her mother. Guilt. Her old nemesis. Diana wished she could turn her back on people like Kay and walk away, but the past always came back and bit her.

 

So here she was, boomeranging her way back to Dan.

 

Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out.

 

Jason. She'd been waiting for his call all day. If he knew where she was sitting, he'd shit.

 

"Hey," she said, trying to sound normal.

 

"I'm sorry I didn't call," he said. "They just let me off."

 

 

 

"I figured. What's the story?"

 

 

 

"I've got a lot to tell you. We were out beating the bushes all day. Foot patrol. Walking through the woods, knocking on doors, stopping cars. Nothing yet. They called it off because it got dark."

 

 

 

"Is the captain still working?"

 

 

 

"He left about an hour ago. Where are you? Are you in the car?"

 

 

 

"I'm driving, yeah."

 

 

 

"Do you want to come over? I'm starving, and I want to talk to you."

 

 

 

"I can't right now," Diana said, still studying the house. "And they really don't have any more to go on? On the news, they're saying they found her bike on the other side of town. Are you looking over there?"

 

 

 

"The working theory is someone grabbed her on the route she usually rode, then dumped the bike on their way somewhere else. Maybe on the way to Chancellor or Straw Grove. But I'm not sure. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. It's looking like a needle in a haystack unless a witness walks in at this point. She's been gone over twenty-four hours already..."

 

 

 

His voice trailed off.

 

"So?" Diana prompted.

 

"Jesus," he said. "I'm sorry, Diana. I know this has you thinking about your sister and all of that. It's just been such a long-ass day. I didn't mean to be flip."

 

 

 

"It's okay." She took her eyes off the house. "Can you tell me anything more than what you've already told me? Anything?"

 

 

 

She heard Jason sigh on the other end of the line. "I don't know. It was pretty fucking depressing. We walked for miles and miles, through fields and into woods, looking for...I don't know what. A scrap of clothing. A strand of hair. A shoe. It was tough."

 

 

 

Diana closed her eyes. She imagined the woods, the endless trees and tall grass, the dark spaces no eyes could penetrate. She wished she could have been there, in the heart of the action, searching for the missing girl...

 

 

 

And then she felt the first symptoms coming on.

 

A sharp and pointed pain, like an ice pick or a nail being driven into the base of her skull. She opened her eyes, but the night before her was fading, dissolving away like a photographic technique in a movie. Blackness encroached from the edge of her field of vision.

 

It was coming.

 

"Oh, God," she said, her voice just a whisper.

 

"Diana?" Jason said. "What's wrong?"

 

 

 

Her heart rate accelerated, a rapid squeezing in her chest. Her eyes grew heavy, and it required an effort to keep them open. Her joints started to ache, and she felt her body closing in on itself, retracting, as though it wanted to simply shrink into a ball and fade away, disappear into the driver's seat and become invisible.

 

"Diana? Where are you?"

 

 

 

"Jason...I feel it coming..."

 

 

 

"Diana?"

 

 

 

But she was gone.

 

She was in the clearing...

 

 

 

 

 

...where she saw the trees and the large area of ground where nothing grew. Just the black rich earth and the moonlight shining off the rocks, giving them a frosted glow. The wind picked up, carrying a chill that caused Diana's arms to break out in gooseflesh. And the breeze also carried a scent, something sweetly rotten and decaying. Diana stared at the rocks and at the ground, as though something there would reveal itself to her. And in a moment, it did.

 

Bell, David Jack's books