There had not been anything new. That part was not a lie. But those three words, “She is evil,” had been added to the file Abby was now keeping in her head.
Two sets of footsteps came from down the hall. Cass and Judy Martin entered the room, causing both Leo and Abby to stand.
“I see you got some clothes,” Abby said, smiling at Cass, who sat down neatly in a small chair pulled from a desk. She folded her hands in her lap. Her knees and ankles glued together. Shoulders straight as a board.
“My mother let me borrow some. The shoes belonged to Hunter.” Her voice was flat, unemotional. “He’s coming to visit later.”
“Years ago, I put on some weight,” Judy said, not able to help herself as she found her way into a formal armchair. She was no more than a size or two smaller than her daughter, something that Abby had not even noticed until it was mentioned. But Judy could not take any chances. There could be no mistake that she was thinner than her daughter, who was now a beautiful young woman.
Abby felt her gaze pulled back to Cass, who watched intently as though willing her to see something only they could see.
“Should we continue where we left off?” Leo asked. “I think Dr. Winter has some avenues she wants to explore about the island.”
Cass nodded and smiled again, politely. Her demeanor had changed drastically from the day before. There were no tears. No desperate pleas.
“Cass, you said it was that night that made you believe the boatman would eventually help you?” Abby asked her, looking down at a legal pad.
“Yes. Well, not that night but because of that night.”
She looked tired, as though she hadn’t slept much either.
“Because of what happened after you got back to the house—after the first time you tried to escape?”
“Yes. Should I tell the story now?”
“Yes,” Abby said.
Cass took a breath, in and out, then began to speak in a slow, methodical rhythm.
“It was three days later. That night, when I got back to the house, it was dark and dead quiet, except for the generator. It came on and off when something in the house needed electricity, like heat or hot water. It was pretty loud and it was on when I got to the front door, so I went inside and up to Emma’s room with no one hearing anything. ‘What happened?’ she asked me. I could see she was distraught that I was still there, on the island. I told her about the current and the oars and Rick taking the boat. She grabbed my arms and shook me, hard, and yelled at me through a whisper that I had ruined everything. And she was right. Six months of planning was gone. She ordered me to leave and I did. I could hear her crying as I walked down the hall.
“My room was on the other side of the upstairs, like I said, and so I had to be quiet as I walked around. I lay down but didn’t sleep. And in the morning, when Rick showed up with groceries and mail, I forced myself to stay at the desk where we studied and do what I always do, which is glance up and then look away because he was hard to look at. If you looked at him too long, you could feel his anger like water in a kettle. I had never considered asking him for help or telling him anything, even before Lucy told me about his past and how they had saved him from drugs and his guilt.
“He came and left and everything seemed normal. I slept that night, relieved and grateful because I thought he hadn’t told them and it would just be forgotten. Another day passed, and another night of sleep. I felt my nerves settle down and when they did, the disappointment poured in. I realized then that I was right back to where I had been, and that I had exhausted myself and worried Emma for nothing. Just to be back in the same place.
“It didn’t help that Emma was mad at me, and not just pretend mad for our plan. She was mad because I had failed.
“On the third day, Emma and I came downstairs to breakfast set at the table. Usually we just made some toast and took it to our desks. Lucy didn’t like us being around the baby. ‘Sit down,’ Bill said. It was strange that they were both there in the kitchen like that. But we did what was asked of us and sat down. Lucy poured us some juice and then gave us plates with two toaster waffles and syrup. Then she sat down as well, with the baby in her arms and Bill standing behind her.
“‘We’ve been thinking,’ Lucy said. ‘Maybe you girls have been here long enough. Maybe it’s time to go home.’
“I felt a rush of happiness! I thought Rick had told them about the boat and the rocks and the oars that wouldn’t steer me out of the current and now they were just going to let us leave. We weren’t prisoners. How stupid we had been! Why didn’t we just ask to leave? All this time, they would have let us go! And then I felt guilty for thinking bad things about Bill and Lucy, for being so stupid and melodramatic.
“Emma looked at her baby and started to cry. ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘We can go home now?’ Lucy smiled. ‘Of course! You always could.’ They told us to finish eating and then go pack our things, which we did. But before that, when we were at the top of the stairs, Emma about to turn left and me right, she grabbed me and hugged me and told me I had saved us all. I packed so fast, you can’t imagine! I put things into three plastic bags because that was all I had, and I left whatever didn’t fit inside. Emma and I were on the dock within half an hour. It was February, and the cold is hard to describe. It cuts into you.
“Bill and Lucy were there, with the baby. Rick was in the boat waiting with the motor running. I hugged them both. I thanked them for everything they’d done for us. Emma did the same. Bill took our bags and put them on the boat. Then he helped us step over the railing and into the boat. Lucy was standing right next to us, holding the baby. Emma reached her arms out to take her, but the boat started to move, to pull away.
“‘Wait! Stop!’ Emma yelled at Rick. He shut the motor. We were ten feet from the dock, Emma’s arms stretched out as far as they could go, reaching for her daughter. ‘What’s wrong, love?’ Lucy asked her. She had the most evil look on her face. ‘My baby!’ Emma said. ‘Oh, no,’ Bill called out. ‘Julia’s not going with you. Why would you think that?’ Emma started yelling at them, screaming all sorts of terrible words. It was as if the whole eleven months of being deprived of her flesh and blood had infected her with poison that was now gushing out like an exploding volcano.