“Ron was mad when he came to the restaurant.”
Mary recalled how he had walked silently in, his jaw like a jutting crag of rock, and sat down. Without a word, his eyes boring into Mary’s, he had slid her a gloriously fat envelope. She held his gaze while she fingered each bill under the table, counting them out. Then she slid him her own envelope, the one with the Polaroids.
“The Dackards were nice, but we couldn’t stay there forever,” Mary said, as she pulled the tent, still in its package, from the back of the Blazer. “Now come on. Help me get this thing set up.”
Mary spread the components of the tent on the ground in front of her and set to work. Her long lean arms secured stakes and threaded poles through fabric channels as Hannah held the flashlight. The night was a dense black, hung with the moon and its companion stars.
As Mary worked, she drew the attention of two men in the nearest occupied campsite, who had positioned themselves to watch her. With gray beards and black leather jackets, they reclined against their picnic table, their hands curled around cans of beer and their faces illuminated by the undulating flames of their fire. Beside their tent were two large luggage-strapped motorcycles parked on a blanket of dead pine needles. “Let us know if you need any help,” they called, their gravelly voices playful.
Mary heard the pop of wood as their fire consumed it. Her head jerked up. She looked at the men, her hazel eyes more yellow than brown.
But she said nothing.
Once the tent was up, Mary unrolled the sleeping bags and set them inside, then hung her flashlight from a small hook at its peak. Scooting back out, she stood at the entrance and looked at Hannah. “Check it out,” she said, tilting her head toward the tent.
Hannah stuck her head in and was taken with it at once, scrambling in and lying on her back atop one of the sleeping bags. Her hands were beneath her head and her teeth were visible through her smile.
“You like it?” asked Mary, bending down toward the entrance. The tent with Bunny in it reminded Mary of the Easter eggs Diane used to buy her, the ones made of sugar with a window into an intricate scene inside.
Hannah nodded. “It’s like where rabbits live,” she said.
Mary chuckled. “Yeah,” she said. “Perfect for a bunny.”
On her back, Hannah gazed up at the tent’s ceiling, and Mary knew that it was turning to vines and roots and moist brown earth in her sister’s mind.
Mary gathered sandwich makings and then followed Hannah into the tent. “We can pretend that we’re Princess Mary and Princess Hannah, and that this is an enchanted forest,” she said, assembling a sandwich, using her knees like a countertop.
“And that we just got out of the Black Woods,” said Hannah, curling her arms around her small body.
“And that there’s a magical creature here that looks like a huge cat, and if we can find him, we can ride on his back and defeat the evil queen.”
Hannah’s head fell back onto the tent floor. “How many nights do we get to sleep in here?” asked Hannah, giddy.
“A bunch,” answered Mary, as she handed Hannah a PB&J. “We can stay until we don’t want to stay anymore.”
Hannah took a bite of the sandwich and smiled contentedly, her gaze softening as her mind drifted to lands faraway. “Do you think that scroll might be in here? The one that could help Mom?”
Mary stroked Hannah’s head. “I don’t know, Bunny” was all she said.
The girls each ate three sandwiches, and then Mary helped Hannah zip up in her sleeping bag.
“Night, Bunny,” she said, kissing her nose.
“Can we look for the magical cat tomorrow?”
“First thing,” replied Mary, then she picked up the sandwich makings. “I’m going to go stick these in the truck.”
She had just shut the car door when the men called to her from their campsite across the way. “Want to come sit with us?” the younger one said, his voice just starting to slur. “We got some beers.”
Mary looked from side to side, then walked briskly to the men, somehow seeing everything around her, sensing it as coolness and heat, light and dark. The men elbowed each other excitedly at the approach of the girl with the black hair. When she stopped, she stared at them for a moment before speaking. “Did you hear?” she asked. The men looked at each other, trying to determine if they were equally confused. “About the attack?”
Finally, the young one, the braver one, spoke. “What attack?” he asked, his free hand finding its way under his arm. Beside them, the fire snapped and danced.
“The panther. One dragged a man into the swamp by his throat. He was kicking the whole time, but his throat was filled with blood so he couldn’t scream.”
The men looked at each other nervously. “We didn’t hear anything about that,” the older one said, trying to sound dismissive.
“You won’t. The state’s trying to keep it hush-hush. They don’t want people to know that the panthers are back,” she said. And as quickly as she came, she turned and left, stalking back through the dark with quick, quiet steps, leaving only silence in her wake as the men watched her behind the flames.
Back at site 21, Mary unzipped the tent and, finding Hannah still awake, climbed in. Without a word, she lay next to her. And when Hannah’s eyes finally slipped shut, Mary reached for a novel that she had taken from Gail. Its unread pages were cool and virgin, and Mary slid her fingers inside to flex the spine. She balanced a flashlight against her shoulder and held the book above her face. They wouldn’t be going back to the Water’s Edge, Mary knew that. And as she read, with a strand of her dark hair tucked into the corner of her mouth, she felt a pulling in her chest. She remembered the day several years ago when her heart opened up, then closed back around the object it so desired.
Eight
1982
It was their motorcycles that woke her, the burn of them as they roared out of the park. Mary lifted her head, her gaze turned toward the sound. Next to her, she heard Hannah breathe sharply, then saw her eyes struggle to open. Mary rested her head back down and let it roll toward her sister. “Morning, Bunny,” she said, as Hannah propped herself up and glanced around the tent, looking disoriented. “How’d you sleep?”
With her eyes still swollen from sleep, Hannah thought for a moment. “Good,” she said.
“We need to go into town,” said Mary. “We need to buy some food.”
Hannah made a grunting noise, and she squirmed her way onto her belly, burying her face into the bag’s plaid flannel lining.
“Come on, Bunny,” said Mary, nudging her sister with her foot. “We’ll find a diner or something.”
Once in the Blazer, Mary turned the heat up to high. Next to her, Hannah had her coat pulled tightly and her chin sunk into her chest. Mary laid her fingers over the vent until she felt the air turn warm.