“Sure, ma’am. No trouble at all. Nice place you got here. Never been back here but we have an emergency, and the gate was open. Hope that’s all right.”
The gate. I should’ve trekked out and closed it, that first day.
“My father built this place ages ago,” Marie says.
“You live here year-round?”
I dip my head, hoping to catch a glimpse through one of the cracks in the floorboards. My throat tightens. No. Is it—Yes. The uniform, the military stiffness, those intense blue eyes. The sheriff from the gas station. Will he see the Bronco parked in the woods? Will he recognize it, the way the licorice-chewing attendant did?
“I’m just here for the holidays,” Marie says. “Listen, what’s this all about?”
“Right. Well, ma’am. Not sure if you’re aware of this, but there’s a girl who’s gone missing. A local. Six days now and no sign of her at all.”
Finch wraps her hand around mine and squeezes hard. I think back to that day in the woods, the girl and her camera. I squeeze back. Her nails dig into my palm.
“A girl?” Marie clears her throat. “How old?”
“Seventeen. Why?”
“Just curious.”
Finch looks at me. Slowly, I press my pointer finger to my lips.
“How long have you been here, ma’am?”
“Five days. Six.”
“You seen anything? Heard anything out of the ordinary?”
“No.” Through the floorboards, I see her reaching for her cup. “Nothing. But I’ve been inside mostly, with the snow.”
“You cut all that firewood? Quite a stash there.” A different voice. The deputy. Manny.
“My husband, last trip. He didn’t come this time.”
“And the snowman? Did you make that yourself?” Footsteps overhead, heavy and careful, someone moving across the room but trying not to mess up the floor with the snow and mud.
“Yes. Hey,” Marie says. “You said you’d stay on the rug.”
“Come on, Manny.”
“This book. Tuck Everlasting. It’s a kids’ book. My daughter read it last year.”
Manny is standing over our heads, his thick boots covered in mud and dripping slush. A small piece of ice falls through the crack and lands on Finch’s cheek, and I hold her arms tight to keep her from reaching up to move it. Manny opens the book, and Finch’s bookmark, a one-inch-wide piece of cherished construction paper, decorated with pressed lavender from the summer before, falls to the floor, floats, flips over and over and lands just above us, right on the crack where a shaft of light spills through. If he sees us—
Finch clutches my hand tighter. The drip from Manny’s boot slides down her face.
“I’m a librarian,” Marie says. “I read all sorts of books. Adult books, children’s books.” Her voice shaking now. Hands, too. I can see them through the floor. She sounds defensive, guilty.
Steady, Marie. Calm down.
Manny kneels and picks up the bookmark and he is so close I can smell him: sweat, coffee, bacon. “Finch,” he reads.
I press my hand over Finch’s mouth.
“One of the library’s patrons.”
He slides the bookmark back into Tuck Everlasting and puts the book on the table, tiptoes back to the front door. “It’s a good book, Carly said. Made her cry.”
“Heck, Manny. Look at the floor. She asked us to stay on the rug.”
“Just doing my job, boss.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll clean it up, ma’am,” Sheriff says. “You got a towel? A rag or something?”
“No, no. Please: don’t worry. It’s all right. I’ll get it.”
“Well, let me show you this before we go. The parents, they’re understandably beside themselves. Both of them, just a wreck. Anyway, they had a flyer made. It’s posted all over town, but I’m assuming you haven’t seen it. The girl’s a senior in high school. Her name’s Casey Winters.”
A torrent of thoughts. The girl we saw—she’s missing. Whatever that means. She isn’t home, hasn’t been to school. It seems unlikely, impossible, almost, that she has been in our woods all this time, but what if, for some unknowable reason and against all odds, she’s still here?
Marie mutters and grips her skirt and then takes the paper the sheriff is holding. Finch and her notebook and the story of the girl with red hair in the woods—I can picture it, Marie connecting the dots, piecing together some semblance of truth.