June, 1990, Missouri
He wanted to teach me a lesson, so he left me on the side of the road somewhere in rural Missouri. Where the rolling green hills stretched on and on, dotted by cows seeking shade under gnarled, hundred-year-old trees. Where one might not see another soul for miles.
The sun hung low in the sky, a ripe tangerine cradled by the horizon. He had picked me up from the passenger side and dropped me there with no more than a glance back. I watched him slam the door, the engine of his 1975 Ford Ranger rumbling in protest. I bit down on the inside of my cheek so hard my eyes watered. The engine idled, sputtering, then the truck lurched forward like some ancient beast rousing itself for supper. He drove away, the car consumed by a cloud of red dust.
Taking a step back, my ankle twisted on a pebble and I fell into a ditch concealed by switchgrass. The back of my head hit the earth with a dull thud, the wind knocked out of my lungs. The sharp green blades scratched against my skin, grabbing at me like greedy hands. Pushing them away, my hand brushed against something sharp. Parting the matted tangle, I saw the sun-dried carcass of an animal. Tufts of fur still clung to the bone. I felt a wave of nausea. Panic.
On the other side of the road, a cornfield stretched below a sloping green hill. The tips of the stalks rustled in the breeze, adding to the summer chorus of crickets and cicadas. Nestled on the top of the hill like a dove’s egg was a white ranch house with black shutters. Two broad oaks framed the house, a tire swing hanging from one of the branches. I could see a woman hanging wet clothes on a line to dry. White sheets billowed in the breeze. I wondered how long it would take him to decide that he should turn around.
I swallowed; my throat dry. My once-white Mary Janes were covered in a thin layer of dried mud. I looked to my left, where the truck had disappeared down the winding road. I kicked at the dirt, my eyes blurring with tears. I watched as a carpenter ant crawled over my shoe dutifully. I was but an obstacle in its path.
He would come back, I told myself. He had to. I felt my pulse in my throat, a steady beat. Comforting, almost.
I heard the engine before I saw the truck. The crunch of gravel. One glowing headlight shone in the onset of darkness. The other one was shattered. Dread and relief mixed like oil and water in the pit of my stomach.
He stopped and rolled down the window.
“Get in,” he said, a cigarette hanging in the corner of his mouth. It glowed red, a single malevolent eye staring back at me. Smoke curled around his sweaty face.
I walked unsteadily to the car. My hand slipped on the door handle; my palm was sweaty.
“Anytime now.”
George Strait was still playing on the radio. I had only wanted to listen to something else. He told me not to touch the radio. He didn’t like anyone touching the radio, especially me.
I strapped myself back in the seat. The inside of the cabin was foggy with smoke, making my eyes water. I looked at him through the haze, feeling like a rabbit caught in a trap.
My father looked at me, lids low over dead eyes. He raised his hand and I flinched, but he was only reaching to turn up the radio.
I was not to tell my mother.
May, 2001, North Carolina
Her body rested at the bottom of Raven’s Lake. The people of Black Rock wouldn’t know this until two weeks after Jane Crowley had first been reported missing. She had been there the whole time, the hem of her pants caught on an old fishing hook trapped in the sediment at the bottom of the murky water.
Her death in the summer was of little surprise to the town. When news broke of the seventeen-year-old girl’s demise, it was absorbed grimly with a pursed-lip shake of the head or a mumbled remark about how people like Bill and Cynthia Crowley were unfit to be parents.
School had only been out for two weeks, the town slowing to its languid, warm-weather pace, eagerly anticipating the start of summer.
Her death was announced succinctly in the obituary section of the local paper. They didn’t include her picture. The news spread the way most news did in town: by mouth. It was said that she drowned while out fishing in her father’s old canoe. Bill Crowley told the sheriff that he saw his empty boat bobbing in the middle of the lake when he was leaving for work at dawn. He hadn’t thought much of it, and headed off to his shift at the lumberyard. Cynthia had woken up some hours later, and after checking in on their two children, she discovered Jane’s bed empty. She had seen her just the night before.
The police sat on the case for two weeks before they considered searching the lake, ignoring the Crowleys’ pleas to do so. It was an afterthought, even though Jane’s little brother had drowned in that very lake two summers before. The sheriff thought she was a runaway, chasing some boy down the thoroughfare.
By the evening of the day of the lake search, Jane’s body was dredged up from the middle of the water right below where the canoe had been as if she had sunk like a stone. Her body was bloated, black hair tangled over her face. People said Cynthia’s scream could be heard in the next town over. No further investigation was conducted. The authorities ruled her death an accidental drowning, and then they moved on.
Many considered the Crowleys a ticking time bomb of tragedy. The town was perfectly satisfied for the family to stay on the outskirts of town unseen and unheard, tucked away in their grove of pines. Where there was no risk of their ill fortune seeping its way into other people’s lives.
After her death at the end of May, the Crowleys continued to keep to themselves as they always had. After a few weeks, Jane Crowley was rarely mentioned, and the town turned to its usual summer festivities. After a couple months, it was like the girl never existed at all.
Eager to accept what was deemed obvious, not one soul wondered why Jane had been found in her pajamas. No one asked about what happened in between the time her mother last saw her and when the canoe was found untethered, floating in the lake at dawn. No one asked why there was no fishing gear in the boat when it was brought back to the dock. They said she drowned, and people clicked their tongues and shook their heads and moved on.
August, 1998, North Carolina
The bus screeched to a stop at the end of my street, the brakes hissing as the two rickety doors opened for me. The Kramp County Schools logo on the side of the rusted yellow steel was faded and the “m” was missing, so it read Kra p County instead. The kids must’ve loved making jokes about that. I grabbed the hand rail with a clammy palm and ascended the steps, the driver mumbling a greeting.
In the low light, I could see that every seat was full, each crammed with two or three kids. I skimmed the rows until I saw a gap in the heads. Easy to overlook in a rush: seat one on the driver’s side. One girl sat alone, looking out the fogged window. She had wiped away a patch of the condensation to see more clearly.
She didn’t look at me as I sat down next to her. The girl turned her head only a fraction in my direction. I could see the slope of her nose, her downturned mouth.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Gwen.”
The girl wordlessly turned back towards the window, her dark hair falling like a thick curtain between us. My smile dropped and my cheeks warmed. I fiddled with the moonstone ring on my finger, wishing I was back home in the safety of my room.
I could feel the eyes of the girls seated to my right across the aisle boring into my side. They giggled, covering their mouths as they leaned their heads together.
“Hi,” the silent girl to my left replied.
Her gaze shifted slightly in my direction. She had sunken, pale blue eyes, purple shadows lining them like she hadn’t slept. I could barely hear her voice over what had become a dull roar on the bus.
“I’m Jane,” she said.
