The Lost Girls (15 page)

To my surprise, Lilith was in our room, and she looked perturbed when I came in. “Where were you? I looked everywhere for you.” She had makeup on. Pink lipstick and pale blush, colors suited to Betty's fair coloring.

I was pleased that she'd come looking for me, and I started to tell her where I'd gone. Then I thought about Matthew, stretched out in the leaves beneath the Hundred Tree, talking about Ellery Queen and Chippewa vision quests. I shrugged. “Just around.”

That night the snow began. It began gently, and Justine didn't notice it as she climbed the stairs with Angela for bed, but when she woke she could tell by the pale light that snow had fallen and was falling still. Through the window the flakes were so dense they hid the lake behind a curtain of white. She remembered the talk in Ray's and how she'd planned to stop at the Safeway. She leaned her head against the cool windowpane.

Angela was still asleep in Lucy's double bed, wearing one of Justine's sweatshirts. The night before, when Justine and Angela had come upstairs, Justine had eased open the girls' door to give Melanie a grilled cheese sandwich, since she'd missed supper. Melanie was in her bed, reading one of the Emily books. The books had sat on the floor of Lucy's bedroom since Justine had read them, but before she could wonder when or why Melanie had gotten one, Melanie shoved the book under her covers and froze her with a look as cold and black as the winter night outside. Angela pressed close to Justine, not wanting to sleep in this room with this sister, so Justine put the plate on the dresser, closed the door, and took Angela to bed with her. She was glad to do it. In the weeks between Francis and Patrick, Angela's small, warm body in her bed had been one of her few comforts. But this time, even with Angela beside her, she didn't sleep until nearly morning.

All night the image of Melanie huddled on the sofa haunted her. She had never struck her children. After enduring Maurie's volatile moods she'd wanted to be a different kind of mother: calm, pre
dictable, knowable. So all through Francis's slow disappearing, the heady early days with Patrick, and the tension that seeped into the apartment after he moved in, she made sure to show her daughters the same face, unruffled and constant as the Pole Star. It was one of the few things she thought she'd done right. That, and keeping Francis with them as long as she had.

Though if she were honest, it hadn't just been she who'd done that. Francis had loved Melanie best; in fact, she might have been the only one of them he loved at all. He used to play his guitar after dinner while she stood on the coffee table and sang her little-girl songs, and sometimes he'd let her play, moving her fingers to shape the chords. He said she had music in her, and Justine could believe it, watching them there in the living room. For a while, she thought Francis would stay for Melanie, but in the end even she hadn't been enough to hold him. Now they were adrift in a cold country, while the man who'd replaced him scoured phone bills to track them down. By morning, the only comfort Justine had found was in her resolution to leave this place, start over somewhere else, and do it right this time.

She put her ear to the door of the girls' room. It was quiet.

In the pantry she took stock. Cereal and half a loaf of bread; they would have breakfast. Two cans of SpaghettiOs: lunch. She counted six of Lucy's frozen dinners, a box of spaghetti, and a jar of marinara. The milk was getting low, but they could make it last a couple of days if they used it just for cereal. They also had a few packets of microwave popcorn, a package of Fig Newtons, a half-empty box of saltines, a tin of tea bags, and peanut butter. Outside the snow fell fast and hard, and the wind had picked up, a breathy moan that echoed from the rafters to the basement. Justine wondered again who would plow the road.

Back in the kitchen, she unplugged the phone. She wasn't going to call Patrick. They were leaving; there was no point. And now, if he called Lucy's number, he'd get no answer.

When she heard Melanie on the stairs her stomach tensed. She'd already laid out bowls, spoons, and the cereal, so she turned to get the milk as her daughter came in, saying, “I let you sleep. There won't be any school.”

Melanie didn't answer. Justine put the milk down and sat in her chair. For a long time the wind and the clink of Melanie's spoon were the only sounds. Then Justine ran one hand across the old table, a gathering gesture. “Melanie, listen. I know you're not happy here. None of us are. So we're going to leave. We'll find a new place, where we can start over.” The air inside the kitchen shifted. It was just the wind, Justine told herself, but she had that odd feeling again, that the house was paying attention. “Grandma's coming for Christmas, but right after that, we'll go. We'll find the right place for all of us. I promise.”

There were dark smudges beneath Melanie's eyes. The corner of her mouth twitched as she gave a small nod, and for a moment it was as though a veil parted and in the harsh lines of her daughter's face Justine saw not truculence but misery. She wanted to kneel beside her and gather her into her arms, but the fierce angles of Melanie's shoulders, of her elbows and wrists, kept her in her seat. She realized she couldn't remember the last time she'd put her arms around her. She looked away, out the window, where the air was as white as bone.

Angela came in. Her legs were thin beneath Justine's sweatshirt. She crawled into Justine's lap and settled her head into its accustomed place on Justine's shoulder. Justine pulled her close and kissed her forehead. Across from them Melanie returned to her cereal.

The worst thing about the storm, worse even than the drafts and the nearly bare pantry, was the fact they couldn't leave the house. Justine thought longingly of the Paul Bunyan Mall, its warmth and
bustle. She'd have to turn on all the radiators on the first floor. At least if it were warmer they wouldn't have to stay in the kitchen; they could watch television. Television would fill the silences. “Do you want to turn on the TV?” she asked.

The girls looked up from their cereal, and Justine saw they, too, were dreading the long hours with only their mother and one another for company. She felt a familiar sadness as they took their places on opposite ends of the sofa, wearing their coats as they waited for the radiator to kick in. Other snowbound families, she was sure, were sitting around fireplaces playing cards or board games, making memories they'd share later, around other fireplaces. In the flickering light of the television her daughters' faces were gray.

After she got dressed she sat on her bed. Outside, the wind had a whine to it now, as if a pack of wolves was baying in the distance. Were there wolves in these woods? Probably; the woods seemed endless, primeval. Her latest mystery lay on the table, the plastic library cover shining dully in the filtered light, but the storm's energy enervated her; she couldn't read.

She looked at the box of Emily books, on the floor by her feet. Easy enough for Melanie to pick one out, really, though she couldn't imagine what had motivated her. She wondered which one she'd read. One of the earlier ones, with the young girl's unadorned sentences? Or a later collection, still simple, but ornamented with images from an older woman's memory?
The lake curved to the horizon like the back of a spoon. Fireflies swirled like golden smoke in the trees
. Images she herself remembered, from the summer she'd spent here.

She picked up the photograph of Lucy and Lilith from the bedside table. She studied their faces, Lucy's tilted up to Lilith's and Lilith's turned to the camera. It was the only photograph of any of the Evans sisters in the house, and she wondered why that was. Lilith's jewelry box was on the table, too—the box that didn't hold
the engagement ring from the soldier who died before he could marry her. What had their lives been like, those two surviving sisters, growing from youth to old age in this house and raising a child in the shadow of tragedy? Why had they stayed? This had been their summer home; what happened to the house they must have had in town?

She wondered if Maurie would have been different if she'd been raised somewhere else. Or if she'd had a father. Would she have spent her life running from place to place, from one man to the next, if the soldier had returned to help raise her? She thought of her own father, whose name she wasn't sure Maurie knew. And of Francis, who walked away from his children without a backward glance. Of all the Evans girls' fathers, who hadn't left even their names behind for their daughters.

She knew, then, how she would spend these snowbound hours. She would go through the house. She'd sort out what to sell, what to throw away, and what to keep. Hopefully she'd find Lilith's ring, but she was more interested in what else she might find in the piles in the basement and the crowded closets. Maurie never kept scrapbooks or photo albums, so Justine had no record of her childhood. Maybe she'd find pictures of Maurie as a girl. Or of Lucy, Lilith, and the rest of the family she knew so little about. Maybe there would be things she could give Melanie and Angela, saying this was your grandmother's, your great-grandmother's. Things they could take with them when they left.

The girls were watching SpongeBob. She made them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and told them they could eat in front of the TV. Then she went to the basement.

The basement was a low, dark room with a concrete floor and brick walls, and it stank of mildew and damp. The washer and dryer stood against the near wall, beside shelves filled with tools, canning jars, and other junk. Justine saw a snow shovel, too; a new one, with the label still attached. She didn't remember seeing it
before, but she was going to have to shovel the walk, so she was glad it was there. Magazines were stacked as high as her waist along the far wall, and in the back, beside an old water heater, stood mountains of cardboard boxes. The rest of the space was crammed topsy-turvy with chairs, tables, lamps, and other furnishings. Dust and cobwebs covered everything, and it was even colder down here than in the rest of the house.

Justine shivered, momentarily daunted. But as her eyes adjusted to the dim fluorescent light, shapes began to emerge from the wreckage. In an armchair lay a wooden mantel clock, its brass face glimmering. A lamp shade with amber beading decorated an iron floor lamp. On a table was a stack of books. And the boxes in the back: she could make out the word
EVANS
on one, and on another,
PHOTOGRAPHS.
She felt a little thrill, suddenly, and started to pick through the pile.

Much of the furniture, she was pleased to find, looked to be good quality. The tables were made of dark wood with pretty brass handles, the arms of the chairs were elaborately carved, and the lamps were brass or painted porcelain. She knew nothing about antiques, but they had to be worth something. Anything intact she put next to the staircase. Things she wanted to keep—the mantel clock, a pair of bookends, an ivory box with
ELEANOR
filigreed on the lid—she put on the bottom step. She opened every drawer, finding pencils and screws but no diamond ring.

By midafternoon dust choked the room and caked her clothes, and she was sweating even in the chilly air. She'd sorted all the furnishings except the table of books, which she'd saved for last. She pulled over a chair, picked up the top one, and wiped the dust off with her sleeve: Kant's
A Critique of Pure Reason
. Underneath it was
Critique of the Power of Judgment,
and below that a number of other philosophical and religious texts, including Nietzche's
Thus Spake Zarathustra
, books by Hume and Hegel, and thick, ponderous tomes with titles like
The Five Tenets of Calvinism; Grace,
Free Will, and Perdition;
and
Predeterminism and the Rights of Man
.

Justine was disappointed. She'd hoped for fiction, even classics. She flipped through
A Critique of Pure Reason,
feeling the old paper stiff beneath her fingers. It was filled with underlinings and notes in the same small, neat script as in the Bible upstairs. “Yes! Damnation is not predetermined” read one. “We make our own choices!” read another. She turned to the inside front cover, on which was written, “Thomas Evans, 1918.” She picked up another book and another, finding the same name and approximate date in each one, and marginalia in the same hand.

Thomas Evans. Her great-grandfather. Despite the neat handwriting his words were passionate—he'd clearly been a man of ideas, maybe a minister or a teacher. These books weren't worthless; they were a treasure. They were a window into the mind of a man whose blood ran in her own veins.

As Justine moved them to her pile of things to keep, she saw a yellowed envelope wedged between the pages of one of the Kant books. She pulled it from its place and opened it to find a series of newspaper clippings from the
Williamsburg Gazette.

The first was dated September 3, 1935, its headline large and urgent:

E
mily Evans, 6, daughter of Thomas and Eleanor Evans of Williamsburg, was reported missing from her family's summer home at Stillwater Lake this past Sunday.

The Evanses were set to return to Williamsburg that morning, but the child wasn't in her bed when they woke up. Search parties have found no trace of her in the nearby woods.

Williamsburg sheriff Merlyn Llewellyn believes the child
ran away from home. Some of her clothes are missing, as well as other personal belongings, he said. According to Agnes Lloyd, wife of Mayor Robert Lloyd, whose family was vacationing with the Evanses, the child has tried to run away before.

Anyone who can help with the search should contact the Williamsburg sheriff's office.

The other articles described beneath progressively smaller headlines how searchers dragged the lake and combed the woods with search dogs until mid-October. Finally in early November a short article declared
SEARCH FOR MISSING GIRL SUSPENDED DUE TO SNOW
. The last clipping was dated December 30, 1935:

T
homas Evans of Williamsburg was found hanged from the chandelier in his living room on Christmas morning by his neighbor, Theodore Williams.

Mr. Evans's evident suicide is the last in a series of tragedies to strike the Evans family. Mr. Evans' six-year-old daughter, Emily, disappeared from the family's summer house on September 1, and no trace of her has been found. Mr. Evans had also recently suffered financial difficulties. His home is in foreclosure, and this fall he was forced to sell his family's business, Evans Pharmacy, now Lloyd's Pharmacy, in Williamsburg.