Above The Thunder Part 26

In the distance Flynn heard the faraway whistle of the train. It was time, and now she was really frightened, not of dying, but of getting it wrong about being forgiven. h.e.l.l was where the unforgiven went. Flynn hadn't seen h.e.l.l, but she knew there was such a place. This, where she lived now, might be h.e.l.l. She walked down to the track and lay down. Two Native American men lay beside her. One of them showed her how to make herself small so it wouldn't hurt at all. But something or someone wouldn't let her do this. When the train was close enough so that she could feel the vibrations in the track, she half sat up, about to change her mind. She was so afraid! No one in her dream had told her how afraid she would be; the angels told her there was nothing to fear. She wished she didn't know the things that she did, wished she couldn't see so far or so clearly. What if she was wrong about everything? What if she was just a psycho mental freak like kids at school said?

Lining the track now were all sorts of people-not anybody she recognized-who were staring at her. She didn't know why they would be interested in her or appear glad to see her. Watch my eyes, an old man said. Flynn looked at him, and realized he was her grandfather. At least, he looked like the photograph her grandma had on her night table. She kept her eyes on his, felt the Native American men push in closer to her, their soft leather shirts like another person between her skin and theirs. This is wrong, she thought. I don't want to do this. But now she couldn't move and the train was so loud she heard it through every bone in her body. She didn't feel anything, and just at the last minute, when the train was above her she saw a terrifying creature with red eyes hanging on to the underside, a creature from the place of nowhere, the time of nothing. It was like a badger only with a human face and very very angry-the Indian men squeezed against her so hard with such firm pressure that she popped right off the tracks. Now she would have to go home. Now she would have to finish out her life unhappy and crippled and lonely. She began to cry, because she was stuck in this dark dream, this thick darkness and clumsy body of a twelve-year-old girl when she'd been so close to being free of it all. She turned her head to the left and saw the lights from her grandmother's house. She heard singing from somewhere, voices talking with echoes in them. There was a vibration in her chest, a rattling in her and she knew she probably broke some bones because there was a rattling and a vibration, now moving up to the top of her head and causing a terrible pressure, a pain worse than anything she imagined possible.

Slip out, a woman said. Flynn looked down, saw a pair of red shoes and a lawn with croquet wickets. Slip out, a woman's voice said again, just like your body is a sweater you're taking off, and follow me.

Flynn didn't have any idea how to do this. She couldn't move anything but her eyes. She felt the waiting presence of this woman, her grandfather and the others. She had to learn it before they could help her. She watched as the woman walked toward the wickets. They grew tall as she neared them, high enough that they cleared her head, then shrank back down when she pa.s.sed through. Flynn watched as the woman's red shoes got farther and farther away. She was moving in the direction of the sun, walked until the white light surrounded her and made her a shadow against it. Flynn again felt the humming in her head, now worse as she looked at the light, which she thought might be some kind of food, because in her body were thousands of buzzing mosquitoes frantic to get at it, so many of them that they pushed her head out to twice, three, four times its size until it exploded with a large pop like a gunshot. After that she felt better, could take a deep breath again. She was going to be okay. She stood up, turned toward her grandma's house. Turned the other way. Turned back again. There was nothing there. She looked in every direction: nothing. The croquet wickets popped up one by one, becoming arches of light. A red soccer ball rolled toward her. She kicked it, then followed its rolling path; it stopped at a field of bright green gra.s.s where very tall women were wearing shoes the color of cherries and playing soccer.

Am I dead? Flynn asked the woman, who only smiled, and took her hand. Her grandfather appeared suddenly on her other side. They began to walk together. Flynn thought of Anna suddenly, of Jack, and instantly she was at her grandmother's house, standing with her grandfather watching Anna sitting on the porch looking out at the sea. Anna snapped her head around when Flynn moved in close.

Can she see me? Flynn asked her grandfather.

No, but she knows we're here. Kiss her goodbye, she'll be with us soon.

Flynn moved in close, closer. But she couldn't get close enough, couldn't get Anna to see her. Her grandfather turned her a little to the left, so she was positioned beside Anna at a forty-five-degree angle, and told her to call her grandmother, call her name. Flynn did so, and Anna turned to answer her. They were on the beach together, walking in raw weather and looking forward to chowder and warm sweaters.

I've been so worried about you, Anna said. Where did you go?

Don't worry. I'm with my grandfather, and new friends. The flowers grow really fast here. We're waiting for you.

I want you to go back to school, Anna said. You've missed so many days you'll never catch up.

I can't go back to school, Anna, I'm dead. Flynn felt her grandmother's shock, and it was so forceful that it pushed Flynn half a mile away. She waved to her, turned, and felt the sand rise up in a giant wall against her back and push against her firmly, not in a mean way, but in a way that told her she no longer belonged. She walked into a swirl of blue and white and looked down to see her feet in red shoes.

Anna sat up in bed sweating, heart pounding from her nightmare. She walked into Flynn's room, and found it was still empty, her bed untouched. Marvin said he'd talked to her on the beach, just after the party ended. He said she told him she'd be back shortly. She checked Jack's room, the bathrooms, downstairs.

She went into the guestroom where Marvin and his girlfriend were sleeping. The woman was so little that at first she thought it was Flynn entangled in his arms. Anna shook him awake. "Something is wrong. Get up. I can't find Flynn anywhere."

"Okay," he said. "I'm coming."

The two of them searched the house again, then walked in opposite directions on the beach. Anna remembered the train tracks, how she'd found Flynn there several times, and turned in that direction. It was still an hour or two before dawn, but there was a full moon, enough light to see outlines and shadows.

She reached the crest of the hill overlooking the tracks, but didn't go any farther. She called Flynn's name several times. If Flynn were anywhere in the vicinity she would have answered. Anna turned to go, but then stopped and looked around again. There was something here, her granddaughter was here, or had been here. The air felt thick, a lacy humidity clinging to her skin. "Flynn?" she yelled again, her heart pounding. She peered down and scanned the tracks. The times Anna had found her here she'd been in this spot exactly, either on this knoll or-twice-sitting on the tracks directly beneath it. She started down the hill.

We don't want your grandma to see you this way, Hugh said to Flynn, as he made the ground swell with tree roots to trip Anna and make her fall. Anna's ankle buckled and twisted beneath her. I'm sorry, sweetheart.

"Marvin?" Anna shouted, hobbling back in the direction of the house. Her ankle was useless; it wouldn't hold her weight. She called him three times before he answered.

"Where are you?" he yelled, and she could barely hear him over the crash of the waves and the high wind. He got to her finally. "Did you find her?"

"No. But I fell. I twisted my ankle, and I can't walk. I need you to go and get Stuart's Jeep and drive back to get me."

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all.

"This isn't necessary. You can't carry me the whole way back. If you'll just go and get the Jeep-"

"It's no trouble," he said.

They fell silent. Anna closed her eyes, breathing in the salty wet cool smell of the sand and the creatures the tide brought in.

Back at the house he set her on the couch. "Is it broken? Do I need to take you to the hospital?"

She palpated her ankle, already swollen to twice its normal size. Nothing broken. "No. I tore some ligaments, it looks like. I just need some ice and aspirin."

"Where do you think she went?" Marvin asked, bringing in a bowl of ice and some towels.

"When did you see her? What time was it when you talked to her?"

"Around twelve-thirty or one."

"I think something is very wrong. Something has happened to her." She felt all the emotion in her give way. Everything was suddenly working itself loose in her, like old paper that crumbled at the slightest touch. "I want you to call the police. I want you to go up there and wake Jack and Stuart and whoever else is staying here, and I want you to cover every square inch of this place."

In the end, Anna was so hysterical that Marvin took her to Violet's house. He'd never seen her like this, as though whatever bad news she thought was coming had already come. She'd protested, screamed at him that she wasn't going anywhere, but he just picked her up and drove her the short distance to Violet's place. "You'll be the first to know," Marvin said. "I want you to stay here and relax."

Violet's dogs jumped up on the sofa beside Anna. It occurred to her that she hadn't seen Flynn's dog all day. "I'll come back or call in an hour or two with an update. Okay?" He tucked a blanket around her. "I think you're overreacting, I think she's just wandered off somewhere," he said. "Everything will be just fine."

Marvin went out, rejoined Jack and Stuart in their Jeep. He was more worried about Flynn than he let on to Anna. He didn't think, as she did, that Flynn's oddness was indicative of anything more than a highly active imagination, but he did worry she'd inherited her mother's sadness, that, young as she was she didn't yet know how to handle it. Poppy had had problems with depression her whole life, but after Flynn's birth, she had a postpartum spell that her doctor labeled a psychotic break. The Chicken Littles, Poppy called them, a sensation that the world was crashing down, the sky falling, and the shade and intensity of her mood deepening with each episode.

"I don't think there's any reason for us to drive up and down the streets," Jack said, looking at Marvin in the rearview mirror. "I doubt very much that Flynn is in the center of town, which we can search on foot anyway." Marvin saw the lines around Jack's eyes, his trembling hands.

"Do you have an idea where she might be?"

Jack nodded. "Every time she's been missing she's been at the railroad tracks or on the beach. There's a little rocky outcropping about a mile from here, a little cave where she hangs out sometimes. I think one of us should check the beach cave and the other two the tracks. I'm going to drive away, though, because Anna is in there watching every move we make."

Jack parked on a side street and the three of them got out. Marvin started to follow him in the direction of the tracks. "No. Stuart and I will go this way. You go check the cave."

"It makes more sense if I come with you," Marvin said. "I don't know where this cave is."

"I'll come with you to the tracks," Stuart said to Marvin. "Jack can go check the cave."

"No," Jack said. "Please just do this my way." Marvin and Stuart looked at him the same way they had at Anna, like he was a shrill hysterical grandma. But Anna was right; Jack felt it too. Something was really wrong. He'd had a disaster dream last night, too, though he hadn't told Anna this. He and Flynn were riding on a Ferris wheel and they were both very unhappy. She embraced him, straddled his lap and said, now we are heart to heart. She kissed him. I'll call you. Don't forget. Don't forget, was what she kept repeating, and the next thing he knew he was on the ground, standing in a crowd looking at her body. He was prepared for the worst. He didn't want her father to see her if G.o.d forbid something awful had happened.

"You can't miss it," he said to Marvin. "If you walk in a straight line you'll run right into it. It's an outcropping that's in the shape of a dunce's hat."

He and Stuart set off for the tracks. "Why didn't you want me to go with him?" Stuart asked. "And where is this cave? I've never seen any cave."

"There is no cave." He b.u.t.toned up his sweater, pulled the navy watch cap out of his back pocket and snugged it down around his ears. "She's dead," Jack said.

Stuart stopped. "What?"

"I dreamed it."

"Oh," Stuart said, with a nervous laugh. "You and Anna both, the witches of Eastwick."

Jack took Stuart's hand, laced his fingers with Stuart's. His legs got heavier and heavier as they neared the knoll of the hill. He stopped, his vision going black for a second. He squeezed Stuart's hand tighter.

"What? What's wrong?" Stuart said.

"Go down there. Go and look around the tracks." He took a deep breath, the serrated edge of a knife in his lungs, the air hot and cutting. He watched as Stuart walked first one way, then the other, stepping carefully over the railroad ties.

He came back up a few minutes later, laughed a little. "You can go home and tell Anna not to quit her day job. Her prophetic gifts have failed. Thank G.o.d." He squeezed Jack's hand.

Jack sank down onto the cool gra.s.s to catch his breath and to wait for his heartbeat to slow. He drew his knees up and rested his head there. Anna had probably worked him into this state. Her hysteria was contagious. Stuart stood beside him, rubbed his shoulders and neck in slow circles. The minute he felt himself relax was when his vision caught on something down below, about fifty feet away. Something black and small. "What is that?" Jack said, and pointed. Stuart followed his gaze, squinted. "A rock."

"Are you sure it's a rock?"

"Yep." He continued his ma.s.sage. Jack grabbed his hand. "Go see. Go and check." He watched as Stuart neared the object, watched as he jumped a little then stood still for what seemed like both a second and an eternity. Jack rose and slipped down the hill, nearly falling. Stuart swept Jack in his arms. "Don't, Jack. Don't go any farther." Stuart turned Jack to face the opposite direction.

"What is it? What is that thing? That rock?" Jack said.

"It's a shoe. It's her shoe."

"How do you know it's hers? It could be any shoe at all." Jack started down toward it. "Let me go and see."

Stuart grabbed his arm but he pulled away.

At first he felt relieved. It was her shoe, but it was just a shoe, not Flynn. This didn't mean anything-in fact it was probably a good sign. He took a deep breath, stared down at the twigs and branches lying all around it, the glistening pools of rusty rain. Stuart came up behind him. "Let's not jump to every bad conclusion there is," he said. "It's just Flynnie's shoe. She's always kicking them off and leaving them somewhere. She's probably out walking through the hills."

"Jack," Stuart said. "Let's go. We need to go."

"Why? What's the matter with you? She's around here. Her shoe is here. She's around here somewhere."

Stuart took Jack's hand, tried to lead him up the hill.

Jack pushed him away with a forced laugh. "Now you've caught the hysteria flu. It's just a shoe. Flynn?" he called. "Flynn!"

"Jack, I'm telling you we need to go. I am insisting."

"What's the matter with you? Let's start looking." Stuart took him by the shoulders, squared him so he was facing the evidence. "What is that? What do you see?"

"A shoe. A little black shoe."

"What else? What's inside it?"

"A tree branch. A branch from a birch tree."

"Where?" He looked down, then looked at Jack. He didn't know how you could tell if someone was in shock, but he figured this must be one sign: A refusal or denial to see what was there. Overlooking something. Changing it. Making a birch branch out of bone. He let Jack look around for five minutes and then persuaded him that she'd probably gotten cold and walked home, was back at the house, snug in her bed. "We should go back, before they send someone out to find us. Okay? Okay, Jack?"

"Can she get there with just one shoe?"

"Yes," Stuart said.

Somehow, he didn't know how, perhaps because Jack was already exhausted from the party and the exertion of worry, Stuart persuaded him that Flynn was asleep in her room. As Jack stood at the back door taking off his muddy boots, Stuart pretended to c.o.c.k his head and listen. "I hear her up there."

"You do?"

He nodded. "I'll go up and check. Make some tea, okay?"

He waited on the stairs until he heard the clanging of the kettle, the match being struck to tag the burner, then went back into the kitchen. "She's sleeping like an angel," Stuart said.

"She is?"

He nodded.

"G.o.d, what a relief. Tomorrow's she's going to get the lecture of her life."

"Why don't you go on up to bed and I'll go fetch Anna."

After what felt like an eternity, Jack made his slow way up the stairs, Stuart close behind him. By some miracle, Jack didn't open Flynn's door to look in. He went directly to his own bed and was asleep within minutes. Stuart kissed him, then went out and started Anna's Volvo.

Anna sat outside to wait. She didn't know how long she'd been here, propped against the stone pillar on Violet's porch, watching. Her eyes seemed to open wider and wider. She stared at the line of spruces, the very first edge of dawn visible through their branches. She saw birds fluttering in the trees-owls or hawks or chickadees, she didn't know. Then a lot of them, hundreds of them, bending the branches down with their weight. But it was only the wind doing that, making her think it was birds. She'd been here so long. Hours. Maybe they'd found Flynn and they'd forgotten to fetch her. She pressed her cheek against the cool stone and started to dream. She heard her granddaughter's voice, then a whole party of voices. The stone against her cheek became her own hand as she propped her elbow up on the bar, listening to the commotion of the party, the high-pitched voice of the man dressed as Judy Garland, the deep baritone of Marvin, the music of Petula Clarke. "Go find Flynn," she said.

I found her. She's right here with me, a voice-Stuart's?-said from her left.

Anna turned and saw her granddaughter, muddy and rumpled, but fine. "Where have you been? Do you realize how much we've all worried? What's the matter with you?"

Flynn wore a great sorrow on her face.

Flynn said something that Anna couldn't make out. Anna felt the crush of people all around her, the party moving in from both sides, behind and in front of her, the bartender frantic with the mob of people waiting for drinks.

Anna kept her eyes just on Flynn, who looked at her as though trying to memorize her, the look Poppy used to get when Anna and Hugh sent her away to summer camp. The throng of people got thicker and thicker around her, the voices louder and more incomprehensible. There were people here she did not invite. A man with hot angry breath demanding a c.o.c.ktail, then another and another. She lost sight of Flynn through the crowd. Anna tried to push her way out of the mob but couldn't. All these costumed men! Two men directly in front of her turned in opposite directions at the same time. In the s.p.a.ce of their parting bodies, she saw Flynn walking away from her. Flynn turned around once, as though Anna had called her-had she? In the distance was a mountain range. "Where are you going?" Anna asked.

Don't worry, Flynn said. I need to get out of this storm. I'm going up to where it's warm and calm. She nodded toward the pink peak. High up, above the thunder.

"Don't go," Anna pleaded, but her granddaughter was already a dark dot on the face of the mountain. Anna watched Flynn until she reached the crest then disappeared into a bright white light. But now the light was coming down, into her eyes, glaring and blinding.

Stuart cut the headlights when he saw Anna squinting in his direction. She watched him as he walked up, but she didn't seem to register his presence. He bent down to her. She was so cold; where was her coat, where was that crazy woman who was supposed to keep Anna company?

"Are those doves?" she asked.

"What?"

"That cooing sound. Are they doves?"

He put his arms around her. "I'm afraid I have some really bad news for you," he said.

Anna's attention snapped back. Stuart's face came into sharp focus. "I know," she said. "I know it."

FOURTEEN.

GETTING THROUGH THE NIGHT.