Page 87 of Wildwood

“Yeah, well, the phone lines are out. I know Topher is gone, so I wanted to make sure you are okay, being pregnant and all.”

I realize then that everything behind Alice is swirling white. In the time that I’ve been asleep, the snow has increased to a full-on blizzard. My heart starts to hammer. The realization of how alone I am out here hits me like a train. I never told Alice that Topher was gone.

The woman who brought me the journal lives in Newfield Village now. Her name is Alice Clark.

Why did she bring it to you? I’d asked Hank Chester.

I think she wanted to find justice for what happened.

“I’m fine,” I say again. “Thank you for checking on me.” And then I close the door firmly and set the alarm.

I collapse against the door, trying to slow my heart. I don’t feel right. I need water. I’m about to walk into the kitchen when the knock comes again. Instantly, the thudding in my chest accelerates again.

“I’m fine, Alice,” I call. “You should get home.”

“It’s Joan.”

I open the door and pull Joan inside. Then I collapse onto her, sobbing. She is surprisingly strong. Her slight frame is able to hold me up. Between the weight in my belly and in my heart, it feels as though I must weigh ten thousand pounds. She rubs my back lightly, shushing me like a baby.

“What’s going on?” Joan asks me finally, guiding me to a couch.

I tell her everything. My voice breaks as I talk; sometimes all I can get out is a whisper. Telling her about the innocents hanged, about the baby taken from its mother, is almost unbearable. It feels as if I say it in words, I will make it real. As though my words hold some dark magic.

When I finish, her face is as white as the snow outside. And just as cold. She stands, picks up the antique table next to us, and hurls it across the room.

“We need to find them,” she whispers.

“I know.”

I sit on the couch, trying to coax out a thought that’s begun to mess around in the back of my brain. It feels like the answer is here. It feels as though the answer is right in front of us. Or has been right in front of me.

I think of the room of painted trees. The way it has always haunted me. The way I always thought it was hiding something. I think of the raccoon. The porcupine. The flying black birds, with wings in curving V’s. But now as I’m picturing it in my mind, one of the birds looks different. It’s near the wardrobe. And it isn’t in the shape of a V, as though it’s flying toward or away from me. It’s a black bird on its side, painted as the crow flies, it’s in the shape of an arrow.

Chapter 77

“Oh my god,” I say, standing up. “I think I know how to find them.”

I gesture for her to follow me upstairs. Joan looks as though she can’t believe what I’m saying. As she stands, I catch a glint of something under her coat, tucked by her waist. My breath leaves me.

What was that? What did I see? My brain is slower than my eyes, but it gets there finally. Then things begin to feel like they are happening in slow motion. I move toward the stairs, but then walk to the mudroom instead.

“Just grabbing something,” I say, my voice wavering ever so slightly.

Then, “All set.”

We start to walk up the stairs. My brain is working furiously to replay moments in my mind. I remember Joan saying I hate guns. I’d never hold one at the Brook dinner. But these are extreme circumstances, I counter, trying to make this gut feeling not true. Then I remember Julian telling me with amusement that he knows about the black slip in my underwear drawer. I remember Gina telling me there’d be a betrayal. But it’s not an affair. It feels like my brain is one of those elaborate vaults and someone has turned the lock and a thousand moving pieces slide into place.

But I have to be certain. But I can’t be certain.

Right before we enter The Forest of the Dead, I hesitate.

“Actually, let me just grab some water,” I say, looking back at Joan.

I can see the moment she knows that I know. Her face shifts, ever so slightly. And then she pulls the revolver on me.

“Into the room,” she says, her voice level.

“Why?” I ask. I put my left hand reflexively over my belly, as though this would do anything.