The Cabin on Souder Hill Page 27

  When she opened her eyes, the beings had formed a circle around Pink. Pink was contorted into an impossible shape, screaming, as if his body were hot steel being forged into a peculiar torus. Michelle got up and stumbled past the faceless beings, falling next to Pink. In the throes of a seizure, Pink convulsed, his face like oil, queer iridescent colors swirling through his skin. Michelle pressed the pendant against his leg, his flesh queerly rough, furrowed as tree bark.

  After several moments, Pink’s writhing eased, but even through the material of his trousers, his skin felt cold. She wondered if he was dead. “Pink? Pink?”

  The beings dispersed slowly, moving away in rays of yellow light, dissolving the circle, until they finally disappeared. Michelle held Pink’s wrist, trying to find a pulse. Nothing. “Pink?”

  Chapter 39

  The sky beyond the rim of mountains turned deep blue, bleeding though the tangle of black branches. Morning approached, but nothing looked familiar. The dusk-to-dawn light had vanished.

  Michelle felt as if she were waking, but could not remember falling asleep. Pink lay next to her on the ground. He looked dead. She tried to stir him. She didn’t want to leave Pink, but there was no way to move him.

  She surveyed the area, deciding to go in the direction she’d last seen the light. After picking down the slope for almost twenty minutes, she saw her and Cliff’s cabin. She looked back in the direction of Pink, but could see nothing, the underbrush so thick visibility was less than twenty feet. Michelle was sorry she hadn’t marked the trees in some way when she’d left Pink, traced some kind of path with rocks or broken branches. Now she had no way of finding him again.

  With the cabin in sight, she jogged toward the front porch, checking the driveway for Pink’s Suburban, Darcy’s Explorer. Nothing. When she found the glass sliding doors locked, she went around to the front. That door was locked too. She grabbed a walkway stone and smashed the glass, then reached inside and undid the latch. For the first time in twenty-four hours, fatigue slogged through her veins.

  The cabin was different, the way it had been before Cliff disappeared, the way it was when Cassie was still alive. The sudden relief weakened her knees, caused her to fall to the floor. Rays of sunlight cut bright shafts across the carpet. Her mind went to Pink, the faceless beings, the woman in the lavender gown. She wondered if the apparitions had come back for Pink after she’d left him. Maybe that’s why they were there, to claim his dead body.

  Michelle shifted between consciousness and vague, restless dreams. Something crossed the back deck, interrupting the sunlight. She tried to push up, exhaustion keeping her down. A moment later, a silhouette pressed against the glass door. When she focused the figure, she saw it was Pink, his hands cupped against the glass.

  “Michelle?” he said. “You in there?”

  For a moment she was relieved that Pink was all right, then her heart sank. If Pink knew who she was, then nothing had changed. But the cabin? It was different. Even so, Pink’s mother had said he wouldn’t remember her, wouldn’t remember anything from the previous evening or his previous life. He would only remember the life where he had never met Michelle, the life where he had killed Isabelle.

  He rapped on the glass with his wedding ring then tried the slider, the door rattling against the lock. “Michelle?”

  Michelle pushed up and went to the door, flipping the latch, jerking it open.

  “Whew,” Pink said, walking past her. “That was the strangest damn dream I ever had in my life. No more pork chops before bedtime.”

  He remembered everything from the previous evening. Nothing was different. Had she dreamed the woman in the lavender nightgown, the faceless spirits, the burning in her bones?

  “I was happy I woke up when I did,” he said. “There was a mangy damn coyote sniffing around me.”

  “You feel okay?” Michelle asked.

  “Yeah, except I don’t recollect how I came to be out in them woods in the first place. Plenty of times I been drunk and woke up in possum shit, but I didn’t drink that much last night.”

  Pink found the couch and plopped down in the cushions, the foam rubber exhaling a whoosh. Michelle sat in the chair opposite him, wondering where Darcy had gone. Nothing felt right. She looked over at Pink. His expression was gloomy, his eyes receding into dark slits. He seemed to be ruminating on difficult subjects, as if his head were filled with sharp, pointy objects.

  “What happened to the damn snowstorm?” he finally said. “And my Suburban?” He looked over at Michelle, then down at his own clothes, studying the rips and stains, poking his finger through the hole in the knee of his trousers. “What happened to me? And what the hell happened to you?” His eyes went to her hair, and Michelle’s hand instinctively followed his gaze, her fingers finding a tangle of leaves and sticks at the side of her scalp. She combed them out with her fingertips, inspecting the detritus momentarily before dropping it on the coffee table.

  “What happened to all the snow?” he asked again.

  “It disappeared,” she said, too weary to concoct a meaningful lie.

  “Like one of them chinooks?” Pink said.

  Michelle didn’t get his meaning. “What?”

  “Clarence told me about ’em,” Pink said. “A rogue wind that blows warm air that melts all the snow. Indians called them ‘Snow Eaters.’ Clarence knows the damnedest things.”

  How resourceful the mind was, Michelle thought, grabbing information from one phenomenon to patch over another much-less-palatable one. There had been no wind, no mysterious snow-eating zephyr from the gods, only faceless creatures and a woman in a lavender gown.

  “It’s my Suburban I can’t figure out,” Pink said. “Where that is. Any chance your sister had it towed?”

  “No,” Michelle answered.

  “Got a phone?” Pink asked. Michelle pointed toward the desk.

  Michelle watched Pink dial, feeling frazzled, jittery. She tried to think when she’d eaten last. She got up and stood at the sliding glass door, letting her eyes drift over the gentle repeat of valleys and mountains. Everything looked beautiful, yet nothing felt right. She stepped out on the deck. The air was thin, and for one brief moment she felt free.

  She heard the slider open. Pink stood beside her, his hands on the railing. “Every damn phone number I called’s been disconnected. Even my own damn office. Recording said the number’s no longer in service. I couldn’t raise Isabelle, Claire, or my mama. All the damn numbers are out of service. Can you beat that? Even Clarence’s number is changed, but they wouldn’t give it out. Hell, the only person in Ardenwood’s got the same number is Lyman. He’s coming to fetch me.” Pink looked troubled and confused. Michelle remembered Lyman from the Hilltop Club.

  “You know what Lyman said to me?” Pink continued. “He told me he was glad I was back, said everybody wondered where I ran off to. I asked him what the hell he was talking about.”

  Michelle turned toward him, finally realizing what had happened.

  “I didn’t leave anywhere,” Pink said. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. Do you know what else he said?”

  “I have to make a phone call,” Michelle said, hurrying inside.

  Pink stood by the railing, unmoving. She felt sorry for him, felt terrible that she had brought him through the way she had, the pentagram pressed between their palms. He had no idea where he was.

  She picked up the phone, her fingers trembling as she pushed the buttons. The phone rang several times before someone answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Cassie?” Michelle asked.

  A hollow silence. Michelle wondered if the person was still there.

  “Mom? Is that you?” Cassie said.

  “Cassie! Cassie!” Michelle said.

  Cassie shrieked, then cried. They talked in excited bursts, not waiting for one to finish before the other spoke,
conversing in questions and disjointed statements, voice over voice, elation, tears, laughing, shock.

  “My god, Mom, I can’t believe it. Dad will be blown away!”

  “What?”

  “He never gave up on finding you,” Cassie said. “He stayed up at the cabin by himself, hunting the woods, phoning the police, organizing search parties. Aunt Darcy stayed with me.”

  “Your father . . . where is he now?” Michelle asked.

  “At the dealership, but I’m going to call him as soon as I get off the phone.”

  Michelle was about to tell Cassie that she would call him, but decided against it. “Okay.” She needed time to figure things out before she spoke to Cliff. “Cassie . . . I’m so glad you’re in my life.”

  “Me too. I love you. Now don’t you leave that cabin.”

  Cassie couldn’t stop asking questions, wanting to know everything that had happened, making Michelle promise to not leave the cabin.

  “I’ll be here,” Michelle said. “Cassie?”

  “Yeah, Mom?”

  “Don’t hang up yet. Tell me how the swim team is doing.”

  Michelle listened to the tender resonance of Cassie’s voice, the excited consonants, the rich, eloquent vowels. Michelle could picture Cassie’s mouth, her lips forming the words, the silky skin of her chin and cheeks. Michelle pictured Cassie in the pool, water sheeting from her arms and legs as she climbed up the ladder, her face shiny and wet, a sparkle of sun at her cheeks. Michelle couldn’t wait to be home.

  Michelle hung up after Cassie did without saying goodbye. She never wanted to say goodbye to Cassie again.

  Pink walked into the cabin with Lyman. Lyman introduced himself and she could tell he didn’t remember her. Pink reminded him he’d danced with her a couple nights ago at the Hilltop. Pink said, “You act like you never seen her before.”

  Lyman said he hadn’t. “And the Hilltop . . . that burned down a year ago, Pink.”

  The two men stared at each other as if they had suddenly become strangers. “Is the whole damn town on drugs?” Pink shook his head and looked back at Michelle.

  “Need a ride into town?” Pink asked.

  “No. Thanks,” Michelle said. “I have someone picking me up.”

  Lyman kept glancing over at Pink as if Pink were some kind of phantom. Pink didn’t seem to notice.

  “Well, Mrs. Stage,” Pink said. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. Call me if you ever want me to list this cabin for you.” He handed Michelle a card. “This is a solid place, you know. Built it myself.”

  What would happen to Pink when he found that the people he loved were gone, everything he knew had vanished? She wondered if Claire still lived in Ardenwood. And what would Clarence tell him—how would he react to Pink’s reemergence? Michelle felt responsible for the grief Pink would most certainly endure when he found he was living a life that wasn’t the one he remembered from the day before.

  “I’m so sorry, Pink,” she said, going to the desk and grabbing a pen. She scribbled on the back of the card he had given her and handed it back to him, telling him to call if he ever needed to talk.

  He looked surprised. “Well, I can always use a new friend,” he said. “Let’s go, Lyman.”

  The house fell quiet after they left. Michelle went to the fridge to see if there was anything to eat, finding a bagel and a partial loaf of bread. How could Cliff still be alive, she wondered? In her mind, she could see the red snow around his chair, the pistol locked in his hand. She saw the dark hole at the top of his head. She remembered Cliff’s missing finger, the scar on his forehead, Cliff telling her how Cassie had been killed when the Cherokee flipped. Had she glimpsed one possibility, something that had happened in a different version of their lives? What determined which one you lived?

  The phone rang. Michelle caught it on the second ring. It was Cliff, gushing into the phone, crying. She was hardly able to understand him.

  She assured him she was okay. It had been a long time since she’d felt comforted by the sound of his voice.

  “I can’t wait to see you,” Cliff said, sniffling. “I thought I’d lost you forever. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t . . .”

  “I’m here,” Michelle said. He wanted to know where she’d been the past few weeks, if she’d been hurt, how she’d survived, if someone had found her, if she’d been alone, scared.

  “I’ll tell you everything when I see you,” she said, knowing that whatever she told him wouldn’t be the truth.

  The afternoon dragged. Michelle couldn’t wait to see Cassie, to get back to Atlanta. She was resting on the couch when the phone rang. She figured it was Cliff with an update on their ETA.

  “Mrs. Stage?” the man said. “This is Sheriff Fisk. Remember me?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  There was a pause. “Glad to know you’re back,” he said. “At some point we’d like to get your story, everything that happened. Helps us when folks go missing, to know where to look, what to expect. But that’s not exactly why I’m calling.”

  Michelle closed her eyes. There was no way to explain what happened without sounding crazy.

  “Mrs. Stage?” the sheriff said. “You still there?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m here.”

  “I understand you met Pink Souder?”

  What was this about? She wanted Cliff and Cassie to show up, wanted to go back to Atlanta and forget everything.

  “I’d like to drive up there with Pink,” the sheriff said. “Just ask you a few questions. Promise we won’t stay long.”

  How could she sit across from Pink and deny Pink’s account of the last few days? Or corroborate everything? It was impossible.

  “This is probably not . . .”

  “Pink’s in a pretty bad way. Keeps saying crazy things. He’s confused and upset. I thought it might help to get your side.”

  It won’t help, Michelle thought. It won’t help anyone. She thought about what Mrs. Souder had told her: It would drive Pink insane. There seemed nothing Michelle could do to stop it.

  “Sure, that would be fine.” Michelle was already sorry she hadn’t said no.

  When Sheriff Fisk arrived, Pink wasted no time getting to the point. “Tell Fisk about going to the Hilltop, about coming to my mama’s house, about us hiking down through the damn woods in the middle of a damn snowstorm!” Pink appeared distressed, his features vague and faulty, as if some life-sustaining armature had been removed from his body.

  Michelle motioned for them to sit, but Pink refused, pacing across the braided rug. He spun toward Michelle, his eyes flashing. An uneasy heat spread through Michelle.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she told Sheriff Fisk. “There’s so much I can’t recall.”

  Sheriff Fisk suggested talking about the events of the last week.

  “To hell with that, Loudon!” Pink said, pumping his hands into fists at his sides. “I’m drowning in madness here and you want to stroll down memory lane.” Pink looked over at Michelle. “Tell him what happened last night, dammit! Tell him about the last two days.”

  What could she say that could possibly help?

  “Tell Loudon about the ceremony my mama performed,” Pink said. “Tell him about the damn snow! I know you remember that.”

  Fisk tried to settle Pink.

  “How am I supposed to calm down, Loudon? I don’t have a home, business, or pot to piss in. Hell, I don’t even have a damn car! Where the hell did it all go, Loudon? If you can tell me that, I’ll calm right down. Hell, I’ll be calm as a bluetick hound with a neck bone.”

  Sheriff Fisk looked at Michelle with apologetic eyes, then down at his shoes. His hands were wound into a bony knot in his lap. He leaned forward and studied his knuckles.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t be so calm if you saw my mama’s house,” Pink said to Michel
le, standing near her chair now, angling his face to catch her eyes. “Maybe we should take a little drive down there. Then you might feel a . . .”

  “I’ve seen it Pink,” she said.

  “Not like this you haven’t,” he said.

  “Yes, I have. The gate is hanging by one hinge. The paint is peeling. The window to the right of the front door is broken out. The place is a shambles.”

  Pink stepped back and stared down at her, then glowered at Sheriff Fisk as if accusing him of collusion with Michelle. Fisk only half-shrugged and shook his head.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Pink said.

  Michelle looked up at him, wanted to talk to him in private, pull him aside and explain everything. Not that he would believe her. But if she framed it in witchcraft, maybe it would help. Just then a car pulled in the driveway. This was not how she imagined her homecoming. She wasn’t sure she could lie to Pink and the sheriff in front of Cassie.

  Cliff was halfway up the walk when Michelle ran out to meet them. Michelle felt an instant peace anticipating her reunion with her daughter. But Cassie wasn’t with him. Michelle’s eyes searched frantically, looking around him toward the car.

  “Where is she! Where’s Cassie?” Michelle blurted out.

  “She had a swim meet,” Cliff said. “She was so bummed. She really wanted to come. She’s captain of the swim team now. Did you know that?”

  Michelle’s heart fell, followed by a moment of relief. Maybe it was best she hadn’t come. She didn’t want Cassie to witness this scenario.

  “Is everything okay?” Cliff asked, turning his eyes toward the sheriff’s car.

  “Pretty much,” Michelle said. “They have a few questions.”

  “Isn’t it enough you’re back?” Cliff said. “Can’t they leave you alone for two minutes?”

  “It’s okay. None of that matters now.” Michelle studied Cliff, his forehead, his hands.

  “What?” Cliff asked, apparently noticing her intense survey.