“He sounds like a real asshole.”
“It would be easier if that were true.”
“I’m sorry.” For the first time, Ellie felt as if she understood her sister. Julia might be brilliant, but when it came to love, that was no protection. Every heart could be broken. “You better stay away from Max, you know.”
Julia sighed. “Believe me, I know. A guy like that . . .”
“Yeah. He could hurt a woman like you.”
“Like us,” Julia said softly.
So she felt it, too, this new connection. “Yeah,” Ellie agreed. “Like us.”
THE NEXT MORNING, ELLIE WAS PARKED IN FRONT OF THE ANCIENT Grounds coffee stand when her radio beeped. Static crackled through the old black speakers, followed by Cal’s voice.
“Chief? You there? Out.”
“I’m here, Cal. What’s up?”
“Get down here, Ellie. Out.”
“Sally’s making my mocha. I’ll be—”
“Now, Ellie. Out.”
Ellie glanced up at the woman in the coffee stand window. “Sorry, Sally. Emergency.” She put the car in drive and hit the gas. Two blocks later she turned onto Cates Avenue and almost slammed into a news van.
There were dozens parked along—and in the center of—the street. White satellite dishes stood out against the gray sky. Reporters were huddled in clusters along the sidewalk, their black umbrellas open. She hadn’t taken more than three steps when the reporters pounced on her.
“—comment on the report—”
“—no one is telling us where—”
“—the exact location—”
She pushed through the crowd and yanked the station door open. Slipping through, she slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it. “Shit.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Cal said. “They were camped out there at eight o’clock when I got to work. Now they’re waiting for your nine o’clock update.”
“What nine o’clock update?”
“The one I scheduled to get them the hell out of here. I couldn’t answer the phones with them yelling at me.”
Peanut came around the corner holding a plastic mug the size of a gallon of paint. She was back on the grapefruit juice diet. A rolled-up newspaper was tucked under her arm. “You’d better sit down,” she said.
Ellie immediately looked at Cal.
He nodded, mouthed, I would.
She went to her desk and sat down, then looked at her friends. Whatever they had to say couldn’t be good.
Peanut tossed the newspaper down on the desk. The whole top half was a photograph of the girl. Her eyes were wild and crazy-looking; her hair was a nimbus of black and studded with leaves. She looked stark-raving mad, as well as filthy. Like one of those kids from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The byline read: Mort Elzick.
Ellie felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. So this was what he’d meant by “or else” when he’d demanded the interview. “Shit.”
“The good news is he didn’t mention Julia,” Cal said. “He wouldn’t dare, without official confirmation.”
Ellie skimmed the article. Savage girl steps out of the forest and into the modern world, her only companion a wolf. She leaps from branch to branch and howls at the moon.
“They’re starting to think it’s a hoax,” Cal said quietly.
Ellie’s anger turned to fear. If the media decided it was a hoax, they’d pull out of town. Without publicity, the girl’s family might never be found. She reached into her canvas book bag and pulled out the photograph Julia had taken. “Circulate this.”
Peanut took the photo. “Wow. Your sister is a miracle worker.”
“We’re calling her Alice,” Ellie said. “Put that on the record. Maybe a name will make her seem more real.”
GIRL COMES AWAKE SLOWLY. THIS PLACE IS QUIET, PEACEFUL, EVEN though she cannot hear the river’s call or the leaves’ whispering. The sun is hidden from her. Still, the air is lighted and bright.
She is not afraid.
For a moment she cannot believe it. She touches her thoughts, pokes through the darkness of them.
It is true. She is not afraid. She cannot recall ever feeling like this. Usually her first thought is: hide. She has spent so long trying to make herself as small as possible.
She can breathe here, too; in this strange, squared world where light comes from a magical touch and the ground is hard and level, she can breathe. It does not hold on to the bad smells of Him.
She likes it here. If Wolf were with her, she would stay in this square forever, marking her territory in the swirling water and sleeping on the place she is told to, where it is soft and smells of flowers.
“Iseeyouareawakelittleone.”
It is the Sun-Haired Her who has spoken. She is at the eating place, with the thin stick in her hand again, the tool that leaves blue markings behind.
Girl gets up and goes into the cleaning place, where the magical pool is now empty. She pulls down her pants and sits on the cold circle. When she is done peeing, she hits the white thing.
In the other room, Her stands up. She is hitting her hands together, making a sound like a hunter’s shot and smiling.
Girl likes that smile. It makes her feel safe.
From the babble of forbidden sounds, Girl hears “Come.”
She moves slowly, hunched over, holding her insides tightly. She knows how dangerous a moment like this can be, especially when her guard is down. She should always stay afraid, but the smile and the air and the softness of the sleeping place make her forget the cave. Him.
She sits where Sun Hair wants her to. I’ll be good, she thinks, looking up, trying to force the happy face.
Sun Hair brings her food to eat.
Girl remembers the rules, and she knows the price of disobeying. It is a lesson Him taught her lots of times. She waits for Sun Hair to smile and nod, to say something. When it is done, Girl eats the sweet, sticky food. When she is finished, Sun Hair takes the rest of the food away. Girl waits.
Finally, Sun Hair sits across from Girl. She touches her chest and says the same thing over and over. “Jool Ya.” Then she touches Girl.
“A lis. A lis.”
Girl wants to be good, wants to stay in this place, with this Her that smiles, and she knows that something is expected of her now, but she has no idea what she should do. It seems as if Sun Hair wants Girl to make the bad sounds, but that can’t be true. Her heart is beating so fast it makes her feel sick and dizzy.
Finally, Sun Hair pulls back her hand. She reaches into the square hole beside her and begins putting things on the table.
Girl is mesmerized. She has never seen any of these things. She wants to touch them, taste and smell them.
Sun Hair takes one of the pointed sticks and touches it to the book of lines. Behind her touch, everything is red. “Kraon. Colorbook.”
Girl makes a sound of wonder.
Sun Hair looks up. She is talking to Girl now. In all the babble of sound, she begins to hear a repetition. “A lis play.”
Play.
Girl frowns, trying to understand. She almost knows these sounds.
But Sun Hair keeps talking, keeps pulling things out of the secret place until Girl can’t remember what she is trying to remember. Every new object seizes hold of her, makes her want to reach out.
Then, when Girl is almost ready to make her move, to touch the pointed red stick, Sun Hair pulls It out.
Girl screams and scrambles backward, but she is trapped by this cage on which she sits. She falls, hits her head, and screams again, then crawls on her hands and knees toward the safety of the trees.
She knew she shouldn’t have let her guard down. So what that she can breathe here? It is a little thing, a trick.
Sun Hair is frowning at her, talking in a haze of white noise. Girl can make out no sounds at all. Her heart is beating so fast it sounds like the drums of the tribe that fish along her river.
There is almost no space between
them now.
Sun Hair holds It out.
Girl screams again and claws at her hair, blowing her nose. Him is here. He knows she likes Sun Hair and he will hurt her now. All she can think is the sound she knows best of all.
Noooo . . .
ALICE PULLED AT HER HAIR AND SNORTED, SHAKING HER HEAD. A LOW, throaty growl seemed caught in her throat.
Julia was seeing true emotion. This was Alice’s heart, and it was a dark, scary place.
Julia opened the door and threw the dreamcatcher out in the hallway, then shut the door. “There,” she said in a soothing voice, moving slowly. “I’m sorry, honey. Really sorry.” She knelt down in front of Alice so they were almost eye-to-eye.
Alice was absolutely still now, her eyes wide with fear.
“You’re terrified,” Julia said. “You think you’re in trouble, don’t you?” Very slowly, she reached out and touched Alice’s wrist. The touch was fleeting and as soft as a whisper. “It’s okay, Alice. You don’t have to be scared.”
At the touch, Alice made a strangled, desperate sound and stumbled backward. She hid behind the plants and began a quiet, desperate howling.
The child had no idea how to be comforted. Another of the many heartbreaks of her life.
“Hmmm,” Julia said, making a great show of looking around the room. “What shall we do now?” After a few moments she picked up the old, battered copy of Alice in Wonderland. “Where did we leave young Alice?”
She went back to the bed and sat down. With the book open on her lap, she looked up.
Between two green fronds, a tiny, earnest face peered at her.
“Come,” Julia said softly. “No hurt.”
Alice made a pathetic little sound, a mewl of sorts.
It tugged at Julia’s heart, that whimper that sounded at once too old and too young. It was a distillation of longing from fear. “Come,” she said again, patting the bed. “No hurt.”
Still, Alice remained in her safe spot.
Julia started to read: “‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Alice, ‘a great girl like you, (she might well say this) to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you! But she went on all the same shedding gallons of tears until there was a large pool around her.’”
There was a sound across the room, a scuffing of feet.
Julia smiled to herself and kept reading.
IT IS A TRICK.
Girl knows this. She knows it.
And yet . . .
The sounds are so soothing.
She sits in the forest so long her legs begin to ache. Although stillness has always been her way, in this bright place she likes to move, if only because she can.
Don’t do it, she thinks, shifting her weight from one foot to another.
It is a trick.
When Girl gets close, Her will beat her.
“Comeherealis.”
From the jumble of sounds Sun Hair makes, Girl hears these special noises again. From somewhere, she remembers that they are words.
Trick.
She has no choice but to obey, of course. Sooner or later—sooner, probably—Sun Hair will tire of waiting; this game of hers will lose its fun, and Girl will be in Trouble.
Very slowly she steps from her hiding place. Her heart is hammering. She is afraid it will break through her chest and fall onto the floor.
She looks down at her hands and feet. Here in this oddly bright place, the ground is made of hard strips the color of dirt. There are no leaves or pine needles to soften her steps. Every movement hurts, but not as much as what will come.
She has been Bad.
Screaming is very bad. She knows this.
Out There are strangers and bad people. Loud sounds attract them.
Quiet, Damn You, she knows. As she approaches the bed, she lowers her head, then drops down to her hands and knees, looking as weak as possible. This she learned from the wolves.
“Al is?”
Girl flinches, closes her eyes. Not a stick, she hopes, hearing the whining sound in her own mouth.
At first the touch is so soft she doesn’t notice.
The mewl catches in her throat. She looks up.
Sun Hair is closer now, smiling down at her. She is talking—always, she is talking in that sunlight voice of hers; it sounds like a river in the last days of summer, soft and soothing. Her eyes are wide open, as green as new leaves. There is no anger on her face.
And she is stroking Girl’s hair, touching her gently.
“Is okayokaynohurt.”
Girl leans forward, but just a little. She wants Sun Hair to keep touching her. It feels so good.
“Comeherealis.”
Sun Hair pats the soft place beside her.
In a single motion Girl leaps up and curls next to Her. It is the safest she has felt in a long time.
When Sun Hair starts to talk again, Girl closes her eyes and listens.
JULIA SAT VERY STILL, ALTHOUGH HER MIND WAS MOVING AT LIGHT speed.
What was the story with the dreamcatcher?
Had Alice understood Come here?
Or had she responded to the bed patting?
Either way, the response was a form of communication . . . unless Alice had simply jumped onto the bed of her own volition.
Julia’s fingers itched to make some notes, but now was not the time. Instead she turned her attention back to the book and began reading where she left off.
As she finished the chapter, Julia felt a movement on the bed. She paused in her reading and glanced down at Alice, who had repositioned herself. Now the child lay curled catlike against her, Alice’s forehead almost touching her thigh.
“You have no idea what it’s like to feel safe in this world, do you?” Julia said, putting the book down for a moment. Her throat tightened; it took her several seconds to suppress the emotion enough to say, “I can help you if you’ll let me. This is a good place to start, with you beside me. Trust is everything.”
The instant the words were out of Julia’s mouth, she remembered the last time she’d said them. It had been a cool, steely day in the season that passed for winter in Southern California. She’d been in the two-thousand-dollar leather chair in her office, making notes and listening to another girl’s voice. In the sofa opposite her sat Amber Zuniga, all dressed in black, trying not to cry.
Trust is everything, Julia had said. You can tell me what you’re feeling right now.
Julia closed her eyes. The memory was the kind that physically hurt. That meeting had taken place only two days before Amber’s rampage. Why hadn’t she—
Stop.
She refused to follow those thoughts. They led to a dark and hopeless place. If she went there, she might not be able to come back, and Alice needed her. Perhaps more than anyone had ever needed her. “As I was saying—”
Alice touched her. It was nothing at first, a movement as tentative as the brush of a butterfly wing. Julia saw it, but barely felt it.
“That’s good, honey,” she whispered. “Come into this world. It’s been lonely in yours, hasn’t it? Scary?”
No part of Alice moved except her hand. Very slowly she reached out and petted Julia’s thigh in an awkward, almost spastic motion.
“It’s frightening to touch another person sometimes,” Julia said, wondering if any of her words were being understood. “Especially when we’ve been hurt. We can be afraid to reach out to someone else.”
The petting smoothed out, became a gentle stroking. Alice made a sound that was low in her throat, a kind of purr. She slowly lifted her chin and looked up at Julia. Those amazing blue-green eyes were pools of worried fear.
“No hurt,” Julia said, hearing the catch in her voice. She was feeling too much right now, and that was dangerous. Being a good psychiatrist was like reading a novel at forty. You needed to keep the words at arm’s length or everything became a blur. She stroked Alice’s soft black hair again and again. “No hurt.”
It took a long time, but finally
Alice stopped trembling. For the rest of the morning Julia alternated between reading and talking to the girl. They broke for lunch and went to the table, but immediately afterward Alice returned to the bed and hit the book with her open palm.
Julia cleared the dishes, then retook her place on the bed and resumed her reading. By two o’clock Alice had curled up closer to her and fallen asleep.
Julia eased off the bed and stood there, staring down at this strange, quiet girl she called Alice.
They had made so many breakthroughs in the last two days, but perhaps none held as much potential as the dreamcatcher.
Alice had reacted so violently to the trinket; it had to be of critical importance.
Julia knew what she needed now was a way to both release Alice’s fear of the dreamcatcher and to explore it. Without, of course, having Alice so terrified she hurt herself. It was the best weapon in her arsenal right now—the only object she had that elicited strong emotion. She had no choice but to use it.
“Do you cry, Alice? Do you laugh? You’re trapped inside yourself, aren’t you? Why?” Julia drew back. She went over to her notes and wrote down everything that had transpired since breakfast. Then she read back over the words she’d written: Violent reaction to dreamcatcher. Extreme bout of anger and/or fear. As usual, patient’s emotions are entirely directed inward. It’s as if she has no idea how to express her feelings to others. Perhaps due to elective mutism. Perhaps due to training. Did someone—or something—teach her to be silent always? Was she abused for speaking out or for speaking at all? Is she used to scratching and hair pulling as her only emotional display? Is this how pack animals express emotions when out of view? Is this a symptom of wildness or isolation or abuse?
Some realization teased her, danced at the corner of her mind, moving in and out of focus too quickly for her to really see it.
Julia put down her pen and stood up again. A quick look at the video camera assured her that it was still recording. She could study the footage of the dreamcatcher incident again tonight. Maybe she’d missed something.