“Oh,” says Tracy. “Not really.”
“Do you know if it was a man or a woman?”
“I think it was a man,” says Tracy. “But I’m not sure. I should wear glasses, but I don’t.”
She thinks. “It had gray hair,” she adds.
“Did the person say anything to you?”
Tracy shakes her head. “It didn’t talk. It just waved at me. Led me out of the woods.”
The woman nods. Scribbles quickly on her notepad.
“Are they trying to find the person now?” says Tracy. “The rangers?”
“I think they probably are,” says the woman.
“It was trying to help me,” says Tracy. “Whoever it was.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” says the woman. “We’ll just want to have a conversation with the person. See if they’ve seen anything we should know about.”
She pauses. “Tracy,” she says. “Why did you go into the woods to begin with?”
Tracy is silent.
“Would you like to share that with me?”
Tracy takes a bite. Chews. Drinks water. She pulls the towel she’s wearing more tightly around herself.
Then—breaking a promise to Barbara, keeping a promise to herself—she tells Investigator Luptack why it was that Barbara went into the woods.
“Every night?” Investigator Luptack says, holding her gaze. “Barbara left every night?”
“Almost,” says Tracy. “Except once, when she was injured.”
“And always to the observer’s cabin?”
“That’s what she said.”
“But she never said who her boyfriend was.”
Tracy shakes her head. “No.”
Investigator Luptack nods. “Thank you, Tracy,” she says. “That’s very helpful. Is there anything else you think might be helpful? Did she ever mention anything about her relationship with her family?”
Tracy hesitates.
“Did she get along with her parents?”
Tracy shakes her head. “No,” she says softly.
“Any idea why?”
“I guess—they were strict with her. Her father was, anyway. Her mother wasn’t very involved.”
Investigator Luptack nods. “And do you know if anything happened recently that might have frightened Barbara, or made her upset, or made her angry?”
Tracy thinks. She’s about to say no—Barbara has never been specific in her complaints about her family—but then she remembers something.
“Yes,” she says. “They painted her walls.”
Investigator Luptack’s expression changes.
“Here at this house?”
“Yes. Her mother had them painted pink.”
“And why did that upset her?”
“I don’t know,” says Tracy. “Maybe she didn’t like the color.”
Judyta
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day One
Twenty minutes later—after the girl has been released into the care of the couple Judy has determined to be her father and his girlfriend—Judy stands in the main house, in the hallway outside the pink room, considering its door. She could open it, she thinks. No one’s inside. But she isn’t certain what the consequences of this action would be, and so she hovers there for a while, waiting.
She hears footsteps at the end of the hallway.
