I ponder it. So when the same symptoms began to manifest in Tony… I can only imagine how Pierre must have taken that. For the first time, it occurs to me that the mysterious head injury that put Tony into a coma might be worth looking into more closely.
“My supervisor told me Sophie had all the signs. Hearing voices, delusions, paranoia. She was losing her grip on reality, and no one was there to help her. Instead, they spread all these ridiculous rumors that she was a witch or possessed by the devil. I think they even tried to have her exorcised at some point. Can you imagine? Is it any wonder that she skipped town in the end?”
“Is that what you think happened?”
Dr. Larose shrugs. “I don’t know what happened. My supervisor didn’t have any idea either. But I doubt things ended well for her.”
Breathless, I wait for the doctor to go on.
“He told me that Sophie came in to the hospital just days before she left for good. He said maybe he could have helped her somehow, but he wasn’t at work that day, and by the time someone telephoned him and he made it over, she’d already left. The doctor she did see had nothing to say—he hadn’t even gotten to examine her. Exited the room for a minute, and when he came back, she was gone.”
“So where do you think she is now?”
Dr. Larose sighs. “Sure, they say she left, but I doubt she made it very far. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day her bones turn up in that forest somewhere, or at the bottom of the river.” She gives me an austere look. “Either way, Sophie Bergmann, or Tony, had nothing to do with the case you’re investigating. I think you already know Tony was in a coma the whole time. So if you could have some respect for them and keep them out of your story—”
“It’s not my story,” I say. “It’s the truth.”
The doctor shakes her head. “I knew it. Maybe it’s a generational thing. You’d sell your own mother to go viral on the internet.”
“If you want to ask me for a favor, Doctor, maybe you should try being nicer.”
She stands up straight. Her eyes narrow behind her glasses. “Do whatever you want. Just realize that if any harm comes to innocent people, you’ll have that on your conscience. If you have one, that is.”
I reach out and grab the remote to summon the nurse, but Dr. Larose is already leaving.
It turns out my foot was just a bad sprain. I should be out of the brace in no time, and meanwhile I have a handy crutch to help me get around. Other than that, I needed some stitches on my ankle and a couple on my forehead. And since the hospital system is still as notoriously underfunded and overcrowded as always, there’s no more need for me to take up that precious hospital bed. I’m to go recover at home. In Laura’s care.
When Laura drives up to the little house, I immediately notice the cars parked on the street. A veritable gallery of beaters from all decades in various states of disrepair.
“You’ve got quite a fan club,” Laura says. She hasn’t properly looked at me since we left the hospital.
“What does that mean?”
Laura’s painted eyebrows fly up. “There are people who think these woods are cursed.”
“Ah, yes. The Fat Sophie thing. Well, you can tell my fans I’m sorry but there was no Fat Sophie in those woods.” I almost tell Laura about Tony Bergmann but bite my tongue. Right now, she’s the last person I want to confide in.
“Looks like you’re going to tell them yourself,” Laura says somberly.
I don’t like her tone. She pulls into the driveway, and I have no choice but to grudgingly accept her help to get out of the damn car.
I’m aware throughout the whole ordeal that we’re being observed by curious eyes behind car windows. As I hobble toward the door with the help of my crutch (pride won’t let me lean on Laura, not even literally), someone finally gathers the courage. A woman leaps out of a dented Dodge Neon and half jogs up to us.
“I’m sorry,” I say before she has a chance to speak. “But I’m really not up for talking to anyone or answering questions. I was in the woods, I fell and hurt myself, and I’m lucky someone found me before I could die of hypothermia. That’s it.”
“Stephanie,” she says. Her voice strikes me. It’s familiar. I can’t quite pinpoint it—maybe all the painkillers they gave me at the hospital are to blame—but I search and search within my mental archives and can’t quite place it. Yet I know from sheer instinct that the thing I can’t quite chase down is important. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
With every word, the feeling of familiarity grows. I peer into her face. She has frizzy hair fried with box dye, a pilling sweater covering much of a bulky upper body, and too much eye shadow. A typical Marly sexagenarian, and I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen her before.
And yet.
“I don’t really feel like talking to anyone,” I repeat, trying to keep my tone polite.
“But I tried to get in touch,” she says, and finally the recognition unfurls in my brain, glorious. “I left you a voice mail.”
By my side, Laura shifts uncomfortably. “Stephanie is in no shape—”
“Mom,” I say, holding up my hand, “it’s fine.”
“I wanted to talk to you about Michelle Fortier,” the woman says. “Back in ’79, a few weeks before she disappeared, she tried to lure my son into the woods.”
TWENTY-FIVE
2017
“It was spring.” The woman, who introduces herself as Helene, is sitting at the kitchen table. My phone is totaled, so I’m recording her with my laptop. Laura made everyone coffee and is lurking on the periphery, pretending not to pay attention. “Yes, April. It was a warm year. The weather was sunny. And we used to live right by the woods, in one of the last houses on our street. My husband was going to put up a fence around the backyard, something new and solid so that Seb couldn’t get out and wander off while we’re not watching. Seb is my son.” She smiles, revealing stained smoker’s teeth. “He’s forty-two now but he was four years old then.”
I watch her attentively for any telltale signs she might be in it for the attention. But she seems sincere, shy almost. And that voice mail, the hesitation in it was so plain. She forgot to leave her name and contact info, for goodness’ sake.
I remember Jeannette and what she said. I was sure Michelle was alive, watching us all, watching the town.
“In the meantime, I would sit on the back porch and look after him. He was a quiet child. He’d sit there and play calmly, and I hate to admit it, my mind would wander quite a bit. So at one point I looked away for—I swear, only half a second. I don’t remember what distracted me. Anyway, it’s not all that important.” She gulps, and her wary gaze darts all over the room in a fraction of a second, taking in the dingy surroundings, then my laptop, which looks slick and out of place like something beamed in from the future, and finally Laura, who pretends not to be listening in.
Reassured, Helene goes on. “I turn back, and he’s not there. I got up from my chair and glanced around the yard, thinking maybe he’s hiding somewhere. I still couldn’t see him, so I went down the porch steps and looked. I know what you’re thinking.” Helene gives me an apologetic look. “I should have called the police, or someone, right away. That’s what people do today, isn’t it? But those were different times. It just didn’t occur to me. And I doubt anyone else would have done differently, you know? It’s only today that kids are so hovered over they have no lives, even though the world is safer than it’s ever been.”
It clearly never occurred to Helene that the world is safer than ever because people no longer allow their four-year-olds to traipse around the woods on their own. But then again, what the hell do I know. I carefully hide my look of disapproval, and Helene takes my seeming lack of reaction as a prompt to continue.
