Page 42 of The Witch’s Orchard

THIRTY-FOUR

A J AND I TRADE a look and then I step backward and let the girls inside.

“Please tell me you did not kidnap your sister,” I say, closing the door behind them.

Nicole rolls her eyes before helping Olivia out of her heavy coat.

“She’s stronger than I am,” Nicole says, taking off her coat and flopping it and Olivia’s across the arm of the nearest chair. “I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. Come on, Liv.”

She leads Olivia to the sofa. Olivia glares at Nicole but then, finally, sits. She looks around the room, wide-eyed, and begins to rock back and forth.

“I heard moaning,” I say.

“Yeah,” Nicole says. “She hates car rides, but once she gets inside she’s usually fine. Let me just put on some music.”

I breathe out a sigh but say okay.

“Look,” Nicole says as she rummages through her bag. “My mom and Uncle Cole are, like, intense. They want to protect Olivia and they’re so sure she can’t or won’t help you but—”

“But you think she can?”

I look at the young woman rocking back and forth on my sofa.

“My mom’s at work,” Nicole says. She takes a phone and a little portable speaker out of her bag and sets the speaker on the table. A few seconds later, Top 40 starts drifting out of it. Olivia’s rocking pace changes and she taps gently on the tops of her thighs in 4/4 time.

Nicole lets out a relieved breath and says, “This is my time to sit with Olivia. I figure we can sit somewhere besides our own living room.”

I take out my phone.

“Jesus, please don’t call my mom!” Nicole shrills.

“I’m not going to,” I say. “I don’t have a laptop anymore. I need to bring up the case notes and this is all I have.”

“I should… probably not be here,” AJ says, grabbing his coat. “If Olivia’s mom does happen to come home and find her girls aren’t there, I’m sort of up the creek if Jacobs finds out.”

“I’ll make sure not to rough them up too much,” I say.

He rolls his eyes and heads out.

“Are you guys, like, dating?” Nicole asks once AJ’s gone. She’s making herself comfortable in the armchair on the other side of the sofa.

“We’re helping each other,” I say. Nicole tries to stifle a mischievous grin but doesn’t succeed. I ignore her, sit down in the one other chair, face Olivia, take a deep breath.

“Okay, Olivia. Do you know who I am?”

Olivia rocks back and forth, taps her thighs. If she hears and understands me, there’s no sign of it.

“My name is Annie Gore. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired to find answers about something that happened here ten years ago, when you were a little girl.”

Rock, rock. Tap, tap.

“Is it okay if I show you some pictures?”

Rock, rock. Tap, tap.

I glance at Nicole. She shrugs.

“Okay,” I say. “Is it okay if I come a little closer?”

Rock, rock. Tap, tap.

I glance again at Nicole. She says, “If she hates it, you’ll know.”

“Great.”

I get up and sit near enough to Olivia that she can see my phone screen if I set it on the coffee table but not so near as to be threatening, I hope.

“Okay,” I say, wishing like hell I had Max’s casebook with all his pictures and notes. Instead, I bring up a photo of Olivia when she was a little girl.

“This was you,” I say. “When you were little.”

Olivia’s mouth twitches a little, almost a half smile. She looks like Nicole when she smiles.

I have another picture of her and Nicole together when they were little. It’s Christmas and Nicole is playing with a set of light-up plastic blocks. Olivia is watching, wide-eyed. I show it to Olivia.

Olivia’s mouth twitches again but otherwise she just keeps rocking. The song changes but the meter stays the same and she rocks and taps.

“When you were little, someone took you away and then, a few days later, they brought you back. Do you remember any of that?”

She jerks her head. I glance at Nicole. She’s biting her lips together, looking a little nervous.

I reach over, fish in my bag, and get out the pictures Nicole gave to me the day before. I open them and spread them on the table.

Olivia’s eyes dart from page to page, spiral to spiral. Her rocking goes off time. Her tapping stutters.

“Can you help me understand what these are?”

Rock. Rock, rock. Tap tap tap tap.

I get my notebook and pens from the bag. I open the notebook to a fresh page.

“She won’t use a pen,” Nicole says.

“Okay,” I say. I look through the bag and find a fat yellow highlighter. I uncap it and hold it out to Olivia.

“Can you draw for me anything that you saw when you were taken away?”

Olivia holds the highlighter. She sniffs it. She scrunches up her nose.

Rock. Rock, rock, rock.

Her taps come one-handed. Tap. Tap.

“Okay,” I say. “How about I show you some pictures?”

I open my phone and scroll through the files I’ve saved. Olivia rocks faster.

“She um…” Nicole starts.

“What?”

“I’ve seen Uncle Cole try this with her. Twice before. She um… did not react well. But—”

“What?” I say, holding my phone close to me, away from Olivia.

“I think you should try it anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Everyone’s always trying to protect her.

But Olivia is strong. Aren’t you, Liv? And you want to help Miss Annie find Shiloh’s little girl, right?

Remember when Shiloh made you that pretty cake and brought it to the house with her little girl?

You want to help find little Lucy, right?

Remember how cute she is? Remember how she sang ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ for you? ”

Olivia gives her sister an irritated growl, and Nicole laughs.

“Okay, maybe I’m laying it on a little thick, but you do want to help, right, Liv?”

Oliva breathes out a huff of air through her nose and her rocking slows a little.

I look at both of them and ask again, “Are you sure?”

Nicole looks at Olivia and then back at me and nods.

“Just go slow,” she says. And then, to Olivia, “You can stop if you want to, okay? We can go home whenever you want. Just wave at me, okay?”

Rock. Rock. Rock. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Deep breath. I open a picture of Cole Jacobs from a news article. Hold it toward Olivia.

“This is your uncle, Cole. Do you recognize him?”

Her rocking continues. She holds the highlighter tight in her left hand, taps with the other.

“And this is Bob and Rebecca Ziegler. They work at your church.”

She looks at them and then immediately looks away, a low growl in her throat.

“She doesn’t like them,” Nicole says.

“Oh?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you know why?”

“When we were younger, my parents tried to have Olivia prayed over and baptized… I don’t know. Anyway, Olivia hated it. ”’

“Did she have a problem with Brother Bob or Rebecca before that?”

Nicole shakes her head. “I don’t remember. I was little.”

“Do you remember the service?”

“I remember my mom took Olivia up to the front of the church and everyone put their hands on Olivia’s head and shoulders. You didn’t like it, did you, Liv?”

Olivia rocks faster now. Bangs her hand—balled into a fist—against her thigh.

“No,” Nicole says. “She was not a fan. I wouldn’t be either.”

“It’s okay,” I say to Olivia. “We’re not going to do that. We’re not going to touch you.”

Top 40 plays. There’s a chorus about love and listening to a heartbeat and Olivia rocks along and I wait until she steadies.

“I’m going to show you another picture. Okay?”

Rock, rock.

She’s still holding the highlighter as I scroll through my phone.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

I decide to introduce a control. I switch over to my browser and search for stock photos. I show her a picture of a woman in a pretty dress.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

I show her a picture of a man making bread.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

I show her a picture of a couple sitting on a sofa together.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

Just in case, I show her an old mug shot of Dwight Hoyle.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

And Elaine Hoyle.

Still nothing.

“Okay,” I say. “How about this person?”

I pull up a picture of Deena Drake. The photo is one from the records AJ had, a picture of Deena and Harvey from before he died.

It’s a studio portrait and the couple is sitting in front of a teal-painted backdrop looking serenely happy.

Deena’s blond hair shimmers in the bright light and her smile is soft and elegant. I show the photo to Olivia.

Olivia pauses her rocking, stares at the photo.

Then goes back to nothing.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

The music plays. The song turns over.

This one’s more downbeat. Olivia adjusts her rhythm.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

I pull up some more stock photos. A woman in a bright red dress. A man drinking coffee. I bring up a picture of Tommy and Mandy Hoyle and put it down on the coffee table. There is no change. She rocks along to the song. A woman sings about her heart.

“Okay, just a couple more.”

I show her a picture of Molly Andrews when she was little.

“Do you know this little girl?”

She rocks and taps. Rocks and taps.

“Okay. Let’s try this one.”

I try to find one of Susan McKinney but then remember that I was never able to find any presence for her online. I go back to the file AJ brought and page through it. But Susan was never booked. There was no mug shot.

“Does the name ‘Susan’ mean anything to you, Olivia?” I ask.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

No change. It’s all I can do. At least for now.

I reopen my phone and decide to start fresh, look for stock photos of kids for a clean slate. I find a little boy in a dinosaur T-shirt and show it to her. No change. I find a little girl with long brown braids eating ice cream. No change. The song carries on. The woman sings about her pain.

I find pictures of scarecrows. One in an old shirt and jeans. One in overalls. One from The Wizard of Oz . I show them all to her.

Rock, rock. Tap. Tap.

Nothing.

I tab over to the case pictures and flick through the images until I get to the last known photograph of Jessica Hoyle. Her ice blue eyes shine out of the picture and she grins, her front two teeth missing. I put it down on the table in front of Olivia.

A low, grating moan grows in Olivia’s chest and crawls up her throat. She doesn’t open her mouth. She stares at the picture and moans and rocks, her eyes wide.

“Okay,” I say. “You’ve seen this little girl?”

She moans and rocks.

“Did you see her when you were taken away?”

She moans and rocks and smacks her leg, growls at me.

My brain buzzes. I feel like I’m vibrating.

Olivia saw Jessica Hoyle when she was taken away.

But I already knew that, right? I just didn’t expect the certainty of it to hit so hard, and I wonder, like everyone has wondered, what else Olivia saw, what else she experienced.

How to get the information from her. How to help her and Nicole and Max and Mandy and Shiloh and this whole town get past this darkness and through to the other side.

And is that my job now? No longer an investigator but a shepherd?

A knight? A warrior from another mountain?

I get my breath under control and lean as close to Olivia as I dare.

“All right, Olivia, I know this is really hard. But, if you can, could you please… draw something… anything that you saw when you saw this little girl. Can you remember anything?”

She moans and rocks and her body contorts as she comes closer to the paper and presses the highlighter hard against it. I think for a moment that the tip might disappear into the plastic but it doesn’t. Instead, she begins to draw.

Her hand, crabbed around the marker, travels in a circle and then squeezes in and in and in.

A spiral. She lifts the marker again, hovers over the paper a moment, then presses the tip close to the outside of the first spiral.

She draws another, same as the first. Another.

Another. Another. She turns the page. Starts again. One spiral. Two. Three. Four.

“What is it?” Nicole asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “More spirals.”

The song changes. A man sings about how he’s sorry about his love, his pain.

Olivia draws another spiral. Another. Another.

“Olivia?” Nicole asks, leaning closer to her sister. “What are they? Can you show me what they are?”

I pull up a picture of snails, a picture of seashells, a picture of water going down a drain. Anything spiral-shaped I can find. I try to show them to Olivia—as I’m sure others have done before me—but she ignores my phone now. Ignores me.

She draws another spiral. Another. Faster. Harder.

“Liv?” Nicole asks again, very soft. “Can you show us? Can you show us what they are? For Lucy?”

Olivia pauses long enough to glare at Nicole, then lowers herself even farther, until her face is just inches above the paper. She takes a deep breath through her nose. And again. And then the moan grows in her chest and travels up her throat.

“Okay,” Nicole says, calming. “It’s okay.”

Olivia taps the paper with the marker.

“Okay,” Nicole says.

Olivia moans again. Longer this time. Louder. She still doesn’t open her mouth. The moan never turns into a scream. It’s a guttural noise like growling, urgent and necessary.

I watch her and listen to the song and look at the paper and the spirals and decide to take a wild stab in the dark.

“Olivia, do you know the story of the Witch of Quartz Creek?”

Olivia turns to me, stares, her dark eyes boring into mine, glassy with fresh tears. And the moan becomes a scream now. She rocks and nods and flaps her hands.

“It’s okay,” Nicole says, moving next to her sister on the sofa, wrapping an arm around Olivia’s shoulders.

I realize that everything I’d seen till now was born of frustration at my inability to communicate with her, but this is different. This is pure terror.

“Are you afraid of the witch?” I ask, my voice calm and quiet.

Another scream, and then Olivia melts into tears.

“I’m sorry,” I say to both of them. “I’m sorry. I had to ask.”

Nicole nods, and Olivia waves her hands wildly.

“It’s okay,” Nicole says to her sister again. “You’re safe now.”

But there’s nothing for it. Olivia can’t stop sobbing now that she’s started. Can’t stop howling with terror, like it’s all happening again.

Because it is.

“I think it’s time to go,” Nicole says. “You want to go, Olivia?”

Olivia waves. Her tears are slowing. Her screams are quieting. But her face is still an angry red, her lip still quivering.

“Thank you,” I say, getting to my knees in front of her. “Thank you for coming here, Olivia. For helping me.”

“Come on, Liv,” Nicole says softly. She stands and Olivia stands with her. They move toward their coats. Nicole helps Olivia into hers and then hands Olivia a tissue.

When they’re both bundled up, Nicole faces me and says, “What’s happening? Who is taking these little girls? Who would do something so awful? Is there really a witch?”

All I can do is shake my head and tell her the truth.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”