“You know where you’re headed?”
The question came from a burly man with thick, graying hair and a beard that could have done with a good trim.His canvas field coat hung open, and under it he wore a zippered sweatshirt, also open, over a three-button undershirt: layers to be discarded as needed.
“I believe so,” said Sabine.
“Good.”
He resumed walking and she fell into step beside him.
“You come far?”he asked casually.
“Haynesville, but I stayed in Bingham last night.”
“Just for this, or were you drawn by the bright lights?”
He squinted at her.She didn’t need any great acuity to spot his caution.She knew there were those who would be thrilled by the idea not only of looking for a body, but also the possibility of finding one.Mallory Norton’s disappearance would have drawn them from under their rocks.Sabine ought to have asked for the bullhorn to reassure everyone she meant well.
“I was up here anyway.I saw the notice about the search and decided to stay.I could spare the time.And you?”
“I’m from The Plains.”
“Do you know the girl?”
“Only to see around,” he replied.
He stopped by a battered Ford truck.“This is me.”
Sabine pointed at her car.“And that’s me.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for you.I’m Tim Sadlier, by the way.”
“Sabine Drew.”
“A pleasure, Sabine.”
“Likewise.How about I just follow you, Tim?”
“Be my guest.I’d keep my windows closed, though.This old girl does cough some.”
So Sabine followed the man named Tim all the way to the rendezvous—he wasn’t lying about the exhaust—and once they arrived, she stayed with him.The forest ranger made everyone space out before they began, but ensured everyone kept within both sight and hailing distance of the searchers at either side, so Sabine found herself with Tim to her right and Bennett Small to her left.
“You see anything unusual,” said the ranger, “you call out and look, but don’t touch.Okay, let’s move.”
They’d been told to familiarize themselves with what Mallory Norton was wearing when she was last seen.Sabine had memorized the details, and planned to do her best to pay attention to the physical surroundings, but really, she was engaged on an exploration of a different character.Already, she was reaching into the darkness of the woods ahead.In her right hand, plucked from the brush in the girl’s bedroom, she held a tangle of Mallory Norton’s hair.
Chapter 52
As the morning wore on, Sabine learned why Tim Sadlier dressed in layers that were easily removable.Although the weather wasn’t warm, the terrain they were searching was rough, with a gradual but discernible gradient, and after half an hour she’d had to take off her jacket to remove her sweatshirt.This had resulted in Sadlier and Small receiving a flash of red brassiere—and what it contained when the sweatshirt caught on the clip holding Sabine’s hair in place, though Sadlier, unlike Small, had the decency to pretend not to notice.She tied the sweatshirt round her waist, put the jacket back on, and caught up with the rest, Mallory Norton’s hair once more entwined around her fingers.
“Come on, honey,” Sabine whispered.“If you’re out here, give me a sign.”
They were moving through woodland, which made it harder for Sabine both to hold her position in the line and maintain a clear mind, since she had to keep an eye on Sadlier and Small as well as watch where she put her feet.If she deviated too far east or west, she might overlook something important, and if she took a misstep, she could break an ankle.The last of the season’s insects—mostly sluggish cluster flies—buzzed around her as she broke a sweat, and she picked up traces of stink bug on the breeze.Without stopping, she wiped her brow and drank some water.To her left was the Kennebec, visible through the trees some way distant, and to the right was a smaller tributary, flowing downhill.Now she paused to take her bearings, and thought the stream to her right might be the same one that had carried Scott Theriault’s body.If so, the spot where the corpse had lodged was somewhere behind her.On the way back, she could change her position in the line so that—
What came at her was not utterly formless.It had shape but not fixity, its margins blurring and shading to gray, its core a deep, roiling black.It erupted from a stand of balsam fir, as if extruded by a rupture in some unseen membrane, like toxic gas expanded to the point of explosion.Sabine had just seconds to register it before it was upon her, and the forest, the extended line, even Sadlier and Small, were instantly lost from sight, leaving her in darkness.The force of the body’s passage swept Sabine off her feet and she landed awkwardly on her back, causing a rib to pop, but the pain was the least of her concerns because the dark had both mass and intent.It was pushing against her face, suffocating her, and she was trying not to breathe because she didn’t want it inside her, but nailed fingers were scratching at her lips, forcing them apart so they could enter her mouth, and even as she tried to clench her jaw they were scraping at the enamel of her teeth.She wanted to scream, but to scream would be to admit the dark, the dark with all its rage and loneliness, the dark that was many and one, plural made singular, so that even individual names were rendered fragmentary.Fear, desperation, hate, longing: all those were present, and love too, though the love was struggling to survive amid the rest.Suddenly the hands were gone from her face, and she felt them instead on her arms, her head.She pounded at them with her fists until a voice said: “It’s okay, we’re here.We’ve got you.”
The dark retreated, reluctantly, and Tim Sadlier’s features came into focus, Bennett Small beside him, and behind them, drawing nearer, the ranger, with the state trooper at his heels.The dark remained above, below, and around, swooping and diving, like the murmurations of starlings, but less a multiplicity acting in unison than a barely restrained chaos, and what kept it from dissolution was a distinct force of will stronger than the rest, but not strong enough to prevent damage being inflicted on Sabine to the point of death.Something in the dark was clinging to reason, but soon it would lose its grip.After that, there would be nothing to hold the rest back.
“Can you stand?”Tim Sadlier asked.
