This place is fucking nuts. That woman is a witch.
And then some details about Lizzie’s life back home, a fight with her stepfather, a call from her ex. Three pages in, Lizzie vanishes and another author, this one unnamed, takes over, and as if in conversation with Lizzie.
I have never felt so WATCHED. I’ll be talking to my family about something random, and the next day she mentions it. All the girls say the same thing. Either she’s a fucking psychic or she’s spying on EVERYONE.
She continues for four more pages. And then another author takes over.
She screamed at a guest today. She has no boundaries.
She is sick and obsessive.
She always tells us what to do.
It becomes a burn book for your mother, a list of all the wicked things she does. There are no names beyond Lizzie’s, no dates. It seems to go beyond the normal employer-employee dynamic. They complain about the hours, the lack of breaks, the isolation, the hard labor, how many times a day she makes someone cry and the feeling, which everyone seems to have, that she is always watching.
She’s a control freak.
She’s a bitch.
She’s EVIL.
I read every last word. When I finally shut the book, I think of what your mother told me, how thoughts out here can be contagious. Already, I think I don’t like your mother.
I stash the journal under my mattress. I sit on the end of the bed in my swept circle, eyes fixed out the window, which faces the sun, which is drawing down toward the mountains. A horse nickers.
When it is dark enough, I stand. I know exactly where I’m going. I have learned from you how to solve a mystery, and I know exactly where I need to go. Exactly where your mother told me not to.
* * *
—
I take the same path skirting the perimeter, where I found the dead cat this morning. The body has been removed, leaving a mark like scorched earth. I step around it. The trail ricochets down the steep mountainside, cut deep into the cliff.
At the bottom of the ridge, the trail is blocked by a neat pile of logs. I pause, but only for a moment; then I climb along the steep sides, careful to avoid the poison ivy. I scratch my palms and my fingernails collect dirt and I bounce down, unsteady, on the other side of the barrier. And I am walking fast along the creek, which crackles, not strong and overpowering like the Klamath but louder, bubbling, angry as it spatters against the rocks. The valley is lush with prehistoric ferns, bows of green turned black in the dark. The path meets a wide fire road running into the mountains. I glance toward the source as I step onto it, then gasp in surprise.
In the distance, at the mouth of the road, two headlights burn like round white globes. As I observe the lights, they shrink, sink back onto the road as the car reverses away from me. My heart is hammering in my chest. It was as if the car was parked there, waiting for me to arrive. I hear the sudden slash of an engine, as if someone’s stepped on the gas. For a moment, it seems to surround me, and then it drops out in an instant, like the car met its vanishing point. I blink. The sound must have hidden itself around a bend in the road, but it felt like magic, like a knot to be untangled.
It could have been anyone, I remind myself. It could have been someone pausing on a long journey, or looking for privacy. Not every road leads to you, but I look up ahead, and I think, This one does.
I hurry, footsteps quick, tripping on the uneven ground. I stop when I see a hair tie yawning on the ground. I pause to pick it up. I imagine a world where I can get it tested, where I find your DNA, but the strands on it are long and blond, gleaming in the moonlight, so I know it doesn’t belong to you.
I follow the creek, which must be the eponymous Fountain Creek, and the road bends and my heart slows and I see it, rising up in the dark so it’s a shadowed, greenish color my eyes still recognize as yellow. It’s your yellow house, just like I knew it would be.
I don’t hesitate, like a kid in a fairy tale; I rush right up the porch steps to the door and I knock. I wait. The house is dark. The lights are out.
“Hello?” I say, afraid to say your name, afraid someone is watching. “Hello?” I bang on the door. When no one answers, I try the handle. We don’t lock doors here—your mother’s voice comes back. There’s no point. Your door is locked.
I stand under the eaves, looking plaintively up. I move to peer through the windows. My heart palpitates, and I realize I am expecting to see your body. I am looking for your bones: a cool, smooth shinbone, the eye of a hip. I am expecting to find your skull waiting, mouth ajar to tell me your story and the story is this: It’s Murder, it’s Missing, it’s Conspiracy.
Then I hear her breath behind me. Her steps follow my steps. I turn abruptly and I see your mother glowering at me in the dark.
Episode 17:
She’s Being Watched
It started with a feeling, like she was being followed. Then the notes appeared, little letters in her mailbox. They started off innocuous enough. “I think you’re pretty” or “You looked good today.” But over time, the content changed: “You stuck-up, dirty bitch. I’m going to saw your fat tits off.”
We walk back up the trail in silence. I think about the passage in the burn book: Either she’s a fucking psychic or she’s spying on EVERYONE. When your mother sees me hesitate outside my cabin, she says, “There’s something I’d better tell you,” and I follow her across the ranch to the main house.
The inside is lavish—not modern or flashy, but clearly a rich person’s house. There is a grand piano, an ivory statue of Christ flashing the holes in his hands, polished wood floors, a mudroom and a sitting room and a formal dining room. I follow your mother to the kitchen.
“Would you like a cup of tea? It’s my own recipe.” My chest contracts as I think of the bottles in the greenhouse, but I remind myself I have no evidence that she is a murderer. She may be tough, but she is probably not going to kill me. But she could. She could and I would be out here alone. How long would it take them to find me? What if they never did?
“I talked to my parents today,” I say, just in case. “Told them all about this place. They’re excited for me. My friend too.” I never know what to call my ex-husband. “Ex-husband” feels too grandiose.
She puts the kettle on, fills two tea strainers with her own leaves. She takes her time with the tea and I watch her, reminding myself to breathe.
When she finishes, she brings the tea over—deep purple liquid in white cups on white saucers. She sets one in front of me. She takes the chair across from me.
“I did tell you.” She taps her fingernails on her teacup. “Not to go down there.”
She actually told me the trail didn’t exist. “It was an accident. I got lost. It’s easy to get turned around here, like you said.”