In the Woods

I suppose the whole thing must have had its effects on me, but it would be impossible-and, to my mind, pointless-to figure out exactly what they were. I was twelve, after all, an age at which kids are bewildered and amorphous, transforming overnight, no matter how stable their lives are; and a few weeks later I went to boarding school, which shaped and scarred me in far more dramatic, obvious ways. It would feel naïve and basically cheesy to unweave my personality, hold up a strand and squeal: Golly, look, this one's from Knocknaree! But here it was again, all of a sudden, resurfacing smugly and immovably in the middle of my life, and I had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

"That poor kid," Cassie said suddenly, out of nowhere. "That poor, poor little kid."

* * *

The Devlins' house was a flat-fronted semi-d with a patch of grass in front, exactly like all the others on the estate. All of the neighbors had made frantic little declarations of individuality via ferociously trimmed shrubs or geraniums or something, but the Devlins just mowed their lawn and left it at that, which in itself argued a certain level of originality. They lived halfway up the estate, five or six streets from the site; far enough that they had missed the uniforms, the techs, the morgue van, all the terrible, efficient bustle that in one glance would have told them everything they needed to know.

When Cassie rang the bell, a man about forty answered. He was a few inches shorter than me, starting to thicken around the middle, with neatly clipped dark hair and big bags under his eyes. He was wearing a cardigan and khaki trousers and holding a bowl of cornflakes, and I wanted to tell him that this was all right, because I already knew what he would learn over the next few months: this is the kind of thing people remember in agony all their lives, that they were eating cornflakes when the police came to tell them their daughter was dead. I once saw a woman break down on the witness stand, sobbing so hard they had to call a recess and give her a sedative shot, because when her boyfriend was stabbed she was at a yoga class.

"Mr. Devlin?" Cassie said. "I'm Detective Maddox, and this is Detective Ryan."

His eyes widened. "From Missing Persons?" There was mud on his shoes, and the hems of his trousers were wet. He must have been out looking for his daughter, somewhere in the wrong fields, come in to get something to eat before he tried again and again.

"Not exactly," Cassie said gently. I mostly leave these conversations to her, not just out of cowardice but because we both know she is much better at it. "May we come in?"

He stared at the bowl, put it down clumsily on the hall table. A little milk slopped onto sets of keys and a child's pink cap. "What do you mean?" he demanded; fear put an aggressive edge on his voice. "Have you found Katy?"

I heard a tiny sound and looked over his shoulder. A girl was standing at the foot of the stairs, holding on to the banister with both hands. The interior of the house was dim even in the sunny afternoon, but I saw her face, and it transfixed me with a bright shard of something like terror. For an unimaginable, swirling moment I knew I was seeing a ghost. It was our victim; it was the dead little girl on the stone table. I heard a roaring noise in my ears.

A split second later, of course, the world righted itself, the roaring subsided and I realized what I was seeing. We wouldn't be needing the ID shot. Cassie had seen her as well. "We're not sure yet," she said. "Mr. Devlin, is this Katy's sister?"

"Jessica," he said hoarsely. The little girl edged forward; without taking his eyes from Cassie's face, Devlin reached back, caught her shoulder and pulled her into the doorway. "They're twins," he said. "Identical. Is this-Have you-Did you find a girl who looks like this?" Jessica stared somewhere between me and Cassie. Her arms hung limply by her sides, hands invisible under an oversized gray sweater.

"Please, Mr. Devlin," Cassie said. "We need to come in and speak with you and your wife in private." She flicked a glance at Jessica. Devlin looked down, saw his hand on her shoulder and moved it away, startled. It stayed frozen in midair, as if he had forgotten what to do with it.

He knew, by that point; of course he knew. If she had been found alive, we would have said so. But he moved back from the door automatically and made a vague gesture to one side, and we went into the sitting room. I heard Devlin say, "Go back upstairs to your Auntie Vera." Then he followed us in and closed the door.