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“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA where we should start looking for her?” Abigail grilled Glinda when they got there. The psychic was dressed for outside with a jacket and boots so she could forge through the weeds and mud.
“As I recall, she was going to search out around the cemetery and down to the creek today. But that was early this morning. She usually hikes back by midday for a snack so I can’t believe something isn’t wrong or she would have returned hours ago. She knows I worry about her. And, more importantly, she wouldn’t be out in the woods when night falls. You know how she is about the ghosts.”
They all knew how Myrtle was about the ghosts. “She wouldn’t be out there this late of her own volition.” Abigail was looking at the darkening windows around her.
“Here,” Glinda said, “are lanterns and flashlights. Let’s start looking at the graveyard’s edge and fan out down to the creek.”
Glinda handed a flashlight to Nick. “Thank you for helping, young man. We need the extra pair of eyes.”
“Anything for Myrtle,” the boy retorted. He and Laura loved Myrtle like a grandmother, an eccentric grandmother, so he would be anxious for her well-being.
The group of them hurried outside and marched briskly to the graveyard, fanning out to scan the ground as best they could. They skirted the gazebo and kept going. The shadows were merging together and scaring away the daylight. It would be full dark within the hour or less, Abigail contemplated. There’d be no moon tonight, either. By the time they had reached the creek all of them had their flashlights and lanterns on, their flashlights’ beams moving out ahead of them.
They thrashed through the terrain, around trees and high spring grass. They shouted out to each other as they went so they’d know where each one was. At one point, as they were getting close to the rushing creek and Abigail crossed paths with Frank she said, “This reminds me of that day we were out searching for that missing veteran, Alfred wasn’t it? And those other old people, Clementine and Beatrice, who’d been involved in that land grab. Wow, that was years ago but this brings it back way too clear.”
“Except this time it’s Myrtle who’s lost out in the woods. Who would have thought it? As much as she roams around everywhere. The fact she might be lost is a trip. Something really has to be wrong.” Frank’s sharp gaze was on the landscape around them, probing and searching.
“The light’s completely gone now.” Glinda had come out of a wall of bushes and joined them. “This rescue mission is going to get a heck of a lot harder. I have a truly bad feeling about this. Myrtle’s life beacon is weak. I’ve been thinking this most of the day but now I’m certain. She’s in real trouble. Life-threatening trouble. We have to find her.”
The group of them were now walking along the creek about five feet above the water, the fast-moving stream bubbling and spitting below them. Abigail was really beginning to worry. It wasn’t like Myrtle to be out in the darkness. As Glinda, a bad feeling had been growing the longer they searched.
Myrtle, Myrtle, where are you?
Owls began to hoot to each other from the evening trees. The breeze picked up and sang a spooky melody through the rustling leaves. Abigail was grateful they’d left the cemetery behind them. It was creepy enough being out by the creek, with all its eerie night creatures beginning to chirp and click, but she particularly disliked night cemeteries. She was afraid she’d see ghosts emerging from the graves. No, no graveyards in the dark.
That’s when Frank turned to Glinda, twenty feet behind him with her glowing flashlight in hand, and asked in a loud voice so she’d be sure to hear, “Did Myrtle have her cell phone on her this morning? I know she doesn’t always carry it, but maybe she did today.”
“She might have had it on her, though she so rarely does. You all know how she feels about cell phones. She hates them. But I hadn’t thought whether she had her cell phone on her or not today.” Glinda had moved up next to them.
Nick had also caught up with them, his face a pale oval in the gloom.
“I should have thought about that before. Where is my mind? Okay, let’s just try calling her. It can’t hurt.” Frank tugged his cell phone out of his pocket and keyed in a number. Abigail assumed it was Myrtle’s number.
And somewhere in the distance on the night air there was a faint ringing.
“Oh my goodness,” Glinda cried out, “that’s Myrtle’s cell phone.”
The four of them followed the siren call, half stumbling and running through the now nearly lightless landscape.
“It’s this way....” Frank yelled after they’d moved down along the creek about a half mile. He kept redialing the cell phone when it would go to message and they kept following it.
“Myrtle! There she is!” Nick was at the edge of the water, flashlight zeroing in on an area of the creek, pointing at something that more resembled a bag of trash half in and half out of the water and crumpled up against a row of large rocks. Somewhere nearby the cell phone was still ringing.
Abigail sent her flashlight’s beam to the pile of soggy clothes in the creek. Before she could stop them both Frank and Nick jumped into the water and together fought its force to pull the body out. Abigail was terror stricken that the rushing current would sweep her husband and son away but the two men were strong and after a few setbacks, helping each other by holding hands, they managed to pull Myrtle from the stream.
Myrtle was laid gently on the bank and Glinda and Abigail kept their lights directed on the motionless body. No one said what they were all afraid of. Was Myrtle still alive?
Frank bent down over the woman and picked up her wrist. “Pulse is weak, she’s unresponsive, but she’s alive.”
Abigail released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Thank God,” she whispered as she knelt down in the mud by her friend and beside Glinda, whose hands were now holding and rubbing Myrtle’s. Abigail wiped the wet dirt and debris from the old woman’s face and brushed her tangled hair back. Myrtle was so still, not prattling on about pie or laughing at her own jokes; not like her at all. Abigail had to wipe away the tears collecting in the corner of her eyes. Please let her be all right. Please God, don’t take Myrtle away from us. We all love her.
Frank was on his cell again calling for an ambulance and after he’d hung up he said, “I’m going up to the road to wait for the ambulance so I can bring the paramedics down here to pick Myrtle up. Stay with her. Keep talking to her. Warm her up in any way you can.” He draped his jacket over her.
Abigail peered up at him. In the light’s shadows he was a blurry figure. “You know we will.”
As Frank took off up the hill towards civilization, Nick fell in behind him and the two disappeared into the woods. The road was about a mile away.
Abigail could hear the ambulance coming, louder, louder, closer, closer, every minute until she was sure it was up on the road above them when the silence fell.
Even with Glinda’s and her attention, Myrtle hadn’t woke or even moved. She was as cold and still as stone laying there on the muddy bank. In her heart Abigail was more than frightened, she was numb. Tumultuous thoughts tumbled over and over in her mind. It was like Abigail’s world was frozen and everything in it was waiting to see if Myrtle would live. As she waited with her old friend her mind replayed memories of Myrtle since she’d first met her so many years ago on the streets of Spookie. The odd lady in bizarre clothes who roamed the town singing her Perry Como songs loud enough to wake the dead and tugging her battered old wagon behind her. When she’d first seen her rambling the streets of the town she’d thought Myrtle was a homeless bag lady, or, in her case, wagon lady. But Abigail had soon learned the old woman was a lot more than what she appeared to be. She was more than a quirky character with a prickly exterior, she had a good and generous heart and helped so many people without announcing she did or taking credit for any of it. Then there was the time Myrtle saved her life. She could have been dead if Myrtle wouldn’t have knocked the Mud People Killer over the head that night with a stick when he’d broken into the house trying to kidnap her, right before he flung himself out her upstairs bedroom window. Dead. She owed Myrtle her very life.
Please be okay Myrtle. Please don’t die.
A crowd of people appeared out of the dark with lights and a stretcher, worked over the body doing things Abigail couldn’t and didn’t want to understand, and then carried Myrtle away. Abigail was still fighting her tears but when the crowd was gone she let them creep down her cheeks and swiped them off with unsteady fingers.
“Can I ride with you to the hospital?” Glinda requested of Abigail, after the ambulance had driven off, and as they trekked to the house to reclaim the truck and car. They hurried because they were meeting the ambulance at the hospital and didn’t want to be late.
“Of course.”
They made it to the hospital in good time, only a few minutes after the ambulance had arrived. And that’s when the praying began. They sat in the hard chairs in the waiting room and waited for what would happen next. It was a long wait.
“I knew this was coming,” Glinda’s voice was tinged with guilt. “I’ve been sensing for days something bad was coming. Something very bad. The cards were nefarious, as well, but I couldn’t decrypt what they were trying to tell me. I never should have let Myrtle go out treasure hunting by herself. She’s an old woman. I should have gone with her as she wanted me to. This is my fault. What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking Myrtle already meanders all around town and across the countryside like a person thirty years her junior. Besides, you and I both know if Myrtle wants to do something, she will find a way to do it. There’s no controlling that woman.”
Glinda said nothing else, only sighed and looked away.
And they waited.