33
After pulling on the hand brake, Jack leapt out of the Land Rover and ran toward the gate. On the other side, he could see Evie surrounded by a group of about half a dozen people.
“Tell us what happened, Evie. Who do you think’s taken your daughter?”
“Go away.” Evie stood there, swaying, her hands over her ears.
It was the press—the last thing she needed. Jack ran into the middle of them and took her arm. “Leave her alone.” He was furious. “You’re on private property. Get out, all of you.”
As he led her toward the house, one of the reporters overtook them and stopped in front of Evie. Turning, Jack tried to shield her from the camera’s flash. Goddamned press. They were like vultures preying on the vulnerable.
“Are you all right?” he asked as Evie fumbled with a key and unlocked the back door.
Hunched inside her jacket, she nodded. She looked far from all right as she went inside.
* * *
Jack hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d waited until she turned on lights and closed curtains, made her promise not to open the door to anyone other than the police. Nor had he planned to go back the next morning, but the intrusion of the press, and her vulnerability, had preyed on his mind.
As he walked the following morning, night lingered, in the dark shapes of trees and bushes, the still-bright moon, the slight crunching underfoot from the first frost, which would last only until the early sun broke through. Above, the sky was clear, a hint of palest silver in the east heralding the sunrise, as he walked across the yard toward the woods.
He was looking for the stag under the canopy of branches that held the darkness in, blotting out the coming dawn. He knew the way with his eyes closed—the path that twisted through the brambles, then straightened between the rows of tall pines, the floor beneath them carpeted with needles. He breathed in air scented with damp earth as his feet took him to a hidden place, of soft grass and fallen leaves and empty chestnut casings, a place that in spring was carpeted with bluebells.
The stag was a symbol of hope. Sometimes you needed a sign that you were on the right path. That you weren’t about to lose your mind. There’s a child out here, Jack was thinking. The police investigation had got nowhere—not in any sense that meant anything. If there was any kind of balance in the world, any unifying force, he needed help now.... Jack’s fists were clenched. He didn’t know why he was asking, demanding, help from an unseen, questionable source. None had been forthcoming when his son had needed it.
The sun was edging up from the horizon as he reached the place where he’d seen the stag, the first rays reaching through the branches, casting a blinding light across his face. Listening for the giveaway sounds of hooves through leaves and fallen twigs, he knew almost straightaway that it wasn’t here. Blinking, he turned away from the sunlight; then, at his feet, he saw them, the verdant shoots poking up through last year’s fallen leaves. It never ceased to amaze Jack how they survived the elements.
He crouched down and lifted away a few of the decaying leaves, puzzled. In spring, slender green spears like this carpeted the woods. They were wild bulbs. They thrived here because of the fallen leaves, which offered enough protection that the bulbs could start to grow underneath; and because of the trees, which kept the ground cooler and damper here, so that for a few short weeks, tens of thousands of tiny flowers would paint the floor hyacinth blue or pure white.
It was all connected, he suddenly realized, in a way he hadn’t seen before. The flowers and the trees, their roots reaching deep into the ground, where they tangled with each other, their branches overhead outstretched toward each other until they touched.
But as he looked down, there was something out of place. The verdant shoots emerging through the soil and poking through the leaves, they were snowdrops, he was almost certain. But it was far too early for them. Carefully, he lifted away more dead leaves and saw a single tiny white bud. They were snowdrops, by some miracle flowering early.
The strangest feeling came over him. He’d come here to find the stag, and instead, he’d found a single fragile flower. But it didn’t matter. Suddenly, he could feel it again, not elusive and intangible, the way it usually felt, but flowing through him from the air in his lungs and on his skin, from the ground beneath him. The miracle that was hope.
Whistling to Beamer, Jack walked toward Evie’s house. He felt energized. He just wished she could feel that way, too. This time, there were no cars parked outside. She was alone.
Walking up the path, he was too busy watching the robin perched on the wheelbarrow, his head on one side, to notice Evie walking down toward him.
“It’s Angel’s robin. At least, that’s how I always think of him.” She stepped closer to him. “Have you seen her?” Her voice was quiet, as she did not want to scare the bird off. “You saw, didn’t you? Did you see them take her things, too? What happened? Where did she go?”
The robin glanced at her before darting away. As her voice faded, she looked up and into the trees. Jack saw the hooded shapes of crows there, which were also watching them.
“You see all the birds? I imagine them watching us, watching what we do. I wonder if one of them knows where Angel is.” Falling silent, she dropped her gaze. “You must think I’m mad.”
She was no more mad than he was, he who took strength from the sight of a flower or imagined his dead son sending a wild stag to his rescue. “I really don’t.”
He went on. “I came to make sure you hadn’t had any more trouble from the press.” It wasn’t the real reason, but he didn’t want to freak her out.
She shook her head. “I suppose they’ll come back.” She said it halfheartedly.
“If they do, let us know.”
She nodded. “Would you like to come in?”
He followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the door frame as he watched her put the kettle on, then find mugs, coffee, and milk. It was like watching someone whose mind was tuned out. That was a pretty accurate description, he reminded himself. A mind that was constantly numbed by a cocktail of drugs and fear.
He remembered the wretched pills. They solved nothing, just lowered a short-lived veil over your senses, a veil that slowly dissolved to reveal the full horror of what had happened all over again—until you took more pills, drew another veil. An endless cycle on repeat, until you stopped it, waited for the onslaught of pain.
There were tears rolling down Evie’s cheeks again. All that suppressed emotion had to come out somewhere. Jack imagined the robin flying after Angel, having the answer that Evie so desperately needed, but being unable to tell her. Probably the crows, too.
One of the mugs smashed on the floor. Evie slumped down beside it, unable to stop her crying, as if her heart was breaking all over again.
Jack helped her up. She put him in mind of a wild animal, constantly on edge, ready for flight. But then, how could a mother rest when her child was missing? Even as she sat at the table, the tears kept coming silently, her face devoid of the pain locked inside. There was nothing he could say. Jack knew that at times like this, words made no difference. The only thing that would help was if he found Angel. As he passed Evie a mug of tea, her hands were shaking.
The police needed a break of some kind. They’d looked everywhere obvious in the yard, but when you were surrounded by miles of countryside—rolling fields, dark woods, streams, impenetrable brambles, all leading to the rugged coast path and endless miles of ocean—where did you go next?
“Why don’t you try to sleep? Just for a while?” She had hardly touched the tea and was just sitting there, staring blankly ahead of her. “I can hang around a bit if you like, or I could go home and come back later. . . .” He wasn’t sure which she’d prefer.
Evie nodded, then got up, disappeared through the doorway. When she didn’t come back, Jack walked after her. When he glanced into her sitting room, she was already curled up on the sofa, asleep.
Quietly, Jack let himself out. But he was worried about her. As he walked down the path, he called Abbie.