the gray shapes of the counters and a cooler on the floor. The air was heavy and spoiled, stale with the smell of him.
She set her backpack down and once again closed her eyes and stood very still.
Silence. She felt nothing but the cold swirl of air.
What was wrong? Why couldn’t she feel anything? Why wasn’t something coming to her like it did in Dr. Sher’s office?
Amy moved to the cupboard and opened the door, letting out the dank smell of rusted pipes. She brushed aside the cobwebs and climbed inside. It felt different, smaller, like she didn’t fit anymore. But she huddled up, pulled the door closed, and stared out through the jagged cracks in the wood slats.
She saw nothing but the torn linoleum.
Amy closed her eyes and leaned her head on her knees. She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t help it. The tears just came, hot and hard.
Why couldn’t she remember?
With a small cry, she crawled from the cupboard. She stood for a moment in the kitchen, wiping her face and taking small breaths to calm herself. She knew she needed to be calm for this to work. Dr. Sher always told her to stay calm.
That’s when she saw it… there on the floor.
Toby.
She scrambled to the corner and snatched up the stuffed rabbit. She held it to her nose, inhaling its sweet- musty scent.
Her eyes snapped open.
The parlor. That is where she would be!
But when she got there, she felt nothing. And the roll of music was missing from the piano. She shut her eyes tight and tried to think of the song. If she sang it, her mother would hear it. But nothing came. Not one word. The song was gone, too.
Clutching the rabbit, Amy opened her eyes.
There was no one here anymore.
She slowly retraced her steps back to the kitchen, picked up her backpack, and stuffed Toby inside. She left the kitchen and stood on the porch for a moment, looking out over the farm. The barn and the other buildings were just black outlines in gray mist, and beyond was nothing but the empty fields fading into the darkness.
No lights, no movement, no sounds. No signs that anyone had ever lived here. And for a moment, she had the weird thought that maybe even
She had to go back to Miss Joe. She’d be so worried.
But the rain was coming down harder now. And she was cold and tired.
She would wait until it was light, and then she would walk back to the Texaco station. It would be open in the morning, and someone would let her call the hotel, and Miss Joe would come and get her.
Amy glanced back at the kitchen. She didn’t want to go back in there. She looked at the barn. She would wait there.
Hoisting the backpack over her shoulder, she jumped off the porch and ran across the yard to the barn. The heavy sliding doors on the bottom level stood open just enough for her to squeeze through.
It was warmer inside but dark.
She picked her way across the dirt floor, trying to make out the shape of the old stalls in the gloom. There was hay, she remembered, and she could sleep there until morning.
She was halfway across the barn when she felt it.
Like the brush of a warm breeze on her cheek. But she knew there was no wind in the barn. It came again, the gentlest of caresses.
“Momma?” she whispered.
She stood very still and closed her eyes, her heart hammering, waiting for the feeling. But the only feeling that came was a small constricting of her throat.
There was just her.
And the voice she heard now was her own.
Amy opened her eyes. The darkness pressed close around her, but she wasn’t afraid. She walked slowly but surely across the barn, moving easily among the rusted tools and rotting bales, into the farthest corner of the barn.
An instinct told her to reach out, and when she did, her hand touched wood. A ladder. She had known it would be there!
The backpack secured on her back now, she began to climb. She couldn’t see anything above, but still, there was no fear for herself now. Just for…
She emerged into a new darkness, but she could feel the boards of a floor, and she pulled herself up. The old hay was scratchy beneath her hands. She knew she was up on the old barn’s second floor now, and a stab of recognition came to her. This was where she had found the kitten! But a different memory was crowding that one out with its urgency.
The old boards groaned as she made her way across the rotted planks, but she kept moving until…
She stopped, knelt down, and brushed the straw away. Her fingers found the cold metal ring of the trapdoor. She pulled, but it wouldn’t move.
Horses… she could hear horses outside!
She pulled in a deep breath and yanked on the trapdoor. It cracked and gave way, falling back on the hay with a thud.
Without a second thought, Amy launched herself into the black hole. She landed with a hard jolt in a pile of hay. She was stunned for a second, but then the feel of the rain on her face brought her back. Outside… she was outside.
She was on her feet at once and moving through the darkness, away from the barn, through a thicket of high weeds.
Amy stopped suddenly.
The voice was gone.
In front of her was a high thicket of thorny brambles.
Chapter Forty
Dawn. Coming to him as a sliver of gray in the corner of his eye. He had survived another night. Two now… two nights and two days in this stinking hole.
Owen Brandt ran a dirty hand under his nose and pushed himself to his feet. He wiped his frozen hands on his pants and made his way through the darkness to the steps. Memory spurred him in the right direction. That’s how it was now, depending only on his senses and what he could remember to survive when the darkness closed in.
His hands had told him this place had stone walls and wooden rafters. His feet had told him it was nine feet wide, because he had walked it back and forth in the dark. But he didn’t know how deep it was, because he wouldn’t go back any further than he could see. But sometimes, if the sun was bright enough to bleed around the edges of the old wood door and down the stone steps, then he could make out the dirt pile back there. He was sure the ceiling had caved in, but he wasn’t about to go back there and risk getting himself buried alive.
