The Witch Mark

Part two

As the sun sank lower in the sky that afternoon, Honey gathered together all of the people she had mentioned earlier for a barbecue and swim at the lake. She had called the Wilson house earlier to invite Diana and gone personally to pick her up. As the others arrived, she introduced her around.

“Have you already met Brian and Mart?” she asked Diana. “They’re Trixie’s brothers and they’re just visiting for a few weeks.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Brian greeted.

The visitor smiled in reply.

“Oh, and here’s Jim. But you met him earlier.”

“Hello, again.” Jim smiled and turned to Brian. “You want to help with the barbecue?”

Brian nodded and the two set to work.

“Sorry I’m late,” Trixie called, as she arrived shortly after that. “I got held up with Bobby.”

“That’s their little brother,” Honey explained. “He’s – what? – ten?”

“Eleven,” Mart corrected. “And don’t let him hear you calling him ten!”

“My brothers are eleven, too,” Diana admitted. “And my sisters are seven.”

“Oh! How many siblings do you have?” Honey wondered.

Diana smiled slightly. “Four – two sets of twins.”

“How lucky.” Honey smiled. “I didn’t have any until Jim came to live with us and he was fifteen. I mean, he’s adopted, not that he lived somewhere else; no, he did live somewhere else; he didn’t just suddenly come into existence when he was fifteen; that’s when my parents adopted him.”

Into the slightly uneasy silence that followed this speech, Trixie dropped the suggestion: “Why don’t we have a quick swim now, while Jim and Brian are cooking?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Honey answered. “Diana, do you need somewhere to change? I’ll just open the boathouse.”

In a few minutes, the four were in the water. Diana, wearing a one-piece suit in royal purple, lingered at the edges, shivering.

“Too cold for you?” Honey called to her, from the deeper water. “Sometimes it’s better to just plunge in.”

But Diana didn’t want to. After a short time, she retreated to the shore, where the other two men included her in their conversation. Trixie, Honey and Mart splashed around for a while, then retired to the shallows to sit.

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Mart announced in a low voice, apparently in continuation of some earlier conversation. “Isn’t it better to let sleeping dogs lie?”

“I’m tired of all this,” Honey answered. “I want peace between the five of us, like we had back at the start, before all the mess.”

Mart snorted. “Well, be it on your own head when Brian decks me and Jim and Trixie start yelling at each other. It’s the only possible outcome.”

He heaved himself to his feet and went to get dried off.

“Do you think that’s the only possible outcome?” Honey asked.

Trixie shook her head. “Of course not. Mart might deck Brian instead.”

“That’s not helping.”

“Maybe not. But if you have lower expectations, you’ll be less disappointed.”

Jim announced just then that the food was ready and the two got out of the water in a hurry. Trixie found herself seated between Brian and Diana. Throughout the meal, the conversation flowed across several different topics, often breaking into smaller groups. As they were finishing, Trixie mentioned her plans for the next school year.

“I just graduated high school a few weeks ago. I’m going to college in the City, but I don’t really know yet what I want to be. How about you?”

Diana stood suddenly, knocking over the ketchup. “At least you get a choice!” she cried, in a loud voice.

Trixie gaped for a moment. “Don’t you?” she asked, confused.

The other girl took a deep breath, then seemed to realise that everyone was staring at her. She muttered an apology and sat down dropping her gaze.

“Look, I’m sorry. Again.” Trixie leaned a little forward, trying to see the face behind the curtain of dark hair. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

Diana shrugged. “I’m sorry, too. It’s just that I’ve been forced into this and it’s not what I wanted.”

Trixie exchanged a look with Honey, silently begging for her help.

“Is there anything we can do?” Honey asked.

The other girl shook her head. “Thank you for inviting me. I guess I’ll be going now.”

Honey reached out to her. “You don’t need to do that. Stay a little longer and we’ll have cake.”

“I think I’m going to cool off in the lake first,” Jim decided, “but go ahead and eat if you want to.”

Brian followed his example, while Mart announced that he would take a short stroll. Honey gestured to Trixie to join one or other of them and it only took her a moment to get the idea that she was being sent away. She glanced back at the other two girls as she got into the water and saw them talking quietly.

She swam around for a while, but began to get too cold. The sun had sunk below the trees by this time and a breeze swept across the water. Trixie decided to get out. As she waded back to shore, she heard Diana gasp and say to Honey, “Who’s that?”

Honey looked over her shoulder and called, “Hi, Dan. Come and join us.”

Trixie saw him standing at the edge of the clearing. He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

A moment later, he was gone. Trixie walked back to where she’d left her towel and began drying herself. She was close enough, now, to hear Honey and Diana’s conversation.

“He’s very handsome. Who is he?”

“Oh, just a relative of one of my Dad’s employees,” Honey explained. “I didn’t even know he was in town. I haven’t seen him in years.”

“So you don’t think he’ll stay around?” Diana sounded disappointed.

Honey shrugged. “I have no idea. But I can find out easily enough. I’ll just ask Regan – he’s Dan’s uncle, though we didn’t know that for the longest time.”

“Sounds complicated.”

Honey nodded. “It is, a little. See, Regan lost touch with his sister and didn’t know that she was dead until he heard that his nephew, Dan, was in trouble, only before that, I don’t know if he even knew he had a nephew. Anyway, they sent Dan to live here – not exactly here of course, but Sleepyside, I mean – only Regan decided it would be better to have him live with someone older – he’s only six or seven years older than Dan – and my Dad’s gamekeeper agreed to have him, only they didn’t tell us kids – well, we were kids then, even though we aren’t now – who Dan was, which turned out to be a really bad idea.”

“Oh.” Diana’s brows drew together in confusion.

“He hated it here, and he was different from us and we were suspicious of him and there was a break-in at Tom and Celia’s – they work for my family, too, and they live in that cute little cottage we passed on the way, though they’re probably going to move soon, because it’s so tiny and they really do need something bigger, but back then they’d only just moved in – and, where was I? Oh, yes, Dan got blamed for the break-in, which made us like him even less and him hate it here even more and so he ran away. Only then, after he’d left, another guy got caught trying to break into my house and it was him who broke into the cottage, but we didn’t actually find out who he was until later, when it turned out that it was actually someone from Dan’s old life who was here to try to take him back to it, and nearly succeeded, only because Trixie had argued with Dan, Dan had gotten annoyed and he wasn’t here when Luke – that was the other guy’s name – came for him. So, when Dan turned up again, Regan found someone else to take him and we never saw him again. Until just now, I mean. But Regan has always said that it worked out for the best for Dan and that’s he’s doing really well.”

Diana cast a thoughtful glance in the direction he had gone. “Someone else who got sent places they didn’t want to go. I’d like to meet him sometime.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Honey promised. “Seeing as you’re going to be around for a while, we should make sure you get to meet as many people around our age as you can.”

“Thanks,” Diana answered. “I can’t believe my mother is doing this to me. It’s just not fair.”

Honey nodded. “I know. And I hope the problem gets sorted out soon so that you can do what you want to do.”

Her new friend’s shoulders slumped. “She’ll just think of something else that I just have to do.”

At this point, Mart returned from his walk – prompting Jim and Brian to get out of the lake – and the subject dropped. They shared the cake, not leaving so much as a crumb. A short time later, Diana restated her desire to leave and Honey took her home.

“See you all later,” said Jim, before they were even out of sight and without looking at those he addressed.

“Wait!” Trixie looked from him to her brothers. “I want to talk to the three of you.”

They stood in silence, a few paces separating each of them.

“Honey really wants us all to be friends again.”

Mart shrugged. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“If you would just let go of your grudge –” she began.

“Me?” he interrupted. “Oh, other people have bigger grudges than I have.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Mart, you have a girlfriend … Lola? Lilly? Lulu? Whatever her name is. You don’t need another one.”

“Eloise,” he corrected, through gritted teeth.

His sister waved a dismissive hand. “I knew it started with L. My point is, it’s all over and done with. Let go already.”

“It’s not that simple,” he argued. “You just don’t understand.”

She groaned. “You always say that, but I understand just fine. You just don’t want to let go.”

Before he could say any more, Brian spoke. “Trixie, if you are willing to bury the hatchet with Jim, then I think that Mart and I would be willing to do the same.”

She looked over at Jim, whose face was tinged with a hint of pink and whose gaze was fixed firmly on the ground.

“Well?” Mart demanded.

Jim did not look up. “Trixie, could I speak to you alone for a few moments?”

“Sure,” she answered, though her heart began to beat faster.

He led the way into the boathouse and shut the door. Trixie waited for him to speak. Her heart felt like it was in her throat and it seemed impossible to say anything. She could not read his expression and had no idea what was coming.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, at last. “We should have sorted this out years ago and it’s my fault that we didn’t.”

Trixie shook her head. “Let’s say it’s equal.”

Jim stared at a life jacket, which had fallen off its hook. “I’ve never admitted what that whole incident with Ben really meant – not to you; not to anyone else. Heck, I hardly admitted it to myself. It hit far too close to home.”

Trixie thought back to that long-ago Thanksgiving. Ben Riker had been amused, for a while, with creating a half-parrot, half-squirrel for Bobby. But once he tired of that, the real trouble had begun. The others had intended to take turns at keeping him occupied, but a mix-up had left Ben bored and alone one afternoon.

His answer to this situation was to play a trick on Honey, Jim and their friends. Trixie vividly remembered the afternoon she and Honey arrived back from a ride to find the Manor House verandah populated with a variety of people from school, most of them boys in Jim’s year, but a few girls or younger students mixed into the group.

“What do you think is happening?” Honey had wondered. “Has Jim invited people over?”

Trixie had shaken her head. “Look. There’s Ben. But Jim isn’t here, and neither are Brian or Mart, so who’s turn is it to mind Ben? Wasn’t it Brian’s?”

Honey had then pointed, her finger shaking just a little. “What’s that? It looks like pictures.”

Feeling like a heavy stone had settled in her stomach, Trixie raced up the stairs. One of the boys made a crude remark, setting her face aflame and the surrounding boys sniggering. She pushed past them to see what they were looking at and her jaw dropped. It appeared to be a page from an old children’s book of fairy tales, but someone – presumably Ben – had altered it using photos and a black marker.

Trixie tore it down and turned to the next one. Taken in sequence, the pages told a story not at all suitable for children, featuring Ben as the handsome prince, Jim as the wicked witch, Honey as a fainting princess, Brian and Mart as beggars and Trixie as a woman of easy virtue. In the second-last one, Honey and Ben pushed Jim into the oven. The last scene depicted Ben riding off into the sunset with a popular actress.

She spun on her heels to confront Ben, only to find Jim standing right behind her. Before she could speak, Honey calmly and politely asked everyone to move off the verandah. For a moment, no one moved, but then one by one the outsiders began to walk away. Another of the boys whispered a proposition to Trixie as he passed – something which, along with some rather nasty rumours, became a feature of the next few weeks.

Whether Ben meant to be malicious, or merely annoying, no one had ever fully established. But when the dust had settled, Jim could barely look Trixie in the eye, Trixie’s brothers could hardly contain their fury and even Honey had hardly a good word to say for her own cousin.

After Ben returned to his home, Jim retreated from the group. He still had not fully returned when the Belden brothers had their falling out. After that, Jim mostly talked to Brian and Honey mostly talked to Trixie. The oldest two went off to college and the matter was at an end. The early friendships were broken and there seemed nothing to be done about it.

“I was so embarrassed at first, I didn’t really notice that you had a problem, too,” Trixie admitted. “I’m sorry about that.”

Jim shook his head. “What he did to you was much worse than what he did to me. But I felt guilty. I really didn’t think I deserved to be part of the family. And Ben obviously didn’t think I belonged either.” He cleared his throat. “And I guess you hadn’t noticed a certain detail in one of the pictures. To do with you and me.”

She frowned. “Other than that we both ended up as bad guys? No. What was it?”

He shook his head. “It’s probably better not to know; in fact, I wish I could forget it. Let’s just say that I was embarrassed, too.”

“I’d kind of guessed there must be more to it than met the eye,” Trixie answered, softly. “Eventually, I mean, after I’d gotten through that first horrible couple of months. So, can we be friends?”

He nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Now, all we need is for my brothers to quit fighting and everything will be fine.”

He laughed as he opened the door again and led the way outside. “You think so?”

“It’s something to hope for, at least.”

They both looked to Brian and Mart, who were so busy scowling at each other that they had not noticed that they were being observed. Trixie cleared her throat loudly and they each stepped backwards.

“I thought you were supposed to be making peace?” She raised an eyebrow. “See? Jim and I have managed it and now it’s your turn.”

“Fine. Peace.” Mart threw a defiant look at his brother. “But this is just a short-term thing, for Honey’s sake. You can’t expect us to put aside everything that’s happened in the last five years, just like that. And we’re not spending more time together than absolutely necessary.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. It was one incident. It’s not five years’ worth of grievances.”

“That’s what you think,” Mart ground out.

“Stop being so silly,” she told him.

“On that note, I shall depart,” he answered, looking away from her.

None of them attempted to stop him.

“So, you’re really making a new start?” Brian asked the other two. “After all this time?”

Trixie nodded. “We’re going to try.”

Brian looked to Jim, who shrugged. “What is there to lose?”

“You tell me.” Brian turned away, apparently not expecting an answer. “I’ll be going, too, I think.”

An awkward silence fell as he walked away.

“Right. I’ll go now, too,” Jim decided, at length. “Are you coming?”

Trixie shook her head. “I think I need some time to think. This wasn’t what I was expecting to happen today.”

He smiled. “Me neither. See you around?”

She nodded and watched him go. Once he was out of sight, she found a place to sit, overlooking the water. Her face settled into a frown of deep thought. So complete was her concentration that she did not notice Honey’s approach until she was right next to her.

“Oh, good. You’re still here.”

Honey dropped down next to her friend, who startled slightly.

“We agreed to make peace,” Trixie blurted. “Or, at least, Jim and I did and the other two agreed to a kind of not-war, which is almost the same thing, I guess.”

“That’s good.” Honey seemed distracted. “I know what the trouble is now.”

Trixie sat up straighter. “With Diana?”

Honey nodded. “She had a boyfriend back in Arizona, only her parents didn’t approve and so her mother decided that she was going to bring Diana here, to look after her father – the mother’s father, I mean, not Diana’s father; he’s still in Arizona, waiting for his wife and other kids to come back – and Diana thinks it’s all an excuse and that her grandfather doesn’t really need looking after, but she’s had to put all her plans on hold to do this. And they drove the whole way here, because Diana’s mother is terrified of air travel and in a few days they’re going to drive all the way back again and leave Diana here with a relative that she’s only met about twice before and with nothing really to do and nothing to look forward to. It’s no wonder she’s unhappy!”

“That’s terrible,” Trixie agreed, with a grimace. “Who would think a parent would do something like that. It’s like something from a hundred years ago.”

Again, Honey nodded. “But the strange thing is the reason why Mrs. Lynch thinks her father needs to be looked after.”

“What’s that?”

“She thinks he’s going crazy. He’s been telling her what’s happening in the woods near his house and she thinks he’s imagining the whole thing.”

Trixie frowned. “But, from what we saw earlier…”

“Exactly!”

“We need to check this out,” Trixie decided.

Honey looked out over the lake, a reminiscent smile on her face. “Like that time when we found the diamond in the gatehouse? Remember how we thought we could be real detectives?”

“And now you’re getting ready to study business and follow in your father’s footsteps,” Trixie noted, with a wry smile. “And I’m going to study… something or other and probably end up in some dead-end job somewhere.”

“Oh, you are not!” Honey scolded. “I’m sure you’ll think of exactly what you want to do, at the right time to think of it.”

Trixie gave up the argument and changed the subject. “So, when are we going to go out and look for what’s happening up there? Do you want to go now?”

Honey shook her head. “This close to dark? No, Trixie, that is not happening! Let’s go in the morning. We’ll need to be on foot, too; it was too awkward with the horses. Should we walk up there, or drive?”

Trixie considered for a moment. “Drive, I think. We’ll have more time, that way.”

“Time?”

She nodded. “I have to go to White Plains with Moms tomorrow to pick up some new fittings for the guest bathroom. She’s been planning it for weeks.”

“I’d forgotten. Okay. I’ll pick you up. What time?”

Honey groaned at Trixie’s first suggestion, but they came to an agreement.

“I need to go to bed almost straight away if I’m going to be up then, but okay.”


Ten minutes after the agreed time, Honey arrived at Crabapple Farm. The household by this time had finished breakfast and gone their separate ways. Trixie raced out of the house and hopped in the passenger seat.

“It’s about time you got here,” she griped.

“Sorry. It’s just that I ran into Jim and he wanted to know what I was doing up so early and, well, you know I’m not good at evading the truth and, well, he kind of got it out of me what we were doing and, well, I guess the thing is, he’s going to meet us there.”

Trixie frowned, but did not answer for a few moments, during which time Honey turned the car around.

“Are you okay?” Honey wondered, as the silence extended.

“Yeah. Just thinking.” Trixie shook her head to clear it. “It’s fine, Hon. Maybe it’s even better than if it was just us. Just think: Jim is actually supposed to be looking into this for your Dad, so he has a right to be there, poking around.”

Honey giggled. “We have a perfect right to be there, too. But if anyone else is there, then they don’t, so I don’t know whether having a right to be there is the best qualifier.”

“No, I guess not. I wonder if Jim looked up about that animal track we saw? He didn’t say anything about it at the lake.”

Honey shook her head. “He didn’t say anything to me, either.”

She turned the car onto Old Telegraph Road and they both stopped talking to peer at the Wilson house.

“I wonder what he’s been saying to his daughter, to make her think he’s crazy,” Trixie mused. “Or is Diana right and it’s just an excuse?”

“Maybe we should ask him,” Honey suggested. “Or maybe Jim should. You know, I think you’re right: it’s probably better to have him with us.”

She pulled up on the side of the road, close to the place where the path emerged and right behind Jim’s car. The two hopped out and Honey went to see if he was sitting in it.

“Over here!” Trixie called, gesturing down the path.

Honey joined her and they followed it a short distance to where Jim waited.

“Morning,” he greeted and Trixie answered in kind.

“Where are we going to look first?” Honey asked, while looking all around. “Oh! And do you know what kind of animal it was?”

Jim shook his head. “I’m still not sure and I’d like to try to get another look at those tracks – or, better yet – the animal itself. So, I wanted to go back to the area where you saw it the first time, if that’s okay.”

Trixie shrugged. “Sure. If you think it will help.”

They walked in silence, with Jim leading the way to keep an eye out for fresh tracks. He paused a couple of times, but the ground was too dry for any prints to keep a distinct shape. They reached their destination without seeing anything of note.

“Let’s split up and circle around here, off the track,” Trixie suggested. “If there’s anything strange going on around here, we’re sure to find something that way.”

Jim shook his head. “We already established that we’re almost at the boundary with Mr. Wilson’s on that side, so we don’t need to search there. And I think, at least, the two of you should stick together. We don’t want you getting lost.”

“Lost! When did we ever get lost?” Trixie demanded.

For a moment, Jim pretended to count on his fingers. Trixie grabbed Honey’s hand and pulled her off the path.

“He makes me so mad!” Trixie ranted, in a low voice. “You’d think we were little kids, the way he tries to keep us from anything interesting.”

“He does have a point,” Honey answered. “Do you remember that time when we got lost looking for Bobby? I thought I’d never see my family ever again! Oh, and that time we tried to take a short-cut from Maypenny’s to the lake and ended up nearly falling into the Hudson? And that time we forgot how to get home while we were riding and it got dark and they had to send a search party for us and it got into the Sleepyside Sun?

Trixie smiled ruefully. “Okay, so we have gotten lost once or twice, but the path is just back there. We’re not going to get lost now.”

Honey stopped short, staring at something. She held up a hand and Trixie stopped, too.

“It’s the pig!” Honey whispered. “Or half of it, at least.”

“But it doesn’t have a curly tail.”

Whatever the animal was, it was partly obscured by the bush it was foraging under. Its body was predominantly brown, but with pale streaks and speckles, and it was the shape and size of a well-grown piglet, its body ending with a stubby tail.

“What do we do now?” Honey asked. “Should we try to catch it? Or get Jim?”

“We don’t have anything to catch it with,” Trixie answered. “You stay here. I’ll look for Jim.”

She crept away, heading straight for the path – or so she thought. After ten minutes’ wandering, Trixie had to concede to herself that she was lost. She neither knew how to get back to Honey, or back to the path. And either she was walking in circles, or this part of the Preserve had no paths to it at all.

“If I could find a path, any path, this would all be okay,” she muttered to herself.

She pushed through a patch of bushes. Instead of the path she was hoping for, she found a crude canvas tent. A small clearing had been made to hold a cooking-fire, but it had since been extinguished; a few pots and pans lay beside it. A washing line hung between two trees, holding a towel and a pair of men’s pants in faded khaki. Someone had scratched a series of overlapping circles into the smooth bark of the nearer tree, just below where the rope rested, making a shape rather like a flower.

Trixie took in the scene for a moment, then ducked back behind the bush. Suddenly paranoid, she peered around herself, wondering if the occupant of the campsite might be right behind her. He did not appear to be. After a moment, she began to breathe a little easier.

It was then that she saw a streaked creature disappearing into the undergrowth. She set off after it, certain that it was Honey’s ‘pig’ and that it could lead her back to where she was supposed to be.

Her theory did not work well in practice. She lost the creature almost at once. But by coincidence, she stumbled onto a path. Thoroughly disoriented, she did not know which way to go, but decided that any direction was better than just staying still and turned to the left.

Another fifteen minutes later, she knew where she was and that the correct direction to choose would have been to the right. She had retraced her steps for ten minutes further when Jim hailed her.

“There you are! We were about to send for a search party.”

Trixie felt her face redden. “Here I am. Not lost at all.”

He gave her a searching look. “Where have you been?”

She huffed out a breath. “Okay. Fine. I got totally lost. Honey saw the pig again – only it doesn’t have a curly tail, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a pig – and I tried to find you so you could see it too, only I got turned around somehow. Then I found someone’s campsite and I saw the whatever-it-was again and tried to follow it, but I lost it and found a path, only I wasn’t quite where I thought I was and I went the wrong way. And when I realised that, I turned around and came back again.”

“Right.” He still stared at her in that searching way.

“Where’s Honey?” she asked, suddenly.

“She and Diana are waiting for us at the place where we split up.” He gestured over his shoulder. “But if we’re not back there pretty soon, she’s going to go for help.”

“What are we waiting for?” she asked, then looked at her watch and groaned. “Oh, no! I’m going to be late. Moms is going to kill me.”

She set off at a jog, trusting Jim to keep up with her. In only a short time she reached the place where Honey stood alone, looking up in alarm at the sound of her rapid approach.

“Trixie! Where have you been?”

She groaned. “I’ll tell you on the way. But right now, I’ve got to get home. Come on! Oh, but what happened to Diana?”

“She had to go back to her grandfather’s.”

Trixie dragged her friend by the arm for the first few steps, letting her set her own pace as they passed Jim. Once out on the road, Trixie noticed a couple of trucks pulled up a short distance away, but dismissed them as unimportant. They got back into the car, and as Honey drove them back to Crabapple Farm, Trixie told her tale all over again.

“So, someone’s living there?” Honey wondered, after hearing the details. “But you didn’t see them?”

“That’s right. If they were there, they probably heard me coming. They might have hidden.”

“They might have kidnapped you!”

Trixie nodded. “Yeah. They might have. But they didn’t.”

“But what would they be doing there? Why would someone live in a tent in the Preserve?”

“Maybe they don’t have anywhere else to live. Maybe they got sick of city life and wanted a change. Maybe they’re hiding from the law. Or their ex-wife. Or their old gang associates. Maybe they just like camping and don’t know it’s private property.”

“What are we going to do about it?” Honey wondered.

Trixie shrugged. “I guess Jim will tell your Dad and Mr. Wilson. Right now, I can’t do anything about it. Look: there’s Moms, impatiently waiting for me.”

Honey laughed. “She is not! But she does look a little worried.”

She threw the door open before Honey had fully stopped. “Sorry we’re late, Moms. I got a bit side-tracked. Thanks, Hon! See you later.”

“Wait!” Helen called and Honey stopped. “Something’s come up and there’s been a change of plans. Can you both come inside for a minute?”

“Of course,” Honey answered. “Let me just park and I’ll be right there.”

They met a short time later in the living room.

“You’ve just been over next to Mr. Wilson’s, haven’t you?” Helen asked.

Honey nodded. “We were with Jim, looking into some strange things that Mr. Wilson’s been seeing on my Dad’s land.”

“I’ve just had a call from Diana. After she saw you, she went home and found her mother gone and her grandfather in a state of collapse.”

“Gone?” Trixie asked. “What happened? And what about the children? Diana’s brothers and sisters, I mean.”

“They’re all there, but they don’t know where their mother is, or what happened to their grandfather and he can’t say. She didn’t take anything with her, as far as they can make out – not a handbag or keys or phone – but she’s not anywhere near the house.” Helen sighed. “Jim was still there when Diana found out what was happening and he’s calling the police for her.”

Trixie’s brow creased as she thought that through. “What do you want us to do? Should we go back and help search?”

Helen shook her head. “I don’t think that’s wise. What I wanted to ask you was whether I could have Diana bring the children here and if the two of you could help look after them.”

“Of course,” Honey answered, at once. “We’ll do anything to help. Diana must be so worried.”

“I don’t know that she’s had time for it to sink in yet, and it could all be a false alarm, but I don’t want her left alone if we can help it.” She stood up. “I’ll call her back right now and see what she says.”

After she had left the room, Trixie leaned closer to Honey. “I think I should go over there and help search. You and Moms will be more than enough to look after the kids.”

Honey’s brow creased. “But what if the person from the tent took her instead of you?”

“All the more reason why I should be there,” Trixie argued. “I’m the only one who saw it.”

“But you couldn’t find your way back there if you tried,” Honey pointed out. “You have no idea of where you were.”

Trixie shook her head. “That’s not exactly true. I know where I was when we first left the path and I know kind of where I was when I got back on the path and I didn’t cross any paths in between, so I must have been somewhere between the two.”

“That doesn’t help all that much.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“But didn’t you already tell all that to Jim? He might have figured out where the camp is already.”

Trixie did not get a chance to answer, as her mother re-entered the room.

“It’s all settled. She’s going to drive over right away.”

“Oh, good,” Honey answered. “It would be terrible to be so far from home and in a situation like this.”

“Trixie, could you hunt down Bobby and tell him we’re about to have visitors?”

She nodded and went outside to look for her brother. She called to her father and older brothers, who were still working on the repairs, but they hadn’t seen him. At the edge of the clearing around the house, however, she found someone else.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him, rather sharply.

Dan shrugged a lazy shoulder. “Just passing through.”

“You don’t seem to be going anywhere,” she commented, eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” He paused for a moment, but something told her not to try to hurry him. “Just stay out of the woods near the Wilson house, okay? There’s nothing for you there.”

“What? Why?”

He shook his head and turned away. “You never knew what was good for you. I don’t know why I bothered.”

She ran a few steps to catch up with him. “Wait. Why are you doing this?”

He stopped, but did not turn to her. “I know we never really hit it off, but I do care whether you get hit over the head, okay?”

Trixie moved so that she was in front of him and could see his face. He wore a closed expression, which told her nothing. She tried to push down the frustration she always felt whenever she talked with Dan.

“I can’t make you out,” she complained. “Every time I think I have you figured, you do something else that doesn’t fit in.”

He shrugged and made to pass her, but stopped as she stepped into the way.

“Maybe you shouldn’t judge people before you know them.”

The comment stung, but she tried not to show it.

“So, do you know what’s going on in the woods, or is this a general keep poor, helpless Trixie out of trouble kind of situation.”

He laughed. “You’re not helpless.”

“You know what I mean.”

He hesitated. “I’m not certain. But I know enough to stay the hell away.”

He stepped around her again and, this time, she let him go.

Suddenly remembering what she was actually supposed to be doing, she set off in search of her younger brother. She found him in the orchard, delivered the message and hustled him back to the house.

“But why do I have to be there?” he complained along the way.

“They’re about your age, I think,” she answered, a little absent-mindedly. “The boys, I mean. I think the girls are younger. And it’s Moms who wants you there, so you’d better get moving.”

The van pulled up as they approached and four kids piled out. Diana chided them in a voice too low for Trixie to make out the words, but she recognised the tone of voice: they were being told to be on their best behaviour.

“Hello again,” she called.

Diana looked up, giving them a tight smile. “Hello.”

“This is my brother Bobby,” she explained, just as Honey came outside to greet them.

The dark-haired young woman hustled her siblings forward. “This is Larry and Terry – I think they’re the same age as you, Bobby – and Jessie and Tillie. Kids, that’s Trixie and this is Honey.”

The five kids eyed each other for a moment, then Bobby invited the boys to play ball.

“We girls can go in the house,” Honey suggested, smiling at the younger set of twins.

Trixie held Diana back a little, as they went inside.

“I’m going to stay out here and keep an eye on the boys,” she told her new friend, who seemed to be torn between leaving and going inside. She hesitated a moment. “You are okay, aren’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Diana asked, with a note of hysteria in her voice.

All at once, Trixie regretted embarking on this conversation. “Sorry. Why don’t you go inside and see Moms and Honey? I’ll just stay here, okay? They’ll be fine with me.”

Diana shook her head. “I have to go back and look after my grandfather. If he’s not better soon, I’m going to have to take him to the hospital. Tell your mother thanks.”

She got back into the van and drove away.

Trixie slumped on the porch steps and put her head in her hands. No matter what she did, she just couldn’t seem to say or do the right thing around that girl. She ran her hands through her curls and looked up. The three boys seemed to be sorting themselves out well enough. They had already established the rules of their game.

She settled back to watch. Around the corner of the house, she could hear the sounds of work on the house – bangs, bumps and quiet conversation, punctuated with bouts of hammering. The wind swished through the trees. Inside the house, the girls talked and giggled. Somewhere in the distance, a truck chugged along. In all, everything seemed perfectly normal.

But then, why couldn’t Diana’s mother be found?

Trixie began to wonder what was happening at the house on Old Telegraph Road. She wished that she could just go off there and find out, but somehow knew that her attention was needed here. She looked up at the blue sky dotted with white, fluffy clouds, then back to the boys and their game.

She sat up straighter. Something was wrong. Her eyes scanned the area until she found the thing that had alarmed her: someone was watching them from somewhere further up the hill. She could see part of his outline, but the shadows of the tree he was under disguised him. For a moment, she thought it must have been Dan, but she dismissed the idea almost at once.

Trixie stood up to try to get a better view. The man slipped away, even as she watched. As he crossed a patch of dappled sunshine, she caught a better look at his clothing. The distance made it hard to be certain, but she thought he wore a green plaid shirt – further evidence that it was not Dan, who she thought would not be caught dead in such a thing.

For a few moments, she wondered what to do. If they were in danger, surely she should take the boys inside. But there might be an innocent explanation for the man’s presence.

“What are you looking at?” Honey asked, from just behind her.

She shrugged. “Not sure. A man. I think he was watching us, but he’s gone now.” She went on to tell her best friend about Dan’s warning.

“What do you think it all means?” Honey wondered.

Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “He knows more than he’s saying. I wonder if he’s involved in this somehow.”

Honey huffed out a breath. “I thought we decided Dan wasn’t all bad.”

“I didn’t say he was.”

“And that we should give him another chance, if he ever turns up again, which he has, and we should and it’s not giving him a chance if we’re suspicious the very first minute we see him.”

“No, but –”

“No buts!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Fine! But he knows something; I know he does.”

“So, why didn’t you ask him what it was?”

“But I did!”

“And?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

Honey rolled her eyes. “You mean, you let him know that you’re still suspicious of him. Trixie! We talked about this. You know it doesn’t help when you do that.”

“Okay, I get the message.”

“So, do you know where he went? Maybe he’d tell me instead.”

Trixie waved a vague gesture. “Over that way somewhere. But do you really want to be wandering around by yourself when we know there’s a stranger around?”

Honey shuddered. “No, you’re right. But when I go home, I’ll be sure to ask Regan where Dan is so that I can talk to him. Oh, and I’ve found something out, too. The little girls told me that a big tree crashed down across the road last night, blocking it completely, which means that if Diana’s mother left by the road, she left this way, and not the other way, because you can’t, because it’s blocked.”

“I didn’t really think about her leaving by the road,” Trixie answered slowly. “I keep thinking this is all to do with what’s happening in the woods.”

“Well, it might be, or it might not and maybe she’s just gone to Lytell’s to pick up some peanut butter, or something.”

“On foot?” Trixie shook her head. “Why would she do that? And why wouldn’t she tell anyone where she was going?”

Honey shrugged. “Oh, and I almost forgot. Jim went back to the place where we saw that something had been dragged, but he didn’t find anything. Whatever it was, it must have been dragged back out again.”

Inside the house, the telephone rang. Trixie glanced in that direction, but could see her mother going to answer it and didn’t bother to go inside. She looked back to the boys, who were straying in the direction of the orchard.

“Stay where I can see you!” she called to Bobby.

He grimaced eloquently to his two new friends, but they started moving back towards the house.

“We’d better keep a good eye on them,” Trixie commented. “They’re up to something; I can just tell.”

“Trixie!” her mother called, from the back door. “Can you come here a minute, please?”

“Coming!” She turned to Honey. “You stay here and watch the boys, okay?”

She did not wait for a reply, but jogged the short distance back to the house.

“Can you run a quick errand for me, please?” Helen asked. “It’s been decided that the children are going to spend the night here. Diana’s packed their overnight bags. Can you go and pick them up, please?”

“Sure,” Trixie answered. “Does that mean her grandfather’s not better?”

Her mother nodded. “I’m afraid so. In fact, he’s worse. They’re taking him to the hospital as soon as you’ve got the children’s things.”

Trixie took the car keys and jogged over to the garage. Her thoughts raced as she drove down the driveway and onto the road. This was her one chance to take a look at the scene of the disappearance. She could not take too long, or Moms would worry, but she could at least spend a few minutes checking for clues.

Clues, she repeated to herself with a snort of disgust. Who do I think I am, looking for clues?

Continue to Part three.

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