The Willows Read online

  Even though the sound on the TV was muted, the light from the screen cast a shadow on the wall of the living room; a shadow of a person. Without even thinking about it, I held the bat in both of my hands and ran screaming into the living room.

  "What the hell? Evie, what's wrong with you?"

  My socks slid on the hard wood floor and I crashed to the ground. It was Mason. "You scared the crap out of me!"

  He bent and picked up the bat where it had slid across the floor and held it up, "you are not serious? What were you going to do with this exactly?"

  I shrugged. "I hadn't really thought that one through," I mumbled.

  He tossed it onto the couch and rubbed his head. "What a night," he said absently.

  "What's that?" I had noticed he was holding something under his arm. There was something about it that held my attention although I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

  "Huh?" He looked where I pointed and grabbed hold of it with his free hand. "Oh, um, I don't know. It was laying on the porch in front of the door. I figured that you left it out there."

  It had been over a month, but in those seconds, it was like I relived the day Jackson disappeared in crystal clarity. Him, with his arms crossed over his chest while they questioned him in the office, him turned away from me staring out the car window with his back toward me on the drive home, him bending down to grab the keys when I dropped them.

  "That's the hoodie Jack was wearing the last day I saw him."

  Mason frowned and looked down at it, shaking it out and holding it up. "No, you have to be mistaken."

  I shook my head. "I'm sure."

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "Evie, that's impossible. It has to be a different one."

  I was up and grabbing for it before he could stop me. I smiled and laughed. I felt lighter than I had in the longest time. I looked up at him, confused why he wasn't smiling and laughing with me.

  "Don't you get it, Mason? This proves that Jack's alive. This is his hoodie. I know it."

  He watched me, a sad look on his face and in his eyes. "Evie, no, it has to be a mistake. Someone playing a sick joke on you. Jackson's dead, you have to accept that."

  I hugged the black material close to me and started backing away toward my bedroom. "You'll see, you'll change your mind. Jackson's out there somewhere, Mase, and he's going to come home."

  I ran to my bedroom before he could say something to contradict me. It didn't matter that it was slightly irrational. In my heart, I knew the truth. I knew he was alive. He was my brother, I'd know if he was dead. I would, I thought stubbornly.

  Sitting on the edge of my bed, I let that day come back into focus. I was missing something. It was there, hovering just on the edge of my memories, but I couldn't grasp it. "What are you trying to tell me Jackson?" I asked aloud, still clutching his sweater to my chest. If only I could talk to him, hear him for just a second it would all become clear. I'd know what to do, where to look.

  It was like an electric shock in my veins and all at once, I jumped up, ran to my dresser and sifted through the tissuesI had hidden Jack's cell phone under. How could I have forgotten that I had it?

  When I finally held the little device in my hand, I closed my eyes and swallowed. This was it. This would tell me what I needed to know. I pushed the on button and waited, it was some of the longest seconds in my life while I waited for the screen to come to life.

  I touched the message folder on the screen and then touched Piper's name to bring up their text history. There was only one message from Piper on the day before Jackson disappeared. It simply said, "it's too late."

  Too late for what?

  I looked for messages from the day before, the day Jack had said she'd left him all of those messages, but there was nothing. Damn it! He must have deleted them. Frustrated, I scrolled through the rest of them. There were cutesy messages from when they were on again, there were sad angry messages from when they were off, but what really caught my attention was the reference in so many of them that spoke of the Willows. Had they been there together?

  From what I could gather, they had been there a lot. It seemed to be almost a secret place for them. I blushed when I thought of what they could possibly be doing there because the innuendos in their messages were clear.

  Is this what I need to know? Jack's car, my car, was left at the Willows National Park. It couldn't be just a coincidence. If I was right, he had gone there to meet Piper. It's too late. Or to find her. Either way, I at least knew now where I needed to go.

  Chapter Six

  “We have to go to the Willows.”

  “Why?”

  Mason didn’t even look up from his newspaper when he asked me that question. I had to suppress the urge to grab it out of his hands, tear it up, and stomp on it like a three year old having a tantrum. Was he serious? After last night how could he even wonder why I wanted to go? More so, why wasn’t it him with this burning desire to find the truth?

  “You know why!” I yelled at him.

  He lowered the paper and looked over it at me, his eyebrows raised in annoyance. “Evie, don’t do this to yourself.” His voice was ominously calm.

  “Our brother is out there Mason. Why won’t you help me?” I was so angry that my voice was shaking along with my body.

  Mistaking my anger for a different type of emotion, Mason finally laid his paper off to the side and stood up. He walked over to me and laid his hands on my shoulders. “Jackson is gone, Evie. You need to accept that.”

  I was shaking my head before he even finished his sentence. “No.” I backed away from him, “that’s not true.”

  He threw his arms up in the air. “This is sick, Evelyn! When are you going to learn to let everything go?” He reached for me again, but I backed away further. “Life sucks. We’ve had to learn that the hard way, but it really does go on. Stop living in the past.”

  “I’m going.” I said stubbornly, “with or without you, I’m going.”

  He took a deep breath and then blew it out slowly. It looked like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, he walked back over to the table and sat down, lowering his head onto his hands. “Whatever,” he mumbled.

  It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but at least he wasn’t going to stop me. I hurried to my bedroom and got dressed. I didn’t know what I was looking for, or what I would find once I was out there, so I dressed warm. I didn’t even bother brushing my hair out, I just stuck a wool hat overtop my head and grabbed my keys, purse, and both mine and Jack’s cell phones.

  Mason wasn’t in the kitchen when I walked back out. From the sound of it, he was in the shower. I wasn’t going to wait around for him. He’d made it clear that he didn’t support me and my detective skills. So, with that in mind, I grabbed a bottle of water and took off towards my car.

  The drive to Willow Grove only took me about twenty minutes. I decided to stop in the middle of town and see if anyone recognized either Jackson or Piper. Based off of their texts, they had spent a lot of time here. Surely, someone would remember them.

  It was awkward getting out of my car. Even though it was a Saturday morning, the town felt deserted to me. Despite that, the hair on the back of my neck was beginning to stand up and it felt like there were eyes on me from every direction. I rubbed my arms and turned in a circle, trying to decide where I should start.

  A motion in the window of a diner caught my attention. I wasn’t positive, but it had looked like someone had been watching me through the blinds. Deciding that would be as good as any place to start, I grabbed the picture I had of Piper and Jackson, locked my car door, and hurried across the street.

  Inside the diner, I was surprised to see that there were quite a few people in there. Only a few empty tables remained and there was only one free chair at the counter. I chose the later, and waited while a very pregnant waitress waddled over with a glass of water and a menu.

  “What can I get for you, sweetie?”

 
She didn’t look much older than me, but her demeanor made her seem motherly. I instantly felt comfortable with her and smiled easily when I answered, “hot chocolate?”

  When she smiled back, a dimple winked in her cheek and I couldn’t help thinking she was adorable. “Sure thing, I’ll have that right up.”

  Conversations in the small dining room were muted. A few times I caught people staring toward me curiously, but mostly, everyone just seemed to look right past me. The dining room itself was shabby and worn down, but very clean. Pictures of people long gone were hung around the walls and a few sorry looking plants were trying to make it through the cold winter.

  “Here you are sweetie.”

  I spun back around and smiled when the waitress put a steaming cup down in front of me. “Thank you.”

  She watched as I took a sip, burning my tongue, but loving the way the smooth chocolate ran down my throat, instantly warming me. “Did you want to order anything to eat?”

  My menu was still lying in front of me unopened. I shook my head and pulled the picture out of my back pocket. “No, thanks, but I was actually wondering if you recognized either of these people.” I held the photo out to her and she barely looked at it.

  “Nope, sure don’t”

  I frowned, “are you sure? It’s my brother and his girlfriend. I guess they used to hang out at the Willows National Park a lot.”

  There was an older man sitting next to me and although he didn’t turn and look at us, it was him that answered, “no one goes to the park anymore these days.”

  I turned in my seat and held the picture out for him. He wouldn’t even glance at it. “Why do you say that?”

  “That’s enough, Arnie.” An older lady came out from the kitchen and approached us, “don’t you go filling this poor girls head with your nonsense, you hear?”

  She was a hefty woman, with curly red hair, bright orange lipstick, and a smile that didn’t seem very sincere. She was wearing a dingy apron over a long shapeless dress with snow boots. Her eyes reminded me of a doll. There was movement in them, but no real life or emotion. I wondered idly if my eyes looked that way.

  Arnie, the man next to me, just grunted in her direction, downed whatever he was drinking and slammed the glass down onto the bar. “Nonsense,” he mumbled. “You won’t think its nonsense when they come after your family.”

  I watched his back as he left the diner and noticed that no one else seemed to be surprised or disturbed by his encounter with the woman. When I turned back around, I saw that she was watching me. Without taking her eyes off of me, she addressed the waitress, “Hallie, sugar, why don’t you go ahead and take your break.”

  The waitress nodded and then lowered her head, “yes, mama.” I noticed, while she hurried behind the kitchen doors, that she alone looked pale and upset and I wondered if it was because of her ‘mama’ or because of what happened with the man, Arnie. Either way, something had bothered her.

  “Now, darlin’,” the woman smiled at me, although her eyes were still cold and emotionless, “don’t think I don’t recognize that picture from the young man that was in the newspaper a few weeks back. I know who he is; they found his car deserted up there at the park. Suicide murder, I think they called it. Any who, the cops done flashed that picture all through this town already, and believe me, if anyone knew anything they’d be talking to the police before answering questions to a little girl like you.”

  I gritted my teeth and stuffed the picture back down into my pocket. What the hell was wrong with these people? I didn’t have to look around this time to wonder if everyone was staring at my back. There were no more conversations going on, just silence, and not the peaceful kind.

  I stood up, eager to get out of there. If no one was willing to help me, I’d just go out to the Willows and look myself. Eyes followed my progress as I walked toward the front door. For a moment it reminded me of my parent’s funeral. Walking down the aisle toward the front pew, only this time I didn’t have my brothers with me for support. There was a bulletin board hanging next to the front door. I am not sure what drew my attention to it, but once my eyes found it, they couldn’t let it go.

  It was full of pictures. Newspaper clippings mostly and there were two things that I noticed right away about every one of them. Smiling and happy, staring out of each glistening picture, was someone young, healthy, vibrant. Someone like Jackson was. The other thing, and this one had my heart pounding in my chest, was the word missing on the top of each of the pictures.

  I turned back toward the diners, hoping that someone could give me some insight as to why there were over two dozen smiling missing posters on the wall, but everyone had gone back to their own conversations, forgetting all about me. The only person looking my way was the one person I knew wouldn’t say anything.

  “Oh, and honey?” The woman said when I caught her eye, “it’s two seventy five for the cocoa.”

  The drive out to the Willows National Park took about fifteen minutes. I didn’t even bother asking around town anymore. I was pretty sure no one would help me. Although I was tempted to find that Arnie guy and ask him to explain some more, but for now, it could wait. I just wanted to get out to the park and do some looking on my own.

  The park had changed in the years since I had been there. When we were little, we used to come out here and have picnics during the summertime. Then when I was about ten, there was a forest fire and the park closed for a few years. I hadn’t been back since it reopened.

  It had a deserted feel to it now, much like the town I had just visited and it made me feel sad that something as beautiful as it had once been could just be forgotten and ignored. There was snow on the ground here. Even though the branches were bare, they were beautiful in a frosted winter wonderland sort of way.

  I drove down the three lined road toward the main part of the park. Wind was whistling through the branches and shaking the jeep slightly as I made my way toward the picnic area. Once parked, I jumped out of the car and turned in a full circle, looking around at a place that held so many memories of my brothers and me growing up. It was eerie in a way, because while everything was sort of overgrown and unkempt, this part of the park at least, hadn’t changed much.

  There were still the swing sets and the merry go round. Off to the side, there was a bank of slides and teeter totters. No where around were there the plastic and steel playgrounds that were so popular now with bridges and tunnels; everything connected and intimidating in such a large structure. Close to the restroom building there were those animal toys that you sat on that moved back and forth. The paint was fading off of them, making it hard to determine what sort of animals they were, but the springs still squeaked and groaned in the wind.

  “Jackson, what were you doing out here?” I said out loud. The only answer I received back was the wind whispering through the branches and blowing snow across the playground.

  With nowhere to really start and no idea what I was even looking for, I walked toward the metal animals. I was mesmerized by the movement of them in the wind and the sound of the metal springs as they moved back and forth above the ground. I sat down on one of them and closed my eyes. What are you doing here? I asked myself. Just accept that Jackson is gone.

  I sat there for a while. Snowflakes began falling and between the falling snow and the ferocious wind blowing the snow from the ground all around me, it was soon almost a sheet of white surrounding me. It was so bad that I couldn’t even see my jeep parked a few feet away. The rest of the play area was eaten up in a white cloud and the only relief I could find was the restrooms to the side of me.

  I battled against the wind, pushing through it toward the building. It almost stole the hat from my head on a few occasions, causing me to hold onto that with one hand and held onto my scarf with the other. When I finally got to the shelter of the building, the wind practically pushed me inside. There were no real doors, only openings and the electricity had long been shut off. So it was dark and cold inside
, but at least there wasn’t snow threatening to consume me.

  Once my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, I was able to make out the stalls and sinks. My eyes began to water and my nostrils flared up when the smell in the small room assaulted my senses. It was putrid. Not even the icy freshness of the snow and the wind blowing in through the small opening could mask the hideous scent all around me. It smelled like rotten meat and old urine. I realized instantly that I was in the men’s restroom and assumed the stale pee smell was coming from the wall of urinals across from me. As for the rotten meat, well I wasn’t about to go investigating in the dark, but I could only imagine many a few forest creatures and rodents had met their end in here.

  After a few moments, I couldn’t stand the smell and attempted to leave the building. It was worse outside. I couldn’t even see the metal animals although I could still make out their springs groaning in the wind. It would be stupid for me to try and find my car in this mess. It could be right in front of me and I still wouldn’t see it. I’d lived in the mountains my whole life and I knew if I tried to leave now, I could end up freezing to death out there.

  I couldn’t go back into that restroom though. The fresh air was surrounding me now, but I could still imagine how bad it had been. Finding a compromise, I pushed through the wind to the opening across from me, hoping that it would be better on the women’s side. It was; slightly.

  While there wasn’t the overpowering smell of stale urine, it was ripe with a moldy mildew sort of smell, and under that, a metallic scent that I figured was maybe rusting metal. Relieved that it was a little better, at least, I leaned against a wall and sank down to the floor, bringing my knees up to my chest and trying to keep warm while I waited out the worst of the storm.

  As the minutes passed by, my imagination started playing tricks on my mind. I could have sworn that a few times I heard laughter. Maniacal, insane laughter coming to me on the wind, but that was crazy; no one in their right mind would be out there in this. It spoke volumes of my own state of mind that I was.