For the first and only time in my life, I screamed at him. “No! I won’t do it! No more interviews—ever!”
Ted opened his mouth to protest, but Mara stepped forward. “Ted,” she said. I jumped at the sound of her voice; I’d forgotten she was there. “Perhaps you’ve gone too far this time.”
Her arms were crossed over her cotton floor-length dress, one of the many she always wore. I was surprised by what she’d said—she was usually quick to defend Ted’s research, having work of her own that kept her occupied for days at a time—but then again, her Break Room was evidence that she, too, needed an outlet.
Chuckling dismissively, Ted looked at her. He looked at me. He crouched down on the floor and, as tears kept spilling down my cheeks, he caught one on his finger, swallowing down his laughter as he examined the drop like a slide under a microscope. Then his face became serious.
“Mara’s right,” he said. “I’m sorry, Fern. You know how I get—so wrapped up in the science of it all. Sometimes I forget that you… well. Know that I won’t take it that far again.”
And he didn’t. In the years that followed, his Experiments were startling and intrusive, but never again as cruel. Maybe that, more than anything, is the reason I’m so quick to return to him: he realized he crossed a line, and he gradually backed away from it. It’s a difficult thing, admitting you were wrong. I’ve seen parents exhale excuses as easily as air. But Ted showed me that day that he loved me enough to see me as more than a research subject. That incredible truth—that a man so devoted to data could love me, when love is messy and immeasurable, impossible to pin down—made me feel powerful and electric.
Dr. Lockwood would probably say that, ever since, I’ve been yearning to feel that way again.
* * *
The drive from Boston to Cedar is always excruciating. The highway only takes you so far. Then it’s twenty miles of back roads: gaping potholes, deer crossing signs, speed limits that shoot up and down. There are no sidewalks, either, so if someone’s walking along the road, you have to give them plenty of room. You move to the opposite lane, watch the oncoming traffic get so close you glimpse the drivers’ faces before veering back to your own side. Hitting a pedestrian. Hitting a car to avoid a pedestrian. Hitting a pothole or deer.
Today, the drive is even worse. My fingers are tight on the steering wheel, and no matter what I pass—vegetable stands, sugar shacks, shuttered restaurants—all I see is Astrid. She’s there, in the middle of the road, reaching out to me like she did in my dream. Her mouth is shaping words I can’t make out, and I have to grip the wheel even harder to control my instinct to swerve.
But ten minutes from Cedar, another figure appears. I squint to make out the young girl up ahead, and when I see a man—her father, I hope—following behind her, I’m relieved to find that they’re real. Not residue from a dream.
They’re in my lane, walking against traffic. Steering to the left, I give them the space they require. They do their part, too. Edge closer to the grass, even while I’m still a good distance away. But the girl stares at my car, does not notice the ditch she’s veering toward. I want to warn her—twisted ankles, big falls for small girls—but all I have is the blare of my horn, and I don’t want to startle her into slipping.
Her father sees the danger. In an instant of instinct, he wraps his arm around her waist and jerks her back to safety. Her body nearly folds in half at the force of his grasp. She’s bent at the waist. Exactly like—
I swerve. Jolted by what I’m seeing, I steer right toward them. I catch their horrified looks just in time to slam the wheel the other way, back toward the opposite lane. I overcompensate, push to the left too hard, and end up braking on the strip of dirt that lines the road.
I struggle to catch my breath. That girl—she became Astrid. That man’s arm—it became someone else’s. I don’t have time to make sense of this image before the man, holding his daughter’s hand, peers into my passenger window. He gestures for me to open it, and I do.
“What happened?” he asks. “Are you okay?”
I nod.
“Are you sure?” He sweeps his eyes over me, runs them along the interior of my car. Then he lowers his voice. Leans in closer. “Are you high or something?”
“No, I…” I try to think of a way to explain it but can only come up with a lie. “There was a spider in the car, and I freaked out.”
I try a sheepish smile, but the man is not amused. “Well, watch it, huh?” he says as he guides his daughter back to the road. “You could have killed us, you know.”
I stare at them until they’re two dots in the distance. I watch cars go by, their drivers glaring at me with narrowed eyes. My hands are at ten and two on the wheel, but I can’t remember how to pull back into my lane. An arm around Astrid’s waist. An arm yanking her back. That’s what made me swerve. A single burst of an image.
My mind jerks back to the nightmare I’ve had a hundred times. The girl is always bent at the waist. Even last night, when it was Astrid in the dream, the angle of her body made it harder for her to reach me. But now I see it differently: she isn’t bending over, exactly; she’s stretching forward while someone pulls her back, their arm unyielding as a hook.
I know what Eric would say. That I’ve been influenced by the news. That I’m superimposing the images of a kidnapping over a dream of a featureless girl, whose face has always been ripe for filling in.
But still. My pulse pounds with the certainty of it: Astrid’s face means something to me. And it’s clear that, until I find out why, she will not let me go.
* * *
When my phone rings a few minutes later, I’m still on the wrong side of the road. I suspect it’s Eric, calling to check in, but it would be a bad idea to pick up. My breathing remains raspy, uneven. My heart is hurting my chest.
But it isn’t Eric. It’s Mara. I answer so fast my hand is a blur.
“Mara.”
“Hello, dear.” She always calls me dear, even though I don’t believe I’ve ever been that to her. “I only have a minute, but I’m calling to—”
“Did I know Astrid Sullivan?”
I don’t care why Mara called. She hardly ever does, but right now, her timing is perfect.
There’s a pause before a rush of laughter. “What?”
“Did I know Astrid Sullivan?” I repeat.
Another pause. “Who’s Astrid Sullivan?”
“You’ve never heard of her?”
“No, I haven’t,” she says. “Is she a celebrity or something? You know I don’t care much for—”
“She’s not a celebrity,” I cut in. “Well, she’s famous, I guess, but I’d never heard of her either. Or at least I thought I hadn’t. She’s this girl who was kidnapped twenty years ago. When she was fourteen. She had red hair, and she was from New Hamp—”
“Fern, what’s going on? Is this a joke?”
“No, I’m—it’s serious. I saw her on the news, and I’ve been having these dreams and I just had a flash that…” I trail off. Try to start over. “She had red hair. A couple years older than me. Are you sure you don’t remember me knowing a girl like that?”