“You little brat!” she screamed at Tracey, her eyes as vicious as a cold-blooded animal’s.
Tracey’s fear turned to rage—the anger of being taken from her parents fueled her with renewed energy and strength. She fought with all the might of her sixty-three pounds, screaming, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” She broke loose and tried to wriggle back up the hole toward the last of the fading light, but was pulled back down by a quick yank of her ankle. Tracey shrieked, “No! I want to go home!” She clawed at the dirt, kicking fiercely at her captor’s face, “I’m not going back in there!” Tracey felt her arm being pulled and twisted behind her back.
Her terrified screams were absorbed by the dirt walls of the tunnel.
Eleven
Molly pulled on a gray cotton sweater and her favorite blue jeans—the ones with several patches of mismatched fabric on the knees. She was excited about the upcoming evening, and as she heard Cole’s footsteps on the stairs, she was glad that he had made it home at a reasonable hour.
“Hi, honey,” she cheerily called out. “I’m getting ready for tonight.”
“Tonight?” he asked, as he entered the room. “What’s tonight? I’m so tired.” He fell backward on the bed, his arms and legs spread wide. His feet hung off the bottom of the bed, and his arms were just shy of the edges of the king-sized mattress. His rumpled scrubs top inched up and revealed an enticing swathe of his toned stomach, speckled with dark hair.
Molly walked over and sat down on the bed next to him, running her fingers over the rough pattern on his cheeks, up around his forehead, and down the soft skin next to his eyes. She smiled, thinking that his face held the innocence of a child and yet the sexiness of a man.
“Mmm,” he moaned. “That feels good. Can’t we just stay like this all night?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm,” Molly responded. She stood up, sighed, and said, “No, no, we can’t.” She turned away to glance in the mirror, fluffed her thick hair, and scrunched her face in disapproval.
“Why not?”
“We have to go. Newton Carr is speaking about the history of Boyds at the Boyds Negro School tonight. Remember?” She put her hands on her hips, “Don’t you remember? We talked about this.” Molly was used to Cole’s mind, which, though she knew was like a sponge at work, she believed suddenly turned into a sieve when he left the hospital each afternoon.
He made a face, groaned, and said, “Do we really have to?” He stood and walked toward Molly, reaching his arms around her, and looking at her with his big, dark eyes. “I’ll buy you Japanese and rub your feet if you let me stay home,” he coaxed. “Honey!” she smiled. “I want to go. We loved his other discussions, remember? Besides, you always like it once you’re there.” He made another do-I-really-have-to face. “C’mon. I’ll buy you Japanese and rub your feet if you come with me,” Molly urged. Cole smiled and relented. As he walked toward the shower, he said, “You owe me.” Molly snickered, “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
While Cole showered, she told him about Pastor Lett’s brother, his link to Kate Plummer’s disappearance, and his untimely death. She paused, waiting for a reaction, listening to the sound of the water being shut off, the remaining drips making their way to the shower floor. “She said Rodney knew things about the girl,” she hesitated, “I think he was like me.” She closed her eyes, not sure if she should continue, but could not control her impulse to share her thoughts. “I don’t think he was guilty.”
Steam rose off of Cole’s body, a thick towel tied around his waist, his dark mass of hair sticking out in every direction, “What do you mean, like you, Mol? And what do you mean, not guilty?” he asked with a serious tone.
Molly looked down at the floor. “You know,” she said sheepishly, kicking her foot out and back, off the side of the bed, “like I do? Like with nine-eleven? Remember?” She lifted her eyes and met his, she saw in them his recollection of her visions before the planes had crashed, the fear she’d conveyed, and his disbelief when the event finally occurred.
“Yeah, I remember,” he sighed heavily, and sat down next to Molly. “Baby, why are you doing this? Why are you getting involved?” He put a protective hand on her leg.
“I have to. I don’t know why.” She looked into his eyes, trying to convey her determination, the seriousness of what she was saying, “I dreamed about it, too.” The words rushed out of her before she had time to think about if she should say them or not, “I saw a little girl, curled up on the ground, and these...these...underground caverns or something. I saw a lady on a log.” She turned and opened her nightstand drawer, removing her dream journal. “It’s all in here,” she held the journal out to him. He didn’t move to take it. She pushed it toward him, “Take it! You’ll see.” Cole finally took the journal, looking at her with disbelief. “And look at this, Cole,” she unwrapped the bandages from her hand, “a perfect T.” He continued to look at her, his furrowed brow and his eyes portrayed a certain empathy, as if he felt sorry for Molly. “Cole! I know what you’re thinking,” she pleaded. “Look, it’s a T—like Tracey—T!” she said emphatically.
“It could all be coincidental.” He watched her hopes deflate and suddenly realized how important this was to her. “Okay, okay, so you are serious, and maybe you know some things. Just be careful, okay.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close against his side, and kissing the top of her head. “You’re what matters to me. Everyone else is just peripheral.” He released her and stood to get dressed. “Let’s go listen to Newton.”
Molly’s stride down the stairs revealed an exhilarated little bounce, happy that maybe Cole was beginning to believe in her, not realizing that he never even opened her journal.
Newton Carr reminded Molly of a schoolboy making his first public appearance. Seventy-seven-year-old Newton’s skin was as dark as chocolate and smooth as butter, in stark contrast to his pale and appropriately-wrinkled wife, Betty. He stood before them, avoiding eye contact with anyone and fumbling with his papers—his hands moving from paper to pocket and back again. His short, thick, gray and white hair, small-framed glasses, and semi-nervous behavior accurately reflected his kind, soft-spoken demeanor. He had kept in relatively good shape for a man of his years by walking his little terrier every day. Although he was the unofficial historian and the keeper of all facts relating to Boyds, one was hard pressed to get an opinion about current events out of the man.
Newton was one of the original founders of the Boyds Civic Association, single-handedly saved the Boyds Marc Train Station from sure closure, and could certainly be credited as the most-informed local historian in the county. Newton had lived on White Ground Road in one of the famous Painted Ladies for his entire life. Acres of sweeping fields provided privacy from the road. The separate garage, which mirrored the color and style of the Victorian home, was stacked with boxes and binders. The binders detailed every event that had ever happened in Boyds, to Boyds residents, or had affected Boyds in some way. He kept those binders current and was probably the only person to also have each of these facts etched in his memory. The man was the equivalent of a walking encyclopedia about Boyds, and yet he was humble, downplaying the significance of the records he kept.
As the sun set, Newton stood in the grass before the one-room schoolhouse, built on an undeveloped stretch of White Ground Road, and historically known as the Boyds Negro School. It felt desolate in the cool evening. Twelve residents, most of whom were over the age of sixty, listened intently as Newton spoke of the topic for the evening’s discussion: The Hidden Treasures of Boyds. Newton wore his usual dress clothes: tan chinos and a striped sweater. He paced while he spoke and said “um” a few too many times, which Molly found endearing. Molly was excited to learn more about the area where she’d lived for so many years. Like many railroad towns, Boyds had developed around a small nucleus of buildings: the railroad station, the post office, and the country store. Just beyond these, on either side of the railroad tracks, lay the beautiful Painted Ladies of the Victorian era and the Boyds Presbyterian Church, surrounded by incredible shade trees that must have been just barely saplings a hundred years ago. Rippling out from this historic core, the farms were valiantly trying to fight the suburbia that had spread northward from D.C. over the past twenty years.