I saw the yellow Cadillac in the parking lot, so I knew Ben Malloy was still there. I didn’t know which cabin was his, but I nestled you inside my jacket, and I crunched across the frosty grass from door to door until I found one that had a smell of pipe tobacco wafting from inside. I knocked.
Ben answered the door in sky-blue pajamas. His cherubic face lit up through a cloud of smoke when he saw me. “Deputy Rebecca! This is an unexpected pleasure. And little deputy Shelby with you, too! I’m honored.”
“I’m sorry to come so early, Ben.”
“Oh, I’m typically up at five, so this really isn’t early to me. I still have lots of publicity details to deal with for tomorrow’s broadcast. Are you going to be at the party, by the way?”
“Yes, it looks that way.”
“I hope so. Put Shelby in a costume. An Ursulittle to go along with all the Ursulinas.”
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. To Ben, this was a big joke, a carnival like Ursulina Days in Mittel County. To me, this was my life falling apart, crumbling down. I could already see the future, and it made me want to rip my heart out. Ben must have noticed the distress on my face, because he unclamped his lips from around his pipe, and his eyebrows knitted together with concern.
“Are you all right, Rebecca?”
I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell anyone.
“I need a favor, Ben.”
“Of course. What is it?”
“You said you had raw footage from seven years ago stored in your mother’s attic. All the film you took during the Ursulina hunt near Sunflower Lake, the parts that didn’t make it into the documentary. Is that true?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“I need to see it. Can you arrange that?”
Ben shrugged. “Sure, that isn’t a problem. When would you like to do it?”
“Now.”
“Now? You mean today?”
“Yes. This minute. I’d like to go over there right now. I’m sorry, but it’s urgent. Is that possible?”
He looked thoughtful as he drew out his words. “It is.”
“I know this is an imposition. You’re very busy. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Well, okay then, let’s go. I have an old projector in the attic, so it’s not hard to set up. My mother will keep you supplied with coffee and muffins, too, as long as you don’t mind banana-nut-cat-hair. You do realize, though, that we’re talking about hours of unedited film? If you’re looking for something specific, it may take a while to find. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, no order, no dates, no labels.”
“I understand.”
He sucked on his pipe again. “You’re being very mysterious.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”
“Are you sure you can’t tell me what’s wrong? You may not believe it, but I can be discreet when necessary. I also have a weakness for pretty young women in trouble. Can I help you?”
My face was dark. “No one can help me.”
For a moment, my remark left him speechless. “Well, give me five minutes to change, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“Thank you, Ben.”
While he changed, I took you down to the lakeshore. I watched the morning glow on the water and listened to the honking of the geese. My breath made little puffs of steam. I held you close to me and kissed your head and your pink cheeks and murmured over and over how much I loved you. I didn’t even realize it until I wiped my face, but I was crying.
Ben was true to his word. Five minutes later, he opened the door with a flourish, dressed in a white turtleneck and plaid sport coat, with pleated tan slacks and penny loafers. He marched across the grass to the resort parking lot and hopped inside the yellow Cadillac. You and I followed him in my car. We drove all the way across Black Wolf County to one of the other small towns tucked among the trees. He parked outside a century-old Victorian house, neatly painted in red and white.
I’d never met Mrs. Malloy. She was tall and heavy and looked a lot like her son, but she was as dour as Ben was cheerful. Her expression didn’t change as he said hello, and her eyes traveled over me with grim disapproval. Even you didn’t lighten her mood, Shelby. However, she poured hot coffee for me, and after I fished out a cat hair, I was glad to have the caffeine.
Ben and I took the stairs to the second floor. Then he led me to what felt like a secret staircase climbing into one of the house’s turrets. The tower had a circular wall and windows looking out in every direction, with a roof that rose to a conical point above us. The wooden floor was dusty, littered by a few dead bugs. Spiderwebs dangled in the shadows. There was nothing much up here but cardboard boxes. Ben seemed to know exactly where to look, and he dug among the boxes and found one in particular, which he carried over to me.
Inside was a Super 8 projector and a stack of more than two dozen silver film canisters. He dragged over another box and propped the projector on top of it and plugged the cord into what seemed to be the only electrical outlet up here. He took the first of the film cans and showed me how to feed it through the machine. Then he retreated to the wall of boxes and located a white screen, which he unfolded and set up. The windows had heavy curtains, and he shut them, leaving the room mostly dark.
“There, you’re good to go,” he told me. “When you’re done with one, you can move on to the next. These are all four-hundred-foot reels, so each one lasts about twenty minutes. Stay as long as you want.”
“Are you heading back to the resort?” I asked.
“No, I’ll stick around for a while. I haven’t been to see Mom in a few days, so I owe her a visit. I can make phone calls while I’m here.”
“Don’t stay on my account.”
“Well, I’ll check on you in a bit, and I’ll let you know if I need to leave.”
“Thank you again, Ben. I really appreciate it.”
“In the end, will you tell me what this is all about?” he asked.
I hesitated and told him what I believed to be the truth. “In the end, you’ll know.”
He frowned as he left, and I heard him descending the stairs with heavy footsteps. I was alone with hours of film. I looked around for a chair and saw one near the back wall, so I pulled it across the floor. It was a recliner that had seen better days, but it was comfortable. I’d brought the old Easter basket with me, so I situated you in the basket beside the chair. You were already asleep, and you didn’t wake up.
I turned on the projector, listening to its clickety-clack as I watched empty white frames click through the screen. Then, with a rush of color, I was back in the past. Seven years of life melted away. I saw the beach near Sunflower Lake, the pines, the flaky birches, the summer light glinting on the water. Dozens of volunteers in shorts, T-shirts, and bathing suits tramped through the woods at the fringe of the beach, wearing orange baseball hats that Ben had produced, which read: URSULINA HUNTER. Some wore backpacks; some carried buckets. Most were in their teens or twenties.
Seven years earlier. More than a quarter of my life.
Ben had operated the camera himself. He turned the camera around, showing his face in close-up. He looked younger, too, less gray hair, a little thinner, but still with the pipe between his lips. He gave the camera a dramatic stare, rattled off the early August date, and announced in crackling sound, “This is Ben Malloy in Black Wolf County. It has been two weeks since the Ursulina committed these horrific murders. This is our third day of searching the woods for any evidence that the beast left behind. Will today be the day that we find proof of the monster’s existence?”
From there, the film passed from one choppy scene to the next. Ben interviewed searchers about the horror stories they’d heard of the Ursulina growing up, and they recited some of the tall tales I remembered from when I was a girl. He asked people if they’d ever seen the Ursulina themselves. No one had, but they told stories of noises and grunts in the darkness, of a friend of a friend of a friend who’d seen a strange beast walking upright, of men who went out to hunt in the forest and were never seen again. A couple of the scenes — five seconds here, ten seconds there — had shown up in the original documentary on television. I remembered them.