The Mysteries (18 page)

“I don't think so. I've seen magic shows. I can be fooled, like anyone else. If somebody disappears, and I can't figure out how, that sure doesn't prove they've gone to Fairyland.”

“Oh, you're too much! An answer for everything. You're so sure you know it all. You'd never admit I could be right.”

She seemed close to tears. I hate to make generalizations about differences between men and women, but I'd run aground on this one too many times before, finding that what, for me, was an enjoyable theoretical argument, was, for her, woundingly personal.

“No, that's not true,” I said quickly, “I know I don't know it all. I'd never claim that. I'm not saying I couldn't be convinced, just that I'd need real, hard evidence that people can go to other worlds.”

She nodded, accepting this for the apology it was, and said quietly, “I just think, sometimes, you need to have faith.”

“I'm afraid I can't. I'm a rationalist to the core, I can't help it.” I sighed, feeling a wave of dizziness. “It's late . . . I'm jet-lagged . . . do you mind . . . ?”

She didn't look pleased. “I really wanted a coffee.”

“OK.” I looked around, caught the barmaid's eye. “Uh, do you want a lift somewhere, after?”

“No thanks.”

“Well, if you don't mind, I'll just pay the bill and leave you to drink your coffee. I'm fading fast.”

“You're just afraid I'll change your materialist outlook,” she said, but it was a tease; I could see a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

I laughed. “Yeah, right. Good-bye, Fred.”

“Good night, Ian. Thank you for my dinner.”

I awoke thickheaded and disoriented, late the next morning. The light in my room was dim, and I could hear the steady, lulling drum of rain on the roof.

The clear skies, sunshine, and balmy air of the previous day had vanished. I peered through the curtains at a sodden world.

Mrs. MacDonald's full Scottish breakfast—orange juice, porridge, fried eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and some limp, floury, subtly tasty triangles called “tatty scones”—restored me to life. She warned me that normally, breakfast would not be served after nine o'clock, and I promised her that I was normally up and about by eight.

Soon after breakfast I headed off to the tourist information center in Aberfoyle. Neither of the women working there recognized my picture of Amy, but they were as helpful as they could be, giving me free brochures about the area and a list of everyone offering B&B or self-catering accommodation. They also directed me to the local solicitor's office. In Scotland, property sales, and often rentals, too, were handled by members of the legal profession.

The solicitor was a fair-haired, suited young man called Archibald McTavish. He was certain he had had no dealings with Amy Schneider, either in person or on the phone, but had me pass the photograph around the office just to make sure.

“If she was looking to rent long-term accommodation, it's possible that she entered into an informal arrangement,” he told me. “Several people in the town have caravans or spare rooms they occasionally let out
ad hoc
. They might put a notice in the newsagent's window, or on the bulletin board at the tourist information place. You'll have been there?”

I told him I had. “What if Amy decided to camp out in the woods, maybe on Doon Hill—would that be a problem? Would she have to get permission?”

Archibald McTavish rubbed his smooth chin thoughtfully. “I don't think so . . . it's not privately owned. Unless she was creating a nuisance of some sort and someone complained, she'd be all right. But, with winter coming on, I can't imagine anyone wanting to stay out on the hillside.” He nodded at the window. We both watched the rain lashing down until I broke the silence. “Is there somewhere around here she could have bought a bender?”

“A bender?” he repeated blankly.

“A tent, you know, something to camp out in, keep the rain off.”

“Oh! Of course. Isn't a bender something you make for yourself? A makeshift shelter?”

I shrugged. “Well, then, a sleeping bag, groundsheet, supplies . . .”

“Around here?” He thought about it. “I suppose you might try the ironmonger's.”

“The Wool Centre,” piped up one of the young women working at a computer across the room.

“Wool Centre?” I recalled a sign advertising the Spinning Wheel Coffee Shop. “You mean that place by the parking lot?”

“That's it,” she said, nodding and smiling at me. “It's not just woolly jumpers in there. It's quite a big shop inside, and they sell outdoors things for hill walkers and fishermen.”

“Thanks. Is there a place in town I can get some copying done?” I asked, turning back to Archibald.

“We have a photocopier here,” he said.

“I wanted to make a poster, with a picture of Amy and a few details, asking for information,” I explained, assuming he had misunderstood.

He nodded. “Eight pence a sheet, A4 size, or twelve pence for A5. Morag will help you. She can even type it up for you.” He indicated the young woman who had suggested I try the Wool Centre. Then, noticing my hesitation, he explained, “There isn't anywhere else for photocopying unless you go all the way to Stirling.”

I gave Morag the photograph and composed some text:

AMY SCHNEIDER
- MISSING! -
AMERICAN STUDENT, LAST SEEN IN ABERFOYLE.
WOULD ANYONE WHO KNOWS AMY'S CURRENT WHEREABOUTS,
OR HAS ANY INFORMATION WHICH MIGHTY HELP IN FINDING HER,
PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH:
IAN KENNEDY
C/O THE ROWANS
MANSE ROAD,
KIRKTON, ABERFOYLE

I took twenty copies, probably more than I'd be able to post in this small village, but they might be useful to hand out.

I went along the main street, calling in at all the shops with my flyer. A boy in the newsagent's remembered the American girl who had bought a hardback notebook and some bars of chocolate. That was about two weeks ago, he thought. He hadn't seen her since; he assumed she had gone home. He took the phone number of my B&B and promised to be in touch if he saw her again.

A woman working the till in the Co-op also remembered Amy. She had been in several times, quite regularly, buying provisions—fruit, bread, biscuits, soft drinks, the usual sort of thing, she said—but not recently.

No one else said they had seen her. Whatever the attractions of Aberfoyle for Amy, they did not involve her in the ongoing life of the town.

I took a break for lunch in the coffee shop, attracted by the smell of good coffee. By the time I finished my second cup, the rain had stopped, and although the day was still moist and heavily overcast, I knew I couldn't put off another trip up Doon Hill.

The shop in the Wool Centre didn't extend to tents, but I bought myself a pair of waterproof boots and a hooded rain jacket. The woman who served me didn't recognize Amy's picture but suggested I come in again on Saturday, when there would be different staff on duty.

The woods were as wet as I'd expected. It might not have been raining, but the drips from the trees were nearly as bad as real rain, and once I'd left the path walking was a constant, slow process of avoiding holes full of water and battling off the wet, clinging embrace of bushes, vines, and brambles. My new anorak kept my upper body warm and dry, but my jeans got soaked and clung to my legs unpleasantly. I went slowly and kept my eyes down.

I must have been in the woods for two hours, circling back to the path and away again as I made my way slowly but steadily up and around the hill, before I finally stumbled across Amy's bender.

It was a desolate, crumpled-looking huddle of heavy clear plastic given structure by wooden sticks and wire. I hesitated, staring down at it, then looked around at the empty woods. The surrounding area was empty and quiet. Water dripped from branches. A leaf fell slowly to the leaf-strewn ground. Then I crouched and crawled inside.

Although it provided some shelter from the weather, the bender was not entirely waterproof. I found the sleeping bag half-soaked. I wondered: Had the night's rain driven Amy out? She might have hitched a ride to another town.

But if she'd gone, not intending to return, wouldn't she have taken her things?

There was a dark blue zip-up sports bag in the driest corner. Opened, it proved to be full of clothes. Feeling both justified and guilty, I went through them: T-shirts, jeans, a Northwestern sweatshirt, a short black dress, socks, women's underwear. There was also a zip-up toiletries bag (a nearly empty tube of toothpaste, deodorant, body lotion, shampoo, lip balm), a pair of leather sandals, a deck of cards, a beanbag monkey, and an American paperback edition of
The Hobbit.

On the other side of the sleeping bag I spotted a white plastic bag. Inside was a square metal box that had originally held an assortment of Danish cookies but which now contained one bar of Cadbury's fruit and nut chocolate, several boxes of matches, Band-Aids, a Swiss army knife, a small flashlight, an Ordnance Survey map of the area, an unused pad of watercolor paper, and a box of watercolors with two brushes.

There was nothing positively to identify any of this as Amy's—no passport, credit cards, diary, or personalized labels—yet I knew it was. But where had she gone? Was she coming back soon? Had she taken the few things she absolutely needed—cash and credit cards and passport—and gone off to start a new life? Or was she lying dead somewhere, her cash and ID in her killer's pocket?

A familiar noise made me look up, and I saw that the rain had come on again, pelting down against the makeshift plastic roof.

The rain was noisy against the plastic, yet there was something oddly comforting about the sound. For a moment I luxuriated in the atavistic pleasure of being warm and dry and protected from the elements. At least, I was mostly dry; the damp legs of my jeans were an annoyance I could live with. I was a little too warm, so I peeled off my new waterproof jacket and looked around. There was an unopened bottle of mineral water and a plastic cup. Once I'd quenched my thirst, I thought about the chocolate bar in the tin box, but decided that would be stealing. Water was hospitality, a necessity of life, whereas that chocolate was her private stash. Maybe, if she came back, she would offer to share. I decided to wait and see.

The next thing I knew was a disorienting lurching feeling, and a rush of fear. Opening my eyes, I realized I had fallen asleep sitting up. I also knew I wasn't alone.

I could still hear the patter of rain against plastic, but fainter now. The light, too, had faded, but, as I crawled out of the damp yet oddly cozy little shelter, I had no difficulty seeing her.

A young blond woman in a striped sweater and jeans stood only a few feet away, between two trees.

“Amy?” I called softly as I straightened up. My heart was pounding.

She turned slowly to face me. She looked thinner and sadder than in the photograph her mother had given me, but recognizably the same girl.

“Amy, I'm Ian Kennedy, from Milwaukee. Your mother—”

“Don't touch me.”

I stopped where I was. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Don't try to touch me or I'll disappear. You have to come back on Halloween. There's a chance, then, at midnight. They have to let me out, and if you can catch me and hold on tight, I'll be safe. But you mustn't let go before morning. If you let go, I'm lost forever.”

She was very matter-of-fact as she spoke, but I wasn't sure that she was seeing me.

“Amy, I've come to bring you home,” I said, trying to make my voice gentle but firm. “Your mother sent me to find you. I'm not going to hurt you, I don't even have to touch you, but I want you to come away with me now.”

“I can't.” Now, for the first time, she looked frightened. Her eyes darted about. “They're watching me. I'm not supposed to talk to anyone. They'll punish me!”

“Who? Nobody's going to punish you, Amy. I won't let them. Come on, now.”

“I can't.” She stood still as a statue.

“Yes, yes, you can.” As I spoke, I took a step toward her and stretched out my hand.

“Don't touch me!”

I let my hand fall. “All right. I want you to start walking toward me now. Take a step, come on, just one step.”

She still didn't move, just stared hard at me. “Come back on Halloween.
Please.
”

Then she disappeared.

Just like that, before my eyes.

Shocked, I sucked in my breath and rushed forward to where she'd been—or where I thought she'd been.

“Amy! Amy!”

As I raced around, flailing my arms in search of the girl who
must
be there, the rain abruptly poured down in the heaviest shower of the day. Of course, this made it even harder for me to see anything, but I wasn't about to give up. I fell to my knees and patted and prodded at the soaked, leafy ground, searching for a hidden pit, a trapdoor, wires, mirrors,
anything.

I looked behind bushes and trees and rocks hardly big enough to hide a cat. Amy was nowhere to be found.

Maybe because she had never been there?

I thought of her fear that I would touch her, her refusal to let me get too close. There could be trickery behind that. If she'd been standing somewhere else, before a camera, and her image had simply been projected onto that spot . . .

Was that really possible? She had looked solid and three-dimensional to me. Was hologram technology that good now? And wouldn't there have to be something to project her image onto? I peered up into the trees as the water ran into my eyes and down my face, but I couldn't see anything: no wires, no screen, no hidden cameras.

I went on searching the area until it was too dark to see. I didn't want to give up, but couldn't face the alternative of spending the whole night exposed on the hillside, getting colder and wetter. I crawled back into the bender to get my jacket and borrowed Amy's miniature flashlight to help me find my way back to the path, then down the hill back to the road. As I stumbled along through the dark, making my way slowly back toward the comfort of The Rowans, I remembered what Fred had said last night: “If you saw someone disappear right before your eyes, you'd have to believe.”