Disappearance at Devil's Rock Read online

  Elizabeth doesn’t answer her. Kate’s seeing-a-shadow story feels different from what she experienced. It feels like a threat. Elizabeth stands up and grabs their lasagna plates and carries them over to the sink. She says, “Will you help me reboot the camera in the living room? Maybe we can mess with some of the settings and stuff. I want to be 100 percent sure it’s working right. And then we’ll double check that the doors are locked.”

  Before going to bed, Elizabeth and Kate slightly adjust the angle of the camera so that more of the house is included in the shot. Instead of pointing it directly at the front door, they position the camera so that the door is tucked in the bottom left of the screen, and the result is a fuller shot of the living room and most of the kitchen. They delete and reinstall the surveillance camera app on Elizabeth’s phone and then run a bunch of tests and practice runs. They manage to get the motion-detecting sensor reacting the way it’s supposed to react. If the front door opens or if either of them walks anywhere within the shot, the camera turns on and records the event as a video clip. The smartphone notifications work as well, and Elizabeth chooses an obnoxious honking sound to accompany the message. There is no way she’d sleep through that.

  They both fall asleep on the couch with a Mythbusters marathon running, the volume muted. Kate wakes Elizabeth up a little after 11 P.M. to tell her that she’s going to her room.

  Elizabeth stands and considers making herself a cup of coffee and staying up all night. Instead she backs away from the couch and shuts off all the lights. Darkness fills the warm, sleepy space she and her daughter just occupied. She turns on the surveillance camera with her phone, the small red light glows in the newly barren, unexplored living room.

  Elizabeth skips washing her face and brushing her teeth, and crawls directly into bed. She plugs her phone into the charger and scrolls though her texts.

  Janice sent a message a few hours ago while she and Kate were asleep on the couch: Back home. Safe. Will call tomorrow. Get rest. I love you.

  Elizabeth texts back: Thnx. I’ll call when I wake up. I love you, too. She stares at her words contained in the blue dialogue bubble.

  Janice responds quickly with, Night, my dear.

  Elizabeth types, I’m so tired, but then erases it. She types, I miss Tommy so much. Erases it. What the fuck are we going to do? Erases it. She starts crying. She types, Night, Mom, and finally hits Send.

  Janice sends one more text. I sent you an e-mail link to an article about something called felt presences. You should read it when you get a chance.

  Elizabeth doesn’t respond and she doesn’t check her e-mail. She lies on her side, and tears slide across the bridge of her nose, down her cheek, and onto the pillow. She closes her eyes and plucks at the individual spider threads of all that’s happened, and she follows them into the dizzying web of what can and could happen until she’s hopelessly lost and vulnerable to the gentle fang of sleep.

  Just after 1 A.M. the car horn alert blares. Elizabeth bolts upright in a full body spasm and inadvertently flings her phone over the foot of the bed and to the floor, where it lands with a chunky thud and pinwheels toward the end table. Elizabeth is at the bedroom door before her phone finishes asteroiding across the room. She yanks the door open, dives headfirst into the hallway. There is a huddled, blocky, dark shape coming out of the kitchen and down the hall, and Elizabeth can’t stop and almost plows into it.

  An involuntary yelp leaks out of Elizabeth.

  Kate says, “Oh my God! Mom! Are you okay? It’s me! What’s going on?”

  Elizabeth: “Jesus H.!” She slaps at the wall and finds the light switch.

  “Dude. Bright light.” Kate is standing there squinting, lost inside a black, oversized T-shirt (is it one of Tommy’s?) with a cup of water in her hands, an almost fully grown Cindy Lou Who prepping to snarkily ask why everything is gone.

  Elizabeth: “Honey, you scared the crap out of me.”

  “You scared the crap out of me! Why are you running out here?”

  “You know, the—” Elizabeth points into her bedroom and shakes her hand up and down, priming the pump until the rest of the words come out “—the goddamn camera motion-sensing alarm thingy went off.”

  “Oh, right. Oops. Sorry. Hey. Can I, uh, see the video?”

  “Seriously, Kate? No. No. Go back to bed.”

  “How am I supposed—”

  “Just go, Kate. You’re not watching it now.”

  Elizabeth walks away from her grumbling daughter and into the living room, and the car horn alarm sounds from her phone back in the bedroom. Now she’s set off the goddamn motion detector.

  “For crying out loud . . .”

  Kate: “I got this!” and she skitters into Elizabeth’s bedroom.

  “You don’t need to—ugh.”

  She stands in the middle of the living room. There aren’t any notes left on the rug.

  Kate’s voice comes through the camera’s mic. “I can see you, Mom. What are you doing? It looks weird.”

  “Nothing. Put my phone down and go to bed. Please.”

  “Okay, fine. I’m watching my video first.”

  “This isn’t a game,” Elizabeth says and curls her toes in the rug. There’s no response. She doesn’t know if Kate is still watching/listening or if the camera is recording her on its own or if those words are lost forever, like all words are lost eventually.

  Elizabeth doesn’t move from the spot until she hears Kate shuffle across the hallway and her bedroom door closes shut. Once back in her room and under the covers, Elizabeth watches the ten-second clip of Kate in the kitchen and getting water. Kate waves at the camera and the car horn alarm goes off (it’s far away and muffled, but Elizabeth can hear it) and then the clip ends. Elizabeth chuckles softly and says, “That little shit.”

  Before trying to go back to sleep, Elizabeth opens the surveillance camera app on her phone and rechecks the notification settings. It’s been set to silent mode. The tab for the audio alarm is dull gray (off) instead of green (on). Vibration notifications are shut off, too. The alarm was clearly on and working as of a handful of minutes ago. Elizabeth quickly rebuilds the timeline: alarm sounded, she ran into the kitchen, stumbled into Kate, the alarm went off a second time when Elizabeth tripped the motion sensor, and Kate went into Elizabeth’s bedroom to shut off of the alarm. Kate did not have to open the program and change the settings to quiet the alarm; all she had to do was let the alarm expire after ten seconds or hit the red Okay button that appears on the phone’s screen along with the camera-is-recording notification message. Why would Kate open the app, navigate to the settings screen, and then shut off all future notification alarms? It wasn’t something you could do with one mistaken keystroke or finger swipe.

  Elizabeth climbs out of bed, goes across the hall, and opens Kate’s bedroom door without knocking. The room is dark with the shades draped over her windows. Kate is in bed with her glowing phone a few inches from her startled face. Elizabeth’s own voice comes through Kate’s phone’s speakers, shouting, “For crying out loud,” then after a brief silence, “You don’t need to—ugh.”

  Kate sits up, eyes as wide as sinkholes, and she dives her phone under the bedcovers. “Mom? What, what is it?”

  Elizabeth turns on the overhead light and stands next to Kate’s bed. “What are you watching? Kate? Was that me? Was that me on your phone?”

  “Mom—”

  “That was me on your phone, wasn’t it? Give it to me.”

  “You can’t take my phone. I—”

  “Kate Sanderson, give me your phone right now.”

  Kate stops arguing and hands the phone over. She says, “I was watching the new videos. From just now.”

  “What videos? The ones from the surveillance camera? What do you mean? How can you do that?” On Kate’s screen, the video is paused at the spot when Elizabeth tripped the motion sensor walking from the kitchen into the living room.

  Kate: “I put the camera app on my phone, to
o.”

  “What? Why?”

  She shrugs. “The app was glitchy on your phone. My phone is newer, right, so I thought the app would work better on mine. And I’ve been watching the live feed at night, sometimes. Helps me fall asleep.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “I forgot.”

  “You forgot.”

  “Yeah.”

  Elizabeth: “So you’ve been able to control the camera this whole time without saying anything to me. You’ve been able to turn it on or off whenever you want. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I haven’t messed with it like that, I swear. I just watch the feed sometimes.”

  “And you shut off the alarm notifications on my phone, too. You went into my room and you turned it off, Kate. Why would you do that?”

  “Mom, you asked me to go into your room and shut off the alarm.”

  “You didn’t have to shut off all notifications. You know that!”

  “Please stop yelling at me, Mom.”

  “Why did you shut off the notifications, Kate?”

  “I don’t—I didn’t even realize I did that. I mean, yeah I opened the app, and everything, to watch the video of me, and I shut the notifications off from the app, I guess. I thought that’s what you wanted. I’m sorry—”

  “Kate. Stop. Just stop. I can’t deal right now.” Elizabeth wipes her eyes and face and sighs deeply. In her head, Elizabeth sees Kate shutting off the notifications on her phone so the alarm wouldn’t go off when Kate came back out later, and Elizabeth sees Kate turning off the camera last night with her own phone, dropping the diary pages on the floor, returning to her room, and then turning the camera back on after. It wasn’t Tommy leaving the pages. It was Kate. It had to be. And she feels like a fool for believing otherwise.

  Elizabeth says, “Christ, Nana was right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Part of Elizabeth hates herself for interrogating her daughter, and if hiding Tommy’s diary is how Kate is coping with this impossible situation, then Kate should be excused and forgiven her odd behavior. Another part of Elizabeth wants to wring everything out of Kate like she is a wet towel.

  Elizabeth: “Okay. Where’s the rest of Tommy’s diary, Kate? It’s late and I’m tired and I want the rest of the pages. We can talk about why you’ve been leaving the pages out later, but—”

  “Mom, I’m sorry I shut off the stupid app. Okay? It was so loud and we didn’t need to hear it going off when it was you out in the living room.”

  “You shut if off because you were planning to go back out to the living room after I went back to sleep and then drop Tommy’s pages on the floor and—”

  “Why are you saying all this now? I thought you believed me. I thought you believed it was Tommy.”

  “—and you didn’t want me waking up and seeing you doing it.”

  “I was just shutting off the noise. That’s it. Goodnight, Mom.” Kate sinks into her bed, pulls the blankets over her head.

  “Nope. Not tonight.” Elizabeth shoots across the room and tears the blanket and sheets off of Kate and off the bed and onto the floor.

  “Hey! What are you—come on! Stop it.” She looks so little and vulnerable, twitching like a bug when the rock gets overturned. Kate tries covering herself with her arms and then hides her head between the pillows.

  “Out of bed, now. Come on. Let’s go. I want you to give me the rest of the diary. Look, you don’t even have to tell me why you’ve been doing it if you don’t want to. I know . . . everything is all, all messed up, and—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “—and it doesn’t matter, really. I mean, it does matter; what you’re going through matters. I just—I just want the rest of the diary. Okay. That’s all I want. Please. And I want it right now.”

  “Mom, I thought you believed me!”

  “Tell me. Right fucking now, Kate. Where is it?”

  “I thought you believed it was Tommy.” Kate retracts her knees into her chest, sits up against the headboard of her stripped bed, and doesn’t say anything more.

  “Fine!” Elizabeth walks over to the old elementary school desk, a refugee from the DPW take-it-or-leave-it. Years ago, she and Kate painted the desk and its little wooden chair candy apple red and added black-and-white dots so that it looked like a ladybug. It was one of a handful of DIY projects in the house that looked like it was supposed to. The desk is way too small for Kate now, but she still uses it. The paint is peeling and chipping away, and most of the surface is tattooed with scrawled band names and song lyrics. Seeing some of Elizabeth’s own favorite nineties bands writ looping and large on the side of the desk almost stops her from doing what she’s going to do.

  With one sweeping backhand motion of her left arm, Elizabeth roughly knocks Kate’s dusty minitrophies, trinkets, and knickknacks off the desk. She lifts the top and roots around inside the desk, tossing out pens, pencils, loose paper, Post-it note cubes, phone chargers, Tommy’s old GameBoy.

  Kate flinches but she still doesn’t say anything.

  “Is it over here?”

  Next is Kate’s purple floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that is both a library and stuffed-animal menagerie. Elizabeth yanks out fistfuls of books, and they fall and crash like thick hailstones.

  “Is it in here?”

  From the bookcase Elizabeth storms through the bedroom like a hurricane, kicking and knocking things over on her path to Kate’s closet. Elizabeth wrenches the door open, denting the plaster with the knob.

  “Is it in here?”

  The closet isn’t very big or deep, its contents barely contained. At the bottom is a green plastic shelving unit. She pulls the drawers out of the frame and dumps out their contents onto the floor behind her: photos and drawn pictures and chewed-up magazines and birthday cards and corrected homework assignments and yellow report cards and packs of Lego kit instructions and clothes for the antique dolls Kate only ever played with when she was alone in her room.

  Elizabeth yells, “Is it in here? How about here? Or here? Or here . . .” and when the unit is empty, she picks it up, grunting like a bloodthirsty giant, and throws it behind her. It rolls, slides, and crashes into the foot of Kate’s bed.

  Kate is blank-faced and staring quietly at the destruction of her room.

  Elizabeth is crying now, and screaming through her teeth, and she doesn’t stop tearing through Kate’s things. She yanks all the clothes off their hangers and throws them fluttering out of the closet. Elizabeth knows that what she is doing, what she is perpetrating, is a disaster, a calamity, and it will change their lives and her relationship with Kate forever. In the aftermath of the evening she will sit with Kate on the bed, hold her, and repeatedly tell her that she is sorry. But in the great and terrible now, there are still the stacks of sweaters and sweatshirts piled on the built-in shelf above the hangers. Her hands reach out to them—

  From somewhere behind her, in the yawning canyon of the bedroom, Kate says, “Mom, I have it. I’m sorry.”

  Elizabeth stops, backs out of the closet, and turns around, momentarily unsteady on her feet. The room before her is a disaster, the rubble of her daughter’s young life, there at her feet.

  Kate stands in the middle of it all, and she has a book cradled against her chest. The cover is black and has no decorations that Elizabeth can see. Kate starts in with the apologies and self-recriminations and tears and she falls into Elizabeth’s arms, stuffing Tommy’s diary into her hands. Kate doesn’t say the words It’s Tommy’s. Elizabeth knows it’s his.

  Kate’s head is still down and pressed against Elizabeth. She says, “For like two days after Tommy didn’t come home you were like in a coma, shut down, when you were home you barely moved or said anything and I’d never seen you like that and I was so afraid, and then the morning after you saw his ghost in your room it was like you were back to normal, back to you, and it was like it was almost okay again, or it could be okay ag
ain, so I wanted to help you keep believing, you know, believing that he was still here, that he would come back again, and so I left the pages out so you could still hear his voice and keep believing that Tommy was here in the house with us and sending messages. I was just trying to help, I swear. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  They cry, they hug, and they apologize to each other. Elizabeth could stand there holding and hugging her daughter forever as long as it meant nothing terrible would ever happen again.

  When Kate calms down she admits to finding the diary in the bottom drawer of his dresser, buried beneath old pairs of jeans, and then she kept it where she used to hide her own diary from Tommy; under her bedframe, wedged beneath the boxspring and one of the support beams. And now that she has admitted to having the diary Kate doesn’t stop talking and she says that having and reading his diary gave her a reason to get up and get out of bed each day, and how Tommy continually talked to her in the diary, it was like the diary was shared, it was theirs, and they were having a secret conversation, and she wanted it to last as long as possible. She also admits to manipulating the camera with the app on her phone, and shutting off the camera when she dropped the pages last night and then turning it back on after.

  Kate points at the diary and says, “One of the last entries is scary and I was going to show this, the whole book to you before, I swear, but I don’t know, I wanted you to still believe in Tommy and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and then it kept getting harder and harder to admit it and, I don’t know, it’s like I wanted to believe too, and—”

  “Okay, Kate. It’s okay. Thank you for telling me now, and please, you can tell me anything. You have to be able to tell me anything, especially now, right?”

  “Yes, I will. I promise. So Mom, the camera went off twice last night, right? Once was me. But I have no idea why the camera went off that second time, when the pages were already on the floor and that video you thought you saw the shadow in and it happened like at the same time when I saw the shadow in my window. That wasn’t me. I swear. I swear to God that wasn’t me.”