Free Took by Mary Downing Hahn Page B

come.
    â€œWhere are you?” Dad called, his voice scraped raw from shouting.
    Are you, are you, are you,
the trees repeated. Creatures in the underbrush rustled. An owl screeched.
    Our voices sounded small in the noisy darkness.
    We called her name again and again. We waved our flashlights in hope that she’d see their bobbing light. We were hoarse from calling. And desperate when she didn’t answer.
    The faint trail gave out, and we began circling back to the house without realizing it until we saw the lights in the windows.
    â€œWe need to call the police,” Dad said. “We don’t know the land the way they do. We’ll get lost ourselves if we keep going.”
    Wordlessly, we made our way home. Mom was on the front porch, shivering in her warmest down coat. “You didn’t find her?”
    â€œNo.” Dad stopped to hug her. Mom clung to him. They stood there whispering to each other, as if they’d forgotten about me. I waited, shifting my weight from one frozen foot to the other, afraid Bloody Bones might be watching us from the trees.
    Not that I believed he actually existed, not in my world, the real world, the five-senses world. But with the wind blowing and the moon sailing in and out of clouds like a ghost racing across the sky, I could almost believe I’d crossed a border into another world, where anything could be true—even conjure women and spells and monsters.
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    The police came sooner than we’d expected. We heard their sirens and saw their flashing lights before they’d even turned into the driveway. Four cars and an ambulance stopped at the side of the house. Doors opened, men got out. A couple of them had dogs, big German shepherds who pulled on their leashes, excited. Flashing lights washed the living room walls with red and blue.
    â€œWhy did they bring an ambulance?” Mom clung to Dad, her face a strange ashen color.
    He frowned at the scene outside. “It’s standard procedure when something like this happens.”
    Something like what?
I wondered. No one was hurt. We didn’t need an ambulance. Unless they thought—but no, Erica wasn’t hurt, she was just lost. They’d find her fast with those dogs. I’d tell her I was sorry I got mad at her. I was scared, that was all. Scared of what? An old folktale? I shivered as a draft of cold air came creeping into the house. At my age, how could I be scared of a bogeyman?
    Two policemen came inside and went upstairs. I heard their shoes clunking overhead. A policewoman sat down with us at the dining room table. She had questions: Erica’s full name and age, a description of her and the clothes she was wearing, and the circumstances of her disappearance.
    â€œDaniel was supposed to walk home from the school-bus stop with Erica,” Mom said in a shaky voice, “but they had a fight, and, and—” She faltered and tried to brush away her tears.
    The detective turned to me. “What was the fight about?” She’d been jotting things in a little notebook, and now she sat looking at me, waiting, her pen poised. She had stubby fingers and close-cut fingernails, no polish. No makeup either. A plain face, short hair. Not very friendly. Small, hard eyes. The name on her badge said Detective Irma Shank.
    I told her what I’d told Dad, still leaving out any mention of things in the woods or Selene Estes. My hands shook, and one leg jiggled without my being able to stop it.
    â€œSo he came home and ate a peanut butter sandwich,” Mom said when I’d finished. “Then I imagine he went upstairs to play a game on his iPad. When we came home, he panicked and told us what happened.”
    While Mom talked, Detective Shank watched me, still jotting things down. “Is that what you did, Daniel?”
    â€œYes, but I thought Erica was playing a trick on me. She does things like that.”
    She looked at Dad and Mom, and they nodded.