Magic hour: a novel (15 page)

The second most recent case listed had been in the 1990s. It featured a Ukrainian child named Oxana Malaya, who was said to have been raised by dogs until the age of eight. She never mastered normal social skills. Today, at the age of twenty-three, she lived in a home for the mentally disabled. In 2004, a seven-year-old boy—also reportedly raised by wild dogs—was found in the deep woods of Siberia. To date he had not learned to speak.

Julia frowned and hit the Print key.

It was unlikely as hell that this girl was a true wild child. . . .

The wolf pup

The way she eats

But if she were . . .

This child could be the most profoundly damaged patient she would ever treat, and without extensive help, the poor girl could be as lost and forgotten in the system as she’d been in the woods.

Julia leaned over and took the stack of papers from the printer. On top lay the last page she’d printed. A black-and-white photograph of a little girl stared up at her. The child looked both frightened and strangely fixated. The caption below it read:
Genie. After twelve years of horrific abuse and isolation, she became a media sensation. The modern equivalent of the wild child raised in a California suburb. Saved from this nightmare, she was brought into the light for a short time until, like all the wild children before her, she was forgotten by the doctors and scientists and shuffled off to her shadowy fate; life in an institution for the mentally disabled.

Julia couldn’t imagine being the kind of doctor that would use a traumatized child for career advancement, but she knew that sooner or later those kinds of people would come for the girl. If the true story were as bad as she thought it could be, it would make front page news.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you again,” Julia vowed to the little girl asleep in the hospital. “I promise.”

SEVEN

B
Y EIGHT O’CLOCK THAT EVENING THE PHONES FINALLY STOPPED
ringing. There had been dozens of press-conference-related, fact-checking calls and faxes and queries from the reporters who’d been here and those who hadn’t bothered to come but had somehow gotten wind of the story. And, of course, the locals had arrived in a steady stream until the dinner hour, begging for any scrap of news about Rain Valley’s most unexpected guest.

“The quiet before the storm,” Peanut said.

Ellie looked up from the stack of papers on her desk just in time to see her friend light up a cigarette.

“I asked. You grunted,” Peanut said before Ellie could argue.

Ellie didn’t bother fighting. “What about the storm?”

“It’s the quiet before. Tomorrow all hell is gonna break loose. I watch Court TV, I know. Today there were a few local channels and papers here. One Flying Wolf Girl headline and that will change. Every reporter in the country will want in on the story.” She shook her head, exhaling smoke and coughing. “That poor kid. How will we protect her?”

“I’m working on that.”

“And how will we trust whoever comes to claim her?”

It was the question that haunted Ellie, the root of her disquiet. “That’s been bothering me from the get-go, Pea. I don’t want to hand her over to the very people who hurt her, but I have damned little evidence. Gut instinct doesn’t go far in today’s legal system. I’m actually hoping there’s a kidnapping report; how sad is that? I’d love to return a little girl who was outright stolen from her home. Then there might be blood samples and a suspect. If it’s not that simple . . .” She shrugged. “I’ll need some help from the big boys.”

“Without a crime, they’ll stay away like thieves from a lineup. They’ll want you to do all the hard work. The state might step in, but only to warehouse her. They’ve already told us as much.”

Ellie had ridden this merry-go-round of worries and outcomes all night. She was no closer to an answer now than when she climbed aboard. “It’s all up to Julia, I guess. If she can get a story out of the girl, we have a starting place.”

“If the girl
can
talk, you mean.”

“That’s Julia’s side of the problem, and if anyone can help that girl, it’s my sister. Right now our job is to find her a place to work.” Ellie tapped her pen on the desk.

Peanut started coughing again.

“Put that thing out, Pea. You’re the worst smoker I’ve ever seen.”

“And I’ve actually gained a pound this week. I’m going back to eating only cabbage soup. Or maybe carrot sticks.” Peanut put out her cigarette. “Hey, how about the old sawmill? No one would look for her there.”

“Too cold. Too indefensible. Some wily tabloid photographer would find a way in. Four roads lead up to it; at least six doors would need to be guarded. And it’s public property.”

“County hospital?”

“Too many employees. Sooner or later someone would sell the story.” Ellie frowned. “What we need is a secret location and a cone of silence.”

“In Rain Valley? You must be joking. This town lives for gossip. Everyone will want to talk to the press.”

Of course. The answer was so obvious, she didn’t know how she’d missed it. This was just like that time in high school when they’d stolen the attendance sheet on senior skip day. Ellie had planned the whole thing. “Call Daisy Grimm.”

Peanut glanced at the clock. “
The Bachelor
is on.”

“I don’t care. Call her. I want everybody who is anybody in this town at a six
A.M.
meeting at the Congregational church.”

“A town meeting? About what?”

“It’s top secret.”

“A
secret
town meeting, and at dawn. How dramatic.” Peanut pulled a pen out from the ratted coil of her auburn hair. “What’s the agenda?”

“The Flying Wolf Girl, of course. If this town wants to gossip, we’ll give them something to talk about.”

“Oo-ee. This is going to be fun.”

For the next hour Ellie worked on the plan, while Peanut called their friends and neighbors. By ten o’clock they were done.

Ellie looked down at the contract she’d devised. It was perfect.

I _____________________ agree to keep any and all information about the wolf girl completely confidential. I swear I won’t tell anyone anything that I learned at the town meeting in October. Rain Valley can count on me.

________________________ (signature required)

“It won’t hold up in court,” Peanut said, coming over to her.

“Who are you? Perry Mason?”

“I watch
Boston Legal
and
Law & Order.
”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t need to be legally binding. It just needs to seem like it is. What does this town love more than anything?”

“A parade?”

Ellie had to concede that point. “Okay, second most.”

“A two-for-one sale?”

“Gossip,” she said, realizing Peanut could make guesses until dawn. “And secrets.” She stood up and reached for her coat. “The only problem will be Julia.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s not going to like the idea of a town meeting.”

“Why not?”

“You remember how it was for her in town. No one knew what to make of her. She walked around with her nose in a book. She never talked to anyone but our mom.”

“That was a long time ago. She won’t care what people think of her now. She’s a
doctor,
for cripe’s sake.”

“She’ll care,” Ellie said with a sigh. “She always did.”

H
E IS DEEP IN A GREEN DARKNESS.
O
VERHEAD, LEAVES RUSTLE IN AN
invisible breeze. Clouds mask the silvery moon; there is only the sheen of light. Perhaps it is a memory.

The girl is crouched on a branch, watching him. She is so still that he wonders how his gaze found her.

Hey, he whispers, reaching out.

She drops to the leaf-carpeted floor without a sound. On all fours, she runs away.

He finds her in a cave, bound and bleeding. Afraid. He thinks he hears her say
“Help,”
and then she is gone. There is a little boy in her place, blond-haired. He is reaching out, crying—

Max came awake with a start. For a moment he had no idea where he was. All he saw around him were pale pink walls and ruffles . . . a collection of glass figurines on a shelf . . . elves and wizards . . . there was a vase full of silk roses on the bedside table and two empty wineglasses.

Trudi.

She lay beside him, sleeping. In the moonlight her naked back looked almost pure white. He couldn’t help reaching out. At his touch, she rolled over and smiled up at him. “You’re going?” she whispered, her voice throaty and low.

He nodded.

She angled up to her elbows, revealing the swell of her bare breasts above the pink blanket. “What is it, Max? All night you were . . . distracted.”

“The girl,” he said simply.

She reached out, traced his cheekbone with her long fingernail. “I thought so. I know how much hurt kids get to you.”

“Picked a hell of a career, didn’t I?”

“Sometimes a person can care too much.” In the uncertain light, he thought she looked sad, but he couldn’t be sure. “You could talk to me, you know.”

“Talking isn’t what we do best. That’s why we get along so well.”

“We get along because I don’t want to be in love.”

He laughed. “And I do?”

She smiled knowingly. “See you, Max.”

He kissed her shoulder, then bent down for his clothes. When he was dressed, he leaned closer to her and whispered, “’Bye,” and then he left.

Within minutes he was on his motorcycle and racing down the black, empty expanse of road. He almost turned onto the old highway; then he remembered why he’d left Trudi’s house in the first place. The dream he’d had.

His patient.

He thought about that poor girl, all alone in her room.

Kids were afraid of the dark.

He changed directions and hit the gas. At the hospital, he parked beside Penelope Nutter’s battered red pickup and went inside.

The hallways were empty and quiet, with only a few nighttime nurses on duty. The usual noises were gone, leaving him nothing to hear save the metronome patter of his footsteps. He stopped by the nurses’ station to get the girl’s chart and check on her progress.

“Hey, Doctor,” said the nurse on duty. She sounded as tired as he felt.

Max leaned against the counter and smiled. “Now, Janet, how many times have I asked you to call me Max?”

She giggled and blushed. “Too many.”

Max patted her plump hand. Years ago, when he’d first met Janet, all he’d seen was her Tammy Faye fake eyelashes and Marge Simpson hair. Now, when she smiled, he saw the kind of goodness that most people didn’t believe in. “I’ll keep hoping.”

Listening to her girlish laughter, he headed for the day care center. There, he peered through the window, expecting to see the girl curled up on the mattress on the floor, asleep in the darkness. Instead, the lights were on and Julia was there, sitting on a tiny chair beside a child-sized Formica table. There was a notebook open on her lap and a tape recorder on the table near her elbow. Although he could only see her profile, she appeared utterly calm. Serene, even.

The girl, on the other hand, was agitated. She darted around the room, making strange, repetitive hand gestures. Then, all at once, she stopped dead and swung to face Julia.

Julia said something. Max couldn’t hear it through the glass. The words were muffled.

The girl blew snot from her nose and shook her head. When she started to scratch her own cheeks, gouging the flesh, Julia lunged at her, took her in her arms.

The girl fought like a cat, but Julia hung on. They stumbled sideways, fell down on the mattress.

Julia held the girl immobile, ignoring the snot flying and head shaking; then Julia started to sing. He could tell by the cadence of her voice, the way the sounds blended into one another.

He went to the door and quietly opened it. Just a crack.

The girl immediately looked at him and stilled, snorting in fear.

Julia sang,
“. . . tale as old as time . . . song as . . . old as rhyme . . .”

He stood there, mesmerized by the sound of her voice.

Julia held the girl and stroked her hair and kept singing. Not once did she even glance toward the door.

Slowly, the minutes ticked by. “Beauty and the Beast” gave way to other songs. First it was “I’m a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch,” and then “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and then “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Gradually, the girl’s eyelashes fluttered shut, reopened.

The poor thing was trying so hard to stay awake.

Julia kept singing.

Finally, the girl put her thumb in her mouth, started sucking it, and fell asleep.

Very gently, Julia tucked her patient into bed and covered her with blankets, then went back to the table to gather her notes.