The Mystery Million
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“You can’t just leave us out here,” screamed one of the kids, his voice muffled in the darkness.
Ava and I were still walking through the woods behind the trailer park, heading to the edge of town where the old abandoned highway ran by. We had walked a good mile and a half before we found the road—a narrow path that was little more than an overgrown trail between trees with branches so close they nearly scraped your skin as you passed by.
The air was thick with pollen from the flowering shrubbery; it hung in front of our faces like fog. The moonlight didn’t help much, but there wasn’t any choice about it, either—we would be on the main road within minutes.
We’d been walking for almost two hours, making sure to stay away from the houses. Ava hadn’t said anything since we left, not even when I asked if she was okay. Her face was turned toward me, her chin up and her eyes fixed straight ahead. She didn’t look at me once, though we were less than ten feet apart.
I wanted to reach for her hand, to touch her shoulder, or even hug her from behind, but something held me back. I knew what had happened, and now I wasn’t quite certain how I felt. But right then, all I could think about was what would happen when we reached the highway—how we would find the first car or truck going south, and I would jump inside and pull her along.
We weren’t supposed to take other people’s vehicles, but it wouldn’t be my fault—I was taking her home. It would make sense.
It took another twenty minutes until we came upon the old road. Now we could see the stars in the sky above, though we couldn’t yet tell which direction we should head toward. “Where do we go?” I whispered.
She looked back at me without turning around, a faint smile on her lips.
“Do you know?”
Her laugh sounded like the wind in a pine tree, but it was real. Then she turned to face me and pointed. “That way.”
I didn’t question her, instead just followed in silence, trying to ignore the fear that was growing inside me with every passing minute. When she stopped moving, I finally did turn back to her. We were both breathing hard, but neither of us said anything else.
There was nothing we could say anyway—there was no way to explain the things that had come after me tonight. No matter what happened next, everything we had done would have been pointless.
But I kept going in silence, trying to ignore my own pounding heart. Soon enough I heard the rumble of an engine.
Ava had been looking down at her shoes, but when I spoke to her again, she looked up.
“What is it?”
Then she grabbed my arm and pulled me off the road. As soon as we stepped into the forest, the noise grew louder. A car was coming.
We stood there for a moment. Ava squeezed my fingers so tight that she hurt them, and I was grateful she’d thought of this. If we’d been standing out there alone, we might not have made it. The car was loud, its lights bouncing in the night air as it drove closer.
The headlights were red, and the windows were covered by black curtains. I tried to guess the make of the vehicle, but couldn’t see very well—the driver had to be pretty far away if he hadn’t noticed us yet. The sound of the engine faded when the car turned northward into a small neighborhood and disappeared from view.
As quickly as possible, I pulled Ava back onto the road and started running southward. Our footsteps echoed as loudly as the rumble of the engine and we moved farther from the town, away from the main highway, and deeper into the forest.
Ava was holding onto my hand tightly as we raced through the trees; there was too much fear in her eyes to speak. For an instant, I wanted to stop and comfort her, but I knew we didn’t have time.
We reached a dirt path that led across an open field and ended near a large oak tree with thick roots growing out of the ground. Ava released my hand, and we ducked under the low branches and ran into the dark shadows beneath it. Ava kept looking behind us, checking in case the man in the car had followed us, but all we saw was the empty field.
The dirt road was gone, replaced by a thin strip of grass and a few wildflowers that were starting to bloom. I could hear birds chirping, but it didn’t seem like anyone else lived around here.
I pushed up the sleeves of my jacket and rubbed the sweat off my palms. I couldn’t let Ava see the fear in my eyes. I needed to act confident for her sake—if we fell apart now, we would lose everything.
When we were far enough away, Ava slowed down and leaned against the trunk of the tree while she caught her breath. It was getting cooler in the shade of the forest, but that couldn’t keep her warm now.
“What happens if he comes after us?” she whispered as she wiped her forehead with the back of one hand. “What if he finds us somewhere in the woods? What if…what if he knows where we live?”
“I’m going to try to talk him out of it, I promise,” I replied in a calm voice.
Ava nodded, although she was still shaking slightly. I wondered whether she’d ever felt as scared as I did tonight, or if she had known any other life. She was so young and fragile looking, and I wished there were more I could do for her than simply give reassurances. But she didn’t need me to worry about her; she was tough enough for this. “Let’s stay quiet for a little longer,” I told her. “Once we’re back to town, we’ll head straight to my house.”
I waited until I couldn’t hear the sound of an engine anymore before I spoke.
“Why are we going back there? Why not find someplace nearby first?” Ava asked, and I could barely understand her words over the sounds of leaves rustling in the breeze.
“It’s a long story…” I began.
She nodded, even though it was probably too late to stop me. I had to start talking sooner rather than later, especially since Ava wouldn’t be able to go home again. Then she surprised me by reaching out to take my hands. She stared down at our intertwined fingers and smiled sadly.
“My dad used to work for Mr. Black,” she said quietly, then paused briefly and shook her head. “Well, he worked for his company in college. He was a chemical engineer and got a job here right out of school—they hired him as their youngest senior executive ever. My mom had just graduated, too, so they came here together and moved into the best apartments the city had to offer.
They spent all their time studying and working hard, and I didn’t really meet them for years. When I started asking questions, it wasn’t because I had any interest in my family history. It was because something was happening to me…something strange.
“There was always something about me that made me feel different. Maybe it was how I talked, or the way I looked—I’m sure my mother had tried all kinds of beauty treatments and clothes to make me seem like everyone else. But I hated being a girl, and the worst part was that nobody knew what to do for me.
The doctors prescribed drugs and therapy, and nothing worked. So one day I went into the library and found an old book called The Book of Life and Death: A Study of Reincarnation. There were stories of people who remembered past lives, and I thought if I read them properly, maybe I’d get some answers. I couldn’t put it down and read it cover to cover.
“After a week, I realized that most of the information matched exactly with how I felt when I woke up every morning. I was certain I had been someone else before, and the only thing left to do was find out who and why. I didn’t tell my parents about anything until one night after they had fallen asleep.
“I crept into their room and took the book from under the bed and hid it behind some boxes. That night I dreamed about a boy in a dark alley with blood on his face, and the next day I decided to leave home forever. But the hardest part was finding out which of my friends I could trust.”
I stopped walking and looked over at her, but she didn’t respond. The silence stretched between us, and neither of us wanted to say anything else. We both understood that if we didn’t stop soon, we never would.
We walked silently through the darkness of the forest and made it safely back to town without another word. The moonlight illuminated the streets, but no one seemed to notice our passage.
The streetlights were on, the lights from the shops shone across the empty sidewalk, and the only thing missing was people. We turned down a side road, crossed several streets, and finally ended up on my street. We had come far enough ahead to avoid any chance of running into anyone we knew, and that meant the truth would have to wait until tomorrow.
Ava let go of my hand and reached out to turn on my porch light as we stepped onto the front steps. I followed her inside and closed the door gently behind us, leaving our shadows to linger in the hallway for a few seconds after we’d disappeared.
***
When I opened my bedroom door, Ava was already standing against the wall beside the window. In the pale light of sunrise, she seemed more like a ghost than an eight-year-old child. Her hair was tangled and unkempt, her eyes red and puffy; her body still trembled from exhaustion.
Her gaze focused on mine, and she held my stare with her own for a moment before she sighed and ran her hands down her cheeks. “How did you know?” she asked me, almost as though she was trying to convince herself of some answer.
I stood there awkwardly for a minute, unsure of how to comfort her. Finally, I placed my arms around her and hugged her tight. She buried her face into my chest, and I heard her whisper over and over again, “You’re not mad at me…you’re not mad at me…”
But I knew she wasn’t ready to hear my response yet.
“It’s okay,” I said softly, rocking her gently and whispering reassurances in her ear. After several minutes passed, I released her and took a step back to look her over. She hadn’t changed from last night. Still naked, still filthy, and now completely exhausted.
“Why are you naked?” I asked.
She shrugged, staring down at her hands as she wrapped her fingers tightly around each other. “They won’t let me wear pants anymore. And I can’t afford to replace all the bras that they tore away from me either. I haven’t showered since yesterday…”
I glanced over her bare legs and noticed a couple of scratches where she must have gotten snagged by branches, and then I saw that her ankles were swollen with bruises from kicking and scratching. My heart sank, but I kept quiet. If I started crying too, we’d be stuck in this endless loop of despair.
“Can I have a shower? Please?”
My bathroom was big enough to walk through, so I turned on the water and left Ava to undress. When she emerged, she wore only the pink panties and bra that I had bought her yesterday and a pair of socks. They were stained and worn, and I wondered if they’d ever fit right again.
I sat her down in front of the mirror. She leaned over it and stared at her reflection for a while, and when she turned around, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “What happened to your face?”
“Some guy got a little rough.”
I helped her wash her hair in the sink, then dried her off with a towel and pulled on the robe I’d set out for her earlier. It was a simple cotton gown with a loose hem and long sleeves; it came just below her knees, but that was fine with me because Ava was tiny.
As soon as we left the bathroom, Ava collapsed into the couch and pulled her feet up onto the cushions. I found two pillows for her head, covered her with an afghan, and went back downstairs to get us breakfast.
While I cooked eggs and bacon, Ava tried desperately to sleep, but every time I laid my spoon down I watched her struggle to open her eyes. I poured her some orange juice, and she sucked it down as fast as she could swallow. Then we ate in silence, listening to the television playing quietly in the background.
After we finished eating, Ava climbed back into the couch and lay there motionless. She didn’t move or speak, and the longer I waited the more anxious I felt about what might happen next. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked gently.
She shook her head slightly.
“Then why don’t you close your eyes for a bit?”
She closed her lids, and when she reopened them I could see a faint glimmer of hope in them. She was trying, I realized; she was trying so hard to fight back against whatever had happened to her.
I picked up my phone from the coffee table and called the police station where I’d met Detective Caulder, and he was happy to tell me that Ava’s case was being transferred to his department. He wanted me to give him a call once Ava was settled somewhere safe, and I promised that I would.
With that taken care of, we both sat there quietly watching the news on television for a while. Ava had gone back to sleep, but I couldn’t keep myself from wondering about her. What sort of woman had been responsible for taking Ava from me? Was she someone who needed to be locked away, or was she another victim like Ava?
I didn’t have answers to those questions, and it bothered me greatly that there were things I simply couldn’t understand. The world I knew was one of order and control, but everything I saw around me now was chaos, anarchy, and uncertainty.
But most of all it was pain. The pain was everywhere, from the people screaming on the street outside our windows to the sorrow in the eyes of my best friend.
The doorbell rang, interrupting my thoughts, and I walked to the window to peek out at the front steps of the apartment complex before answering the door. It was a uniformed policeman, dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt. His badge identified him as Sergeant Bannock, and he had a large duffle bag strapped across his shoulder.
He smiled brightly when he saw me, but then frowned and looked at Ava. “Is she all right?”
“Yes… yeah…” I replied nervously.
Sergeant Bannock nodded and reached into the pocket of his pants. He pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and I instinctively recoiled when I saw them. “You’re probably wondering why we brought these along,” he said, holding the metal cuffs out for me to grab.
I didn’t know how to react. On the one hand, I was relieved that someone was finally doing something to help Ava; on the other, I didn’t feel safe knowing she was going to be in the same room as a man wearing those restraints. “Why am I under arrest?” I asked, confused by this new turn of events.
“For questioning,” Sergeant Bannock informed me, pulling the cuffs tighter.
That was it, no explanation as to what crime Ava and I were accused of committing. I glanced over at Ava and saw her staring blankly ahead of me, and my heart broke for her.
Sergeant Bannock unlocked the handcuffs after he’d snapped them shut, then took one look at the expression on my face. “Don’t worry, son. We’re not arresting anyone until we’ve spoken to all parties involved.”
He held the handcuffs out to me and I accepted them with gratitude, locking them securely onto my belt before turning back to Sergeant Bannock.
“What exactly am I under arrest for, Sergeant?” I asked carefully, afraid of any answer that might come.
Sergeant Bannock looked down at me and smiled with relief, saying nothing until the words formed properly in his mouth.
“… kidnapping.”
The End