25. Tess
Tess
“ S HEL!” I scream, my flashlight’s beam cutting across yet another patch of empty pasture.
I whirl around in a circle, slashing the light like I can cut the night to pieces and pull my daughter out of its depths.
She has to be here somewhere. She just has to.
“Where the fuck could a ten year-old go in five fucking minutes?” I demand, like maybe someone will pop up out of this field and give me some damn answers.
It can’t have taken any longer than that for me to yank my clothes on and come running out into the yard.
Really, it must have been closer to two minutes, but that’s all it took.
She was gone without a trace. We’ve all been scouring the property with flashlights and screaming for her for half an hour now.
She can’t have made it to the woods or the highway that fast. She’s got to be hiding on the property somewhere.
I cling to that belief like it’s the last thread of my sanity.
All around me, I can hear voices shouting Shel’s name again and again.
Somewhere in the blur of the last thirty minutes, I learned the kids had less streets left for trick-or-treating than they thought, which explains why Shel showed up so early.
Gabrielle was still sleeping, and when no one answered at the door to the main part of the house, Shel came around the back to look for me.
Now Ali and his parents are out on the grounds, armed with flashlights of their own. Maddie and Natalie joined the search as soon as they arrived. There can’t be much of La Grange Rouge left to check.
I have no idea why Shel would be sitting in the middle of this field, but I have to check. I have to try.
“She has to be here,” I chant. “She has to be. She has to be.”
She’s just shocked and confused. She saw something she didn’t understand, and she wanted to be alone to process it.
She wouldn’t do something as drastic as trying to run away into the darkness.
“So then why isn’t she answering?” I ask the field.
The field doesn’t say anything back.
I let out a screech and kick the ground so hard a jolt of agony zings through my toe and up my leg.
I crumple, howling in pain as I hunch over my foot.
“TESS!”
Before I know what’s happening or how she got here, Jacinthe is at my side, her face cast in eerie shadows from the criss-crossing beams of our flashlights.
“What happened?” she demands, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
I shrug her off.
“I’m fine. Just go, okay?” I grimace against the ache as I stand back up. “Just go look for her! What the hell are you doing here with me?”
A flash of confusion and hurt crosses her face. Guilt twists in my gut, but the fury building in me is stronger.
“She’s missing , Jacinthe!” I shriek. “My kid is fucking missing in the middle of the night, and it’s because of us! We are so fucking stupid .”
I clutch my stomach as a wave of bile threatens to climb up my throat.
I know I shouldn’t yell at her like this, but I need to yell. I’m so angry I feel sick, and there’s no one else around to be mad at.
“I know—” Jacinthe tries to soothe.
I cut her off with a snarl.
“Do you, though? Do you know? You’re not a mother. This is just some fun forbidden sex game for you, but it’s my life . It’s my kid, and she’s gone. I should never have said yes to any of this.”
I brush past her, my flashlight’s beam weaving wildly through the air.
“We should never have moved to this farm at all.”
I hear Jacinthe make a low, mournful sound, like a wounded animal.
The noise pierces straight through my chest. I feel heat pricking the corners of my eyes, but I don’t slow down. I don’t turn around. I leave her there and head towards the only thing that matters, the thing I never should have let myself lose focus on, not even for a second.
My daughter.
“She has to be here,” I promise myself.
We’re up to fifty minutes of searching when I hear voices start calling my name instead of Shel’s.
Something between hope and dread spikes in my veins, making me feel even woozier than I already am. I sprint down to the farmyard from where I’ve been searching under all the cars in the driveway for the third time.
“Tess is coming!” Maddie yells, the first to spot me as I dash down the hill.
She’s standing under the stark white glare of the motion sensor light attached to the barn, with Gabrielle and Natalie at her side.
I’m so focused on covering the distance between us I don’t even notice they’re all sporting huge, relieved smiles until I skid to a stop on the gravel. Gabrielle has her palms pressed together and looks like she might be praying.
Somehow, their relief isn’t enough to cut through my panic.
Nothing will kill my panic except seeing Shel myself.
“What is it?” I demand. “Is she here? Is she safe?”
Maddie nods. She’s still wearing her cat ears, and the black whisker lines drawn on her face have turned streaky.
“She’s fine. She’s in the hayloft.”
Everyone’s gaze shifts to the top of the staircase running up the front of the barn. I can’t see anything but darkness past the open door.
“What?” I bark. “Didn’t someone already check there?”
“She was hiding,” Natalie answers. “She wedged herself behind some hay bales. I didn’t see her. I’m so sorry. Jacinthe just had a hunch to check there again.”
She looks anguished about missing Shel’s hiding place, but I don’t stick around to assure her everything is fine.
Nothing will be fine until I see my kid.
I brush past the three of them and thunder up the stairs. Once I get to the loft, it takes my eyes a couple seconds to adjust before I spot the dim glow of a flashlight in one of the far corners.
The winter hay order arrived a few days ago, and the loft is now packed so full there’s only room for a narrow aisle between the stacks of bales.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I forgive Natalie for not spotting Shel; it’d be hard to find a horse trying to hide up here, never mind a tiny child.
I sprint towards the flashlight’s beam, and there she is: settled on a hay bale with Jacinthe’s arm around her.
Her face is a mess of snot, tears, and the smudged remains of the moth makeup she worked so hard on.
One of her antennae is missing, and the other is nothing but a crushed lump of wonky pipe cleaners now, but she’s fine. She’s safe.
She’s here.
I breathe for what feels like the first time in an hour.
“Baby!” I shout, flinging myself down onto the hay bale and folding her into my arms. “Oh, my baby.”
I breathe in the scent of the strawberry kids’ shampoo she’s been using since she was five.
“My baby,” I sigh. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”
It takes me another moment to realize she’s still clinging to Jacinthe. She’s turned her head away from me to bury her face in Jacinthe’s jacket.
I sit up a little straighter but don’t let go of Shel.
“She was up here the whole time?” I ask Jacinthe.
She nods. “I think so. I know Natalie checked before, but I stopped and thought about where I would go when I was a kid, and I just knew. I knew she had to be here.”
A rush of gratitude sweeps through me, but it’s tinged with the same guilt I felt the first time I found Shel up here with Jacinthe.
Once again, she’s done something for my daughter that I couldn’t.
I push the thought down. I’ll process that later. Right now, I need to help Shel in any way I can.
I rub one of my hands in a circle on her back. My chest twinges when I see the beautiful moth wings she worked so hard to paint have a rip in them.
She must really have wedged herself into a tight spot up here.
“Shel, honey, will you let me look at you?” I murmur.
Her muffled reply pierces straight through my heart.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
My hand trembles, but I keep up the soothing circles on her back.
“Shel, what’s going on? Just tell me what’s wrong, honey,” I plead. “I want to help.”
She shakes her head, her voice taking on a hard edge as she turns enough to glare at me over her shoulder.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
I’m too stunned to speak. Even during her worst tantrums as a toddler, she never looked at me like that.
There’s a fury in her eyes, but it’s wild, panicked, like an animal caught in a trap.
She pushes away from Jacinthe and gets to her feet, taking a few paces away to stand with her back to both of us. Her hands are balled into fists, her shoulders shaking with what I think is rage.
I only realize she’s crying when she goes to speak and her voice hitches on a sob.
“I don’t want to leave.”
I glance at Jacinthe to see if she has any idea what’s going on, but she looks just as baffled as me.
“Leave where?” I ask, doing my best to sound steady and reassuring even though my whole world feels like it’s falling apart. “Shel, baby, can you tell me what’s going on?”
She takes a few shuddering breaths before she answers.
“We’re going to leave the farm, and it’s all my fault.”
My body is screaming at me to get up and pull her close, but I can tell she needs the space. I dig my fingers into the hay underneath me and order myself to stay still.
“Honey, nothing is your fault.”
She whirls around, that furious desperation making her eyes flare so wide the whites glow even in the darkness of the barn.
“Yes, it is,” she asserts, “because Jacinthe is your girlfriend now, and last time you had a girlfriend, you had to break up because of me.”
Then her face crumples. She sobs again, and a fresh wave of tears streak through her makeup.
My heart feels like it’s cracking in two.
“Baby,” I soothe, “Claire and I did not break up because of you.”
She stamps her foot even as the tears keep falling.
“Yes, you did! I heard you on the phone. Claire said dating somebody with a kid was too much. You weren’t available .”
I have no idea which of my many phone calls with Claire she’s referring to, but the way she says ‘available’ leaves no doubt that’s a direct quote—one that’s clearly been weighing on her for years without me having any clue.