Inger Wolfe - The Taken

With effort, she turned the girl over on her back. Her long black hair fell away from her face and the wet skin on her cheeks shuddered a little, as if she were fearful of what was about to happen to her. Her eyes were open, distant, a look of faint surprise on her face. Claire leaned to her left and gripped the heel of the girl’s left foot, lifting it over one of the oars. Then she lifted the other as well, moving the oar into place under the girl’s knees. The torso would be more difficult. She stood behind the girl’s head, her knees braced against the other oar and, balancing herself as carefully as she could, she leaned over the oar and lifted the girl’s head and then shoulders and, with her knees, nudged the oar forward beneath her. The little rowboat shook with the repeated jolts, but it quickly stilled, and then the girl was suspended there, the backs of her hands still resting against the bottom of the boat, as if she were levitating.

Claire rested a moment, but she would have to be done quickly now. She slipped crosswise under the girl, her knees bent up against the side of the boat, and pulled the thin ends of the oars together over her head in a V. The black canopy of the sweater hung down in front of her face.

Then there was a voice, a murmur in the distance, someone on the shore of one of the islands, calling out to her. She lay as still as possible, her heart pounding. And then she realized it wasn’t a voice coming from the island: it was coming from above her.

It was the girl.

Quietly, she was moaning. Words, unintelligible, although she thought she heard her name. Claire reached up and covered the girl’s mouth with her hand, the cold lips brushing against her skin, slowing down, and then stopping. Then Claire braced her feet hard against the side of the boat and, straining, began to push the oars into the air. They curved heavily with the weight on them, but slowly, the girl’s body began to slide toward the opposite thwart. Claire could hear the sound of her sweater rubbing down the wood. She pushed the makeshift slip higher into the air and the girl began to slide faster and faster and now Claire had to hold the ends of the oars down to keep them from flipping into the water with the girl’s mass sliding toward the paddles. Her body flipped once onto her face and then, with a sound like a boulder plunging from the sky, she disappeared beneath the surface.

The girl’s name was Brenda Cameron. She was twenty-nine. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s friend, someone’s lover. It was said of her that desperation and loss drove her to take her own life, but that was not true: Brenda Cameron wanted to live. But, more than that, she wanted to be loved. And for that human wish, she paid with her life.

Hazel hadn’t been inside her house for over two months. It smelled close and felt anonymous, like a museum without its exhibits. They’d made two trips from the house on McConnell Street since early that morning – how had they amassed that much stuff in so relatively short a time? – and Glynnis had just appeared with her back seat packed full of their clothing. “Feel good to be home?” she asked, pushing open the door with her foot. “I got it, I got it,” she said when Hazel rushed over to unburden her of the load. “You just drink it in.”

It did feel good to be home. Or rather, it felt good to no longer be an invalid and a guest. Glynnis went up the stairs with the clothes, like she owns the place , Hazel thought, and she smiled at the thought. But she doesn’t .

She went out to the car to see if there was anything else to bring in, but it was empty now. Glynnis returned and closed the hatchback. “That’s it. If I find anything else, I’ll send Andrew around with it.”

“Make sure you put a tracking device on him.”

Glynnis laughed. “Maybe I’ll bring it around.” She opened the door to the car, but Hazel put her hand on top of it and held it.

“Listen.”

“It’s okay, Hazel.”

“No, I want to say this. You had no good reason to open your doors to me, but you did. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”

“You’re not a mistake Andrew made, Hazel. You’re a part of his life. That makes you part of mine.”

“I’m not sure many people in your position would see it that way. I’m lucky that you did.”

“I don’t begrudge anyone the love they feel,” Glynnis said. “Even if it hurts me a little to know of it.”

The two women regarded each other. “It hurts?” said Hazel.

“I can’t help feeling stuff I don’t want to feel. The two of you have a lot of history. I admire that… and sometimes it makes me miserable.”

She didn’t think about it. She just stepped around the open car door and took Glynnis into her arms. They held each other silently for a moment and then Hazel, awkwardly, stepped back. “I’m sorry it makes you unhappy,” Hazel said. “I want you to know how grateful I am for everything.”

Glynnis pushed the bottom of her palm across a cheek. “Is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship?” she asked, and there was the briefest moment of hesitation before both women laughed nervously.

Hazel held out her hand. “Let’s not push it.”

In the dining room, Martha was pulling the drapes wide, opening the windows, and squirting Windex on the panes. Her mother was marvelling at the quantity of dead flies lying on their backs on the windowsill. “You’d think they’d see their buddies lying dead of exhaustion and go try another exit, but no.”

“They’re flies.”

“Ex-flies. Go fetch a broom, would you?”

Hazel passed through the kitchen, where the groceries they’d bought were still only partially unpacked. She was sure she’d seen Andrew carry them in, and it was strange of him to stop partway through a job. There was a carton of milk sitting on the counter. She put it in the fridge and then stood over the sink and looked into the back garden. He was nowhere to be seen. “Andrew?” she called.

She heard him answer from the bathroom in the hall behind her. “Just a minute.”

“Sorry,” she called. She heard bubbling coming from the counter and turned to see the coffee finishing. The sight of a pot of coffee filling would, for some time now, link itself in her memory to the early morning encounter with Claire Eldwin in her kitchen, living the last few moments of her freedom. She’d wept in the car back to Mayfair, but neither Hazel nor Constable Childress had inquired whether she wept for herself, her husband, or Brenda Cameron. When they got to Mayfair, Eldwin was in surgery. They kept her cuffed in a curtained-off part of the ER for two hours, and when they had word he’d come out, they let her into the ICU to see him. He was still unconscious, but his pulse had risen and his colour had improved. The surgeon had had to amputate his right arm at the elbow: the cut wrist had become infected and gangrene was setting in – they’d had no choice. The sides of Eldwin’s head were bandaged as well – they told her if he recovered he’d have to find a plastic surgeon to reconstruct his ears, but for now, all they could do was clean up the wounds and graft skin over the gaping holes to protect the structures within. She stood at his bedside, her hands behind her back, and called to him, but he’d given her no response. “He’ll be asleep awhile yet,” the nurse told her. She wanted to wait for him to wake, but the brief visit was all Constable Childress would allow her: they had a date to keep with Superintendent Ilunga.

Hazel had sent Wingate back to Port Dundas to start on the paperwork, but she lingered behind, hoping Eldwin would open his eyes. She had yet to actually meet this man, whose fecklessness had set in motion the destruction of so many lives. She didn’t know how she would tell him the news of what had changed in his world. She didn’t even know how she felt about it. Would he grieve the knowledge that his wife had killed to preserve an illusion? Would he welcome the new freedom it gave him? She realized she didn’t know the bounds of the man’s depravity. The longer she sat with him – and he continued to sleep – the more she wished there was something she could charge him with. But there was nothing. For once in his life, Colin Eldwin was the victim.