Melissa Foster - Chasing Amanda

“Keep up, Tracey, Mummy is in a hurry,” the captor said.

Tracey liked how nice Mummy was acting, and she was relieved that Mummy had finally changed her clothes and didn’t stink so badly. Tracey rushed as fast as she was able—the last day of resting on the putrid mattress had lessened the ache in her legs.

“We’re going outside, Tracey! Outside!” Mummy said, cheerily.

Tracey believed this would be a good day. Mummy hadn’t read from the Bible today, and she didn’t even worship in the morning. Tracey worried about why they hadn’t gone to the praying place, but she didn’t ask.

The passageway narrowed, and tears stung Tracey’s eyes, tears of hope, tears of hope that she would not let tumble down her cheeks for fear of upsetting her captor. She held her arms tight against her body, away from the dirt walls. The narrowing tunnel caused Mummy to walk sideways to fit through. Tracey held her breath—the stench from the walls reminded her of wet, dirty puppies, the way they shake themselves off and splatter you with water and bits of dirt.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I see it! Tracey’s heart pounded in her chest. A smile stretched across her face as the narrow tunnel opened wider and came to an end, slowly narrowing back to the size of a car tire, and winding its way up toward the outside. Streaming in, like a savior, was the sun—the glorious sun! Tracey wanted to jump, to climb through that hole and rush into her parents’ arms. She was sure they would be there, waiting, like this had all been a planned-out game of hide-and-seek. Her hands clenched into fists, her arms became rigid at her side, and she bounced from foot to foot, biting her lower lip to keep from squealing. Mummy stood in front of Tracey, looking up toward the beam of light, a smile on her face. Their bodies were so close that Tracey could smell her, a slight metallic, sulfuric smell. It was not so bad, really. Mummy had washed up that morning and had let Tracey wash up, too. They had used a big bucket of water, towels, which appeared to already have been slightly soiled, and a little soap. Tracey had kept her back to Mummy so she wouldn’t see her with her clothes off. She had pretended to be playing clean up with Emma, though she didn’t think Mummy was watching her at all. Mummy had been hunched over her journal, writing quickly and in deep concentration. Tracey’s own mother kept a journal, too. Her mother, her real mother, had always told Tracey and Emma that it helped keep her sane, whatever that meant. Tracey thought it meant that it helped her to yell less when she was mad at them. Sometimes, when her mother was really mad, she’d count to ten, tell the girls to go to their rooms, and then her mother would go write in her journal. Tracey really wanted to read that journal one day. She wondered if her mother wrote about how bad she and Emma were sometimes. Maybe she wrote about when they were good, too. Thinking of her mother made Tracey sad. She made a silent promise to herself—she promised that if she got back to her real mommy, she would never be bad again. Do you hear me, God? she wondered—and hoped—as she looked up at the beam of light.

Her captor was silent. She looked back at Tracey, and Tracey’s eyes grew open wide, she clamped her mouth shut. Mummy smiled, and Tracey shivered with relief and anticipation. Mummy spun around and crawled along the dirt opening. The passageway seemed to engulf her. Tracey wasn’t sure Mummy would even fit through the tight cavity, but the sun was shining at the end of the tunnel, pouring in around Mummy’s wriggling, large body. Tracey crouched down and enthusiastically began crawling behind her. The dirt was cold and damp, seeping through her leggings and onto her knees, but she didn’t care. She was going home!

As she neared the top of the passageway, Mummy reached down, grabbed her hand tightly, and swiftly pulled her up and onto the ground. Tracey took a deep breath of the fresh air; tears of happiness ran down her cheeks. Relief swept through her. Mummy smacked her enormous hands against her jeans to rid them of dirt, and the sound startled Tracey. She flinched, and stepped backward, almost falling back into the passageway, letting out a frightened shriek.

“Hey!” Mummy yelled. “Watch it!”

Mummy clasped her hand around Tracey’s spindly arm, yanking her firmly onto solid ground. Tracey instinctively ducked her head and pulled away. She stole a quick look up through her eyelashes and was surprised to see concern, perhaps even empathy, in Mummy’s eyes. “I…I’m sorry,” Tracey’s words were barely more than a whisper.

Mummy released her arm and dusted off Tracey’s knees. Tracey stood stock still, her eyes wide. She took in her surroundings, the brambles, thick with thorns, and tangled branches that grew so high they formed a shelter above them. A mottled tapestry of light formed the ceiling where the sun streamed through.

Mummy straightened up and backed away from Tracey. She stood in the middle of the strange den. She stretched her arms out to her sides and then reached for Tracey, pulling her quickly against her body. Tracey flinched, fought the urge to back away. She hated to be touched by Mummy. Unsure and scared, she clenched her eyes closed.

“Tracey, isn’t this wonderful?” Mummy whispered. “We are finally outside! Look how beautiful of a day it is!” she let go of Tracey and spun in a circle with her arms stretched out to her sides, her hair lifting off her shoulders.

Tracey wondered if she should run and scream, like Mrs. Tate had told them to do if they were ever in danger, but what if she didn’t get away and Mummy took her back to that dark chamber? What if her captor hurt her because she was such a bad girl? Tracey formulated a plan in her young mind. Her mother had always taught her to find an adult when she was in danger. How she wished she had never followed Mummy into the woods in the first place, but she couldn’t change what she had done. She couldn’t have known that the woman who had played and laughed with her at the park would ever steal her. She remained still, concentrating on her plan. When Mummy took her out of the bramble—when they saw people—then Tracey would run straight to another adult and ask for help. She’d holler and insist they help her. No matter how much Mummy pretended to be her mother, she was not. She was NOT!

Mummy had stopped spinning and smiled at Tracey.

“Where are we?” Tracey asked quietly. She was afraid to ask loudly, afraid that Mummy might turn mean again, and they’d retreat back underground.

Mummy rolled her eyes, a look that Tracey had seen her mother do hundreds of times when Tracey asked a question that had an obvious answer, “We are outside, of course,” she said.

Tracey swallowed the “duh” that rang in her seven-year-old mind.

“This is where I come to exercise sometimes or just to read. Once, I even saw a family of deer playing right over there,” she pointed to a distant thicket.

Tracey searched for something familiar—a parking lot, the park, people. Her hopes were quickly dashed. She looked up, searching the sky through breaks in the branches. Standing directly under a circle of sunlight, she saw a bunch of birds flying overhead in a circular motion. They weren’t flying together or in a pattern—they flew in random circles nearly running into each other. She blinked a few times and realized that the birds were actually little airplanes—the smallest airplanes she had ever seen. A smile stretched across her face as her mind settled on an odd noise, a noise that had been there all along, but that she had been too upset to hear: A hum. Tracey concentrated on the humming noise and separated the hum into two distinct sounds—an mmm and an rrrrr. The sounds varied in pitch, drifting from very high to something softer, more distant.