Chapter 3 - The Girl in Green

The road around the stand of trees was a dead end, so we drove back the way we’d come through the old rusted gate.

“I think we should stop somewhere and ask for directions,” Mom said.

By the time we made it back into town, the sun was sending slanting light through the trees. It was late afternoon, nowhere near sunset by my calculation, and yet the light felt in imminent danger of disappearing behind the mountain. The main street was lined with old stone and brick buildings. The street had high curbs, like they expected water to rush down from the mountain above at any moment. Mom stopped at the first place that looked open and had cars parked outside.

An ancient neon sign above the door said Diner. A wooden sign inside the plate glass window read Fresh-Baked Homestyle Bread. It was written in faded blue letters in a cursive script I didn’t think existed anymore.

“Want to get something to eat?” Mom said.

I was dubious, but also quite hungry. It had been a while since either of us had eaten an actual meal.

“Sure,” I said.

Inside, the diner was painted an aggressively cheerful turquoise, with ancient red booths, a black-and-white checkerboard floor, and a long counter that may have once been white.

We slid into a booth at the direction of the guy behind the glass counter. He was old and thin and looked like he had been hung out to cure in a smokehouse.

The server who came to our table had dyed mahogany hair, tattoo sleeves, and seemed like she belonged . . . elsewhere.

“Can I get you something—”

“Do you really make your own bread?” I blurted out.

Mom gave me a look, like I was being so rude.

“What?” I protested. “It’s right there, on the sign.”

“Not for about fifteen years,” the woman said cheerily, like she was in on the joke. “The wife of the owner used to make this amazing bread and pastries but then she . . . Well, you know”—she leaned over and lowered her voice—“died.”

She shot a look at the sour-faced old man sitting behind the cash register at the glass counter, reading a guns and ammo magazine or something. He had to be the owner.

The server handed us menus but lingered nearby. There was a couple fussing with a baby in a booth near the end of the room and one guy eating a hamburger at the counter, but otherwise the place was empty.

The menu looked like it had reached an uneasy détente between the past and the present—biscuits and gravy alongside avocado toast, fresh pressed juices, and strawberry milkshakes. Everything came with french fries, which was fine with me. The whole place smelled like fries and I was starving.

“Share a sandwich?” Mom said.

“Tomato basil,” I replied.

I left Mom to order and headed for the bathroom.

When I got out, the server had slid into the booth next to Mom and the two of them were deep in conversation like they’d known each other for years. This was a thing Mom did all the time, so it didn’t surprise me.

I hung back, pretending to be deeply interested in a large hand-painted sign over the counter that gave prices and descriptions of breads and pastries the diner no longer served, because the bread-baking wife was long dead.

I wondered briefly if she was buried in the graveyard with the angel statue. Probably not. Probably buried under a granite slab behind the white steeple church. A double tombstone with both their names, but a blank space on the date for the not-yet-dead owner. Fake plastic flowers left behind from a Mother’s Day visit.

“Oh, Chicago is great,” the server was saying. “I mean, the winters are brutal, but the art scene is fantastic. I love Austin, but it’s just so expensive. . . .”

“I know,” Mom cut in. “Rents in Austin are insane now. We’ve been priced out of the market.”

Which was a lie—sort of. Michaela had kept the price on our garage apartment artificially low. I held my tongue and wondered if black walnut pie was anything like pecan pie, and if it came with vanilla ice cream. Also—vinegar pie? What the hell?

“By the way, I’m Melinda, and that’s my daughter, Jess,” Mom said.

I waved.

“I’m Tree,” the woman said.

“How did you ever end up here, Tree?” Mom blurted out.

Okay—rude. It was one of those you used to be so pretty, what happened? kind of questions. But I was also curious as to how Tree ended up here. Small towns can be cool, but this one was barely a blip by the side of the road.

“I was born and raised here,” Tree said amiably. If Mom had offended her, she didn’t show it. “My mom got sick and I had to come back to take care of her. I swore I’d never come back because this town is . . .”

I lost the thread of the conversation as Tree lowered her voice. I pulled out my phone. I was busy taking pictures of the pie menu when I got the weird feeling that someone was watching me.

I turned my head. The old guy sitting behind the counter had lowered his magazine and was staring at me. Not in the expected you kids, get off my lawn! sort of way, but with a look that approximated friendliness without any actual human warmth. His smile was alarming.

“Are you heading up to that school?” he asked in a loud, gruff voice.

“I guess so,” I replied.

“Well that’s good—they need new blood up there.”

He rolled his head toward the mountain beyond, toward where I assumed the school was. He was thin, bony, mostly bald. I imagined I could hear his neck creaking.

“Why? Are they doing human sacrifices?” I asked.

Behind me, Mom grunted in consternation, her people don’t always understand your snark throat clearing. I knew that noise.

“Heh, heh, maybe they are,” the old guy laughed, a sound that was at least 60 percent smoker’s hack. He seemed genuinely amused by my comment, but there was something in his smile that creeped me out.

He put down his magazine. He stood up and moved from behind the counter. For a terrible moment, I imagined that he was coming for me, arms outstretched to grab me by the neck and throttle me or, worse yet, to try to hug me. I stood frozen, terrified that he might actually touch me here in the diner, where my mom sat three yards away. The familiar creep along my spine and the sudden flush of adrenaline told me that was exactly what was happening.

I’d been through this before.

I balled up my fists.

Suddenly, there was a loud ding, and a cook shoved a plate mounded with french fries through the long window.

I relaxed my fists and exhaled. “I think that’s my order,” I said, happy for an excuse to bolt.

The old man retreated behind the glass counter, like a hermit crab skittering back into a shell.

I reached the table just as Tree put the steaming french fries in front of me.

The fries were delicious. The sandwich, even better. Mom nibbled at a fry and sipped her coffee.

“You should eat your half of the sandwich,” I said. “I’m never going to be able to eat all this. There are enough fries here to last the week. I mean, if you could save fries.”

“Nervous stomach,” Mom said.

Tree returned with a carafe of coffee and a water pitcher to refill our drinks.

“Do you have the Mothman here?” I asked.

Mom frowned, but Tree just laughed.

“That’s way north of here, at Point Pleasant, near the Ohio River,” she said. “They have a big Mothman festival every year. Not to brag, but we do have our own local legend. She’s not as famous as the Mothman, but she’s ours.”

“She?” Mom said.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Supposedly, a girl in a green dress wanders the hills, crying for help. Could be a lost love. Could be a lost baby. Hereabouts it’s got to be one or the other.”

“That sounds more sad than anything,” Mom said.

“And that’s how she gets you,” Tree replied, winking.

If she was trying to be spooky, she was definitely failing. A sad girl looking for her boyfriend wasn’t as good as the Mothman.

The old man had resumed his place behind the counter. He coughed loudly, stagily. I had the feeling that if I hung out with him long enough, I’d begin to read meaning into his every grunt and burp. Tree sure did, because she shot a look in his direction and hurried back behind the counter.

I pushed the plate away, suddenly full to bursting. Carb-full and sleepy—not good sleepy, but emotionally exhausted. Hundreds-of-miles-away-from-any-bed-I-knew exhausted. I’m used to that late afternoon feeling, the moment when your brain shuts down and the gloom descends and the only choice is to give up on everything or take a nap, but this was different.

I wrapped my arms around my chest and looked away from the table. The view through the plate glass window showed an old gray stone building across the street that looked as though it had been empty for decades, behind a foot-tall curb. Nothing here was remotely familiar. It was too dark, too early, like the mountain had eaten the sun.

“We should get going,” Mom said. “Not too much longer now, Jess.” She reached across the table and draped her hand on my arm.

I looked up, surprised by the softness in her voice. I wondered if my thoughts had shown on my face.

Mom stood and walked to the old guy to pay the check. While there, she asked for directions.

“You must have turned left at the blue house, instead of right,” the old man was telling her. “When you leave here, take the right at the blue house, then take the first right up the hill onto county road forty-six. . . .”

“After we turn right at the blue house, then what?” Mom asked. She might possibly be the only person in the world more ADHD than me.

“Just keep right,” the man said.

“Okay,” Mom said.

She could handle “just keep right.”

Tree looked up from the already-clean counter she was polishing to a high gloss.

“Nice meeting you both,” she said, like she really meant it.

“Good luck at school,” the old guy said in a loud, cheery voice. He mumbled something else, and it wasn’t until we’d reached the car that I realized what he’d said.

You’ll need it.