The Girl In The Woods Part 4

"I was one of the first officers to respond when her mother called us."

"You were?"

"Yeah. Her mother didn't hear from her for a week or so, so she decided to come down. No one had seen her, so the mother called us. We went through her room, canva.s.sed the neighbors and all of her friends. Nothing."

"And that was it?"

"No. We kept the file open. h.e.l.l, the file's probably still open. For years we'd get reports of unidentified Jane Does from all over the country, and we'd check them out as best we could. We had her dental x-rays." He cleared his throat. "I'm just saying that it was a different time. It was a different time in the life of this town. We didn't have cell phones and email. People didn't talk to their parents every day. A lot of kids dropped out and ran off. Every other week we had a parent in here who couldn't find their kid. We'd take the report, ask a few questions, and then a few days or a week later we'd get a call. 'Little m.u.f.fy was in Denver seeing the Grateful Dead and forgot to tell us.' Or 'Junior came home and all is forgiven. We bought him a Porsche to make him feel better.'"

"And you don't think there's any way to find out what happened to her?"

Dan shook his head. "No." He leaned forward again and spoke in a low voice. "Either one of two things happened here. Either that girl wanted to run away, she wanted to leave behind her kooky mother and whatever trailer park they were living in, and she's off in Oregon or Florida living a life of some kind. It might not be a good life, but it's hers and she's living it."

"Or?"

"Or somebody killed her twenty-five years ago, and they put her body someplace no one's ever going to find it-a cornfield or the woods-and all that's left are some scattered bones, if that."

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Because it's probably true," he said. "It's almost always true in these cases."

Diana knew Dan believed in tough love, and whatever he thought about Margie Todd, he also thought about Rachel. He was sending her a message-give up, let it go, move on. Good advice in the abstract, but easier for some people to take than others.

"And you think those are the only two options?"

"I do."

"Did you do everything you could to find her?"

He paused, as if really giving the question a lot of thought. "We did, given the circ.u.mstances we had to deal with."

"You're certain?"

"Why wouldn't we have?" Dan said.

"Because, like you said, those were different times. And because Margie Todd wasn't from a rich family."

Now Dan's face flushed, a red wave that started on his cheeks and moved out to the tips of his ears. A tendon in his neck flexed, then relaxed.

"It's easy to sit on the sidelines, isn't it, Diana?" His voice remained low and level, almost without inflection. "To have no connections, to have no job even. It's easy from that perch to judge the actions of others. I hope you enjoy the view from there, even though it's a lonely one." He stood up. "I have my meeting to go to."

"Dan..."

He grabbed his coat and his hat and went through the office door, turning back to say to Diana, "You know how to find the way out."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Professor Nate Ludwig strode to the lectern in Woodard Hall, room 171, and waited while the students settled into their seats. It was the first day of the semester, and he knew mostly freshmen would be taking his cla.s.s, so they were unusually sedate and quiet as the cla.s.s began. Ludwig knew that in just a few weeks friends.h.i.+ps and alliances would form, and this group of strangers before him would be acting as though they had all known each other for ten years. At that point it would be harder and harder to get and keep their attention. For this reason, Ludwig really liked the first day of cla.s.s.

"Welcome to Introduction to Folklore," he said. "I'm Doctor Ludwig. I'll give you a syllabus in a moment, but first I want to cover some basics in case you're uncertain about whether you want to take this cla.s.s or not." He meant the comment as a joke, but the students didn't take it that way. Give them time, he thought, they'll start laughing at jokes around week three. He knew they didn't know what to make of him anyway. His bushy beard and spectacles made him look like a typical academic, but he was also tall and broad-shouldered, with a deep voice that boomed through the room. A lot of students thought he was crazy. At least, their end of semester evaluations said so.

"Folklore, for those of you who come here with no prior knowledge of the subject, is the study of the expressive culture-and by expressive culture I mean the stories, songs, tales, legends and myths-of a particular population of people." He looked them over. "And in case you're wondering, you should be writing this down. I won't be repeating it." One hundred pairs of hands scrambled for pens and notebooks. He loved the feeling of power that comment gave him. It never grew old. "So, can we think of examples of this so-called 'expressive culture,' things that are used to pa.s.s on the traditions of a particular population?"

Silence and stares.

"Maybe, perhaps, the culture we all live in." Silence. "Our American culture."

No response, and he really didn't expect one. They came to cla.s.s the first day, even the freshmen, expecting a free ride. Syllabus distribution, a few announcements, and then time to go home. Back to bed or a party. Or both. Ludwig liked to shake them up right away, disavow them of their preconceived notions.

"Okay, I'll give you an example. You've all been taught, and have no doubt grown up believing that education is the path to success in this life. I'm sure that's why most of you are in college, to ensure a better future, a better paying job, a better chance at an early heart attack or divorce." Silence. "How many of you believe that a college education is the key to a higher income and a better life? Show of hands."

Almost every hand went up. A few didn't. Either they were asleep, or they could see where he was going. If they could already see where he was going, he wasn't sure he could teach them much of anything this semester. It was the other ninety-nine percent, the followers and true believers, who needed him the most.

"So that's an example of folklore, something that we have all been told and we all believe about our culture. Would you believe me if I told you that it's no longer true? That being a college graduate no longer guarantees you a spot at the table where they're serving the American Dream?"

Silence. More stares.

"Too early for that, I guess," Ludwig said, half to them, half to himself. "Maybe we should move the topic of conversation closer to home, to New Cambridge. Do any of you know anything about the founding of this town or the area nearby?" No response. No surprise, he thought. Most of them pa.s.sed through New Cambridge for four or five years without ever having a real interaction with the local community or any of its inhabitants. "It's a good thing I'm here, isn't it?"

A few chuckles. Maybe they were relaxing. Or waking up.

"You're fortunate because my own research focuses on the myths and legends-the folklore, if you would-of this part of the country, particularly the area around Fields University and New Cambridge. And it might surprise you to know that there are a number of interesting legends relating to the settling of this area, and one of them has recently become my life's work. Would you like to hear about it? It's rather fascinating."

Most of them nodded. He knew they didn't want to hear what he had to say, but they were so fresh from high school, and many of them had attended private schools where discipline was the order of the day, that they couldn't imagine saying no to a professor, especially one as overbearing as Ludwig knew he was. That will change as well, he thought. All in good time.

"The first settlers came to this area in 1796. They set up shop about ten miles west of here in what we now call Union Towns.h.i.+p. Like any good settlers they thought that this area afforded them some opportunities. Abundant food and water, the possibility of safety from the native people who were already here, and the hope that a town could grow, a place they could put their stamp on and make their own. Nothing unusual about that, right?"

Some nodding. A few were along for the ride. Others were thinking of dropping the cla.s.s and trying to figure out what subject might be easier to pa.s.s.

"But like all good plans, things didn't work out exactly the way they hoped they would. Food was scarce. People got sick. The indigenous population made trouble. That means Native Americans, or Indians as most of you would say. And, at one point, it looked as though the very future of the settlement was in jeopardy. Just think of the narrow tightrope they walked, the thin edge between survival and death. A break here, a misfortune there, and pretty soon, Fields University doesn't come into existence at all. Frightening, isn't it?"

No response.

"But the founders of this settlement decided to do something about their precarious position in those early days. They formed The Pioneer Club. Have you ever heard of it?"

Again, no response.

"I'm glad none of you have ever heard of The Pioneer Club because no one has ever admitted that it existed. They left no records behind, no members.h.i.+p rosters. They're not mentioned in any official doc.u.ments related to the founding of the towns.h.i.+p or the town. For all intents and purposes, it's as though they never existed, right? They're just a legend, a piece of folklore that gets pa.s.sed around among the townspeople. And as time pa.s.ses, fewer and fewer people remember the stories. Maybe their grandparents or great-grandparents remember hearing something about it, but it's likely that in a few years, no one except me will even care whether or not there had ever been a Pioneer Club.

"And why should any of us care?" he said to the room.

This time Ludwig waited, and just as he expected, a tentative hand went up in the middle of the room. "Yes?" he said, nodding toward the woman.

"Because it's part of history?" she said, her face scrunched with doubt.

"Sure. Of course. It's part of the history of the town. And history and folklore go hand in hand. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell the two apart." Ludwig chuckled at his own joke, but no one else responded.

He was about to go on when a hand went up near the back of the room. It belonged to a typical looking student, a frat boy type with a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes, wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt that looked like it had been slept in. Ludwig inwardly yearned for the days when students wore s.h.i.+rts and ties to cla.s.s.

"Yes, sir?" Ludwig said.

"So are you going to tell us what this Pioneer Club did that's such a big deal?"

"You want to know?" Ludwig said.

"Yeah," the student said.

No one else responded.

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah, man."

Ludwig knew the guy was a brown noser, an a.s.s kisser and a boot licker from the word go. He also didn't care. No one-not his colleagues and certainly not his students-ever asked him about his research. And the students would never ask again. But why pa.s.s up a golden opportunity to practice the kind of spiel he might make at a conference someday?

"Okay. Fine. I can tell you about that." He cleared his throat and felt himself warming to the subject matter. "As I said, there are no real conclusive records to show that The Pioneer Club ever actually existed. Perhaps there's a good reason for that. Perhaps they didn't want anyone to know the kinds of things they were doing back then. But no matter how hard we try, all of us leave fragments of ourselves behind. In letters, in diaries. Or in a way that you might understand, emails and text messages. But once you send a letter to someone, you lose a certain amount of control over it, right? It becomes property of the person you sent it to. And if that person is careless with it, who knows what hands it might fall into? So I learned the things I've learned about The Pioneer Club as the result of digging around in the papers and effects of people long dead, people who had no idea that the things they said in their lifetimes would matter to someone in the future. It's interesting to think about, isn't it? The different avenues we have to achieving immortality of some kind?"

A few heads nodded.

"As I said, the new settlement, which was at the time called Lenape after the Indians who were living here, ran into a number of hards.h.i.+ps after their initial settling. Disease, hunger. Indians. And in order to survive, it appears as though certain prominent citizens, all of whom were men, of course, began to meet on their own to make decisions that would shape the course of the settlement. Because they were a small group and not subject to the same rules and haggling that went on in the typical town council meeting, they could move quickly and unilaterally once a decision was made. A nice power to have. And a nice power to abuse.

"But early on, they did what was necessary. One doc.u.ment exists that mentions Blue Bear, a particularly vicious member of the Delaware tribe who was leading bands of his men against the settlers, hara.s.sing them, stealing their supplies, on occasion, violating their women. Nowhere is The Pioneer Club given credit or responsibility for what ultimately happened to Blue Bear, but there's no doubt they benefited most directly from his demise."

"What happened to him? This Blue Bear guy?"

Ludwig liked the questions. It meant someone was paying attention.

"He was found dead, in the woods. He'd been decapitated." Ludwig paused, letting his words sink in. "But they also did more practical things. They rationed food. a.s.sisted farmers with their crops. All the necessities of life. But there's one other thing necessary for the survival of a new people in a new land that I haven't mentioned yet. Do you know what that is?"

"Money?"

"No."

"Schools."

Ludwig shook his head. "No."

"More people," someone shouted from the back.

"Exactly. A small settlement can't survive unless you keep making new people. So The Pioneer Club began to help with that."

"How did they do that?" someone said.

"Let's just say they took an active interest in procreation. In other words, if there was a suitable young woman of child-bearing years, they made certain that she was...available to a suitable man, whether she wanted to be available to him or not. Her opinion didn't matter. The good of the community did."

Ludwig heard groans, mostly from the women in the room.

"But that's not to say they valued all life equally," Ludwig said.

"Not the Indians," someone said.

"Not the Indians, no. And not those members of the community who acted inappropriately. You see, at some point, the little settlement started to grow, and they became less concerned with basic survival and more concerned with other things. Things like morality. Once their numbers were up and they knew they were going to make it, they decided they wanted to police the private lives of their citizens, to ensure that the right kind of people were in their midst. So if a young woman wanted to marry the wrong kind of man, or if, G.o.d forbid, she ended up pregnant out of wedlock, The Pioneer Club got together and made the difficult decision about dealing with the problem. And when I say they dealt with the problem, I mean they dealt with it permanently, just like they dealt with Blue Bear, the mad Indian."

Ludwig let his words sink in. He saw a few heads nodding, a few people writing in their notebooks. Someone raised a hand.

"What gave them the right to do these things, to just destroy lives that way?"

"We could ask that about any government, couldn't we?" Ludwig laughed, but none of the students did. He cleared his throat. "Actually, that's one of the more interesting aspects of this entire matter. Where did they get their power? And the answer to that question is inextricably tied up in the actual location where they held their Pioneer Club meetings. The records that survive indicate that they held their meetings in a clearing in the woods, a location some distance from the actual town or any other aspect of civilization. This makes sense if we suppose that they wanted to keep their activities secret from their fellow citizens. In a sense, they were operating as a shadow government, and it wouldn't do to hold those meetings right out in the open on the town square.

"But there's more to the story than just finding a secluded spot in the woods. It seems as though the particular place they chose, this clearing, possessed a unique power of its own. A few letters and doc.u.ments survive that were written by the members of The Pioneer Club, and a strange set of facts emerges. Since the Club met in secrecy, they held most of their meetings at night. At those times, with only the most primitive roads and no cars or street lights to guide the way, and the threats from wild animals as well as Indians always a real danger, it was no small order for these individuals, approximately ten in number, to travel to this location and conduct their business.

"But they always wanted to go. Why? Because something happened to them when they gathered in that clearing at night. The existing letters describe a power that flowed through them, an energy, something that sounds to me, as a twenty-first century reader and a confirmed skeptic, rather akin to possession, as though something took hold of them in those woods and drove them to carry out their duties with a fervor and a zeal they might not have felt if they had met anywhere else. The letters and journal entries also speak of the power that the place held over them, as though something there kept drawing them back to that clearing, and at some point, they found themselves craving a return there for a fresh fix of whatever it had to offer.

"What I'm about to say shouldn't seem like a big leap. It seems likely that whatever feeling possessed those members of The Pioneer Club in the woods enabled them to carry out the decisions they reached there. How else would otherwise law-abiding citizens become willing to carry out what amounts to ritualized rape and murder? How?"

Before he had even finished speaking, he saw a hand up.

"Isn't the answer obvious?" the student asked.

"I don't know. You tell me."

"Well, isn't it possible that they were using this clearing as an excuse to do whatever they wanted to do. It's like saying, 'the devil made me do it.'"

"Interesting theory," Ludwig said. Inwardly, he was pleased. He had led them part of the way to that conclusion, but stopped just short, hoping that one of them would carry the discussion the rest of the way. "You're saying that the clearing has no real power of any kind, that these people were just looking for an excuse in the way that you all use alcohol as an excuse on the weekends. 'Oh, I never would have slept with him if I hadn't been drunk.' Right?"

He scored a lot of laughter with that comment. s.e.x sells, he thought. So does the truth.

"But what if I told you that The Pioneer Club felt safe when they met in that clearing at night? They felt safe there because no Indians ever came near it. Never did and never would. Gra.s.s didn't grow there and wildlife-bears and cougars and dogs-avoided it at all cost. And what if I mentioned the lights that sometimes appeared in the trees, the voices moaning in the wind, the apparitions, the figures seen in that area that never materialized, lingering somewhere between the known, material world and whatever exists on the other side? What about all of that? Ma.s.s-hysteria? Panic? Or is it something more? Is it a haunted place where our ancestors forced unfortunates to pay the ultimate price for their sins? Is it a locus of evil?"

He stopped himself. He'd been ranting, and the students were staring at him, a bit open-mouthed, unsure of what to make of him. Ludwig couldn't help it. He found the topic fascinating and easily became fired up while talking about it.

He took a deep breath and looked at his watch.

"I see we're running short of time, so maybe we need to wrap this up. Don't forget to pick up a syllabus on the way out of the room. It has your reading a.s.signment for the next cla.s.s on it."

The guy in the back, the one who had asked the first question, had his hand up again.

"Yes?"

"I want to go to this place in the woods, man," he said. "Can you tell us where it is?"