You'll Thank Me for This Page 10

  She was alone. And now she had no compass, no backpack, no clothes, no map, no food, no water, and obviously no phone. Only the clothes on her back, which were wet with sweat and clinging. And she had no clue anymore where she was.

  But this time, she told herself, she was not going to cry.

  Chapter 16

  Blood

  Grace had finished packing Karin’s suitcase and was back in her own bedroom. She had finally called a friend, an old friend named Jenny, the one who lived in The Hague and worked at the International Criminal Court there. They’d met each other in pregnancy yoga long, long ago, but they’d maintained a connection, as two Americans living abroad, and checked in with each other every once in a while.

  Because of Jenny’s work as a prosecutor at the ICC, she had understood the context of Pieter’s work. They too had been friends, and she and Pieter had sometimes engaged in long, even heated political discussions over wine or whiskey, way into the night. Grace thought of Jenny as part of her “old life,” and Martijn had never met her. Which was another reason why she might be a good person to visit at a time like this—Grace wasn’t exactly planning to run away from Martijn, but she felt it might be wise to go somewhere he wasn’t likely to find her.

  “Look, I think there’s a very good chance that all of this can be explained simply,” said Jenny, echoing her own doubts. “Just discuss it when he’s back home. It’s hard to talk to someone on a camping trip on a mobile phone. He’s in one universe and you’re in another.”

  “I still feel like I need to get out of here and get my head together,” said Grace.

  “Perfect, then come and visit us. It’s been way too long since I’ve seen you, and a weekend away with Karin should be within the reasonable limits of a healthy marriage,” she said. “Just pop down. Once you’ve had a couple of days to yourself, you’ll figure out the right way to discuss this.”

  Grace was talking while standing on a stepladder trying to reach a felt storage box that contained her father’s coin collection, her mother’s precious jewelry, and a handful of critical documents they’d need, just in case they never returned to this house: social security cards, notarized documents, mortgage records, that sort of thing…She was probably overreacting, she told herself. But, well…

  “Remember when you guys came down a few years ago and we had such a nice time visiting the Binnenhof and the Mauritshuis?” said Jenny. “I’d love to do that again. This very lovely restaurant just opened around the corner that serves oysters on the half shell and very contemporary gin and tonics. Should we do that?”

  Jenny was trying to help calm Grace’s nerves, when probably they both knew the only thing they’d be able to muster during this emotional crisis was a bottle of whiskey after the kids were in bed. “Oysters,” Grace said, as if they were relics from another time and another universe, where there was still anything to celebrate.

  The phone started to beep as if another call was coming through. “It must be Martijn,” she told Jenny. “I should take that.”

  “Of course you should,” said Jenny. “Try to keep it…chill.”

  “Yes,” said Grace. “Chill.”

  No matter what Martijn had to say this time, Grace planned to do exactly what Jenny had laid out for her: She’d put a couple of bags into the trunk of the car. When Karin’s dropping was over, she’d pick up her daughter, and they’d drive down to The Hague. The tricky part was to try to figure out what to say to Martijn, since he didn’t always like it when she made plans to see her friends without him. If she played it off all casual, it probably would be okay. He didn’t know Jenny, so he didn’t need to see her too, right?

  She answered the line that was ringing, “Hello, honey,” doing her best to sound chipper and completely unagitated.

  Suddenly there was a deluge of Dutch words coming at her, an unfamiliar voice, high-pitched and somewhat disconcerting.

  “I’m sorry, can you speak a little bit slower?” Grace answered in Dutch. “I can’t really understand what you’re saying.” Although Grace spoke Dutch, she sometimes couldn’t entirely follow if a person spoke quickly or with an unfamiliar accent.

  “English?” said the caller. “Are you English?”

  “I’m American,” she said. “But I speak Dutch, if you wouldn’t mind speaking a bit slower.”

  “Are. You. Karin?” the caller asked, staying in English, and trying to slow down and speak clearly so Grace would be able to follow.

  “I’m not Karin; I’m her mother,” said Grace. “I’m Karin’s mother,” she repeated, not hearing anything on the line. “Is something the matter?”

  “We found a girl’s T-shirt in the Veluwe,” said the caller. “This phone number was written into the name place on the inside. We thought we would just check if Karin knew it was missing.”

  Karin was missing her shirt? Surely not the one she had been wearing. Her home phone number had been typed onto little tags they’d sewn into all of Karin’s clothes, as part of the preparation for the dropping. The Scouts didn’t appreciate lost articles and didn’t want the kids to get their clothes confused.

  “You are her mother?” said the woman.

  “Yes, I’m the mother. Karin is my daughter,” she said. “It must have dropped out of her bag, I guess. She’s on a camping trip. Where did you find it?”

  “I don’t call to alarm you,” said the woman, slowly and carefully. “Everything is okay. But you are the mother.”

  Grace found this string of sentences confusing. Nobody says they don’t want to alarm you unless you’re about to be alarmed.

  “The shirt has…” The woman hesitated, before continuing. “The shirt has blood on it.”

  “I’m sorry, what? Blood?” Grace swallowed. “Is Karin hurt?”

  “No,” said the woman. “I don’t know where Karin is. That’s why I’m calling. We found the shirt in de bos. In the forest. Karin wasn’t with it.”

  Grace felt her mouth get suddenly very dry. “Where’s Karin, then? And what do you mean, that her shirt has blood on it?” She knew already that this woman didn’t have these answers, but the questions had spilled out of her mouth anyway.

  The woman on the other end of the line seemed to understand that she had indeed stirred up confusion. She slowed down and spoke more calmly. “Can we speak Dutch?” she asked. “It’s easier for me.”

  Grace agreed, and the rest of the conversation took place in Dutch.

  “Listen, I really don’t mean to upset you. I will assume it really is nothing,” she said. “I’m a mother too, and I would certainly be concerned if I got this phone call from a stranger. Normally I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Probably it’s just a lost piece of clothing; maybe she dropped it. But I am just that kind of person who likes to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, and I always return a transit card to its owner if I find it—that sort of thing. With just a little bit of extra vigilance, I thought I should call.”

  “Well, I’m certainly grateful there are people like you in the world,” said Grace. She understood that the woman was trying to minimize the fear. But that only served to make her think there was reason to be afraid.

  “But Karin is with you, isn’t she? She’s okay, right?” the woman said.

  “No, she’s not with me,” said Grace, feeling her throat constrict, finding it hard to answer. “She’s…she’s on a camping trip in the Hoge Veluwe. A dropping. She should be there, with her group, with her Scout leaders. My husband is with her…I’m sorry.” She stopped. “Who is this?”

  She realized that she was gripping the phone with two hands, holding hard as if it was somehow a way to get a grip on everything.

  “I’m, oh, I’m nobody,” said the woman. “I was just out walking my dogs. We live near the park and I let them run out there in the evenings. Jezebel is a German shorthair, bred for hunting. We don’t hunt, but she’s a pretty dog. She sometimes comes back with rabbits or voles between her teeth. It’s not pretty, but it’s
what is in her nature.”

  She went on, maybe out of nervousness: “This time she came back with this T-shirt in her teeth, and I noticed blood in her mouth. I thought she had killed something. I was confused. Then, you know, I thought maybe her mouth was bleeding. It was very strange. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. I don’t want to worry you. I was just concerned…” She was speaking rapidly, and then finally answered the question. “My name is Maaike. Maaike Bol.”

  “Thank you, Maaike,” said Grace. “Is it possible that the dog attacked something and then somehow found the T-shirt after that?”

  “Oh yes, anything is possible,” said the woman. “I don’t know. I’m not a forensic scientist or anything like that. I have no way of knowing. But I just…If you don’t mind my asking, how old is Karin?”

  Grace’s mind had gone off in a million directions, with just as many questions. She was already making a list in her head of all the people she needed to call. “Please hold on to the shirt, just as it is. Don’t wash it or anything. I am going to make a few calls to the people who are supervising Karin, and if they are with her, I will agree it’s nothing. If not, you’ll be hearing back from me shortly.”

  “How old is Karin?” Maaike Bol repeated.

  “She’s…she’s twelve,” Grace said. “I’m sorry, but I need to hang up so I can check on her now. I have your number. I’ll call you back.”

  Chapter 17

  Wild Things

  I’ve made it through the woods, Karin thought. She tried to muster up a sense of pride in her journey so far, but she was still so creeped out and kind of trembling. Everything that had happened in the last hours was so messed up. What even was that? Who were those freaky people, and could that really have been a gunshot she heard when she ran away? She’d never heard a gunshot in her life. Only in movies and on TV.

  All she knew was, it was good that she had gotten away, and she was safe. She was okay.

  It had to be after midnight, like, probably way after midnight by now. The air had turned much colder, and she was all wet and shivering. It didn’t feel good at all, but she told herself, I’m not going to die. It’s just sweat, as her father would have.

  As she stepped into an open space, she saw more of the weird twisted dead trees, which she knew so well. They didn’t bother her now. Past that, she saw an upright block of wood that had markings on it. Arrows and numbers. It was a trail! A well-worn path, a pale yellowish path of sand and dirt, which almost glowed white in the moonlight. She didn’t have a map that would’ve told her which trail this was, so the markings didn’t make much sense. Was it the trail that would lead to the campsite? She didn’t care about cocoa and hot dogs, but she wanted to find the grown-ups she was supposed to find. She needed to find them to get back to her mom.

  She felt nearly giddy as she looked up and could see stars between what was left of the clouds. If things hadn’t gotten all messed up, they would all be sitting around the campfire right now, leaning back and staring up at the sky and counting those stars. Or picking out constellations with their Scout guides. Or else they’d just be talking, like regular people do, about nothing at all, and having fun. That’s what she should have been doing. She felt a lump in her throat, imagining all that she was missing. The other kids had to be there already and she was the only one who was lost. Were they thinking about her? Would someone come out to try to find her?

  Karin knew things didn’t go the way they were supposed to go pretty much ever. Case in point: people’s fathers weren’t supposed to die all of a sudden. Especially when their daughters were ten. Moms weren’t supposed to fall to pieces. People weren’t supposed to ask if it was her father’s fault that he got killed, or suggest that he’d been doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing over there, especially when he was working for all of us—to inform all of us about what was happening in parts of the world nobody wanted to know about. Moms weren’t supposed to remarry that fast, and not to their father’s boss or his accountant or whatever he was.

  Kids at school weren’t supposed to treat you bad because your dad was killed. They weren’t supposed to just stare at you from afar and act like you had some contagious disease. People you didn’t even know weren’t supposed to all of a sudden pretend to be your friends, like school counselors and teachers and everyone above the age of ten. Strangers weren’t supposed to call your house at random. Stepdads weren’t supposed to get so strange so fast, were they? And say creepy things to you and follow you to school? Moms were supposed to notice these things, weren’t they? They were supposed to protect you.

  Karin was on her own now, out here, in the night, in the big, giant national park, which wasn’t supposed to be scary at all. Nothing, everyone said, was really dangerous in the Netherlands. It was so safe here. Maybe it was on the outside. Maybe it was for other people. But for Karin? Not really.

  That was part of the reason she had joined Scouts, to get out here and to do the dropping this summer. She wanted to get away and be able to take care of herself. She wanted to be away from home for a while. To not hear the screaming and fighting and noise of Martijn hurting her mother downstairs. To get away from him—that weird way he had of watching her all the time. Not like he came into her room or anything, but he kind of hovered. It wasn’t normal.

  But then the a-hole had volunteered to be the parent guide on this trip. What a creep. Why couldn’t he let her just go away for a weekend? It was like he somehow had to own her and her mom. Her mom had once told her that it was “good to have a man around the house, to keep us safe.” Ha. What kind of dumb thing was that? They were way safer without him.

  Karin realized that she had been walking looking down at her feet, so she decided to look up and not think so hard, because thinking hard sometimes started to feel really bad.

  She saw shapes in front of her—a big, wide tree next to a pair of large boulders—and all of a sudden, something started to make sense. Those shapes were familiar. She knew where she was. She recognized those shapes, even in the darkness. She had been here before. She’d spent a lot of time next to those two boulders.

  Could it be? Were her eyes tricking her? Or was it just déjà vu? Her mom had said that was just some tickling in your brain that made you think you recognized something you didn’t.

  No, those two boulders and that tree were totally familiar. She had been here before. With her dad. This was their place! The mouflon place! They’d come here a lot of times to photograph the most beautiful creatures in the park, the mouflons. Karin loved them the most. They were like sheep, or goats, but they had these crazy long horns that wrapped around in huge arcs, like long Princess Leia hair buns. They had white noses and white feet, and the rest of their bodies were brown. She and her dad had come here every year for a few years to shoot pictures of them in springtime, when there were new babies—they were called ewes and lambs.

  Somewhere right here was…yes, over there, the bridge across that little stream, made from pine branches. It was the same. Even just in the moonlight, she recognized it. They always pitched their tent just near that leaning tree there. This was the place where they’d also had their last Veluwe camping trip together, just before Dad went back to Syria for the last time. Just before he was killed. This place was the reason she’d wanted to come back to the Veluwe.

  She stopped and caught her breath. She knew where she was! Incredible! Glorious. She wasn’t lost, actually. Not that she was where she was supposed to be. But she was here. She was actually where she had wanted to be.

  At almost exactly that same moment, and before she could truly celebrate, she heard a sound that made her shudder. It wasn’t close, because it was kind of soft, but it was definitely a sound she recognized: the howl of a wolf. It sounded like a creaky door opening, only very loud.

  Oh geez, thought Karin. Can I really not catch a break?

  It was almost, almost funny. Her mom had been reading her those articles all spring and summer, and Karin had been te
lling her there was literally no reason to worry. “It’s a huge forest,” Karin had said. “How likely is it that our group is going to bump into them?”

  But now she wasn’t part of a group and now she could hear them. Not super near—but that was definitely the sound of a wolf, or at least one of them, howling. And that was pretty scary by itself.

  The wolf howled again. It didn’t sound the way it sounded in movies, not so sharp and not so distinct, like “Awoohoo.” More like a series of dog barks and then a baby crying from a bad stomachache. Then came another howl, and then after that a second, a little bit softer, which had to be a reply. Which meant there were at least two wolves out there. Talking.

  Karin felt a kind of fist clench in the pit of her stomach. She had no supplies at all now. Not a knife or a flashlight. Not even a spoon. What could she use to protect herself if somehow she actually bumped into the wolf her mother had been tracking all summer? She remembered Lotte’s words from hours ago—now it seemed like years ago: “So there’s a wolf pack out here?” Seven, she knew. Her mother knew.

  She searched the ground around her, looking for a stick. At the very least, she could fend them off with a stick. Karin tried to remember what her mother had taught her about wolf encounters. Don’t turn you back on them and run away. Either move forward, flapping your hands, and yell at them, or walk slowly backward, also yelling. Yelling was important, because wolves were normally afraid of people. It wasn’t easy to find a good stick because everything around her was brush, heath. And anyway, what was she going to do—poke it in the eye?

  There. There was one. It was about as long as her arm, and she could just swing it around, if necessary. That would work. She held it out in front of her as she walked. The howls came again, and this time they sounded closer, but she thought: They aren’t that close. That’s just my mind playing tricks on me. And then, with her fear getting the better of her, she really picked up her pace.