Pretty Is Read online

  It was Hannah who asked, that first day, what they should do. What he wanted them to do. He was sitting on the cracked brown leather couch, reading a book. Callie glared at Hannah, as if the question were somehow beneath their collective dignity. But if there were rules, Hannah wanted to know what they were; that was the kind of child she was.

  The kidnapper looked up. The question took him by surprise. He waved his hand toward a tall bookcase on the other side of the room. “Play,” he said. “You’ll find lots of books and games and puzzles and things over there. I’m sure you can find something to amuse yourselves.” Play. Later that would remind Hannah of the scene in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations in which Miss Havisham instructs poor bewildered Pip to play with the supercilious Estella. At the time, the command seemed perverse: how do you play with someone you hardly know, with someone else you hardly know as an audience? We need something with rules, Hannah thought. She went obediently to the bookcase and began rummaging through the shelves. When she found three worn old decks of cards, she sat down and began to count them, making sure each deck was complete. After a minute Callie sauntered over as if she might have other places to go, and lowered herself rather provisionally onto the braided rug facing Hannah.

  Callie didn’t know any decent games, to Hannah’s secret delight, so Hannah taught her Crazy Eights and Gin Rummy, games she had learned from her mother on rainy Saturday afternoons. That’s what they did on the first day. They played cards. The man continued to read his book, but they could tell that he was also listening to them. After a while he got up and strode out to the porch, where he sat in one of the Adirondack chairs. Callie was facing the door and could see a sliver of him through the crack between the blinds and the window frame. His sweet pipe smoke crept in under the door. They were glad when he left the room, or so they believed, but there was also a sharp absence. An edge. They missed the sense of someone to please, someone who might offer praise. They noticed that they missed it, and wondered at themselves. They wondered, uneasily, if they had been boring him.

  Hannah beat Callie effortlessly at first, but Callie learned fast. This interested Hannah: if you kidnapped a beauty queen and a spelling bee champion, it might make sense to assume that you had decided to acquire a pretty girl and a smart girl. But there was no denying Callie’s cleverness.

  They were exceptional: exceptionally pretty, exceptionally smart. Both of them. And old enough to know it.

  * * *

  Once he had them, he didn’t seem to know what to do with them. Identifying them, tracking them down, rounding them up, getting them to the middle of the Adirondacks—that had been the meticulously planned part. So Hannah speculated, at first, and confirmed, later in the first week, when she found the files he had assembled on each of them. Two dust-free manila folders wedged between Edgar Allan Poe and an illustrated book about northeastern wildflowers. He must have meant them to be found, she thought—meant her to find them, even, since she was more likely than Callie to explore the bookcase. Still, Hannah was furtive, not wanting to be caught. Knowledge is always powerful; knowledge no one knows you have is even better. Callie was upstairs; he was sitting on the porch. She could see a strip of his shirt through the crack in the blinds; if he got up suddenly, she would have enough warning. She laid the folders on the floor and flipped them open.

  He had all of their press clippings, Callie’s glossy pageant smiles alongside shots of Hannah brandishing her spelling trophies with a curious combination of smugness and reserve. “Local Girl Sweeps Regional Pageants, Aims for the National Stage.” “Sixth Grader Nails ‘Vichyssoise’ to Claim State Title.” Quotes from parents and teachers about their promise, their talent, their preternatural poise: “She’s an exceptional young lady,” Hannah’s sixth-grade English teacher had told the local paper. “We expect Hannah to go far.” “We’re all very proud of Callie,” the principal of Callie’s school had said. “She’s the whole package.” Who are these girls? Unreal, far away: Callie and Hannah dolls.

  More disturbingly, there were snapshots. Even as Hannah studied them, trying to identify what he had seen in each of them, she began to feel as if she were being watched: Callie in a heavy winter coat, sulky, emerging from a grocery store with a grim-looking woman (surely the despised stepmother); Callie stepping onto a school bus, her back to the camera, recognizable from her long blond curls and a hint of her perfect profile. Hannah on the front steps of the library, arms full of books, her face strangely closed off, hair falling forward; Hannah trudging in the direction of home, her left foot angled forward as if she had just kicked a snowball along the sidewalk; Hannah entering a shoe store with her mother, looking back, almost as though she suspected someone was watching her.

  Which someone had been. How long? How often? These were winter pictures. He had cryptic notes on each of them: “Leaves for school 8 am. Walks. Same route every day, always alone. Arrives 8:15.” And worse: “No sign of friends.” Had there been other girls in the running? Had he winnowed down a longer list? She tried to imagine him prowling through Glastonbury, Connecticut, snapping pictures, unnoticed, alarming no one. Maybe she had even seen him, or perhaps her parents had.

  This was what Callie had meant when she told Hannah, during a quick gas station stop when they were still on the road, that he had chosen them. Did Callie know about the files? About the scouting missions?

  A shadow crossed the floorboards in front of her, and a hand brushed her shoulder. She jumped, scattering the photos, wrenching her head around, wondering how he could have gotten behind her, busily spinning explanations, apologies. But it was Callie, not the man.

  “I saw those already,” Callie said, rather loftily, poking at the files with her pointed toe. She had startled Hannah deliberately; Callie envied the other girl’s poise, liked to prove it could be shaken. “In the car, before we picked you up. He had them with him.” Callie often found ways to remind Hannah that she had been first. “See? I told you he picked us. He researched us. We were the ones he wanted.” Hannah followed Callie’s gaze to the photo of the girl with the blond curls boarding the bus.

  The files didn’t change anything, exactly. But Hannah didn’t forget them. They stayed with her, like a soundtrack, sometimes ominous, often soothing. Rising and falling, setting a mood.

  * * *

  After five days he stopped locking the girls in their room while they slept, or when he went out. And he did go out, usually once a day. They didn’t always know where. Sometimes to the store. Later, the laundromat, though he took only his own clothes, not theirs, for obvious reasons. (They washed theirs by hand, playing Little House on the Prairie, a TV show they had seen in reruns when they were younger. They imagined bonnets, lace-up boots, a fire to tend.) People had to be searching for them, desperately trying to trace them, but they had no way of knowing: no TV, no newspapers. They didn’t know what “town” was or how far away it might be. How could there be a town? Hannah wondered when he returned one day with groceries. The world had shrunk to this cabin, these woods.

  Sometimes they quizzed him as they became more at ease. “Did you go to a diner?” one would ask. “A bar?” the other would chime in. “The dentist?” “A chiropractor?” “A taxidermist!” Until finally he said no, no, and the sadness in his eyes disappeared for a moment. When he seemed happy, it was impossible to be afraid. “Where would you go?” he asked once. “If you could drive into town.” He watched them, searching, and they knew that their answers mattered. “The movies,” said Callie. “Of course!” he said. “Naturally the future actress would go to the movies. Well, trust me, Callie, there’s nothing worth seeing at the moment, so you’re not missing anything. And you?” He turned to Hannah, who had been waiting for the question and dreading it, trying to come up with an answer. Not a real answer—the truth was that she couldn’t think of anywhere in the hypothetical town that she would want to go. What she sought, as usual, was the perfect answer, the answer that would please. But her mind was blank. “Well?
” he pressed, and she could tell that he saw too much, read her too clearly, knew perfectly well that there was nothing she wanted. “Ice cream,” she said lamely. “I would go out for ice cream.” He tossed his keys in the air, caught them neatly, tucked them in his pocket. “Really?” He didn’t believe her; she could see it. She didn’t even want him to. She knew it was a childish answer, and common. She had let him down.

  “It’s okay,” he said, sorry to have embarrassed her. It was so easy with Hannah. “You have everything you need right here.” For a moment she thought he might ruffle her hair, squeeze her neck, pat her shoulder. Her flesh tensed, hoped. Nothing.

  All the same, the next time he went out he came back with ice cream. An offering. “What about my movie?” Callie demanded, then laughed and pirouetted across the floor to disguise her jealousy.

  They did not discuss running away. Not in those early days. The first time he left their bedroom door unlocked at night, Callie had positioned herself between Hannah’s bed and the door, arms spread wide, challenging. “You wouldn’t do it, would you.” It was not a question. “Do what?” Hannah had said—noncommittal, aggravating. Hannah had imagined leaving; it was impossible not to. What else was there to think about at night when she tried to fall asleep and lay for hours staring at the dark place where she knew the window was? She had seen him watching her and knew that he could sense what she was thinking, that he didn’t even hold it against her. She had pictured herself slinking down the stairs, out the front door, into the dark, the woods, searching for a road that had traffic. Trudging along in her canvas sneakers, shivering in her nightgown, her sweatshirt hastily thrown over it while Callie thrashed and muttered in her sleep. Waiting for a car to come along, not knowing whom to trust. Not knowing if an approaching car was his. Walking for miles, maybe, before coming across anyone. Or being found by someone worse—a cruel bearded man and his zit-faced sons, for instance. Dragged into their foul-smelling pickup truck, country music jangling on the radio. She pictured the man following her, rescuing her from the rednecks, driving her back to the cabin in gentle, forgiving silence.

  She knew she wouldn’t go. She was waiting to find out what he had chosen them for.

  In years past they had seen stories on the news: little girls who disappeared, never to be seen again. Not in one piece, anyway. They paid close attention to his moods and studied how to please him. He liked their hair loose and plain, though sometimes when it was especially hot they tied it back anyway. He abhorred makeup, and had confiscated Callie’s. He disliked anything that smacked of worldliness; at night in the dark they sometimes spoke to each other of their real lives, their crushes, their ambitions, their petty rebellions, but never to him.

  He wanted them to be pure, Hannah decided. He had this crazy idea that purity was possible. He wanted them to be those storybook girls she had imagined on the first morning—gentle and untainted, in love with wildflowers and the moon. Even when he spoke of their distant futures, he encouraged lofty and improbable dreams: Callie would be a legendary actress on Broadway; Hannah would be an acclaimed yet mysterious writer; they would be impervious to their fame, untainted by success.

  Where did the gun fit into this picture?

  It was to protect them. To make them possible.

  * * *

  One night after they had finished the dishes he swung the front door open and stepped onto the porch, pulling his pipe from his pocket. He left the door wide open behind him, and night air drifted into the cabin, swirling around the girls’ bare legs, stirring their hair, reminding them of their captivity. Two enormous moths dove clumsily across the room, hurled themselves at the lantern.

  “Well,” he said, his back to them, “are you coming? Hurry up, the bugs are getting in.”

  As if under a spell, they edged forward, shoulders touching; they had one will, one mind. They stepped onto the porch as though it might conceal quicksand. But the floor was firm and comfortingly familiar beneath their feet. Callie seized the doorknob, pulled the heavy door shut, imagining for a moment that it locked behind them, shut them out. Felt a whisper of fear, rejected it; strode down the steps, planted her bare feet in the cool grass. Hannah followed, less certain.

  He remained on the porch, puffing on his pipe.

  Hannah and Callie veered to the right, away from the driveway, toward the stretch of clearing their bedroom window overlooked. The grass was thicker and longer there, tickling their ankles. A sliver of moon revealed the edge of the woods, dense and black, forbidding. After a few exploratory steps they broke into a run, feet kicking up, dresses climbing their legs, arms wide. When they reached the trees they stopped. Peered between trunks, saw nothing beyond. We could keep running, thought Hannah. Never stop until we got somewhere. A road, a house. We could crash right through those trees, Callie echoed. Keep running. He wouldn’t catch us. They hovered, listening to each other breathe. Deep in the woods, something screeched—once, then again. Hunter or prey? They grabbed each other’s hands, turned, raced back to the front of the house, the grass slick under their feet.

  There he was, the bowl of his pipe glowing reddish, smoke curling away from him, rising skyward.

  Nothing had changed.

  After that he often allowed them to go outside at night once the last glimmer of sunset had been snuffed out behind the mountains. Their days acquired a new shape, a welcome layer of anticipation. During the sun-dappled afternoons they found ways to occupy themselves, but always now they were thinking of what night would bring, of the strange dewy glamour of pipe smoke and darkness.

  * * *

  They didn’t know what to call the kidnapper. He steadfastly refused to tell them his name, for reasons they couldn’t fathom. It wasn’t as if they could report him, after all. When they suggested that he make something up, he wouldn’t do that, either. “We have to call you something,” they kept insisting, but he was not persuaded.

  “Why?” he asked wearily, as if the topic bored him. “Why do you have to call people something? There are only three of us here. If you’re not talking to each other, you must be talking to me, right?”

  But they needed something to call him, even in their heads. They couldn’t go on referring to him as “him,” or “the man”; it was too awkward, too impersonal. So they began calling him something different every day. Every morning they named him—names that struck them as silly, impossible, names he wouldn’t like: Harry. Doug. Mort. They hoped to annoy him into telling them something real. Marvin.

  It was the day they picked Eugene that he finally broke. “Nope,” he said, slamming his cereal spoon down. “Not that. You want to call me something? Call me … call me Zed, if you must. And that’s the end of that.” He carried his bowl to the sink. He never failed to clean up after himself.

  “That’s not a name,” Callie objected.

  “It’s what the British say instead of zee. I like it. It means nothing, but you can make it mean whatever you want. That should entertain you for a while.”

  Zed. It worked, somehow. And he was right; they did try to make it mean things. The end. The last word. Nothing too cheerful, really.

  * * *

  One day when he was out somewhere, they took an inventory of the food in the cupboards. They tallied fifty-two cans of soup, thirty of tuna. Eighteen of beans. Fifteen jars of spaghetti sauce. Thirty-six boxes of pasta, ten of Minute Rice. Thirty-two boxes of cereal. Not to mention sacks of potatoes and onions, a freezer full of bread, gallons of juice. Nothing fancy. Just a long-term supply of inexpensive, easy-to-prepare basics.

  “I guess we’re staying for a while,” Callie said. It was the most concrete evidence they had yet come across that they didn’t need to be afraid. Whatever plans he had for them, murder didn’t seem to be at the top of the list. Not for a while, anyway. Not unless he had a long winter of chicken noodle soup and canned tuna ahead of him.

  They were, after all, aware that what men like Zed do to little girls is murder them. They had grown up in t
he eighties, and were accustomed to the lurid headlines. Children abducted, assaulted, tortured, sexually abused, found in the woods, strangled, dismembered, or, as often as not, simply gone. For days, weeks, they waited for the touch that would change everything. The hand in the wrong place. They knew what men like him really want to do to little girls. Murder is more of an afterthought. Destroying the evidence, essentially.

  But he didn’t touch them.

  And he kept on not touching them.

  And with every day that passed, they were more curious. Curious about what he wasn’t doing to them. It wasn’t that they wanted him to. But after a while what he wasn’t doing was pretty much all they could think about.

  * * *

  Once a hunting lodge, the cabin retained traces of its grisly former purpose. Aside from what he called the mud room, there was just one big, long room downstairs, with a kitchen at one end. You could see marks on the walls where hunting trophies must once have hung—unstained splotches that had been protected by taxidermied torsos from the wood smoke that had darkened the rest of the walls over the years.