When she’d been younger, she and her father had played a game he called “What Movie Are We In?” They’d be sitting out in the backyard watching a flock of sparrows assemble on a tree, and he’d say, “What movie are we in?” and she’d say, “The Birds.” Once, they’d spotted two men sitting in a car across the street from their house, and he’d asked the question, and she’d said, “Home Alone,” even though he’d been thinking of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Sitting in the woods now, she asked herself, “What movie am I in?”, hearing her father’s voice in her head. Definitely a thriller, she thought, maybe one of those cheesy 1980s infidelity thrillers. Fatal Attraction, or maybe that movie with Mark Wahlberg where he was stalking Reese Witherspoon. But did she really think she was in that kind of movie? She did earlier, but now everything had changed. Eric Newman scared her, but not as much as what she’d seen the night before, or the similarities between her situation and Jill’s. No. It felt like she was in some kind of horror movie, and that things were going to get gruesome. Nothing was really adding up, and now here she was sitting in a clearing in the woods with a creepy sign. So what movie was she in? Not a classic slasher flick like Friday the 13th, but something weirder. And then she thought of The Wicker Man, not the terrible Nicolas Cage remake, although she had a soft spot for that film, but the 1970s original with Christopher Lee. Like in that film, she was on an island, and strange things kept happening, and she didn’t trust anyone, not even her husband. She wondered if she was going to end up being burned alive.
The trees around her swayed in unison as a breeze cut through. The air smelled like pine and salt, and in the distance she could smell the fruity aroma of smoke coming from a chimney. And there was something else, the smell of tidal rot, of decay. She stared up at the sky through the trees. High above, birds drifted, and for a moment she closed her eyes and imagined that she could fly. It had been a recurring dream her whole life, the sensation of flying, of being plucked up by a breeze and riding an air current. She’d had the dream frequently when she’d been younger, leading Zoe to believe that Abigail had been a bird in her previous life. (“And I was a cat,” Zoe would always say. “We would not have gotten along.”) Right now Abigail was thinking about what she would give to be able to push off from the ground and float upward and away from this island of horrors. As it was, she would have to wait for a plane to arrive, something entirely out of her control.
She formed a plan. She would go back to the bunk, not say anything to Bruce about her encounter with Mellie, and tell him she wanted to arrange for meals to be brought to the bunk. Then she’d just hunker down there and hope.
Please, God.
The plane would come tomorrow morning and she would be on it.
And once she was back on the mainland, she’d have some semblance of control again, and she could figure out what to do about the Bruce situation. It was a situation now, wasn’t it? The words he’d said to her—spoiled bitch—and the way he’d said them, with what sounded like genuine hatred in his voice, had not left Abigail’s head all morning. And he certainly had something to do with the cover-up of whatever had happened to Jill. The more she thought about him, the more she realized that she’d made a huge mistake getting married to a man she didn’t know all that well. He was a stranger, after all, and she’d been blinded because he seemed kind, and old-fashioned, and generous.
And rich, Abigail, don’t forget that.
Yes, and rich. There would be a time for Abigail to try to understand just how much that had played into her decision, but now wasn’t the time.
And maybe there is a good explanation? Maybe Bruce isn’t part of it?
Spoiled bitch.
Abigail stood. As much as she wouldn’t have minded staying longer in the woods, alone, she had made a plan and it was time to enact it.
The bunk was empty. It was what Abigail had been hoping for. She knew that she’d eventually