The gloves are white cotton with red buttons at the cuffs. “I heard about it on the radio. She had just asked for copies of all the Bagleiana, ironically.”
“The what? And ironic how?”
Two red spots appear on her cheeks, perfect matches to the buttons on her gloves. “I didn’t mean to sound so . . . cold . . . We call the materials related to the Bagley disappearance the Bagleiana—it’s our most popular draw, and also a professional obsession of mine; it’s really why I’m here. Noreen Bagley was sixteen when she disappeared and it happened at the same location . . . only . . .”
“Lila didn’t disappear,” I finish for her.
“Well,” she says, “Noreen Bagley didn’t really either. Her body was found a year later.”
“Oh,” I say, thinking that Luther didn’t include that detail in his campfire story. “I didn’t know that they found her.”
“A lot of people don’t,” the young woman says. “Lost girl always sounds better than dead girl.”
I have no real response to this so I glance back at the parked car with Rudy’s phone in it. I could go looking for him, but where would I even start? He’ll come back . . . and if he doesn’t . . .
“I’ll wait an hour,” I tell her. “And yes, I’d love to see the . . . what did you call it?”
“Bagleiana,” she says, pressing her red-lipsticked lips together. Her eyes are bright beneath her heavy bangs, unable to hide her delight. I have to admit I’m intrigued as well. A cult surrounding a missing girl. Maybe what I am is jealous. No one ever formed a cult around my disappearance.
MY GUIDE INTRODUCES herself as Lucinda Perkins as she shows me into the townhouse. It’s cold inside, as these New England buildings are. She switches on lights, cranks the heater up, and turns on an electric kettle, all while chattering about “the Bagley affair,” as she calls it.
“Of course it’s not as famous as the Bennington Triangle but I think that’s because Shirley Jackson wrote a book based on that.”
I vaguely recall hearing about the Bennington Triangle in a course I took on horror fiction. “That was about . . . a college sophomore who went missing?” I ask as Lucinda offers me a seat at a round oak table in a room that looks more like a nineteenth-century parlor than a library. Loud floral wallpaper in shades of green and pink covers the walls, clashing with a William Morris patterned rug. It’s like being inside a Victorian candy box.
“Paula Jean Welden, age eighteen. She took a hike on the Long Trail and was never seen again alive. A statewide search ensued. Her father was a rich designer, so he had the money to spend. Noreen Bagley’s father was a well-to-do Boston doctor but he’d recently remarried and didn’t seem particularly interested in pouring money into a search for her. It was assumed she’d run away.” She peels off her red coat to reveal a plaid skirt and a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar. She looks like a schoolgirl from the late 1950s. She keeps on the white gloves as she removes file folders and boxes from a black lacquered cabinet.
“Missing girls aren’t all the same; the rich ones get much more attention than anyone poor. But a lot of girls go missing every year; they always have. When Cora Rockwell was the matron of the Refuge she kept track of them. She was headmistress at Haywood when Noreen went missing.”
“Lila Zeller was writing a paper on Cora Rockwell,” I say. “My husband was helping her.”
Lucinda places a book in front of me. It’s covered in a sober green cloth, frayed at the edges to reveal the cheap cardboard underneath. “Cora Rockwell’s diary,” she says. “I’ve bookmarked the relevant sections.”
I start to open it but Lucinda slaps down a pair of white cloth gloves on the table before I can. “If you don’t mind.” It’s a command, not a request.
I pull on the gloves and open the book to where Lucinda has placed a slip of paper. The lined pages are filled with a round schoolgirl-ish script. The first entry is for November 10, 1963.
The Maiden Stone has claimed its latest victim, it reads, another girl has gone missing.
Chapter Fifteen
Lucinda Perkins makes a pot of tea while I begin reading. She uses a teapot and loose tea, and puts out china cups and English biscuits. She turns on the radio, tuned