This dress would have been perfect for a funeral, if she was going to have one.
He unwound some bramble, wrapping it around her throat as a sign to the ones who found her. Let them figure out the meaning.
His pulse quickened as he remembered her scream of terror just before he’d slashed her throat. He dotted blusher along the cut on her cheek he’d made with the broken edge of a mirror, rouge the bright red of poppies. Then he folded her hands across her stomach in prayer form.
If she could see herself, she would not be happy with the way he’d fixed her.
A light rain began to fall, droplets clinging to her long blonde eyelashes. Any surface beauty she possessed would disintegrate quickly, turning her into dust and bone. The ugliness beneath would be revealed and everyone would know that Monday’s child, who was supposed to be fair of face, was nothing but a disguise.
Pulling daffodils from his bag, he ripped off the petals and scattered them on the ground, spreading her on top of them and covering her with more of the bright yellow petals. The olive-green satin dress looked sickly beneath the soft wildflowers.
As stark and ugly as the woman wearing it.
Seven
Somewhere on the AT
After hours of a punishing ten-mile hike in the drizzling rain, Ellie was bone tired. In spite of her experience on the trail, her muscles and feet ached, the blisters she’d acquired on her feet were raw, and a permanent chill had invaded her body.
Today the numbness had set in. Finally. She welcomed it, drowning out the pain of the past month.
Slogging through the mud and prickly brush, she used her flashlight to illuminate her path. All day she’d noted signs of spring in the budding trees and scent of damp grass as she strove to make it to the shelter ahead. Raindrops glistened on the leaves like tiny diamonds, and wild mushrooms pushed through the soil in various colors.
With the start of the season, eager adventure-seekers had begun their journey on the 2200-mile-long trail. Statistics showed that most would never make it the entire way. The challenging physical conditions made many give up. Worse, the isolation could turn a person’s mind inside out. Getting lost in the endless stretches of untamed vegetation and smothering forests came with the territory. So did the craving for hot meals and warm beds.
At the moment, Ellie relished the solitude, although being alone with her thoughts could be a scary place.
Her mind kept turning to her birth parents. If she decided to search for them, who knew what she might find? Randall and Vera had seemed to love her, yet they’d kept secrets from her that had destroyed so many innocent lives.
How would total strangers feel?
Shivering as raindrops pinged off her waterproof jacket, she darted around a bend, using her knife to cut through the tangled vines that clawed at her feet like sharp tentacles. Stumbling over a rotting tree root, she pitched forward, getting caught in a mass of brambles. Thorns stabbed her palms, puncturing her skin and drawing blood as she righted herself and crossed over a fallen pine.
Dragging a handkerchief from her pocket, she dabbed at the beads of blood and plucked several thorns from her aching palms. Thunder boomed and lightning zigzagged across the perpetually gray sky, a deluge of more rain descending. Ignoring her throbbing calf muscles, she ran up the hill. A coyote howled in the distance. The fading sun and trees closing around her resurrected her fear of the dark, a fear that had begun when Hiram imprisoned her in the cave when she was small.
Pushing away the encroaching fear, she hiked on, searching for peace and answers that might not ever come.
Shadows flitted through the forest like black fireflies. She found one shelter, but it was infested with mice and nearby a group of hillbillies were drunk on moonshine, so she trudged on. Locals whispered of plants that strangled folks as they wove through the thick bush and untraveled terrain. Other foliage grew so dense it camouflaged the deep ravines and drop-offs, creating traps to ensnare a body in the dangerous hollows below, where they might disappear forever, never to be found.
Ellie climbed higher and higher, over the hill, and followed the narrow path toward the clearing where the pond lay. There she could pitch a tent for the night.
Suddenly a gust of wind stirred the leaves and brought raindrops from the treetops, something yellow fluttering to the ground