Somebody Doesn't Like Sarah Leigh - Chapter 1
Darkness masked the face of the terrified woman beside me, but her labored breathing matched my own. Stumbling blindly through the dark woods, we ran into tree trunks and tripped over mounds, each of us occasionally gasping from pain at the lash of a branch across the face or stubbing a toe on an unseen rock or root. I sensed her waning spirit and flagging energy. I was not much better off. And why should I care if she fell behind?
We had to stop running soon. For one thing, we had pushed ourselves farther than I would have thought possible for two women in the fifth decade of life. In addition, our hippo-like crashing through the woods made so much noise that our flight had to be easy for pursuers to track. And worst of all, we had no idea where we were going. We could end up circling back to the very people we now sought desperately to avoid.
Suddenly my path was blocked, and I stopped, breath rasping in my chest. A tree lay before me, broken off halfway up, probably by lightning. Its jagged trunk pointed into the sky, but its branches swept the ground, held in place by a splinter of raw white wood that caught what little moonlight there was. My companion blundered into my back, unaware that I had stopped. Her push sent me forward a step, and I stumbled into the still-springy jumble of branches. As I caught my balance, my foot felt the edge of a depression. I thumbed the flashlight on for the briefest moment, beam angled downward. The ruined treetop hung over a gully, and the thick layers of dying branches hid an empty space beneath. My belabored brain grasped at an idea. The safety we might find there was better than nothing.
In low tones, I communicated my thought. There was no objection, in fact no response at all, from the dim form beside me. I navigated my way through the branches and into the hole, sharp spikes catching at my clothes and gouging my bare arms. Once past the worst of them, I held the main branches aside for my companion. We found ourselves in an earthy space just wide enough for the two of us, a nest half filled with old leaves that were almost compost. With the tree’s branches above us, the surrounding depth felt protective. We lay down, struggling to quiet our exhausted lungs and staring into the black around us as if through sheer will we could see danger approaching.
In minutes, we heard them. One was some distance off but noisy. The nearer one moved stealthily, listening for movement. When I realized how close he was, I could have reached out and touched the fluorescent white strip on his sneaker.
The two men took their time. Each second’s passing felt like a year off my life. Any noise meant death in a place where no one would find our bodies for years. Our only hope for life was complete silence.
"They’re here somewhere," the noisy one called.
"Quiet." The reply was barely a sound.
The men stood for a long time, waiting for us to betray ourselves with a shift, cough, or cry. Some say it is impossible for two women to keep silent for long, but neither of us so much as twitched. While my body remained tense and still, my mind worked overtime.
How had this happened to me, middle-aged Caroline Batzer, the Bilbo Baggins of Aldridge, Michigan? The fact that I was hiding from murderers, desperate men who intended that I breathe my last before this night was over, was because of a woman who had once been such a close friend that I could never have imagined she would turn on me. Because of her, I had suffered confusion and stress, told the biggest lie of my life, was suspect in a mysterious disappearance, and was now a candidate for murder victim. I had a long time to think about the situation as we sat petrified, our legs cramping in that dank almost-grave. What had I done to deserve this? Until two years ago, I had been Sarah Elizabeth Leigh’s best friend.
* * * * *
I had known Sarah Leigh since before I could remember. We were the same age - actually, she was four months older, which she used to mention a lot when we were kids. That stopped when we hit twenty. Our mothers went to the same church, sang in the same choir, taught Sunday school, and played bridge on Friday nights.
I grew up comparing myself to Sarah, who was demure where I was brash, circumspect where I was impulsive, and tactful where I was inclined to be impatient. Sarah never seemed to mind the things in daily human encounters that drove me crazy: mindless tasks, waiting around, and general inefficiency.
I remember once suggesting to our Sunday school teacher that she might not have so many problems with the Stickley brothers if she planned activities that were a little more interesting. Her lips tightened just like when the boys were at their worst, and she said in that quavery, high-pitched voice that simply begged to be mimicked, "You should try to be more like Sarah, Caroline. She doesn’t criticize her elders or laugh when those boys act up."
It was true. Sarah never caused the slightest irritation for the adults we encountered, and even my own mother often held her up as a shining example. "Margaret Mathews never has a minute’s trouble with that girl," she would say. She never added out loud what I knew she was thinking: Why can’t my Caroline be more like Sarah?
Our mothers are gone now, but if I could see mine once more, I would not ask her what heaven is like or how it feels to die. I would ask if her friend Margaret Mathews ever made her as furious, as downright hysterical, as her daughter Sarah eventually made me.
They say people grow apart sometimes. All I could say at that moment in the woods is that we had not just grown apart. One of us had grown malicious.
* * * * *
It was cold in the damp hole, and I had to keep my lips pressed in to stop my teeth from clicking together. I had not come dressed for a night in Michigan’s north woods. My loafers were soaked, my jeans felt clammy in the seat from the rotting leaves beneath me, and the scratches on my arms and face burned. It was possible that I would die cold, dirty, and completely disheveled.
A memory came to mind of our rather prissy neighbor, Mrs. Albine, who, from time to time, took it upon herself to scold me for being such a tomboy. "Look at your friend," she often urged. "Such a little lady. Take some time in the morning and braid your hair so it doesn’t fly all over. See how neat Sarah’s pigtails look?" If it wasn’t my hair that displeased her, it was the dirt on my knees, the hole at my elbow, or the scratches I earned climbing into blackberry bushes. Feeling the burn of current scratches, I wondered what the old biddy would think if she were around tonight. It’s tough to be neat on the run; even Sarah Leigh would have admitted that.
