Adermoor Cove: Donovan Road - 1. Chapter 1

"So one more time, would you take it from the top, tell us what happened?" Sheriff Enzo asked.

"I already told you what happened," she said, her voice low but strained. “And you said you went out to the house so I know you saw the state of it”. She was trying to remain calm but couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She wanted to tell them to hurry up. You're wasting time asking me pointless questions when you could be out there looking for her. But what good would shouting do? Instead she kept her focus on her fingernails; there was dirt under them. How had it gotten there? Probably when she'd been running through the woods, chasing after the creature that had taken Ramona.

"I know. But we need to know exactly what happened. The more you can tell us the better."

She looked up and forced herself to look at Sheriff Enzo. He was being surprisingly patient with her. In all the times she'd met him in what she liked to think of as "civilian mode" he'd been nothing but pleasant with her; but for some reason, while in this room, in this box with its four white walls, the video camera constantly watching and recording what she was saying, she'd expected him to fling spit and bark questions at her. Tells you how much I know about cops, she thought.

She looked at the man sitting in the chair next to Enzo, the deputy, and Enzo's son, Carlos. A man who she had met only a few times in the month since he'd moved back from Boston, but who she had begun to consider an acquaintance if not a friend. He looked tired. She remembered Carlos telling Ramona and she he hadn't been getting much sleep; this had been the other day at The Treasure Trove.

She remembered understanding how he felt, she hadn't been sleeping much lately either. But she hadn't because then she would've had to tell him why she hadn't been sleeping and the why would've sounded crazy.

So much had happened since that day, so much had gone horribly wrong. The meeting at the principal's office with Mark Broax and his son, Jip; the dinner with Ramona's parents; the news of Vanessa Stanton’s death, which seemed to have the whole town shaken up.

And now this.

Suddenly the gauze that had provided a protective cushion from the reality of what happened was gone and she was aware of everything: the sting from where a stray branch had cut into her cheek, the coppery taste in her mouth, the soil still clinging to the heels of her hands and knee padding of her jeans. Her head ached from where she had hit it. She wondered if she'd had a concussion. Several times Enzo and Carlos had tried to coax her into letting them take her to the hospital but she'd refused. The hospital could wait.

She felt the overwhelming need to strip out of her clothes and wash herself clean, scrub everything away. There’s no time, she told herself. Ramona's out there. Tell them what happened so they can do what they need to do and find her. Even if it sounds completely nuts. Even if they decide you're bonkers and lock you away in the end.

"Okay, she whispered, just to hear herself talk. Somehow it helped. "Okay." She looked down at the table again. One of them, Carlos or Enzo, had set their iPhone on the table; she could see the seconds on the screen ticking by.

"As I said the first time I saw it was a week ago," Moira Compton said. "It was standing in the middle of the road…"

                            …

A week ago…

Night on Donahue Road. The window rolled down, wind fanning through Moira’s blonde hair. The Cure playing on the radio, Robert Smith whispering about the Spiderman. No kids around. No papers to grade. Driving to Ramona’s for dinner, wine, and love.

For the moment at least she felt something like contentment, like herself. For the past month - or maybe longer, it was just within the last month she'd noticed the feeling, Moira felt as if she had become untethered from herself like a ghost floating out into the abyss, never to return to its body. She kept trying to tell herself it wasn't depression, kept trying to tell herself she was just being ridiculous. (In truth after five years of living and teaching in Adermoor Cove and denying the dysfunction that clung to the town like a parasite, the illusion that had sucked her breath on first sight from the ferry had been shattered.)

But for the night, at this very moment, its beauty and charms had been returned, her doubts laid to rest.

The yellow lines on the road passed in a blur, glowing in the path of the headlights. There were no other cars on the road. It was as if the world had emptied. It was nine o’ clock in the evening. Parents would be at home getting their children ready for bed and preparing for the work day ahead of them. Taking advantage of the quiet at the school she’d managed to get through most of the book reports she’d assigned last month; she didn’t like taking her work with her outside of the school if she could help it. Next week marked the end of this quarter and the beginning of the next one. New students to get used to.

She was so lost in thought she didn’t see it until it was almost too late: a humongous dark shape trundling across the street. It stopped and looked at her with glowing black eyes, like marbles. Moira screamed and slammed on the brakes. Tires squealed on asphalt. The creature froze in the center of the road, peering at Moira through the windshield of her Mazda.

“Oh my God,” she said thought there was no one around to hear her.

A bear. It was a fucking bear.

And there was something wrong with it.

It let loose a bellow, its mouth opening. She had a perfect view of its open mouth. The inside of its mouth was completely black, tongue, and gums and all, and it’s teeth had rotted out. There were patches of black fungus - or she thought of it as fungus - all over its brown fur. More of it was leaking from the corners of its eyes.

She felt a chill go up her spine. There’s something wrong with it, a quiet, secret little voice whispered in the back of her mind, and whatever it is, it’s not normal. Whatever it was that was making the bear sick, it only made her more afraid. Moira found herself wishing she was back in the Bronx where tales of people almost driving their car straight into a bear would be as plausible as a fairytale.

Moira put the car in reverse but kept her foot on the brake. Should the bear decide to attack her, she would back up a safe distance, make a U-turn, and drive like the devil was on her tail.

“Go,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “Just go already.”

The bear’s head dipped lower and still it watched her. There was a glint of intelligence in its eyes that was both human and primal in nature. Could it read her lips, understand what she was saying somehow?

Now you’re just letting your fear get to you. It’s just a wild animal, it can’t read your lips or tell what you’re thinking.

An eternity passed (really it was only a minute) passed before it finally lifted its head, made a chuffing sound, and began making its way through the trees on the other side of Donovan Road. Heart pounding in her chest, she dropped her head back against the back of the seat and let out a sigh of relief. Her heart rocketed against the inner chamber of her chest. The car felt incredibly hot despite the cool breeze coming off the ocean just a few miles away. Even here, on Donovan Road, you could smell the salt.

When she reassured herself the bear was gone, not playing a game and hiding behind the trees just out of sight, she put the Mazda back in gear and continued to drive down Donovan Road until she reached Ramona’s farmhouse. She was grateful to find the lights were on, which meant Ramona was home, probably waiting for her so they could have a late dinner together.

The farmhouse was a large house, and sometimes Moira wondered why Ramona didn’t move out of it. It was two stories tall with a white porch, sitting on fifteen acres of farmland. Behind it was another five miles of woodland before the island ended abruptly. The house was old, having belonged to Ramona’s family for over a hundred years. The last person to have lived in it was Ramona’s grandmother, Joanne Sterling. Upon her death Joanne had left the house to Ramona to live in, as well as five chickens and a horse, Winchester. Already Moira could hear Scott Sterling, Ramona’s father proudly saying in his baritone voice, The Sterling family makes sure to take care of their own before anyone else.

Moira got out of the car and leaned against the door to take a moment and catch her breath. Suddenly she felt very tired. The fright from the encounter with the bear had drained her. The screen door to the house opened and Ramona stepped out on the porch, outlined by light. She’d changed out of her police uniform into a plaid shirt with the sleeves pulled up. Her hair had been pulled back and braided so a single braid trailed down her back. From where she stood Moira could see the freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose and cheeks. My own personal cowgirl, she thought.

“Are you okay?” Ramona stepped down the porch steps and came over to Moira.

Moira laughed. “Yeah..I’m fine. Just jittery. You won’t believe what happened.”

“Well tell me about it inside. I just pulled dinner out of the oven.” They traded a kiss and went inside hand in hand.

The inside of the house smelled pleasantly of sage and garlic. Moira helped herself to a glass of wine and lit the candles on the dining room table.

"How was your day?" Moira asked.

"You first. What happened that got you so jittery?"

After draining the rest of the wine glass and helping herself into another, Moira launched into her story about the bear; just talking about it made her pulse speed up again. Steadily she watched Ramona's eyes get wider and wider. When she finished Ramona said, "Wow, a bear? Are you sure?"

"Yes! It was just standing a few feet away from me. And there was something wrong with it. It was sick, really sick. I've never seen anything like it."

Ramona frowned, holding the wine glass just an inch or so from her face. "That's very strange. I'll let Sheriff Enzo know about it in the morning. He can get someone to keep an eye out for it."

Moira smiled. Just hearing this made her feel more at ease; it would be handled. "What about you?"

"Nothing much. Pulled Henry Donohue over for speeding but that's it."

The rest of dinner went pleasantly. They worked together on cleaning up the kitchen with Patsy Cline playing in the living room on Joanne Sterling’s old record player. It was in these moments, when Moira was alone with Ramona, just the two of them, that she was happy, when it seemed like she could spend the rest of her life in this house. Sometimes, on the nights when she went back to her tiny little apartment near the pier she wondered what the future held in store for them. Would they ever move in together? Would they somehow have a child someday, adopt some abandoned orphan from the orphanage? Anything’s possible. She knew this with certainty, after all she’d met Ramona here, on the island, living testament you could find love anywhere if you waited long enough.

By the time she took a shower, brushed her teeth, changed into a white gown, and crawled into bed with Ramona she was so tired she felt she could sleep for a year.