40. Beth

The rain doesn't fall today. It crashes, hurls, bombards, punishes. It's like the sky is angry, making a show of its displeasure. My grip tightens around the wooden handle of a shovel as I drag it behind me, trudging through the long grass. Clutched in my other hand is one of my mother's rolled-up notebooks, opened to an entry dated August 15, 1999, two months after Emma went missing. It was the last line that stuck out to me. She wrote, I've learned there's a lot of things you can bury, but the past isn't one of them. Emma Harper was never found, and I think that's because she never left this land.

I can hear the creek up ahead, babbling like it's trying to talk, trying to tell secrets its mouth swallowed two decades before. Without that VHS tape, I have nothing to prove to Lucas that I'm telling the truth. And without Lucas, I have nothing.

The rain softens and muddies the ground, making it easier for the blade of my shovel to pierce. It's as though it wants me to unearth the past my parents buried. I start underneath the bridge where Highway X runs over the creek. This is where she was in the video. Lying underneath the overpass. The muscles in my arms explode as I dig, scooping up heaping piles of dirt and tossing them aside. She has to be here, I repeat to myself each time the blade penetrates the soil.

I pause only to catch my breath, shake out my arms, and tie back my soaked hair when it clings to my face. The rain falls harder and thunder roars in the distance. Lightning stretches across the blackened sky. I stop for a moment and lean against my shovel, surveying my progress. Several small holes, each a few feet deep, are scattered beneath the bridge. But there's no sign of her. I steal a couple of deep breaths, readying myself, and go at each hole again, digging as quickly as I can. When my muscles are fatigued, I collapse to my knees. Mud clings to my jeans and shoes, weighing me down even further. My lungs gasp for air. It feels like I'm breathing in shards of glass, and I'm not sure how much more I can take. I let out a wail of a scream. It echoes against the concrete overpass but is quickly drowned out by a loud burst of thunder, the sky not wanting to be outdone. The creek rises, slowly filling the freshly dug hole closest to its shallow bank. I remember how high the creek can get in the spring. All of this is under water for a few months of the year. If Emma were buried this close to the creek, the earth would have spit her up a long time ago.

My eyes follow the shoreline all the way to the barbed wire fence that separates this property from farmland. There are thick woods on the right side, with overgrown weeds, swollen bushes, and less mature trees that twist into one another, fighting for resources. There's the path that leads to the field of wild grass and the valley beyond that. Maybe she's there. I get to my feet and start in the direction of the hillside, dragging the shovel behind me. If I don't find Emma, no one ever will. Just before I reach the wild grass, the chime of a bell stops me in my tracks. The wind whips and there's that chime again. I hold my breath to hear it better, to figure out where it's coming from. It rings from somewhere deep in the twisted woods.

Pushing past low-hanging branches, I climb over fallen trees, step around burdocks and thistles. I use the shovel to hack through a wall of lush weeds that have grown into a dead bush. Their stems, nodes, and veiny leaves entangle the woody shrub, choking out its existence. I finally break through the invasive species. The gap opens to a small clearing. The bell rattles again. It's attached to a collar meant for a cat. The collar hangs from a wooden cross staked into the ground. Written in Sharpie on the crosspiece is the name Mooch. The handwriting is childlike, and the letters have faded to a light gray. I recognize the handwriting. It's mine. Mooch was my cat. She died when I was eight. Another cross stands a few feet away. The name Timmy is written across it, our first family dog. Another cross bears the name Sasha, another dog.

The shovel slips from my fingers, thudding against the ground. I fall to my knees and weep for the past. When there are no more tears left to cry, I pick my head back up and scan the clearing. Raindrops slither through the snaking branches above. A bolt of lightning briefly illuminates the sky. The thunder booms and rumbles. I let out a heavy sigh and get to my feet. My eyes go to the crosses, and I realize there are more of them, six to be exact. Two rows of three sit on either side of the clearing. Timmy, Sasha, Mooch, Butterfly, Goofy, and Garfield. I inch closer to the opposite end of the clearing where the other three crosses stand. Butterfly, Goofy, and Garfield.

"Butterfly," I say out loud, but the name feels foreign, not one I've ever called out. I don't remember having a pet named Butterfly. Maybe Mom and Dad did after I moved out. But I would remember that.

The shovel spikes through the dirt in front of the cross labeled Butterfly. I dig until my muscles are weak, and then I push past the weakness and just keep digging. The hole grows deeper and wider until finally the spade hits a hard object. I drop to my knees and use my hands to scoop and scrape away the soil, unearthing whatever it is that's been buried here. When it comes into view, I gasp for air, falling backward, choking, unable to breathe. It's a skeleton. But it's not an animal.