There Is A Place On The Mountain Called ‘Borrasca’ Where People Go To Disappear

“I don’t know. It’s weird isn’t it? I mean why would the Prescott’s give a shit if the town suffers after they refused to help them find their family and were actively working against them?”

“Maybe they forgave and forgot.” Kyle shrugged.

“Does Jimmy Prescott seem like a guy to forgive and forget to you?”

“Ugh…no. And his dad is even worse.”

“Exactly. Maybe we should-“

“Turn here! Sorry, Kimber’s still babysitting and she’s over on Amhurst.” When we pulled up Kimber was out in the driveway with two young boys who were playing in the front yard. She was holding a sleeping baby and waving to us. We parked in the driveway and she introduced us to the two older kids. They gave us shy hellos and then ran off to continue their game.

Once they’d left we explained everything that had happened that afternoon to Kimber while she listened and rocked the baby in her arms.

“Well, Sam is right, that doesn’t make sense. But why are we even concerned about something that happened decades ago?”

“Whitney.” Kyle said so I didn’t have to. A flash of surprise crossed Kimber’s face and she walked over to put the baby down in his playpen. Then she walked back and pulled me into one of her famous Super-Comforting-Not-At-All-Awkward Kimber hugs. When she released me she began to pace around the driveway. “Okay, so we think Whitney somehow got involved in all of this and, you’re right, if we want to figure this out we need to start at the beginning. Phil is right: every mystery in this town is one piece of a larger puzzle, it’s all related…” She stopped and looked over at us. “I think we need to go to the source if we want answers.”

“Yeah that’s not a bad idea,” Kyle agreed. “I know he likes to hang out in the Hide-away and get drunk with ex-Sheriff Clery.”

“Ah, no Kyle. Not Jimmy – his dad.”

“Tom? No way! He’s so crazy they put him in a home!”

“He’s the horse’s mouth, though, isn’t he? Jimmy isn’t likely to know half as much as his dad.”

“But-“

As Kyle and Kimber argued I watched the kids chase each other around the tree in their front yard. There seemed to be something carved in the bark, words, not unlike the Triple Tree at Ambercot Fort. I was too far away to read what it said.

“He got you, he got you!” I heard the youngest one call to his brother. “The Skinned Man got you, now you have to die.”

“Na-uh, Peter, I was touching the tree.”

“No you weren’t! You’re a liar! One of them got you and now you have to meet the Shiny Gentleman!”

“No I don’t!”

“Kimber, Josh is cheating!”

I shuddered and turned away from them. “Where’s the nut house?” I interrupted them. “Is it close?”

“It’s not a nut house, it’s more like a hospice,” Kimber chided. “The rumor I’ve heard is that he’s at Golden Elm and that’s in Cape Girardeau.”

“That’s about 40 minutes away,” Kyle said and pulled out his phone. “I’ll check the visiting hours for Tuesdays. Sam, do you work tomorrow?”

“I work every day but I’ll get out of it.” I promised.

“Ok cool. Let’s plan to leave after school.”

The following day dragged on like any last Tuesday of the school year. Most people talked about what they did with their ditch day or complained about a cop showing up at their house to issue them a ticket while sliding less than pleased looks my way.

When the final bell rang at 3:30 I grabbed my bag and booked it out to my car. Kyle and Kimber were already waiting for me.

The drive took longer than expected when I got lost in Cape Girardeau. The town was bigger than Drisking and the streets weren’t laid out with any sort of planning or logic that I could see. By the time we arrived at Golden Elm there were only 20 minutes left for visiting hours.

“We’re here to see Mr. Thomas Prescott,” Kimber told the nurse at the front desk. We tended to let her do the talking since she had a disarming, old-fashioned charm about her that usually put people in an agreeable mood.

“Old Tom? Wow, he hasn’t had a visitor since his son came in around Christmas. You’re family then? You know where his room is?” The nurse arched a thin, suspicious eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, we don’t.” Kimber apologized. “My mother has been asking me to check in on my great uncle while she’s away doing Doctors without Borders. I should have gotten more information from her but you know, she only has so many minutes to call home.”

“Oh, of course dear! Go ahead and sign in and I’ll get someone to escort you.”

An orderly led us to Tom Prescott’s room which we found empty. He pointed down the long corridor and said “He likes to read in the sunroom.”

We walked down the hall and found an old, thin man all alone and whispering to himself. He was sitting at a table sliding chess pieces over a backgammon board.

“Tom Prescott?” Kimber said, smiling.

He didn’t look up and I wondered if he’d heard her at all. Kimber took a deep breath to try again but the old man suddenly slammed his fist on the table.

“I’m him, goddammit, I’m Mr. Thomas Prescott. Don’t call me Tom; people’s kids used to have more respect, you know.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Kimber said gently as she sat down in the chair opposite him.

“Our apologies, Mr. Prescott, we never meant to be disrespectful. We greatly admire you. We’re from Drisking – you’re the man who built our town! Everyone remembers that. Everyone was suffering and the town was dying and then you fixed it. We know that.”

“I did what I had to do,” the old man grunted. “It was my town. It still is. Who are you, little girl, to come in here and suggest otherwise?”

“Ah, no, no that’s not what I said.” Kimber changed tactics. “And as for who we are, we’re Meera McCaskey’s kids. Do you remember the McCaskeys?”

“Huh. So you’re Aida’s granddaughter. That explains why you’re not there.” Kyle and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“We’re right here, Mr. Prescott.” Kimber said.

“You know what I meant, young lady! They all know. They know I rescued the town, that’s my town. Of course they were going to let me do anything I wanted as long as the money kept coming in. That’s why it’s my town.”

“Is the money still coming in?” Kimber tested.

“Well, you’re here aren’t you? They didn’t like it but they took the money. They didn’t know. Not everything, they didn’t, but they suspected some. And they kept electing Clery and they kept taking the money.”

Prescott picked up a pawn and ran his fingers over it as he talked. “It’s just a powder, you know, so unassuming. A fine, soft powder. The powder doesn’t know what it is, it doesn’t know it’s bad. It’s the people who say it’s bad. But it needed to be done. You know that, Aida, you know we had to do it.”

Kimber hooked him in. “I know. I know we had to it but it’s your son. I don’t think he’s doing it right anymore.”

“Well of course he isn’t!” The elderly Prescott slammed his fist on the table again and two rooks tumbled to the floor. “They were mine! He took them from me. He thought he could do it better but he took mine and he ruined my legacy. Decades of work and now it’s all run by the powder. The dust of my crumbled empire!”

“What about the Skinned Men?” I asked, caught up in the moment.

“What are you talking about, boy?” He growled.

“And the treehouse! The Triple Tree, what is it? What is it for?”

“Triple Tree? Is that what he’s offering again? We paid triple the price but it was only for a short while, when things were slow. We certainly never charged triple, that’s just bad business.”

“Where is Bor-“

“Has my idiot boy been telling you that? Did he offer you triple for them? He’s ruining my town, isn’t he? Goddamn it, Jimmy, you get him in here! Aida, get my boy on the phone, you tell Jimmy I wanna talk him! You tell him they’re still mine! Aida! Aida, get Jimmy on the phone!”

Kimber jumped up and Kyle pushed her behind him as the old man rose to his feet, tall and surprisingly imposing for his fragility. We were already backing toward the door when the orderly came in with a disapproving look on his face and shooed us out. Long after we’d made it to the lobby we could still hear Tom Prescott yelling for his son.

The ride home was quiet and I spent it trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. The Skinned Men, the Triple Tree, the Shiny Gentleman, the powder. These things seemed to have been pulled blindly from the ether, random and meaningless. The veil over my eyes was thick and heavy but I was closer to Borrasca than I’d ever been before. I could feel it all around me, I just couldn’t see it.

I snapped out of my thought when I realized Kyle was pulling over off the road. He put the car in park and turned around to look at me in the backseat.

“Is this really about Whitney, Sam?”

“Yes.”

Kimber watched us with worried eyes.

“Why? The cops, I mean, even your father confirmed that Whitney ran away.”

“I don’t believe them.” I said through clenched teeth.

“Look, Sam, we’re getting pretty deep in here and I am with you every step but I have to know that there’s a reason we’re doing this. And pulling Kimber in, too. I have to know this is important to you for the right reasons and not just an…obsession.”

I looked out the window and realized he’d pulled over near the West Rim Prescott Ore Trailhead. He was right to worry and even more so to be protective of Kimber. Kyle was thinking it and so was I: it was all about the powder. If Borrasca really did involve moving drugs did I want to involve my friends any further? This wasn’t their fight. I loved these people, could I really risk their safety for my own curiosities and vendettas? But as hard as I wished I could let them go I knew I needed them in this with me.

“I have to know what really happened to Whitney.” I said quietly.

Kyle turned back around without a word and Kimber placed her hand on mine. I jerked it away and crossed my arms but immediately apologized. Kimber just smiled in a forgiving sort of way.

Kyle sighed. “Sam…“

He was interrupted by the piercing ring of Kimber’s phone. She scrambled for her cell to silence it but when she saw the name on the screen she quickly answered.
“Dad?”

…..

“What? Wait, what- what do you mean?”

…..

“Dad, hello?”

……

“No, wait, slow down. Hello?” She took the phone away from her ear. “Something happened to my mom and she’s at the hospital.” She said in a sort of shock.

Kyle threw the car in gear and screeched out of the parking lot. We made the 10 mile trip to the hospital in as many minutes, which was criminally fast on surface streets. Kyle slammed on the brakes at the emergency entrance and Kimber and I ran inside.

A deputy was already there waiting. He refused to answer Kimber’s desperate questions as he led us down the hall to her father. When the deputy swung the doors open I saw my dad standing next to Kimber’s and I immediately braced myself for the worst.

Kimber’s dad took her in one direction and my dad and I went in another. Before he said a word to me I saw Kimber crumble to the floor on the other side of the room. I looked at my dad for confirmation and he gave me a sympathetic nod and pulled me into a hug.

We sat down in a corner and I stared at my hands as he quietly explained that Mrs. Destaro had gone grocery shopping at around 1 o’clock, come home, put the groceries away, made two lasagnas and a meatloaf and put them in the freezer. Then she got in her car, drove to the hospital, parked in the shade, took the stairs up seven floors to the roof and jumped off of it. She lived long enough to apologize to the EMT who found her.

I watched Kimber wail from across the room as her mother’s body grew cold in the morgue beneath us.