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He points to the bank of the river. “Why is there a dog?”
It’s a big dog, a black retriever, sniffing furiously and barking like mad. Some men come running out of the woods, dressed in reflective gear and waving flashlights.
“Found ’em!” a man shouts. “Woman and child, down by the creek!”
“Miss, are you hurt? Are you bleeding?”
“Is the child okay?”
“You’re safe now, miss.”
“Let us help you.”
“Come on, buddy, reach out your hand.”
But Teddy wraps his arms tighter around my waist, attaching himself to my hip. There are more police officers and more dogs approaching from the far side of the river, closing in on us from all directions.
And then a woman’s voice, calling from farther away: “I got another one! Adult female, PNB, multiple knife wounds!”
They’ve got us surrounded now, a ring of flashlights advancing from every direction. It’s not clear who’s in charge because everybody’s talking at once: It’s okay, you’re all right, it’s safe now, but they see all the blood on our clothes and I can tell they’re freaking out. Teddy’s freaking out, too. I whisper in his ear: “It’s okay, T-Bear. They’re here to help us.” Then I carry him to the riverbank and gently lower him to the ground.
“She’s holding something.”
“Miss, what’s in your hand?”
“Can you show us please?”
One of the cops grabs Teddy’s arm and yanks him to safety, and they all start shouting again. Everyone wants me to step slowly out of the water and lower the arrow to the ground and by the way am I carrying any other weapons? But I’ve stopped listening because I’ve noticed another figure in the distance, standing outside the ring of police officers. The moonlight glints off her white dress, and her head lolls crookedly to one side. I raise my left hand, showing everyone the broken arrow.
“It was me,” I tell them. “I did it.”
Then I hold out my arm and let the arrow drop to the ground. And the next time I look up, Margit is gone.
ONE YEAR LATER
It’s been hard to get this story down on paper, and I’m sure it’s been even harder for you to read it. Many times I was ready to quit writing, but your father pleaded with me to keep going, while the details were still fresh in my memory. He was convinced that someday in the future, ten or twenty years from now, you’d want to know the truth about what really happened that summer in Spring Brook. And he wanted you to hear the story from me, not some stupid true crime podcast.
Because God knows there have been plenty of podcasts. There have been breaking news stories and clickbait headlines and late-night talk show jokes and memes galore. In the weeks following your rescue, I was approached by Dateline, Good Morning America, Vox, TMZ, Frontline, and dozens of others. I have no idea how all these producers got my cell phone number but they all promised the same thing: To let me tell my side of the story, to defend my actions in my own words, with minimal interference. They also promised big bucks if I would agree to an exclusive interview.
But after a long discussion with your father, we both decided to stay out of the media. We released a joint public statement saying that you were reunited with your family and you needed time to heal, and now we just wanted to be left alone. Then we changed our phone numbers and our email addresses and we hoped people would forget about us. It took a few weeks, but it happened. Eventually, there were bigger stories. A nutcase in San Antonio shot up a grocery store. Sanitation workers in Philly went on strike for eight weeks. A woman in Canada gave birth to octuplets. And the world moved on.
My first few attempts at telling this story went nowhere. I can remember sitting down with a blank pad and totally freezing up. Up until now, the longest thing I’d ever written was a five-page high school term paper on Romeo and Juliet. So the idea of writing a book—a real full-length book, like a Harry Potter—it seemed so epic. But I mentioned the challenges to Adrian’s mother and she gave me some good advice. She said I shouldn’t try to write a book, I should just sit down at my laptop and tell the story, one sentence at a time, using the same language I’d use to tell a friend over coffee. She said it was okay not to sound like J. K. Rowling. It was fine if I sounded like Mallory Quinn from Philadelphia. And once I got on board with that idea, the words started flowing pretty fast. I can’t believe I’m staring at a file with 85,000 of them.
But look at me, getting ahead of myself!
I should probably back up and explain a few things.
* * *
Ted Maxwell died from his gunshot injuries on the floor of my cottage. His wife, Caroline, died just a half hour later at the base of the Giant Beanstalk. I confessed to stabbing her in self-defense using the broken arrow (technically, a bolt designed for crossbows) that we’d found in the forest a few weeks earlier. And she might have actually survived, except the tip of the arrowhead ruptured her carotid artery, and by the time the EMTs arrived it was too late.
You and I were brought to the Spring Brook police station. You went into a lunchroom with a bleary-eyed social worker and a basket of stuffed animals, while I went into a windowless cell with a video camera, microphones, and a series of increasingly hostile detectives. To keep you safe, I only told a partial version of my story. I didn’t mention any of your mother’s drawings. I didn’t describe how she supplied me with clues to help me understand what happened. In fact, I never mentioned your mother at all. I pretended that I discovered the Maxwells’ secrets all on my own.
Detective Briggs and her partners were skeptical. They could tell I was holding something back, but I held fast to my version of events. As their voices grew louder, as their questions became more and more antagonistic, I kept giving them the same improbable answers. For a few hours, I was pretty convinced I would be charged with a double homicide, that I would be spending the rest of my life in prison.
But by the time the sun came up, it was clear my story contained at least several kernels of truth:
A social worker confirmed that Teddy Maxwell did, in fact, have the anatomy of a five-year-old girl.
