Chapter Eleven – Trudy

Trudy was running late. Again. It would be the third time that week she would pick Brady up late from the daycare she had enrolled the little five-year-old in. Mrs. Mackenzie would be sure to lecture her this time. The woman was great with children – loved them to bits – but she seemed to enjoy making the parents of the children she watched feel guilty for having to leave their children in daycare instead of taking care of them themselves.

She glanced down at her wristwatch as she entered the parking lot. She was exactly eight minutes late. That was forty dollars – five dollars extra for every minute a parent was late picking up their child after the final pick up time at six o’clock. Normally Trudy was good at being on time, but this week Lou had been extremely unreasonable and asking that she stay later than her normal getting off time.

Trudy practically ran from the parking lot to the daycare room that she knew Brady would be waiting in, probably quietly drawing not realizing that her extra few minutes with the crayons was costing her mummy forty dollars.

“I’m here!” Trudy announced as she breezed through the door, grabbing Brady’s punch card and clocking her out. Mrs. Mackenzie barely looked up at Trudy’s announcement, instead she was seated at a desk next to Brady, watching her color.

“Mrs. Mackenzie?” Trudy furrowed her brow, puzzled by the normally overbearing child care worker’s strange behavior. “I’m here.” She stated again.

“Good, good.” The middle-aged woman looked up, a smile on her lips that did not touch her eyes. “Ms. Taylor, I was wondering if I could have a quick word with you while Brady keeps drawing.”

“Is something wrong?” Trudy glanced down at her daughter but saw no blemish or injury on the small child. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m not sure.” Mrs. Mackenzie rose to her feet and beckoned Trudy to the back of the classroom. Trudy smiled down at Brady who looked up and beamed back at her mother, then followed Mrs. Mackenzie to the back of the room, her heart pounding wildly in her chest all the while.

“First of all, Ms. Taylor,” Mrs. Mackenzie began, “I want to assure you no harm has come to Brady. If there had been an accident of some short while she was in our care we would have notified you immediately. However,” She hesitated, clearly disturbed by something, “The other workers and I have become extremely worried about Brady.”

“Worried? How so?” Trudy mentally began to sort through the different outfits she had dressed Brady in that week. She made sure they were all different, never repeating a shirt once, even if the five-year-old wanted to wear her Power Puff Girls tee shirt two days in a row. Daycare workers always seemed to watch a child’s clothing like a hawk, thinking that if they wore the same tee shirt or pair of shorts twice in one week it was a sure sign of neglect. Obviously not many of them were mothers.

“Ms. Taylor, has Brady ever been separated from you for long periods of time?” Mrs. Mackenzie took her off guard by her question.

“What do you mean, separated? She’s spent a day at her father’s from time to time, but I’m always there with her. The only times I ever leave Brady is when I go to work and I drop her off here. Why?”

“I’m not really sure, actually.” Mrs. Mackenzie frowned thoughtfully, going through a few files that were lying loose on her desk. “Lately, Brady has begun to exhibit some very strange behavior patterns.”

“Strange behavior patterns?” Trudy echoed, feeling her knees begin to grow weak. Something couldn’t be wrong with her precious daughter. There just couldn’t be.

“After you drop her off in the mornings she begins to cry, usually for a couple of hours. When we try and comfort her and tell her that you will be back to pick her up in just a little while she tells us that you can’t, that they won’t let you.”

“They?” Trudy arched an eyebrow. “Who does she mean by they?”

“We don’t know. I was hoping to shed some light on this by talking to you. But she seems to think that someone is going to keep her from ever seeing you again. Brady has never been the victim of a kidnapping has she?”

“No!” Trudy’s eyes flared wide open. “Of course not! I take good care of my daughter! Why, even the idea that she might have been kidnapped is simply preposterous!”

“Ms. Taylor, please. It would be no fault on your parenting skills if Brady had been kidnapped. Kidnapping is something that parents just can’t control. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good parent or a bad parent, but as far as I can tell you are an exceptional mother.”

“T-thank you.” Trudy flushed slightly at the unexpected praise by the rather harsh and demeaning woman. “But why would you ask something like that? It just doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not really.” Mrs. Mackenzie shook her head slowly, “But Brady has begun to show all the signs of a child that might have been kidnapped when she was younger, young enough that she doesn’t really remember much about it, but old enough to remember the feeling of abandonment.”

“No.” Trudy shook her head, whispering fiercely. “I would never abandon my Brady. She’s everything to me. I love her. If she had ever been kidnapped I would not rest until I got her back, but it hasn’t happened. It simply hasn’t happened.”

“I understand that Ms. Taylor.” Mrs. Mackenzie nodded. “But if Brady has never been kidnapped how would you explain these?”

She passed Trudy a file, which she was half afraid to open. Finally summoning the courage, she turned back the manila flap, revealing a small stack of drawings that had obviously been made by her daughter.

A soft smile spread across Trudy’s lips as she studied the pictures, impressed by the little girl’s growing skill with a crayon. Brady had drawn a picture of what was obviously her though her hair was much shorter and it looked like Brady had tried to put strange markings on her face. In the picture Trudy was standing next to a blonde woman with her hair tied up in knots and a young man with long brown hair and with what looked like a bit of longer hair coming over his shoulder.

“She’s quite good.” Mrs. Mackenzie remarked as Trudy turned past the picture, ready to study the next. “She’s had quite a few of her drawings displayed on the bulletin board.”

“I’m sure she was so proud.” Trudy stated distracted as she studied the next picture, one remarkably more disturbing. In this picture Brady had drawn herself sitting in a large circle of people wearing blue dresses. There was someone with long blonde hair wearing a white dress standing right over her and Trudy got the distinctive impression that Brady was afraid of that person, whoever they might be.

“That was the first one that really made up start noticing what she had drawn. This other one,” Mrs. Mackenzie pointed to the first drawing, “Had been up on the board for about a week.”

“Did she say who these people are?”

Mrs. Mackenzie shook her head. “We asked, but she didn’t seem to remember. She only drew more pictures. Look at the next one.”

Trudy obeyed, hoping that the next image was not nearly as disturbing as the past one. However it was worse. Brady must have used up an entire black crayon drawing this picture. This time she was in a cage that was being carried by what looked like manlike robots. They all had angry expressions and Brady was crying. What scared Trudy the most was the figure that was drawn laying face down on the ground. Her hair was short again, but it was obviously Trudy.

“Wh-what are these?”

Mrs. Mackenzie shrugged her shoulders. “We were hoping you might know.”

“I’ve never seen her draw anything like this before. She always seems fine and happy when she’s at home. She draws quiet a bit, but its always pictures of hearts or flowers or normal things that little girls draw… Not stuff like this.”

“I thought she might not.” Mrs. Mackenzie pursed her lips together. “When she’s with you she isn’t afraid that you won’t be coming back. It’s my personal opinion that the they she is afraid won’t let you see her are these people she’s depicting in the pictures. The people in robes and the people with masks.”

“Masks.” Trudy furrowed her brow, her finger running over the image of one of the individuals she had first thought was a robot.

“There’s one more that I think you need to see, Ms. Taylor.” Mrs. Mackenzie leaned forward and turned the page for Trudy, revealing the most frightening image yet.

Brady had drawn herself again, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had strange red markings on each cheek, almost like someone had gone a little crazy with the blush. In the picture Brady was in some sort of device, a circular object attached to her head. She was strapped against the wall and she was frightened. Terribly frightened.

Trudy blanched, abruptly shutting the folder. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Mackenzie, but I don’t know what these drawings could possibly mean. I never even let Brady watch television except for a few cartoons. I have no idea where she could get these pictures in her mind.”

“When she’s with her father, is she alone even if you’re there?” Mrs. Mackenzie inquired and Trudy felt her cheeks burn.

“S-sometimes.” Trudy stumbled over her words, not wanting to admit that when Brady had been younger she had gone over to the Fielding’s house on many occasions using the excuse that she wanted Martin to see their daughter, but really wanting to spend time with Bray. “But not often.”

“When was the last time she saw her father?”

Trudy scrunched up her brow, trying to recall. She had called Martin about a month ago, wanting to see when Bray would be leaving for Auckland, but hadn’t been able to get much information out of Martin. She had taken Brady to see Martin that very weekend, but Bray hadn’t been there.

“About a month ago.” Trudy replied, nervously pushing her hair away from her face. “For an hour or two, but I was with her the entire time.”

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Mackenzie challenged and suddenly Trudy found that she doubted herself. She had stayed with Brady the entire time, right? Sometimes, if Martin was playing with Brady outside Trudy would wander upstairs and accidentally go into Bray’s bedroom instead of the bathroom, but she didn’t feel Mrs. Mackenzie or the preschool needed to know that.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Trudy nodded her head, hoping that her voice conveyed more confidence than she felt. “I’m sure Brady will be just fine. This is just a phase she’s going through. She probably saw something on television when I wasn’t looking and got scared. That’s all.”

“Well,” Mrs. Mackenzie folded her hands neatly in her lap, reminding Trudy of the old-fashioned manners schoolteachers. She was too prim and proper to be human, in Trudy’s opinion. “I’m glad you’re satisfied, Ms. Taylor, but we at Little Blessings Day Care and PreSchool are not. We will be continuing to investigate this. If we turn anything up, you will hear from us.”

Trudy furrowed her brow, taken aback by Mrs. Mackenzie’s sudden abrupt behavior. “Is that all?” She inquired hesitantly, feeling like a schoolgirl who had been asked to stay after school because she had been naughty in class. “Can I take Brady home now?”

“Of course, Ms. Taylor.” Mrs. Mackenzie smiled a practiced smile as Trudy hesitantly rose to her feet, casting a glance over her shoulder to where her young daughter still sat at one of the desks, content to be left alone with her coloring.

“One more thing,” Mrs. Mackenzie called her back, “Brady began to draw these disturbing pictures about a month ago. Relatively about the last time she saw her father.”