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.
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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.
A child named Flora Baroth was registered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Teddy Maxwell matched all her identifying physical characteristics.
An internet search of property records confirmed that the Maxwells purchased a cabin on Seneca Lake just six months before Flora’s disappearance.
A quick flip through Ted’s and Caroline’s passports (recovered from a dresser in their master bedroom) confirmed they had never been to Spain.
And when reached by telephone, your father, József, confirmed several key details in my story—including the make and model of his wife’s Chevy Tahoe, information that was never released to the public.
By seven thirty the next morning, Detective Briggs was going next door to Starbucks to bring me some herbal tea and an egg-and-cheese sandwich. She also invited Adrian to
join us in the interrogation room. He had spent the whole night waiting in the lobby on an uncomfortable metal bench. He hugged me so hard, he lifted me off the floor. And after we both stopped crying, I had to tell him the whole story all over again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner,” he said.
It turned out that Adrian was the person who called 911— after arriving at my cottage and finding Ted Maxwell dead on my floor.
“I never should have gone to Ohio,” he continued. “If I’d stayed with you in Spring Brook, none of this would have happened.”
“Or maybe we’d both be dead. You can’t obsess over what-if scenarios, Adrian. You can’t blame yourself.”
The drive from Seneca Lake to Spring Brook takes about five hours, but that morning your father made the trip in three and a half. I can only imagine what was going through his mind as he barreled down the interstate. Adrian and I were still at the police station, plying ourselves with sugary snacks to stay awake, when your father arrived. I can still remember the precise moment when Detective Briggs led him into the room. He was tall and thin with shaggy hair, an unkempt beard, and deep sunken watery eyes. At first I thought he might be a criminal from a neighboring cell. But he was dressed like a farmer, with work boots and Dickies pants and a button-down flannel shirt. And he knelt down and took my hand and started to cry.
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I could write an entire book about everything that happened next, but I’ll try to keep things brief. You and your father went back to Seneca Lake, and Adrian moved back to New Brunswick to finish his last year at Rutgers. He invited me to come with him, to live rent-free in his apartment while I figured out the next stage of my life. But my whole world
had turned upside down, and I was afraid of making big commitments in a moment of weakness. So I moved to my sponsor’s guest bedroom in Norristown.
You might not think of a sixty-eight-year-old man as the ideal roommate, but Russell was quiet and clean and he kept our pantries stocked with countless varieties of protein powder. I took a job at a running shoe store, just to get some money rolling in. The other employees had a little informal running club and I started going out with them, two or three mornings a week. I found a good church with plenty of twenty- and thirty-something parishioners. I started attending NA meetings again, sharing my stories and experiences with the goal of helping others.
I wanted to visit you in October, for your sixth birthday, but your doctors advised against it. They said you were still too fragile and vulnerable, that you were still “assembling” your true identity. We were allowed to speak on the phone, but only if you initiated the conversation, and you never showed any interest in speaking to me.
Still, your father called once or twice a month to update me on your progress, and we exchanged a lot of emails. I learned that you and your father were sharing a big farmhouse with your aunt and uncle and cousins, and instead of starting kindergarten, you participated in a slew of therapy programs: art therapy, talk therapy, music therapy, puppets and role-playing, the works. Your doctors were astonished by the fact that you had no memory of being roused from bed, dragged into the woods, and pushed up into a tree. They concluded that your brain had repressed these memories as a response to the trauma.
Your father was the only person who knew what really happened in the forest that night. I told him the whole story, and of course it sounds crazy, but once I sent copies of your mother’s drawings, in her inimitable style, he had no doubt I was telling the truth.
Your doctors gave you a very abridged version of the facts. You learned that you were born a girl named Flora and your real parents were József and Margit. You learned that Ted and Caroline were very sick people who made a lot of mistakes, and their biggest mistake was taking you away from your parents. Their second-biggest mistake was dressing you in boy clothes and changing your name from Flora to Teddy. Going forward, the doctors explained, you could choose to be called Flora or Teddy or Some Brand-New Name, and you could choose to dress as a boy or a girl or a little bit of both. No one pressured you to make any quick decisions. You were encouraged to take your time and do whatever felt right. The doctors warned that you would likely spend years grappling with your gender identity, but the doctors were wrong. Within eight weeks you were borrowing your cousin’s dresses and braiding your hair and answering to “Flora,” so there really wasn’t much confusion. Deep down inside, I think you always knew you were a girl.
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A few days before Halloween, I answered the phone and was shocked to hear my mother’s voice. She said my name and immediately burst into tears. Apparently she’d been following our story on the news and she’d spent weeks trying to reach me—but with all my efforts to avoid the media, I’d made myself impossible to find. She said she was proud of me for getting sober, and she missed me and would I please consider coming home for dinner? I kept my composure just long enough to ask “When?” and she said, “What are you doing right now?”
My mother had finally quit smoking and she looked great, and I was surprised to learn that she’d remarried. Her new husband, Tony—the man I’d glimpsed on the ladder, clearing leaves from the gutters—was a gem. They had met in a support group after Tony lost his son to methamphetamines.
He had a good job managing a Sherwin-Williams store and he channeled all his excess energy into home improvement projects. He’d painted every room in the house and repointed all the bricks out front. The bathroom was completely renovated, with a new shower and tub, and my old bedroom had been converted into a fitness room with an exercise bike and a treadmill. The biggest surprise was learning that my mother had started running! All through high school, Beth and I could never drag her off the couch, but now she was pacing nine-minute miles. Now she had Lycra shorts and a Fitbit and everything.
My mother and I sat in the kitchen and talked all afternoon and late into the night. I was prepared to tell her the whole story of the Maxwells, but she already knew most of the details. She had a giant folder stuffed with printouts of stories she’d read on the Internet. She’d clipped every article from the Inquirer and pasted them into a scrapbook. She said she’d become a minor-league celebrity, that all my old neighbors were so proud of me. She’d kept a list of all the people who’d called the house hoping to reconnect with me—friends from high school, old teammates and coaches, my housemates at Safe Harbor. Mom had dutifully recorded all their names and numbers. “You should call these people, Mallory. Let them know how you’re doing. Oh! And I nearly forgot the strangest one!” She crossed the kitchen to her refrigerator and lifted a magnet to retrieve a business card: Dr. Susan Lowenthal at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. “This woman actually knocked on my door! She says she met you in some kind of research project? And she’s spent years trying to track you down. What the heck is she talking about?”
I told her I wasn’t really sure and then I put the card in my wallet and changed the subject. I still haven’t mustered the nerve to call the phone number. I’m not sure I want to hear what Dr. Lowenthal has to tell me. I definitely don’t want any more public attention or celebrity.
Right now, I just want life to be normal.
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By late July—a full year since we left Spring Brook—I was getting ready to move into a sober-living dormitory at Drexel University. I was thirty months clean and feeling great about my recovery. After a year of deliberating next steps, I’d settled on going to college and studying to become a teacher. I wanted to work in elementary education, preferably in a kindergarten classroom. I reached out to your father for the hundredth time and asked if a summer visit might be possible. And this time, miraculously, your doctors said okay. They felt you were adapting well to your new life and agreed it could be healthy for us to reconnect.
Adrian suggested we turn the visit into a vacation—our first big trip together. We’d kept in touch all through the year as he finished his classes at Rutgers. He graduated in May and got a job at Comcast, in one of the big skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia. Adrian proposed that we visit you in upstate New York, then continue north to Niagara Falls and Toronto. He packed a big cooler full of snacks and made a playlist of driving songs and I brought a bag of gifts to share with you.
You lived west of Seneca Lake in a town called Deer Run and your new neighborhood was nothing like Spring Brook. There were no Starbucks or strip malls or big-box stores— just long stretches of forests and farmland, with houses few and far between. The last mile of our trip was down a winding gravel road that led to the gates of Baroth Farms. Your father and uncle raised goats and chickens, and your aunt sold milk, eggs, and cheese to wealthy tourists on the Finger Lakes. Your new home was a sprawling two-story log home with a green shingled roof. Goats were grazing in a nearby pen, and I could hear chickens clucking in the barn.
The whole place felt oddly familiar to me, even though I was certain I’d never been anywhere like it.
“Are you ready?” Adrian asked.
I was too nervous to answer. I just grabbed my bag of gifts, walked up the steps to your front door, and rang the bell. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the shock of seeing you as a little girl. I was afraid of having a weird reaction, something that might embarrass you or me or both of us.
But your father answered. He stepped outside onto the porch and welcomed me with a hug. He’d put on some weight, thank goodness. Maybe fifteen or twenty pounds. He was dressed in crisp denim jeans, a soft flannel shirt, and black boots. He started to shake Adrian’s hand—but then he hugged him, too.
“Come in, come in,” he said, laughing. “It’s good you are here.”
Inside, the house was all warm woods and rustic furniture, with big windows overlooking bright green pastures. Your father led us into the Great Room, a sort of living-room-kitchen-dining-room with a massive stone fireplace and stairs winding up to the second floor. There were playing cards and jigsaw puzzle pieces scattered all over the furniture. Your father apologized for the clutter; he said your aunt and uncle had been called away on a business emergency, and they’d left him with all the children. I could hear everyone playing upstairs, shrieking and laughing, five young voices talking at the same time. Your father seemed exasperated, but I assured him it was fine. I said it was great to know that you had friends.
“I will call Flora soon,” he said. “First, let’s just relax.” He brought out coffee for Adrian and a mug of herbal tea for me. He also set out a platter of tiny pastries stuffed with apricot. “These are kolache,” he said. “Please, take.”
His English had improved tremendously over the past year. He still had an unmistakable accent—“these” sounded
like “deese” and “we’ll” came out “vill”—but for someone who’d only been in the country for a few years, I thought he was doing remarkably well. I noticed a large painting hanging over the fireplace, a still lake on a placid sunny day. I asked if it was your mother’s work and your father said yes, and then he walked us around the Great Room, showing off her other paintings. They were hanging in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the stairwell—all over the house, really. Your mother was very talented, and your father was so proud of her.
I asked if you were still drawing, if you were still interested in art, and your father said no. “The doctors talk about Teddy’s World and Flora’s World. And there is not much overlap. Teddy’s world had swimming pools. Flora’s world has Finger Lakes. Teddy’s world had lots of drawing. Flora’s world has lots of cousins who help raise animals.”
I was a little afraid to ask my next question, but I knew I’d have regrets if I didn’t.
“What about Anya? Is she part of Flora’s world?”
Your father shook his head. “No, Flora does not see her anya anymore.” Just for a moment, I think he sounds disappointed. “But it is better this way, of course. This is how things ought to be.”
I couldn’t really think of how to respond, so I looked outside to a half-dozen goats grazing in the grass. I could still hear your cousins playing upstairs, and suddenly I recognized the pitch and cadence of your voice. You sounded just like I remembered. Your cousins were acting out scenes from The Wizard of Oz. You were Dorothy, and one of your cousins was the mayor of Munchkinland, and she was inhaling helium from a balloon to make her voice sound funny. “Go see the Wizard!” she croaked, and you all exploded with giggles and laughter.
Then all five of you came marching downstairs singing “We’re Off to See the Wizard.” Your oldest cousin was twelve or thirteen and the youngest girl was a toddler and the rest
were somewhere in between. And even though your hair was longer and you were wearing a bright blue dress, I recognized you immediately. Your face was exactly the same. Everything surrounding your face was different—but all the soft sweet features were still there. You were carrying a drum major’s baton and waving it high over your head.
“Flora, Flora, wait!” your father called. “There are guests.
Mallory and Adrian. From New Jersey, remember?”
The other children stopped and gaped at us, but you didn’t make eye contact.
“We’re going outside,” the oldest explained. “We’re going to the Emerald City and she’s Dorothy.”
“Flora can stay,” József said. “Someone else can be Dorothy.”
They all started protesting, listing all the reasons why this was unfair and impractical, but József chased them out the door. “Flora stays. The rest of you come back later. Half hour. Go play outside.”
You sat beside your father on the couch but still wouldn’t look at me. It was really remarkable how a blue dress and slightly longer hair shifted my entire perception of you. Just a few subtle cues and my brain did the rest of the work, flipping all the switches. You used to be a boy. Now, you were a girl.
“Flora, you look beautiful,” I said.
“Muy bonita,” Adrian said. “You remember me, too, right?”
You nodded but kept your eyes on the floor. It reminded me of meeting you for the first time, during my job interview. You were drawing on your sketch pad, refusing to make eye contact. And I had to work a little bit to coax you into a conversation. It felt like we were two strangers again, like we were starting over.
“I heard you’re starting first grade next month. Are you excited?”
You just shrugged.
“I’m starting school, too. I’m going to be a freshman in college. At Drexel University. I’m going to study education and become a kindergarten teacher.”
Your father seemed genuinely happy for me. He said, “That’s good news!” and he spoke for several minutes about studying agriculture back in Hungary, at the University of Kaposvár. And I felt like he was overcompensating, trying to talk over all the awkward silences.
So I tried a different approach.
“I brought presents.” I passed my shopping bag across the room, and I swear I’ve never seen a child look so afraid to receive gifts. You actually backed away from the bag, like you thought it might be full of snakes.
“Flora, this is good,” your father said. “Open the bag, please.”
You pulled the wrapping paper off the first package—a box of watercolor pencils in a spectrum of colors. I explained that they worked like regular pencils, but if you added a drop of water you could brush the color around, and the effect was a bit like painting. “The lady at the art store said they’re really fun. In case you want to try drawing again.”
“And beautiful colors,” your father said. “What a nice, thoughtful gift!”
You smiled and said “thank you” and then ripped the wrapping paper off the next gift—six waxy yellow fruits nestled in a box of white tissue paper.
You just stared at me, waiting for an explanation.
“Don’t you remember, Flora? They’re star fruits. From the grocery store. Remember the day we bought a star fruit?” I turned to your father. “Some days we would walk to the supermarket for Morning Activity, and I would let Flora buy anything she wanted. Any one food item, but it had to be a food we’d never tried before, and it had to cost less than five dollars. So one day she picked out a star fruit. And we thought it was incredible! It was the best thing we’d ever tasted!”
Only then did you finally start nodding, like the story sounded familiar, but I wasn’t sure if you really remembered. And by this point I felt embarrassed. I wanted to take back the tote bag—I really didn’t want you to open the last gift—but it was too late. You yanked off the paper and revealed a small booklet called MALLORY’S RECIPES that I printed up at a copy shop. I had typed up the ingredients and instructions for all the desserts we’d made together— the cupcakes and the cream cheese brownies, the magic cookie bars and the homemade chocolate pudding. “In case you ever want to have them again. In case you want to try any of our old favorites.”
And you said thank you, very politely, but I could tell the book would be put away on a shelf and never touched.
Suddenly, it was painfully clear to me why your doctors didn’t want me to visit—it was because you didn’t want me to visit. You were trying to forget me. You didn’t really know what happened in Spring Brook—but you knew it was bad, you knew the subject made grown-ups uncomfortable, you knew people were happier discussing other things. So you were moving on, you were adapting to your new life. And with a stunning shock of clarity, I realized I would never be part of it.
The front door swung open and your cousins came marching back into the house, triumphantly singing “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead!” as they stomped upstairs to the second floor. You turned to your father with a pleading expression and his face turned pink. He was mortified. “This is very rude,” he whispered. “Mallory and Adrian drove a long way to see us. They brought you very generous gifts.”
But I decided to let you off the hook.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t mind. I’m glad you have so many friends, Flora. It makes me really happy. You should go upstairs and play with them. And good luck in first grade, okay?”
You smiled and said, “Thanks.”
And I would have appreciated a hug, too, but I had to settle for a quick wave from across the room. Then you bounded upstairs after your cousins and I could hear you gleefully joining them for the final lyric, shouting over all their voices: “Ding-dong, the wicked witch is deeeeeeead!” And then you all exploded with shrieks and laughter while your father stared at his boots.
He offered us more tea and coffee and said he hoped we would still stay for lunch. He explained that your aunt Zoe had made paprikas, a kind of goat stew served with egg noodles. But I said we should probably get going. I explained that we were driving to Canada, that we were visiting Niagara Falls and Toronto. Adrian and I lingered just long enough to be polite, and then we gathered our things.
Your father could tell I was disappointed. “We can try again in a few years,” he promised. “After she gets older. After she knows the whole story. I know she will have questions, Mallory.”
I thanked him for allowing me to visit. Then I kissed him on the cheek and wished him good luck.
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Once we were outside, Adrian put his arm around my waist. “It’s okay,” I told him. “I’m fine.”
“She seems great, Mallory. She looks happy. She’s on a beautiful farm with family and nature. It’s gorgeous here.”
And I knew this was all true, but still.
I guess I’d hoped for something different.
We followed the winding gravel driveway back to Adrian’s truck. He walked around to the driver’s side and unlocked the doors. And I was reaching for the handle when I heard soft footsteps running up behind me and I felt the full force of your body slamming into my hips. I turned around and you wrapped your arms around my waist, burying your face
in my belly. You didn’t say anything but you didn’t need to. And I’ve never been more grateful for a hug.
Then you broke away and ran back to your house, but not before pushing a folded sheet of paper into my hands— one last drawing to say goodbye. And that was the last time I ever saw you.
But I know your father is right.
Some day in the future, ten or twenty years from now, you will become curious about your past. You will read the Wikipedia article about your abduction, you will discover all the rumors surrounding your case, you may even spot one or two inconsistencies in the official police report. You might wonder how the Maxwells fooled so many people for so long, or how a twenty-one-year-old addict pieced together the whole puzzle. You’re going to have questions about what really happened in Spring Brook.
And when that day comes, this book will be waiting. I’ll be waiting, too.
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