“Coming back?”
He answers extra slow, wants me to absorb every word. “That he wasn’t alive.”
“But how could you be positive if no one ever found him?
“Same way I know there’s no Santa Claus, no tooth fairy. I grew up, Teddi. I recognized the stupidity of hope. Stopped wasting my time on the impossible.”
“But, Micah, it is possible. Corey could be—”
“Are you crazy? It’s almost nine years.” He looms so close to the screen I can see red squiggles in the whites of his eyes.
Gripping the corners of the laptop, I lift Micah’s face even closer and say, “It’s possible! Those women in Cleveland were missing more than ten years! But they came home!”
Leaning back, he folds his arms across his chest. “Different story, different ending.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I told you, I got past it. And I don’t need some shit pep talk or whatever this is. My brother’s dead. I’ve made peace. If me and my mother can put him to rest, you ought to be able to do the same.”
“I can’t give up on Corey. Not yet. Why are you so sure he’s . . . gone?”
“Dead, Teddi. Not gone. Dead. Corey is dead. You believe what you need to, but leave us out of it. My brother is dead. I just know.”
My screen goes black. He’s slammed the laptop, the way he slammed the door on possibility. It’s not hard to see why. I busted into his life through memory’s mist, reopening a wound that—no matter how he might argue—is incapable of healing.
23
I drag my broken spirit upstairs. On the bed, I rock and hum, anything to tune him out, but Micah’s voice drills through my brain. I refuse to accept what he said. I’d know if Corey were truly gone, I’d sense it. But when I think of him, it’s as if he’s right here, sure, out of reach, but vivid. Alive.
Treading a sea of emotion, I submerge consciousness in loud music and memory foam. Earbuds snug, I sandwich my head between pillows. It’s a valiant attempt, except most of what I’m trying to seal out is already inside my skull.
One benefit of faux hibernation: Brenda steers clear when she finally rolls in around two. I sense her for a moment, lingering outside my bedroom. But from her perspective, the swaddled hump must appear to be sleeping, so she drifts away, wordless. I hear her creak back downstairs; the TV comes on. Small favors.
We haven’t spoken much since her return from the land of maple syrup. According to her brief description, Vermont was marked by neither catastrophe nor epiphany. She’s resigned to third-wheel status with Mandy and Dev.
No doubt, she drank her fill; she slept most of that first day back, couch-snoring loud enough to keep Binks in perpetual agitation. This whole week, she’s been powered down. Not sure whether she’s depressed or exhausted. Selfishly, I have no desire to find out. She’s easier to take at half mast, and I’ve got enough going on without Brenda’s emotions seasoning the mix.
Although I’d been worked up over it while she was gone, asking about the journal passage seems pointless now. Even if she remembers muddy flip-flops, scalding bathwater, liquor in the giraffe mug, I doubt she’ll give a straight answer. The truth matters, but it looks like I’ll need to uncover it alone. Which is handy, because, honestly, who else have I got?
“Joy the Troll.” It’s Mirror Teddi. I roll over to tune her out.
Her intentions are pure, but she’s been interfering all night, and I’m not amused.
She does have a point, though. Joy—okay, Ed—would take me seriously. I know I could trust him to help shoulder this load. He seems to genuinely care about me, shows not a hint of Aidanesque kick-start temper.
“Yish, Aidan. This might be a good time to call him. To resolve the whole kiss business.”
“I wonder, Miss Buttinski, if you might allow me to wallow in private—maybe get a little sleep.”
Silence.
Great, now she’s mad. Emerging from pillow cave, I waggle fingers at my reflection and whisper an apology.
Plucking out my earbuds, I slide them onto the nightstand. Then, lids sinking, I drift.
Sleep’s an elusive beast. I finally spot her stooped in the clouded corner. I can’t make out her features; they’re in constant motion, a shifting mask composed of many elements: Corey, Aidan, Fawn.
The creature, strangely entrancing, draws me close. I feel no fear as she takes my hand.
Hers is an odd composite of paw and paddle. As she grasps my wrist, I shiver at her fingers, wet-tacky. Bringing her hand to my face, I study the glistening digits, just four, webbed, with slightly bulbous ends. She touches my cheek. I feel a slight pluck, the tips adhering briefly to my skin.
Shimmering, she darts away, and I track her antlered form. I know where we’re headed. But the journey is new. Where I’d ordinarily open my closet and stoop through the tiny door, access now requires passage down a corridor of gloom and leaf.
When she speaks, it’s as if her voice—a trilling croak—originates within my head. Sounds twirl like smoke, forming word-shapes. Really, a single word, repeated: “Follow.”
I do and, pelt rustling, she guides me through fringes of frond and vine. The path is straight, paved with scuffed checkerboard tiles. I note streaks of mud—and darker stuff. The smeared flip-flop tracks make me tremor. She draws me close, whispers, “Steady.”
As we travel the path, branches part, beckoning. I marvel at the vines and trunks as they curl against themselves, creating sinuous letterforms.
I say, “The woods are writing,” and my companion nods.
But when I pause to puzzle meaning from the barky script, she urges me forward. Training hazel eyes on mine, she says, “Your story lives here, but only you can write it.”
“Eleanor?”
Shushing me, the creature draws back, face cloaked in sheets of alder.
And I’m alone.
Then, from farther along the path, her voice summons. “Your answers lie this way.”
I spot three figures. Before they swim into focus, I know. It’s Corey, Fawn, Younger Me. They twirl, wrists linked, squealing. It’s some game, and their laughter calms me—until they chant, “All fall down!”
Springing forward, to warn them of acid ground, I scream, “Stay on the rocks, the roots!” Beside me again, sticky fingers smoothing my brow, my guide says, “They can’t hear.”
As I walk past, the children fall silent, palms raised in greeting. When I reach for them, they recoil, shrink, reappearing ahead.
We arrive in the storage area, but it’s morphed, a fusion of real—stacked boxes, exposed two-by-fours—and imagined. Impossibly, the entire park’s enclosed in this abandoned room.
The children’s tracks stop short at chain link.
Pool fence rises.
Grasping metal, fingers curled through wire diamonds, I mean to climb. But, looking upward, I see the fence has no end. Against the black above, a form spins, suspended. Face barely visible through a mask of spider silk, Aidan’s mouth hangs slack. But I hear his silent plea, at nerve level repeating, “Save me, Teddi.”
Willa and Nic hang beside him, each in a separate casing, asleep. Calling their names, I begin scaling, but the fence extends, lifts my friends from sight. Falling, sobbing, I sink through soaked earth.
More sensed than seen, my guide materializes again. Caressing my shoulder in comfort, she says, “Don’t let them distract you. These threads are unimportant.”
It should be impossible for me to leave them, dangling in danger, but her touch soothes. Directing attention within the fence, I anticipate pool water, rippling in the floodlight beam, but reality tricks expectation. The deck fragments, cement heaving into bands of mud and vegetation. The scent’s all wrong, too, not chlorine, but a gassy-wet aura, the steamed-cabbage stink of pond.
Palms to fence, I reel forward as the links dissolve. Shocked, I’m standing mid-pond. Water bugs dash arrows, leading me toward the rectangular bulk at the stagnant center.
Waves lap
my ankles as Eli’s car surfaces. At first, it looks hazy, but that’s because it’s the exact scuz shade of pond slime. Rolling upright, the car floats closer, back fender brushing my hip. The driver-side doors seem to pulse as rivers of shadow spill down them, sending rings across pond skin.
Catching my reflection in the side window—warped, dull—I’m not surprised to discover I’m wearing my Scooby tank. I step closer, then stop, thrown by a metallic click as the trunk lifts. As tentacles of unease tighten, I seek assurance from my escort. She’s gone.
Fear somehow dragging me, I lean into the trunk, curious at movement. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m elbow-deep in goo. Drawing back, I puzzle at the brown mess that slicks my forearms, horrified to see tadpoles, hundreds, stuck to my skin in wriggling sleeves. Retching, I pluck them off, ignoring the squish as I pull them free.
About to plunge under to clean the remaining slime, I find I’m no longer standing in water, but seated in the backseat of Eli’s car. He’s up front; his ice eyes track me in the rearview. The seatback’s transparent. Through it, I see the horror inked into his back, the slobbering wolf’s head, its ram horns, and red, red eyes.
Turning toward me, Eli leers. “Where to?”
“Home?” I’m simultaneously reassured to hear Corey’s rasp and reluctant to face him. Scared what I’ll find, I cover my eyes.
When I finally look, it’s not Corey at all, but his old backpack. The zipper tempts me; dread prevents me looking inside. I shove the bag to the floor. When I pull my hand back, it’s thick with blood. Rubbing it against the cracked seat, I jump at a sudden rap on the window.
Through smeary glass, I see her, my guide. Arms extended, she gestures me outside.
Swinging the heavy door, I step warily, bare feet pricked by coarse cement. Pool deck. I spin in a quick circle to find her, but again, I’m alone. Then I notice the petite figure in the shallow end. Pool Girl.
I call out, but she doesn’t react, simply continues her slow ascent of the stairs. I move backward across the deck. Hand extended behind me, I fumble for the fence.
She steps onto concrete, a train of dark slickness trailing her small form.
Fear-numbed, I twine fingers through the wire diamonds of chain link. As the child glides closer, glistening in the security beam, details swim into focus. Weed-draped, hunched, she leaks a new malevolence. My nostrils fill with pond odor—mud and broccoli—as she nears. I can’t look away, though I’m terrified to see her face.
Head down, features obscured by snarled hair, the thing gropes toward me. I see the yellowed workings of bare knuckles, flesh hung in strips below her wrists, forearms bloated, blackened. I’m unable to release my grip, despite fence wire beginning to slice my palms.
Bone fingers fanning toward me, the girl clutches at my neck. Terror blocks my esophagus, until I realize she’s come to claim the daisy. This low drone, an insect lullaby, vibrates in my head. As she lifts my hair, a flat calm, a sense of connection, overcomes me. Freeing the charm from beneath my shirt, she clasps it to her chest.
The hum in my ears crescendos into a cicada buzz as her head lifts. Fearing her face, I train eyes on the sandaled feet—so familiar. When she whispers, “Mama,” I’m powerless. Looking up, I see.
The slim body.
The Scooby shirt.
Her bloodied palms.
As her blond hair falls back, I find myself in her face—I’m seven, eyes wild, horror-glazed.
I shriek awake.
Confused, I realize I’m at the foot of Brenda’s empty bed. My feet are wet, urine puddled between them. Binks shivers next to me; the low whine seeping from him is identical to my own.
Before I can buckle to the floor, I grip Brenda’s iron footboard, steadying. My other hand seeks the flower shape where it hangs between my breasts. For a crazy moment, I’m sure it’s gone, that Pool Girl did reclaim it. Calming, I realize the daisy’s merely flipped around, dangling down my back.
Approaching the bureau, I see her for a breath’s length, peering out from my sockets. Touching the mirror cheek, I whisper, “My God, Pool Girl is Little Teddi. She’s me.” With cold fingers I stroke my own face, speak into my curled fist. “I’m her.”
24
Staring at the screen, awash in infomercial static, I chase oblivion. What I really crave is sleep. But it’s no use. When Brenda came upstairs to find me by her bed, it was like a stranger had pushed open my stall door mid-pee.
Luckily, in her typical, postwork state of marination, Brenda’s question—“Wha’ the hell’s goin’ on here?”—was easily addressed. I’m not proud to say I pinned the puddle on Binks.
After a quick mop-up, I fled to my room. Brain on code red, I alternated between pacing and lying open-eyed for the next few hours. After witnessing sunrise, I slid into oblivion ’til late afternoon. By the time I woke, Binks had wet the floor. Out of bladder-panic or simple payback, I don’t know. Either way, I couldn’t fault him.
Brenda and I finally crossed paths this evening as she left for work. She made me promise to “keep a closer eye on that friggin’ dog,” adding, “Little pisser can’t be trusted.” I nodded, said I planned on staying in tonight.
And so, here I sit, hours later, plastered to screen, trying to numb my head. No luck. When Micah’s words cease replaying, I obsess over Pool Girl, trying to comprehend what it might mean, how she could be me.
And then there’s Gordy. If I blink, or my focus strays from the television, I’m instantly fixed on that damned frog drawing, wondering how Tia could know. If it is Corey trying to contact me, does that mean what his brother said is true? That he’s really . . . gone?
The minute I succeed at banishing Gordy, Fawn’s face intrudes. She’s waving Corey and me away. And then, as we run, her scream slices through the woods.
Corey and I never saw Fawn—or Eli—after that. And we promised we’d never tell what we did see. Not ever. To anyone. But I needed to tell. Climb into Mama’s lap and speak it out, so she could help. Could report it. Tell the cops a girl named Fawn was in danger.
But when I got home that day, Brenda was in a rough way. I crept in to find her at the kitchen table, a metal box spilling relics, photos spread out like solitaire.
When I asked, “What’s that, Mama, what are you looking at?” she knelt on the floor beside me. She’d been crying, and she just kept repeating, “Baby, it’s you and me. All we’ll ever need. Just you and me.”
I tried to look at the pictures, but she swept them back into the box.
Knees to chest, I lean against the couch pillow, shut my eyes. When I do, it’s there, as if it’s sprouted from nothing, on the coffee table. The metal box.
Open eyes bringing absence, I say, “I have to find it.”
I’m not sure why, but I know with a certainty I haven’t felt in days. The lockbox. It holds answers.
Jumping from the couch, I’m newly energized. It’s twelve thirty. Brenda won’t be home for a couple hours. Binks groans. Tossing him Cinnamon Girl, I say, “Get busy, pal.” Then I head up to Brenda’s room.
It’s a mess, as usual, but that could work to my advantage. I doubt she’ll have any idea if I disrupt things, and I can always claim I was tidying, to make up for Binks’s accident. Can’t fault a girl for housework.
Brenda used to keep the box on the bottom shelf of her bedside table. I can picture it so vividly. Sometimes in the wee hours, cutting through her room to pee, I’d catch her on the bed, sifting contents. She’d shoot me an aggravated look, then lob some remark about my erratic sleep habits. And she’d always snap the lid shut ’til I left.
But it hasn’t been on the shelf for a while. That space is now her go-to for stashing empties. I check the obvious places: closet shelf, beneath the bed, bureau drawers. The box is nowhere. Surveying the room a final time, I realize how sad, how small the boundaries of my mother’s universe have become.
Crossing to the door, I take one last look back, landing on the framed photo atop Brenda’s dress
er. It’s a picture from her high school graduation. She’s legit happy in her wrinkled maroon robe. Giving a thumbs-up with her left hand, she balances ten-month-old Teddi on her hip.
Red-faced, the baby squints, mouth in a stop-action yowl. I imagine the looks Brenda must have gotten. From teachers. From other kids’ parents. And, of course, from her own. It had to be a complicated commencement day. Then, right after, Papa bailed.
I wonder if Donor Dad was the one who took this pic. As many times as I’ve seen the photo, I’ve never imagined him snapping it. That could explain her genuine smile. Sad.
All right, I don’t have time for second-hand sentiment. Replacing the frame, I knead my forehead, hoping to activate intuition. I’ve got to zero in, picture where those other photographs might be.
As soon as the image infiltrates my head, I wish to dismiss it, because if I’m right, retrieving the strongbox will require another expedition through my closet portal. And I’m not sure I can venture into the realm of the spiders again.
I mentally scramble to block the afterimage, but it ignites the back of my eyelids bright as neon: marker-inscribed labels—SCRAPBOOKS/PHOTOS/JUNK—scrawled in Brenda’s angry hand on a pair of cardboard boxes in the unfinished storeroom. I see them stacked against the wall, wedged between my old dollhouse and Pharaoh the bouncy horse.
Terror pins me, hunkering, to the wall. Listing all the reasons I shouldn’t set foot in the storeroom, I fail to talk myself out of needing the metal box. If I’m right about my connection to Pool Girl, I doubt I’ll see her again. But I can’t help imagining her—or worse, Eli—waiting, eager, swathed in dark.
Finally, a wet nose punctures my fright shell. It’s Binks between my feet, gazing up. As I tousle his head, he yips, nudges my shin as if to say, Stop stalling, Teddi. Man up, now. It’s pretty bad when your cockapoo calls you out as a coward.
“You’re right, big guy. I can do this.”
Trudging to my room, I snatch a bucket hat off the hook by my mirror, mound my hair atop my head, and cram the hat over it, hoping to keep eight-legged interlopers at bay. Then I scoop house keys from my dresser.
The Precious Dreadful Page 16