A Guide for Murdered Children

by Sarah Sparrow

  Rhonda raised his hand and she called on him.

  “There’s something I’m really struggling with, Annie. I can’t quite . . . It’s something I’m trying very hard to understand. Not so much to understand, but to—” His voice trailed to a whisper as he looked at his feet. “I’m trying to remember how I was killed.”

  A few in the group audibly gasped. His frankness jolted but at the same time was cathartic, because many had had the same thought but weren’t courageous enough to give it voice.

  “Thank you, Rhonda,” said Annie. “How long have you been with us, about three months now?” Her delivery was matter-of-fact.

  “Ninety-five days,” he said.

  “Three months is about right for that particular question.”

  Was the Porter rattled by what Rhonda had asked? It seemed like she was but Lydia couldn’t be sure. When Annie began a worrisomely prolonged cough, she brought her a glass of water.

  “You may never know,” said the Porter, after she’d taken a few gulps and sufficiently recovered. “You may never have the answer, Rhonda, or learn the details of how you died. What I can tell you is that sometimes—quite often, actually—such knowledge comes at the moment of balance.”

  “That’s so unfair!” cried Rhonda, sounding for all the world like a little boy being deprived of a puppy. “It just seems so important!”

  “Seems so important,” said Annie, putting on her wisdom smile. “I suggest, Rhonda—I suggest to all of you that you don’t waste time and energy trying to remember those terrible details. They’ll either come back or they won’t, but really have no importance. Why would you want to know? I think it’s merciful you don’t. That’s my belief.”

  “But what happens,” said Lydia, the words erupting from her throat, “if we never find the people who did this to us? What happens if there is no moment of balance?”

  Annie wasn’t prepared to respond. It was a riddle she made note to mull over later—not the question per se (she had asked her mentor the same thing during her apprenticeship), but that it’d been asked by one of the train children. It was one more thing the Porter had never encountered and she put it in the “haywire” file.

  José piped in.

  “You said the moment of balance comes in three or four months, but Dabba Doo’s been here for seven. Is he having trouble? I mean, finding the responsible party?”

  The eyes of the room fell upon Dabba Doo, who looked bereft. Maya thought it quite rude of José to have spoken about her new friend in such a way—as if he wasn’t there.

  “First of all,” Annie said sternly, “we do not discuss other individuals during the Meeting! That’s called ‘cross-talk.’ We don’t stick our noses in business that’s not our own. Is that understood?” José shook his head contritely. “The last thing I will say on the topic is that it takes as long as it takes—and that’s everything you need to know. This isn’t a competition! And Maya, in response to your question, all I can say is that I’ve been doing this a very long time and what you asked about has simply never happened. There is always the moment of balance.”

  Lydia smiled nervously (Maya had receded for the moment), not wishing to get on Annie’s bad side. Troy supportively put his hand on his little sister’s.

  “All right, let’s move on. As some of you get closer to fulfilling your purpose, there’s much to cover. And we have a birthday today! José’s time is done and he’ll be leaving us.”

  The group broke into congratulatory applause, which was more about getting to eat chocolate cake than it was about saying goodbye to one of their own.

  2.

  The high school was buzzing with the news of Winston Collins, whose disappearance was trending on social media. He was a student at the Mount Clemens Montessori Academy, only a few miles away.

  Honeychile said nothing about her connection to Mrs. Collins and her missing son, not even to Zelda. Her anguish was multiplied—not only did she feel an overwhelming sense of guilt for having banished Hildy from her life, but she also vividly remembered meeting Winston on her first visit to the house. She’d been so happy to be invited! It was a privilege not extended to all of Hildy’s “children,” and she and Winston played well together. Honeychile was seven and he was four. While he tried explaining to her what he’d been building with his Legos, Honeychile’s driver, a volunteer from Children’s Services, helped Mrs. Collins prepare an array of treats in the kitchen.

  As hard as it was, she decided to smooth things over with her BFF and apologize for being such a bitch. They arranged a sleepover, this time at Zelda’s. Honeychile said that she had an “extracurricular activity” in mind during tomorrow’s school field trip to the city, a plan that per usual was shrouded in secrecy. The truth was that Honeychile couldn’t have told Zelda what she was up to, because the plan was obscure to her as well.

  “Tomorrow?” said Zelda.

  A busload of freshmen were being taken to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

  “Yup. We’re gonna go AWOL.”

  “Oh my God, we can’t, Honey. They’ll expel us—”

  “No they won’t. They won’t even know we’re gone.”

  “What are we going to do? Are we going to the movies?”

  “Fuck no. Movies are so boring!” said Honeychile.

  “Since when do you think movies are boring?”

  She was right—movies were Honeychile’s big love. She could sit in the den for hours on end watching old films on the Turner channel. But since the asthma attack, Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Dinosaur Train and SpongeBob SquarePants had supplanted the Technicolor TCM classics. Which puzzled Zelda, but her BFF was nothing if not unpredictable.

  It was one more thing she loved about her.

  * * *

  • • •

  Honeychile stood mesmerized in front of a giant painting called Massacre of the Innocents, by an artist called Rubens. Infants were being stomped and slaughtered and she wondered why on Earth it was happening and who the hell had let it. She actually became furious. She wanted to enter the roiling, chaotic, color-saturated image and intervene, but felt a persistent tug at her shirt—Zelda was saying it was lunchtime and they had to go, because everyone was making their way toward the cafeteria.

  After the teachers’ head count, Honeychile seized the moment and told Zelda to follow her to the bathroom—

  And suddenly, they were outside in the bright sun.

  With the efficiency of a soldier in a military operation, Honeychile hailed a cab, yanking in her startled BFF. She handed the driver a slip of paper. As he punched it into his GPS, Zelda, pale as a ghost, kept saying Oh my God under her breath. She was numb, afraid, titillated. They were in the taxi for seven minutes but to Zelda it felt like a century. Honeychile gave the man money and leapt out, not waiting for change. Zelda was paralyzed until her friend shouted, “Come on!”

  When she caught up, Honeychile was standing stock-still, staring up at the stone church. She took off again and Zelda followed her through the portico.

  “What is this?” she said. “Where are we?”

  Honeychile was oblivious, pausing again at the stone arch of a hallway of rooms before dashing forward again. An odd-looking young man in a loud tie and threadbare, short-sleeved shirt waylaid them as she entered the corridor.

  “I’m sorry, but this is a private event.”

  “This is not private!” said Honeychile. “This is a public space.”

  “You can’t come in. It’s by invitation only.”

  “And who the fuck are you?” she said, while Zelda nervously hung back.

  “I’m Bumble. And I’m the sentry, for your information.”

  “Well, buzz off, Bumble—” She tried moving past him but he blocked her way. “You cannot do that!” said Honeychile, outraged.

  “What is going on?” whispered Zelda, terrified
. “Honeychile, we are trespassing. We could get arrested!”

  “We are not trespassing! Stop being such a wuss! We have every right to be here and Bumblebee here knows it.”

  She flung a look of utter contempt at the sentry, who grimaced. There was no way he was going to let this child get the better of him. They literally began to scuffle—with a shocked Zelda attempting to wrestle her friend away—when a door to one of the rooms of the corridor opened and a woman appeared.

  “It’s all right, Bumble,” she said coolly to the flustered, resolute young man. “I’ll take care of it.”

  He begged off. When she looked at Honeychile, the Porter’s features softened but she couldn’t shake a residue of surprise.

  “He said I wasn’t invited,” said the girl. “But you said I was, in the dream. I’m Honeychile Devonshire and I’m invited!”

  “Yes, you are. And I’m so glad you found your way.”

  Zelda muttered, What the fuck?—soft enough not to offend.

  “The Meeting’s nearly over,” said Annie. “But you’re welcome to join us.”

  Honeychile triumphantly walked toward the open door before turning to her BFF. “Come on.” Now it was Annie’s turn to block entry. Honeychile instinctively knew the formidable woman wasn’t to be trifled with; there would be no tussle, as with the short-sleeved boy.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Honeychile.

  “I’m afraid your friend has to wait here.”

  “What do you mean? She’s with me.”

  “Bumble was correct in saying that the Meeting is by invitation only. You’re invited but your friend is not.”

  “If she can’t come, then I won’t.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  She continued with her tantrum but Annie was unyielding.

  Well, this was certainly a new wrinkle. The world was playing by haywire rules now, of which several indicators gave proof. In the Porter’s experience, landlords were never younger than, say, twenty (a rarity, at that; the oldest had been seventy-three). But the one who called herself Honeychile couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Far more disconcerting was that she was the same ungainly child Annie had been grappling with on the train! The children in the cabins were always in the form they’d been in at the time of their death; that one of them would show up in this world, in that same form, without a landlord’s loaned body, was incomprehensible. The queerest thing of all was that Annie had been expecting her—which was the reason she’d changed the time of the Meeting to lunch hour. She didn’t have a real understanding of why, but realized now it was to accommodate the girl’s school-day schedule.

  The question remained:

  Was she a murdered child? Or an adult, recently deceased?

  The whole little melodrama was baffling, yet Annie knew from experience there was nothing to do but acquiesce. And better the prideful, stubborn girl huff away than make a further scene. A troublesome thought intruded—that the Meeting and its location were no longer secure.

  “Come on, Zelda,” snarled Honeychile. “We’re going back!”

  (And they did, arriving unnoticed just as the students were finishing lunch. The girls had hardly been away thirty minutes.)

  While the others at the Meeting had timidly remained in their seats, frightened by the loud voices outside, Maya crept to the doorway to see what was going on. The feisty, peculiar-looking interloper captivated her in the same manner as Dabba Doo. Annie watched the diminutive girl sprint away, tagged after by her bewildered friend. Then, like a mother, the Porter straightened Bumble’s tie and thanked him, apologizing for the visitor’s rudeness.

  “She’ll get her manners back in time,” she said.

  The sentry was already over it, prideful about having faithfully discharged his duties. “She better!” he said, with a snort.

  Annie turned to see Maya standing in the door. She smiled and held out an arm, shepherding her in.

  As the Meeting resumed, Annie’s thoughts played lightly over the eventful hour. It had only been at the last minute, leaving the SRO, that she’d had the impulse to prepare a Guide for the “angry girl” from the train. (She had visited her every night in the cabin for a week now, and there was only marginal improvement in her rebellious behavior.) Finally, Annie was forced to shove the coaster with the address of the Divine Child Parish into the pocket of Honeychile’s robe. The Porter wouldn’t have been surprised if she turned out to be a mirage or an aberration, disappearing one night from the train as mysteriously as she had arrived—so obviously a part of “haywire” and all. She hadn’t really expected her to ever make it to the Meeting . . . but if she did, Annie never imagined the girl herself would come, in that body, that train body, and not in the form of whatever adult would be hosting her. The children from the other side simply couldn’t exist in this world without that protective shell.

  If the girl wasn’t a child of the train and if she wasn’t a landlord—meaning, not dead—how had it been possible for her to board? The Porters were the only living ones allowed. What was she, then? With that haunting, recurrent thought, an unexpected voice rose from Annie’s depths to thoroughly confuse her:

  She’s a mutation, neither landlord nor child. Some sort of hybrid—

  Just before the Lord’s Prayer, she announced to everyone that the location of the Meeting would have to be changed. She said that Bumble would let them know and gave no explanation.

  Everyone filed out.

  Bumble was stacking his last chair—the only one that remained vacant during the Meeting. He picked up the pamphlet resting there and handed it to his Porter. Annie no longer knew if it was meant for the enigma that called itself Honeychile. She’d written Winston on the cover, with a gold star dotting the i. Alongside, she’d whimsically written a word to personalize it (as she had with Lydia’s unicorn), though she didn’t know what it meant:

  Rise

  book two

  The Spirit Room

  Rule Number Seven: You will have many questions, but please do NOT involve THOSE OUTSIDE THE GROUP in any dialogue about these very PRIVATE issues. PLEASE WRITE DOWN ON PAPER any questions you may have and SAVE THEM FOR THE MEETING. (PS! When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s always good to work. Most of you have employment . . . jobs can be a WONDERFUL distraction!!!)

  —from the Guidebook

  MOVING DAY

  1.

  After his heart-to-heart with Owen, he would have preferred going home, but the couple insisted he crash in the guest room. Adelaide said, “It’ll give us a reason to unbox one of our magic Internet mattresses—otherwise, it might sit there for months.” He was brutally fatigued and it made perfect sense to him to pass out on a Casper because he felt like a baby ghost himself. For the first time in weeks, his sleep was dreamless.

  Willow awakened late in the afternoon, mulling over the eerie circumstances that brought him to the house in Armada. He patted himself on the back—if he couldn’t, who could?—marveling at the ingenuity of his spontaneous amends. Got myself out of some serious shit right there. An unfortunate side effect of his actions was that he was forced to make amends to Adelaide as well.

  That was tough but he took one for the team.

  He splashed water on his face and thought about taking a shower, but that just didn’t feel right. Addie must have heard the flush. She tapped on the door and said, “Soup’s on!”

  Willow let her serve him. It was the most marvelous thing in the world to feel zero acrimony toward this woman, almost like a complete absence of personal history. It was a turn-on. He may as well have been an exhausted firefighter being served by a MILF whose house he’d helped save.

  “Pace knows you’re here?”

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “But she gave you our address—which is fine, by the way . . .”

  “She didn’t.”

  �
��Okay,” said Adelaide skeptically. “Then how—”

  “I can find stuff out. I’m a detective, remember?” he said impishly. “Was a detective, anyway. Who’s about to be one again. Allegedly.”

  “Kind of amazing, huh?”

  “And hey—thank you, Adelaide.”

  “For?”

  “I’m assuming the whole Cold Case thing wasn’t Owen’s idea.”

  “That’s one hundred percent not true.”

  “So you didn’t plant a seed that became a mighty oak?”

  “I’m all thumbs. And they ain’t green, my friend.”

  “Well, thank you anyway. It’s coming at a good time for me, Addie. I mean, a not-so-good time that might have a shot at becoming a good one again.”

  “I’m so glad about that, Willow. I really am. You know, I always wanted the best for you. Contrary to your beliefs.”

  “Sorry I was such an asshole, kid.”

  “Can you stop with the amends already?” After a moment, she said, “But Jesus, you were.” She laughed, a little too long. The laugh that was once so sexy to him.

  Still was . . .

  He got shy, clammed up and ate his eggs. She nibbled on some fruit and they sat awhile, enjoying the anomalous company. Willow thought: This is what it would look like if we were still together. A sleepy kitchen morning.

  “How’s work?” he said.

  “Great! I kind of run oncology now.”

  “Pace mentioned that.”

  “I know more than the doctors,” she said pridefully. “At least that’s what the doctors tell me.”

  “Got ’em wrapped around your un-green thumb, huh?”

  “That’s me, Dub. I just stick it out like a hitchhiker and bam.” She watched him finish his meal, noting a daintiness, which touched her. The moment and certainly all the years had humbled him. “Guess you’ll be looking for a place in Macomb?”