by Amy Cross
Eleven years ago
It's midnight. Wide awake in bed, I stare up at the ceiling. The whole room is a kind of dark blue, thanks to the pale moonlight that's streaming in through the window. My father closed the curtains, but I opened them again as soon as he left the room. I don't like being in the dark; I prefer it when I can see the sky. Of course, I should be asleep, especially as I've got school tomorrow morning. Every time I close my eyes, though, I see Martina's face when she opened the shoebox. I'd been so sure she'd scream like a cartoon character; instead, it was as if all the color and energy drained from her face. Next, I think of her opening her glove compartment and being startled by the jack-in-the-box. Would she know it was me who put it there? In her final moments, would she realize it was all my fault?
Somewhere in the distance, I hear the phone ringing. I stay in bed as my father's footsteps head downstairs, and I listen to his muffled voice talking to someone. I know what he's planning; he's going to sign me up to spend time with some kind of psychiatrist. He and my mother used to argue about it all the time. He thought I needed to see someone to straighten out my head, whereas she thought I was fine and that I'd grow out of my weirdness. My mother had been granted custody in the divorce, and she successfully rebuffed my father's attempts to get her to change her mind; in the end, I had to go and see the school counselor one time, but apart from that everything was fine.
Until now.
After a while, I realize I've started to drift off to sleep, but I keep waking up. My father is still on the phone, and eventually I sit up, hoping to hear what he's saying. For a while, I sit in the darkness, listening to his mumbled conversation, but eventually I get out of bed and go to the door. Once I'm out in the corridor, I can hear his voice a little more clearly, and I can tell he's agitated about something. Still, I can't make out his words, and eventually I decide to walk down the stairs. My father's nocturnal activities remain something of a mystery to me, but I'm pretty sure he's not usually up this late. As I get to the bottom of the stairs, I can tell that he's engaged in a somewhat anguished and tense conversation.
"Okay, okay," he says, "I can be there in the morning. I have to drop my daughter off at school by 8am, so I can be there by half past. Is that okay?"
I pause, wondering what he's talking about. The last time I heard him talking like this, it was the night my mother died.
"No," he continues, "I have no idea. I don't know that they've spoken very much in recent years. There was some trouble between them, though I'm not sure what. I don't think it was anything particularly problematic, but I don't have their details. Isn't that something you could work out?" He pauses. "Maybe you have some of her details on file? I don't know their numbers off-hand."
Stepping closer to the door, I look through into the kitchen and see him sitting in his dressing gown. A cold shiver runs through my body as I realize something's definitely wrong; the last time I remember hearing my father getting up in the middle of the night and talking on the phone, it was the night my mother died. I take another step forward, but this time I make the mistake of letting my foot nudge the door; the resulting creak causes my father to look over at me, and I see to my shock that he looks as if he's been crying.
"No," he says to the person on the phone, "I don't know about that. You'll have to ask someone else. I'm sorry." He pauses for a moment, still staring at me. "I'll call you in the morning to see how things are going. I'm so sorry, Robert." Putting the phone down, he takes a deep breath. "Juliet, do you want to come in here for a moment?"
I pause, not sure what to do. Suddenly I realize I want to go back to bed, but I guess I don't have that option right now. I walk into the kitchen, but I keep a few steps away from him.
"That was Robert Hopkins," he says. "Martina's brother." He pauses. "Juliet, there's been an accident. Martina was involved in a car crash while she was going home today. It was a big crash, honey, and..." Another pause, and I can tell he's finding it hard to get the words out. "Martina died," he says eventually. "It was very quick, and she wouldn't have felt anything. It was just a horrible, horrible accident. There's nothing any of us can do." As he stands up and walks over to get a cup of coffee, I see that his hands are shaking.
"Why did her car crash?" I ask. My mind is spinning as I think of Martina opening her glove compartment and having the jack-in-the-box leap out at her.
"I don't know," my father says. "Robert wasn't sure. He only found out a few minutes ago. We're going to talk properly in the morning."
I watch as he sits back down at the table. He's clearly in shock, and I can't help noticing that he seems far more upset about Martina than he was about my mother.
"Did she -" I start to say, but then I realize I can't mention the jack-in-the-box. No-one can ever know what I did.
"Come here," my father says, reaching out a hand. To keep him happy, I step toward him, and he hugs me. "I know you didn't mean to upset her today," he continues. "Despite the little stunt with the dead cat, Martina liked you very much, Juliet. She loved spending time with you. I want you to always remember that, okay?"
"Yes," I say blankly.
"I'm sure you'd have ended up being really good friends," he continues, still hugging me. "I hoped you'd have all the time in the world to get to know each other, but -" He suddenly stops talking, and it takes me a moment to realize that he's crying. I stand completely still, wondering what to do, and after a couple of seconds he dries his eyes and pulls away from me. "You should probably get to bed," he says, forcing himself to smile. "It's late, Juliet, and you need your sleep."
I nod, before turning and walking over to the door.
"You can come with me to Robert's house in the morning," he says.
I turn to him. "I have school."
"You can have the day off," he replies, sipping from his cup of coffee. "There's so much to do, it'd be easier to just have you home." He pauses. "Don't you want to come with me and see Martina's brother?"
"Sure," I say.
"Don't worry," he replies. "It'll just be a quick trip. But, hey, at least you get to have a day away from school. That's something, right?"
I stare at him. "Are you going to stay up?" I ask.
He nods.
"Good night," I say, before heading back to my bedroom. As soon as I'm in my room and I've shut my door, I climb into bed and stare up at the ceiling. I want to stay calm, but I've got this rising sense of panic that's starting to flood through my body, coupled with an intense feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach. I keep imagining Martina, driving along, and suddenly deciding to get some cigarettes from the glove compartment; I imagine her reaching out and hitting the button to open the hatch, and pulling it down; I imagine the jack-in-the-box springing out, causing her to panic; I imagine her spinning the steering wheel, so that the car skews off the road and straight into a brick wall; I imagine everything smashing and crushing, and Martina being killed as the force of the impact rips her violently from her seat and into the windshield; finally, I imagine the jack-in-the-box in the wreckage as people hurry over to see if they can help. No-one would suspect a jack-in-the-box; no-one would suspect me.
But I killed her.
This is my fault.
If I hadn't done what I did, she'd be alive.
I murdered Martina Hopkins.
I pause for a moment.
I'm a monster. I'm an evil, murderous monster.
I take a deep breath.
No-one knows. The only person who maybe knew it was me, the only person who might have had a clue, was Martina. Maybe, in that split second between the jack-in-the-box springing out at her, and the car slamming into the wall, she realized that I'd done it all; maybe, as she died, she knew it was my fault. But no-one else knows. Even if they find the jack-in-the-box in the wreckage, and even if they trace it back to me, I can just say that Martina took it with her. After all, she was mad at me because of what I did to her cat, so I can say she must have taken the gift back. Besides, I'm just a k
id, so I don't see that they'll suspect me, and...
I take a deep breath.
Why is my heart pounding so fast in my chest?
Leaning over to my bedside table, I grab the small ring-box that used to belong to my mother; carefully opening the lid, I find Harry the maggot still wriggling around happily inside. I guess I'll need to find something for him to eat tomorrow, but I'm sure he'll be okay for the night.
"We did it, Harry," I say, smiling at him.
He wriggles some more, his pointy little head squirming as he edges closer to the edge of the box. Just when it seems he's going to escape, I close the lid, trapping him once again.
"Good teamwork," I say, putting the box back on the table.
I try to get some sleep, but in the end I spend the whole night just staring at the ceiling, going over the details of Martina's death a million times. Eventually I see that it's getting light outside, and I realize I didn't hear my father come upstairs. It's been a pretty crazy night, and he's probably asleep down in the kitchen. I look over at the clock by my bed, and I see that it's only 6am. I should probably stay in bed a little longer, so I just keep on staring at the ceiling for a few more hours. In my mind, Martina's accident is on a constant loop as I remind myself what I've done. Eventually, I realize I'm smiling.
Epilogue
Today
"Good morning, sunshine," my father says as I walk through the door. He's sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal as he gets ready to head off to work. This happens every morning: I wander back from work just as he's about to go out, and he grills me about my night. "The night lark returns."
"Night lark?" I ask, putting my backpack on a chair before going to the fridge.
"They don't teach you much poetry at school these days, do they?"
"Not really." I pour myself a glass of juice.
"How was your night?"
"I discovered that my co-worker has been systematically abusing the residents for quite some time, so I beat her to death with a fire extinguisher and hid her body in an abandoned ward. I had some help from a ghostly creature that lives in the building. Fortunately, all my emotions about the whole thing have been sucked away by the creature and are safely stored in the building, so I don't have to worry about them. It's quite liberating, really," I almost say. Almost. Damn it, I'd love to tell him the truth. Instead, I decide to keep things simple. "Fine."
"Fine?"
"Fine."
He laughs. "That's the trouble with you, Juliet. You're always fine. Never good or bad. Always fine. Just straight down the middle. Don't you think it might do you good to actually feel some kind of strong emotion some time?" He stares at me. "I'm serious, Juliet! You need to have a little fun sometimes. Maybe you should go out with some friends on your next night off?"
I smile weakly. He knows I don't really have any friends, but I guess he wants me to be more like a normal daughter. He wants me to go out and be social.
"You don't want to do that?" he asks.
"Not really," I say.
"What about when you go to college? What are you going to do when you're sleeping in dorm rooms and going to class with hundreds of other people?"
I shrug. To be honest, the thought of going to college is pretty terrifying. At the moment, it's this big abstract thing that hasn't really crystallized in my mind, but as the summer drags on, I'm getting closer and closer to the day when I have to go and be 'social'. There's a part of me that wants to cancel the whole thing and just find some low-level job where I don't have to interact with people, but I know that's not really an option. I hate to admit it, but I think my father might be right when he says I need to learn how to be around people.
"I'll work something out," I mutter.
"Pardon?" he says. "I can't hear you when you speak so softly, Juliet."
"I said I'll work something out," I say firmly.
"Like what?"
I sigh, realizing he's in the mood to pick holes in everything I say. "I'm tired," I tell him.
"I used to work night shifts when I was your age," he says. "Over at a sausage factory. When I got home early in the morning, I'd be so pumped and full of energy, it'd be hours before I got to bed. Sometimes I'd just burn through and spend the day with friends, and then go back to work. I'm not saying I'd want to live like that again, but when you're younger, it's not a bad strategy. I think most nights, I was running on about five hours' sleep every night."
I stare at him, wondering how he wants me to reply.
"You sleep a lot, don't you?" he says eventually.
"Don't people die if they stay awake forever?" I ask.
"True," he says, "but you don't want to go too far the other way."
"Maybe not," I reply, finishing my drink. "I'm just gonna go to bed."
"Fine," he says. "Sleep away the best years of your life. I promise you, though; one day, you're going to look back on all this time you're wasting, and you're going to really regret your choices."
"I guess."
"You guess?"
I sigh. "Yeah. I guess."
"You working tonight?"
"Yeah," I say, grabbing my backpack. "They're gonna find a new co-worker for me. The old one bailed."
"She quit?" he asks.
"Kind of. It was all kind of sudden. She was there at the start of the shift, but then she left."
"You must have really pissed her off," he says, smiling.
"Actually, I killed her," I almost say. "I could show you her body right now." Almost.
"Not bad," he continues. "A few weeks on the job and you've already scared off one co-worker. Try to take better care of the next one, huh?"
"Yeah," I mutter. The weird thing is, I don't feel any regret about what happened to Lizzie. All the bad feelings seem to have been stripped away from me when I was in the abandoned ward, and now I've left them behind. I'm not haunted by the fact that I killed her; in fact, I don't really care too much either way. It's not like I'm glad I killed her; it's more like I just see it as something that happened. There's something about that abandoned ward, or maybe about Jennifer Mathis, that seems to wipe away all my negative emotions. I guess I have to be careful, otherwise I might end up being some kind of blank shell. I mean, I don't want to be totally empty; then again, it might be an easier way to go through life. Any time I try to be emotional, I usually just fuck things up.
"Good night," I say, turning to leave.
"Why did you ask me about Martina this morning?" he says suddenly.
I turn back to him. "I was just thinking about her. Nothing important."
"It's just that you've barely mentioned her since she died," he continues. "To be honest, I thought you'd forgotten all about her. Do you think about her a lot?"
"No." I pause for a moment. "Do you?"
"No," he says, as if the idea is crazy. "That was all a long time ago, Juliet."
"I know," I reply. "I was just thinking, maybe you'll be lonely after I've left for college in a few months. Maybe you could get a cat."
There's an awkward pause. "I'm not really a cat person."
"A dog?"
He shakes his head. "I don't really want a pet."
"Just a thought," I say, turning and heading through to my bedroom. It's weird, but Martina Hopkins has been on my mind more and more in recent days. I guess that's not surprising; after all, she has a special place in my heart, given that she was the first person I ever killed. I suppose I should be more careful and make sure I don't mention her around my father; the last thing I want to do is draw attention to myself, especially when people might become suspicious. In some small way, though, I think maybe I'm a little proud of the fact that I've managed to go eleven years without anyone finding out about the jack-in-the-box. Then again, maybe there's a part of me that's a little frustrated; I mean, what good's a masterpiece, if no-one ever knows you painted it? I know I can't tell anyone the truth about Martina, but still: sometimes I wish someone would suspect what I did. At least that way,
I'd know that someone recognizes the real me.
Book 4:
I Can't Do This Without Laughing
Prologue
Today
"Just ease the car into this parking bay," says Mr. Kennedy, the instructor.
Turning the steering wheel, I carefully park the car and switch off the engine. The test is finally over, after a half hour of absolute terror, and now I've just got to find out whether or not I've passed. It's not that I've got any particular love of driving, or any desire to hit the open road; however, my overall plans would be severely stymied by the need to take my test again. If I've passed, I can get on with the next stage.
"Well, Juliet," he says, shuffling through a pile of papers on his lap, "how do you think you did?"
"I don't know," I reply. "Pretty good, I guess."
"Uh-huh," he says, ticking a couple of boxes on one of the forms. He pauses for a moment. "Well, you did better than that. You passed."
I take a deep breath. To be honest, there were times over the past few months when I thought I didn't have a chance in hell of passing my test. I definitely wasn't a natural, and I almost gave up a whole host of times. It was only in the past week, when I suddenly realized why I might need to be able to drive, that I buckled down and worked hard to smooth out my rough edges. And now, finally, all that hard work has paid off.
"I'm sure you'll be a very safe and careful driver," Mr. Kennedy says, opening the door and getting out of the car. "Just remember that you still need to keep your standards up. Don't get sloppy now you've passed your test, okay?"
"Sure," I say, getting out of the car. I take the slip of paper from his hand and head back into the testing center. Over at the main desk, I get everything stamped and sealed, and finally I walk back through to the waiting room.
"Well?" my father asks, putting down a magazine and standing up. "How did it go?"
I stare at him for a moment. "I failed," I say.
"Seriously?"
"Just a couple of minor points," I continue. "He said I was close, but I just need to come back another day and try again."