by Sean Platt
Scott shouted louder as he approached the stairs. He’d hit the kitchen first, see if she was looking for something to eat. As his foot hit the top stair, he heard a squeak behind him. Scott turned, hoping to see Hazel peeking out from a parted door, but saw Hudson instead.
“What’s going on? More drama from Hazel?”
“Do you know where your sister is?”
“Sure thing. She’s right here in my pocket.” Hudson patted his navy blue gym shorts and waited for Dad’s order to quit being a jerk.
“I’m serious. She’s not in her room.”
“Okay, Dad. Let’s go find her.”
Hudson closed his door, went to the stairs, and followed Scott down as they both called loudly for Hazel. At the landing, he asked, “How do we know she’s not upstairs in one of those rooms? She was up there for a long time earlier today. Maybe she found something.”
“No.” Scott felt stupid. “I don’t know. She could be up there. I didn’t see her and panicked like an idiot. I didn’t even look in your room. I went straight for the stairs. Why don’t you check up there while I search down here? Hopefully, one of us finds her in the next few minutes. If not, we’ll figure out what’s next.”
“Okay.” Hudson turned back toward the stairs.
The manor’s creaks and groans were louder at night, more ominous, as if the house had somehow swallowed his daughter.
Scott’s heart beat faster as he went from one room to the next, finding only more darkness.
A sudden sound cut to his core. A small girl’s giggle — his small girl’s giggle — seemingly coming from outside.
He crossed through the parlor, set his hand on the long curved knobs leading toward the sun porch, pushed the doors open, and saw Hazel outside, sitting in the gazebo.
She was staring up at nothing, babbling to herself.
Scott ran down the steps, across a small swath of wet lawn, and into the gazebo. Relieved, he was about to reach out for her when he remembered the first time they found her sleepwalking, and how she hadn’t responded to him at all, even though her eyes were wide open. And how when he did manage to wake her, she was terrified, screaming for more than twenty minutes. After that, they managed to coax her back to bed without waking her.
He stopped short of touching her, trying to determine if Hazel was awake. She was looking up, as if someone were standing beside him. But Scott saw nothing.
“Close?” she said to the no one beside him. “Close where?”
Is she dreaming?
Hazel stared open-mouthed at that invisible something, eyes glazed as she swayed in some invisible breeze.
He reached for her gently, but Hazel anchored herself, refusing to budge, her eyes never acknowledging that she could see him.
His heart hammered harder.
“Hazel?” he said softly, touching her shoulder.
She stiffened more, still not meeting his eyes.
He’d never seen her like this. In the past he’d been able to maneuver her back to bed without resistance.
He reached around to try to pick her up, but she slipped away, eyes still not acknowledging his presence.
He tried to grab her again, but still she slipped away.
Each time she eased out of his grasp, she moved a bit farther away. His fear was that she’d take off — sleep running. And hell if he could catch her on his aging knees.
Scott had no choice but to wake her.
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, preparing for the worst. “Hazel!”
She blinked until her exterior cracked and she met his eyes. His heart froze; he wasn’t sure what Hazel would do when she woke.
She smiled.
He smiled back, relieved not to have scared her. But her giddy expression was more unsettling than terror.
“Hi, Daddy.”
Hazel giggled, clearly happy, like she’d not yet realized she was in the gazebo at midnight, babbling into space.
“Are you okay, Hazel?”
She looked at him like he had asked an idiot’s question and blinked three times. “Of course, Daddy. Why wouldn’t I be? We’re all together again.”
He looked down at Hazel. “Who’s all together?”
“Mommy,” she said, tilting her head to look behind Scott, presumably at the same nothing from before. “Can’t you see her?”
She’d finally snapped.
Hazel was broken, with a heart and soul in desperate need of mending. Fortunately, they were in a place where Scott could finally find help. But tonight the things he could do were of little comfort.
“Your mom isn’t here.” He measured his words to keep her from freaking.
“Yes, she is. Can’t you see her?”
His heart broke as he shook his head no.
“Aw, I’m sorry you can’t see her, Daddy. She looks beautiful.”
Scott said nothing. What was there to say as he stared into the eyes of the madness claiming his daughter? What could he possibly do, what magic words could he conjure to cure her delusions?
She needed help — real help.
“Hey, drama queen!” Hudson yelled as he stepped through the doors and out onto the lawn. “You scared the holy crap out of us.”
“Hudson,” Scott barked, gritting teeth to keep his volume in check.
She turned to her brother, smiling.
“Do you see her, Hudson? Can you see Mommy?”
Hudson reeled on Hazel. He grabbed her by the arms, shook her, and rained her face with spittle. “She’s not here!”
Scott pulled Hudson away.
“Back off, Dad. She needs to hear this!”
Hudson turned back to an impossibly calm Hazel, kneeled in front of his sister, and met her eyes. “Mom’s not here, Hazel. You can’t see her. She can’t see you. She’s gone. Maybe she’ll come back. Maybe she won’t. But you need to stop lying to us, and to yourself.”
Something horrible happened inside Hazel’s eyes, as if someone had shattered the rose-colored glasses she’d been peering through, the ones that allowed her to see a mother who was no longer there.
She turned from Hudson to Dad, tried to say something, failed to do anything but tremble her lips, then finally cracked.
She collapsed into Scott, wailing.
He petted the back of his baby girl’s head, soothing her whimpers against him. He turned to Hudson. “Thank you for helping me find your sister. Please go to your room so she and I can speak alone.”
“Sure thing,” Hudson said. “Oh, and I think I saw a Barney DVD in the media room, if baby-cry-cry needs something else to help her fah ta sweep.”
“Please, Hudson. I don’t want to fight. Not here, and not anymore. Let’s leave the old crap in Las Orillas, okay? Can you help me, help me with Hazel? With all of this? I need you to.”
“Okay, Dad. Sure.” Hudson seemed to soften. “What do you need me to do?”
“Go back in the house and up to your room. Please. Let me figure this out.”
Hudson saluted — it only seemed half sarcastic — then left the gazebo and crossed the lawn toward the back stairs.
Scott led Hazel to a bench and sat with her, hugging his daughter tight, inhaling her silence along with the cool night air. Being with Hazel was different than being with Hudson. He was most comfortable around her, though lately that comfort had seemed harder to find. His moments with Hudson were rarely silent. The kid was like his mother, always saying something. Hazel, however, often sat next to her father, or hugged him, content in their quiet.
As he hugged her, finding serenity in the moment, she said something to shatter it.
“Who’s Karla?”
His stomach lurched, certain he’d misheard her.
“What?” he asked, trying to disguise the alarm bells screaming in his head.
How does she know about Karla?
“Mommy told me to ask you about Karla. Who is she?”
Holly would never have told Hazel about Karla. Hazel had to have found something …
somewhere. Had Holly written something somewhere, something Hazel found while snooping?
Scott tapped his foot and chewed his bottom lip. “What are you talking about, Hazel? Are you saying your mother told you about Karla before she ... left?”
“No ... just now. And she didn’t tell me anything. She just told me to ask you about her.”
He tried to keep calm as anxiety stirred like a storm in his gut. Was Hazel messing with him? Did Holly put her up to this before she left? As impossible as it seemed, he couldn’t imagine how else Hazel could know about Karla.
He breathed in and out slowly.
One … two … three … four … five … six …
“Dad?”
“This isn’t funny, Hazel.”
“What?” She looked up at her father.
Checking his temper: “I need you to stop lying.”
Hazel stared at him, wide-eyed and wounded by the accusation.
“I’m not lying.”
“You can’t bring that stuff here. This is a new place, and a new chance for our family.”
“But I’m not doing anything, Daddy. I’m not lying. Mommy told me to ask you about Karla, so I am.” She clenched her jaw. “It’s not fair to get mad at me for doing what I’m supposed to do.”
“Hazel.” Scott felt suddenly exposed in the gazebo, wondering if they had roused any manor staff, watching from behind dark windows. “You can’t lie anymore, not to me or your brother. The stuff you say about your mom … it’s hurtful.” He drew a breath and held it, hoping things weren’t about to go from bad to worse. “What do you think you know about Karla?”
Hazel’s face was wet with a single line on each side. “I told you,” her shoulders bunched together. “I don’t know anything about Karla, except that Mom said to ask you.”
How can she know about Karla?
Holly must’ve told her before she left.
No ... Holly would NEVER have done that.
“Daddy? Who’s Karla? You have to tell me. Mom said so.”
Scott wanted to scream, but that would fix nothing. He had to find out what Hazel knew, and how she knew it. He also had to answer as honestly as possible. Old mistakes didn’t have to be new ones. He sighed. “An old friend.”
“Was she friends with Mom, too?”
“No, Karla and your mother were never friends. She was someone I worked with.”
“When you used to build houses?”
“Yes, when I used to build houses. She was a landscape architect. She made houses prettier on the outside.”
“Why did Mom tell me to ask you about her?”
Scott’s anger flared again. He tightened his fist hard enough to feel nails biting flesh.
“This isn’t funny, sweetheart. I need you to be honest with me. This is your last chance.” Through gritted teeth Scott growled, “Tell. The. Truth.”
“I am!” Hazel leaped up, tiny fists balled up and resting on each hip defiantly as she glared at him.
He wanted to stand, tower over his daughter, and take the wind out of her sails. Instead, he stayed sitting.
He met her eyes. “So, you’re saying Mommy was here, tonight? And that she spoke to you? You saw her … and she told you to ask me about Karla?”
“Yes,” she cried harder. “Why don’t you believe me?”
“Have you seen your mother before tonight? I thought you only heard her.” Scott studied Hazel in the moonlight, torn between anger at her lies and wanting to hear more. “What did she look like?”
“She was wearing her blue dress, the one with the red flowers, my favorite. And ... she looked blurry.”
Scott felt another horrible twist to his insides. The blue dress with the yellow flowers had been in Holly’s suitcase when she left for her high school reunion — alone as she insisted. He’d seen it when he went into their bedroom and pulled her away from packing long enough to tell her to miss him while she was visiting an old life from long before.
“Blurry?”
“Yeah, like out of focus.”
Scott swallowed. “What else did she say?”
“She asked me how I was. And Hudson.”
“Did she say where she was?”
Hazel shook her head. “She said she was close, but couldn’t say where.”
“Close?”
“Yeah. I wanted to know more, but then you came. She might have come back, but I think Hudson scared her.” Hazel’s voice cracked. “Do you believe me, Dad?”
She seemed to need him to believe her more than he needed her to stop acting crazy. What harm was a little white lie to get through this night?
“Yes, I believe you.” Scott ignored the voice that said he was enabling her madness and making things worse.
“Thank you.” Hazel threw her arms around him. From the corner of his eye, Scott thought he saw something flutter through shadows.
Great, now I’m seeing things!
Whatever he thought he saw was gone as he stared at the shadows.
“Let’s go back inside.” Scott scooped Hazel into his arms without thinking, carrying her like he hadn’t — like she hadn’t let him — in months, through the garden, into the house, up the stairs. Then he rested on her bed and pulled her covers up until she looked cozy.
Scott stayed with Hazel, lying beside her like he used to when she had trouble falling asleep. He watched as Hazel rolled over, her back to him, and waited for her breaths to become slow and deep.
Though she’d grown so much and so fast, Hazel looked so small and fragile, her emotional state tenuous at best. Tears welled in his eyes as he softly kissed the back of her head and whispered, “I love you, Hazel.”
* * * *
HUDSON
Everyone sat in the small breakfast nook, quietly eating and — Hudson figured — doing their best to ignore what had happened the night before.
He looked down at his plate, surprised to see it nearly empty. The food was amazing, all prepared by Garza, the manor’s full-time chef. The Dawsons had all sat together their first night, making long lists of everything they liked to eat most. Garza stocked the pantries and seemed to know the family’s preferences by heart in a day. Hudson was already looking forward to lunch, then dinner after that, all the while thinking about ways he could get away from the manor, and Hazel.
Something strange was happening between her and Dad, probably him feeling sorry for her like always. Hudson was sick of it, sick of Hazel, sick of everything, really, but was still glad to be away from Las Orillas. He swallowed his final bite of egg and set down his fork.
“I’m going to the movies.” He didn’t ask.
No one said anything.
Hazel gave Hudson a dirty look. Dad looked over at him, assessing, as if trying to figure out whether it was worth a fight. The old man, Carter, who seemed to join the Dawsons for every meal and conversation, invited or not, was mercifully missing.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Dad. I checked with Johnston this morning. He said he was ‘at our disposal,’ and that we only had to tell him where we wanted to go and when. I already checked movie times. Dry Heat is playing at one o’clock, twenty minutes away in town.”
Hazel whined. “But I wanted to go down to Briar Creek. It’s not far, and Hudson’s not the only one who can ask Johnston for a ride. The creek is ten minutes from here, and I’ve been reading all about it. Seems like a great place to draw. There are lots of birds.”
“I called going to the movies first. You can skip in the meadow later.”
Dad looked at each of them, probably trying to figure out which answer would give him the least headache. Hazel glared at Hudson, surely working up some crybaby thing to get Dad changing his mind.
Carter was suddenly in the nook, pulling a chair from the table. He sat and looked at the Dawsons, one at a time starting with Hazel. “Maybe we’re all being a little silly.”
Dad looked at the old man. “What do you me
an?”
“Well, I’m not sure Johnston offered alternatives when you were asking for a ride, but he certainly should’ve.” Carter crossed his legs. “Look, you can leave whenever you want, but you heard it from Davenport: If Hudson and Hazel are gone at the same time, you forfeit everything. If that was my reality, I’d leave nothing to chance. Know what I’m saying?”
Dad said, “No, I’m not sure I do.”
“I’m reminding you that caution means everything. You three’ve been through a lot, and it makes sense you’d want to find some peace and quiet to put yourselves back together. You’ve been fortunate enough to land in a place where you can do just that. And I’m thinking that’s not something you should squander.”
Hudson argued, “These rules are totally stupid. Who ever heard of a will where the winners are prisoners?”
Carter turned to Hudson. “If it seems like a sentence, then change your perception and see that living behind these walls is a gift. Alastair was a smart man, and knew just what he was doing. What seems like an exercise in misplaced obsession is perhaps a reasonable hope that your great-uncle can protect you from the outside world, even if it’s from the grave.”
Hudson shook his head. “Better to be free out there, than a prisoner here forever.”
“Again,” the old man gave Hudson an overly patient smile, “none of you is a prisoner any more than the rest of us. We live here, and we’ve been out there, and down to the last of us, we’re all smart enough to appreciate the difference. You want to go to the movies?”
Hudson nodded.
“Why?”
“Because I want to see a movie.” Hudson almost snarled, irritated at having to explain himself to someone who wasn’t even part of his family.
“And what is it you want to see?”
“Dry Heat.”
“Dry Heat?” He cackled, then said it again while slapping his knee. “Dry Heat?”
“What’s wrong with Dry Heat?”
“That the one where the special agent loses his partner while investigating some counterfeiting something or other, like an hour and a half before the guy’s about to retire — then the agent gets obsessed with bringing down the man responsible for his partner’s death, thereby risking his career?”