One by One

by D. W. Gillespie

She told me no, which I was used to at that point. But it wasn’t the answer. It was the way she said it.

  Accusing.

  Blaming.

  Angry at the request itself.

  It was like I should know better. That I’d pushed her too far too many times to really expect anything kind or decent from her. That reaction…I don’t know. It did something to me. Something new and different.

  I started screaming.

  Mommy didn’t know how to react to that. She threatened to spank me. Said she would tell Daddy when I got home. Then she got desperate. She grabbed my arm and started squeezing.

  “Stop this.” She spat the words in my face.

  I looked down, saw her white knuckles, saw the red skin of my arm, felt the pain growing.

  “You WILL stop this,” she said. “Or I’ll break it.”

  The world stopped spinning, and tears formed in my eyes. I stopped just as an older lady passing by paused to see. And what did she see? A mother abusing her child?

  No.

  She only saw a disobedient child getting what she finally deserved.

  “You know what they say?” she said to my mother as I rubbed my arm. “Every daughter hates her mother.”

  I can’t stop thinking about that moment, about the idea that the two of us becoming enemies was something that was bound to happen.

  “No,” I told the woman.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, staring down the barrel of her thick glasses.

  “I said no. I don’t hate my mother.”

  I felt the iron hand on my tender arm once again, and I glanced up to see Mommy standing next to me, glaring down.

  “Don’t talk to strangers that way,” she said before her grip loosened.

  “Don’t worry,” the lady said as she walked away. “With you for a mother, she’ll learn soon enough.”

  Alice read on. Each new line, each new passage, painting a picture, a dark, terrifying picture.

  On one page…

  I can’t write this down. I can’t. If they find this book, it will be even worse, so I can’t. I can’t.

  On another…

  I’m going to sneak into their bedroom one day. I’m going to sneak in, and I’m going to take that fucking belt. I swear to god, I’m going to burn it in the woods, burn it and bury the ashes.

  Every word became more chilling than the next, and Alice was certain she could have spent the entire day reading that book, doing nothing but wearing the bruised skin of a lost, forgotten girl. Something was here, Alice was sure of it, and with each passing page, she became more convinced that Mary was trying to tell her something.

  That Mary was crying out for her help.

  Footsteps. Sharp, impatient. Down the stairs, straight to her door. Alice had just enough time to slide the book under her pillow before the door opened. Her mother stood there, stone-faced. She walked in and closed the door behind her.

  “I’m…sorry,” she said, standing just next to the bed, seemingly wanting to sit on it but not quite able to. “Your father. He’s…under a lot of stress. But, he had no right to grab you like that.”

  Debra’s eyes were cast down. She tried to raise them, but she seemed to lose her nerve. Instead, she turned and sat on the edge of the bed, her back to Alice. It looked to Alice like an easy way out.

  “You shouldn’t have talked to him like that, but he had no right to grab you.”

  After the time alone, Alice had returned to her usual self. The dark little voice had crept back down to wherever it slept, taking all of her nerve with it. Even so, she imagined answering with something clever and sharp, something like, Well, you had no right to accuse me, did you?

  She didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything. It felt more appropriate to let her mother sizzle for a bit before offering any sort of olive branch. Debra seemed to feel it as well – she shifted uncomfortably on the bed before standing abruptly.

  “I’m sorry too,” she said a moment later. “I shouldn’t have let it get that far.”

  She shuffled around, turning toward Alice. She still wouldn’t look her in the face.

  “I’m not going to ask you again,” she said softly. “But I want you to know that I’m calling the police. If Dean is really missing, we…we need to get some help.”

  She paused, clearly waiting for Alice’s reply. It never came.

  “If there’s anything I need to know, please, tell me now.”

  Again, Alice was silent. Just once, she cast her eyes over to the pillow and the diary hiding underneath it. She was gripped with the wild thought that this was all a test, that the entire scenario was something her parents had cooked up to see how honest their little girl was. Even so, she said nothing.

  “Okay then.”

  Debra waited for a second, for what, Alice could only guess. Then she leaned over and wrapped an arm around her daughter. Alice winced, but she leaned into her all the same.

  “Everything’s okay,” Debra whispered. “We’ll find him, and everything will be okay.”

  Alice let her leave, and she considered pulling the diary back out. She glanced over at the clock; it was almost nine. Somehow, she was actually hungry. She didn’t want to venture out any farther than she had to, but she decided to slink out and grab a box of cereal from the pantry. Debra was in the kitchen, already on the phone as Frank skulked around behind her, pacing like a dog at the edge of his leash.

  “No…yes…I mean, not that I know of. No, not at all. There’s no reason for him to… Please, just let me finish.”

  Her mother wasn’t crying, not quite, but it was clear that something in her demeanor had cracked. The image was deeply disturbing, terrifying even. Before now, part of this entire scene had felt like a bit of a game to Alice, just a young girl testing the limits of her parents’ boundaries. Now, seeing Debra so broken made it real, and a sick feeling surged inside her.

  That’s guilt you’re feeling, a voice whispered. No less than you deserve.

  Frank met her gaze as she walked in, and for a moment, Alice was certain that he would grab her again. He didn’t. Instead, his face softened. A tight, guilty smile stretched across it.

  Alice didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to see any of this. She quietly opened the pantry and pulled out a box of sugary cereal, the kind of thing her mother would frown upon, then hurried back to her room, glancing up at the painting once again.

  Alice couldn’t help but wonder what was next or, more importantly, who was next. She sat, silent, in her room, eating sickly sweet handfuls as her parents continued talking in the other room. It was, without a doubt, the most surreal morning of her life, and she couldn’t stop thinking of Dean. The memory of Baxter dead in the pool made her feel queasy, and she could only imagine what the sight of her brother might do to her if they found him the same way. Mangled, bloody, facedown in the snow. Silent tears rolled down her cheek as she munched away at the cereal. Her mind drifted again.

  “Mary,” she whispered between bites.

  She was there, in the room, with Alice every waking moment. She was all around the house, part of it, staring into windows, hiding in shadows, wandering through the woods. It was silly. It was impossible.

  But it’s true, and you know it is.

  That whisper again. Alice couldn’t deny it. There was no proof, none that anyone else could believe, but the truth was sometimes deeper than that, could push beyond what was visible – or even possible.

  Yes, Mary was here, and she was angry. But the question remained: why? What did she have against Alice’s family?

  When she had eaten all she could stand to, Alice started back for the diary. She was just opening it when she heard the footsteps. She quickly slipped it under her pillow and glanced up, expecting to see her mother opening the door, but instead found Frank in her doorway.

  “
Hey, kiddo,” he said, his voice normal, plain, a bit goofy. Alice said nothing. Instead, she waited for him to speak.

  “I… It looks like the cops are going to send someone out if they can get through this weather. There’s a lot to keep them busy today. We never get snow like this, so there’s wrecks, outages…”

  He trailed off, a rare case of self-editing. He usually would talk himself hoarse, explaining something that no one asked him to, but he was different as well, shaken in the same ways that Debra was, even if the results might have looked different.

  “I’m going out for a bit,” he added as Alice glanced down, away from his eyes. “I want to double-check around. Check the driveway, the road, the woods. Make sure there’s nothing else to see.”

  See what?

  Alice looked up from her feet and stared at him. He wasn’t looking directly at her, his gaze shifting, unsettled.

  He looks guilty.

  “I’m sorry I got so fired up earlier,” he said softly. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Alice let him leave without a word. She was still stunned by everything that had happened – and by her parents’ reactions, to her defiance to Dean’s disappearance. A small, aching feeling began to burn inside her, blooming, becoming a genuine sharp pain in her chest.

  She wanted to go home. Her real home. Her lost home.

  She’d seen it in Debra’s face. This place was breaking them, the same way it had broken Mary.

  No, the voice inside insisted. It wasn’t the house. It was him.

  The front door closed, and even from halfway across the house, she could feel the cold seeping in, the cold tendrils snaking through every room. What if Dean was out there? Would he be able to survive?

  He’s already gone.

  No. She wouldn’t hear it. She wouldn’t even entertain it. Alice shut the door to her bedroom and pulled the diary out from its hiding place. Reading it would be the only way to silence the dark whisper in her ear. She scanned the pages, looking for names, for references, for people. She wanted more of this broken, disjointed story to make sense, for all of this madness to make sense. And so, she read. Over the course of the next hour, she noticed a trend slowly emerging, a story within the story.

  Dad was hunting again today, an early entry read. He’s always gone, even when he’s home. I should go see him sometimes. It’s not a long walk down there. We used to do things together all the time. Fishing. Hiking. Spending time together.

  Alice thought about her own father, about the undeniable drift between the two of them. How long had it been growing? She thought about the last time she had jumped into his lap to watch TV. Of the last time she reached for his hand in public. From what she could tell, this entry was written when Mary was thirteen. How much farther would they drift in the next three years? She skimmed forward, looking for more references to Mary’s father.

  Dad wants to know what I want for my birthday. He actually suggested that I ask for a puppy. It’s like he wants one for himself but he’s too afraid to ask for it.

  Once she noticed it, that slow drift between father and daughter, it was all she could see.

  Alice continued skimming the pages, and she saw an even greater sign of the wedge between Mary and her father.

  Walker was in his mood today.

  The name threw her at first. It was like a book or a movie adding a character in the last act, something strange and unsettling about it.

  The pills ran out. It always gets like this when the pills are gone. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s a different person. I wonder if I would still hate him as much if he never took them at all. I’m pretty sure I would.

  It was her father. Walker was Mary’s father. He had to be.

  He doesn’t think I know about them. Mom doesn’t either. But then again, they’ve both got plenty of secrets.

  Another clue, subtle, powerful. She still called her mother ‘Mom’. Mary still had some connection with her.

  He hasn’t been the same since he hurt his back. It never would have happened if he hadn’t been so stupid, so lazy. She talks about him when we’re alone, just the two of us. She tells me what he used to be like, how sweet he used to be, back before the fall. What kind of man falls down the stairs when he’s trying to fix them? A drunk one, that’s who.

  “He was better then,” she tells me, talking to me like less of a daughter and more like a friend. I don’t blame her though. I know she doesn’t have any friends. Walker ran them all off.

  “He’s not even much of a man anymore.”

  She told me that once, and I don’t think it sunk in at the time. That was back when things were different, simpler.

  “He’d rather spend all his time out there in the woods than with his wife. Than in his own bed.”

  How could I have known what she meant? I was just a kid. I’d have probably never known what she meant if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

  Daddy’s place.

  I’ve seen the pictures of them, dating, back before me and Peter came along. He was thinner then, stronger looking, not this shell. This bitter thing that just exists to yell at us, to…

  …no. I won’t write about that. I promised myself it was dead, it was gone, it was something I left back in the shed, in his special little place.

  “Our secret.”

  Bastard.

  Bastard.

  Bastard.

  She tells me how sweet he used to be, and for the life of me, I can’t tell if it’s a lie or the truth. If she’s trying to convince me or if she’s already convinced herself.

  She’s weak. I see that now. I’m only fourteen and I see it.

  “Fourteen and looking like a full-grown woman!”

  The bastard had the nerve to say that in front of me.

  I won’t be like her. I won’t be so weak. And if he ever tries it again, I’ll kill him.

  So, there it was. Mary, not quite a little girl anymore, was living with a monster for a father, someone who did things to her, things she didn’t want to dwell on for even a moment. But, whatever his crimes, he didn’t break her. Mary was a fighter, a bold little warrior. She was everything that Alice wasn’t. The two of them were separated by life and death, and the only thing that connected them was words, simple words sketched onto a yellowing diary.

  Not the only thing.

  As her mother paced around the house, double-checking every room, Alice slipped under her covers, still reading.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The hours passed, and Alice stayed in her room, wrapped in the almost ghostly silence of the house. From time to time, she’d hear her mother’s nervous footsteps pacing in the hallway, stopping in front of the painting before moving on. Alice kept expecting to hear a knock on the door, to hear the muffled discussion between her and the officers. But the knock never came.

  Pieces of Mary’s story rose up like bits of paper burning in a bonfire. They’d had a dog, named Buster. Peter, Mary’s older brother, liked to hunt with Walker. Her mom, always nameless, was an avid gardener. As for Mary, she was popular with the boys at school, but she only had a few girlfriends. They didn’t seem to like her because, as she wrote, I don’t put up with all the bullshit. Once, an older girl who had been bullying her tried to get physical with her. She’d gotten in Mary’s face, calling her a whore, pointing her finger into her chest.

  I grabbed her finger and started twisting it. I didn’t care. I didn’t stop until I heard it pop and she started screaming.

  She was nearly kicked out of school for that one, but she didn’t seem to mind, for reasons she made all too clear.

  I’ve sat there and taken it before. I’ve been quiet when I should have been loud. I’ve let things happen that should never have happened. Mom is the type of person who lets things happen. She accepts things as they are.

  I’ve seen what that gets me
. I’ll fight until I’m dead.

  The details of Mary’s life thrilled Alice, and despite all the fear and uncertainty of the past few days, she imagined the two of them as friends. They would have gotten along, she knew it, and Mary would have made her stronger. Made her better. Taught her how to fill in those missing gaps in herself so that no one, not her parents or Dean or kids at school, would ever take her for granted again. The more she read, the more she saw the world around both of them as a forge, a place that tested them with fire, made them into something new. She would never have asked to trade places with Mary, but Alice couldn’t help but admire how strong she was in the face of such awful things.

  The house, its own character in Mary’s story, began to reveal itself through Mary’s eyes. The pool, once pristine and blue, started to deteriorate first. The plastic liner began to split and break in places, and instead of having it fixed, Walker let it fall into disarray. Soon, it was ruined, filled with algae and a chorus of frogs. Mary wrote about the attic, how much bigger it was than she thought, but how it began to fill with old junk, packed so tightly she couldn’t get in there anymore. She talked about the basement, that almost nightmarish, subterranean world with walls so caked with mold and grime that it looked like the inside of a cave.

  It’s a weird house, she wrote. We’ve lived here since I was seven, but I’ve never really gotten used to it. Mom said it was built in the Thirties, that they had to add on to it. She loves that about it, loves how unique it is. But I’d kill to live in a normal house, a house that doesn’t get so cold during the winter. I swear, it seems like it’s haunted sometimes.

  Alice certainly understood that.

  The worst are those stairs, she added. It’s like they didn’t connect them to the wall right or something. They just feel so rickety. I hate even going upstairs, to be honest. If Walker hadn’t been drinking so much, things would be better. He never would have fallen and hurt his back.

  No fall.

  No pain.

  No pills.

  Imagine that. Just a regular fucked up family instead of…this.

  Alice glanced over at the clock. Half the day was gone now, and she’d never even heard from her dad or the cops. She closed the diary and moved to put it back in the hiding place while she got dressed. But something in Mary’s words, about the way she painted the picture, of a family as a slow-motion train wreck, made her stop. There were ways to stop things from going forward. Despite everything that had happened, she believed it in her bones. So, with a deep breath, she ventured out in search of her mother, diary in hand.