The Forgotten Child

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Michael nodded. “Maybe. You said the board is like a door to the other side, right? Maybe it knew it could lure you in with Mariah—maybe it wasn’t her, maybe the thing just pretended to be her—and then planned to use you guys to let it out. You were just kids and it used that to its advantage.”

  Whatever had haunted the house had been violent toward Becca. Why would the spirit of a two month old be vengeful?

  Michael’s theory sounded good. Hell, it even made her feel a little better. But there was no way to prove that’s what happened. And at the end of the day, Tony and Ashley had quit their jobs, packed up Rebecca, and moved to a different house to escape what Riley never should have let happen.

  “Did this thing—Orin—feel old, too?” Michael asked.

  “Kind of? They both seemed … angry. Like they’re both trapped and pissed about it.”

  “What traps a spirit somewhere?”

  “A violent death. Some say their remains can bind them to a place. Others say a connection to something or someone still alive …”

  “Unfinished business?”

  “Ha. Yeah. That’s what Hollywood always claims, anyway.” Riley chewed on her bottom lip, trying to recall the questions she’d asked Orin. The one about Mindy being allowed to escape had set him off. “I don’t even want to know what kind of unfinished business Orin has.”

  She examined her hands. The two lines of puffy skin from where the dowsing rod handles scorched her palms had mostly faded now. Her hands were a little sore and tender to the touch, but the heat and swelling was gone.

  Orin must have been angry that Mindy not only escaped, but ratted him out. He likely assumed a young girl lost in the woods wouldn’t last long on her own. She’d either die from the elements or come crawling back when she got hungry. Police showing up in her stead must have been quite the shock. Was that the source of the anger? The memory of being blindsided?

  Even so, Orin’s agitation had begun the moment she’d entered the room. It felt like he’d been circling her and the others, like a mountain lion slowly sizing up prey. He’d been … territorial. The cellar was where he’d done all his “work,” as Mindy had called it once. He didn’t like strangers invading his space.

  Riley told Michael this theory.

  “That makes sense. He seemed pretty pissed.”

  None of this made her feel better about Pete. He was stuck too—his body still somewhere on the property.

  “Can we talk about something else?” she asked.

  “Anything.”

  They were still on the two-lane highway, the road curving periodically. His brights carved through the still night air.

  “Did your exes really jump ship because you’re emotionally unavailable?”

  His laugh was sharp and quick. Pamela offered a snort from the backseat, but she was still asleep, head lolling against her chest. They grinned at each other.

  “I’ve been told this is a problem, yes,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a guy?”

  She shot him a look. One he saw in his peripheral vision, even in the dark, given his smile. “The only person in my immediate family—my mom included—who was any good at talking about feelings was Donna. And I think that was partly because she had to deal with the reality that her feelings were different from the quote-unquote normal ones her friends had. We didn’t really start getting better about talking to each other until Donna came out, really.”

  “How did they take it?”

  Michael shrugged. “I think we all knew; it wasn’t really a shock to us or anything. She fared pretty well in high school, considering, but totally blossomed in college. I think seeing how well she was doing—just coming into her own as a person, you know? Seeing that brought us all closer together. She was happier, so we were happier. We made time for each other. And just … talked more. Funny how talking makes things easier.”

  “Hey! So you were giving me hell about my social interaction issues when you’re even worse than I am?”

  “I was hoping you’d be so dazzled by my good looks that you’d overlook my flaws.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Edward Cullen.”

  “Who?”

  Riley laughed. “Nothing.” She stared at his profile for a second. He didn’t seem like a psycho. “Thanks for getting us out of there.”

  “No problem. I was leaving one way or another—I’m grateful for the company.”

  They talked shows and movies. Michael went on a long diatribe about why Tombstone was the best movie ever made.

  “What is it with guys and that damn movie?” Riley asked, then got an earful she didn’t expect.

  She tried to sway him on the brilliance of Tiana’s Circle, but it seemed to be a losing battle.

  “Did you know that when you get super passionate about something, your hands flail all over the place?”

  Suddenly self-conscious, she shoved her hands under her thighs.

  “Don’t stop; it’s adorable.”

  “Patronizing!”

  He laughed. “Please bear with me; I’m at that stage where everything you do is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s the cutest it’s ever been.”

  “You’re not as bad at expressing feelings as you claim,” she said. “But you’re still super corny.”

  “What can I say? You make me want to be a better man.”

  Eyes wide, she slowly turned toward him. When they made eye contact, he cracked a smile and they both burst into laughter. Then quickly clapped their hands over their mouths to keep from waking up Pamela.

  “Oh my god!” Riley whisper-shouted. “I swear you meant that one. I was thinking, okay, this is it: he is a psycho.”

  Michael was still silently laughing.

  “You and your terrible movie one-liners.”

  “You keep buying ’em—for at least the first five seconds—so I’m gonna keep selling ’em.”

  “You know, I totally swoon whenever I hear that kind of stuff on screen.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Shut up,” she said, laughing. “Let me finish. I always swoon, but I always think, too, if anyone said that kinda thing to me in person—the ‘you complete me’ stuff—I would feel super uncomfortable.”

  “Right! I keep thinking that if that’s the kind of thing women want to hear, it’s no wonder I’m single. I don’t talk like that. And if I did—as was just demonstrated—I couldn’t keep a straight face.” After a slight pause, he said, “For what it’s worth, I really do think you’re adorable. It’s … kind of upsetting how adorable, really.”

  She bit her bottom lip and flushed slightly. “I think you’re pretty cute, too.”

  “Sweet!”

  “Ugh. I take it back.”

  “Nope.”

  Reception didn’t return until they’d been on the road for over an hour. Pulling up the website for the ranch, her stomach clenching at the sight of the welcome sign’s picture, Riley hit dial.

  It went to voicemail and she left a rambling message asking Angela to have Jade call her in the morning.

  Soon after, her phone started to bling with emails and texts she’d received while reception was out. Then both Michael’s and Pamela’s phones did the same from somewhere in the back.

  The texts were mostly from co-workers who had forgotten she was gone for the weekend—Riley never went anywhere—asking if she could take an extra shift. Two were from her parents. “Be safe!” from her father, and “Call me when you return to civilization” from her mother. She’d tell her parents about her run-in with the paranormal later. Her mother, especially, would want details and Riley wasn’t ready to go through it all again. She dropped her phone back into her purse.

  They had just wrapped up a truly horrible rendition of a Johnny Cash song neither one of them really knew the words to, when Pamela spoke, her voice groggy. “Can we stop somewhere so I can pee? Also, y’all are terrible singers.”

  Michael and Riley laughed.
/>   Turning to glance at Pamela, Riley said, “How you feeling?”

  “Better,” she said, rubbing the heel of one of her palms against her eye. “Just really need to pee.”

  “I’ll stop as soon as possible,” Michael said. “We can get snacks! Whatever you ladies want. I’m buying.”

  He pulled off the highway twenty minutes later. While he pumped the gas, Riley and Pamela went inside the attached convenience store.

  “Girl, he’s super into you,” Pamela said after leaving the restroom and joining Riley before a display of chips and popcorn.

  A bell above the door chimed and Riley tore her attention away from the Doritos. She watched as Michael scanned the small shop, then spotted them. His face lit up when he made eye contact with her. Her stomach flipped.

  “Circumstances are weird as hell, granted,” Pamela said, voice soft. “But damn.”

  “Shh!”

  Laughing, Pamela headed for the coffee station to join Michael. Once they were loaded up on chips, candy, and caffeine, they were off again.

  Riley linked her phone to the car’s Bluetooth and showed Michael the true danger in granting her full access to the radio.

  After a steady diet of boyband jams for forty-five minutes—to which Pamela matched her note for note—he groaned and hit the power button.

  Riley laughed. “You lasted longer than I thought you would.”

  “I hear that a lot.”

  Pamela cackled.

  Riley almost shot water out of her nose. “You have impeccable timing.”

  He grinned. “You ladies feeling okay?”

  “Yes. I’ll feel even better when I hear from Jade,” said Riley.

  “We’ll hear from her in the morning, I’m sure,” Pamela said. “She’ll be worried about us too.”

  Around five, Riley stifled a yawn. They were still an hour outside Albuquerque. Pamela had fallen asleep in the back again, which was a feat in itself given how much coffee and chocolate she’d consumed.

  “You can’t fade on me now!” Michael said. “Have any plans for the weekend? Well, I guess you wouldn’t, since you were planning to be at the ranch. Ha. That was a dumb question. I meant—”

  Riley saved him from himself. “No plans other than sleeping. I have a shift on Monday.”

  “Think maybe we could grab lunch or something tomorrow?”

  She tried very hard not to smile. “Are you asking me out?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I’m only sure if you say yes.”

  Without hesitation, she said, “Yes.”

  “Then I’m asking you out.”

  “I’m okay with pretty much anything but dim sum, given my current profession.”

  “I can work with that.”

  When the distance to Albuquerque got shorter and shorter, Riley gave him directions to Jade’s house, where she and Pamela had both left their cars.

  Birds chittered in Jade’s fancy-pants garden, flitting between the bright flowers opening their petals to the early morning sun, and splashing in the fountain.

  Riley gave Pamela a shake to wake her up. “We’re back. You okay to drive yourself home?”

  Pamela, bleary-eyed, nodded. Michael helped them get their things and stood outside his car while Pamela and Riley walked up the driveway to their cars. Hopefully their skulking about the driveway at the crack of dawn didn’t wake Jonah.

  Standing outside Riley’s car, Pamela shot a look toward where Michael loitered outside his own, gaze focused on his phone. Then she jutted her chin at Riley. “What’s going on with you two?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We’re going out tomorrow.”

  Pamela squealed. “Oh, thank god.”

  Riley flushed. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

  Shoulders drooping a little, Pamela said, “Yeah. I’m assuming I’ll have nightmares for the next six months, but I’ll be okay. Are you? I mean … that had to be even scarier for you.”

  “Nightmares for me, too,” Riley agreed. “If I ignore it all for long enough, my connection to the place will fade. The distance helps, too.”

  Pamela nodded, but Riley didn’t know if anything she said actually made any sense to her.

  Riley pulled her friend into a hug. “If the nightmares get really bad, call me.”

  “Same goes for you.” She glanced over at Michael again. “I’m leaving now. Go make some bad decisions.” With that, she wiggled her eyebrows.

  “You’re as bad as Jade!”

  Laughing, Pamela climbed into her car.

  Riley waited for her friend to back down the driveway before she headed toward Michael. The Jeep pulled up to idle parallel to Michael, and Pamela reached across her passenger seat so she could roll the window down.

  Riley hadn’t reached them yet, but she heard, “Thanks for everything, Michael! Also, if you hurt her, I have your license plate number, and you better believe you’ll have four super pissed-off girls ready to tear your face off.”

  “Pam!” Riley said, half horrified, half amused, deciding not to point out that the car actually belonged to Michael’s sister.

  Michael laughed. “I would expect nothing less.”

  Waving cheerfully, Pamela drove off.

  Riley reached him, shaking her head. “Sorry about that.”

  “No need to apologize.” Resting a hip on the car’s bumper, he assessed her. “Do you need me to follow you back to your place or anything? Pamela slept a little, but you’re running on fumes.”

  “So are you,” she said. “And you have farther to go.”

  “I got one of those probably-should-be-illegal energy drinks. They make me feel like I’m on crack. I’ll chug one of those before I head home.”

  “Can’t possibly be a good idea,” she said, laughing.

  He smiled, his gaze dropping to her mouth for a moment. God help her, what if he wanted to kiss her? She was ninety-five-percent sure she smelled like a sewer. And she’d tossed her cookies earlier because she communicated with dead people!

  Why in the world did he want to see her again?

  “You should probably give me your phone number if you want this date to happen,” she said.

  “Oh, right.” The tips of his ears went pink as he grabbed his phone out of his back pocket.

  She smiled to herself.

  After giving him her number, he called her cell so she’d have his number too.

  They exchanged a quick hug.

  “Text me when you get in so I know you made it,” she said.

  “Will do.”

  Thankfully, she lived close to Jade, as she started yawning so hard on the drive to her apartment, her eyes watered, blurring her view of the road. Getting her belongings and herself up the set of outdoor stairs and into her apartment happened in a blur. Sometime in there, Pamela texted that she’d made it home.

  Riley didn’t have the energy to change, let alone make it to her bedroom. It was a miracle she’d made it inside and locked the door behind her.

  Something made an awful racket. She woke with a start when she realized it was her phone.

  For a moment, she had no idea where she was. Her mouth felt dry and tasted like an old shoe. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the light.

  She was in her apartment. She’d fallen asleep on the couch. She really needed to brush her teeth.

  Her ringtone started up again and she lurched for it. The ID was a number she didn’t recognize, but the location said, “Silver City, NM.”

  “Jade?” she asked, worried she wouldn’t answer in time.

  “Thank the lord!” Jade said.

  Flopping back on the couch, she pulled her legs into her chest. “You’re okay?”

  “Yep! Nothing weird’s happened since you left, really. There were a couple thumps from the cellar about an hour later, but that was it. Xavier claims at least one of the groups got an EVP in the kitchen.

  “With you, Pam and Michael gone, Nina go
t paired up with Xavier. Learned all kinds of things for my future as a paranormal investigator, but no major happenings aside from what happened to you.”

  “You realize how white girl it is of you to stay, right?” Riley asked. “White folks live for haunted houses.”

  Jade cackled. “Girl, I know! I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. No sensible person would stay after what you all saw.”

  With a smile, Riley asked, “So you don’t hate me for leaving?”

  “Stop with that mess already, okay? How’s Pam doing?”

  “She’s good. She got home before I did.”

  “Phew. She was a little nervous about joining you guys, you know. She didn’t want to be a lady-boner-block.”

  “Stop trying to make that a thing! It has to rhyme!”

  “That’s the best I’ve come up with. Clam jam sounds like something you need ointment for, and nothing rhymes with ‘vagina’!”

  Riley snorted.

  “Man, I just got some seriously weird looks.” Then, softer, she said, “So. Michael. Give me the deets.”

  “We’re getting lunch later.”

  “Is he in your apartment right now?” she hissed. “Did you let that arctic wolf into your den?”

  “You’re ridiculous! No. He’s not in my apartment or my den. He’s a nice guy and I like him.”

  “I’m so happy!” Jade chirped, then let out a long sigh. “And you’re probably exhausted. I’ll call you tomorrow morning before we leave. I want details on the date!”

  “Goodnight, Jade.”

  “Night, hon!”

  When Riley ended the call, she saw she had several texts from Michael that had come in around half-past six.

  Hey. Made it home in one peace. Energy drink kept me awake and allowed me to taste sound. Hope your sleeping.

  Followed by: piece* you’re* I swear I can spell.

  Followed by: This is Michael, btw.

  Followed by: Michael Roberts.

  Followed by: I’m guessing you figured that out.

  Then, ten minutes later: Please still go to lunch with me.

  Even after crawling into bed, she was still smiling.

  CHAPTER 11

  Riley woke again around noon, thanks to the distant rat-tat-tat of a jackhammer in the street outside her apartment complex. She stared at the ceiling. Thoughts of both Michael, and the Jordanville Ranch kept inching their way into her mind. Both lines of thinking filled her with nervous energy, but for totally different reasons. She batted them back.