Step Closer

by Scott Cawthon

  Samantha pressed her lips together, disgusted with herself for thinking about Susie and the stupid secret room. Then she thought about the sounds she heard at night. She tried to convince herself she imagined them. That had to be true, because when she looked outside, she never saw anything at all.

  But lying here alone in the silence, in the strange halfway land of the night, she couldn’t quite convince herself that she’d made it all up.

  She was pretty sure something had been outside.

  But what?

  And why?

  In the brisk late-morning air, Patricia and Jeanie sat side by side in the porch swing padded with yellow floral cushions. Patricia was aware that, to any passersby, she and Jeanie were part of an idyllic scene: both women, wearing wide-brimmed straw hats to shade their faces from the sun that slanted onto the porch, sipped tea to ward off the fall chill. They probably looked as relaxed as could be. They weren’t. Or at least Patricia wasn’t.

  Patricia studied her friend. Jeanie was almost her perfect opposite in size and coloring. Whereas Patricia was tall and thin with dark hair, Jeanie was short and plump with blonde hair. In spite of these differences, both women used to have one quality in common—they both smiled and laughed easily. Now, Patricia couldn’t do that anymore.

  Patricia took a shaky breath. “I’m wondering if I should take Samantha to a different counselor.” She cringed at the way her voice seemed to scar the air. “Rhonda is nice, and Samantha likes her, I think—honestly, it’s hard to tell.” She waved away a fly. “But I talked to Rhonda last week, and she says Samantha’s stuck. Samantha is clearly keeping something to herself, but nothing Rhonda is doing will get her to talk.”

  “Samantha has always done things in her own way,” Jeanie pointed out. She grinned. “That child has an opinion about everything.”

  Patricia attempted a smile but only got about halfway there.

  “Remember how she harangued Susie relentlessly about naming that tree?” Jeanie gestured at the ancient oak. “What’s his name?”

  “Oliver.” Patricia started crying.

  Jeanie set down her tea and took Patricia’s hand. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”

  Patricia wiped her eyes and shook her head. “It’s been a year. I should …”

  “There aren’t any shoulds when it comes to losing a child. Isn’t that what your counselor told you?”

  Patricia nodded. “No rule book.”

  They sipped tea in silence for several minutes. Patricia watched Oliver drop another dozen leaves. The previous night’s persistent breeze had taken hundreds of Oliver’s remaining leaves. He didn’t have many left on his gnarled branches. Pretty soon, he’d need his scarf.

  Jeanie patted Patricia’s knee. “You’re thinking about Oliver’s scarf.”

  It made Patricia literally ache to think about how four-year-old Susie had run inside after Oliver had dropped his last leaf that first year she named him. When she’d returned, she held one of the neck scarves Jeanie had knitted for her.

  Patricia gazed at Oliver and felt like she could see the scene from three years before unfolding in front of her now. The scene was a little fuzzy in places, but otherwise it was almost real.

  Her little arms crossed, her brow furrowed, Susie said, “He’ll get cold ’cause he doesn’t have leaves.” She was dressed in her bright-orange jacket.

  When Susie found out the scarf wasn’t big enough for Oliver, she was heartbroken … until Patricia suggested Susie ask her godmother to knit a scarf specifically for Oliver. Now, Jeanie knitted a new scarf for Oliver every year.

  “I’ve already knitted it,” Jeanie whispered.

  Tears spilled down Patricia’s cheeks. She was surprised she still had tears to cry. “She was always anthropomorphizing,” Patricia said. “I never saw a problem with it.”

  “There wasn’t a problem with it. She was an empathetic child with a vivid imagination.”

  “Which is why she was so easily lured …” Patricia didn’t recognize her own voice. Normally soft, it was now as hard and rough as Oliver’s bark. “I should have discouraged her flights of fancy. I should have—”

  “Stop it!” Jeanie shifted to face Patricia. “Not all the murdered children were like Susie. You don’t know that it would have been different if she’d been a different kind of child. You can’t keep trying to find reasons to blame yourself.”

  Patricia looked down. “I hated that place,” she whispered. “It always seemed creepy to me. But Susie loved it.”

  Jeanie frowned. “Are you sure you want to go over this again?”

  “I need to—”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. I can’t just forget.”

  “Why not? How are you helping Susie by torturing yourself with the details over and over?”

  Patricia wanted to yell at Jeanie to shut up, but she didn’t have the energy.

  Jeanie took both of Patricia’s hands. “Your daughter was murdered by a serial killer. She was lured to her death in a place where she should have been safe. There. We’ve dug it up again. Feel better?”

  Patricia yanked her hands back and started to stand. Jeanie grabbed her arm and held her in place, her grip pinching Patricia’s skin.

  “Don’t run away!” Jeanie shouted. Then she lowered her voice but kept it firm, just shy of scolding. “You can’t dredge up the past and then run from it. If you insist on trotting it out to torture yourself regularly, at least you should do it head-on. If you don’t, you’ll be running away your whole life, and you’ll never be able to let Susie go.”

  A car zipped by on the road, its engine revving. The smell of exhaust wafted up to the porch. Something about the odor erased Patricia’s anger.

  “She was wearing her favorite sweater, the one you knitted for her.”

  “Magenta with pink stripes,” Jeanie said.

  “She wanted sequins,” Patricia said.

  “And you wouldn’t let me put any on the sweater.”

  “So you put rhinestones on her jeans instead.”

  Jeanie laughed. “You were really angry with me.”

  Patricia wiped her eyes. “Stupid thing to be angry about.”

  Jeanie gently squeezed Patricia’s arm then let her go.

  A breeze curled up onto the porch from the yard, and Patricia shivered.

  Susie watched Samantha lean on a rake and scowl at Oliver.

  “It’s not his fault,” Susie said. “He can’t help it that his leaves land on the ground when he lets them go.”

  Samantha sighed.

  Susie tried not to be annoyed. “I said I’d do it,” she reminded Samantha.

  Right after they’d gotten home that afternoon, their mom said, “Maybe you can do a little raking before dinner.”

  Susie had said, “I’ll do it.”

  But before Susie could get to the rake, Samantha grabbed it, and now she wouldn’t let go. She’d rather “do it right” and not like doing it than let someone else do it “wrong.”

  Fine. Let Samantha rake. Susie would hang out with Oliver.

  Listening to the rasp and scuff of the rake, Susie went around to the back side of his trunk, away from the road, and hugged him. Oliver smelled smoky and moist. Laying the side of her face against his trunk, she listened. Sometimes when she listened really hard, she was sure she could hear him breathing.

  “Hi, Samantha!”

  The greeting came from the sidewalk. Susie peered around Oliver to see who was calling out to her sister. It was Drew, the kid with the scooter and the blond spiky hair. Today he was alone.

  Holding on to his scooter, Drew looked across the yard. Samantha stared back at him as if he was a bull about to charge her.

  Drew waved. “I see you at school a lot, and I just thought I’d say hi. I’m Drew.”

  Samantha glanced around like she suspected a trap. Susie wanted to go to her side and encourage her to talk to the kid, but Samantha would hate that. So Susie stayed hidden and watch
ed.

  Drew scratched his nose, and his scooter fell over. He bent to pick it up.

  “Hi,” Samantha said.

  Drew straightened and grinned.

  Samantha held the rake like a weapon. Susie didn’t think that looked very friendly.

  “Go over to him,” Susie hissed at her sister.

  Samantha ignored her. Susie knew listening to someone else’s conversation was “rude,” according to her mother. So she ran over to the side yard and started talking to the bedraggled plants in the flower beds. Would they tell her why her mom was ignoring them?

  Samantha wished the boy would go away. She also hoped he would stay. He was cute.

  But was he being nice or just messing around with her?

  Drew stepped closer so he was right at the edge of the sidewalk. “Um, I was really sorry about what happened to your sister.”

  Samantha looked down, but she managed to mumble, “Thank you.” She took a tentative step toward the sidewalk.

  Drew looked at Samantha. Then he looked up at the house. He lowered his voice. “Do you ever see her?”

  Samantha went still. She felt the blood rush from her face, and she gripped the rake so hard it hurt.

  Drew dropped his scooter and took several steps into the yard. Then he opened his mouth and words tumbled out so fast they piled up on each other. “I’m not trying to be mean, and I’m not making fun. Really. It’s just that I believe in ghosts, and I think people who die can stay around if they want. I had an uncle who died, and I saw him the night he died, and then he came back for a couple years after that. He was waiting for my dad to forgive him for something. I think ghosts hang around if they want something, you know? So I was just asking, and I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Dinner’s ready in five,” Samantha’s mom called from the porch. She didn’t notice Drew.

  Samantha had no idea what to say, so she just said, “Okay,” then turned around to head inside.

  “Bye,” Drew called.

  Samantha couldn’t go to sleep because she kept thinking about Drew. About what he’d said. Thinking about Drew was kind of nice. Thinking about what he said was not.

  His words bounced around in her head. “Ghosts hang around if they want something.”

  A faint snick and swish sound came from downstairs.

  Samantha sat up. She knew exactly what that sound was. Should she go down? Or wait?

  The tremors that always started at that sound began at her feet and scrabbled up her legs. Ignoring them, she jumped out of bed and padded across her room and into the hall. No sound came from her mom’s room. Nothing from downstairs now, either. But was that a cold draft?

  Samantha clenched her jaw and forced herself down the stairs. At the bottom, she paused, then she tiptoed through the dining room and peered into the kitchen.

  As she knew it would be, the back door was standing wide open. And now she could hear the other noise, coming from the porch: thud … tap … thud … tap.

  Moaning, she pushed through her terror. She ran through the kitchen, and she slammed and locked the back door. Then she sprinted as fast as she could back up to her bed.

  Once there, she tried to convince herself she was making everything up.

  In all the months she had been seeing her, Rhonda had never put her back to Samantha before. Was this some kind of test?

  Samantha frowned and tried to figure out what was going on. She looked around the room. It was plain and neat, the kind of room Samantha liked. All it had in it was a thick tan rug, Rhonda’s listening chair—a cream-colored plush chair with a low back and fat arms—a tan-and-cream striped sofa, and a child-sized wood table next to a trunk filled with toys. The room was interesting to Samantha because it extended out from the house, like a box, hovering about two feet off the ground. Three of the box’s sides were glass.

  A long sigh from Rhonda made Samantha blink, and Rhonda finally swiveled back to face her.

  “I’m sorry,” Rhonda said. “I’ve been trying to figure something out.”

  The crinkle between her thick black brows was unusual. Rhonda didn’t frown. Mostly, she smiled too much, in Samantha’s opinion. It wasn’t normal, especially for someone who listened to other people’s problems all day.

  “I like figuring things out,” Samantha said.

  “I know you do.” Rhonda brushed back her long black hair.

  Samantha stared at Rhonda’s big brown eyes. “So what are you trying to figure out?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to figure out how to keep your mom from sending you to someone else.”

  Samantha jerked her head up. “Why does my mom want to send me someplace else?”

  “Because you’re not making progress with me.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Rhonda leaned forward. “Samantha, I know something is stuck in your head. A thought. A belief. Something you keep thinking is trapped there, in your brain, and you’re not letting it out.”

  Rhonda was right, but Samantha didn’t tell her that.

  Samantha stared at her neatly tied navy blue sneakers. She liked things to be in their right places. She didn’t like messy.

  Change was messy. Therapy was messy, too. Before she’d started seeing Rhonda, her mom had taken her to two other people who were “there to help her.” Both had wanted her to play with a messy pile of toys in a messy room. She’d begged her mom not to make her go back.

  Finally, her mom brought her here. She didn’t love it here, but she didn’t hate it, either. Rhonda was different. This room was different. Samantha was okay with them both.

  “We had a fight,” she said.

  She had to tell Rhonda what was stuck so her mom wouldn’t make her go someplace else.

  “You and Susie?”

  Samantha nodded.

  “Okay.” Rhonda scribbled on her notepad. That used to bug Samantha—the scribbling—but she’d gotten used to it.

  “It was about Gretchen.”

  “Who’s Gretchen?”

  “The doll my mom said we had to share.”

  “Whose doll was it?”

  “Mom gave it to both of us, together.” Samantha rolled her eyes. “I hated that. I want mine to be mine. I don’t take Susie’s stuff, so I should have my own stuff.”

  “Okay.”

  “But Mom said we had to share.”

  Rhonda nodded.

  “So I tried to explain to Susie that we should each get Gretchen for a certain time. When Gretchen was with me, she’d study.”

  Rhonda smiled and nodded again.

  “Susie got upset about that. She said Gretchen didn’t like to study. Gretchen liked to go to the zoo. She wanted Gretchen to hang out with her stuffed animals all the time. She said if Gretchen had to study, she’d be sad.”

  Samantha stopped and remembered Susie standing in her room, hands on her hips, her lower lip jutted out. When Samantha insisted that Gretchen needed to study, Susie threw a tantrum. She cried, “But she’ll hate that!”

  “So what happened?” Rhonda asked.

  Samantha swung her legs. “When I tried to put Gretchen in front of a book, Susie grabbed her and ran off. She …”

  “She what?”

  Samantha counted her breaths the way Rhonda taught her. It was supposed to help with the feeling that bugs were crawling up her legs.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  On the fourth exhale, Samantha said, “She ran away and hid Gretchen. Then she came back and told me what she’d done. I told her I’d find Gretchen, and Susie was upset again. Before … that night … she told me she was going to find a better hiding place for Gretchen, and I’d never find her now.” Samantha fisted her hands and held them in front of her face.

  Then she said, “I think she was thinking about where to hide Gretchen, and that’s why she got taken. She thought whoever took her would help her hide the stupid doll.”

  Rhonda took a deep breath. “Th
ank you for telling me.”

  “Am I not stuck anymore?”

  “I don’t think you are.”

  Samantha nodded once. Good.

  “Where is the doll now?” Rhonda asked.

  “I haven’t found it.”

  Susie thought Samantha was unusually talkative today. She hadn’t shut up since their mom had picked her up from the funny glass house Samantha visited three times a week. Even though Samantha was talking about boring stuff, about multiplying and dividing fives, their mom seemed to be okay with listening. She kept nodding as she drove through traffic. She didn’t smile, though. Neither did Samantha. Samantha was so stiff she looked like a robot. She sounded like a robot, too. It was weird. She was talking as if she had to talk or something bad would happen.

  If she had to talk, couldn’t she talk about something good?

  “How about we talk about cute things?” Susie asked.

  Samantha and her mom must not have heard her because Samantha kept talking about numbers and math. Susie sighed.

  What was the point in hanging out with them if they were going to ignore her?

  Susie turned and looked at Samantha’s right ear. Samantha’s ears weren’t pierced like Susie’s were. Susie liked to wear pretty-colored earrings. Samantha refused to have hers pierced because she didn’t want holes in her ears. Susie wondered, if I blow hard enough, can I push all the boring words out of her head?

  Turning, Susie blew as hard as she could into Samantha’s ear.

  Samantha stopped talking.

  Ha! Susie grinned.

  “Were you done with your story?” Susie’s mom asked Samantha.

  Samantha didn’t answer. She sat perfectly still in her seat.

  Susie wasn’t sure the silence was any better than the nonstop chatter. It wasn’t a soft, comfortable silence, like a cushy plush bear. It was a sharp silence, like the pointy ends of metal things poking at your skin. The silence hurt her ears … and her heart.

  Susie started singing to drown out the silence. No one sang with her, but she didn’t care. She sang until Susie’s mom turned onto their road. Then Susie stopped and waited eagerly to spot her house and check on Oliver.