by L. G. McCary
“Of course she does. Ellie is the best,” I say, pulling back to look Rylie in the eyes. “Aren’t you lucky? And the other junior girls like you, right?”
She nods.
“You go have fun with Ellie tonight, okay? You hang out with her. And forget the rest of them.” Maybe Ellie can change everyone else’s mind. Maybe she’ll be able to shut Hannah down. “Now let’s fix your mascara, ok?”
The doorbell rings, and Rylie looks panicked. I push her toward my bedroom.
“Go get my makeup remover and fix it. I’ll talk to Ellie, ok?”
“Can you get my backpack for me?”
I wave her off and walk to the front door to let Ellie in.
“Hi, Mrs. Madsen!” Ellie has her hair pulled up into a messy bun. She’s wearing a long tunic top with leggings.
“Don’t you look cute!”
“Thank you! Where’s Rylie?”
“She needed to fix her makeup. Come on in. I’m going to get her backpack.” I try not to flinch as dozens of Other Mes in the kitchen scream at me not to let Rylie go. But I won’t let Her tell me what to do. My daughter deserves to have fun with her friends after all the misery of the last weeks.
Rylie bounds into the hallway. Her mascara is back to normal, but her eyes are red.
“You girls have a great time, ok?” I hand her the backpack, forcing myself to let go of it a little too obviously.
“I’ll take good care of her, Mrs. Madsen,” Ellie says.
“Love you, Mom,” Rylie says and hugs me. I hug her back and kiss the top of her head. Ellie drives them both away while a hundred Other Mes surround me, crying and screaming soundlessly.
Forty
David called before he boarded the plane and debriefed me on his interviews. He likes Denver. He even drove around a few neighborhoods near the building to get ideas about a new house. I’m doing the same thing, except on my computer because it’s the only thing keeping me sane.
The room is so full. There are hundreds now. She has multiplied until She fills the room. Each version wears the same blue shirt that I hate so much. Some have their hair clipped back, while others seem not to care about tangles and knots. One stands at the counter making cutting motions. Another paces back and forth in front of the back door. One weeps, kneeling in the doorway to the living room. Dozens more pantomime chores throughout the room with hollow eyes.
And then there’s the one screaming at me. She is right next to me, her mouth open in a silent scream, shaking her fists at my face. She reaches for my shoulder, and I jerk back involuntarily. I thank God there is no one home to see me like this. I have finally gone mad.
I try to shut out the Other Mes and focus. The clock says 11:00. I texted Ellie, but I haven’t heard from her. I have forced myself to wait, minute by excruciating minute. What if She was right? What if I shouldn’t have let Rylie go tonight?
I close my eyes and shake my head. Ellie and Rylie could be singing karaoke to the radio in the car on the way home and not hear the message. I shouldn’t worry. If I thought I could make it without being sick, I would go lie down on the couch, but the whirling of ghostly forms through the room makes me too nauseated to stand.
The phone rings, and I snap it on without looking at the name.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mrs. Madsen.” Ellie’s voice sends a chill across my skin. She sounds as if she is about to cry, and I know deep in my gut that something is very wrong.
“Ellie?”
“Um, did you come get Rylie early? Everyone else has gone home, and I can’t find her.”
“You can’t find her?”
“No, ma’am. We played sardines earlier, and I didn’t see her after the game. I thought maybe you...” Ellie breaks down in loud tears, and someone else asks for the phone.
“Hi, Charlotte,” our youth pastor says. “Rylie isn’t with you? We were thinking that maybe she went home early.”
“No, I was about to call Ellie to ask where she was.”
“Oh.”
In the silence, I realize the room around me is growing even more crowded. I flinch as I step through the ghostly figures to the refrigerator. The flyer for the party is stuck to the front with a magnet. All the movement in the room feels like gravity is folding in on itself.
“Charlotte, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. All the sponsors are still here with us, and none of them signed her out to go home.”
“So nobody knows where Rylie is? No one?”
I slump against the refrigerator. Cold creeps up from my toes over my body as if I’m being dragged underwater. The icy pinpricks sting across my skin until they reach my neck, and I shiver uncontrollably. I shut my eyes as my vision spins. I’m on the rollercoaster in the dark, but I’m so cold. The fireworks crash around me, and I’m being shoved through an invisible wall of ice. I can’t move or speak or even think. Everything is cold and dark.
Then the cold is gone, leaving a dead emptiness in my stomach. I force my eyes open.
I’m still sitting against the refrigerator, but the room is empty. The Other Charlottes have vanished.
“Charlotte, are you there?” I hear Jerry on my phone.
“Yes...” I manage to whisper.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay! My daughter is missing!” The room is completely still and silent but for the sound of the air conditioner. There are no Other Charlottes in the room. Nothing at all. Tears blur my vision out of focus. The stillness is suffocating. What happened to them?
“I’m going to make some phone calls to some parents. Is there anyone she might have gone home with? Renee, maybe?”
“I…I don’t think so.” My daughter is missing. The phrase reverberates in my head.
“I did have to step away a few times, but there was always another adult at check out. Diana was with me. And Debbie. I’m sure they saw her. We’re going to check the sign-in again. Let me make some phone calls, okay?”
“Jerry, please find her.”
“We have twelve adults looking all through the church. I’ll find out who she went home with. I’m sorry, Charlotte. We will figure it out.” He pauses. “You know, Liana did this same thing after girls’ night out. She slipped out with Hannah and didn’t sign out. But she called her mom.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
“Rylie doesn’t have a phone, Jerry.”
“Oh.” His voice changes. “I’ll call you right back, ok?”
I hang up, and the invisible wall of ice knocks my breath from my lungs. I shiver, and the movement stings me from head to toe like the pinpricks when your foot or hand falls asleep. Is this what a seizure feels like? My face stings so much that my eyes water, and I rub my cheeks with the backs of my hands.
I see Her again.
She is sitting at my desk in front of the computer. She is doing exactly what I was doing in the moments before I knew Rylie was missing. She holds an invisible phone and stares into space. There’s only one. I look around the room for the others, but this one ghost is enough to suck all the oxygen from my lungs.
I watch Her answering the phone in pantomime. She skips and shimmers and answers the phone again, in exactly the same way. It’s like something from a horror movie. The room seems to shrink in around me until I think I may suffocate.
I have to call David.
I dial with shaking hands, but it goes directly to voicemail. I forgot he’s still on the plane. Why does David have to be on a plane right now? Why can’t he be home? That stupid interview!
“David, call me as soon as you get this message. It’s about Rylie. Call me immediately.”
I hang up and stare at my phone, ignoring the stillness around me. Finally, it lights up with Jerry’s number.
“Did you find her?”
“No, and we don’t think she signed out either.”
“What?”
“We’re trying to figure out what happened, Charlotte. I’m so sorry.”
; “How could she leave early without someone noticing?” I say, my voice rising to a shriek. “It’s supposed to be a lock-in!”
“I was all over the place with the activities, but I promise we had more than enough leaders. We’ll find her.”
“I think I’m going to call her grandma.”
“Good idea. Maybe she went there instead of home. Is there anywhere else she might have gone?”
The sentence doesn’t process at first. Then I realize what he means.
“Jerry, Rylie didn’t run away!” I shout. Rylie has too many reasons to come home. Even if she was angry with me, she would never run away from David. The thought is like a razor in my heart.
“No, I’m sure she didn’t. Call me back either way.”
I hang up and watch Her at the kitchen table, answering the invisible phone and staring into space, like a skipping record. I’ve never been more afraid of Her.
I dial Nana Tanya’s number.
“Hello,” she answers, her voice slightly higher-pitched than normal.
“Tanya, it’s Charlotte. Please tell me Rylie is with you.”
“Rylie? No, she’s not here. What happened?”
“She went to the lock-in tonight with Ellie, and now no one knows where she is.” I can’t sit still. I start to pace back and forth next to the kitchen counter.
“Oh...” Tanya sounds breathless. “Could she be at a friend’s house?”
“No. Not after everything with school.”
“Are you sure?”
“The youth team is looking for her,” I say, my voice breaking. “No one knows who she left with. Tanya, I don’t know what to do! David is still on the plane!”
“Okay, deep breath. Press pause for a minute, sweetheart. I’m sure she’s being her usual forgetful self.”
“What if something happened?”
“They’ll find her. Should I come wait at your house so you can go to the church?”
“Could you?”
I hear the television in the background shut off. “Let me get dressed. I’ll text before I leave.”
I hang up and call my mom’s cell phone.
“Hi, honey! A little late to call, huh?”
“Mom...” My voice breaks, and I can’t speak again for a long moment. I finally find the words to explain.
“Oh, baby, I’m sure she’s with friends,” Mom says. “She just forgot to call you. Rylie’s being Rylie.”
“I just know something bad happened.”
“Let’s try not to panic yet. I know you want to. I want to. But let’s try not to.” I hear my dad’s voice in the background, and she tells him what happened. I hear the buzzing of the speakerphone as Mom turns it on.
“Honey, she’s bad about remembering stuff, right?” Dad says.
“Where’s David?” Mom asks.
“He’s still on the plane.”
“Oh honey, and you all alone,” she says. “No wonder you’re freaking out.”
The sentence sets my teeth on edge.
“I am not freaking out. I am scared for my daughter who is missing!”
“Charlotte, surely it’s just a mistake.”
I know that I’m usually crazy, but one glance around my completely empty kitchen tells me that I am definitely not losing it right now.
“Rylie is going to have a lot of apologizing to do,” my dad says.
I manage to gracefully hang up. My phone vibrates with a text message from my mother-in-law.
Heard anything?
I bite my lip and try not to cry. I don’t know if having my mother-in-law here would make things better or worse. David won’t be back for another forty-five minutes. But she could be here in thirty.
No, still nothing.
I dial Jerry’s number again, praying Ellie has found Rylie.
Forty-One
I pace aimlessly around our house as I wait for my mother-in-law. Every time I’ve been unfair or didn’t listen to Rylie replays in my mind. My eyes hurt from crying. I am utterly helpless until my mother-in-law arrives so I can go to church. And even then, what can I do? If she’s missing, what can I possibly do to find her? Why didn’t I let Rylie have a phone so she could call me?
Worst of all, the Other Charlottes are slowly returning. I see them everywhere, but they are dim and hard to see. Some are fully transparent. Most aren’t wearing the blue shirt, which terrifies me, but I try to focus on what is real. After I called Jerry, I called everyone from church. Renee told me to text her as soon as I found Rylie. I hung up on her. I hung up on Yvonne, too. I didn’t have time for fake platitudes.
I scroll through my phone to my very last possibility. I haven’t heard from Tori in two weeks, all my texts in the meantime are still unread. I take a deep breath and call her number, praying she picks up.
It goes immediately to voicemail.
I can’t sit still, so I walk through the sea of ghosts until I end up in Rylie’s room. I notice her ballerina lamp on the desk and remember when my mother-in-law brought it over. This room was so different then. It was a nursery, full of fuzzy blankets and brightly colored toys. I had set it on the chest of drawers next to the changing table. I’d designed or chosen every detail except that ballerina lamp.
I turn on the lamp and let its warm glow fill the room. I remember rocking Rylie to sleep in that soft pink light. It was the first time she slept more than three hours. I turn toward the window and think of how the trees made patterns on the windows.
The horrible cold pours over me again. The Other Me is here, rocking in the corner in an invisible rocking chair. She is transparent and shimmery like a ghost. Usually, she is as real as me. The longer I look, I realize She looks different. Her hair is long, pulled back in a messy bun, and she’s wearing the soft pink pajamas I finally threw away last week. They look brand new. She rocks back and forth, staring down into Her arms cradled around emptiness.
I take a step toward Her to get a better look at Her.
She jumps.
She looks up at me in absolute terror and squeezes Her eyes shut. She keeps rocking with Her eyes shut. I stumble back over a pile of Rylie’s clothes and stand against her bed, staring. She keeps rocking with eyes resolutely shut. She’s afraid of me. She’s never been afraid of me before. I’m always afraid of Her.
I step toward Her again. She keeps rocking, eyes closed. She looks calm, but I can see Her hands are shaking. I reach toward Her.
She vanishes like a blown-out candle, and I’m left alone.
Why is She afraid of me? This is even worse than all the others disappearing in the kitchen.
My body shivers violently. I stumble down the hallway to our room to wash my face. The bathroom light is too bright, like the cold lamp of a surgical unit. I pull my hair back with a headband and splash my face with warm water. The washcloth is rough on my tender eyes as I rinse away the mess of mascara and eyeshadow. I rinse my face and blot it dry. I don’t know what else to do. I glance at myself in the mirror and wince at my hollow eyes and messy hair. I miss my long hair.
The cold snakes down my back in pinpricking rivulets.
She’s here again. She is so transparent I would miss Her if I didn’t know exactly where to look. Her hair is long and falls in waves over Her shoulders. Her eyes are wide in terror, looking straight at me, but She shimmers like She is made of fog. I can barely see sparkly black eye makeup melting down Her face. She is calling for David. I whip around to look for him, but he isn’t there.
I back away into the corner next to the shower and hold myself up with the towel bar. I remember the steam of the shower seeming to swirl and move as if a person were walking through it. I told myself it was my imagination. Just the heating fan. The Other Me turns to run out into the bedroom, trailing away like smoke as she goes.
I stumble to the sink and put my hand on the mirror to make sure it is really there. The cold hits me harder than ever.
This time I look Her straight in the eye. She is as real as me. Her hair is newly cut, a
nd She is crying. Her image shudders like a video skipping forward, and She’s wearing the scarf Rylie fixed for me. Her eyes are smudged with makeup. She’s talking to an invisible Rylie and David, trying to explain. She shudders and skips, and She’s back to brushing her hair.
Then She’s gone.
I back against the shower and see another flash of Her. The shiver starts at my neck and spreads over me in a flash. She is waiting on a pregnancy test. A loud clatter sends me jumping back from the shower, and I watch my shampoo bottle spin at the bottom of the tub. It comes to a stop next to the drain. When I look up, She is lying on the floor of the bathroom, bleeding.
She looks at me in utter terror, and I sink down onto the floor and cover my face with my arms.
How?
Memories crowd into my mind of Rylie dancing and playing. The fights with David. The time I nearly dropped Rylie from sheer exhaustion when she was six months old. Each brings shocks of ice big and small until I am shivering so hard I can’t breathe. The ice keeps hitting me, locking my muscles. It grips me with fingers made of needles. I gasp for air, but breathing hurts.
Is this what it’s like to die?
The thought echoes back and forth in my brain, and I’m suddenly plunging into a dark hole. I know this feeling, this rollercoaster in the dark. Is this memory or reality? Am I dying?
The rollercoaster slams through the dark and jerks me through the ice over and over. The question screams through my skull like a hurricane.
Did I die?
Is my whole life an illusion, the last firing of neurons as my brain shuts down in an ugly hospital bed? Is Rylie on her way to the NICU, and I’ve lived an entire twelve years in those split seconds?
Shouldn’t I feel peace?
“Where are you, God?” I whisper.
The tile is cool against my cheek. I use the feeling as my anchor. I count to ten, letting the soft pressure against my cheek guide me back to reality. The smooth cold surface that smells like cleaning supplies suspends me from myself. I float above the fear in a cold dark river. This river is familiar. It has taken me before, after Rylie was born.
