by Lisa Unger
And painful. Forever.
He still got the occasional email from Avery March. I’m still willing to listen if there’s something you’re hiding. Please. I just want to find my sister. He always deleted without answering.
“So is your mom not coming?” he asked.
“I guess not,” she said with a shrug.
“I’ll give you a lift,” he said, against his better judgment. Probably best to just take her home than have her hanging out here indefinitely. He wondered if she’d balk, considering they’d just been talking about his past, and apparently she knew all. But she stood and followed him out.
They walked around back to the church van, and climbed inside. He in the driver’s seat, she in the back row. She didn’t live far, just outside town, and they took the ride in near silence. He’d plugged her address into his GPS. It took eight minutes to get to her neighborhood. Her house was one of those McMansions with a wannabe Mediterranean look—pink with clay-tile roof, columns, a fountain. The other houses in the neighborhood were a mishmash of styles—Victorian, Craftsman, a couple of low ranch homes. Some were even bigger, some tiny and clearly older.
He pulled in front of the driveway, and Marla edged out. “Thanks for the lift.”
“No problem.” He rolled down the window.
Outside, she turned back to him, rested a hand on the van door. She bit her lip.
“Hey, Pastor Mason. I believe you.”
It meant something to him. It shouldn’t. But it did.
“Thanks, Marla.”
Mason watched her head toward the door. She turned and waved, then disappeared inside.
He lingered a moment, texted Marla’s mother, whose number he had from the last time she’d been in to talk about her daughter. She was an older, frazzled version of her daughter, but still attractive. Had the aura of someone overwhelmed by life, by her child. Not a terrible mother, but not all in either.
Hi, this is Mason from the spiritual center. Marla said you got hung up at work so I gave her a lift home. Just watched her go inside.
He wanted to log this moment somewhere, with someone. But no answer came, no read receipt. He didn’t want to be paranoid; Marla was a handful, but she wasn’t a sociopath. She wasn’t going to claim he’d hurt her or come on to her. Why would she?
Finally, he pulled away. At the stop sign, he glanced in the rearview mirror. For a startled second, he thought he saw a tall, dark shadow behind the oak tree in her yard. But no. It was a trick of the light.
2.
It’s not working.
Just give it a minute.
Have you done this before?
Maybe?
Jewel was an expert at texting on one device and gaming—or whatever—on another. In this case, her iPad rested next to her on the bed and was open to the virtual Ouija board that Eldon had suggested she visit. She used her free hand to text him from her phone.
On the virtual Ouija board, she let her finger rest on the little pointer thingy.
There was a layer of unease, like she was doing something wrong. But it was just for fun, right? She couldn’t help thinking, though: What was that ancient horror movie her father was always talking about? The Exorcist. Some kid screws around with one of those boards and invites a demon into their lives. Her dad wouldn’t go near anything like this, got weirdly freaked out by “supernatural” stuff.
And.
Nothing happened.
Jewel hunkered down deeper into her blankets and waited while a bunch of stupid ads popped up at the top of the screen—the jeans she’d been looking at earlier, some garden tools that she imagined her mother had been shopping for, a new video game called Fight Club. The minutes dragged on. She listened as her parents’ conversation in the bedroom next door droned on. The walls were thick, so she couldn’t hear their words, just the endless monotone of it. They rarely yelled. They discussed.
Let’s just go back to Red World, she typed into her phone. The virtual Ouija board was dormant. Stupid.
You’re not a very patient person, are you? wrote Eldon.
She wasn’t. But the truth was that she just wanted to move on from whatever had happened outside. Maybe she had just had some kind of nervous breakdown—from all the stress she was under. Her dad was right; she did know about Amelia March and more about the history of Merle House and the property than she’d admitted. So maybe it was just like a perfect storm, and she’d lost it.
That happened, right?
The house had been quiet—no strange noises. The light on her desk was giving off a rosy glow, and she was buried under the soft comforter. Her father had just been in, standing at the door, staring at her in that weird way parents sometimes did, with a mingle of love and worry.
“Um, good night?” she’d said when he didn’t leave. He’d looked embarrassed, startled, as if he’d been lost in thought.
“Good night, bunny,” he’d said, and left.
A ripple of guilt. Maybe she should have been nicer. But—whatever. All this was his fault at its core; they wouldn’t be in this old house if they hadn’t had to give up everything because of what he did.
Did you type in your question? Eldon nudged via text. Again she found herself wondering who he was, what he looked like. If he was a “he” at all. Should they take their online relationship to the next level? Voice? FaceTime?
Yeah, I did, she answered.
What did you ask it?
I asked it if my house was haunted.
Still, nothing happened.
She was about to switch off and log in to Red World when the pointer started to slowly move.
It’s moving, she texted with one hand.
It is??
The pointer came to a stop over the first letter:
B
Then it moved on. She texted each letter to Eldon as it appeared.
A
S
E
M
E
N
T
She stared at the word she’d texted, feeling a dump of dread.
Basement? he texted after a moment. That’s creepy as fuck. Are you making this up?
She sat up, pushed the hair from her eyes, and slid away from the iPad.
No! This is just some kind of trick, right? There’s like an algorithm. You type in a certain thing and it chooses from a list of responses?
She felt a little breathless as she watched the dots on the screen pulse.
Eldon: My friend asked it if her boyfriend was cheating. The board said yes. And he was.
She stared at the screen, holding the phone in both hands, then attacking it with her thumbs.
That means nothing.
Jewel watched the iPad screen. Then it went blank, came back up another moment later. It issued a directive: Enter another question.
She shut it down and put the iPad on her desk, feeling notes of unease and fear.
Ha ha! wrote Eldon. I’m just messing with you. It’s bullshit. Of course.
She blew out a breath, laughed a little, still feeling uneasy. Her parents’ voices had gone quiet. She heard her dad walk downstairs, the stairs creaking under his weight.
I know, she typed. Duh.
So you’re not heading down to the basement, then?
She laughed, some of the tension leaving her.
Hell no. What is this? A B horror movie? I’m not some busty slut looking for an ax in the head.
Eldon sent some laughing faces. She sent him the bikini top and a knife.
Arright, he wrote finally, let’s play. You owe me like 50 Red Coin from last time.
I do not.
And then they were on the game, the lush greens and purples and blues of the world a kind of soothing eye candy. She was in her most kick-ass skin, a tight black bodysuit, cat ears, and long pink hair, a big rocket launcher on her shoulder. In Red World, she had a hot body, was a fearless killer, an awesome architect. Eldon was all muscles and tats, wearing a headband and unbeatable with a
crossbow. Together they took on opponents and demons, stockpiled weapons and treasure, got each other out of jams. And Jewel—the real Jewel—who most of the time felt vulnerable, lonely, isolated, and more than a little afraid in this new sucky life they were all living, disappeared altogether.
She was watching Eldon on the game, moving through a jungle landscape where colorful birds flew by, and there were hidden dangers—traps in the ground, snakes that came from nowhere to deliver a deadly bite. They ran around for a while, explored a castle where she picked up a package of bandages—which you could use to heal yourself or your wounded friends. Then they were in the forest. Eldon took out some other players; then he and Jewel headed through a system of caves. In a lot of ways, the game was like the dreams she’d had when she was little—real but not real, epic in scope, on and on, her path and the options available determined by someone else’s programming. She could exert some control, but sometimes things surprised her, or got away from her. There were glitches where she tried to do one thing and another thing happened.
Eldon came out of the cave, and up ahead she could see the finish, a golden goblet filled with coins. She moved to follow him, and just as she did, Eldon turned, and her head exploded. No gore on Red World, just an explosion of stars and a purple fade of the screen.
You killed me, she texted. She felt betrayed, a little angry.
No. You killed yourself. Watch your back next time.
That was when she saw the player who had come up from behind her. He was tall and slender, besuited. He held an assault rifle, had a gray face mask with glowing red eyes. Not a character she had seen before, and she’d been playing this game a long time.
Who’s that? she typed.
Idk, answered Eldon. His screen name is TheDarkMan.
3.
Mason woke with a start. What had woken him? He lay still in his bed, listening. His dream still clung. He had been dreaming about Amelia March again.
He dreamed about her often. Images, fragments of memories. How she used to work in the pizzeria in town. How her long, silken black hair skimmed the middle of her back. How she used to bring him free slices when he showed up at dinnertime. He’d come starving. He usually only had money for one slice, quarters he’d scrounged from the change jar, or from between couch cushions. Sometimes his mom might give him a few dollars if she had it, when she was too tired, too beaten to cook—often. He’d gotten breakfast and lunch at school. Dinner had been a maybe. So when he turned up at Joe’s Slice and Amelia was working, there was this kind of sideways glance she’d give him. Like she knew. Like she knew what it was to live in a house where you might get dinner and might not.
She’d bring him the slice he’d ordered as he sat alone in the sticky booth. Then she’d bring him two more, sometimes three. Or a meatball sub. She’d refill his soda even when he didn’t ask. She never brought a check, but he’d leave her all his money, whatever he had.
The heat from the pizza ovens, her warm scent of flowers, her creamy skin, the jangle of her charm bracelet.
He’d loved her.
That was why he’d sometimes waited in the alley for her shift to end, and followed her as she walked home. He wanted to make sure she got home safe. He used to imagine scenarios where she would ask him to walk her home and invite him inside.
He’d had pizza for dinner; that was why he dreamed about Amelia. The support group for mothers who had lost children met on Wednesdays, and they were big eaters—cheesy pizzas, greasy chicken wings, gooey doughnuts, big cookies, colorful cupcakes, as if binge eating might dull the pain. Maybe it did for a time. There had been two full pepperoni pies left over after last night’s meeting. He’d be eating pizza and dreaming about Amelia all week.
He sat up, looked around the sparsely furnished room. Moonlight fell on the simple desk, gleaming on the closed lid of his laptop. The clothes he’d worn last night were tossed over the back of the reading chair. He listened. There had been some break-ins over the years. It wasn’t a great neighborhood, and twice junkies had broken in to look for the collection box. There wasn’t one. But tonight he didn’t hear anything more outside his room.
His heart was still racing from the end of his dream, where he’d chased Amelia through the woods out to the dilapidated old monster that stood behind Merle House. After a few moments of listening, Mason lay back and closed his eyes.
The dream hooked him back almost immediately—the smell of the woods—that mingle of rot and freshness, the sound of his footfalls, his breath, Amelia far ahead, laughing.
Then he was startled awake again.
There was a busy road out in front of the church; often there was late-night street noise. But the night seemed quiet, no cars casting their lights on the wall, no revelers from the bar down the street stumbling home, no motorcycle screaming past.
Then his phone buzzed, the screen glowing in the dim. He reached for it where it was charging on the bedside table.
A bubble on the screen told him he’d missed a call from a number he didn’t recognize; there was a voice mail. It was just after midnight. He was fully awake now. He tapped on the phone to listen.
“Pastor Mason, I’m in so much trouble. Something’s happened.”
Marla sounded breathless, afraid, her voice high and thin.
“Can you—can you come get me? Please don’t call my mom. This is . . . so bad. I need some help.”
The sound of her sobbing got him up and pulling on his jeans.
“I’m texting you the address,” she went on, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Please.”
A text came through with an address.
He threw on a shirt and stepped into his shoes, grabbed his keys. On his way out the door, he called back the number.
But he got only a recording of Marla’s voice: I am out doing amazing things with cool people. But I’ll call you back—if I feel like it.
“Hey, Marla,” he said. “What’s going on? Call me back.”
Out in the van, he stared at the phone.
Stop.
This was what he’d tell one of his kids with impulse-control issues. Think about this. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? What are the possible outcomes for going out in the middle of the night at the behest of an underage girl? Call her mother. Call the police. Record this moment.
Instead, he put the van in gear and pulled out onto the street.
Why?
Turn right on Main in point four miles, the computer navigation commanded.
Because.
Marla trusted him enough to call when she needed help. If he called her mother or the police, he was just another grown-up, someone on the other team. And sometimes kids needed to feel like there was an adult who was young enough to understand them, to help without judgment, to come when they called.
Because.
Once upon a time, maybe he could have saved Amelia. And he just—didn’t.
Young Mason waited for Amelia outside the pizzeria some nights. The shop closed at ten, and just about fifteen minutes after the hour, she’d come out. She lived about a ten-minute walk away, behind the strip mall that held the pizza place, a supermarket, a barbershop, other small, barely surviving businesses. It was a safe-enough neighborhood, if not an especially well-tended one. Working class, populated by people more concerned with making ends meet than with keeping their places up. Streets were mainly deserted by ten. Sometimes he’d just fall into step beside her, and she’d say:
“Hey, Mason.”
If she knew he was waiting for her, she didn’t make a big deal out of it. She’d ask him how his day was, tell him about this crabby customer or that big tipper. Just chatter to fill the silence. He’d walk her to the ranch house she lived in with her mom and stepdad. Usually it would be dark, as if everyone inside were sleeping; sometimes he could see the blue glow of a television screen behind the curtains. He would stand on the sidewalk, lift a hand as she disappeared inside.
“Good night,” she’d say usually.
“Thanks for the company.”
She was seventeen. Not such a huge age difference between them—Mason was almost sixteen—but unbridgeable in kid years. She was a full head taller than he was. He was still in school—a kid. She was out, just on the edge of adulthood. She was far beyond his reach, and he knew it. He just liked to be close to her. If he tried to kiss her, she’d probably just laugh—not unkindly. No, Amelia March was a kind person. A nice girl, in her way.
Mason was in the alleyway the night she went missing.
He was about to walk up to her as she exited the pizza shop. But he stopped short when he saw a tall, rangy guy lope in from the other direction. Mason didn’t recognize the stranger, could barely see his face in the dark. Whoever he was, he took Amelia into an embrace. She tilted her head up and kissed him, their shadows merging into one. When they walked off, pressed close together, Mason trailed behind, following them down Main Street, through the town square, and then out onto the road that led to the woods. He knew where they were going. Where all the kids went to fool around and get high. He stayed close behind them.
He was buffeted by feelings of jealousy (Who is this guy?), curiosity (What are they up to?), excitement at the idea that if he followed, maybe he’d get to see Amelia. If he couldn’t have her, and he clearly couldn’t, he wasn’t above watching her with someone else—what teenage boy was?
Now he found himself on a deserted road, tires crunching, headlights the only illumination in the pitch black. The moon had disappeared behind cloud cover. No streetlights, no houses with interior lights glowing.
You have arrived at your destination, said the GPS unhelpfully.
There was no structure of any kind that he could see. He brought the car to a crawl. There. An old mailbox tilting next to a hidden drive.
He turned the van and wound down the path, branches knocking at the roof and at the windows. Finally, up ahead, a small white house sunk into the darkness. No interior lights glowing, no sign of life. He pulled up and killed the engine, kept the headlights burning.
He slid out of the van, stayed by the open door. The air smelled of rot and the distant scent of woodsmoke. He wanted a cigarette, though he’d quit—more or less. Sometimes he still bummed a smoke from the guys at the AA meeting, just as a way to connect.
