A Guide for Murdered Children

by Sarah Sparrow

  All of his doubts had dissolved and he was fully inside Annie’s dream.

  “A brother and sister returned together, which has never happened . . . and one of my boys, Dabba Doo, has been here far too long—three times longer than he should, and that too has never occurred.” Willow flickered in and out. One moment he was all in; the next, he saw her as if through the wrong end of a telescope. “And worst of all,” she said, “I’ve begun asking myself those same useless questions again, the ones I had early in my apprenticeship. I know it’s the fault of ‘haywire’ but knowing doesn’t seem to make a whit of difference . . . I fear that I’m losing my faith, and I cannot afford for that to happen! I will not betray my mentor in such a way, nor will I betray you or the children under my care.” She took a deep breath that he imagined being her last. “You see, Willow, I’m not well—the truth is, I’m dying. That’s why you’ve come to me, to us. That’s why you’re here—”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  He felt a measure of shame, because the panic of abandonment that seized him at the prospect of her leaving him had temporarily eclipsed any feelings of empathy about her condition.

  “You said you were asking yourself questions, Annie . . . what sort of questions?”

  “I probably shouldn’t say—you’re too new, and it isn’t right to burden you . . .” Her need to confide overruled the hesitation. “My children have never failed to achieve the moment of balance—but lately I’ve caught myself wondering, ‘What happens if they don’t?’ What if they fail in their task of finding the ones who killed them? And what if the landlords—the bodies they’ve borrowed—are destroyed before they’re able to assist them? If they’re struck by an automobile or somehow disabled—which has never happened and in itself is unthinkable! It’s a loss of faith I tell you . . . a Pandora’s box of What ifs has blown open and hard as I try I cannot slam it shut . . . What if those who return confront their murderers, but the moment of balance somehow gets botched—and they’re murdered again by the very one who once destroyed them? Is or isn’t that a possibility, Willow?” She literally shook in distress and he couldn’t discern if she expected him to answer. “And larger questions come, that aren’t even germane. For example, are children the only ones who seek moments of balance? Why wouldn’t everyone who’d ever been murdered do the same? And if that were true, it would stand to reason that Meetings are being held throughout the world”—she was hysterical now—“thousands and thousands and thousands of them! When I asked my mentor, he said that may well be true but that it wasn’t my concern . . . which it isn’t! Because we’re meant to deal only with that which is in front of us, Willow; to ask for more is egotism, arrogance, faithlessness. But I have begun to reconsider all these things, I can’t help myself!—can’t sleep at night—worlds of Meetings I can never attend or know of, as if any of it makes a difference! These questions, these doubts are merely a symptom of ‘haywire,’ can you see? My mind is cluttered and disordered . . . Just this morning I was wondering: If my children don’t complete their tasks, then what happens? Do those responsible for their deaths get away scot-free? That would be so unfair! Yet the very idea of ‘fairness’ is a notion of our world, not theirs, not the world of mystery—or is it? Can you see the quandary? I’ve even begun to question the moment of balance itself . . . because in the end, isn’t the whole notion of ‘getting away with’ or ‘not getting away with’ murder a meaningless thing? Mystery cannot be fair, Willow, mystery just is. Mystery isn’t meant for such a crude concept as fairness . . . and yet—what will happen to the children? What will happen to them if they don’t succeed? Will they be in limbo? Or is ‘limbo’ just another crude and meaningless concept, a concept of this world . . . I tell you, it haunts me! I am haunted just like the mothers who lost their murdered babies . . .”

  Annie went on to say that if she failed at her duties, she’d be killing her wards as surely as those who had slayed them. Then she calmed herself, apologizing for the outburst.

  “Not a wonderful way to pass the torch to a new Porter,” she said. She poured her tea with an unsteady hand, took a deep breath and smiled. Worry returned, furrowing her brow. This time it was as if she were thinking out loud. “And there’s a girl who’s far too young. Adolescents are never landlords, they’re too unstable to effect the moment of balance—too many hormones. And this one’s unstable by nature . . .”

  “Okay,” nodded Willow, numb and overwhelmed. It was another way of saying that’s enough now.

  “There’s only one thing I seem to know—just one thing.”

  “What’s that, Annie?”

  “It’s time that you be properly introduced.”

  She closed her eyes and a charming little smile played across her face.

  “It’s time for you to meet the children.”

  DYSPHORIA

  1.

  Dr. Jacqueline Robart’s supervisor told her about the girl. Jacquie was his go-to when it came to troubled teens.

  Because of a genetic condition (and resultant physical deformities), Renée “Honeychile” Devonshire had played adoption roulette longer than most. Three years ago, Hildy Collins finally found her a home. Jacquie had profound respect for the woman whom professionals in the field called “the adoption whisperer.” She was a legend, routinely placing kids thought to be hopeless, violent or mentally ill in environments where they blossomed. Renée, a member of “Hildy’s Girl Squad,” had apparently done very well—until now.

  Jacquie met with her parents while the client waited in the anteroom. From what the shrink could see, Harold and Rayanne were a warm, loving, somewhat overprotective couple who’d become concerned with their daughter’s erratic behavior. They spent the first five minutes kvelling over how smart and funny Renée was and how well she’d done in school, considering her special challenges. Her lisp, short stature and overall appearance made her an easy target. “But lately,” said Rayanne, “everything has changed.” She was often reported as truant and sometimes didn’t come home for supper. She’d been a straight-A student, but three of her teachers told the Devonshires they might have to fail her. Rayanne said she had a heart-to-heart with Zelda, one of Renée’s closest friends, who confided that she too was “worried sick.” The therapist was glad to hear Renée still had a friend, which bode well in its small way. By the time kids wound up in her office, they’d often left friends far behind or acquired new ones of the dangerous kind. The Devonshires insisted that drugs or boyfriends weren’t an issue, but Jacquie didn’t give their remarks much weight because it was common for parents to deny or downplay the experimental, sometimes criminal behavior of their kids. Children who’d been in the system as long as Renée were pretty genius when it came to concealing their inner and outer lives.

  At the end of the interview, Jacquie walked them out. She smiled at Renée and shook her hand, inviting her in.

  The office was friendly and inviting, announcing its “safe place” status by a few stage-managed accoutrements—a print of a Basquiat graffiti painting, a framed photo of Eminem (the therapist hadn’t found the time to replace him with a more up-to-date avatar), and a drawing of Jeffrey Tambor’s character from Transparent.

  Renée was sullen and fidgety, like all the kids who came through the door.

  “I’m Jacqueline. My friends call me Jacquie and you can too, if you like.”

  “Okay.”

  “I like either one. Your mom said everyone calls you Honeychile. I love that! Very Southern. Have you spent any time in the South?”

  “No.”

  “It’s pretty amazing. Especially New Orleans—for Mardi Gras. I think you’d love it. Is it all right to call you Honeychile? Or would you prefer Renée?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Then Honeychile it is,” she said with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

  “About?”

  Jacquie saw straight off that the
girl was smart. Her native intelligence shone through. “About being here. Probably not the most fun thing you’re going to do all week. It can be kind of a drag at first.”

  “At first? They said I only had to come once.”

  “Fair enough. Then let’s make the most of our visit. Do you know why your mom and dad wanted you to come see me?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay. That’s fair enough too.”

  “I know what you can call me!” she said, in a playful burst of enthusiasm.

  The therapist welcomed the girl’s change in mood. The first half hour was always the toughest. It usually took at least three sessions for defenses to begin to drop.

  “You can call me Winston.”

  “Winston?” said Jacquie. “Okay! And who’s Winston?”

  “Winston is who I am.”

  “So you’re a boy.”

  “Well, a girl wouldn’t be called Winston. Maybe a cigarette, but not a girl.”

  Honeychile giggled and Jacquie noticed that her voice had changed. It was thinner, reedier, childlike.

  “And how long have you felt like a boy and not a girl?” She grew silent and the therapist gave her a nudge. “Sometimes little girls feel like they’re in the wrong bodies. Sometimes little boys feel that way too. Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Winston?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good—and that’s okay. I’m so glad you’re sharing this with me. Have you shared it with anyone else?”

  “Nope. I was gonna share it with Hildy but I didn’t.”

  “I love Hildy. Are you still in touch?”

  “Yes. But I was scared to tell her I was Winston.”

  “Why were you scared? That’s something Hildy would understand. And support. Why were you scared to tell Hildy?”

  “Because I’m her son. They hurt my mouth and pee-pee with a sword, then put me in the ground.”

  Jacquie’s heart quickened. In a few stroboscopic seconds, the stunned woman put it together: “Winston” was the name of Hildy Collins’s missing child. Her diagnosis caromed from gender dysphoria to psychosis.

  “You’re Hildy’s son?” she said, almost stammering.

  “Yes. But I can’t find who kilt me.”

  Her voice and her language were regressing further.

  “You can’t find them?” said Jacquie. All she could do was fall back on her training, to echo and mirror.

  “That’s why I didn’t tell Hildy.”

  “That’s why you didn’t tell Hildy.”

  “Because I can’t find them. I’m s’posed to find the bad people but I can’t. And I’m scared to tell Annie ’cause she’ll be so mad.”

  Annie? Was she dealing with a multiple?

  “And who is Annie?”

  “From the choo-choo. She brought lemonade and cookies. She sent me.”

  “Annie sent you?”

  “To hurt the people who kilt me. But I can’t find them. I know I’m in the marsh-muds but not who kilt and burying me.”

  The girl grew quiet and so did the shrink.

  Jacquie took some long, slow breaths, trying to decide, in a rare in-over-her-head moment, just where to go next. Before the session ended, she needed to bring her client back from whatever world she had gone to. She needed to get proactive and take control.

  “Winston . . . can I talk to Honeychile? I’d really like to have a few words with Honeychile. Do you think I can do that?”

  “Honeychile is dead.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “She die of a asthma. That’s when Winston the tenant come.”

  “Winston came . . .”

  “When Honeychile die in a asthma attack!”

  “When Honeychile died from asthma—?”

  The girl nodded, disembodied, like a bobblehead soothsayer.

  “But I see you,” said the therapist. “I see Winston and Honeychile—won’t you let me talk to Honeychile again?”

  “You can talk to her dead body. Only her dead body is here. But if I find the people who kilt me, you won’t see her dead body no more. She’ll be completely dead and go away forever!” Honeychile’s glee turned to despair and she began to hyperventilate. “But I can’t find them! I can’t find the people who kilt me—and Annie is going to be very, very mad!”

  2.

  They tailed Dabba Doo from the Meeting and sat in the car in front of his modest New Baltimore home. Lydia wasn’t really sure what they were doing there—it’d been her idea to come—but Daniel trusted her instincts, even though they’d gone somewhat askew when it came to Rhonda and the incident at Jacobs Prairie.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “did you really want to go see the old house in the Falls?”

  “May-be,” she said, without taking her eyes off the house.

  “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  “I know, but it’s . . . weird. Sometimes it’s the only thing I think about—and sometimes it’s the furthest thing from my head. Like, zero interest.”

  “Do Mom and Dad still live there?” he asked, sounding very young.

  “No,” she answered, almost contemptuously. “But right now can we please just focus on what we’re doing?”

  “What are we doing? Why are we here?”

  “I don’t know . . . it’s just a feeling that maybe there’s some way Dabba Doo can help. Anyway, it can’t get worse than it already is.”

  * * *

  • • •

  When they knocked, he threw open the door with a frisky smile, as if he’d been waiting for them. Lydia noticed how everyone at the Meeting tended to be like that—friendly and funny in an open, sweetly eager way, not only because they were scared and drew strength from the fellowship, but because all of them were longing for playmates.

  “Hope you’re not starving,” said Dabba Doo as he walked them to the living room. “Afraid I don’t have much to offer in the culinary department. I do have gummy bears. You may have all the reds and the yellows you like, but lay off the greens.”

  “I’m a red gummy man myself,” said Troy.

  “Then there shall be no controversy. Take a load off, kiddos!” He planted himself on a beanbag chair in front of the TV and his visitors sat cross-legged on the floor.

  The local news got everyone’s attention. A man and woman had been murdered at a farmhouse in Minnesota. They were holding a fourteen-year-old runaway captive; the police floated a theory that the couple may have been killed by “one of their own,” a third accomplice to the kidnapping. They were digging up the property because the girl said that her assailant had threatened to bury her where the pigs slopped. “You’ll meet a lot of new little friends there,” he told her. They showed the sty being disinterred by backhoes—sets of human remains had already been uncovered. Local politicians expressed outrage when the dead man was revealed to be a Person of Interest in the disappearance of a young girl in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, eight years back.

  Her name was Rhonda Whittle.

  “Yabba Dabba Doo!” squawked their host when he heard the reporter say Rhonda’s name. “Now we know what the yogameister did to earn that birthday cake. Well, good on him—I mean her!”

  Maya shot a glance at Troy, telegraphing that she was about to get real.

  “We were there,” she said. “At the farm, when it happened.”

  “You were not,” said Dabba Doo, excited as could be.

  “Saw the whole deal go down,” said Troy. “Rhonda’s moment of balance.”

  Dabba Doo was beside himself with merriment. “Well how in the world did that happen?” A lightbulb went off. “Ha! I know—you were after him too! That busy sonofabitch killed you and Maya!”

  “He didn’t,” said Maya, shaking her head.

  “He didn’t?” said Dabba Doo, half-confused, ha
lf-disappointed.

  “No—I just had this feeling we should go there. This vision came to me out of nowhere that Rhonda was on his way to a farm in Minnesota. So I went with it.”

  “Well look at you, Young Miss Marple!” said Dabba Doo, duly impressed. “Now, isn’t that something!”

  “We couldn’t just sit home anymore,” said Maya.

  “I heard that,” said the host, suddenly vexed.

  “I guess,” said Troy, “we’ve sort of been having the same kind of trouble that you were talking about at the Meeting. It’s like the radio signal used to be clear but now everything’s gone static.”

  “Can’t find the frequency, huh?” mused Dabba Doo. “A bit worrisome, isn’t it?”

  “And about what you said earlier,” said Maya. “We really were hoping that whoever Rhonda was going to see was the same one who—”

  “The same one who killed us,” said Troy.

  “You’re sure that he wasn’t?” said Dabba Doo.

  “We’re sure,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because when it happened”—she turned to her brother for ratification—“when Rhonda had her moment of balance, we didn’t feel anything.”

  “It wasn’t like we even wanted to join in,” said Troy. “There’s just no way it could have been him.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Dabba Doo. “Things are definitely getting curiouser and curiouser . . .”

  “Besides,” said Maya. “The Porter said it never happens that way. You know, whole hordes of us hunting down the same one.”

  “Like The Walking Dead!” said Dabba Doo. He gobbled a fistful of green gummies and reflected awhile. “I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me—sounds like a few wires got crossed.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” said Maya.

  She knew Dabba Doo would help make sense of it all; that’s why she’d been drawn to visit.

  “And I hate to say it,” frowned their host. “I mean no disrespect—but I’m beginning to lose faith in the Gospel According to Annie. Something’s off. Have you seen her lately? She looks like hell.”