Hannahwhere

by John McIlveen

  Debbie hadn’t said no, which left enough promise for Hannah to hang her hopes on, but there was a glimpse of anger visible behind Hannah’s eyes since Debbie hadn’t said yes, either. Debbie saw her anger as a potentially good sign. Hannah needed to express herself so resentments wouldn’t build between them. They returned to Debbie’s bedroom and sat cross-legged on the bed.

  “Okay, on three,” Hannah said soberly, taking hold of Debbie’s hand.

  They jaunted to Hannahwhere and relayed back to the boat ramp. Debbie experienced the vertigo and a very mild nausea, but this time was easier, except there was a different sensation. Debbie felt a cold wetness on her legs and below her waist. She gasped and opened her eyes. They were back on the boat ramp, but Debbie was at the low end of the ramp, submerged to her waist in the Merrimack River. Hannah was sitting just to her right… on dry cement. She was smirking and there was a devilish glint in her eyes.

  Debbie jumped up and dashed away from the frigid water. “You did that on purpose, you little shi… shenanigan!” Debbie accused her.

  “Nun… unh,” Hannah said, shaking her head.

  “You’re not getting away with this one, missy! I asked if we would be able to come back without ending up in the middle of the river, and you said, ‘On a dime’!” Debbie sat her soaked bottom on the ramp and pulled off her sneakers and sopping socks.

  “You weren’t in the middle,” Hannah said. She was clearly trying to maintain her anger and disappointment, but couldn’t control the giggles.

  Debbie glared at her.

  “Someone moved the dime,” she added, and then burst out laughing.

  Debbie tried to hold a stern posture, but Hannah’s laughter was contagious. Despite her irritation she let a smile slip and was soon laughing as well, thinking to herself, hey, you wanted her to express her anger. She scooted beside Hannah and draped an arm over her shoulders.

  “I know you’re angry with me, but would you want me to say something that may not be true or right just because it’s what you want to hear?”

  “Yes,” Hannah said, pouting stubbornly,

  “I don’t believe that,” Debbie said. She wrung out her socks and pulled them back on.

  Hannah said, “I’m sorry I got you wet. We can go back to your house so you can change.”

  Debbie stood and offered Hannah her hand. “No time. The sun’s starting to set and we have to get you back to your room. Besides, I need to get home. I’m so far behind on my work that my cases are older than their foster parents.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Let’s go,” Debbie said. “I want to do this again tomorrow… without the dunk in the river.”

  Hannah shrugged. Debbie pulled her to her feet and holding hands they began walking, Debbie’s sneakers squeaking and sloshing as they walked.

  “Uh-oh,” said Hannah, stopping abruptly.

  “What?”

  “Someone saw us,” Hannah stage whispered and nodded towards the top of the access ramp.

  Slightly off the ramp and hidden amongst the trees stood a boy of about eleven. He stared at them, open-mouthed and daft looking.

  “Just play it cool,” Debbie whispered. “No one will believe him anyway.”

  Hannah walked by the boy, mimicking his expression.

  Debbie said, “Close your mouth, kid. You’ll eat a bug.”

  Wednesday

  June 30, 2010

  Chapter 24

  Hannahwhere

  “I want my hair as short as yours,” Anna says. “Debbie tried to cut it but couldn’t.”

  She is sitting at a table of intricate white ironwork, bordering the field of flowers. A large brown-and-caramel-colored rabbit rests motionless on her lap except for the perpetual pulsation of its nose. Three more rabbits hop around Anna’s feet, weaving through the legs of the table and chairs, nibbling at the bounty of greens growing there.

  Hannah is standing beneath a lush, fruit-laden tree with large green-and-gold foil-like leaves. She grips the lowest branch, swings her legs up, hooks them over the limb, and suspends upside-down. Above her, a flash of brilliant red heralds the cardinal. It perches in the branch near her legs and offers a greeting, chirby-chirby-chirby-chirby-djou-djou.

  “Hello,” Hannah says and returns the salutation to the bird. She turns her attention back to Anna and says, “You know nothing on us changes when we’re here.”

  “Yeah, but I was hoping it’d be different with Debbie, since she’s Miss Coppertop. Besides, if we can’t change, why am I getting colder and feeling poopier all the time? Those are changes, right?”

  At a loss for a proper answer, Hannah shrugs. “Mom liked our hair long.”

  “Yeah, but I want it shorter. It’s a pain without Mom to help with it.”

  “It is better short,” Hannah admits.

  The cardinal hops to a slightly higher branch. This time his call is a rapid and shrill djou-djou-djou-djou-djou. Anna shoots it a wary look.

  “That’s weird. I never heard him do that before,” she says. “He sounds like an alarm clock.”

  “Uh-oh,” Hannah says. She drops to the ground with her eyes locked on the horizon and takes a few hesitant steps in the direction she is looking.

  “What?” Anna asks, rising from the table. She sets the rabbit on the ground amongst the others, which are now stirring nervously.

  From all points on the blue horizon, black and grey clouds boil up, gathering, expanding, and connecting. Lightning pulses behind the swollen, billowing sky, painting it blood red and stabbing the landscape with blinding spears. A heated breeze rushes over the land and the flowers bow, thrash, and rustle in its wake. The branches of the trees protest with strained creaks and the clicking of the foil-like leaves.

  Anna moves nearer to Hannah as the sky surrenders totally to bruised, black and red clouds. A hiss rises around them, low, like a light rain, barely discernible through the rush of the wind, yet gaining volume until it sounds like applause. Matching and then surpassing the rushing wind, it becomes thunderous, bringing the floral meadow to life. In the distance, flowers fade and turn to black, spilling an ebon path that spreads and encroaches on the sisters. A pool of death washes over the field, extinguishing each flower with a hiss, each hiss adding to the thunderous din.

  The girls back away from the field as scores of rabbits scatter in a frenzy to escape the floral overgrowth. Lightning slams the tree Hannah has just vacated, hewing it in two… the concussion deafening. Ozone and sulfur fill the air with a stench so thick they cover their noses and mouths and retch.

  A black, doglike creature with a sloping back and crouching hind legs bounds from deep flowers, landing with a fierce snarl. It clamps a rabbit in lethal jaws and turns on the girls, pinning them with its feral yellow eyes. A horde follows, leaping forward from the field in a drove of baleful glares and snapping jaws. Some claim rabbits while others are only intent on the sisters.

  Hyenas, Hannah realizes. Too terrified to look at her sister, she slowly reaches for Anna’s icy hand. She feels as if electricity is traveling from her legs, holding her to the ground.

  The first hyena approaches. Its malignant gaze dares them to run, and it looks excited in anticipation of such a game. The rabbit kicks feebly, its fur matted by the hyena’s fetid drool as it hangs helplessly from the beast’s maw. With a brutal shake of its head, the hyena kills the rabbit and discards its limp body with another shake.

  As if on command, the hyenas encircle the girls in unison, removing any means of retreat. Another deafening peal rings out as lightning strikes nearby. A rustling ensues beyond the circle of hyenas as cornstalks sprout violently from the ground, row upon row, shooting up ten feet tall towards the ferocious, bloodied skies, trapping Hannah, Anna, and the hyenas within a cornstalk prison.

  Hannah slowly looks at Anna who is shaking wildly and staring through red-rimmed eyes at the horror before her. With hands pressed to her mouth, Anna backs away from the carcass of the rabbit. Gusts of wind force the
corn to sway and lean, dispersing a searing acrid reek of chemicals, anger, and addiction over them and they know Travis is there even before his dreaded brown work boots breach the wall of corn.

  “Where are you, my little girls?” Travis calls in his hateful, mocking voice. “My little snow angels. My little… shits?” He puts his hand above his eyes as if blocking out the sun, making a dramatic show of searching for them. Lightning flashes over his tall form as he bends slightly at the waist. He feigns surprise as if he’s just noticed them.

  “Ah… there you are. You hide so well in my darkness.”

  “Go away! You don’t belong here!” Anna yells at the detestable man. She grips Hannah’s hand tighter.

  Travis regards Anna as if she’s a curious, but brazen oddity… a three-headed puppy.

  “But of course I do,” he says. “Your momma shared all your little secrets with me… the man she adored. The man she lived for… and died for.” He steps in front of the sisters and leans forward, his face level with theirs. “Of course, I did have to convince her a little,” he says, his putrid breath washing over them.

  Hannah wants to vomit. She wants to leave, but she knows Anna can’t, and she can’t leave her alone with him.

  “Go away,” says Anna. Hannah hears the acid in her voice and wants to tell her to stop and be quiet.

  “I had to practically cut it out of her,” Travis says, slashing his hands before their faces. “Which reminds me… we have unfinished business.”

  His hand shoots out as fast as a rattlesnake strike, grabbing Anna’s braid and yanking her brutally to him. Anna squeals in pain and reaches out defensively, but blindly.

  “What a frigid little girl,” Travis says with a terrible grin. He winks at Hannah. “This is good—really good—because I love cold cuts.”

  Travis reaches behind his back and retrieves a large knife—the knife—from his beltline and waves it hypnotically before them. Splashes of their mother’s blood dapple the blade and congeal near the handle. He tucks the knife under Anna’s chin.

  “Leave her alone!” Hannah shrieks.

  “Don’t be jealous, sweetheart. You’re next.”

  He leads Anna by the hair to the white iron table. The hyenas obediently part as he moves to a chair and makes her sit. He looks at Hannah and says, “Now you. Come here.”

  Hannah doesn’t move. She can’t move.

  Travis’s eyes widen as the anger grows within him.

  “Come here!” he says louder, pushing the blade against Anna’s throat, but Hannah still can’t persuade herself to walk. Her legs are as rigid as iron and refuse to obey. Insanity sinks its teeth into Travis, and his eyes bulge hideously, looking ready to spring from their sockets. The lightning seems to intensify as bolts flare and strike in a relentless display around them.

  “COME HERE!” Travis bellows.

  Something heavy and growling pushes Hannah from behind, trying to propel her toward him. She resists, preferring the touch of the hyenas to the alternative. Travis, now more intent on Hannah than her sister, steps toward her, wildly waving the knife.

  “When I say come here, you—fucking—come—here!” Travis roars and lunges.

  Hannah knows she shouldn’t. It’s the ultimate betrayal, but she can’t help it. She looks at Anna, who meets her with tear-stained eyes, and then, with the memory of Travis lunging at her, she thinks herself away.

  Chapter 25

  Riverside, Massachusetts

  Something was different. Debbie felt it from behind the wall of sleep. Something changed.

  She had worked for nearly five hours after she arrived home earlier that evening. She started scanning profiles, planning visits, and making recommendations, hoping to put a decent dent into her DCF backlog, but thoughts of Hannah and Anna soon pushed everything else away. Exhaustion took over far sooner than she had hoped, leaving her short of her objective and just coherent enough to save her work before shutting down her laptop. Her head barely hit the pillow before she was asleep.

  Now, despite her fatigue, something was working at her consciousness. She had heard a noise in her hypnopompic mind and it drew her upward, away from sleep, even though she still balanced on the threshold between slumber and wakefulness. Steve Perry’s alto croon swelled and ebbed with his admiration of “Oh Sherrie”. It sounded surreal and miles away, but coming closer.

  Debbie felt a weight on her legs that she knew didn’t belong there. She opened her eyes marginally and saw a luminescent figure sitting on her bed, looking like a ghost in the nominal light of the bedroom. Debbie couldn’t move her hand, or even a finger. The paralysis of semi-sleep had her trapped as if she were lying under a mountain of sand.

  No one should be in her house. She was certain that she had locked the doors, and that knowledge gave her enough resolve finally to break free from the clutches of sleep that held her. She scrambled away from the visage and pressed herself against the headboard as if awaiting an attack or the cold touch of death. It took a second to comprehend what she was seeing, but recognition set in… first the face, and then the expression of Hannah sitting at the foot of the bed, broken with stark terror and anguish. Whatever had put her in such a state was severe and maybe devastating. Panic sank into Debbie’s shoulder blades like shark’s teeth, triggering her into full wakefulness. She slid forward and pulled Hannah to her.

  “Hannah! My God, what is it?” Debbie asked.

  Hannah clutched to her urgently, digging her fingers into her back and burying her face in her neck. A hard knot of dread formed in Debbie’s stomach when the full magnitude of the situation hit her. It all seemed too familiar, the bizarreness, the utter fear, and the sudden helplessness. She felt as if she had stepped too close to the edge and the momentum was bringing her over. In the weak resolve of midnight, and for the first time since she had taken on this case, Debbie wasn’t certain if she could go through with it any longer, or if she even wanted to.

  Hannah hugged her tighter as if sensing these thoughts. Her desperation was palpable and her trembling limbs and body so small and fragile in Debbie’s embrace that she knew she could never give up on Hannah or Anna, despite her fears and reservations.

  “What happened, Hannah?” Debbie asked. “Did something happen at the hospital?”

  Hannah’s mouth moved against her as she tried to form words, but she was too frantic to speak. Debbie placed a hand on Hannah’s head and rocked her gently, giving her time to settle down, but she couldn’t help asking, “Are you hurt?”

  Hannah gave a sharp shake of her head and choked out, “Anna!”

  The knot in Debbie’s gut clenched tighter. She pulled Hannah back so she could see her face. “Honey, what’s wrong with Anna?”

  Hannah was unable to force the words out at first, and then with a keening sob she said, “I left her there! He had the knife and he… he’s going to kill her! I got scared and I left her there with him!”

  “Wait,” Debbie said, trying to decipher the words, though she was sure about whom Hannah was speaking. “You left her where with who?”

  What Hannah was saying couldn’t be. How could Travis be there? Was it a dream or a memory?

  “I left her with Travis ’cause she can’t leave and I was too scared to stay. Now he has her and he’ll kill her like he killed Mom!” Hannah wailed.

  Debbie had a hard time wrapping her mind around the frantic flow of Hannah’s words. If Travis was truly there, why now and not two years ago?

  “Hannah. Hold on, honey,” Debbie said. “Even if Travis was there, he couldn’t hurt Anna. Remember, I couldn’t cut Anna’s hair. We can’t change people when we’re there. I think it’s because we are there in our thinking or spiritual form, not physical.”

  “Not always,” argued Hannah sullenly, yet hopefully. “But we can still feel pain there. He can hurt her!”

  “Maybe not. We know for sure that Anna’s there only in her spirit form and she’s disconnected from her body. He can’t hurt her! It’d be like tryi
ng to hurt a ghost.” Debbie insisted. She cringed inwardly at her hopeful lie, wishing she hadn’t used the word ghost, and wishing she felt the conviction that her voice carried. “Are you sure it wasn’t a nightmare? It’s not logical that Travis didn’t show up before. Nightmares can seem very real.”

  “He said he made Mom tell him where we were. He made a giant storm and turned Hannahwhere dark and ugly.” She sniffed and wiped an arm across her eyes. “He killed all the flowers and his hyenas killed Anna’s bunnies!”

  Debbie saw an opportunity and leapt on it.

  “See, it can’t be real. You can’t ruin what’s in Hannahwhere or Annaplace, like the flowers. We fall on them, we jump on them, and we sit on them and squish them, but they always pop right back into shape afterwards, even when we are in our non-physical form… ” Debbie’s words tapered off as she hesitated for a thought. “Yeah, I checked after you tricked me… they may recover, but they do squish.” She handed Hannah a few tissues from a box on her nightstand.

  “Even if it was a dream, why’s Anna still changing and getting more sick?” Hannah pointed out and Debbie could not deny the truth in it.

  “I don’t understand, either,” Debbie admitted. “But I bet it’s not something that someone else is doing to her. I think you had a bad nightmare and that you…” She paused again, and then gingerly squeezed Hannah’s shoulders and upper arms as if checking for freshness. “Sweetie, this is the real you here, right?”

  “Uh-huh, both,” Hannah said. “This isn’t Hannahwhere.”

  “Exactly!” Debbie said. “I think you only go to Hannahwhere in spirit when you’re at the hospital.”

  After a moment of reflection, it all seemed to come together and an intermingling of excitement and anxiousness ran through her. Questions and considerations somersaulted in Debbie’s head, each one opening another trove of possibilities.

  “Oh shit… uh, I mean crap! I just realized something. First, we have to get you back to the hospital before they notice you’re missing and all heck breaks loose, if it hasn’t already, but more importantly, second…”