by Amy Cross
“Do it for me. There'll be cookies and milk soon, okay?”
Suzie clearly doesn't want to go out into the garden again, but finally she turns and shuffles back out the door.
“Ignore her,” Diane says, coming back over to join me. “She can be a little impressionable sometimes. If Addie's been saying things to her, she's probably taken them onboard too much.”
I nod, although I'm starting to think that this nonsense is never going to end.
“Kids, huh?” Diane continues, rolling her eyes. “Just when you think you've got all their weirdness figured out, they go and -”
Before she can finish, there's a brief cry of pain from the garden. Turning, I hear footsteps running to the back door, and a moment later Suzie rushes back in, sobbing and holding her arm. As she reaches her mother, I spot a patch of blood on the side of her dress.
“What's wrong?” Diane asks, crouching in front of her. “Sweetie, let me see!”
“Addie bit me!” Suzie sobs, staring at me through tear-filled eyes.
“No,” I reply, stepping closer, “that's not -”
I watch in horror as Diane examines Suzie's left arm. Just above the wrist, there's a mangled section of flesh with blood dribbling from a small but deep-looking wound.
“Jesus,” Diane mutters, “there are bite-marks here!” She turns to me. “I can see all the way to the bone!”
Hurrying over, I wince as I see that she's right. Not only are there clear tooth-marks around the wound, but the meat seems to have been partially torn away, exposing a patch of glistening whiteness beneath.
“No,” I whisper, my mind racing as I try to work out what really happened, “Addie wouldn't do that...”
“I have to get her to the ER,” Diane says, grabbing a towel from the counter and wrapping it around Suzie's wrist. “It's okay, sweetie, we'll get this sorted. There's no need to be scared but let's just hurry a little, okay?”
As they head through to the hallway, I stay frozen to the spot for a few seconds. My hands are trembling and I want to believe that none of this is real. I know I should go out to the garden and ask Addie what happened, but I'm scared about what she might say so, instead, I head to the hallway just as Diane is getting the door open.
“I'm really sorry,” I stammer. “We'll figure this out, okay? I don't know what happened, but we'll definitely figure something out. There has to be some kind of explanation for this...”
“Just keep Addie away from Suzie,” Diane says firmly, leading her daughter outside. “I don't want them playing together, not while Addie's so crazy!”
“I'm sorry!” I call after them, stopping in the doorway and watching as Diane helps Suzie into the car. After a moment, I feel a flash of anger. “Addie's not crazy!” I shout. “She wouldn't just do something like that without being provoked first! Suzie must have said or done something!”
Still nervous about going to the garden and seeing Addie, I watch as Diane drives away. Taking a deep breath, I listen to the silence of the house and finally I realize I have to face my daughter. I shut the door and head back through to the kitchen, and then I force myself to go outside. I'm just in time to see Addie wiping her mouth on the hem of her dress, which has a few faint blood smears on the fabric.
“She kept calling me that name,” she says, turning to me.
“Addie...”
“That name!” she hisses. “I hate it! It's so...” She pauses, as if she's genuinely frustrated. “I don't want to hear it ever again! Do you understand? It's not my name, so I don't want to hear it!”
I open my mouth to argue with her, but suddenly I realize I can hear the scratching sound at the base of my skull again. And this time I swear I can actually feel something grinding through the bone.
***
“Oh God,” Rob says with a sigh, his voice sounding a little tinny over the phone. “Have you heard from Diane since it happened?”
“I sent her a message, offering to cover any medical bills, but apart from that...”
My voice trails off as I sniff back more tears. I'm sitting in the kitchen, and the silence of the house just seems to make everything ten times worse.
“Where's Addie now?”
“In her room.”
“Did you tell her to go in there?”
“Yes, but I think that's what she wanted anyway. I don't know what she's doing, there's no sound coming from in there. I just...”
Again my voice trails off, as I think back to the sight of her wiping her blood-stained mouth. My daughter, my Addie, would never hurt someone.
“She needs help,” Rob continues, sounding exhausted. “Have you still got the card for that doctor?”
“There's nothing wrong with her. She just -”
“She bit her best friend!”
“All children -” Sighing, I realize how ridiculous I must sound. At the same time, I feel as if Addie's just acting out, and I don't want to do anything that might encourage her. I can deal with this, I just need to find a way to break her out of this bizarre fantasy world. We're not the kind of family that has to send their child to see a therapist.
“Maybe she needs more scans,” Rob says after a moment. “Maybe there's some damage the doctors missed, maybe -”
“She's not brain-damaged!” I hiss, before realizing that I need to lower my voice so Addie can't hear. “Don't you dare say that about her!” I whisper. “There's nothing wrong with her physically! Maybe mentally she's a little unstable -”
“A little?”
“Are you coming home soon?”
I wait, but after a moment I hear a faint sigh.
“Rob, please,” I continue, hating the desperation in my voice, “I need you to get back here as soon as you can. I don't know what's happening right now, but I feel like I'm losing my grip on how to deal with her. I feel like she's almost not...”
I catch myself just in time.
“Almost not what?”
“Never mind,” I mutter, hating myself for even entertaining a moment of doubt. “Please, just get home from work on time tonight. I don't -”
Again, I stop myself just before I can say something awful.
“I don't want to be alone with her,” is what I was about to tell him.
“Just try to be home on time,” I continue, “and -”
Before I can finish, I hear a faint bumping sound coming from Addie's room. I pause, and a moment later I hear what seems to be a squeak.
“I'll call you back,” I tell Rob, setting the phone down and making my way along the corridor.
Sure enough, I can hear more squeaks from behind Addie's bedroom door. I stop and listen for a few seconds, and I can just about make out a few giggles.
Slowly, I turn the handle and push the door open. To my surprise, I see that Addie has caught a mouse and has impaled it on an old nail, and now she's using another nail to dig at the back of the poor creature's neck.
“Got it,” she says with a grin, as the struggling mouse continues to cry out.
I open my mouth to tell her to stop, but at that moment I see that she's driving a nail into the back of the mouse's head, slowly cutting through its brain. A dribble of blood falls onto the carpet, and Addie's smile grows as she watches the poor creature's death throes.
“You don't need poison or traps,” she says finally, as more blood runs down onto her hand and wrist. “This is the good old-fashioned way to kill vermin.”
Erica
Rain is falling outside now as I sit at the kitchen table, scrolling through the search results on a garden furniture website. I figure I need to find a table and chairs, and maybe a nice new umbrella, to brighten things up a little.
Maybe a new outside grill, too, so we can have barbecues when summer comes.
The house is deathly quiet. Addie's still in her room, and I don't dare go check on her. The only sound is the faint scratching at the base of my skull, which I've almost learned to ignore by now. Trying to focus on the website, I scroll down and th
en click through to the next page, determined to -
Suddenly I feel a brief, sharp pain arcing around from the back of my head to the left side of my jaw. I let out a faint gasp, but the pain quickly passes. I wait, but now even the scratching sensation is gone.
It'll be okay. There's nothing wrong. After a moment, however, I hear another faint squeak from far off along the corridor.
I think Addie caught another mouse.
Erica
“And think about your behavior!” Rob yells. “Your mother and I have both had more than enough of this! You're going to stay in your room and think long and hard about what you did to Suzie, and you're not going to come out until you decide to stop with this garbage! Do you understand?”
Sitting alone in the kitchen, I wipe tears from my eyes. I want to go and tell Rob to be nicer to Addie, but at the same time I feel as if he's right to punish her for biting Suzie. All I managed was a few words, whereas Rob was unable to suppress his anger. And I haven't even told him about the two mice she killed, because I don't know where to begin.
“Your name is Addie Gray,” he continues, “you are nine years old, and you're going to cut out all this crap!”
A moment later I hear the door to Addie's bedroom slamming shut, and Rob storms through to find me.
“How is she?” I ask.
“The same,” he mutters, heading to the cabinet and pouring himself a shot of whiskey. “Want one?”
“I don't think it's a good -”
“I need a goddamn drink,” he continues, adding some ice to the glass. “That girl seems to be...” His voice trails off for a moment. “She's going to see a psychologist. I don't care if you don't agree, Erica, but something's seriously wrong in her head! It's better to nip it in the bud now, before it can grow and become a bigger problem.”
“Rob...”
“She's crazy!”
“Quiet!” I hiss. “She'll hear you!”
“Good!” He looks down at the whiskey and frowns. “What's wrong with this stuff? It's all cloudy.” Muttering something under his breath, he pours the shot away and pours another. “Do you know what she said just now? She said Suzie deserved to get bitten because she's a dumb little kid. Can you believe that? Those are the exact words she used. Suzie's three months older than Addie, for God's sake!”
“Diane still hasn't replied to my messages,” I tell him, wiping my eyes again. “I think it's going to take a while before she lets Suzie come over again. If she ever does.”
Raising the second shot of whiskey to his lips, Rob pauses again. He holds the glass up against the window, and sure enough the whiskey seems cloudy and murky.
“Did the whole bottle go bad?” he mutters, tossing the glass away and then checking the bottle itself. Sniffing the top, he seems disgusted. “How does whiskey go bad?”
“I don't think she needs to see anyone,” I say after a moment, even though I'm starting to think I might be wrong. “Not yet, anyway.”
“We have to be tough with her,” he says finally. “I know it's not in your nature, but she's testing boundaries, seeing how much she can get away with. If we let her, she'll take this ridiculous behavior and really run with it.” He starts pouring the bottle of whiskey down the sink. “I think I really got through to her,” he adds. “Hopefully I scared her straight this time.”
***
Peering through the gap in the door, I see Addie sleeping on her bed. There's a part of me that wants to go in and wake her, so we can talk about everything that happened today, but at the same time I figure I should just let her sleep.
Carefully, I pull the door shut and step back, enjoying the silence.
When I get back to the front room, I see that Rob is checking something on his laptop. Not wanting to disturb him after the chaos of the past day, I head through to the kitchen. I need to get everything straight in my head before I decide whether to call the child psychologist. I've always believed I can get through to my daughter, that we can be honest with each other and talk about problems, but right now I feel as if I'm in over my head.
“Erica?” Rob says suddenly. “Come here. I think you need to hear this.”
“Can it wait? I'm exhausted.”
“It's important. You need to see this.”
Wandering over, I see that he's looking at some kind of wiki page. The light from the screen is flickering across his face as he scrolls up to the top, revealing that the page is about something called the Hedderburgh Murders.
“Honey,” I say with a sigh, “I just need to grab a glass of water and -”
“Jesophat O'Reilly,” he replies, turning to me. “I figured Jesophat's a pretty weird name, right? I had to try a few spellings, but eventually I came up with something. The only Jesophat I can track down on the whole internet.”
I want to tell him to quit with the amateur detective work, but I have to admit that he's piqued my curiosity.
“Well?” I ask, stepping closer.
He turns back to the screen. “Ever heard of the Hedderburgh Murders?”
“Is this some internet hoax?” I ask. “There's a lot of garbage on the internet, Rob.”
“This is all true. I managed to double-check it.”
Taking another step closer, I see that the web-page has shots of newspaper headlines, as well as a few grainy old photos.
“The Hedderburgh Murders,” Rob continues, reading from the screen, “were a series of events that took place in the town of Hedderburgh, Ohio on January 3rd, 1975. Eight people were killed at two properties, and a Highway Patrol officer became the ninth victim when he was shot point-blank in the face a day later. The perpetrators of the murders were subsequently identified as seventeen-year-old Jesophat O'Reilly and sixteen-year-old Serriah Sansome, who came from nearby, neighboring farms.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” I ask wearily.
“Jesophat and Serriah had been forbidden to see one another,” he continues, scrolling down a little further. “Their families had been engaged for some years in a feud over land, but the two children had met by chance and fallen in love. A series of arguments had subsequently broken out, with reports that both Jesophat and Serriah were beaten by their parents.”
“So they were, like, star-crossed lovers?”
“Serriah Sansome's father was questioned by police on two occasions, due to injuries observed by local school-teachers. This resulted in Serriah being removed from school by her parents. Meanwhile, Jesophat O'Reilly was treated for several broken bone injuries at a nearby hospital, although he refused to say what had happened. Over a period of two and a half years, the young couple is believed to have met in secret, although they were occasionally caught and punished. One visitor to the Sansome farm, in November 1974, reported seeing Serriah covered in bruises and chained to a radiator.”
“God,” I whisper, shocked by the story. “All that, just because she fell in love?”
“On the evening of January 2nd or 3rd 1975,” he continues, “Jesophat O'Reilly murdered his mother, his father, his brother and his three sisters. Some were strangled, some were stabbed and some were shot. All were left dead in their house as Jesophat then drove to see Serriah. Shortly before midnight, the young lovers went to Serriah's home and murdered her father and brother, before taking another truck, loading up with supplies and heading south along the interstate.”
“That's horrible,” I mutter, “but -”
“The next day, when stopped by Officer Dan Fairbrand just outside the town of Hildersford, Jesophat O'Reilly shot the officer dead. Later that afternoon, Jesophat and Serriah attempted to rob a convenience store but Jesophat was shot twice in the chest. Serriah managed to drag him to the truck and drive them both away, but the truck was spotted a few hours later near a barn about twenty-five miles outside of town.”
He scrolls down a little further, revealing more text and a black-and-white photo of a large, old barn.
“Officers found Jesophat and Serriah inside the barn. Jeso
phat had suffered two gunshot wounds to the chest. Serriah is believed to have then cut her wrists, and she was found dead with Jesophat's body cradled in her arms. There's more here, but...”
He scrolls to the bottom of the page, where there's a grainy photo showing two bloodied figures wrapped together on a patch of concrete.
“I don't want to see that,” I tell Rob, looking away.
“I found a few other contemporary newspaper pieces about the murders.”
“Gruesome,” I reply, “but what point are you trying to prove?”
“Don't you think it's a weird coincidence?”
“She probably just made up the name Jesophat,” I point out, turning back and seeing that he's scrolled further up the page. “You don't even know if it's the same spelling.”
“There's something not right about all this,” he continues. “Erica, I know you're very protective of Addie, but -”
“Protective? She's our daughter, for God's sake! Of course I'm protective!”
“Keep your voice down!” he hisses. “Erica, you have to admit that something's very, very wrong with Addie right now. It's one thing for a little girl to mess around, or even for her to get dreams and reality mixed up, but she seems borderline psychotic! The look in her eyes is...” He pauses, before turning to the page and bringing up another tab. “There's more.”
“Rob -”
“There she is,” he continues, scrolling to a black-and-white photo of a teenaged girl. “That's Serriah Sansome.”
Staring at the picture, I see a girl with thick, curly dark hair and a big toothy grin. When I look at her eyes, I'm momentarily struck by the feeling that she has the same gaze as Addie, that somehow the same person is staring out, although I quickly put such a crazy idea out of my head.
“So?” I say after a moment, feeling a shiver run through my chest. “That looks nothing like Addie.”
“I didn't say it would,” he continues, scrolling down a little further. “Listen to this. School friends of Serriah described her as a friendly, outgoing girl who became increasingly prone to fits of anger as her romance with Jesophat developed. In particular, in early 1974 she was twice suspended from school after incidents in the yard where she bit fellow students so hard that -”
