“Of course you do.”
Mary’s head tipped sadly to one side. “Why did you come back, Mandy? Why?”
“You needed me, Mary. You needed me like you did when Mr. Bannister—”
Mary suddenly clamped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes so tight that her face seemed nothing but angry wrinkles. “Oreos, pink and pretties, chocolate chips, peanu—”
youdonthavetodothatMARYitssafehereMARY
“Stop talking in my head!”
takeyourhandsoffyourearsMARY
Her eyes opened first, wet and scared, then her hands slid free of her ears and she leaned her weight against the tree.
“You remember Mr. Bannister now, don’t you?” Mandy asked with care, knowing the answer already.
Mary nodded. “I don’t want to. He...did things to me.” She began to cry. “He made me do things to him.”
“I know, Mary.”
“Why didn’t I remember that before now?” Mary asked plaintively. “Why?”
“Because I remembered for you.”
Mary sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You can’t remember things. I made you up. I made you up when I was eight.”
“I was your imaginary friend,” Mandy said with quiet pride. “You made me up, but when you needed me I became real. To protect you. So you wouldn’t have to remember what Mr. Bannister did.”
Mary sank slowly to her knees. “Don’t talk about that.”
Mandy leaned forward, knees together like a proper young lady. “So you wouldn’t have to remember killing your father.”
Shock spread over Mary’s sad face. Defiant shock that was so close to anger that Mandy sat back. “I did not kill my father! A garbage truck killed my father!”
“Mary, Mary, Mary,” Mandy said, her head shaking. “You’ve already let some truths slip through, so you know that is not true. Your father ran that stop sign, and he had a gun in his truck, because he was going to your school to shoot Mr. Bannister in the balls.”
Mary winced, recoiling and hugging herself to the tree.
“And you know why he was going to do that, Mary. Don’t you?”
It came. The memory came as Mandy let it come, and Mary’s eyes welled with tears that flew from her face as her head shook in denial. “No. NO!”
Mandy nodded. “Yes. He did it because you told. You told your mother what Mr. Bannister was making you do...”
“Stop!” Mary clamped her hands over her ears again.
...andyourMOTHERsaidtohushupandFORGETit...
Her hands snapped away from her ears again and clutched the tree. She didn’t want Mandy in her head. Couldn’t stand her in her head anymore.
“...and move on. She told you if your father found out he would do something very, very stupid. And, well, he did. Didn’t he?”
“I...didn’t...mean...to...”
“Sobbing is so unbecoming a lady, Mary,” Mandy said, and at that moment, through the memories racking her being with the force of a hurricane’s waves, Mary realized so very many things at once, but one thing in particular stood apart from the rest. Mandy, who’d been a nothing that she talked to by name in her room at night, telling her about Mr. Bannister and his tutoring sessions after school, that Mandy was part her mother. The part of Jean Louise Austin who wouldn’t sue after her father...
“You’re thinking too much, Mary,” Mandy commented. “But if you insist upon thinking about what your mother would and wouldn’t do, you might as well think with the proper information. Your mother— who, I must say in disagreement, I bear no resemblance to whatsoever in appearance or demeanor —was not refusing to sue the county sanitation department; she was refusing to sue Mr. Bannister’s family, as well as the school.” Mandy’s face twitched as she winked. “A decision I wholeheartedly agreed with, then and now. It would have been scandalous. You would have become a sideshow attraction at any trial, and I would have had my work cut out for me protecting you.”
...was killed. A very big part of her mother, Mary decided when Mandy was done.
Mandy rolled her eyes. “Think what you will.”
“Protecting me?” Mary asked, deriding the concept. “How could you protect me?”
“I told you, Mary. I remember what you can’t, or won’t, or shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t?” Mary asked severely. “Who decides what I shouldn’t remember?”
Mandy sat straight and scolded Mary with a look. “Obviously not you, judging by your attitude. Remember, Mary, I did not ask for this...job, if you will; you simply needed someone and I was there.”
“I don’t need you.”
Mandy giggled behind pursed, perfect lips. Her stare warmed enough that Mary felt it. “If it were not for me, my dear Mary, you— how should I put this? —would be up shit river without a paddle or a boat.”
Mary scooted back a bit. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been trying so hard to remember, Mary. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Gotten little pieces of the big picture, haven’t you? But not enough to really know.”
Rising now, pulling herself up next to the tree, holding it for fear a stiff wind might come along and scatter her about, a thousand pieces of Mary Austin floating away. “Know what?”
“What you first asked me—before we got sidetracked with Mr. Bannister and his toot-toot-tutoring sessions.”
Mary grimaced, remembering, hated remembering, but she hated not remembering more.
“You asked me why I came back, and I told you it was because you needed me.”
“What did I need you for?”
“Oh, so many things, really. To remember some bad things, mainly. Some very bad things. And to see that you did certain things. Things to...help the situation.”
“You made me do things?” Mary asked fearfully. “What did you make me do?”
“Actually, I guess it’s really me doing some of these things. Most of them. I wouldn’t have been able to convince you to do them if I’d CALLED YOU A COCKSUCKER A MILLION TIMES!”
Mary slipped back behind the tree as Mandy’s voice became that of the hound again, and her eyes glowed yellow for that brief instant.
“Don’t. Please.”
“I have been mean sometimes. But you don’t always want to listen. I don’t like calling you names, or trying to frighten you into doing the right thing, but I like stepping in and being you even less. The lesser of two evils, Mary.”
“What did you make me do?”
“Well, one of the only things you actually did with me just giving a little nudge, was fucking that cop.”
“Dooley...”
“You really wanted him, it turned out.” Mandy grinned and raised a little-girl eyebrow. “He made you come three times.”
“My God,” Mary gasped shallowly. Why did she want me to do that?
“Why?” icanhearyouMARYnomatterwhereyousaywhateveryousay “It was a matter of timing. Mr. Makes-You-Come needed to be at your house and, shall we say, occupied...” Mandy leered at Mary’s crotch. “...for a few hours.”
Mary pulled the hem of her TOTY sweatshirt low to cover where Mandy had looked. “What do you mean? A few hours?”
“So the teacher’s pets could fix Mr. Likes-To-Lick-You-Down-There’s brakes.”
“They... Bu-bu-but why...”
“Because you... No, that was me that time. Because I asked them to. Of course they thought it was you. I mean, they know you and they trust you. Who the hell am I to them? Huh?” Mandy chuckled and pressed a hand briefly over her mouth. “Pardon me.”
Mary shook her head. “Why would they do that, even if I asked them to? It’s wrong.”
“Oh, well,” Mandy said impatiently. “Unless you have it from the beginning, you’re just going to keep asking silly questions and doubting me, so, here goes. Are you ready? Ready? Ready?”
Mary dug fingers into the tree.
“Wednesday, October eighteenth. Red letter day, Mary; remember it? You come out of your classroom to bring your students a b
at and, whammo! You saw something.”
The memory given back to her rocked Mary. Her eyes went wide and a sick little groan bubbled out of her mouth.
“Good old Guy feeling up Elena real good. Remember that?”
She did. She could see it again. See it like the memory had never left her. Oh, God. Elena. No.
“Oh God Elena yes. You saw that and, well, I think you had what we might call a Bannister flashback. And, well, you also happened to have the bat in your hands. Remember what came next?”
The bat going up, the bat coming down. Her hands around it. Hitting Guy. Killing Guy. “No...”
“Uh, yes, Mary. And that’s when I stepped in. You were pretty freaked out, I must say. I had trouble getting your arms and legs going. But fortunately for you I was there, and in charge at the moment, because little Mr. Travers had a wonderful idea. Remember?”
Protect me. Take the blame. They would take the blame.
“Not a bad idea, eh? Well, I jumped for it. I mean, I figured the best deal you’d get outside of that one was maybe five to life. So, that’s how it started. That’s why I am here again.” Mandy thought for a second, then clarified, “Though I’ve never really left you. I’m always near. Always close with my drawings.”
Mary’s brow furrowed deeply, her psyche on the verge of overload.
“You never thought it strange that you just couldn’t bring yourself to open your bottom right dresser drawer? The one below those awful knitted things your mother sends?”
She never had looked in there, Mary realized, though that fact seemed illogically considered when the reality that she had killed Guy Edmond was put alongside for comparison.
“I killed him?”
“Yes.”
And then a possibility a thousand times more frightful than beating the life out of Guy Edmond reared itself. Mary was afraid to give it voice, but she had already given it thought.
“And....Bryce?”
“I had to do that one, Mary. There was just no way you would have let me convince you of the necessity.”
“Necessity?” Mary whimpered, a hand coming to her mouth as she backed away, a very thin tree stopping her retreat. It bent against her weight. “What have...what have I done?”
“You’re taking the credit where credit isn’t due, Mary. I did most of the work here.” Mandy stood now and flattened the creases from the seat of her dress. “I have done more things to protect you than you deserve to know.” She took a step forward. An angry step. “Things I never should have had to do.” Another step, the color draining from her pretty eyes now, a hateful radiance building in its place. “Example, you run off to Chicago to see that quack Dr. Cleary. I try and stop you before you leave. I hide the phone number you kept writing over and over and over.” Almost to the edge of the clearing now, her alabaster eyes boiling. Her gaze flowing from them like slashing beams of hurtful light. Falling upon Mary. Square upon Mary. “Then I get you back here safe, without remembering, without any of the bad things he told you about filling your head, and then the old geezer starts calling. He starts calling to check on you. To see if you had gotten help like you—like I promised you would.” Mandy reached out and gripped one of the trees in front of Mary’s trembling form. It sizzled under her fingers. “So what do I do? I have to be ready to start talking on the phone anytime someone calls, just in case it’s Dr. Quackeroo!”
Mary mustered enough strength to slide around the gangly tree. She backed further away, groping for handholds to keep her balance, her eyes never leaving Mandy who was stalking after her through the forest.
“I have done everything I can for you!” Mandy whined indignantly. Tears gathered in the white hotness of her eyes and hissed away like steam. “I keep you from doing the worst thing ever, the worst thing possible, and how do you treat me? You make everything harder.” Her hands flailed outward at the trees. Bark split away and tumbled smoking to the ground.
The worst thing ever? Mary challenged the possibility. What could be worse than what I’ve already done?
TELLING! Mandy screamed, dropping to all fours, her pretty little girl body turning black as it stretched and twisted into the shape of the hound. Dark as the canopy above, eyes blinking open and shut over the fire inside, teeth baring at Mary now. Growling. Speaking. TELLING, YOU BITCH! TELLING IS THE WORST THING EVER! The hound took two quick steps toward Mary and she backpedaled quickly, almost stumbling. BAD THINGS HAPPEN IF YOU TELL! YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT BETTER THAN ANYONE! The hound leapt forward and put its black, seething face right up to Mary’s. IF YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, ASK YOUR FATHER!
Mary’s head twisted fast to the right, and there he was. It was. Her father. Her father’s headless body, ending at the neck in a bloom of pink flesh and bloody bone. Walking toward her, wearing the work shirt he’d had on that day, its blue collar and shoulders an oozing flow of crimson that was gurgling from his gaping neck. He stopped and pointed at the ground, and when Mary looked she saw his head there, shards of glass poking from each eye, one cheek caved in, and a pulsing smile on the face.
Her father’s foot came back and swung forward again, his heavy work boot landing square on the back of his own head, which tumbled fast through the air and came at Mary’s horrified face with the pulsing smile spitting blood at her.
“NOOOOO!” Mary screamed, batting her hands at the vision and turning away by instinct, her feet propelling her away from the clearing, away from the hound, away from Mandy and away from the memories. She ran fast through the trees, dodging each obstacle and never looking back, not even when she reached the trail and was running toward camp, her memories chasing her, catching her, and joining her as she came out of the dark forest.
* * *
Dooley squeezed Joel’s cell phone in an angry grip and said into it, “Just tell him I’ll be there. I’ll be late, but I’ll be there.”
He clicked off and handed it roughly back to Joel.
“Michael Prentiss told you all this?”
Dooley took a curve hard and accelerated on a straightaway through the trees. “Everything I just told you.”
Joel shook his head. “They went to the mat for her.”
“I might have myself,” Dooley admitted, flooring it to pass a logging truck just before a hill.
His palms were cotton dry.
* * *
The lunch triangle outside the dining hall was rung by a portly woman wielding a metal spoon.
Mary had tried to compose herself with splashes of water and wet paper towels in the staff restroom. It hardly worked. She stood purposely alone outside the dining hall and searched the approaching wave of hungry children for hers, but could find none. She cautiously stopped a colleague from Greenwood Elementary, afraid that her guilty secrets were somehow now carved upon her face like the brand of some medieval heretic, and asked, “Have you seen any of my kids?”
“Did you look inside?”
“No.” Too many people still. Far too many now. They, too, might see it. Might read it in the way she looked at them. And she wanted no one to know until she told those who needed so desperately to know. To know the truth. “I haven’t yet.”
The woman smiled at Mary. She looked like she might need a friendly smile. “They get impatient sometimes.”
“You’re probably right.” Mary turned toward the doors, bolstered herself for the crowd, stopped, then turned away. “Wait.” Elena. “I’ve got a napper. I almost forgot.”
She looked up the trail toward Whitetail 2. There was no sign of her dearest little student. She felt kinship with Elena now. A painful, knowing kinship.
She started that way as more campers started filing in for lunch.
* * *
Mary pushed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and started up the small path from the trail to Whitetail 2. It was only a short walk from the dining hall, but in that meager distance she’d decided she would tell all to Elena first. Tell her everything and beg her forgiveness.
But before she could
reach the cabin, Elena Markworth burst out of the rustic structure, fleeing its confines at a dead run, crying hysterically.
“Elena!” Mary started running, rounding the back of the cabin to see Elena sprinting up the trail into the woods. The trail to the gorge. “Elena!”
As Mary chased her, yelling for her to stop, one teacher near the door to the dining hall stepped outside and looked toward Whitetail 1 and 2. She thought she heard something, but after a minute of listening she returned to the hall and made herself a sandwich.
Forty Nine
Elena was running for all she was worth. For more than she was worth. And Mary was pushing as hard as she could to catch her dearest student.
“Elena! Stop!”
Mary ran, ran as fast as she could, and got close enough to see that Elena went left at the fork. Left toward the gorge.
“Elena! Please stop! Please!”
* * *
Dooley pulled into the camp and kept driving until he saw some sign of activity. He skidded to a stop outside the dining hall, throwing dust toward the door.
“What the hell?” a woman cursed as she came out. “There are kids around here. You can’t drive like—”
Joel shoved a badge in her face and she shut right up.
“Where is Miss Austin?” Dooley asked. “Where is she? Where are her kids?”
“Mary Austin? I don’t know.”
Dooley looked into the dining hall. Some of her class was there, but not the ones that mattered. His fear was suddenly for them. “Everybody else is here. Where are they? Aren’t they supposed to be here?”
“Yes, but—”
“You haven’t seen them at all?” Joel pressed.
“No, but...”
“What?” Dooley asked severely. “What?”
“A few minutes ago I thought I heard yelling,” the teacher explained.
“Yelling?” Dooley looked around. “Where?”
The teacher pointed up toward Whitetail 1 and 2. “From the trailhead up there.”
Dooley and Joel both sprinted that way with the woman’s wondering look on their backs.
* * *
Elena ran hard and fast, her arms swinging, her chest burning. It hurt, and when she tried to make a turn through the trees she fell, and that hurt more. But she got up and ran. Ran faster. Ran faster. Never looking back.
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