The Forgotten Girl

by India Hill Brown

  They wanted him to come around more. Play basketball more like they used to. Hang out with Jamal’s older brother, who Daniel didn’t really like that much. He didn’t like the stuff he did and he was pretty sure Jamal didn’t either. But Jamal wanted to be like his older brother. Cool, mature, fearless.

  Was Jamal doing to Daniel what Daniel was doing to Iris? Trying to change him?

  But Daniel didn’t want Iris changed. He just wanted her safe.

  He walked home to find Suga intensely watching TV. His mom was still out; she’d told him this morning that she would be working late tonight to prepare for the big snowstorm coming in tomorrow.

  “Hey, Suga,” he said, taking off his coat and hanging it up.

  “Oh, hey, baby!” she said, smiling widely at her grandson. Then she frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  He wondered if she could tell he’d been about to cry earlier.

  “Nothing,” he replied, trying to make his way to the kitchen to grab something hot to drink.

  “Oh, don’t give old Suga that. I know there’s something wrong. Did something happen at school?”

  Daniel sighed. He didn’t want to get into his argument with Iris yet, but Iris tended to believe all of Suga’s superstitions. Maybe if he could find a good one about leaving a ghost alone, he could tell Iris about it.

  Whenever they talked again.

  “Suga,” Daniel asked, stopping in front of the kitchen, careful not to obstruct Suga’s view of the TV. “Say—say someone was obsessed with a ghost. Or what they thought was a ghost. How would you get the person to … stop?”

  Suga turned her head slowly to Daniel. He shifted on his feet.

  “Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe the ghost is obsessed with the person,” Suga said. “If that’s the case, the ghost is attached to them.”

  “Well … okay. But how would you convince the ghost to leave them alone? To stop being … attached to that person?”

  “Well, if a ghost is attached to a person, they’ve lost their way to where they were trying to go in the first place,” Suga said. “You think a ghost would be happy, following a person around forever? No, they’d need to be led to where they need to go, so they can rest. A ghost obsessed with a person is a lost spirit.”

  Daniel thought of what Iris said Avery told her. “I am lost and you found me.”

  He shook the thought out of his head. This was not real. He was just looking for information to tell Iris.

  “Well …” Daniel said slowly. “How long does it take a ghost to find where they need to go so they can leave that person alone?”

  “Oh, Danny,” Suga said. “The ghost has to be led away, some way or the other. That’s why they’ve attached themselves to that person. They’re hoping that person will guide them. In some rare cases, they can find what they’re looking for and guide themselves.”

  Daniel’s heart started beating faster. “You mean to—to their grave?”

  Suga’s stare pierced Daniel’s. “Past their grave. Beyond. That’s why I tell you kids not to play around outside at night. The spirits of the snow might latch on to ya!”

  Daniel smiled shakily at Suga and wandered into the kitchen to make hot chocolate. So, he needed to convince Iris that Avery was a lost spirit trying to find her way “beyond,” and if she needed to, she’d use Iris to guide her there. Which probably meant … killing her.

  Daniel didn’t believe any of this—it was just another one of Suga’s superstitions—but he couldn’t help but feel uneasy as he reached into the drawer and mistakenly grabbed a fork, instead of a spoon, to stir his hot chocolate.

  He dropped it.

  Daniel sat down with his tablet and a notepad, trying to piece together everything Iris had told him about Avery. He’d relate it back to Suga’s superstition, and that would for sure make Iris believe she should leave this idea of the ghost alone, and hopefully cure her nightmares and sleepwalking.

  Iris’s dreams and descriptions about Avery were pretty eerie: the eyes, her being lost, wanting a “forever” friend. But all of that fit into Suga’s idea that Avery was attaching herself to Iris to kill her and lead both of them to rest.

  Wait a minute.

  Suga said Avery Moore was taken by the spirits of the snow. He didn’t bother Suga again about it after seeing that she was so upset, but if she knew anything else, it could help their project and help Iris’s dreams go away.

  “My Lord!” A scream made Daniel jump so hard, he temporarily felt dizzy.

  But it wasn’t just any shriek.

  It was Suga’s.

  “Suga! Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

  “Danny!” she yelled as she looked out the window. “Do you see the way that snow’s coming down?”

  He looked out the window—the storm was coming in earlier than everyone predicted, a silent, violent force. He hadn’t even realized it.

  He walked toward her. “It’s okay, Suga. Do you need anything?”

  Suga said nothing, just looked out the window at the snow and ice, her face frozen in terror.

  “Suga …” His heart was thumping.

  “Yes, Danny?”

  He sighed. He really didn’t want to upset her.

  “Suga … please don’t get angry, but we need to know for our project … What happened to Avery Moore? Why did you say she was killed by the spirits of the snow?”

  Suga looked at her grandson for a second, her lips trembling as she slowly got off the couch. She sighed, a heavy sigh that mimicked Daniel’s. “I need to show you something. Come with me.”

  Daniel followed Suga upstairs to her room, which used to be the guest room and his father’s old study. His desk was still there.

  She opened the closet door and pulled out a thin book. The photo album they’d looked at together.

  They sat on Suga’s bed as she opened up the tattered, faded album to the first picture, of a young Suga—or Emma Mae back then—smiling and holding a melting ice cream cone in one hand, a basket in the other. She flipped past the other familiar pictures, of her getting her hair braided, pretending to sing …

  They got farther in the photo album than they did before. In one picture, Suga was posing with a boy who looked like a taller version of Daniel …

  “Lamar,” she said, rubbing the picture. “Your grandfather.”

  Daniel could feel blood pumping in his ears. He looked like his Dad, too.

  There was Suga laughing, a snowball in her hand, aiming at someone out of the picture. She was bundled up in a jacket, a hat, a scarf, and boots. There was so much snow on the ground. She looked so happy.

  “Oh,” Suga said, her voice and hand shaking. “I can’t look at that.” She hastily tried to shut the book again. Daniel stopped the book from closing with his hand and opened it back up.

  There was another picture, of a younger Suga, standing with another snowball, with that same laughing face.

  And beside Suga was another little girl, about Suga’s height, laughing just as hard.

  Daniel’s stomach dropped as he stared at the girl’s familiar face.

  “Danny,” Suga said, her voice cracking. “Avery was my best friend.”

  Iris didn’t have the energy to make it upstairs after step practice, which went by in a messy blur. She was consumed with her night with Avery, her fight with Daniel. They hadn’t talked the rest of the day.

  She knew she shouldn’t have said what she said. She knew it was mean. But, as bizarre as the situation was, she was upset that her best friend didn’t believe her. She knew she wasn’t sleepwalking, or having nightmares about Avery. She was communicating with the girl’s spirit. And last night, during their snowball fight, she’d actually had fun doing it. Avery did leave her out in the snow, by herself, but Iris got extra attention from her parents as a result.

  “It’s really coming down out there.”

  Her parents were bundled up, prepared to go outside in the slow but steady snowfall.

  “Where are you
going?” Iris sat up from where she was lying on the couch and looked anxiously to her mom and dad. She needed them here. She was too exhausted to deal with Avery coming again. “Y’all can’t go anywhere in … the snow. It seems like the snowflakes are getting bigger by the second.” She reminded herself of Suga.

  “We’ll be right back. We just need to run and get some things to prepare for the storm. It looks like it may be coming earlier that we thought,” Mama said as they both kissed Iris and her sister. “We’re going to divide and conquer so we can be back faster.” If Iris weren’t so afraid, she would’ve thought this was funny. It snowed in Easaw regularly enough for them to be used to it, but seldom enough that they felt the need to go out and buy milk and bread whenever there was a blizzard.

  But instead of laughing, she lay back down on the couch and closed her eyes to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

  “Y’all be good. And, Iris”—her mom knelt down beside her, lowering her voice to a whisper—“this would be a really good time to play with your sister.”

  Iris fought the urge to roll her eyes. How could she think about playing at a time like this? She was exhausted. Didn’t her mom remember what happened last night?

  Of course she didn’t. She was probably too busy worrying about Vashti.

  “See you in a bit, girls!” her dad yelled from the open door, letting the cold in. “Love you! Lock up!”

  Iris ran to the door, locked it, and turned around to find Vashti standing right in front of her, grinning.

  Iris jumped a little.

  “Dolls?” Vashti said.

  Iris sighed. She’d play for a little while and then be done with it. “Sure, ’Ti.”

  “Yay! I’ll go upstairs and get them.”

  Vashti ran upstairs to get her dolls, already talking to them, using different voices. Her little sister had been upstairs for a long time now.

  “Vashti, just come back down!” Iris yelled. She was getting impatient, plus Vashti talking to the dolls was giving her the creeps.

  Her parents needed to hurry up. The wind was already whistling louder outside. The storm would be here soon.

  The lights in the living room flickered.

  Then went out.

  With the curtains drawn and the storm picking up outside, Iris found herself in a pitch-black house. The dark, the thing she feared more than anything, was closing in on her.

  “Vashti, hurry up!” Iris screamed, feeling around for the stairs.

  She’d run to her room and get her flashlight.

  She took the stairs two at a time, despite the dark. But when she reached the landing, she saw her:

  Avery.

  “Come, Iris Rose,” Avery said. “Come with me, we will be remembered in a big way.”

  Iris was trying to fight it, but she could feel that force, pulling her somewhere.

  “Vashti will be safe here. You did not want to play with dolls anyway. You wanted to rest. After my idea is done, you can rest. I promise.”

  Avery was right. Iris nodded, and let herself be taken away by Avery’s cold wind.

  She was lifted off her feet, then gone, the lights flickering back on moments later.

  Grief washed over Suga’s face as she sat there, shaking her head.

  “Suga.” Daniel took his grandmother’s hand. “Are you okay?”

  She sighed and opened her eyes, smiling at the little sign of affection from Daniel. “I’m okay. I’m sorry … it’s just your grandmother being weird again.”

  “I-I don’t think you’re weird,” he said, his stomach churning with guilt. He didn’t know she knew he thought that of her.

  “Danny, I was born at night, not last night,” she said with a dry chuckle. “Nothing gets past me. I see how you look at me when you think I’m saying something silly. Or when I don’t know how to work your tablet or that big ol’ TV remote downstairs. But it’s okay. I thought my grandma was weird, too.”

  It didn’t feel okay to Daniel anymore.

  “Suga, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “You’re not weird. You’re just—”

  “Different? I’ll take it.” She smiled at Daniel, then frowned when she noticed the photo album was still in her hand. She sighed, a long sigh that carried so much weight.

  “Suga?” He tried again. “What happened to Avery?” She looked at him.

  “Our favorite thing to do was play in the snow. We stayed out all day, all night, until our fingers and toes were numb, just like you and Iris. She lived across the way.”

  Daniel knew that to mean she lived in an adjacent neighborhood from Suga.

  “But my papa and mama had so much land in our old home, so we always played there. I lived right behind your school. For the majority of the time I lived there, Black kids weren’t allowed to go there at all. Until Avery did. She was one of the first to desegregate the school. Some people in this here town loved that the school was finally open to Black children, and oh, Danny, a lot of people hated it. I should’ve told you about this, when you kids came over to talk to me … but I didn’t want to bring her up, Danny. I’m so sorry.

  “The newspapers wouldn’t even print those children’s names at one time, did you know? They’d only say ‘Nine Coloreds Desegregate Nelson’s Pond Middle,’ or something ridiculous. They deserved the same recognition Ruby Bridges got. They were so brave. I didn’t want to join them. I was fine going to the school across the way, Dellerwood Middle. When I was younger, I’d walk by Nelson’s Pond every day, knowing I wasn’t allowed to learn there.”

  Suga sighed and closed her eyes. Then started again.

  “One day, Avery and I got into a big fight—it’s funny because I’ll never forget it, but I cannot remember what we argued about. This was decades ago. Avery was so, so kind. Until you made her mad. We argued and she stormed away from my house—you know how dramatic you can become in a fight—and I sat there, stubborn in my feelings, and watched my best friend walk away for the last time.”

  Suga was crying now. Daniel thought of the argument he and Iris just had. How he had almost lost Iris to the snow last night. He had more in common with his grandmother than he thought.

  “The snow started coming down, fast and heavy, and Papa made me come inside. If I had just stayed outside a little longer … maybe I could’ve saved her.”

  “What happened, Suga?” Daniel asked, still holding his grandmother’s hand.

  “Well, we didn’t have cell phones or tablets or anything. That storm we had was one of the worst of the century—all of the papers were talking about it the next day—” She stopped herself.

  “Suga?”

  “Danny, Avery went missing! You’d think the officials would care, but I guess they felt they had more important things to do than worry about a little Black girl gone missing! Her parents came over and asked if we’d seen her and we said we hadn’t. Papa told them she left to go home before the storm got too bad. Which was true. I remember that much. Well …”

  Daniel gripped Suga’s hand tighter.

  “She died that day.” Suga’s lip was trembling more and more.

  “My parents told me the story of the spirits of the snow. How they came and took Avery because she walked away, in the storm, by herself. My parents just told me that to keep me inside, to keep me from doing something foolish like Avery did. As I grew older, I knew the truth—Avery froze to death. They found her in the woods between my house and her house. It didn’t make any sense because she left in enough time to get to her house before the storm really got bad. They think—they think she was on her way back to our house. To apologize.”

  Daniel’s heart ached for Suga. There were no snow spirits after all.

  Suga was sobbing quietly. “Danny, I never experienced loss like that before. And at such a young age! It makes me sad because … we never made up.

  “The snow lost its appeal for me. I couldn’t play in it without thinking about Avery. I was afraid that the spirits of the snow wo
uld get me, too. Her parents were mad at my parents because they thought we sent her home in the middle of the blizzard, instead of before it. I wasn’t even allowed to go to her funeral. And do you know, Avery Moore, one of the first students to desegregate Nelson’s Pond Middle, they buried her in a throwaway cemetery. I’d heard some whispers about it. Her family couldn’t afford much else. She desegregated a school for crying out loud! And they … they wouldn’t even tell me where she was buried!” she shrieked. “I lost my best friend to that stupid, stupid snow! I was never able to tell her I was sorry! I didn’t want anything else to do with it. It took her from me!

  “Danny, those years were a tough, tough time. I didn’t go into it as I should’ve with you and Iris. It brings back a lot of bad memories. We were still able to have our joys, but boy, was there pain mixed in with it. After I met Lamar, we dated, got married, and moved to another house across town.

  “Once I lost Lamar, and then your daddy … Well, I guess I let myself get swallowed up by the old superstition again. Everything felt so out of control. But I knew how to keep myself safe and that was by staying inside.”

  Daniel felt his eyes burn. He suddenly felt so, so sorry for Suga.

  “But, Suga!” he said, sniffling. “You can’t let fear control your life like that. Staying inside won’t bring Avery, Grandpa, or Dad back. You’re just taking away memories from your own life. You used to love snow. It’s okay to be cautious, but you can’t live your life in fear.”

  “It’s the only way I could handle it, Daniel. She was my best friend. There were few things she loved more than playing in the snow.”

  Daniel blanched; his bones chilled from the familiar words.

  Iris had just told him that about Avery this morning.

  Was it possible … ?

  He shook his head. No, he was being silly. It was just a coincidence. He had to talk to Iris. He could let Suga talk to her about the superstitions, allow her to know the real girl who Avery was, not the ghost in her dreams. Suga could tell Iris herself that the spirits of the snow weren’t real, and maybe that’d stop her nightmares once and for all.