Horrid

by Katrina Leno

  A heavy, deep thump from above.

  Like the sound of a body hitting the floor.

  And Jeff finally had enough.

  “Right. I’m out. Call me if you need someone to bail you out of jail.”

  And Jane heard him leave the bedroom, stomping down the stairs so quickly it was a wonder he didn’t trip. Melanie followed him halfway down the hall, then stopped.

  “Jeff, are you kidding me?” she called, but the front door had already opened and closed, and Jeff was long gone and probably hadn’t even heard her. “Fine, I don’t need you anyway!” Melanie called after him, and she turned and headed back to Jane’s room, and Jane absolutely adored the way Melanie screamed when she saw her, standing in the middle of the hallway, blocking the way.

  “Jane, what the fuck?!” Melanie shrieked, recovering quickly.

  “You seem surprised to see me,” Jane said calmly. “But this is my house. So that’s a little strange.”

  “I didn’t know you were home,” Melanie replied. Her voice was hesitant, just the teensiest bit shaky. She had the tail end of a black eye, the bruising faded to a sickly yellowish green. It made Jane happy.

  “What are you doing in my house?” Jane asked, her voice quiet.

  “I was just leaving.” Melanie took a step backward, to the stairs, but faltered.

  “You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just… It doesn’t matter, okay? I’ll go.”

  “You shouldn’t come into other peoples’ houses without their permission,” Jane said, her voice even, calm. The lights in the hallway flickered, on and off, on and off.

  Melanie looked around. “Why’s it doing that?”

  Jane laid a hand on the wall. “Don’t you think there’s something… creepy? About this house?”

  Melanie rolled her eyes but she looked unsure. “It’s just a nickname.”

  “That’s what I thought. At first.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This house doesn’t like visitors. She doesn’t want you here.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I know I shouldn’t be here. I’ll leave. You won’t…”

  “Call the cops?” Jane guessed. “No, I think we can settle this just the three of us.”

  “The three of us?” Melanie repeated uncertainly. “Is somebody else here?”

  “You know it happened on Halloween, right?”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “But you don’t believe in stuff like that, do you?”

  “Stuff like what? Like ghosts?” The lights flickered again. And there was a creaking from somewhere. Like someone opening a door, like a house settling. Sometimes it was impossible to tell those two things apart. Melanie looked around sharply. “What’s wrong with the lights?”

  “Tell me why you’re here, Melanie. Why are you really here? You told Jeff you were trying to find something. What are you looking for?”

  “It’s none of your business,” she replied through gritted teeth.

  “How can it not be my business? Whatever it is, you’re looking for it in my house.”

  “Why did you even come back here? Your family was supposed to be gone for good,” Melanie said softly, spitting out the words one by one. “Everybody was happy when your grandmother died. The last of the Norths were gone from Bells Hollow. Nobody wanted you to come back. But you did.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Jane said. “But I didn’t want to move here any more than you wanted me to.”

  “Just let me look for it,” Melanie said, shaking her head back and forth. “Let me look for it and I’ll leave, and I won’t come back. I’m done. I promise.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you’re looking for.”

  Something seemed to snap inside Melanie; she drew her hands to her face and wrapped them around the back of her neck, squeezing. Then she took a slow breath and said, “I’m looking for something that belongs to my sister.” And a pained expression passed over her face, she flinched as if she’d been slapped. She corrected herself: “Belonged. I’m looking for something that belonged to my sister.”

  “Your sister?” Jane repeated.

  A flash of memory, a conversation she’d had with Alana:

  Melanie’s older sister is very… ill. Because of something that happened when she was younger.

  “Your sister is Annie,” Jane whispered.

  Cansler. She knew where she’d heard that name before. On her first day of school, Rosemary had introduced Alana as Alana Cansler.

  Alana and Melanie were cousins.

  Melanie Cansler. Annie Cansler.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Melanie asked, her voice flat and dull.

  “Your sister was with my sister when she died,” Jane replied.

  “But you don’t know anything. Do you?”

  “What else is there to know?” Jane asked. “My sister died. Your sister died. We should be friends, if anything. We should be helping each other. Instead you’re breaking into my house in the middle of the night looking for—what did Jeff say? A teddy bear?”

  “Helping each other,” Melanie repeated, suddenly wild, suddenly angry and crazed. “Helping each other! Your sister ruined Annie’s life! And then she fucking killed her!”

  “What are you talking about? They were kids, Melanie. They were friends.”

  “Is that what your mother told you?” Melanie said, suddenly unstuck from the floor, pacing back and forth in a tight circle, her hands pulling at her hair, giving her a dangerous look. Jane was alarmed to see that she had started crying. She didn’t move to wipe the tears that rolled slowly down her cheeks. She just let them fall, blinking quickly. “Is that what you believe? You’re just as bad as all of them. Just as bad as your mother, just as bad as your dead sister.”

  Your dead sister.

  The words cut right into Jane’s chest, ripping their way through her rib cage to settle in her heart.

  “My sister was eight when she died, Melanie. And that was over twenty years ago. You never even knew her. I never even knew her.”

  “I know what she did,” Melanie said. “And you act all innocent but then you go full psycho on me. You’re just like her.”

  “I didn’t even know I had a sister until an hour ago. How could I possibly be like her?”

  “Maybe it just runs in your blood. Your mom, your grandmother. All of you are evil. Fuck, I hate this town,” Melanie said, still pacing. “I hate this selective history bullshit. I hate how the real story doesn’t even matter anymore, and the only thing people remember is the poor little girl who died!”

  “Okay,” Jane said. “You’re here now. It’s just you and me. So tell me the real story, Melanie. Tell me what happened to Jemima and Annie.” She had that warning bell in the back of her head again, the same warning bell she’d heard in the bathroom with Susie and Alana. The same feeling that she was about to find out something she didn’t want to know.

  “Do you really want to hear it, Jane? Because it’s not the neat little story you think it is.” Melanie had stopped pacing; she was facing Jane again, and her eyes were wild, wide in her face, her irises surrounded by too much white.

  “I want to know what happened,” Jane said. “I want to know the truth.”

  “My mother was a housekeeper here,” Melanie started. “She’d leave Annie with my grandmother when she went to work. But my grandmother got sick one day. There was no one else who could watch Annie, so my mother had to bring her here. She tried to hide her, to keep her in the kitchen, but Jemima found her. My mom thought she was going to be fired, but Jemima was so sweet. She pretended to be sweet. She told Emilia she wanted Annie to stay, to play with her. So my mother started bringing Annie to work with her more often. Jemima was always sweet in front of the grown-ups, but Annie started telling my mom about the things she’d do when it was just the two of them.”

  Jane hardly breathed. Melanie was red-faced now; her hands were balled into
two tight fists.

  “What things?” Jane asked.

  “Little things, at first,” Melanie replied. “If Annie didn’t do something Jemima wanted, she’d push her. Pull her hair. She’d tell her Emilia would fire my mom. Things like that. But my mom needed this job. It paid well, the hours were good. My grandmother was getting older, sicker. She couldn’t watch Annie anymore. My mom was backed into a corner. So she told Annie to deal with it. And when they were six, Jemima cut off all her hair.”

  Jane’s stomach turned. A quick flash of Claudia Summers’s face appeared in the back of her mind. Her hands felt heavy with the weight of the dull scissors; she could feel the memory of their resistance as she’d hacked her way through Claudia’s thick ponytail.

  “What else?” Jane whispered.

  “When Annie was seven, Jemima brought her into the woods to show her where a cat had laid a litter of kittens. She had my sister pick one for her own. She said she could take it home and have it as a pet. But then she grabbed the kitten back from her and twisted its neck until it died. She killed all the kittens.”

  Jane felt sick. She crossed her arms over her stomach. “I don’t believe you.”

  “She pushed her down the stairs. She broke her arm, but Annie was too scared to tell anybody what really happened. She said she tripped.”

  “None of those things are true.”

  “And do you want to know the worst thing about it? Your mom knew. Your grandmother knew.”

  “Even if any of this was true, how would you even… How could you even know this?”

  “Because Annie told me.” Melanie paused, her voice breaking. She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment, and when she opened them again, she looked twisted with grief. “She didn’t talk that much. Sometimes it was nonsense, sometimes she would recite the plot of a TV show that aired fifteen years ago, get it confused with reality. But something changed a few weeks ago. I went to visit her and she was lucid, clear. She said, ‘You have to find my teddy. It’s in that house. I dropped it in the backyard. You have to bring it to me. You have to get it away from her.’”

  “Away from who?” Jane asked.

  “Somehow, she knew you were back,” Melanie continued, ignoring Jane, maybe not even hearing her. “She started telling me things. Things she’d never told me before. Things no one had ever told me before. All about what your sister did to her.”

  Jane kept her mouth shut. The lights in the hallway flickered again and Melanie looked around at them, but she seemed stronger now. Surer of herself.

  “Your sister’s birthday was on Halloween. Did you know that? Annie was going to go out trick-or-treating with friends, but Emilia made her come here instead. She made our mom bring her here.”

  Jane dug her nails into the skin of her arms. A sharp, stinging pain. Melanie continued.

  “Jemima was being nice. She took Annie’s hand and led her out to the backyard. To the rosebushes. She told her she wanted to show her something really cool. There were all these big holes. They were doing landscaping, digging trenches for something. Big piles of dirt everywhere. Jemima picked up a handful and threw it on my sister. She was dressed as a nurse. A white uniform. Jemima laughed and laughed. And then she tried to push her into one of the holes. She came up behind her and pushed her, but Annie jumped out of the way. Jemima fell in herself.

  “She tried to kill her, Jane. She tried to kill my sister. She knew she wasn’t supposed to go near the holes; they were too deep, too dangerous. She was going to cover Annie up with dirt and kill her. And now nobody cares about any of that. All anybody cares about is that she died. Nobody wants to listen to what Jemima really was because how could they believe such a nice, pretty little girl was really just the opposite: She was horrid.”

  Jane didn’t move.

  “And then she killed herself,” Melanie whispered. “You came back to this town, and my sister killed herself. She kept saying… ‘She’s back, she’s back, she’s back.’ She was so scared. Every time I went to see her… she had this look in her eyes. She said, ‘I can’t do another Halloween. She always comes to see me on Halloween.’” Melanie was crying now; the tears were pouring down her cheeks and her shoulders shook. “I didn’t know what she meant. I didn’t know what she would do. That was the last time I ever saw her.”

  She pushed me in, Jemima whispered into Jane’s ear. She pushed me in and I tried to climb out and all the dirt fell on top of me. I drowned in dirt. I was just having a little fun. But she pushed me in and I died.

  Jane turned around but the hallway was empty. She faced Melanie again and said, “Annie killed Jemima.”

  “She tried to kill her first,” Melanie spat.

  So Jane knew it was the truth.

  “And then she tried to save her life,” Melanie continued. “She tried to dig her out of the dirt, she tried to save her, but she wasn’t strong enough. Years and years of different therapists and medications and treatments, but every single night she had the same dream. Every single night she tried to save Jemima’s life, but she couldn’t. That’s what she told me. That Jemima still tormented her, all these years later. That she was never alone, never truly alone, because your sister was always with her.”

  Jemima’s voice was so close it was almost inside Jane’s head. She tried to save my life after she pushed me in the hole and covered me up with dirt. She tried to save my life when it was already too late.

  Jane pressed her hands against her ears, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good; Jemima’s voice was inside her head and there was no way to block it out.

  “Did you really do all those things to her?” Jane whispered to Jemima.

  I’m your sister, Janie. I love you. I wouldn’t ever do anything bad to anyone.

  She should give Melanie the teddy bear. She knew where it was. She’d seen it the first time she’d opened Jemima’s closet door. It was sitting on a shelf with rows of tiny shoes. She should just give her the teddy bear so that Melanie would leave her alone.

  But that won’t be any fun at all. We should have some fun with her first. She shouldn’t have come inside without knocking. I bet she’s done it before.

  Before?

  Of course. The night of the break-in.

  Jane hadn’t made it up.

  “You were in my room,” Jane said. “What were you doing in my room?”

  “I told you. I was looking for the bear.”

  “No—before.”

  “Before? I’ve never been in this creep house before.”

  “You’re lying.”

  She’s lying, Janie, she’s lying, lying, lying. I can see into her brain. I see past her skin and her bones. I can see the lie and it’s bright, bright red.

  “Why would I lie? Why would I come in here? This house is evil. You can literally feel it.”

  “Evil,” Jane said. “You keep saying that word. You think my sister’s evil, you think my family’s evil, you think my grandmother’s evil… But it sounds like all the things you don’t like about us are actually things you don’t like about yourself. It sounds like maybe you know your story has holes in it. Maybe you know Annie could have done more to save my sister… and didn’t.”

  Melanie’s eyes were flashing, dark, dangerous.

  Jemima’s singsong little-kid voice: Oh, I think you made her mad, Janie! Poor mad girl, so mad, so sad.

  “You don’t know anything,” Melanie said. “You don’t know anything!”

  And Jane watched Melanie hear something. The creaking of the old house. The sounds of settling. Her eyes grew wider. She looked past Jane into the empty hallway. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Jane asked.

  “I heard…”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Nothing. I’m leaving.”

  But she didn’t move.

  I don’t like this girl, Janie. She’s just as mean as her sister. Remember what she said to you? Remember how mean she was?

  Jane whispered, “You told me m
y family was dropping like flies.”

  “I don’t feel bad for you,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “You came back to this house. You came back to this town. After what your family did. After what your sister did…”

  “Well, she’s dead and your sister is dead, and it feels like all of this is a little fucking pointless, doesn’t it?”

  Jemima giggled. Well, I’m having fun. So it’s not completely pointless.

  Melanie heard something again. She took a half-inch step backward. “Did you hear it that time?”

  “Hear what?” Jane asked innocently.

  What do you think, Jane? Do you want to have some more fun?

  Melanie pressed her hands to her ears. She shook her head. “What is that?”

  “It’s these old houses, Melanie. They’re always making noise,” Jane said.

  “Fuck this,” Melanie said. “You’re right: It is all pointless. I never should have come here.”

  She turned and walked down the hall, a quick walk that wasn’t quite a run. Jane followed her to the top of the stairs. She walked halfway down. She watched Melanie reach the front door, grip the doorknob, and twist.

  The door didn’t open.

  Melanie twisted around and looked up at Jane. “Just stop,” she pleaded. “I just want to go home.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Jane said honestly.

  But Melanie tried the door again; it still wouldn’t budge. She slid the dead bolt open and shut a few times, but nothing she did made the doorknob work.

  Jane felt her own stomach twist painfully inside her, a sliver of fear that worked its way deep into her body.

  “What’s happening?” she asked Jemima, but Melanie heard her and answered instead.

  “How am I supposed to know?” she said, her voice rising to a shriek. “The fucking door won’t open! Why won’t the fucking door open?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Jane said. She took another step, then another, and then all the lights went off. They were plunged into complete darkness.

  Melanie screamed.

  And Jane felt something very much like a small, cold hand take hers. And squeeze.

  And when the lights came back on, Melanie was gone. The foyer was empty.