From Twisted Roots

by Tobias Wade

  “It’s a prank,” she said. “Some sicko trying to make me feel bad.”

  Her phone went off again. This time she answered immediately.

  “I don’t know who this is, but if you don’t knock it off, I’m calling the co—”

  “Shut up!” I could hear Virginia’s voice shouting. “You always get to do the talking, but it’s my turn now! You’re a horrible person, Catarina! You’re nasty, and mean, and you make everyone who isn’t just like you miserable!”

  Cat released a frightened sob and again cut off the call. We looked at one another, uncertain and afraid. Then down to the phone as it rang again. Cat tried to decline the call, but it didn’t work. It kept ringing.

  “Give it to me!” I said, tearing the battery out of the back.

  The screen didn’t even flicker.

  Ra-ra-ooh-la-la! Want your bad romance!

  Cat and I bolted from the room, leaving both phone and battery on the floor behind us. As we ran through the kitchen, the house phone went off. When that was ignored, my own phone followed suit. I tore it from my pocket. The caller came up as “Unknown”. I chucked it over my shoulder, and we ran out of the house, tears streaming down our faces.

  Mom came home to find us huddled on the front steps, shaking and crying and unable to tell her why. When she tried to get us back in the house, we begged her to take us over to Cat’s and stay there for a while. She refused until we told her what was going on.

  “Virginia’s been calling!” I finally shouted.

  Mom was immediately sympathetic. She sat between us, an arm around each of our shoulders.

  “What you’ve been through was very traumatic, girls. I’m so sorry for that, but you know Virginia can’t be calling.”

  “She was though!” I insisted.

  Mom kissed the top of my head. “It was probably just someone who sounded like her and you got scared. That’s ok.”

  “But she said the exact same things!”

  “Our brains can trick us when we’re afraid, baby, that’s all.”

  “Cat, tell her!”

  I looked pleadingly at my cousin, who just shook her head. She’d calmed considerably since Mom came home. Now she looked annoyed at me. “I can’t believe I let you get me so worked up over nothing. Your mom’s right.”

  I’d never felt so betrayed. Before I could argue further, Mom handed her car keys to Cat and told her to take me to the pizza place and grab some dinner, her treat. She was too tired from work to join us, but would watch a movie with us when we got home. The last thing I wanted to do was spend more time with Cat, who was now a liar on top of everything else, but I was told in the Mom Voice that it would be fun and I was going.

  Grudgingly we agreed, knowing full well Mom wouldn’t have it any other way. Mom gave us each a twenty dollar bill and told us to call if we needed anything. She didn’t know we both left our phones home.

  “Why did you lie?” I asked angrily after we got into the car.

  “Because she’s right! You were getting scared and I let it get to me. It was probably a telemarketer or something. I should have known better.” Cat didn’t look at me as we backed out.

  “You were scared first! You heard her. You know it was Virginia! We even took your battery out!”

  “Drop it!” she snarled and I shrank away.

  We sat in glum silence for most of the ride. Cat kept her eyes locked on the road ahead. Her hands curled into white knuckled fists around the steering wheel. I’d just started to think that maybe they were right and I’d imagined it all. Maybe it really had just been some woman who happened to sound like Virginia. Then the radio clicked on.

  “You’ve made me miserable for so long. I know it was you who made everyone start calling me Virgin. I know it was you who photoshopped those pictures of me, and I know it was you who started the rumors about me being a lesbian. I can’t go into the locker room or bathroom anymore without people screaming that I’m trying to look at them!”

  The car swerved dangerously with Cat’s surprise. She pulled over sharply and slammed a hand down on the radio’s power button, shutting it off. We didn’t look at each other, didn’t speak. We just sat there. There was no denying what we’d heard. After a moment of silence, Cat pulled back into traffic and we continued on to the pizza place. The radio stayed off the rest of the way there.

  If I tried to speak, Cat would cut me off with a quick, “Shut up!” and I eventually gave up. She parked across the street from the pizza place, shot me a dark, frightened look, and climbed out. I followed mechanically behind.

  We’d just been seated at a table and given menus when the restaurant’s loudspeaker crackled noisily.

  “I just wanted to tell you... I wanted you to know so that you never doubted it...this is all your fault.”

  Virginia’s screaming flooded the room, swallowing all other sound. The other customers went quiet, casting confused looks around while the employees scrambled to shut off the PA system. It didn’t matter. I knew what was coming and I threw my hands over my ears so I didn’t have to hear it again: the dull, meaty sound of Virginia’s body hitting the ground.

  Some of the other customers were getting upset, demanding in raised voices to know what was going on. A few got out of their seats and went to the counter, where the unfortunate cashier could only hold up his hands defensively and offer an apology.

  Despite my ears being covered, I could still hear Virginia’s voice on the loudspeaker.

  “... this is all your fault... this is all your fault... this is all your fault.”

  Cat was gripping the edge of the table, her breathing shallow and quick. She reminded me of a small animal looking to escape a predator. When the screaming started again, she leapt up from her seat and ran from the restaurant. She didn’t stop or even slow down. She just ran out into the road, trying to put distance between herself and the sound of Virginia’s voice.

  I doubted the driver had any time to even see Cat, much less to avoid her. I could only watch as my cousin bounced off the hood of a passing car and was thrown beneath the wheels of an oncoming SUV.

  She came back into view, lying very still in the middle of the road with her back to me. Virginia’s screaming immediately stopped, just as mine began.

  The December Tapes

  Every year on December 12th a new one would arrive. Always in the same bright Christmas wrapping, always unmarked, always left on our front porch.

  They started coming a year after my sister, Libby, disappeared.

  She was last seen walking home from the elementary school in her favorite bright purple jacket with the faux fur hood. It was only a couple blocks, a walk she’d made hundreds of times. Our mom was standing at the foot of our driveway to keep an eye out for her. No one knows for sure what happened in the ten minutes it should have taken Libby to get home; we only know that she never made it.

  I remember lying in bed that night, listening to my dad trying to keep his voice steady while he spoke to the cops. Mom made phone call after phone call to Libby’s friends, and our neighbors, and all the local stores, just in case she’d decided to take an uncharacteristic detour and lost track of time.

  Our quiet life quickly became media fodder. It was surreal and upsetting to see my nine year old sister’s latest school portrait grinning at me from the TV screen on the evening news, to hear her name spoken on the radio. My parents gave interviews and pleaded for anyone with information to come forward, which only resulted in dead ends and prank calls. There were reporters stationed outside our house for a week, just waiting to pounce with their invasive questions.

  Slowly, the attention began to fade. A missing girl only kept people interested for so long. When no new leads appeared, they moved on. The reporters gave up first, then the cops, and then our neighbors, until at last only my family was still looking.

  “We’ll keep it open, but inactive,” we were told over the phone by a sympathetic sounding de
sk sergeant. “It” being my sister’s case file. She didn’t even have a name to them anymore.

  The first year after Libby disappeared went slowly. My parents did their best to keep things normal for me, but it always felt thin, fragile, strained. Normal now meant pretending I didn’t notice Mom staring at the seat where Libby used to sit every night for dinner. It meant tiptoeing back down the hall so my dad didn’t know I saw him standing in the middle of her room, her favorite stuffed toy hugged against his chest. It meant dreading her birthday and holidays because they were now razor sharp reminders of loss.

  It meant trying to cope without my little sister, and there were some days I wondered how anything would ever feel right again.

  Then on December 12th, exactly one year after she went missing, a package arrived on our doorstep.

  It was wrapped in sparkly red paper and tied off with a bright purple ribbon. There was no card or name tag attached, just the box, but Mom brought it inside anyway. She figured it was from one of our neighbors just trying to spread a little Christmas spirit. It was the first gift we’d gotten. She put it aside and set about making dinner, careful to keep her back to me so I might not notice she was crying. I noticed anyway, and any tiny speck of holiday cheer I might have been feeling was swept away.

  The package sat on our kitchen counter, unopened until dad got home.

  “Go ahead and open it, Phin,” Dad said with a tired smile after asking what it was.

  With as much enthusiasm as I could muster, I tore into the wrapping paper and pulled open the small cardboard box within. Sitting inside, nestled on a bed of red and green tissue paper, was a cassette tape.

  Curious, I ran to my room for my boombox and lugged it back to the kitchen. I popped open the front and dropped the cassette into its player, filling the room with my sister’s terrified, desperate screams.

  “Mommy,” she wailed from the speakers. “Daddy!”

  We all sat in stunned silence for a moment before my dad leapt at the boombox and tore the tape out.

  I listened to that cassette many times in the following days. First from just outside the kitchen, when my parents played it in full after they thought I’d gone to my room, and then a second time when the police came. Snippets were released to re-generate interest in the case, and I heard them again on the news and the radio. Once again, Libby Helmer was a household name for another couple of weeks. No matter how many times I heard it, though, it never got any easier.

  Libby screaming for our parents, the gut wrenching fear in her voice, the way she sobbed and begged to go home, and behind it all, a soft voice that just kept saying, “Shhh, shhh.”

  Nothing came of it except more heartbreak. There were no prints, no DNA, nothing to trace the package or its contents. All we were left with was Libby’s terrified voice.

  The only solace we could take from it was the possibility that Libby was still alive somewhere. Mom and Dad redoubled their search efforts and upped the reward offered for Libby’s safe return. Another year came and went without any new information, until December 12th was upon us again.

  For the second year in a row, we received another cassette tape.

  “Hi Mommy and Daddy and Phin,” Libby said from the boombox once we’d gathered enough courage to hit play. She sounded tired, the kind of tired that resonates from deep down; the kind no kid should be familiar with. “I miss you. I hope I can come home soon, but I don’t know. I think about you lots. I hope you think about me too.” Her voice cracked, and I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from doing the same. “Smiling Thom says I’ve been a good girl. He wanted you to know that.”

  The tape ended.

  Again, we went to the police, and again, nothing came of it. Even with the inclusion of a name, this Smiling Thom, they weren’t able to dig up anything that might help us find Libby. All we had to hold us over for another year was her sad, small voice.

  The third tape arrived, right on time, the next year. Libby’s voice sounded a little older, but it was still recognizably her’s.

  “Hi, it’s me. You remember me, right? I try to draw you lots so I don’t forget you, but it’s getting harder. Smiling Thom says that’s just the way it goes. I asked him for a picture of you, but he hasn’t brought me one yet. He said if I was really good, he will, and I’ve tried to be. I dunno if he will though. I want to go home. Smiling Thom said maybe next year. He says that a lot. I love you.”

  It hit me then that it was getting harder for me to remember her too. Not just what she looked like, but the sound of her voice, the things she liked, and the way she laughed. While my parents played and re-played the tape, desperately listening for any clues about Libby’s whereabouts, I went and dug out her baby book. I spent the rest of the night studying her face and all the little notes that Mom had put in the margins.

  I fell asleep with the book clutched against my stomach, tears staining my face.

  It was another long year with no answers.

  For four more years, we waited for December 12th to arrive with a strange combination of hope and horror. We fed off those tapes, used them to get us through another 365 days with the belief that Libby was still alive. We dreaded them too, but we dreaded the December 12th that we opened our door to find nothing even more.

  Every tape followed a similar pattern: she’d tell us she missed us, that she wanted to come home, and that she thought about us. In some tapes she’d ask questions like whether we still thought of her. She’d tell us that Smiling Thom said she’d been good again.

  She sounded more different in every one: older, more articulate, but always sad, always tired. It was like listening to my sister grow up in sound bites when I played the tapes back to back.

  There was never anything new in them. We kept bringing them to the cops, but it felt more like a hollow effort each time. Dad finally stopped notifying the cops altogether; we gave up on them the same as they’d done with Libby.

  “We’re not giving up though,” Dad said. “We’re just on our own now.”

  Another year passed. We put up posters, we shot local commercials, we gathered volunteers and combed wider and wider areas. It was obvious that those who joined us were doing it more for solidarity than out of any actual belief we would find Libby. Even when we played the tapes for people, they didn’t seem quite convinced that the girl they were hearing was my sister

  Eight years since Libby disappeared, and the only people who still thought she might come home were me and my parents.

  Until we got the tape that year.

  Mom stood over the table, staring at the still wrapped box for a long moment. Her eyes were glassy, her lips trembling. She shook her head.

  “I can’t,” she said weakly. “I can’t listen to another one. I don’t even know her voice anymore. What kind of mother am I? What kind of mother doesn’t even recognize her own child’s voice? Just take it away; put it back! Put it back! I don’t want it in this house!”

  She started to sink to the floor. Dad hurried around the table to catch her.

  “Just do it, Phin!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  The pain I saw on both their faces, still so raw after so long, drove me to grab up the box and run to the front door. I dumped it back on the porch and left it to sit in the gathering snow. I didn’t think about it at the time; if I had, I would have hidden the box in my room or just tucked in a drawer somewhere. In that moment, though, I just did what Mom said. I got it out of the house.

  Once Mom calmed down, I had no doubt that I’d be told to retrieve it again. We’d listen to it the same as we did with all the others. Neither of my parents would miss the chance to hear their Libby’s voice.

  It was only an hour later when I was instructed to go get the tape. Mom apologized, saying that she was ready. When I opened the front door, the package was gone though, and no amount of searching made it reappear.

  We assumed some opportunistic low life looking to steal Chri
stmas gifts had taken it. We tried to console one another with reassurances that there would be another tape the next year, but it didn’t really help. Mom blamed herself, I blamed myself, and Dad was just caught up in his grief over not getting to hear his little girl. We thought about filing another police report, but after all the previous dead ends, we decided against it.

  We’d just have to try and wait until the next December 12th.

  We didn’t put up posters, or launch search parties, or do anything else to look for Libby that year. It was too exhausting, too expensive, too heartbreaking. Mom was especially fragile after the loss of the last tape. There was nothing we hadn’t tried, and it had all ended in failure. We just needed some time to recoup and collect ourselves before we began the search again.

  I was woken up the morning of the next December 12th by a muffled thud coming from downstairs. It was early, still dark, and I almost rolled over and went back to sleep until I remembered what day it was.

  I was up and out of bed instantly.

  My parents’ bedroom door was still closed. Their light was off when I hurried past on tiptoes. I was relieved, in a way. It was always hard to get the tapes, but seeing what it did to my parents just made it harder. If I could listen to it alone first, it might make it less horrible somehow.

  It didn’t occur to me until I was opening the front door that the tapes had only ever arrived the evening before. By then I’d already seen the package, and I knew immediately that something was very wrong.

  Instead of a small box, this one was large. Very large. It was still wrapped in the same bright paper and tied off with a purple ribbon, but this year, there was a card on top. I instinctively closed the door behind me before moving toward it. It felt like I was doing something wrong as I reached for the card.

  Only 9 years before you gave up. I had hoped for better from you. She was such a good girl.

  The message was written in thin, slanted letters, ending in a hand-drawn smiley face.

  A slow boiling queasiness started in my stomach. I let the card slip through my fingers to the ground. I grabbed the edge of the large box and started to peel back the paper. The box beneath was plain white and covered by a lid.