by Foxglove Lee
They showed a picture of the little girl who died. She had on a birthday hat and a mint green dress. She was holding a stuffed animal—a dinosaur. A bright pink brontosaurus. She was adorable.
I hung up the phone. At least I knew my mom was home, talking to someone. Maybe to my dad? Or his lawyers? If I tried again later, I might get a hold of her. But when I did, what would I say? I wasn’t even sure if I was still mad that she hadn’t told me about my dad getting arrested.
The news story about my dad ended, and the reporters started talking about Chernobyl, where there had been a big explosion at a nuclear plant. We’d discussed that a lot at school. People died when the initial explosion happened in April, and there were still more dying slowly of radiation poisoning. Little kids with their hair falling out. It was too sad for words, so I changed the channel and watched a rerun of Three’s Company. I didn’t want to think anymore.
I must have fallen asleep in a TV-induced stupor, because next thing I knew it was dark outside. A chill ran through me, even though the air was warm. Something smelled funky. The bathroom looked spic and span, but I wondered if maybe the toilet was venting fumes or something. The scent was really gross.
After drying my hands, I touched Tiffany’s spandex pants. They were getting there, but not quite dry. The TV still chattered in the bedroom, but all the lights were off. Blue pulses painted the walls. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch a movie or go back to sleep. I felt kind of dazed… until I heard something rustling down the hall.
Every chicken bone in my body told me to hide my head under the covers, but my legs didn’t listen. My feet found the carpet and I crept across the bedroom, standing inside the open door.
The entire house was dark. Nobody was milling around downstairs. I could tell that just from looking out into the hallway. Houses creaked sometimes. It was “settling”—that’s what my mom called it.
My mom! I hadn’t tried calling again.
Hopping back into the big bed, I lowered the volume on the TV and picked up the phone. I called my own number, but got another busy signal. What time was it? Late at night. My mom worked nights, and even if she took some time off, it seemed weird that she’d be on the phone after eleven.
Another shuffle.
I heard it for sure this time, and hung up the phone, racing to the door. The volume on the TV was way down, so I could hear better now. I could hear the brush of clothing, the clack of tiny footsteps. A mouse? No, mice didn’t wear clothes. But the steps didn’t sound hard enough to be human. Maybe this cottage was haunted! Maybe that’s why nobody ever stayed there. Oh God, maybe the owners had been murdered and their bodies hadn’t even been found yet and their ghosts were making noises now so I would find their rotting corpses!
No, that was stupid. Although… come to think of it, I could smell that funky odour again. It did smell sort of rotten.
My muscles locked as I imagined what I might find if I started poking around. And then I realized how paranoid I was acting. When I broke into this place, the first thing I did was poke my head in every room. If there’d been any dead bodies, I’m sure I would have noticed them.
I didn’t turn on the hall light when I left the bedroom. The glow of the moon reflected in the lake. This cottage had a great view. No wonder the owners had built it on this incline. The moon on the water lit up the entire place with a shimmering silver gleam.
The scent of filth got worse with every step I took. It wasn’t me, was it? I looked at my feet, like I could have stepped in something on the way here. But I’d bathed since then. No, it couldn’t be me. What could it be?
I’d closed every door after peeking inside, but not every door was closed now. There was one, just one, open a smidge. When I approached it, the bad smell got worse. No question where it was coming from, but what was it? I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t stop myself from opening the door.
“Fancy meeting you here,” a familiar voice called from the fluffy Victorian guest room.
The odour gagged me. My eyes watered.
“I missed you, Rebecca.”
“No,” I choked out. “It can’t be you. I threw you in the septic tank.”
“I noticed.” Yvette’s voice was crushingly casual. “No amount of washing will get the stink out. Maybe you could give me a nice, long bath in that big Jacuzzi tub, hmm?”
“This is crazy.” I shook my head, blinking fast, but every time I opened my eyes she was standing on the shelf, with a vase to one side and teacup to the other. “I threw you in a pit. You can’t be here.”
“Right, sure,” Yvette said. “But here’s the trouble, Rebecca: I am here.”
A chill ran through me, and I hugged myself tight. I couldn’t stop shivering.
“You look awfully nice in silk.” Yvette’s beady little eyes gleamed, like she was about to devour me. “Does the lady of the house have anything like that in my size? Should we take a look?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, even though speaking to a doll out loud made me feel insane. “You’re not real. I threw you in a hole. You’re gone. You’re not here.”
Yvette winked. I saw it. She winked at me. “Whatever you say, Rebecca. If you say I’m not here, maybe I’m not here. But if I’m not, what does that say about you?”
Oh God, she was right. I must be crazy. Or… maybe not.
“I’m dreaming.” That explained it. “This is a nightmare, that’s all.”
I started pinching my arms, and it hurt, but it didn’t wake me up. So I smacked myself. I smacked one cheek, then the other one, but it didn’t work. Yvette was still up there on that shelf, smiling like a demon.
“So, you’re dreaming?” she asked.
I tried to swallow, but my throat closed up. I choked on my saliva. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. What was happening to me? Maybe I really was going crazy. Maybe Uncle Flip was right. Maybe he was the only one who saw what was really happening: I was losing my mind.
When I looked up at the glass shelf, Yvette was gone. The vase was there and so was the teacup, but no doll.
My heart clenched like a block of ice in my chest. For a second, my entire body felt frozen. When I came out of shock, I looked around the room, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. The stench was gone too. I sniffed the air, but I couldn’t smell it anymore.
What just happened? Oh God, was I going insane?
Closing the guest room door, I raced back to the master suite and closed that door too. The bedroom had an overhead light, and I flicked it on. It was really bright, but that was good. That’s what I needed. Light. Lots of light, everywhere. I turned up the volume on the TV, and then buried myself under the covers. It was hard to breathe under the fancy white duvet, and I felt like a stupid little kid hiding from the monsters in my mind, but what was I supposed to do? I’d never been so scared in all my life.
I wasn’t trying to sleep. I didn’t want to sleep. But I must have been exhausted, because next thing I knew, the warm duvet was ripped off of me as two police officers stared down at my nearly-naked body.
Chapter 16
“It’s just a kid,” one officer said to the other. When he turned, I saw a fancy-looking man and woman cowering in the doorway.
“Is that…” The tall lady in designer clothes pointed at me, stammering, “Is she wearing my silk?”
I scrambled to my knees and huddled behind a pillow. No words. What could I possibly say? I’d never been so embarrassed in my entire life.
One of the police officers was huge, all muscle. Just the sight of him scared the living daylights out of me. But before saying anything else, he kneeled beside the bed. “Are you okay, sweetheart? Did somebody bring you here? Did somebody hurt you?”
My frazzled brain couldn’t figure out what he was implying. “I… I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down my cheeks before I even felt them welling in my eyes. I was like a six-year-old kid. I couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay,” the
big cop said, extending a hand to me. I didn’t take it. “Tell me why you’re sorry, honey. What happened?”
What happened? Why had I come here? I couldn’t even remember anymore.
And then I could.
“My dad,” I said.
It all came streaming back, and I said everything that popped into my head, though I doubt very much the police officers could understand me.
“I heard it on the radio, about my dad. My dad’s in jail and nobody told me! My mom, my aunt, my uncle, nobody said a word. Everybody knew except me, and yesterday he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. When were they going to tell me? Didn’t they think I’d notice my dad was gone?”
The big officer glanced at the other one, who looked like he was my age. That guy was scribbling madly on a notepad. Me? I was sobbing. No way they understood.
“What’s your name?” the tall officer asked. He had a different uniform than the police in the city. I felt like I was in another dimension.
“Rebecca,” I sobbed.
The big officer grabbed some tissues from the box on the glass night table and handed them to me in a big wad. “Do you live around here, Rebecca?”
I blotted my eyes first, and then blew my nose. “Not me, but my aunt and uncle have a cottage down the road.”
I was still heaving a bit, but at least they could understand me now.
“Did someone bring you here?” the big officer asked. He had such kind eyes.
I shook my head.
“You came on your own?”
I couldn’t look at him anymore. I looked down at the rumpled sheets and nodded. Tears came back, but I choked them down. No more crying. My eyes were already burning.
The officers looked one at the other, and the tall guy asked, “Could you please state your full name for me?”
His voice had never been gentle, but it was even less gentle now. He made me feel like a criminal, and I thought about my father. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We were both bad. It didn’t matter anymore. My father was a murderer. I had no future.
“Rebecca Warren,” I said. “My name is Rebecca Jane Warren.”
I’d expected them to look at each other and say, “Oh, I know that name. She’s Robert Warren’s daughter.” But no. Nothing seemed to register. Warren was a common name, after all. Maybe I was silly to worry.
“And your age?” The tall guy didn’t even look up from his notepad to ask.
“Fifteen.” I didn’t mean to lie, but how would they know the difference?
“Rebecca, can you tell me how you got in here?” the nicer officer asked.
“The kitchen window,” I said. “The screen popped right out and it was really easy to open. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it, I know, but I just… I don’t know why I broke in. It just seemed really nice in here, and there was nobody home.”
I glanced quickly to the couple hovering in the door like I was a vampire bat gearing up to attack them. They seemed to be trembling in each other’s arms. Why were they so afraid of me?
“Do you have a change of clothes with you?” the big guy asked.
I felt humiliated all over again for being caught in a stranger’s lingerie. “Sorry. Yeah, they’re in the bathroom.”
“Why don’t you go change?” The officer happened to smile just as I looked into his face, and his compassion brought fresh tears to my eyes. “We’ll all wait outside, and when you’re done we’ll take you back to your family.”
I didn’t move until they’d all left the room, and even after they were gone I could feel their eyes on me. I shivered as I put on my aunt’s underwear and Tiffany’s clothes. I wished to God I’d worn my overalls instead of fluorescent spandex, but it was too late now.
When I’d changed, I stood at the bedroom door. I could hear the woman’s voice on the other side, saying, “That’s it? You’re not even going to charge her? The little hooligan broke in to our cottage!”
“We’ll have a sit-down with the family,” the nice officer was saying when I opened the door and emerged in Tiffany’s clothes.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the couple, without looking at them. “I really am. I didn’t mean to scare you or anything, it’s just such a nice place you’ve got here. I wasn’t going to steal anything, I swear.”
They didn’t respond. I could feel their hot stares on my face, but they were silent as the nice officer led me out the front door. The other one lagged behind.
“Do I have to go in there?” It was a real police car, just like you see on TV. “I can walk back. It’s not too far.”
“My partner and I will escort you home this time. This time.” His gaze was generous but concerned, like a parent’s. “Next time it’ll be straight to the station, behind bars, and you can call home from there. Do understand what I’m saying?”
A chill ran down my spine, like someone had dumped ice water in the back of my T-shirt. “It’ll never happen again. I swear. I’m not a bad person, I’m really not.”
“I know you’re not, Rebecca.”
I don’t know what came over me in that moment, but I launched myself at the officer. He backed away, but not fast enough. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed. My face mashed into his chest so hard one of his shirt buttons pressed into my cheek. He smelled like toothpaste and aftershave, but not too strong.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and pulled away. I knew you weren’t supposed to hug police officers. I wasn’t sure what came over me.
They made me sit in the back seat, behind a kind Plexiglas divider. I’d never felt so much like a criminal.
When we pulled into the driveway, my aunt and uncle raced out of our humiliating little cottage. They must have heard the tires on the gravel road and looked out the front window. Their faces were so drawn I could hardly stand to look, but what surprised me most was that Tiffany came running out of the cottage behind them.
“Whoa! Becca’s in trouble!”
I’d never felt so relieved to hear Mikey’s squawking little voice. I don’t know why, but it was him I went to first. He was getting heavy, but I picked him up and kissed his cheek.
“Eww! Girl germs!” He wiped off my cooties when I put him down on the ground, but he didn’t go far.
Aunt Libby, Uncle Flip, and Tiffany all hugged me at once. It was suffocating, but sincere.
“What on earth happened to you?” my aunt said in a tone that was berating but also relieved. “Your uncle and I were worried sick.”
“So was I,” Tiffany whispered in my ear, and I shivered.
“Your niece was found this morning by the owners of a cottage down the road,” said the tall cop, interrupting our little reunion.
“Found?” My uncle seemed really worried. He grabbed my arm tight. “Found where?”
“Found sleeping in their bed,” the officer answered. “Watching their television, eating their food. She’d gained entry through a kitchen window.”
“Rebecca Jane Warren!” my aunt scolded. “What on earth were you playing at?”
“I’m sorry.”
There was a whirlwind of questioning, and all I could do was apologize. I didn’t know why I’d done it. It was stupid, and it would never happen again.
“Tiffany,” my aunt said. “Would you kindly watch Mikey while we have a discussion with the officers?”
They all started toward our run-down little cottage, and I could tell they expected me to come too, but I had a huge fear inside me. Grabbing Tiffany with one hand and Mikey with the other, I whispered, “Let’s go!” and pulled them down the driveway.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Tiffany cried, kicking rocks out of her jelly shoes. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know, just run!”
My heart pumped like crazy as we streamed down the hill and onto the next street, out of sight. My feet had never moved so quickly. Mikey and Tiffany were both heaving, out of breath by the time we reached the water.
“What happened to you?” Tiffany asked through
staggered breaths.
Mikey looked up at me, pleadingly. “Are you going to jail like Daddy?”
My pulse slowed. Everything stopped. For a moment, even the cicadas quit their humming. “What did you say?”
It was Tiffany who answered. “When you didn’t come back, I went to your aunt and uncle’s cottage to say sorry for… well, everything, you know. We were so worried about you, Bec. You have no idea.”
What did that have to do with anything? “Mikey, who told you…?”
“Uncle Flip did.”
“When?”
“Just now,” Tiffany said. “Just before you came. I told your aunt and uncle how you found out, and they didn’t want Mikey going through it the same way. It’s better coming from people you love, when it’s bad news like that. Bec, we didn’t know where you were. We were so scared.”
This was too much. Way too much. My pulse worked its way back into overdrive, and I looked over my shoulder, fully expecting to find those two police officers chasing after me.
“We need to get out of here,” I said. “Where can we go?”
Tiffany glanced around and her fine hair fluttered like gold. “To the patch?”
“Without a boat?”
“My grandparents have one,” Tiffany said, and led us down to the private dock. We passed the Marina chip shop and my stomach gurgled. I was getting used to hearty breakfasts and I hadn’t eaten anything today.
The Jones’s motorboat looked old and rusty, but I could hardly complain. After all, I was the one on the run from the law.
“Do you know how to drive one of these things?” I asked as Tiffany peeled off the key taped under the seat.
“Yeah, kinda.”
“Don’t you need a license to drive a boat?”
“Pfft!” Tiffany grabbed a life jacket from the back and plonked herself down in front of the wheel. “Anyone can do it.”
Mikey nearly jumped out of his flip-flops. “Can I do it?”
“No.” I held his hand and we stepped into the rocking motorboat together. “Come on, get into a lifejacket so Tiffany can start the boat.”
