Is she hiding from me? Am I having another hallucination?
“Aunt Alexia?” I call, noticing a giant tarp covering the floor, protecting the wood.
Sketch pads, canvases, and tubes of acrylic paint sit in piles.
I look toward our shared wall, curious again about the scratching sounds. And that’s when I see it: a giant mural of a baby grand piano. Painted atop the piano is a vase of flowers— red flowers—which explains the red paint I’ve seen on Alexia’s hands.
There’s another tarp, half attached to the wall—what Aunt Alexia must’ve been using to protect the mural and keep it hidden. I take a step closer, noticing how several of the piano’s keys are depressed, as if someone’s playing music, and yet no one’s sitting on the bench.
My initial thought is that maybe she hasn’t finished the painting yet; maybe she still needs to add the image of a person. But the bench looks fully painted. There’s even a ray of light across the seat. And she’s already signed her name in the corner.
“Aunt Alexia?” I call again, about to leave the room. But then I finally spot her, crouched down against the far wall, sending chills all over my skin.
Wearing a paint-spattered dress and half-concealed by a canvas, she almost completely blends in with her surroundings.
“Alexia?”
Her eyes appear wide and alert, focused on the mural. She whispers something, but I can’t quite hear it.
“Excuse me?” I ask, moving closer.
“The piano plays by itself,” she says, just a wee bit louder.
“You mean it’s a player piano?”
Sitting hunched over with her knees drawn up to her chest and Miss Dream Baby clenched against her stomach, she remains looking off to the side, failing to answer my question.
“Aunt Alexia?” I scoot down in front of her.
“He’s following me,” she whispers.
“Who is?”
“He followed me here.”
“Is he someone you know?” I ask, assuming she’s talking about the car outside—the one that shined its headlights into my room. “Someone from Ledgewood, maybe?” I look back toward the mural for a clue, but I can’t see much detail from this angle.
“He’s someone you know,” she says, looking directly at me finally. Her eyelids are swollen and red.
“I don’t know anyone with a piano like that.”
“Well, he knows you,” she insists, still whispering. “And if you’re not careful, he’ll take you captive, too.”
“Meaning he’s going to take someone else captive?” My mind flashes to Danica.
“He’ll lock you both up and throw away the key.” She nibbles at the skin on her kneecap.
“Are his initials D.M.?” I venture.
Shaking her head, she digs her teeth in deeper.
“Did you paint those letters on my wall?”
“Don’t be fooled,” she says, avoiding the question. But still, she doesn’t deny it.
“Fooled by what?” I ask; my heart beats fast.
“There are two,” she reminds me. “But you’re only looking at one.”
“One, meaning Danica? Or meaning the person I think might be following her? Or the person who’s following you?”
Alexia extends her hand toward mine, wanting to touch palms. I focus a moment on the star-shaped scar on her wrist, reminded of her diary entry.
I reluctantly place my palm against hers, even though my hand is shaking.
“Just about the same size,” she says, marveling at how similar our hands are. “Like sisters.”
“That’s what Dad thinks. That we’re connected somehow. He told my mom that he thinks we’re kindred spirits.”
“Your dad’s a smart man.” She focuses harder on me. Her emerald green eyes, flecked with gold, are almost a mirror image of my own, nearly making me forget that we aren’t long-lost sisters. That she isn’t twenty years older than me. And that her stay here isn’t permanent.
“There’s a girl who might be in trouble,” I tell her, segueing back to the initials on my wall. “So, if you know what those letters stand for…”
She drops her hand, leaving a thick black smear of paint on my palm. “Those girls didn’t want her to skate. She was better than they were, and they knew it.”
“What girls?” I ask. “Who are you talking about?”
“When they played that trick, locked her up, it put her over the edge. She got taken out of public school and put in a private place.”
“Who?” I ask again.
She gives the doll a kiss. “You know, I was there the day you got this doll. It was around the time when I wasn’t doing so great, when the voices had started to seep into my dreams.” She straightens out the front of Miss Dream Baby’s dress and then makes the legs kick back and forth.
“For my birthday,” I say, remembering the star-themed party. Star streamers, star-shaped cake, glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceilings and walls.
Was all of that a coincidence, too?
“I’d started to have dreams about painting,” she continues, “since I’d tried giving it up altogether. Those dreams haunted me, so much that I’d started setting my alarm clock to go off every half hour. Anything to avoid sinking into a deep and dreamful slumber.”
“And did it work?” I ask.
“What do you think?” She smirks. “That wasn’t the first time I’d tried giving up my art—like a bad habit that you keep going back to. But it was the first time that my dreams got hijacked. Anyway, you were so happy when you opened the box with the doll in it. I asked what you were going to name her.”
“Miss Dream Baby,” I say, watching as Alexia attempts to clean the doll’s face with a fingertip moistened with spit.
“Yes, but it was the way you named her. The way you looked at me, with wide eyes and a knowing grin—like you could see through me, into my soul—as if you knew about my power even back then. And as if you had it, too. That’s when you told me that her name was Miss Dream Baby, and that she’d help keep nightmares away.”
“I remember,” I say, feeling a smile form on my face.
“I thought that by giving her that name, it was your way of telling me I could keep her.”
“It was,” I say, not quite sure if that’s the truth.
“There are two,” she reminds me, switching gears again. “And now I’ve told you all I know.” She resumes biting the skin on her knee.
I try to push her with more questions, asking if the D stands for Danica, if the person she claims is following her might really be looking for me, and if she has any details about what this person looks like. But with each question, her teeth sink in deeper.
Until she draws a trickle of blood.
I hurry out of the room to get my parents. Both shoot out of bed, perhaps fearing the worst. Mom bandages the cut. Dad makes an emergency call to Alexia’s doctor.
Mom makes the bed.
Dad helps Alexia into it.
They both ask her if she’d like something to drink, a bite to eat, a warm compress for her flushed face.
Meanwhile, horrified at the idea that I’m the one who got Aunt Alexia so upset, I slip back into my room and try calling Kimmie a couple more times, desperate to hear her voice. But when for the umpteenth time she doesn’t pick up, I pull the covers over my head and cry myself to sleep.
Dear Jill,
I remember pulling onto the main road, wishing you’d known how much I’d sacrificed for you: all the time I’d spent watching, and learning, and planning.
But all you wanted was to leave me. To give up on us. I could hear the desperation in your voice as you lied and told me you’d accidentally left your cell phone behind.
Your face was sweaty, but I turned the heat up higher, hoping you’d finally be honest.
With suffering comes honesty, and you needed to tell me the truth if we were going to have trust.
“Please,” you just kept begging, like a disobedient dog who wants to be let out.
Meanwhile, I hummed a favorite tune, silently telling myself that in time you’d see that this was truly for the best.
…
Dear Jack:
I couldn’t find my cell phone. It wasn’t in my bag or in any of my pockets. And so I asked you to take me back to the coffee shop to see if I’d left it there, but instead you just kept singing your Jack and Jill song, making my skin crawl.
Still, I tried to tell myself that everything would be fine. Tried to picture you as a little boy swimming with your dad at the pond. Tried to imagine you showing your artwork at a gallery, or sitting in a college lecture hall discussing romanticism in literature.
We drove for several minutes down a long, dark road, where there wasn’t a lot of traffic.
I looked out the window, scanning for shops or businesses, but they were few and far between.
“Where are we going?” I asked you.
“Surprise, surprise, will meet your eyes. Be a good little girl, and get a great big prize.”
I swallowed down a mouthful of bile with more lemonade.
“Relax,” you said once again. “I’m going to take away your pain, remember?”
“But I’m not in pain.”
“No need to pretend, my little friend. Just tell the truth again and again.”
I clenched my teeth and held back tears, still trying to convince myself that everything would be okay, that we’d eventually stop somewhere, that I’d excuse myself to go to the bathroom and would be able to escape.
A few moments later, you pulled down a side street and into a back parking lot. We were partially concealed by a long row of trees. I peeked through them, spotting a couple of ivy-covered brick houses sandwiched together. There was a sign outside one of them. I squinted hard, trying to make out what it said, but all I could see was a picture of a piano sitting beneath a string of blurry words.
Still trying to be hopeful, I asked, “Is this where you live? Are we here to look at your photographs?” I knew that we had to have been at least a town or two from home.
You put the car in park and cut the ignition. Without turning to face me, you told me to be a good girl and to do as I was told.
“Why are we here?” Hearing the tone of my own voice scared me even more.
“Be a good girl,” you repeated, your voice was. smooth and even.
Shaking all over, I glanced toward the door handle, wondering if I could get out now and run away. But to my complete and utter horror, the handle had been removed.
…
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, my parents are already gone by the time I wake up.
Aunt Alexia is gone, too. Her bedroom door is open a crack, and when I peek in, I see that her bed’s been made, and her room’s been cleaned up—aside from the mural, that is.
In the kitchen, Dad’s left a note for me, saying that he, Mom, and Alexia have gone to meet with Aunt Alexia’s doctor—no doubt in response to what happened last night. I grab a rag and make an attempt to wash the glow-in-the-dark paint from my wall, but my phone rings, interrupting me.
“Hey,” Kimmie says when I pick up. Her tone is oddly cheerful.
Whereas mine is completely spent. “Hi,” I manage to utter.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, as if there were any doubt.
Anger bubbles up inside me as I think about how desperate I was to talk with her last night and how she refused to answer my calls.
My thumb hovers over the off button, wondering if I should let her go. It’s what she’s been wanting for a while now anyway.
“Okay, so you’re obviously mad about how completely standoffish I’ve been. Am I right?”
I don’t answer.
“And I totally get that,” she continues. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around for you last night—for the last couple of days, actually.”
I think it’s been longer than that. It feels like she’s been pulling away for weeks—like there’s been less and less I can share with her.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “But I want to make it up to you.”
“Why?” I ask; I’m suddenly feeling as guarded as Danica—as if there may be some secret joke being played on me.
“What do you mean, why? Because I’m your friend.”
The word makes my lip tremble. In some way I feel relief, because I seriously thought that I’d lost her. But I also can’t help feeling furious, because I needed her friendship last night.
“So, what do you say?” Kimmie asks. “Shall we go get ourselves some answers?”
“Answers to what?”
“To all this Danica drama, of course. What do you say?
You and me, at Danica’s house, in one hour. I’ll come pick you up.”
“What’s with the sudden change of heart?” Did something happen? Does she know something I should? “I thought you said I shouldn’t get involved.”
“Yes, but you kind of already are involved. And if you are, then so am I. So, what do you say? Are you game, or what?”
“Game,” I say before hanging up.
I forgo washing the wall and instead leave a note for my parents (tacked up on the fridge, right below theirs), telling them I’ll be home around lunchtime.
Kimmie pulls up about twenty minutes later in her mom’s car. “Feeling bold?” she asks, giggling at my bright yellow sweater.
“Feeling like crap?” I joke, nodding toward her brown one. She’s got it paired with a matching checked skirt.
“Okay, so, I already know that Danica’s not at work,” she begins. “I called the Press & Grind earlier and asked if I could speak with her. Whoever answered said that she was off until tomorrow.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done your homework.”
“You honestly have no idea.”
“Meaning?”
“I found a skater, or at least a former skater,” she says, clarifying matters. “Mandy Candy.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, feeling a bit lost.
“Let’s just say a friend of a friend of my mom’s hairstylist of a friend got talking to me about sports and stuff. I brought up skating, because, let’s face it, you never know who’s in the know. Not to mention the fact that hairstylists know just about everything. And, anyway, yes, it’s true: Mandy used to skate. Apparently pretty well, but then she ended up sucking ass during an all-important competition. Not literally ass-sucking,” she says, as if I needed the clarification.
“And so she up and quit.”
“When?” I ask, wondering if Danica used to skate as well—if that might explain some of the animosity between her and the Candies.
“Unfortunately, the friend of a friend couldn’t remember,” Kimmie says, “but she said that it had to have been at least five years ago.”
“Interesting,” I say, gazing out the window, at a sudden loss for words. There’s so much I haven’t told her, but I’m not quite sure I should.
“Look,” she says, forcing me to face her by yanking the sleeve of my coat. “I am your friend. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”
“Is this because I called you a kajillion times last night? Because now you’re feeling guilty about not picking up?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t pick up. But you have to understand, too: this hasn’t been easy for me.
So much has changed between us.”
“You’re right,” I say, thinking how it wasn’t so long ago that the height of our adventures involved afternoons spent making double-fudge fajitas behind my mom’s vegan back. “But I’ve given things a lot of thought. And, well, it was stupid of me to try and take away my friendship when I was accusing you of potentially doing the same one day.”
“That’s awfully deep for a Saturday morning, don’t you think?”
“It’s Wes’s psychoanalysis, not mine. Don’t tell him I said this, but that boy is freaking brilliant, and his dad’s an absolute tool for not seeing it.”
“His dad’s an absolute tool—period.”
“B
rilliant Boy also told me that he recommended you talk with Ben.” She bats her gold-coated eyelashes at me.
I nod, and then tell her about our time together at the labyrinth. “I honestly don’t know why I let myself open up to him, because he clearly isn’t interested.”
“Are we both talking about the same touch boy here?”
“Well, he has a funny way of showing his interest.”
“Because coming to your work, whisking you away to an enchanted labyrinth, and sticking his tongue down your throat are such unclear signs.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Not really,” she says, looking at me the way the kids at school do—like I’m some freak science experiment that they don’t quite understand. “I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Ben gobbled his pride by contacting his ex–best friend just to make sure that you’re okay while he isn’t around. I mean, it’s obvious the boy’s in love with you.”
“I’m not so sure,” I say, thinking how it isn’t obvious at all.
“Where’s he going, by the way?”
“He said he had to head home for a bit, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Translation: more secrets.”
“And speaking of…you’ve yet to tell me why you called last night. I mean, I know you don’t need a reason, but it seemed kind of urgent.”
“It was Aunt Alexia,” I say, proceeding to explain what happened. “I feel partly to blame—like maybe I pushed her too far, which got her upset.”
“She’s mentally ill, Camelia. They do things like that: biting body parts, painting walls, talking all gibberish…But still, you have to admit, it’s pretty impressive that she was able to predict the camera clue and some of the stuff that happened in the locker room.”
“Not to mention the sea glass clue,” I tell her. “I saw Danica wearing it around her neck on the day I stopped by her house.”
“See, there’s no denying it.” Kimmie wraps her faux ponytail around her finger. “You and your aunt are clearly connected. I mean, it’s almost eerie how much.”
I nod, remembering how Dr. Tylyn said that life was about making choices, and that I shouldn’t choose to become overwhelmed by how similar Aunt Alexia and I seem.