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I knew I liked that stupid toy. “Then it’s decided. Hop in my car. And no more stalling, or I’ll make you walk up to the house ahead of me.”
Billi is an expert at pouting, and my mouth pulls upward.
She scowls. “You laugh now, but you won’t be laughing later when she ties us up, feeds us cookies, and tosses us in an oven.”
So, I wasn’t the only one getting the Hansel and Gretel vibe. Good to know we’re on the same page.
“Tell you what,” I say when she slides onto the seat next to me and begrudgingly closes the car door. “I’ll let her eat me first like the gentleman I am.”
“Thanks a lot. But I accept your offer.”
I laugh. “Try not to get too choked up about it.”
She pauses, touches a finger to her eye for a moment in a dramatic display of fake emotion, and drops her hand. “Okay, I won’t. Drive fast to Sally’s house. The faster we get this over with, the faster we can discover what made her so weird.”
I look at her sidelong. “Seems to me this town churns out weird ones quite often.”
She huffs, but I see her smile.
“Who knows. Maybe I have more in common with her than I thought.”
“Maybe so.”
She punches me lightly on the thigh, but her touch lingers as I pull back onto the road.
16
Billi
The closer we get to Sally’s house, the higher my heart rate ratchets. It’s like I’m headed to a haunted house, knowing there will be real live ghosts in attendance. Like I’m tagging along on a sky diving trip when everyone knows I’m deathly afraid of heights. Like I’m being held at gunpoint even though I’m the one who loaded the bullets. My mind keeps grasping for something, anything to keep itself from cracking. Other than random moments from my childhood, there’s very little getting through and even less holding me together. I’ve been taught to stay away from this woman my whole life. Told she was crazy. A liar. Out of her mind with rage. Hell-bent on revenge. Until this moment, I’ve never paused to consider what she wanted revenge for. Even then, how do you undo a lifelong pattern in a single afternoon?
When I was a kid, my mother told me not to touch the hot stove unless I wanted to get burned. So, I didn’t. For the first three years of my life, I trusted her words and kept my distance because my mother knew best, and why would she lie to me when it came to matters of safety? Mothers didn’t lie to their kids, and I had no reason to disbelieve her.
But then, when I neared my fourth birthday, I figured mom wasn’t as smart as she pretended. As the story goes, I took it upon myself to challenge her cute little story, telling my toddler-sized self that it was nothing more than an empty threat. Plus, I wanted another cookie, and she wouldn’t let me have one, so in my defiance, I decided to show her who was boss.
With a look that communicated she could kiss my four-year-old tush, I shoved my chin in the air, glared at her the only way a girl wearing pigtails and sporting a missing front tooth thanks to an unfortunate incident with my sister’s bedroom door could, and slammed my hand on the burner. My mother had just removed a pan of boiling potatoes.
Not surprisingly, I screamed.
And screamed louder.
I don’t remember much from being four years old, but I remember the pain from that scalding burner. Every time this memory double-crosses my mind, a phantom flame licks across my left palm, making me wince. I wore bandages for two weeks and sported blisters for nearly a month. Vaseline became my best friend. Soap and water became my worst. I came out of the experience afraid to defy my mother, even in high school when everyone who was anyone was breaking curfew. Not me, no sir. Disobeying a parent’s order led straight to the most regretful kind of punishment that left scars on the backside of all four knuckles.
This is exactly how I feel now as we turn into Sally’s overgrown, weed-ridden driveway. My heart drums an erratic rhythm inside my ear, leaving me with not only the worst case of nerves but also a dull headache. My breathing grows shallow as I take in the view. The wooden house with its caved-in roof on the left outer edge, boards folding one on top of another like a mangled Slinky. There’s not a chance in hades the structure isn’t mold-infested and crawling with bugs. The now smudged spray-painted graffiti on the broken garage door, words like “Witch,” and “Go Away,” and “God Hates You.” The words aren’t as stark as they once were but are still shamefully legible from here. The broken window covered with a clear plastic tarp that may or may not have been the result of my own brother’s hands. I told Mr. Bailey he didn’t do it, but I’ve never been that convinced. To this day, Gary still has nothing nice to say about Sally, going so far as starting a school petition earlier this year to force the woman to leave town once and for all. The good news is he’s only managed to get eleven signatures. It seems most people are fine with treating other humans like garbage, but they’re less comfortable with kicking those same humans out of their towns. Everyone has a line they aren’t willing to cross, even if the line is jagged and drawn in chalk.
For twenty-seven years, I’ve been one of those people. Okay with the ridicule…as long as it didn’t gettooextreme. Playing both sides of a losing game, figuring losing a little isn’t as bad as getting crushed. Even now, as I wonder if we’ve been wrong all along, I’m more scared than I’ve been in ages.
I force my mind back into submission, trying to think about the positive.
At least Sally isn’t out here with a gun.
Either she didn’t hear us coming, or she doesn’t care. Both notions do little to calm my nerves.
Finn pulls to the edge of her driveway and stops. I’m so wound up that words burst out of my mouth before I can close it.
“I don’t want to go inside.”
“I don’t either, but we don’t have a choice.”
