Chapter 26 Before
Before
Holy shit,” says a man’s voice, drawing up behind the woman. They stare at me, unmoving. And then comes another voice.
“Andrew? Melinda?”
Recognition jolts through me.
The light streams down behind them, turning them into solid silhouettes. I hold out a shaking hand to shade my eyes as a third body lopes down the stairs to join the others.
I watched taffy being made once. Machines stretching and folding a great length of gummy sugar. My thoughts feel like that now, round and round and pulled into strange shapes.
“Jesus,” one of them says—-I can’t tell which.
Another speaks rapidly under his breath. “What the fuck. What—-”
“The fuck is this?” Andrew roars, and I flinch back, pressing myself against the wall and screwing my eyes shut.
“Stop it!” says Melinda. “Jesus Christ, you’re terrifying her. Hey. Can you hear me?”
I let my eyes crack open. The light against my closed eyelids is harsh enough, but opening them is agony. Still, I force myself to take in the scene. The two men standing back, Melinda creeping forward but still keeping her distance. As if I might bite.
Maybe I will.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with her?” I can’t tell which of them is speaking. The sound seems to come from far away.
Melinda glares at them. “Of course there’s something fucking wrong with her, Liam, she’s locked in a fucking bomb shelter.”
“She’s— How did she—-” Liam begins. Melinda shushes him, turns back.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
Panic courses through me. This is how it happens. The light opens, and the question comes. What is your name?
I answered with defiance at first. Then not at all. Both were met with a fist. I learned the right answer soon enough and it leaps to my lips now, but I force it back down like swallowing my own vomit, shake my head.
“Okay, that’s okay,” she says. Andrew steps forward, light falling across his face so that I can make out his features, and I nearly scream, because it’s him, he’s back, I was wrong, but at my half shriek, he flinches, blinks in baffled confusion, and I realize I’m mistaken.
It’s not him at all. Not the one at the top of the stairs.
Not the fist, not the gentle hand that soothes.
Liam’s voice is high and panicky. “Who is she? What is she doing down here?”
“She’s—- Terry must have—-” Melinda begins. She rakes her hair back from her forehead.
“Melinda. Dad had the key,” Andrew says quietly. “Terry’s the one who told us—-he said Dad kept some things in the old shelter. Why would he have said that if she was here? But that would mean . . .”
“Oh god. How long has she been . . . ?” Liam says. His eyes go to the spent packets of food, the empty water bottles. “What do we do?”
“We call 9--1--1, obviously,” Andrew snaps. He pulls a phone out of his pocket, flips it open. “Shit. No signal.”
He turns toward the stairs.
“Wait,” Melinda says, and the world halts in sudden, terrible stillness. Her breath is quick and shallow, almost panting.
Andrew doesn’t move. The phone sits in his hand, his thumb hovering over the buttons.
“Melinda?” Liam says, voice shaky. She looks at him. Looks at me again. Swallows.
I make myself small. My hair hangs in front of my face in stringy clumps. The light still burns my eyes, but it’s becoming clearer now. Melinda, Andrew, Liam. It’s strange seeing them here, in front of me. Like characters out of a play suddenly stepping off the stage.
“What do you mean, ‘wait’?” Liam asks.
“No. I—-I didn’t—-I just want to think about this,” Melinda says, hands moving in helpless spasms.
My stomach twists painfully. Something isn’t right.
“What is there to think about?” Liam asks. Andrew’s eyes cut over to me. He lowers the phone.
“We need to think about what happens when we make that call,” Melinda says. She swallows. “Look at this place. Look at her. Dad did this.”
“What are you saying?” Liam asks.
Andrew stares at Melinda. His mouth presses into a thin line. “She’s saying that once we call the police, people will know Dad was, what, a kidnapper? A serial killer? You don’t keep a girl locked in a fucking bunker to play Monopoly.”
Melinda wets her lips, doesn’t speak. Andrew looks almost calm.
“She’s saying that when this gets out, people aren’t going to ‘vote for Hill.’ ”
Melinda hisses between her teeth. “Don’t act like I’m the only one. What do you think this is going to do to your career? And Liam? City Rescue’s been lagging in the numbers, but I bet killing off Kyle in time for May sweeps would boost them.”
“What are you suggesting? That we kill her?” Andrew asks, dropping his voice to an angry whisper at the end.
“No! I don’t know. Just—-I just want us to think this through,” Melinda says, making a slight retreat.
“This is fucked,” Liam says, but he hasn’t moved. Hasn’t objected.
Melinda covers her face with her hand. “We’ll get her help. Obviously. I just—- We need a plan, that’s all. A moment to think.”
“Is it? Obvious, I mean?” Andrew says quietly.
Melinda’s eyes swim with uncertainty. My breath stills. I can barely feel my heartbeat now. Maybe I’m already dead. But that would mean the gossamer girl was wrong, because I still hurt. Every part of me.
There’s a sound. Soft and whimpering, an exhalation threaded with a single syllable of distress. The three siblings shift, turn, their movement parting them so I can see the young woman standing at the bottom of the stairs, her hands pressed over her mouth.
The girl with red-gold hair, freckles over her bare shoulders. For a moment, I think she’s one of them—-one of my ghosts.
“Emily,” Andrew says. Emily. She looks like us. The girls below. She has her father’s eyes, sharp and bright in that pretty face, but otherwise—-
Otherwise, we could be sisters.