Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Vanderwalls sit on the same couch as before, only this time their small son is between them. His brown hair needs a trim, and his hands are clasped tightly in his lap. Dark eyes stare fixedly at his shoes.
“Don’t be scared of the camera, Andy.” Robin smiles at him; both smile and voice are gentle, as if she’s soothing a frightened baby bunny.
He doesn’t look up. “I’m not.”
“’Course he isn’t.” Larry ruffles the boy’s hair, as if psyching up his son for a baseball game or something equally benign. The gesture falls flat.
Karen shoots her husband a piercing look, then slips her arm around Andy’s shoulders. “Can you tell the nice ladies about what happened last night?”
He nods, almost imperceptibly.
“We were down here talking with your mommy and daddy, and you were playing in your room,” Robin prompts. “Was there anyone with you?”
“Uh huh. The Bad Man.” He blinks, as if tears are threatening. “He was mad. Gloria wasn’t there. I think she’s mad at me, too.”
“Can you tell us about them?” Montague asks.
When the boy looks uncertain, his mother squeezes him gently. “You’re safe with us, kiddo. It’s okay. Just answer the question.”
“It doesn’t matter which of them you talk about first,” Robin puts in. “Do you want to start with Gloria?”
Andy nods.
“Okay. When did you first meet her?”
“I dunno.”
“Was it right when you moved in?”
He considers a moment. “No. After. It was raining, and I was up in my room. I miss my friends.”
“I know you do, sweetie.” Karen kisses him on the hair and rubs his arm comfortingly.
Robin smiles again. “You’re doing great, Andy. So you were playing alone, missing your friends, and then what happened?”
“A girl was there. She didn’t walk in the room, just showed up. She asked if she could play, too, so I said yes.”
“What did she look like?” Montague asks.
“Um.” The boy’s face screws up in concentration.
“She’s a little taller than me. And she’s got blonde hair, and this white dress with ruffles and stuff.
And red ribbons in her hair. I asked her if she likes Transformers, and she said she didn’t know what those are, so I showed her mine.
I’ve got Shockwave and Jazz, but I lost Jazz’s gun.
She said it was in one of the boxes we brought from home—our other home—so I went and looked and there it was!
I told her she could play with me anytime she liked! ”
A grin cracks his face for a moment, then fades. “I told her my name is Andy, and she said hers is Gloria. I’d play with her a lot, while Mommy and Daddy were working. They can’t see her, but she said that was okay.”
“Having a friend who can find things is handy,” Robin says. “What kinds of games did you play?”
“Hide and seek, and we built a fort in the woods, and we ran my race cars around the track. She could make them move without even touching them! It was really cool. Then when Mommy and Daddy were looking for the key to the room upstairs she told me where it was, just like with Jazz’s gun.
Then Mommy and Daddy started to talk to her with the Ouija board, and she told them where the treasure is. ”
“Like we said before, there’s no treasure,” Karen adds. “She was lying.”
A book suddenly flies off one of the shelves and strikes Karen in the side of the head. She screams, and everyone else jumps to their feet, except for Andy, who yells, “Gloria, no! Stop hurting them! I don’t like you anymore!”
He bursts into tears, just before the camera shuts off.