Help for the Haunted(123)

“And that’s when you made the deal?” I asked.

“Yes. Fifty bucks to call your parents and get them      to talk to me. I told her that’s all I wanted to do and she believed it.”

“Then what?”

“She made the call from a pay phone right outside      the bar. Meeting at the church was a detail she came up with all on her own. I      was expecting to go by your house, but Rose told me that if your parents thought      they were going to meet her, that if she was willing to pray with them to get      things right in her head, they would venture out into the storm to see her.”

“Only it was you they would be seeing.”

“Exactly.”

“So then you went to the church?”

Lynch glanced behind him at the clock again. I did      too. Thirteen minutes. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Your turn.”

I took a breath, thought of those pages in my      journal, and began:

Abigail never came       back up from that basement—not that I was aware of, anyway. My mother,       however—she emerged a few hours later to throw together a quick dinner for       Rose and me. While my father took a tray down for Abigail, my mother said       she was sorry that we could not eat together as a family, but that any day       now, perhaps even the very next, Abigail’s father would return for her at       last. A shame, my mother said, that after a perfectly fine summer, this is       how he would find the girl. She said she had tried her best, but there were       some haunted people she could not help after all.

Once our mother made us       two turkey sandwiches then returned to the basement, Rose told me that most       nights at Saint Julia’s, she snuck her dinner back up to her room. That’s       what she wanted to do then too. It had been so long since I’d seen my       sister, I agreed to whatever she wanted. Inside her room, I watched as she       shoved the bed back to where it used to be against the far wall, then       stripped the sheets Abigail had been sleeping in and piled them, along with       all the girl’s clothes, into the cinnamon-colored suitcase we once       shared.

“She can have the old       thing,” Rose said. “It just brings back bad memories.”

After I hunted down       fresh sheets and helped make the room hers again, the two of us lay on her       bed and picked at our sandwiches. It was then that I asked Rose more about       Saint Julia’s, but she told me she preferred not to talk about it, except to       say that she had left on her own and was never going back. The worst       experience of her life, that’s what she said, but also the best because it       taught her once and for all who she was. There in that bed, lying side by       side the way we used to in those makeshift tents in the living room, we fell       asleep.

At some point, I was       woken by the sound of footsteps padding down the hall, and I looked to see       my father, then my mother, slipping into their bedroom and closing the door.       For a long moment, I lay there gazing over at Rose who, with her shaved       head, looked nothing like herself. In some ways, it was like sleeping next       to a stranger. And I couldn’t help but feel that’s what she was becoming to       me. I lay there, wondering about her plan to stay in our house without       returning to school and how many more feuds that would cause with our       parents. Finally, I decided to stop worrying and instead do my part in       making things better.

I got up. I went to my       room, where I stood on my desk chair and reached for that shelf full of       horses. There was one in particular, a horse I’d named Aurora, that came       with a small compartment inside its hollowed belly. I used a dime to pry it       open and pulled out the wad of money I’d stashed inside over the years. Six       hundred dollars—that’s what all my work on those essays had totaled up       to.

Despite Abigail’s       presence in the basement, my mother had left that bare lightbulb on just as       we’d agreed. When I made my way down the stairs, I saw Penny smiling inside       Mr. Knothead’s old cage. I looked away and walked to that partitioned area       where the light did not fall and where I found Abigail fast asleep on a cot       with one of my mother’s knit blankets draped over her body. Some part of me       thought to turn back and head upstairs, to forget about giving her the       money. But as I stood there, staring at the moonlight shining on those       bandages around her hands, I could not help but wonder what worse things she       might be capable of doing to herself—or to my family—if she did not get her       way.