Disconnected (4 page)

Chapter Six

I step onto the crowded bus, walk all the way to the back and try to find a spot there, but they're all taken. Either that or some people have their bags on empty seats beside them.

I decide to stand; I have no choice at the moment. For a while, as the bus travels down 95th Street, I glance at the old neighborhood. I miss it—now more than ever. I just don't understand why all this is happening to me. What really started that fire? Was the fire really an accident, or was Grandpa George just trying to protect me? What if someone was after us?
You did it, Milly, remember? It's all your fault, like everything else is in your life. Like I told you, you are nothing.

I am letting Amelia get the better of me. I try to think of good things—things that will get my mind off all this turmoil. Trying to still hang on to the good memories I have—mainly of my mother. Although they seem to be fading fast these days with all that's been happening. I can't seem to hold on to the good memories since Amelia's been crowding my mind.

My mom—again I will myself to think of her. She was an angel to me, and I loved her so. I stand there looking out the bus window, remembering all the good times we had together. Every morning before school started she'd take me to Al's Doughnut Shop and I'd order the same thing every time—a jelly doughnut with chocolate milk, while my mom just had coffee. She'd let me put in as many creams and sugars as I wanted, and she still drank it, whatever overdose I would put in.

As my eyes flutter across the moving vehicles, I spot a travel agency with a huge beach poster on the window. My thoughts shift to the times she'd take me to the beach downtown. She'd sit there, shaded by an umbrella, as the white foaming water rolled in at our feet. She was always reading. Many of the books were Aunt Rachel's. She was so proud of her older sister, I don't remember how many times she said that—countless. Even though I never met her until just recently, Aunt Rachel looked exactly how I pictured her. I see my mom in her face and mannerisms.

“You'll love her,” my mother had said, closing the book as she grazed her fingers across the thick embroidered cover. “Just wait till you meet her. Someday Milly, someday I promise you will.”

But that promise never came to be when she was alive. So many times she tried, but my father always talked her out of it. I remember him often referring to Aunt Rachel as a cowardly bitch. To this day, I don't know what the reason was. But it kept Aunt Rachel away, that's for sure. It's weird that I haven't met her until now.

I cling to the pole inside the bus and realize that I am now at my stop. Every time I think of my mom, time seems to be erased. I don't worry in those moments. It's like I escape to my past. Yet just when I start to feel good as I step off the bus, Amelia settles in my thoughts again, twisting and turning my memories around.
None of this really happened, Milly. You know this. You're just making everything up. She was never there for you, nor will she ever be.

I struggle deeply with the thought that Amelia may be right. Maybe I thought everything up in my mind and wanted it to be like that even if it really wasn't. Maybe all the things that really happened are so far in the recesses of my mind that I developed this fantasy, this place that feels good but it isn't real.

Yet something deep inside me tells me it was real and that I should hold on to that—and I do.

***

It starts to rain a little, but I don't want to go inside, so I take cover in the gazebo in the backyard. I sit at the picnic table and place my book bag beside me. I'm worn out from the bus rides. I don't want to be here, but I have no choice. All I have for family is Grandpa George, who took me in after the accident, and now Aunt Rachel. My dad grew up in foster homes, because his parents died when he was young.

I look around, captivated by all the greenery. The magnolia trees have already shed some of their soft pink petals. And the buds on the rose bushes are starting to burst with life too. I imagine them being in full bloom by mid April. The rainbow of reds, pinks, and yellows in the coloring flowers is so intoxicating it makes me feel hopeful again, like there's a start to a new season—a new beginning. And in this moment, I am safe.

As I look across the pond, I see an ivy-covered wall with a gate in the center, overgrown with weeds. Amelia dares me to go there, but right now I am just too tired, although it does pique my interest to see what's on the other side. I imagine a whole other world just beyond the gate, somewhere I won't hurt anymore—somewhere I will be protected. For a while the whole idea is enchanting enough to make me forget about everything and start to enjoy things in the moment. Even though living with Aunt Rachel can be unsettling at times, I'll admit, there's something about this place that fascinates me. Perhaps like Grandpa George always says, things always
do
happen for a reason.

I am trying not to be coerced into paying attention to Amelia's dreadful thoughts, but I can feel her anger rising at the fact I am enjoying myself a bit too much. She hates that. I have the urge to write, hoping that will quell her anger. I reach for my book bag and unzip it, grabbing my journal and pen.

My days with you engulf me with pain. Why do you torture me so? What have I done to deserve such agony? I try to please you, but it doesn't matter what I do or say, you'll just continue hating me. I trusted you, loved you. What happened to you, Amelia?

I stare at the last words,
What happened to you, Amelia?
And as I stare I start to break it down.
What happened to you? What happened to? What happened? What?

I feel like the words I wrote were her words and not my own—like she's questioning me—daring me again. “What?” I say aloud. “What do you want from me?”

Yet she doesn't respond. I don't think she knows what she wants. If we both knew, maybe things would be different between us.

As I begin to write again, something shuffles in the bushes across the way and then the gate opens. It's a young man in dirty jeans and a shirt. His long scraggily hair is soaked from the passing rain. I watch him from afar and my eyes seem to stick to him like the wet t-shirt that sticks on him. He closes the gate and looks straight at me. And quickly I look down, blushing like my face was on fire.
Oh, Milly, you did it now, he caught you staring. He probably thinks you're a weirdo.
I try to calm Amelia's thoughts and my own, but it isn't working. I see from the corner of my eye, he is approaching me.

“Look, you can't be here,” he yells out to me, waving his hands at me like I'm some kind of annoying bug.

“Excuse me?” I yell back. “I think you got it wrong.” Amelia seems to be in sarcastic mode, perhaps trying to protect the both of us.

He arrives at the gazebo and laughs, not fazed by what I said. “So you think I shouldn't be here, huh?” His confidence catches me off guard.

“Well should you?” My confused look probably says it all.
You silly, stupid, dumb thing, Milly, you are such a loser.
I try to contain Amelia and force myself to look back at him. “Listen buddy, I don't know what you're trying to pull. I live here. What's your story?”

“Oh, I didn't know. Miss Livingstone likes me to watch the premises while I work in her garden. Didn't mean to…” His voice trails off.

“Well yeah, that's my aunt, so yeah, you can go now.” I look down at the wooden floor for a second or two, as if he'll disappear since I've looked away.

“Aww come on, don't be like that. How's 'bout we start over.” He comes closer, onto the platform of the gazebo.

“Start over?” I say, standing up. “Nothing ever began.”

“Ha, I see.” He flashes his shining white teeth as he smiles.

“So what, you're like the gatekeeper or something?” I continue my snarky tone.

“Boy, you're just full of 'em,” he snickers again. “Don't you mean the groundskeeper?”

“Whatever…” I pick up my book bag and journal and start to leave.

“Wait! Don't go. I don't even know your name.”

“What's it to you, anyway?” Amelia's really pushing it. She is making me feel uncomfortable. Her feisty words are bothersome and I try to calm her down.

“Listen, didn't mean to bother you. My name's Blake…Blake Stone. I took a job here about a year ago. So do you go to Willard's High?”

“No…I go to Harper Valley.” I start to walk out into the yard.

“Damn, isn't that like an hour away?” he asks, walking along with me.

“Forty-five minutes, actually.”

I get to the back porch and walk up the steps. He stops.

“So am I going to get a name out of you?”

I don't know why he's being so persistent with me, but I tell him anyway. “It's Am…I mean Milly, Milly Norris.”

“Milly, that's pretty. So I'll see you around then?” he says to me, wiping away some of the rain from his face. And as he does, I catch sight of his muscles again.
Get a grip Milly! He's gonna notice.

“Yeah, I guess. Later then.”

I go to the back door, unlock it and head inside. My heart seems ready to burst, so I take a deep breath, trying to slow down the fluttering inside my chest.
Look Milly, look outside, he's still there, waiting for you.
And as Amelia tempts me, I am compelled to look—but am too nervous. What if he is still there and I peek? That'll look stupid for sure. But Amelia wins over and I do peek through the side window, but he's already gone.

I turn around and sigh in relief, yet am a little disappointed. Will I see him again? God, he was cute. Blake Stone, he even has a cool name too.
Milly, you haven't even got a chance. He is way out of your league. Just look at you, you're too skinny, and too ugly. He is never going to like you that way.

As Amelia continues to ramble inside my mind, I head into the front room and then around the corner to the bathroom. The house is eerily silent—except when I walk across the hardwood floors there's a creaking sound.

“Grandpa George? You around?” I look in his room, but he's not there. Then I look in the library to see Aunt Rachel, but she's gone too. They both seem to be gone. Great! I'm alone again and in this creepy house all by myself.

Milly, now's your chance!
My eyes catch sight of the purple ball bouncing as a screensaver on the computer in the library. I'd actually forgotten about that, since Aunt Rachel never mentioned it again.
Go, Milly, go look and see what she's writing about you.

Without another thought, I go to Aunt Rachel's desk and sit in her chair. When I drag the mouse across the pad, the screen lights up. It looks like a draft of her latest novel. It's a description of a mountain resort in Switzerland.
Look in the drawer, Milly!
I open the center drawer but don't see anything. I put my hand all the way to the back and feel a hardcover book inside, so I decide to pull it out. At first I think it's just another one of Aunt Rachel's novels. But her initials, R.M.L., are engraved on the cover. When I open it, thumbing through the pages, all I see are handwritten notes. I start to read a random page—nothing seems out of the ordinary. Not until my eyes snag on the words:
I am conflicted with her.

I assume they're notes for a fictional story, but when I read the next few lines, it sounds so much like Amelia and me in my own journal. It seems more like a diary.

As I continue to read, I hear them coming in through the front door.

“Milly? You home?” Grandpa George yells out from the other room.

Milly, take it! Take the diary!
Quickly, without thinking through what Amelia's saying, I take it and sneak out of the library.

Chapter Seven

I race upstairs and down the long narrow hallway to my room. Grandpa George and Aunt Rachel are bringing groceries in. I'm surprised they are not asking me to help them. Maybe they don't think I'm home yet. It is still early.

Shhh! Do you hear that, Milly? It's coming from the attic.
Amelia's trying to convince me she is hearing the faint cries again.
That's 'cause they're not rats, Milly. It's something else. You need to check it out…hurry.
Amelia's daring me again. But this time I'm up for the challenge. I'm sick of being so afraid all the time.

I go back to the balcony of the open stairway and see down below that Grandpa George is relaxing in the front room now, reading the newspaper and smoking a cigar. The tobacco smell travels up the stairs.

Quickly, I go back to the center of the hallway and look up. The chain of the folded stairway is dangling above my face, just waiting for me to pull it.

I place Aunt Rachel's diary behind the small bookshelf in the hall, and pull.

Slowly, I unfold the ladder-like steps. For a split second, I hesitate, until I hear Amelia again, egging me on. I then take a deep breath and climb up the steps.

I can see the whole attic in the light of just the little stained-glass window at one end. To my amazement, the attic is very clean and organized. I can't believe my eyes. It looks like someone's room. There's a bed in the far corner with a rack of clothes off to the side. At the other end is a free-standing mirror.

As I focus a bit, I can almost see something moving across the room, reflected in the mirror. My heart's racing and I'm afraid to look. But I build up the courage somehow, taking a quick peek behind me—nothing.

I decided I'd been spooked enough, so I head back downstairs. I close up the attic trap door and grab Aunt Rachel's diary, wondering whose room that could be.

***

I plop down on the bed, relieved that I didn't get caught in Aunt Rachel's library or the attic or anywhere else I shouldn't be. But after thinking about it, I regret taking Aunt Rachel's diary. She's undoubtedly going to find out eventually and blame me for it like she did before. Amelia made me do it, and I hate her for that. She's laughing at me now within my mind and I can't stand it.

As I fight with Amelia, I hear my Grandpa George and my Aunt Rachel arguing in the kitchen. You can hear pretty much every room in the house through the vents. I guess it's because the house is so old. I get up and walk closer to the vent, cupping my ear to hear better.

“I took care of it,” Grandpa George says. “She's fine. She doesn't know anything.”

“And I'm trying to keep it that way!” Aunt Rachel spits out. “Let me handle the phone calls.”

I wonder if they are talking about me. Maybe they know something I don't. I mean, what “she” are they referring to anyway?

I want the conversation to continue, but it doesn't. Instead there's a long silence. Then the creaking of the floors can be heard throughout the house. I can tell Aunt Rachel is walking to the south end—right to the library, slamming the door behind her. My grandfather remains in the kitchen. I sure hope they stop arguing soon. The whole mood in the house seems cold and unfriendly.

Grandpa George starts cooking and the smell of spices wafts through the vents. I bet he's making his famous corned beef. He really is the greatest cook—well, in my opinion at least.

Grandpa George was a cook in the Marines during the Korean War. He never talks about it, but sometimes he will mention that something on the news reminded him of it.

After the war he met my grandmother, Adeline. She was working at a coffee shop across the street from Pete's Pizza, where my grandfather worked as a delivery driver. That's how they ran into each other. I remember 'cause Grandpa George will never let me forget. He always tells me it was love at first sight when Grandma Adeline first came in the pizza place. I never heard so much pizza and coffee in one conversation before.

They married that same year, but Adeline had trouble conceiving and had several miscarriages before she finally had my Aunt Rachel and then a few years later my mother, Violet.

I know my Grandpa George still misses my grandmother because he continues to talk about her to this day. She died of cirrhosis of the liver right around the time I was born, so I never got a chance to actually meet her.

As I lie on the bed thinking in an abyss of thoughts, my mind wanders back to Blake. I wonder if I will ever see him again. He seemed so nice.
He's not your type, Milly. You haven't got the slightest of chances here. Just drop it,
Amelia cuts into my thoughts.

It seems like every time I start to think positive, she shuts me down and slaps me with her words. She can never leave me completely alone. As my thoughts shift and sway, I try not to listen.

Milly, get the diary. Read it. You know you want to.

Amelia forces me up and out of the bed and commands me to take the diary and read it. I'm almost afraid of what I will find.

I grab the diary from the nightstand, where I laid it last, and open it to any old random page. My heart accelerates as my eyes glue to the words. Is it a diary? Or notes to an unfinished story? It's hard to tell.
She didn't deserve it. Was there something I could have done?
I should have known the day I found her crying in the attic. I just wish she had reached out to me then. Why didn't she?

Nothing seems to add up. But that bit about the attic intrigues me. So perhaps someone was living up there? But who?

I look at the eloquent handwriting, the smooth looping and the formatted words. It's like every note written down was in perfect lettering—nothing scratched or crossed out. Nothing spelled wrong either.

My eyes get heavy from reading and soon I fall asleep.

***

I awake, not in my room at Aunt Rachel's, but somewhere completely different. As I look around, my fear rises in the pit of my stomach. Nothing looks familiar. The room is small, without any windows, and dark too; only a dim night-light is on at the other end of the room. Already Amelia is bothering me.
Where are we Milly? Did someone take us here? Were we kidnapped? You will never make it out alive, Milly. We're trapped!

And for a moment, I feel paralyzed, frozen in dread. I can't move. But as the minutes pass, I fight through my thoughts—fight through Amelia's too—and am able to move around a bit.

I get off the bed and go to the wall, searching for a light switch and finally find one and flick it on. To my surprise the room's adorned in a children's theme, like it could be for a toddler. There's rainbow wallpaper and children's books and toys in one corner, and a rocking horse in the other. I go to the door and open it, looking for ways to get out. Amelia's wrong—yet again. I don't even know why I listen to her. We aren't trapped. But how did I get here? Why am I here in the first place?

I go down the hall to the huge stairwell. Amelia begs me to look over the balcony railing, dares me to lean as far as I can. And why I listen, I don't know, but I do. I hear people talking downstairs, a man and a woman. Their voices sound oddly familiar. The scene feels like déjà vu from earlier, yet totally different.

People are walking around in another room. I can see their shadows moving. Then without warning, someone walks down the hall to where the man and woman are. I can't see the person's face as it is covered with some sort of sheet or towel.

“Where is she?” the veiled man says in a deep muffled voice. I curl down and stick my face out between the wooden balusters to see better. To my amazement I can now see the woman is my mother, but am not quite sure if that's my father as his back is turned to the wall. But how could this be? I am sure they died in an accident. A car accident. I'm sure I heard that.

I hear Amelia running a list of reasons down my mind.
They never died. They were kidnapped. Now the killer's kidnapped you! You caused all this to happen. But you're too cowardly to do something about it. You're all gonna die.

Peering through the rails, I can see that they are both sitting down while the hooded man paces back and forth.

“Tell me where she is!” the hooded man demands. The other man looks drained, his head slumped down. He's coughing hard and I wonder why, till I see the smoke begin to crawl up his legs. I look back at my mother and she is becoming a blur in the smoke too. I hear something crackling in the background, like wood burning. My God, something's on fire! What do I do? I'm trapped!

My mom pops in and out of the smoke. She's crying; tears have streamed down her face and stained her cheeks. My mother and the man are facing in opposite directions.

I have to do something!
Oh, no you don't, Milly!
“Amelia, shut up!” I whisper back. When I do, the hooded man turns my way, reaching his hands out. Just as he is about to grab me, I wake up back in my room at Aunt Rachel's house.

“God, what the hell was all that about?” I say softly to myself. Was it possible my parents were alive? Or was that just my wish? But the dream felt so real. I was seven when they passed and you'd think I'd be able to remember the day it happened, but Amelia won't let me. It's like she repressed those memories so deep within me that even she doesn't know. Is that what Grandpa George didn't want me to know? How could I find out?