Don't Breathe a Word (26 page)

Chapter 33

Lisa

June 15, Fifteen Years Ago

“T
his is the worst day of my life. Period.”

Evie smiled. “Did you mean to do that? Isn’t that kind of a pun or something?”

Lisa threw a pillow down at Evie, who teased, “Missed me.”

They were in Lisa’s bedroom with the door locked.

“What’s going on in there?” Sammy asked, pounding at the door.

“Girl talk,” Evie said. “Buzz off.”

“Have you heard anything?” Sammy asked through the door. “From Mom or Aunt Hazel?”

“Um, you can hear the phone ring as well as we can, right?” Evie said. “Why don’t you go watch for them in the driveway.”

Lisa rolled over and looked at the clock. It was nearly four. All they’d heard was the one phone call from her mom this morning saying that Da was in a coma. He’d taken a lot more pills this time.

“But he’s gonna be okay, right?” Lisa had asked.

There was a long pause. “We’re not sure,” her mother had said.

“I want to see him!”

“You can’t, sweetie. He’s in intensive care. No one under sixteen is allowed in.”

“But I . . .”

“Rules are rules, love. I’ll call again when there’s news.”

Evie spent the morning upstairs by herself, while Sam and Lisa played hand after hand of rummy. Evie came downstairs and made them all tuna melts, which she burned. Lisa couldn’t eat a single bite.

“Come on,” Evie had said. “I know my cooking sucks, but you gotta eat.”

“Stomachache,” Lisa said, her abdomen twisting and cramping.

Later, when she went into the bathroom, she found brown stains on her panties.

“I think there’s something wrong with me,” she’d told Evie.

“No, dummy,” Evie had said. “It’s your period.”

“My period? But isn’t blood supposed to be red?” This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Her mother should be there, welcoming her to womanhood. And she was supposed to feel like a woman—not a helpless kid who couldn’t even go visit her dad in the hospital. Her belly had cramped and she bent forward, grimacing. No one had told her it was going to hurt like this.

“Trust me,” Evie had said. Then she rummaged around in the bathroom closet and found a box of pads. “Get some fresh underwear and put one of these on. Then take three Advil.”

After, they’d locked themselves in Lisa’s room and Evie told her that she’d been getting her period for almost a year now.

“But how could you not tell me something like that?” Lisa asked.

Evie shrugged. “Maybe there’s lots of stuff I don’t tell you.”

“Like what?”

“Forget it.” Evie looked away. “Let’s go see what Sammy’s up to, huh?” She stood up and unlocked the door.

“Evie?”

Evie stopped, her hand on the knob.

“There’s something I want to show you. Something I found in your mom’s room.” Lisa went to her bookshelf and pulled out the dictionary. The old photo of Da and Hazel was right where she’d hid it. After crumpling it up, she hadn’t been able to throw it away. So she smoothed it out and stuck it in the
M
’s.

Misery.

Misfortune.

Mishap.

She held it out to Evie. “Is this part of the secret?” she asked. “Your mom and my dad—they were together once, right? Is he your dad too?”

Evie took the photo and stared down at it, her brown eyes darkening. “You shouldn’t have been snooping around in her room!” she said.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” Lisa asked. “We’re sisters, right?”

The door was pushed open.

“Sammy!” Lisa snarled, turning to see that it wasn’t Sam but her mother stepping through the door. Her mother’s eyes were red and puffy with dark circles under them.

“You’re back! What happened? How’s Da?”

Don’t say he’s dead. Please God, don’t let him be dead.

“No change,” her mother said. “They said they’d call if there was any news.” Then her eyes went to the photo in Evie’s hand.

“Where did you get that?” Lisa’s mom hissed.

“Lisa,” Evie said.

“Give it to me,” Phyllis demanded, snatching the photo from Evie and ripping it up right in front of them. “What’s done is done,” she said, staring at Evie with a venomous look.

“Lisa got her period,” Evie said.

Phyllis looked like Evie had slapped her.

“What?” she said, studying Lisa. “Is this true?”

Lisa nodded. She wasn’t sure what to expect: some motherly wisdom, a hug, or maybe some kind of you’re-a-woman-now congratulations. But her mother’s face just got paler. Then she swallowed hard, smiled, and said, “You two go on downstairs now. Or go outside and get some air. Sam says you’ve been locked in here for hours.”

T
hey played another round of rummy while Hazel threw together a tuna noodle casserole.

“We had tuna for lunch,” Evie whined.

“Well, you’ll just have to have it again, won’t you?” Hazel said. “Has anyone seen the cream of celery soup?”

“No,” they all chimed.

“And the cookies,” Hazel said. “I just bought a brand-new package of those chocolate peanut butter chunk ones you love so much, Sammy. Don’t tell me you ate the whole bag!”

Sam shook his head. “I didn’t even see them. Ask Lisa. Maybe she took them for her Fairy King.”

Lisa glared at him across the table. She’d kept her end of the deal. She hadn’t mentioned the fairies all day. And now here he was, blabbing away.

“What?” Hazel asked, turning from the counter to face them.

“She’s been leaving all kinds of treats for him. Soda and cookies. And he left her stuff, too, right, Lisa? Show her your charm bracelet. Tell her about the book.”

“Book?” Hazel’s face got all pinched-looking. “What book?” She looked right at Evie when she said it. Evie looked away.

“
The Book of Fairies.
It’s got all kinds of crazy stuff in it. She so obviously made it up herself. Fairy King my ass!” Sammy said.

Something inside Hazel snapped. Lisa could almost hear a popping sound fill the kitchen. “Enough! We do not talk like that at the table. Go to your room!”

“But I—”

“Now!” she snarled. “And Evie, you too. I want to talk to Lisa alone.”

Sam headed upstairs and Evie slunk outside.

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” Aunt Hazel said once she and Lisa were alone. Hazel got right in her face, her hundred-proof breath nearly knocking Lisa flat. “What’s all this about a fairy book?” Hazel’s eyes were bloodshot and frantic.

“It’s nothing,” Lisa said, shrinking. “It’s . . . it’s a story I made up.”

Hazel took an unsteady step back, shaking her head in an I-don’t-believe-you way.

Hazel reached out, grabbed Lisa’s wrist, studied the bracelet. “Tell me the truth, damn it!” She was twisting Lisa’s wrist so hard it brought tears to Lisa’s eyes.

Lisa shook her head firmly and tried to yank her hand away, but Hazel had it in a firm grip. “I made it all up. Really. I left the gifts there myself.”

Hazel let go of her wrist. Her mouth was working like she was saying something, but no words came out.

Lisa slowly backed away from Hazel and went to look for Sammy, but he wasn’t in his room. When she left his bedroom, she heard her mother and Hazel having one of their whisper fights downstairs. Lisa snuck down the steps, tried to listen in. All she caught was the end. Her mother saying, “Just go. Now!”

And Hazel grabbed her bulky purse, crammed full of tissues, romance novels, and expired coupons, got in her car, and took off, tires squealing.

“Mom?” Lisa said. Her mother was standing at the stove, making tea. “Is everything okay?”

Her mom gave her a vacant stare, like her eyes weren’t focused on anything at all. “Fine,” she said at last, forcing a painful-looking smile.

H
azel came back from her trip just as they were sitting down to dinner. Sammy was heaping casserole on his plate. Lisa took only a little salad. Evie hadn’t shown up yet—no one had seen her all afternoon.

“Well?” Phyllis said, glaring at her sister.

Hazel shook her head, then fixed herself a tumbler full of milk and brandy, bypassing the tuna casserole completely. She went and said something to Phyllis in a low voice. Lisa, who was sitting beside her mother, caught only one word:
Gone.

Did she mean Da? Had he died? And here they were eating stupid tuna casserole?

Hazel took a seat at the table and nursed her drink. Her hands shook each time she took a sip.

“Have you heard anything more about Da?” Sammy asked. “Are you going back to the hospital?”

Neither Phyllis nor Hazel responded. They were both staring off into space.

“It just seems like someone should be there,” Sam said. “You know, in case he wakes up or something.”

Or dies
, Lisa thought, hating herself for it.

He’s not dead, he’s not dead, he’s not dead
, she told herself, concentrating with all her might. She pictured him coming home from the hospital, giving her a big hug, saying, “Hiya, Beanpole.”

“I’m going back to the hospital later,” Phyllis said, pushing food around on her plate. Hazel kept working on her milky drink. No one spoke. There was only the sound of forks scraping plates.

Evie burst in through the kitchen door, shouldering her knapsack. Her face was red and sweaty, and her chest wheezed.

“You!” Phyllis snarled, leaping up from the table and stepping toward Evie. In a low voice, she hissed, “What have you done?”

Lisa held her breath, waiting. What was Evie in trouble for this time?

“I’m sorry,” Evie said. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

Lisa’s mom leaned in and whispered something Lisa didn’t catch.

Evie looked like she might cry. “I know, but he promised—”

Phyllis slapped Evie across the face, so hard it knocked Evie off balance. Lisa flinched and held her breath. Evie backed slowly out of the kitchen, head down, sobbing. When she got to the door, she turned and ran.

Chapter 34

Phoebe

June 13, Present Day

“H
ow do you even know she’ll be here?” Phoebe asked as they pulled into the Price Chopper parking lot.

“I don’t,” Franny said. “But if she isn’t, I bet I can talk whoever’s there into telling me how to get in touch with her. I’ll play the long-lost-relative card.” Phoebe had seen Franny in action and knew the Price Chopper employees didn’t stand a chance.

They made their way past rows of shopping carts, through the automatic doors and the vestibule full of gum-ball machines and the claw game full of ugly stuffed animals and plastic jewelry. Phoebe flashed back to her job at the Crazy Cone when she was twenty, the constant mechanical beep and song of the video games, the kids who came in, pockets heavy with quarters, hoping for a high score or for the biggest, best prize.

“There she is,” Franny said, heading past the display of freshly baked cinnamon buns toward the floral department. A woman with a green smock was trimming rose stems. She lifted her face and Phoebe inhaled sharply and grabbed Franny’s sleeve, jerking her back.

“What?”

“That’s Amy Pelletier—the girl from the woods! The one who played the old woman and ran naked onto the golf course.” She tugged on Franny’s arm, dragged her out of the store.

“Are you sure?” Franny asked, stopping at the rows of green plastic shopping carts on the sidewalk outside. They hadn’t moved far enough away and the automatic door kept opening and closing with an angry hum.

“Positive!”

Franny scowled, which she often did when she was thinking hard. An elderly couple walked past them into the store. Then a woman with a baby in a pink pig sleeper complete with a snout built into the hood. “Come on,” Franny said at last, turning to head back into the store.

“What are you doing?” Phoebe’s voice was frantic. Becca was just a girl, but the stunt at the cabin made her seem . . . otherworldly. Like a true changeling. A person who could turn from old to young, who could stab another with a corkscrew without injury. Who knew what else she was capable of?

“Do you want to figure out what’s going on here or not?”

“I do, but what makes you think she’s even going to talk to us?” Phoebe asked.

“Oh, she’ll talk. If she doesn’t, we’ll make a scene. If she wants to keep her job, she’ll cooperate.”

Phoebe followed Franny into the store and toward the floral department. Becca caught sight of them, immediately put down the sharp beaklike pruners, and took off her smock. She spoke briefly to an older woman behind the counter, then headed right for them.

“Let’s go outside,” Becca said. “I could use a smoke.”

F
or the first minute, they all just stared at one another, no one knowing how to get started. Becca took long, hard pulls from her Marlboro Light.

“I don’t get it,” Phoebe said. “How did Sam not recognize you?”

Becca smiled. “It’s been a long time. Our family moved down to Massachusetts a few months after Lisa disappeared. Would you recognize the adult version of some kid you knew when you were ten?”

Phoebe was silent, trying to remember kids she’d known back then. She’d never had close friends, no one she’d ever invite home. There were girls she talked to in school, girls she got paired with for gym and science projects, but no one special. Even now, they were all faceless, nameless.

“Well, I barely recognized you,” Franny admitted. “And you and I were pretty good friends for a while there. If it hadn’t been for your name tag, I wouldn’t even have been sure enough to come up and ask.”

Becca nodded.

“So when did you move back to Vermont?” Franny asked.

“After I finished high school. I moved up to Burlington, waited tables there. I kind of stayed away from this whole area, too many crazy memories. But they found me.
He
found me.”

“He?” Franny said.

“You can’t run from the Dark Man.”

A sharp chill ran down Phoebe’s neck. She took in a sharp breath and exhaled slowly.

“Dark Man? I think I saw that movie. He was a vigilante superhero, right? All scarred up and tormented. Or maybe you’re talking about the Man in Black—Johnny Cash?” Franny laughed, but the others didn’t. “No? So what are we talking about, the devil or something?”

Becca shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“Tell me about what happened at the cabin,” Phoebe said. “Why would you do it? And who are the others? Did you all plan it with Sam? How long did he know?”

“Whoa!” Becca said, holding up her hand with the cigarette in a smoky slow-down gesture. “That’s a lot of questions.”

“So start with the first . . . the most important,” Franny suggested. “Why?”

Becca studied the burning ember at the end of her cigarette.

“If you don’t start talking, we’re going right to the cops,” Franny warned.

“I’m sure Alfred the constable would love to meet the true Amy Pelletier,” Phoebe added. “At the very least, you’d have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. And I’d bet it’s against the law to present false ID to cops.”

“Okay,” Becca sighed. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But then we’re done, right? You don’t come back and bother me at work. You don’t tell anyone you talked to me. Deal?”

Phoebe nodded.

“So back to the original question,” Franny said. “Why do it? How’d you get involved in this mess?”

“Because Teilo asked me to.” Becca dropped her cigarette into a can of sand next to the building that was already overflowing with butts.

“Teilo?” Franny said.

Becca nodded. “The King of the Fairies. He contacts me sometimes. Asks me for favors. But it’s not like asking really, ’cause no one ever says no. That’s how come I ended up moving back here, getting this shit job. He wanted me close by.” She lit another cigarette with a pink Bic lighter—the one remaining vestige of her old nickname.

“How does he contact you?” Franny asked.

Becca’s eyes darted around the parking lot. She lowered her voice. “Leaves me notes. Calls me on the phone.”

“From fairy land?” Franny asked, raising her voice. “Is that a long-distance call or what?”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Becca replied, her voice dripping with contempt. “He walks between the worlds. Sometimes in human form. Sometimes he comes in dreams. Or as an animal. He’s a magic man.”

“What does he look like when he’s human?” Phoebe asked.

“Tall. Dark hair. He has six fingers on each hand.”

“Well
that’s
pretty distinguishing,” Franny said. Phoebe shot her a look.

“What about his face?” Phoebe asked.

“He always wears a mask. If a human looks upon the true face of a fairy, they’ll be driven mad.”

“How convenient,” Franny said.

“The others at the cabin—the fake Evie and Elliot—who were they?” Phoebe asked.

Becca sucked on her cigarette, held the smoke in her lungs, and closed her eyes. Then she exhaled and opened her eyes only halfway, squinting at Phoebe. “You’ll leave them out of it, right? If I tell you, you won’t go hunt them down?”

“Not if you explain everything,” Phoebe said.

“It was my brother, Gerald, and his girlfriend, Trish.”

“So you go through all this hoo-ha at the cabin for what exactly?” Franny asked.

Becca looked around nervously. “It was all Teilo’s plan. He told me what to do. He said we had to take all your stuff, especially the old fairy book. Make it look like you were never there. Make you think you were going crazy.”

“And who was the old man?”

“Just the guy who owned the cabin. Someone Gerald knew from work or something. We gave him five hundred bucks, told him we were playing a prank on some old friends, and he agreed to go along with it.”

“Gerald and his girlfriend—does Teilo contact them too, ask them for favors?” Phoebe asked.

“No,” Becca said firmly. “I do. They’re all caught up in this mess because of me. Me and Danny.”

“Danny?” Phoebe said.

“My son. He’s five. His uncle Gerald adores him.” She reached into her front pocket and pulled out a little cloth coin purse that was stuffed full of cards and money. She rummaged through and pulled out a tiny photo of a little boy with dark hair and freckles. “That’s my little man,” she said, touching the boy’s cheek as if he was actually there, then tucking him carefully back into her wallet.

“So, what—you threaten to not let Gerald see Danny if he doesn’t do what you ask?” Franny asked.

Becca shook her head. “It’s not like that. Gerald and Trish, they do it to keep Danny safe. To keep him with me.”

“Safe from whom?” Franny asked, but Phoebe knew the answer.

“Teilo. If I don’t do what he asks, he’ll take Danny. I couldn’t live without my son.” She looked pleadingly at Phoebe. “You know how it is, right?”

Phoebe took a step back. “Yes, I mean, no. I don’t have kids. But I can imagine.”

“Danny’s dad got killed in a bike accident two summers ago. Danny’s all I’ve got.”

“So let me get this straight,” Franny said. “Some crazy, mutant, child-stealing, six-fingered guy—whose face you’ve never even
seen
—gets you to do things by threatening to steal your child. And what, take him away to live in a big old tree with the Keebler elves?”

Becca shook her head frantically. “Look, you don’t know, okay? You haven’t seen what he’s capable of. He has . . . powers.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with Teilo?” Phoebe asked. “Where to find him?”

Becca shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. Teilo finds you. I’ve told you enough already. Too much. But in case you haven’t figured it out, you can’t hide. If you’ve still got something he wants, you can’t win.”

Phoebe touched her stomach. There was no way he was getting Sam’s firstborn.

“What do you know about Lisa’s baby?” Phoebe asked.

Becca looked at her blankly. “Lisa? Is she back?”

“You tell us,” Franny said.

“I haven’t seen Lisa since that summer. But Teilo, he told me she’s been with him. But then she ran off. Once you live with fairies, you can’t come back to the human world. That’s what Teilo says.”

The cell phone in Franny’s bag rang.

“Look, I gotta go,” Becca said, tossing her cigarette butt on the ground and grinding it out with her foot. “Remember our deal, okay? We’re done.”

Franny answered her phone, listened a minute, then said to Phoebe, “Sam’s at our place. He’s trying to take Lisa.” Turning back to the phone, she said, “Jim? Don’t let him take her. Do whatever you have to do. We’re on our way.” She dropped the phone in her bag, said, “We’ve gotta fly.”

Becca was halfway back into the store, but Phoebe caught up with her, put a hand on her shoulder, got her to turn around.

“Was Sam really in the woods that night? When Lisa disappeared?” Phoebe asked, remembering what had brought them to Becca in the first place.

“Ask him,” Becca said.

“I will. But first, I’m asking you,” Phoebe said.

Becca smiled. “He was there. Gerald and I, we went into the woods because Evie told us Teilo was going to open the door to the fairy world. Sam was there too. And Evie.”

“And Teilo? Did you see him?”

She nodded.

“Was it the first time you ever saw him?” Phoebe asked.

“Nah,” Becca said. “Gerald and I had seen him a bunch of times. Evie told us where to find him. She gave us stuff for him—food, presents—offerings, I guess. We’d bring it to him in the woods and he’d give us gifts—junky stuff like old coins, a silver spoon. He gave me a toy compass once. God, I loved that thing.”

“Wait,” Phoebe said. “Evie did that? She knew who he was? Where to find him?”

Becca nodded. “The first I saw him I was by myself in the woods. I thought he was the bogeyman. I was scared shitless. Then the next day, Evie comes to me, explains that it wasn’t the bogeyman. She tells me and Gerald that the King of the Fairies is living down in Reliance and whatever we do, we have to keep it a secret. She drew us this little map showing us where to find him. You find Evie, the real Evie, and ask her. She can tell you all about Teilo.”