Page 11

He hangs up, and I breathe a sigh of relief. With both of us investigating this circumstance, we’re sure to discover the truth soon.

I turn around, ready to return to the house, but instead, I freeze.

I am still in the forest, but it’s not the forest I entered an hour ago. The trees here are not lush and green but bare and skeletal. Their branches loom over the path; pale, twisted and sharp like crooked, needle-sharp teeth.

Ahead of me is a woman as tall and pale as the trees. She stands with her back to me, and blonde hair so light it's nearly white hangs down to the small of her back.

I know where I am. This is the forest through which Annie and I would occasionally walk home from university, twisted and made macabre by my own violent imagination.

I know who it is that stands in front of me, too. Even facing away from me, I can see the too-pale skin and hollow but not-quite empty black holes of my sister's eyes. I've had this nightmare many times before, but this is the first time I've seen it outside while I'm wide awake.

Panic chills me, accentuated by confusion. I’m not dreaming. I’m not dissociating either. I know exactly where I am, and I know that what I’m seeing isn’t real. So why am I seeing it? Why is this plaguing me now?

A shiver runs through me, and I release a soft whimper. I’m not dreaming or dissociating. I’m hallucinating. I studied psychology in university, but I don’t need to have background in understanding the human mind to know that seeing things that aren’t there when one is fully awake and aware is a very bad sign.

I’ve been committed before, once for eleven weeks after the police closed the investigation into my sister’s disappearance. I have fought grimly for my sanity ever since.

And I’ve been doing well. I haven’t had nightmares in months. Other than my brief relapse in New Orleans, it’s been a while since I’ve had a dissociative state as well. Why am I suddenly skipping those two symptoms and going straight to hallucinations?

My fear turns to anger. It’s not fair! I’m getting better! I’m confronting my past and accepting the pain I’ve suffered. I’m in the middle of another mystery, but this isn’t a murder mystery. There’s no great fear prompting this episode. Why am I suffering again?

I open my mouth to vocalize these thoughts, but all that comes out is a soft squeak when I see that Annie’s ghost is no longer thirty yards away but is standing right in front of me. She doesn’t have her back turned to me either.

And she’s not a ghost. She’s my sister as I remember her, as she was thirty-one years ago. She’s smiling her usual impertinent, playful smile. Her blue eyes are dancing with mirth, and her blonde hair shimmers like the sun.

The forest around me is just as black and forbidding as before. The contrast is, if anything, more unnerving than when I expected to see a specter.

“You’re not really getting better, though, are you, Mary?”

I jump, surprised to hear her speak. That happens sometimes when I have a flashback of a repressed memory, but not often in my nightmares. Then again, this isn’t a nightmare.

“I was ,” I reply morosely. “I was moving on from losing you. I was focusing on building a life with Sean. I was going to be an ordinary governess focused on helping the people I work for. Then I found that damned flyer and remembered that you liked jazz, and—”

“And that was enough to send you into a tailspin. You went to New Orleans, had a few dissociative episodes, almost lost two twelve-year-olds on Mardi Gras and hallucinated a demon-me possessing one of them.”

“I didn’t… That… That’s not a fair representation of what happened.”

Annie shrugs. “Okay. Then you really saw my vengeful ghost try to possess a little boy to get back at you. That sounds like something you would do.”

Anger flares in me again. “You were very vengeful. You could be so vindictive.”

“So could you. That’s why you don’t want to read the letters you wrote me.”

I feel as though the wind is knocked out of me. “What? How do you…” I realize the absurdity of that question and don’t finish it.

Annie laughs. “Poor Mary. You might want to think about talking to someone. You’re carrying all of this guilt, and you’re terrified of confronting it. It’s driving you very close to insane. It would be a pity if Sean had to begin his marriage visiting his wife in the mental hospital.”

My hand swings out in a flash. Annie catches the blow, and her smile disappears, leaving behind a cruel sneer. “You don’t want the truth, Mary. You don’t want to know why I really left. You want to believe that I was selfish, capricious and cruel. You want to keep believing that you’re smart and sensible and kind and that it’s everyone else’s fault that you suffer. What will those notes say, Mary? What did you write me after I finally got away?”

Images flash across my mind: weeping in my room, crying out in anger, writing furiously, weeping again, smashing Annie’s picture and—

I cry out and snatch my arm away from her. “You’re wrong!”

I freeze again. Annie is gone. The forest is as it was before, lush, green and beautiful. I am alone save for an elderly couple walking fifty yards ahead of me down a path that crosses mine. They give me a cautious, pitying look and continue on their way.

I sniff and return the way I came, walking swiftly and keeping my eyes fixed firmly ahead. The sky is a little darker now, but I refuse to look at my phone and discover the reason, even though I know what the reason is. It’s not until I leave the forest and have to acknowledge that the sun is on the opposite side of the sky that I pull my phone out and check the time.

It’s five o’clock. The sun will set in an hour and a half. I’ve been at the park for over seven hours, and nearly six of them were spent standing on a forest path talking to a hallucination of my sister.

Hot tears sting my eyes. This isn’t fair. This isn’t even much of a mystery compared to the others. No one’s dead. No one’s having a current affair that I know about. At worst, this is a family feud spilling over into business interests. I shouldn’t be so badly affected by this.

Annie’s voice echoes in my head. You keep acting like this is about the Bellamys. It’s not. This is about you running away. You can’t do that forever, Mary. You’re older and tired now. It takes a lot of work to keep up this facade. Eventually—

“Oh, shut up,” I mutter.

And thankfully, she does. Or I do. Whatever. I wipe the tears from my eyes and since I don’t want to return to the house right now, I walk to the seafood restaurant that Julian tells me about.

The hostess frowns when she sees my puffy red eyes, but before she can ask me if I’m all right, I force a smile and say cheerily, “I can’t wait to try your fresh clams. My employer tells me they’re the best he’s ever had.”

The hostess gets the message that I don’t want to talk about it and returns a smile as forced as mine, except that hers contains an element of pity that I absolutely hate. “We catch them fresh every day. I’ll have a plate made up for you right away. Would you like to sit at the bar or at a table?”

“The bar is fine, thank you.”

“Of course. Sit anywhere you like.”

I take my seat and enjoy what really is a very fine meal. After the clams, I eat a dinner of pasta with fresh-caught shrimp in a lemon-garlic sauce. For dessert, I accept the server’s recommendation of blackberry pie topped with fresh cream.

It’s a delicious meal, and I wish I could have tasted it. But what I experienced today drives all enjoyment from the food. What I want more than anything else is to feel Sean’s arms around me, but I don’t call him. I can’t tell him what happened. He’s been pushing for me to talk to a therapist for months, and if he learns what happened today, he might call one himself. I can’t let that happen. I can’t risk being committed again. If I go inside again, I don’t know if I’ll ever get out.

It’s dark when I finish my meal. When I leave the restaurant, I realize that my long absence might have caused concern with my employers. I check my phone, terrified that I might have to come up with a reason not only why I’m home late but why I’ve ignored calls all day.

But no one has called me. No one has wondered where their governess has gone to all day. It’s a relief, really. The only silver lining to one of the darkest clouds to ever block the sun.