Page 37 of The Intruder

NOW

CASEY

There is absolutely no chance of sleeping. Not when there’s even the tiniest possibility that I might wake up to find Eleanor feeding my arms and legs into the fire.

I can’t stop thinking about that green notebook I’ve got hidden under the cushions.

I’m dying to look at it, but I also don’t want to risk being caught and losing her trust, especially since she already knows I was going through her bag.

Eleanor is angry at me for asking too many questions.

She knows I went through her bag, but I’m not sure if she realizes I took her notebook.

If she had, she would have mentioned it, wouldn’t she?

I can’t even imagine her reaction if she caught me flipping the pages.

But I have to look. I have a feeling that whatever is inside is something important. I mean, all she brought with her are clothes and this notebook.

An hour passes by before I feel brave enough to grab the notebook from under the cushion.

The plain green cover with the smear of red stares back at me.

I want to open it up, but I’ve gotten a window into Eleanor’s mind, and I haven’t liked what I have seen.

And those were the things she chose to share with me.

What would she put in a private notebook?

I take a deep breath and turn the cover.

It’s hard to see much with the only light provided by the fireplace, but the first few pages just look like scratch work from a math class. Nothing too exciting there, aside from some equations where she seems to be solving for x. Eleanor seems to be decent in math, based on her work here.

But as I turn the pages, it looks like she has started using this book for her artistic expression. The pages contain drawing after drawing, sketched in red, blue, and black ink. And they are all horrifying.

Moreover, they all feature the same thing. A woman with shoulder-length hair, a solid build, and a square jaw. And in each drawing, she is being tortured.

Stabbed.

Beheaded.

Hung from the ceiling by a noose, her tongue protruding grotesquely from her mouth.

The fire crackles at my feet. I flip through the pages, my stomach roiling. And with each page I turn, I become more and more certain of one thing:

The woman in these drawings is me.

After all, she came looking for me. But why? Why does this little girl hate me so much that she would sketch picture after picture of my gruesome death? I don’t even know her name. I’ve never even seen her before.

Have I?

I teach elementary school, and over the years, quite a large number of children have been in and out of my classroom.

I pride myself in remembering each and every one of them, and Eleanor isn’t familiar to me, and neither is her name.

But I teach third grade, and Eleanor is at least twelve or thirteen years old.

She may look different than she did back then.

What if I was her teacher and I missed the signs of what somebody was doing to her? And now she blames me?

Granted, that seems extreme. Am I really to believe this girl is some sort of vigilante, exacting systematic revenge on all her former teachers?

That seems outside the realm of reality.

Plus, it’s hard to imagine I would have missed something like that for an entire school year. That definitely doesn’t sound like me.

And yet…

Why is she here?

And what is she planning to do to me?

Despite the fire raging in front of me, a chill goes through me.

I try to remind myself that these drawings are just that—drawings.

And now that I suspect her intentions, I will be on guard.

I could outrun her easily, and if it came down to it, I believe I could overpower and disarm her even if she’s got a knife on her side.

I could almost certainly keep her from beheading me.

But then a terrible thought hits me. And I realize how stupid I have been.

When I went out to the toolshed, I brought my gun with me. And then when I came back, I put the gun back where I found it. At the bottom of my dresser drawer. In the bedroom.

Where Eleanor is sleeping.