CHAPTER 5
1228 Words
CHAPTER 5Squinting was the only way Mara could see out the large window of the living room. It was one of those rare chilly fall days when no clouds filtered the sun or insulated the ground, bright and cold at the same time. Sam pedaled up the driveway and turned onto the short path leading to the front porch. Grabbing a jacket from the wall peg to the right of the front door, Mara stepped out onto the front porch. Her brother toed the kickstand on the bike, removed his helmet and placed it on the bicycle seat. Turning to face the house, he shrugged a book bag off his shoulders.
“Hey, sis. I see you finally got up,” he said.
“What’ve you got in the bag?” Mara asked.
“I ran over to the convenience store on Seventh and picked up a few things for Mom. And I got some treats for Hannah.”
“To make up for missing Halloween.”
“Yeah, but don’t tell her. I stopped by a few of the neighbors’ houses and asked that they give them to her when we go trick-or-treating later. Good thing it’s Thanksgiving or no one would be home in the middle of the day, and it would be impossible to pull this off. Mrs. Gunderson on the corner is putting out her plastic jack-o’-lantern just for Hannah.”
“You ran around the neighborhood distributing candy, so your daughter can go trick-or-treating?” Mara asked.
“Yeah, is that stupid?”
“No, it’s very sweet.”
“You’re not embarrassed?”
“I think my threshold for embarrassment is a lot higher than it used to be.” Mara stepped off the porch and looked over her shoulder to make sure no one in the house was watching or listening. “You done with the bike? I need to run over to Abby’s house and talk to her father. He must be going crazy that she hasn’t been home for two days.”
He nodded and handed her the helmet. “What are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.” She looked up at the clear sky and told herself the water in her eyes was from the cool air. “Maybe I’ll just stop by and make sure he’s okay, offer some support or something. I mean, what am I supposed to say? I allowed a darkling wraith to turn your daughter into a metaphysical monster bent on ending existence as we know it? That she disappeared into a big bubble?”
“You’re just making yourself crazy,” Sam said. “If you can’t tell him the truth, why tell him anything at all? There’s nothing you can say that will make him feel better about his daughter’s disappearance. What’s the point in going over there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he called looking for her?”
“No.” Mara paused. Furrowing her eyebrows, she said, “No, he hasn’t, and that’s kind of odd. I’d be the first person he would call, if she went missing.”
“Could he be out of town?”
“Maybe.” She strapped on the helmet, took the handlebars and steered the bicycle toward the driveway. “I’m going to run over there. If Mom asks, tell her that I just went for a ride around the block.”
“All right, but I wouldn’t be gone very long, if I were you. Mom seems to be running out of patience with your disappearing acts.”
“She won’t think much of it, as long as she doesn’t see me pulling out of the driveway in my car. Anyway she’s got her hands full in the kitchen.” She mounted the bike and was about to push off but stopped. “Oh, one other thing ...”
“Yeah?”
“Sit down with that daughter of yours and find out why I sent her back here.”
Sam shrugged. “I’ve tried to ask her a few questions. All she wants to do is rub my face and talk about trick-or-treating and dragons. Maybe she’ll be more cooperative after she’s gotten that out of her system.”
* * *
Abby lived a couple miles away with her father in a ranch house northwest of the Lantern home. Her mother had died when she was a toddler, and it had always just been the two of them, which made Mara feel that much worse, as she pedaled through the neighborhood. Of course there was no way to explain what happened on the roof of Mason Fix-It two nights ago; Mara wasn’t even sure herself.
Having been possessed by the darkling wraith for a few minutes, Mara understood that it desired to consume her—or more precisely to become her. It wanted to slip on her soul like that serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs wanted to slip on the skins of his victims. She had allowed that to happen to her friend. She allowed it to pull apart all that was Abby, yank her from every realm, take all the many things that she could become and harness it to that vaporous black skeleton, turning her into an incomprehensible horror. How could anyone explain that to a father?
A horn yanked her back from her reverie. A driver to her left waved a fist through his windshield as Mara glided across the four-way-stop intersection without pausing. Mara raised an arm to wave and shrug at the same time. She mouthed I’m sorry as she cleared the intersection.
The pavement on the far side of the intersection sloped upward, and Mara stood on her pedals to build up some momentum. Two blocks later, she took a left onto a tree-shrouded block. During spring and summer, thick foliage kept the neighborhood in cool shadows, but now bare branches reached into the clear blue sky, allowing the bright sun to stream through. The entire character of the block looked different.
Mara’s heart pounded as she made the last right turn onto Abby’s block, although not because of exertion from pedaling up the inclined roads. The house was just half a block ahead, and she still didn’t know what to say to Abby’s father. But she did know she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t at least show some concern.
Looking ahead, Mara eyed the olive green mailbox with big black numbers, 2-5-7, crookedly displayed on its side. She and Abby had painted it in third grade. It sat next to the short driveway in front of the house. As Mara approached, an old blue-and-white Ford pickup backed out and into the street, its tailgate turning away, so the front of the truck faced Mara.
There, behind the wheel, was Mr. Gibson, Abby’s father. His eyes widened with recognition when saw Mara. Smiling, he waved, honked his horn and drove away. He didn’t look like he had a care in the world.
Odd.
Mara stared after the truck, until it turned at the end of the block. Once it was out of sight, she looked up at the house. The edge of a curtain hanging in the wide window next to the front door swayed for a second. But there was no light coming out. Of course it was a bright sunny day, so why would there be? She told herself Mr. Gibson probably caused the curtain’s motion when he closed the front door, even though she knew he most likely went out the side door, the one that led from the kitchen to the garage.
Standing over the bicycle at the curb, she stared at the curtain for several seconds. It did not move again. Sitting back down, she pushed off the curb and pedaled up the driveway. Leaving the bike on its kickstand in front of the garage doors, Mara walked up the concrete walkway to the front door. Pausing for a second to listen, she heard nothing inside and jabbed a finger into the lit doorbell. She heard the familiar two-toned bell inside but didn’t sense any movement.
Still, she had the feeling someone was there.
Only two people live here.
She knocked on the door. “Abby? Are you in there?”
Nothing.
- Writer
