Chapter Five

It’s bright when Grandma nudges my shoulder in the morning. My eyes squint against the daylight as I sit up, muscles sore from being scrunched into a fetal position all night. The smell of coffee hangs in the air.

“Why are you sleeping down here?” Grandma asks with half concern, half annoyance.

“I—I don’t know,” I stammer, trying to think of a quick lie. “I came down for a drink of water in the middle of the night, and I guess I just fell asleep here.”

She frowns. “It’s an old couch. Bad for your back. Go back to your bed next time.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

She scoots me into the kitchen where I spend an unknown amount of time eating an unknown amount of bacon. If I keep this up for three months, I’ll need a whole new wardrobe for my senior year.

Grandpa comes in through the back door and sits down, plopping the day’s paper on the table between us. I nearly choke on my next bite. On the front page is a picture of a little girl with black-brown hair. The headline reads: Villisca Girl Found in River.

My stomach lurches.

Her picture stares back at me from the rough surface of the newspaper. It’s the same face that had stared at me in my dream, except in the photo, she’s chubby and sweet, not bloated and glassy-eyed.

The river had drowned her. Or someone else did.

I skim the story. Amelia Diaz, four years old, went missing five days ago from her backyard in Villisca. Not much information is given, because not much information is known. Who took her? Where had she been for five days? The authorities have no answers at this time. Nor do they know who took the other two girls who are missing.

Two others?

My eyes do a double take. There are two other little girls missing—Laney and Grace. I chew the bacon in my mouth, but the flavor is gone. I point to Amelia’s picture. “I saw her,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

“What do you mean you saw her?”

“I mean, I saw her…once…” My words stammer out because there is no good explanation. She’s been missing for five days, but I only got into town yesterday. “Or maybe it wasn’t her,” I quickly add.

Grandma snatches the paper away and plops a pancake onto my plate. Grandma does not like talking about bad things.

“Church is in one hour,” she says. “Eat up.”

I stifle an eye roll. Church is not really my thing, but instead of complaining, I force the pancake into my sickened stomach as Grandpa sips coffee. My mind is far too frazzled by the dead girl in my dream to construct an argument against organized religion.

After breakfast, I stand at the foot of the stairs and stare up. The only bathroom in the house is on the second floor. I take a deep breath, unsure of what awaits me at the top of the steps. More giggling? The cold, dead hand of little, drowned Amelia?

My feet tiptoe up the steps until they hit the floor of the upstairs hallway. Things seem normal. No giggles. But my skin crawls at every brush of circulating air. Eyes are on me—I feel them.

The door to my bedroom is wide open. Mentally, I go through my clothing options, while still standing in the hallway. Once my mind decides on jeans and a red shirt, I rush in, grab the articles from my dresser, and then run like hell back out of the bedroom. I go into the bathroom where the smell of bleach oddly makes me feel safe.

After a shower, I curse my curly brown hair. It hates the summer. In the winter, with the right concoction of spray gel and a straightening iron, it keeps its craziness to a minimum. But in the summer, it soaks in the humidity like a sponge.

My dad has straight jet-black hair. My mom has straight, blonde hair. I somehow, due to a harsh genetic mutation most likely, ended up with a frizzy, mud-brown mess. The only trait I ever get complimented on—and at least there is one—are my eyes. I have my grandma’s eyes. “You’re straight out of Vietnam,” Grandma likes to say. Then she pats my wild hair and adds, “Almost.”

There’s no point to fighting nature, so I twist the brown curls into a messy bun.

Good enough for Iowa.

I spend the first half of the church service studying the large sanctuary. It’s a pretty church, but it’s the only church I’ve ever been to, so I’m hardly an expert. I’m not religious. Every religious moment in my life has been in this little Iowa town, at the insistence of Grandma.

It’s a Lutheran church, and I don’t quite understand their stand-up-sit-down routine. But the constant movement keeps my mind from obsessing too much over last night’s events. As I stand up once more, Grandma shoves a hymnal into my hands.

She nudges me because I’m not singing. So I start singing a little. Beyoncé, I am not.

As we begin the third verse, pain radiates through my temples. I press fingers into them.

I try to keep my eyes open—to keep them concentrated on the brown-haired pastor up front—but the pain intensifies, and my eyes eventually squeeze tight in response.

I open my eyes. I’m still in the church, but it’s suddenly hot. It’s as if there isn’t any air conditioning anymore. Up front, the pastor is gone…or rather, he has been replaced with a different man. This one is elderly and small with white hair and a heavy, cream-colored robe. All around me, women and girls are dressed in light colored dresses. A few have hats. Men and boys are in suits with skinny ties. My twenty-first-century jeans and blouse don’t fit in. Grandma and Grandpa are gone, and I’m surrounded by strangers…yet it’s all familiar. Like I’ve been here before. Whatever year it is, I’ve been here. I feel it.

The pastor motions to a large, oblong object in front of him. The sleek brown length of wood, placed in front of the congregation, is adorned with flowers. The woman next to me blows her nose and stifles a small sob.

Oh god, I think. This isn’t a Sunday church service. It’s a funeral.

I stare at the wood casket, and a wave a grief crashes over me and nearly sends me to my knees. Grief for who, I don’t know. Except I knew him or her…whoever is in that casket, I knew them. But this is isn’t real. It’s a dream…and it’s decades ago. How could I know someone from decades ago?

I shake my head, take a deep breath, and close my eyes again. I need to get out of here.

My eyes open and the brown-haired pastor is back. The casket is gone. The air is crisp with cool A/C. Grandma is at my side once again, giving me a worried look. I smile to reassure her, all the while wondering if I’m two seconds from dropping dead of a brain tumor.

That daydream had been way more detailed and more intense than the one last night.

We sit back down from singing, and the pastor begins to speak. His sermon is focused on coping with grief, and he speaks about the little girl found in the river and the other two who are still missing. Tissues are out in all directions.

“Amelia loved to run through the park and play on the slide,” the pastor says.

My gut tightens at the thought of her. Is she the one who said my name last night? I shake my head. That couldn’t be. But nothing makes sense. Not my new daydreams, not my closet opening on its own. My brow wrinkles out of confusion. The pastor’s voice fades; the ambient buzz of the congregation fills my head. I have no idea what’s happening to me, no idea what’s going on. I just know I want it all to stop and I want to go home to Minneapolis.

After the service, Grandma leads me by the elbow out into the blinding June sun, toward the pastor who’s standing on the sidewalk. The church is located next to the town park, and the pastor is watching small kids scramble about on the bright-colored playset. His brown hair peppered with gray is dull in the sun.

“Pastor Schneider,” Grandma says. He turns, his eyes meeting mine. “Pastor, do you remember our granddaughter, Chessie? She’s staying with us this summer.” She stops there, but I pick up on her unspoken “family problems at home” addendum.

Pastor Schneider smiles—but only with his mouth. His eyes are unmoving. “Glad to meet you again, Jessie.”

My jaw muscles clench. People are always calling me Jessie. Sometimes, I correct them. But sometimes, I don’t care enough about them to worry about what they call me.

The pastor’s hand is limp and sweaty as I shake it. I pull my hand back right away, fighting the urge to wipe it on my pants, and decide not to correct him on my name.

He glances back at the kids on the playground before speaking again. “Sad thing about those girls, huh?” As he speaks, he places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. Repulsion sweeps across my face before I can stop it, and Grandma glares at me. I pull my lips straight and nod solemnly, remembering the girls and trying to ignore the clammy hand on my shoulder.

“I hope we’ll see you two at the food drive next week,” Pastor Schneider says to Grandma. “We’re hoping to beat last year’s record number of donations.”

Grandma nods. “Of course we’ll help out.” She nudges my arm. “Won’t we, Chessie?”

“Um, yeah. Sure thing.”

Another family approaches and Pastor Schneider turns to them, removing his hand from me. I stifle a sigh of relief.

As I turn toward the parking lot with Grandma and Grandpa, I spot the town’s small grocery store down the block. My stomach is still full from breakfast, but junk food always calms my nerves. Especially the sugary kind with little to no nutritional value.

“Is it okay if I walk home?”

Grandma thinks and checks her watch. “Well, alright, but be home by one o’clock for lunch.”

I agree and set off on my own.

I don’t only need sugar; my brain needs space—quietness away from people. I need to think and immerse myself in boring, ordinary life. And what’s more boring and ordinary than a small-town grocery store?

Dotty’s Market only has four vehicles in the lot—all pickups. Everyone in Iowa seems to own a pickup. Grandpa’s is a huge, maroon thing with four doors and a tackle box in back.

I step through the first set of Dotty’s automatic doors as a mom and her toddler son walk out. A gust of wind blows between us, rustling papers on a community bulletin board.

In the middle of the board are three pictures of the little girls who have gone missing. The first two pictures are of the girls they have yet to find, Laney and Grace. Laney has long, curly black hair and light brown skin. Grace has fair skin and brown hair with blunt-cut bangs. Both have big brown eyes.

The third picture is of Amelia. Some people have tacked up flowers and little notes of remembrance. In a town so small, her death is a huge loss. In Minneapolis, crime and death are muted by the size and busyness of the city. Names and pictures are flashed on the evening news, only to be forgotten by the morning news or the next act of violence. But small towns are close-knit. One person’s loss seems to reverberate through the streets, affecting everyone.

Under the girls’ photos are colorful flyers advertising a bunch of goods and services. A home daycare, computer classes at the library, a John Deere tractor for sale. In the bottom corner, a white sheet of paper catches my attention. In enormous, black font, it reads: GHOST911 FOR ALL YOUR SPECTRAL NEEDS. The bottom of the flyer is cut into strips, each one with a phone number. One strip has been torn off, most likely by whomever put the flyer up, to make it look like there’s interest in local ghost hunting.

My fingers flex as I consider ripping off a GHOST911 phone number. Except that would be too much confirmation—confirmation that the weird things happening to me are all real.

Be boring and ordinary, I remind myself. You’re just stressed out. Breathe and things will be okay.

I shake off thoughts of Amelia’s giggles, the self-opening closet door, and the bodiless voice that said my name, and force my feet past the bulletin board. It’s sunny outside. There are people around. Things are totally normal—my mind and imagination are just messed up from my recent life upheaval and small-town boredom, that’s all.

It’s bullshit, of course, but I compel myself to believe it and step into the store.