AFTERNOON
Mandy met me at Hanlon Park this morning because I asked her to, because it felt like she was maybe the only person that I could talk to. You’re great and all, Stella, but sometimes a girl needs friends who aren’t made of wood pulp.
Next to the snowbanks by the basketball courts, we hugged for the first time in what felt like forever and I handed her a plastic bag with her brothers’ walkie-talkies in it.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
“Keep ’em,” she said. “Chad and Dan don’t even know they’re gone.”
She tried to hand them back, but I scuttled over the icy snow to the swings, sat down on one, and rocked back and forth a bit. “I don’t need them anymore,” I told her. “Dorian Loomis left. And it’s my brother who I should really be afraid of.”
“What’d he do?” she asked, unable to hide her glee. Then she put the bag down and hopped on the swing next to me.
“I have a diary,” I said. “I write about life and I write stories in it sometimes. It’s private. I think he’s been secretly reading it.”
Mandy leaned her head against the swing chain and her face went hangdog. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “That sounds positively jerkish of him. But maybe he has a good reason.”
“I can’t think of one,” I said. “He tells me these outrageous things. He gives me hope that Fiona and Charlie are still out there. He’s picked me as a sucker because he knows I want to believe in magic.”
“I’m not sure I get what you’re saying,” Mandy replied. “But consider yourself lucky. It must be nice to have the sort of mind that still believes in magic.”
“Magic doesn’t solve anything,” I said. “Because eventually, you see the strings. At least if you’re even a half-smart person.”
“You are a whole smart person, Keri Bear,” she said. “The smartest I know.”
“Not recently,” I said. “I saw all these coincidences in my life and I began to think they were magic. But coincidences are usually the sign of something else. Tricks. Alistair was tricking me.”
“How would he do that?”
“With stories,” I said. “Such as, Alistair told me about a monster called the Mandrake shortly after I’d written a story about a monster named the Dorgon. He told me about a brother who absorbs his sister right after I wrote a story about a family of clouds that basically do the same thing. He told me this long adventure that is jam-packed with ideas and images that are drawn directly from my stories. And he does this to convince me that I’m being magically inspired, that the coincidences mean something, when all they really mean is that he’s been reading my diary and telling weird, twisted versions of my stories back to me. Jesus, he even has some girl, who may or may not be in Australia, conspiring with him.”
“International conspiracies?” Mandy said. “Sounds a bit elaborate, and I’m still not sure I get it. But you said he’s trying to give you hope, right? At least hope is a good thing.”
“Not false hope,” I said. “Fiona and Charlie are dead. We all know this. They are dead. Dead. Dead. Their souls, gone. All of who they are and who they will ever be … G. O. N. E.”
As the tears welled up in my eyes, Mandy got up and put her hands on my shoulders. She said, “We don’t know that. No one knows that.”
“Someone does know that,” I said as I stood up and fell into her. “And I’m scared that it’s my brother. He’s been distracting me for some reason. Why have I been so willing to believe him?”
“Because you love him,” Mandy said, hugging me tighter than she’d ever hugged me but still not nearly tight enough.
“Making Jenny Colvin mention Sigrid was bad enough,” I said. “But you know what’s been bothering me the most? The waterfall and the name ‘Banar.’ He knew about those before I wrote them, right? I haven’t even written them yet and he knows about them, right?”
Mandy released the hug, but still kept her hands on my shoulders. “I’m with you, baby, even if I really don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“But you do,” I said. “Because it’s you that helped me figure that one out. I’m a sleep talker. I talk in my sleep.”
“That I can confirm,” Mandy said. “You yammer away all night.”
“And Alistair is often up all night,” I said. “So he probably heard me talking about the waterfall, heard me mumbling about Banar. Because I dream this stuff, you know? And then he used what he heard to rope me in. But why? That’s what’s really bugging me now. What exactly is he trying to accomplish?”
“All I know is this,” Mandy said. “Just because he read about your knock-knock joke and your tubes and all that, it doesn’t mean he’s out to get you. He’s probably a fan and—”
“Wait a sec,” I said, gently pushing her hands off my shoulders. “How do you know about the knock-knock joke? How do you know about the tubes? I didn’t say anything about those.”
“Um, sure you did.” Mandy took a step back. Her arms were straight and her fists were tight at her sides.
“No. I didn’t. I mentioned the Dorgon. I mentioned clouds. That was it.”
Mandy took another step back and slid on the icy snow. Her arms flew out and spun in the air. She fell, but only to her knees. Looking up at me, she said, “Your brother is probably a fan. Like I’m a fan. Like Glen is a fan.”
“How are you fans?” I asked. “What are you talking about? Wait! The only way you could be fans is if you read my diary.”
“If you didn’t want Glen to see it, you shouldn’t have given him your locker combination,” Mandy said, still on her knees. “It was supposed to be a surprise. A Christmas present. He borrowed the diary. I just did the Xeroxing. You’ll understand soon enough.”
“I … won’t. I … can’t.”
But I did. Suddenly I understood something about Mandy. I turned so I didn’t have to look at her, and my eyes fell on the baby swing that, two years before, weighed down with backpacks, had smashed into and bloodied my nose. And I made a silent apology. To science.
Sorry for doubting you, science. You were right all along. Pendulums always do end up where they started. Unless some extra force is added to them. Unless …
“You pushed it,” I said.
“What?” Mandy asked.
I stepped over and grabbed that baby swing like I was grabbing a handful of hair. And I threw it straight at Mandy’s face.
She flinched and fell back on the snow, but the swing didn’t even come close to hitting her. It swung up and around the top bar of the swing set, then crashed down, now a few links shorter. Ironically, I was the one it almost hit, but I dodged it just in time.
“What the hell?” Mandy yelled.
“What the hell?” is right! What the hell was she trying to do to me? What the hell was everyone trying to do to me? I didn’t answer. I ran. Out past the basketball courts, my feet sliding on the snow. When I hit the pavement, I sped up.
“You don’t deserve him!” Mandy yelled at me. “You don’t deserve me!”
I kept running. Faster. Faster.
She kept yelling. Louder. Louder.
“Why does everything always have to be about you, Keri? Go on and write all the mean things you want about me, instead of doing something nice for me for a change!”
The walls of plowed snow that lined the road made it feel like a maze, a tunnel, a hole I was digging myself deeper into. Alone. Alone.
The cold air squeezed me as I ran.