around. Not many do, though. Not many of the young people."
We eat in silence with the image hanging in the air of Aunt Flo and Uncle Billy living alone in this house with no kids . Alice's disappearance will make the place seem even emptier. Mom reaches out and pats Aunt Flo's hand. Then Aunt Flo goes out to the kitchen to get more ham, even though there's plenty still on the table.
After lunch we put my suitcases in the car. We say our good -byes. Mom tells Aunt Flo to call if she needs anything, anything at all, even just to talk. Uncle Billy asks Dad if he has the card the FBI man gave me. Dad pats his coat pocket. I ask Dad if I can ride in the way-back, and he says, "Sure."
I'm lying on my stomach in the back of the station wagon. I clutch a wadded-up pillow to my chest and look out the back window as we pull away from Aunt Flo and Uncle Billy's house. They wave good -bye and I wave back. It seems strange not to have Alice standing there waving with them. Something else is missing, too, though it takes me a few seconds to figure out what it is.
It's Boo. He should be chasing after the car as we drive away.
I feel hollow and tears start to come. I lay my head on the pillow and listen to the tires kicking gravel into the wheel wells. The sound dies out when we reach the asphalt of the streets. Dad drives slowly through Meddersville. He hits the accelerator when he reaches the highway.
I go to sleep to the rocking of the car and the hum of the tires. When I wake up, Meddersville will be a million miles behind me.
Chapter Thirteen
IT'S BEEN TWENTY years since that summer. My parents and I returned to Meddersville a few times, never staying long. A pall of sadness fell over the town that never fully lifted. Nowhere was that pall felt more heavily than among our family, where it seemed to muffle every song that anyone might have been tempted to sing.
Uncle Billy was, on the surface, as jovial as ever, but sometimes I would catch him staring out a window with his hands clasped behind his back, or sitting in a chair, just sitting, a newspaper lying in his lap like a blanket. He would smile when he saw me and tell me how, if we had more time, we'd go fishing.
"Next time," I'd say. We both knew it was lie.
Aunt Flo seemed more determined than ever to soldier on. She seemed to treat Alice's disappearance as another in an endless series of trials she was put on earth to endure. I never thought of Aunt Flo as containing a spark until it was extinguished, but now that it was gone, I could see it plainly. I saw it in the painfulness of her movements, as if every action came at a great cost of energy and will.
Catherine and Sammy ran away to Kansas City briefly, but they came back, not as a couple. After a time, Catherine found someone else, married, had two kids, separated, divorced. She still lives in Meddersville. When Uncle Billy passed away, Catherine and the kids moved in with Flo in the family house.
They never saw Boo again. I imagine his corpse is out there in the hills somewhere, in his secret place with Alice's Skeeter Barnes baseball and all of his other treasures, including the statue with the grimacing face.
The disappearances—the murders—were never solved. No more children vanished, maybe due to heightened vigilance on the part of parents, or maybe because the killer moved away or died. Mrs. Nichols did both. She moved to Florida to be with her sister and soon thereafter died of cancer. Her daughter Lilian took over the nursing home. Or so they say.
My childish scenario holds water. Mrs. Nichols was a witch who stole the youth of my cousin and Perla Ingram and Martin Dale. Then she made herself young and returned masquerading as her own daughter. Simple fingerprints would prove or disprove my theory if anyone took it seriously enough to check, which no one ever has.
Looking back, I can't completely swallow it myself. I was a weird kid, and even normal kids have a problem distinguishing fact from
We eat in silence with the image hanging in the air of Aunt Flo and Uncle Billy living alone in this house with no kids . Alice's disappearance will make the place seem even emptier. Mom reaches out and pats Aunt Flo's hand. Then Aunt Flo goes out to the kitchen to get more ham, even though there's plenty still on the table.
After lunch we put my suitcases in the car. We say our good -byes. Mom tells Aunt Flo to call if she needs anything, anything at all, even just to talk. Uncle Billy asks Dad if he has the card the FBI man gave me. Dad pats his coat pocket. I ask Dad if I can ride in the way-back, and he says, "Sure."
I'm lying on my stomach in the back of the station wagon. I clutch a wadded-up pillow to my chest and look out the back window as we pull away from Aunt Flo and Uncle Billy's house. They wave good -bye and I wave back. It seems strange not to have Alice standing there waving with them. Something else is missing, too, though it takes me a few seconds to figure out what it is.
It's Boo. He should be chasing after the car as we drive away.
I feel hollow and tears start to come. I lay my head on the pillow and listen to the tires kicking gravel into the wheel wells. The sound dies out when we reach the asphalt of the streets. Dad drives slowly through Meddersville. He hits the accelerator when he reaches the highway.
I go to sleep to the rocking of the car and the hum of the tires. When I wake up, Meddersville will be a million miles behind me.
Chapter Thirteen
IT'S BEEN TWENTY years since that summer. My parents and I returned to Meddersville a few times, never staying long. A pall of sadness fell over the town that never fully lifted. Nowhere was that pall felt more heavily than among our family, where it seemed to muffle every song that anyone might have been tempted to sing.
Uncle Billy was, on the surface, as jovial as ever, but sometimes I would catch him staring out a window with his hands clasped behind his back, or sitting in a chair, just sitting, a newspaper lying in his lap like a blanket. He would smile when he saw me and tell me how, if we had more time, we'd go fishing.
"Next time," I'd say. We both knew it was lie.
Aunt Flo seemed more determined than ever to soldier on. She seemed to treat Alice's disappearance as another in an endless series of trials she was put on earth to endure. I never thought of Aunt Flo as containing a spark until it was extinguished, but now that it was gone, I could see it plainly. I saw it in the painfulness of her movements, as if every action came at a great cost of energy and will.
Catherine and Sammy ran away to Kansas City briefly, but they came back, not as a couple. After a time, Catherine found someone else, married, had two kids, separated, divorced. She still lives in Meddersville. When Uncle Billy passed away, Catherine and the kids moved in with Flo in the family house.
They never saw Boo again. I imagine his corpse is out there in the hills somewhere, in his secret place with Alice's Skeeter Barnes baseball and all of his other treasures, including the statue with the grimacing face.
The disappearances—the murders—were never solved. No more children vanished, maybe due to heightened vigilance on the part of parents, or maybe because the killer moved away or died. Mrs. Nichols did both. She moved to Florida to be with her sister and soon thereafter died of cancer. Her daughter Lilian took over the nursing home. Or so they say.
My childish scenario holds water. Mrs. Nichols was a witch who stole the youth of my cousin and Perla Ingram and Martin Dale. Then she made herself young and returned masquerading as her own daughter. Simple fingerprints would prove or disprove my theory if anyone took it seriously enough to check, which no one ever has.
Looking back, I can't completely swallow it myself. I was a weird kid, and even normal kids have a problem distinguishing fact from
Similar Books
