The Creeping

I shove the panic down so that the hotcakes don’t find their way back up. I succeed in polishing off a second bite before Jeanie’s face flickers before me. With all the gore of last night, I forgot that I finally recovered a memory. Not that I’ve been sitting around waiting for the memories to be salvaged. There wasn’t a mash of severed silhouettes, or a jumbled sequence of events, or dialogue so garbled that it’s a foreign language, floating in my mind. My memory wasn’t just a featureless landscape, it was a black sea—liquid, shapeless, and azoic. I resigned myself to having lost those years, and I haven’t been crying about it. My idiot brain just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

The sight of Jeanie’s pale face, freckled from the summer sun, contorted in fear as blood so dark it’s black crawled down her forehead, doesn’t give me peace. Would it give her parents peace? Or Daniel? Doubtful. Her parents convinced themselves a long time ago that Jeanie either went painlessly or was growing up somewhere off in the horizon with a picture-perfect family who loved her. It was only ever Daniel who was eaten up by the wondering. That seems saner than hiding from the truth and pretending that the sky is full of rainbows and that child molesters don’t exist. I guess what made Daniel desperate and crazy was what made him saner than his parents. How unfair is that? Not for the first time, I feel a stab of pity for him.

So what would be the use of me telling the cops what I remember? Knowing that something or someone hit Jeanie’s head and that she peed her pants in terror wouldn’t help them solve the case. Anyway, I might be wrong. Even as I entertain the tempting thought, I don’t buy it.

Dad leans forward and taps me on the nose. “Earth to Stella. Did you hear me, Pumpkin? I said I have to go into the office today.” Worry twists his mouth, and his graying eyebrows nearly touch, they’re so drawn.

I shake the jumble from my head. “Sure, Dad. No worries.”

“You’ll be okay here? You could always come into the office with me. I’m sure we could find an empty desk and a computer for you to mess around on.”

“I’ll be completely, totally, utterly fine.” I nod to emphasize my point. “I’m sure Zo will come over.”

He clears the plates from the coffee table and carries them clanking to the kitchen. “All right, but call if you need anything. Remember that the police will handle this and that you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m sure your mother would like to hear from you.” I roll my eyes. If she wanted to hear from me, wouldn’t she just . . . oh, I don’t know . . . call? A minute later he waves from the front door, leather briefcase in one hand, a coffee mug in the other that still has my mother’s lipstick staining the rim. No matter how many times I run it through the dishwasher, I can’t erase the red traces of her. Despite them, or maybe because of them, Dad has sipped his coffee from that mug every morning for five years.

I stay curled on the carpet in front of the TV, legs drawn up to my chest, as I text Zoey. I hit send as a female newscaster with a velvety drawl interrupts Mr. Oompa Loompa’s interview.

“This just in,” she buzzes excitedly, her shellacked blond curls frozen in place like a helmet. “The county coroner has confirmed that Jane Doe has been dead no more than thirty-six hours. Cause of death is trauma to the head. Medical experts estimate Jane Doe to be between five and six years old. Please be advised that the picture we are about to show is of a graphic nature, but in an effort to identify this little girl, we have decided to broadcast it.” The feed to the blonde is cut, leaving only a photograph taken by the coroner.

The girl’s eyes are closed and her skin is pale. She lies on a sterile stainless-steel table, her body covered by a papery blue sheet. Her hair is damp, arranged so it covers the wound that severed her scalp from her head, but the red locks are unmistakable. She looks exactly like Jeanie. I jump to my feet but only have time to reach the kitchen before I retch my two bites of breakfast into the sink.





Chapter Five


I’m clean and dressed a minute before Detective Shane pounds on our front door. I used up all the house’s hot water cowering on the slick tile floor of the shower, trying to flush the similarities between Jeanie and Jane Doe from my mind. Coincidence. I say it over and over, hoping to drum it into the universe, hoping to make it true.

“Morning, Stella,” Shane says as I swing the front door open wide and step back for him. “Your dad said he’d be at work this morning. He already take off?”

“A little while ago.”

He follows me to the living room, where I curl in the corner of our large floral couch. It’s one Mom bought the year she left. She used to say the flowers looked like birds that were trying to escape through the window. I thought that sounded like a fairy tale at the time. Now I think I should have taken the hint. She was looking for her own escape from us. I keep meaning to make Dad replace it, but he never has time to shop for a new one.

“How you doing this morning? Sleep any?” he asks, folding his long limbs into Dad’s leather recliner.