Wake the Hollow Page 17

  I've invested so much in you.

  I know…

  His words might comfort me if his voice didn’t sound so twisted, manic, as if I wronged him. Like he’s not Bram at all. I’ve had dreams like this before, where the person I’m seeing has an identity belonging to someone else.

  It’s a dream, I remind myself. Anything can happen.

  My father–Bram hybrid steps out of the shadows on a mission. In his right hand, he holds something. A shovel? Old, rusted, and black.

  Bram…Dad…you’re scaring me. Please stop.

  He reaches me and grabs my wrists tightly with one strong hand. I feel his warm breath on my cheek. No one takes what's mine. He squeezes my wrists until I cry out, until my circulation is cut and I no longer feel my hands. Nobody.

  I twist my wrists to set them free. Let go of me! I yell.

  Nobody can take me away from you.

  He means me. Yes, of course he does. Why is he so angry? Because of Dane? Angry, like my father had been on the only night I’ve ever seen him enraged, the night I hid in the pantry, listening in on his jealous tirade.

  Please let go of me. You’re hurting me. This is crazy!

  You’re not crazy, Betty Anne’s words echo, as Dad–Bram releases his hold on me and shoves me back onto the ground. You’re home. For a flickering second, Shelley’s ghost stands in the garden, longing to help but powerless.

  Bram’s look-alike lifts his other hand and brings it down with such force, I brace for the blow. But my eyes shoot open. I sit up screaming, realizing I’m still in Betty Anne’s spare room, not a garden. Lightning flashes against the walls, the old TV, the pictures in frames everywhere bathed in electric white light.

  “Jesus.” I try regulating my breath back to even, but the lightning flashes again, and this time, in the second it takes for the room to light up, I see a woman in a white nightdress standing at the foot of my bed.

  I take in the full horrific sight. Messy hair over her face and shoulders, chin hanging. She doesn’t speak—or can’t—though it seems like she wants to from the mournful look in her dark eyes. She should still be alive, should still be here to make amends with me.

  “Mami,” I say, a single sigh suspended between us.

  I have a million questions for her, about the journal, about my father, about why she wanted me home, but the first thing that comes flying out of my mouth is, “Mami, I’m sorry. I was unfair to you. I should have stuck with you no matter what. But you didn’t tell me what was going on. I didn’t know.” I cover my face with my hands and weep. She deserved the benefit of the doubt, and I never gave it to her.

  ...not your fault...

  I uncover my face, realizing the mistake it is to look away, knowing she might not be there again when I look twice. But she’s still here, gliding out the door, feet and legs bone white, nightdress trailing her knees. The outline of her body, the curve of her breasts, beautiful shape visible through the fabric.

  I shoot out of bed. The wraith floats down the hall and out of the house through the door without even opening it. In awe, I watch her and unlock the door, stepping into a whirlwind of wind and leaves, electric light and cold air. “Where are we going?” I watch my mother’s spirit float into the street and turn. “Your house?”

  She looks over her shoulder disapprovingly, hair shifting down her back. I realize my mistake. “Home?” I notice the darkness behind her ear, the crusted patch of dark blood. Blunt trauma to the head.

  “Was it an accident? Please tell me. I need to know.”

  She doesn’t answer. Just leads me down Maple Street past our little gray house with the overgrown grass, the place I once loved, where dreams dried up and withered, past the barking dog on the corner, right and up North Broadway.

  “Back to the cemetery?” I grow colder without my sweater, or shoes for that matter. My knee hurts. Another walk to the cemetery in this condition just might set its healing back to square one.

  No.

  “So you can talk to me?”

  Not both.

  I understand. Until now, I’ve always heard my mother’s voice without seeing her. But now she’s visible with few words. She must have enough energy for one or the other—to be seen or heard—not both. She hasn’t had enough time to learn the astral ways, as Betty Anne explained.

  What if this is the last time I ever see her? I have to ask the right questions. “Everyone thinks you stole that journal. Did you? Is that the business you wanted me to finish, why you sent me that note? Just say yes or no.”

  She’s preoccupied with her mission of leading me down the street.

  “Mami, please, I’m not good at guessing games. You have to tell me what to do. Just tell me.” I start crying again.

  If she hears me, she gives no indication, just glides past the porches with turned-off jack-o-lanterns and white cheesecloth ghosts fluttering around in the wind. Her apparition is starting to lose strength. One moment, her legs are made of light, wispy, dissipating smoke. The next, her whole body turns to miniscule dots of swirling bluish light, and I’m walking alone down the sloping street.

  “No! Don’t leave me here like this. You have to answer at least one question, Mami, please!” I cover my face, shaking my head. “No, no, no.” I wonder if I should sit and wait for her to materialize again.

  But then, she reappears a moment later, like frames on old black-and-white film, to reach out her hand toward the west side of the street.

  “What is it?” I follow her to a squat abandoned building that looks a lot like the Hardee’s that used to be there when I was little. Now it’s an empty shell with nothing but an old parking lot and garbage dumpster next to it. “What are you showing me?”

  Is the journal there? Is that what this is all about? Mami’s spirit begins fading, her shape dissipating into tiny dots of swirling light again. “Don’t you leave! Tell me what I’m supposed to do. Tell me!” But the blue dots swirl faster until they blink out, and a tiny starburst of light ends it all.

  “Come back here!” I yell, flailing my arms. “I don’t believe this!” I close my eyes and try opening myself up to the other side again, inviting the voices and visions back in, but she’s gone—faded, like the last warm day of a bitter autumn.

  “Where am I?” An insane asylum would be as good a place as any. I cross the parking lot and walk up to the building, placing my hands against the dark window to look inside. Hardee’s has been mostly gutted, only a few planks of pressed wood lying on the dusty floor.

  ...dumpster...

  “What?” But I heard her clearly.

  Pulling away from the window, I peer at the metal garbage container nestled in the shadowy corner of the parking lot. Something in it calls to me. It’s rusted and partially covered with tree roots cracking apart the asphalt it sits on. The more I look at it, the more I don’t want to approach it, but it dares me.

  Slowly, I walk toward it. I wish I had a shovel or bat, an implement to swat with in case something charges at me. My breath is choppy and sounds annoyingly weak in my ears. Stay calm.

  I stop a few feet away. This is not smart. I really should return some other time with Betty Anne and a flashlight. No, I’m not coming back here again, so I better get it over with now.

  I force myself forward and notice it doesn’t smell like other dumpsters. Good sign. In fact, it doesn’t smell at all, and when I lift the lid and peek inside, emptiness stares back at me. I crane my neck over the edge for a better look. Except for a knotted-up grocery bag against the front wall, it’s empty.

  “What about this?” I ask. I pull my head back, and I pause—the bag—and lean in again. It’s too far to reach, so I set down the heavy metal lid and circle the dumpster to rifle through the tree’s droppings, finding a nice, long branch among the fallen foliage.

  Lifting the lid again, I reach as far as I can with the branch on my tiptoes, sliding the end of it into one of the knotted loops and pulling the bag up. It feels light, another good sign that I
’m not hoisting up a rotting animal or discarded head. The dumpster closes with a loud clang.

  I throw the stick on the ground and begin unknotting the plastic, but when it doesn’t loosen fast enough, I abandon all practicality and rip a hole in it. What I find crumpled inside is quite common—a well-worn, white cotton T-shirt, extra-large.

  What I find spattered along the bottom edge of it—not quite as ordinary.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight.”

  “I spoke with the school counselor.”

  I peer at Betty Anne through crusty, slitted eyelids.

  “I told her you’ve been through a lot this last month, having lost your mother and all, and you needed to take care of her estate, so they’re letting you complete your work at home.”

  I rub sleep out of my eyes. “When did you go?” But Dane…I need to see him again.

  “This morning. They’re only letting you home-school for a few months. Then you have to go back if you want to graduate on time.”

  “Man…thanks, Betty Anne.” I really owe her.

  She starts asking me a hundred questions—what flavor yogurt do I like best, which brand of coffee do I drink, which bread—white or whole wheat—would I like for my sandwiches. I can tell she’s happy to take care of someone again. “Be back in a bit.”

  Once she leaves, I rip off the blanket and notice my feet. Filthy. I didn’t dream it. I remove the tattered plastic bag from under the bed and stare inside.

  A dull white T-shirt with spattered bloodstains along the hem. Spattered—sent flying through the air. Not spilled, not pooled. Last night, Mami showed me, confirmed what I’ve felt from the very beginning—her death was no accident. Now I feel terrible knowing I made her rise from the ground to come and spell things out for me, because I’ve been too naive to put it together myself.

  But whose shirt is it? Looks like a man’s. A washed-a-thousand-times undershirt can be anybody’s. I get dressed, stuff the plastic-wrapped shirt inside my backpack, and head out.

  ...

  Word Puzzle Girl is at her desk again, chewing on her pencil and looking mildly surprised to see me. In the back, outside an office door, a man in his thirties wearing a buttoned shirt talks loudly about a football game with an older man in a sweater vest who seems cornered and whose eyes flit between me and the guy talking about extra points and overtime.

  “Can I help you?” Word Puzzle Girl’s lazy eyes are bored with me already.

  Demand answers. This is my mother—my dead mother—who no one seems to care about. “Did you ever give anyone my message that I was here two weeks ago?”

  “I gave it to Officer Stanton. Didn’t he call you?”

  “No. Is he here?”

  The older man enduring the younger man’s verbal barrage looks at me again.

  “I’ll check.” Word Puzzle Girl uncrosses her legs from her swivel chair and sashays between the cubicles in her plaid wool skirt. I watch as she quietly speaks to the two men, nods, and goes into the younger man’s office to sit and talk. The older man comes out to the counter.

  “Good morning, what can I do for you?” He grins politely but is clearly irked, as though he has better things to do.

  “Officer Stanton?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you. I’d like to talk to you about my mother, Maria Burgos. 150 Maple Street. She was found in her bathtub back in Aug—”

  “Yes, I know who Maria Burgos is. You’re her daughter?” He looks at me from top to bottom. “This way.” I follow him into his office. Officer Stanton sits behind his desk and closes a trivia quiz on his computer screen. Does anyone work around here? “Close the door,” he says. I softly shut the door. He leans back in his chair to reach for a pile of folders on a table behind him, plucking a thin one out near the top of the stack. “Now, what is it you need from me?” he asks curtly, checking the name on the folder’s tab.

  I sit down and prop my backpack between my feet. Don’t let him dismiss you. “A lot of things, actually. Which is why I left you a million messages to please call me.”

  “I only got three.” He eyes me impatiently. So he did hear them? And just conveniently forgot to call me? “Sorry about that. Messages sometimes get lost in the shuffle here.” He tries his brand of bullshit out on me, but I’m not having it.

  “I’ve needed help,” I say, betting he forgot that being a police officer means serving the people. “I have lots of questions.”

  “Right.” He taps his pen on the table. “Why don’t you start with one, and I’ll see if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  I clear my throat. “I came here before because my mother died this summer, and I wasn’t here at the time. I’m her next of kin, yet no one has contacted me about her house, her belongings, or anything.” I’m rambling, but hopefully the desperation in my voice will prompt him to do more than just sit there with that smug look on his face. “Where is everything? What do I have to do to get her things?”

  Officer Stanton opens the file, quietly flips through some papers. “What things do you want?”

  “What do you mean?” What business is it of his what things I want? They’re my mother’s belongings—now mine—that’s all he needs to know. “Everything. Her furniture, her clothes…I mean, where is everything?”

  “Storage.” He puts down the file.

  “Great. Then…where’s the key for that? I need the key to her house, too. Doesn’t it belong to me now?”

  “Miss Burgos,” he interrupts without answering. “Didn’t your mother leave a will?”

  “If she did, wouldn’t I know by now?” I hear the frustration rising in my voice. “I mean, it’s been almost two months.”

  “I don’t know. Who’s her lawyer?”

  I feel my blood boiling. I scoot to the edge of my seat. “You’re the police. Doesn’t your file there tell you everything? If I knew about a will and her lawyer, would I be here asking you for help?” I smack the edge of his desk.

  His eyelids fall to half mast. “Okay, relax.” He opens the file again, checking something. He nods, closes it again, opens his hands in resignation. “I’m just a little surprised that you’re here.”

  “Why? What is so surprising about her daughter being here?”

  “Because according to this report, you’re not next of kin.” His countenance displays both his disdain and impatience. And truth to say, he’s totally mocking me and reveling in my stunned silence.

  “That’s impossible,” I say.

  “I assure you it’s not.”

  “But I’m her only child.”

  “But you’re not her husband.”

  I almost laugh in his face. How lame a police department is this that their information is so outdated? “My parents divorced years ago.” Did she remarry?

  “Miss, the house is in Jay Burgos’s name. He plans on selling it, even though, if you ask me, he’s not going to get much for it right now, but hey, desperate times. He also rented the storage unit everything was moved to.”

  “But…that’s a mistake. They’re divorced.”

  He looks at his file again. “Estranged. Separated. Not divorced,” he says, throwing the words into the vast expanse between us and watching them land like dice on one of those casino craps tables.

  I can’t reply. All I can do is think back, try to recall a time when my father might’ve said that he and Mami were officially divorced. I thought that he said so, but then again, maybe I just assumed they were? They were estranged?

  “Miss Burgos?” Officer Stanton leans back in his chair and drums his fingers on the armrests. He’s so done with me.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

  He sighs and purses his lips. “Call your father,” he says, tapping the edge of the file against his desk. “He would have the keys to the house and the storage facility. Then you can
find whatever it is you’re looking for. Is there something else?”

  Something about his smirk and tone, or maybe because I’m so open and vulnerable right now, tells me he’s talking about the journal. He knows about it. Of course he does. Everyone knows about it. According to some, I know where it is and I’m here to claim it, to cash in on it just as much as everybody else, even though clearly I don’t need the money.

  I think of my debit card declining at the store last week, how our water and power were cut, and how Nina said she didn’t get paid enough. Or do I? “No, that’s it. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “Not a problem.” Facetious smile from ear to ear.

  I stand. I have to get out of this negative, accusing atmosphere, but then I remember the other reason I came. “There’s something else…” I pull out the plastic bag containing the bloodstained T-shirt. “I found this. It belongs to whoever killed her.”

  Officer Stanton’s eyebrows raise. He gives a short chuckle. “What makes you think your mother was murdered? She slipped and fell in her own bathroom.”

  “Because my mother didn’t slip.” I glare at him. No one will ever understand how I get my information. My mother told me herself. She came from the grave and showed me. “She just didn’t.”

  He doesn’t hold out his hand or offer to take a look at my evidence, just stares at my face, his brown eyes holding steady on mine. “Leave it there,” he says, nodding to the edge of the desk. “I’ll have someone properly collect it. Where did you get it?”

  I went over this a thousand times on the walk over—where I found it, what I was doing rummaging through a garbage receptacle at an abandoned fast food restaurant—but I can’t tell him all that without seeming suspicious. In the end, I decide on the truth. “I found it on North Broadway and Hemlock Drive, just north of the cemetery.”

  “The old Hardee’s?” A slow smile spreads on his face, as well as an urge in me to lunge at him for his condescending manner, but instead, I un-crumple the shirt on his desk and point to the dried bloodstains. He smirks. “What makes you think a shirt you found so far removed from the scene belongs to a killer you don’t even know actually exists?”