Easter Bunny.
The inventor of the tambourine.
Trevor the lawyer.
I forced myself to write something serious. I couldn’t see how it would be him, but let’s face it, he was more likely than the Pope.
A teacher.
The worst house mother.
Now we were getting somewhere. What was her name again?
Miss Lissy.
The image of an overweight woman sitting on my chest and cackling as I stared at her in terror clawed its way out of the vault and played like a film reel in my mind.
Next, who else knew me and also knew I was placed in the children’s home? The next name I wrote wasDad.
June.Stupid, I know.
Some government officials that felt guilty.But why me out of everyone else that went there?
Another child who went there.But I didn’t have any friends at Bellamy House. I stuck with June as solidly as the strict no-contact rules allowed. I didn’t have any enemies either. Except for the adults, and their hatred seemed evenly spread amongst us. Then another memory escaped from the vault like a note floating on the wind.
The sound of the door closing. My relief. Someone else’s screaming.
The nightmare I’d had several times a week since the death of my brother. Although they weren’t related.
Olivia.
I wrote her name. Then immediately wanted to scrub it out so I wouldn’t have to see her made real on the page.
Trevor, Miss Lissy, Dad, Olivia. Not a bad starting point.
A shifting shadow under the door caught my eye, and I pulled out my headphones.
“Breeze?” I called.
No reply. Something about the silence raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
A prickle spread across my armpits. Slowly, I reached for the doorknob and turned it.
Nothing there.
At eye level, anyway.
Then something scuttled over my socked feet and I screamed, jumping back onto the creaky single bed.
Adulting skills: zero.
Scary critter: one.
A filled-roll-sized dog looked up at me with large brown eyes. Her white fur was wiry, and the way her back legs hopped towards me showed her age.
“Ah, hello,” I said, not really accustomed to introducing myself to animals.
