How cruel wishes can be.
I laid down on my bed, closed my tear-filled eyes, still clinging to my sister’s journal entry.
I wished to have Jax back.
I opened my eyes to discover that it was nearly dark. Reaching for my phone to see what time it was, I saw it was still dead.
It wasn’t even plugged in anymore.
The house phone was ringing. I sat up, listened, wondering if myfather and aunt had come back, waiting for one of them to pick up the phone. It stopped ringing. The house was silent. “Ted?” I called out. “Diane?”
I heard tapping on the other side of the wall.
I tapped back.
Then, realizing that the noise wasn’t part of my dream, I bolted upright, raced down the hall to the room next door, Lexie’s old room, where my father had been staying. The room was empty of course. Well, not quite empty. Pig was there, curled up in the center of the bed, purring.
“Did you do that, Pig?” A ridiculous question. He stared at me knowingly, eyes glowing in the dim light.
I sat down on the bed and scratched the cat behind his ears. There was the tapping on the wall again, this time from my room. I put my ear against the wall. Heard Lexie’s voice come through it, muffled, but still clear.
“Ready or not, here I come.”
I went back into my bedroom and I swore I could feel her there. Her image gazed back at me from the painting, taunting:Catch me if you can.
I walked out into the hall, listening for more taps, footsteps, anything.
And therewassomething, downstairs.
Someone was at the front door. I heard the knob rattle. The whole house was quiet, seemed to be holding its breath just as I was, waiting, listening. Suddenly, the door clicked open, and I heard footsteps in the entryway.
I shouted, “Lex?” down the stairs.
“Hello?” Aunt Diane called up. “You here, Jackie?”
Light-headed but relieved, I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Up here,” I called, making my way down the hallway to the stairs. “Where were you guys?”
“Looking everywhere for you! We were worried sick,” Diane said. “You snuck off without saying anything!”
My father added, “We’ve been all over town!”
“You weren’t answering your phone. We were looking for a wrecked yellow car in all the ditches! We heard you went to see Shirley?”
I nodded. “I saw Shirley, then came right back here. My phone battery’s been dead. I’m sorry if I worried you.”
Diane stared at me. “Well, we’re all here now, and I, for one, am starving. Let’s go get that pasta on.” She was already heading for the kitchen.
My father mumbled, “Good idea,” and followed Diane. I joined them, my eyes bleary and my head aching. The codeine made the world seem dull, fuzzy. My father got down a big pot and brought it to the sink to fill with water. Diane flipped the light switch on the kitchen wall. Nothing happened. She tried it again, irritated. Click, click, click. “I thought you replaced all the light bulbs,” she said, her tone accusatory.
“I did,” I told her, checking the fixture over the sink.
The bulbs were gone.
I got on a kitchen chair and checked the ceiling fixture and discovered the same thing. A very bad feeling wormed its way from my head down my spine, settling in my guts.
“They’re gone,” I said. “All the light bulbs have been taken out.”
“Screw the teetotaling,” Diane said. “I’m making a drink.”
