I didn’t reply.
She kept dancing until she was right in front of me. She still looked exactly as she had at the town picnic, in that pretty pink dress with her face scrubbed clean, hair in perfect ringlets. Forever twelve years old. Forever playing. Forever dancing.
“Join me,” she said.
She spun around me, her skirt billowing. “Join me. We’ll dance, and we’ll play, and you’ll be happy.”
“No,you’llbe happy.”
She only smiled. “I will. If you join me, I won’t be alone anymore. I hate being alone. It gets cold when you’re gone. Cold and dark.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just say?—”
She shrieked as a figure appeared at the clearing’s edge. I turned to see Tommy.
“I thought I told you not to come here,” he said.
I backed into the forest. “I just wanted?—”
“You knew I was coming over for dinner. You deliberately snuck out here to provoke me.”
“What? No. I forgot.”
“You forgot? That’s your excuse?”
I kept moving backwards, away from the clearing. Amelia screamed, but he couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t see her. He advanced on me, his face twisted with rage.
“I’m not sure what’s worse,” he said. “The fact that you forgot I was coming, or the fact you snuck out here behind my backbecauseyou forgot.”
“I’m s-sorry.”
He lunged and grabbed my arm. “You’re going to be my wife, and you still act like a child, running around the forest and talking to yourself.” He pulled me so close I smelled ale on his breath. “Or are you communing with the fairies?”
“Wh-what?”
He jerked his thumb at the clearing. “That’s a fairy glade. My gran told me about them. She told me about girls who commune with the fairies. Wicked girls.”
“N-no. I’m not?—”
He pulled me to him and hiked up my skirt, one sweaty hand on my thigh. “Are you a wicked girl?” he whispered in my ear. “Do you dance naked with the fairies?”
I scrambled away. He grabbed at me. I stumbled and fell on all fours. He dropped on me and flipped me over, and his hand dove under my skirt again.
“We’re almost married,” he said. “Then I can do whatever I like.” He smirked down at me. “So you might as well start getting used to it.”
I fell back, whimpering. He fumbled to push my skirt up. As soon as he looked away, I reached over my head and grabbed the stone I’d left there. I swung it against his head. It hit with a satisfying crunch. I’d heard that crunch before. On the dayAmelia Carter chased me here all the way from the town picnic. She chased me and grabbed me and told me that her father didnotcome to get his socks darned. She told me what he did do—that she’d seen it. She called my mother a whore. Called me one, too. I said I wasn’t the one who let Tommy Lyons kiss me behind the schoolhouse. That’s when she attacked me. I grabbed the rock and hit her on the head. I only meant to make her stop. That’s all I wanted. To get free and run away. But when the stone struck Amelia’s temple, she fell, and she didn’t get up again.
Tommydidget up. He tried, at least, dazed and blinking. I hit him harder, and I kept hitting him until he lay as still as Amelia had, all those years ago.
When I was sure he wouldn’t rise again, I returned to the clearing with the spade I’d hidden earlier. Amelia said nothing. She only watched as I dug. Then I dragged Tommy’s body to it, and she clapped in delight as I laid him in the hole.
There’sa ghost that plays in an empty glade, in the woods behind my house.
But she isn’t lonely anymore.
New Chicago
