As we lift off the ground I gag, closing my eyes and waiting for the tipping feeling from the lack of ground beneath me to subside. It doesn’t, so I don’t open my eyes.
“You’re missing everything. It’s beautiful up here.”
I lift a thumb into the air, not speaking or opening my eyes at all.
“Chickenshit.”
I switch to my middle finger, still with my eyes closed. He chuckles, and the sound tugs at my heartstrings.
I don’t know how long we fly. I honestly don’t even sneak a single peek, but I am bored out of my mind when we do finally land. He shuts it off, shoving me lightly. “Wakey wakey!”
I shake my head. “Not sleeping, just counting forward and backward from a hundred repeatedly.”
“You still do that?”
“Guess so.” I don’t open my eyes until I hear the spinny part on the top stop moving. I have a fear of having my head chopped off too.
He’s standing on the grass across the yard with his arms folded when I climb out slowly. My legs tremble with each step, threatening to buckle completely. When they do, I land on my knees, gripping the grass and heaving my breath.
“What the fuck did he do to you?”
I shake my head. “Look, heights combined with a flimsy little helicopter is a completely normal fear.” I gag a little bit, burping some of the bagel I had earlier as I pass gas out the back end. “I don’t think my stomach is so good. We should stay here.”
“No. Get up or I’ll leave you here.”
I wince, shudder, and fart again. At least they’re silent and he’s across the grass.
“Can we go? Today? Please?”
I drag myself up, wiping my hands across my face to clear the sweat. “I want to drive back.”
“Not a chance.” He turns and starts walking through the swampy woods. I contemplate staying, but the place makes me uncomfortable so I get up and stalk after him.
I don’t even know where we are until I see the small house in the distance. This is my backyard from when I was little. As we pass a shell of what used to be a house I pause, turning toward it. It pulls me to it, capturing me in its tractor beam of magnetism. Something about this house haunts my very soul. I stop just short of the overgrown grass, looking at the collapsing walls and sunken-in roof. An image trickles through my head in flashes and flares, but not a distinct picture. “Leona Larson lived in this house.” The words are mine and they aren’t. I don’t know how I remember it all, and yet still don’t remember much. This thought is just there, like something I know. Like a fact.
I hear Rory walking on the grass, crunching on the dead yard. It’s all around us. No one has cared for this house or yard in a long time. I don’t think he’s close, and yet I continue to speak to him. “He liked her better than me. He was nice to her. He gave her treats and made me play outside. She was supposed to babysit me, but I always had to go outside.” The words join the wind in a sinister whisper. “I hated her.”
“What are you doing? Do you see something?” He’s so loud and in the present, but I’m stuck in the past. It’s almost black-and-white—it’s so old and discolored in my brain.
“He liked her better than me.” My ’Bama accent is so thick I can hardly understand myself. “He gave her ice cream and told her she was real pretty.”
“The Larson family?”
I turn. “You know of them?”
He looks completely confused. “Of course I do. They’re the family whose eldest daughter went missing first in the area. Her family was interviewed during the whole your dad turned out to be a monster affair. Her father was a witness in the trial. Said he saw him beating the shit outta ya in the yard a few times and that he suspected your father in the case of his missing daughter. Nothing was ever proven.”
I shake my head. “I don’t remember that or what happened exactly, but I swear she was there. She was the one my father tortured.”
“I think you’re confused—the file says you were at school, telling one of the teachers why you didn’t get your homework done.” He says it like he’s desperately trying to recall it all. “Yeah, you told the teacher, in great detail, I might add, about what happened to you. About how your dad was making movies so you couldn’t do your homework. It was fucked up. Anyway, when your dad went to jail, the Larson family moved away. The house has been abandoned for a long time. Same as your house. No one wants some house where a pedo hurt little kids.”
I step back as her name brings a realization forward. “He never hurt me.”