up at the windows of my old bedroom. He’s been here several times over the years. I thought he was another thrill-seeking ghost-hunter. But he’s not. He’s been looking for me.
“Mackenzie?” Eli pleads. “I promise, I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want. But can’t you just tell me if you’re okay? Are you in danger? Is it your dad? Is that why you won’t talk to me?”
I want to tell him everything. And it’s that wanting that gives me pause. Because I don’t know this guy, but he feels so familiar to me, so safe. I want to trust Eli, and that’s dangerous.
“Go away.” I slam the window shut, palming the bottle as I head back downstairs. I am going to need it.
15
Mackenzie
I watch from the ballroom window as Eli pushes lawn furniture against the wall and clambers up. His shoulder muscles heave with the effort of pulling himself over, and he’s not the only one hot and bothered by the end of it. I contemplate going out there and offering him a drink just as he disappears over the other side.
Instead, I chug the entire bottle of New Zealand’s finest vintage while I tear my old room apart. I rip the heads off all the creepy dolls and poke around inside their stuffing. I stab at the wooden cupboards with the knife Antony gave me for my tenth birthday, looking for hidden compartments. Finally, I take the knife to the expensive mattress, tearing away strips of foam and sending springs flying in all directions.
Finally, I find it.
I’d hidden it well, shoved into the bunting on my headboard through a cut I hid behind a fold of fabric. No wonder I missed it during my last search. I wrap my hands around the tiny notebook and tug it free, holding it under the light as I inspect the cover.
It’s pretty nondescript as far as notebooks go – the cover decorated with watercolor flowers, a dent across the corner, and several pages crinkled from being constantly handled. I grasp it in shaking hands, knowing without knowing that I’m holding the key to unlocking the secrets of my life before, of memories that don’t feel like they belong to me.
I crack the front page and begin to read:
Happy eighth birthday to me! Eli got me this diary. He slipped it into my bookbag when no one else was looking. His note says I should use it to tell the truth, because I never get to tell the truth any other time. I think it’s dumb because no one will ever read this. I have to keep it secret or Daddy will be upset with me. But maybe Eli will read it. Maybe I’ll say nice things about him here, just in case.
Mommy and Daddy gave me a new doll for my birthday. She has a porcelain face and beautiful long fingers and a dress with pink ribbons. They took me out to a fancy dinner at an Italian place on the boardwalk. I accidentally knocked over my glass, so Daddy refused to let me order a meal. I watched him and Mommy eat and drink and enjoy slices of pink birthday cake all to themselves.
The next entry starts with:
Some workers came to empty the pool and repair the tiles today. Mommy caught me talking to one of them. He was just asking me about my dolls, but Mommy made me sit on the bottom of the pool while she sprayed me with the hose. She made me stay down there until it was dark. My fingers are so cold I keep dropping the pen.
Fuck. That’s dark.
I turn the page. With every word I read, a ball of bile forms in my stomach and rises into my mouth. What I describe in my childish scribble is pages and pages of neglect and torture. My father burning my elbows on the stovetop because I didn’t keep them off the table during dinner. My mother forcing me to eat rotting, rancid meat in my sandwiches because she said my fancy school cost them so much money. And all of it recorded in my halting, eight-year-old hand, just lists of things that happened, like it’s completely normal for parents to burn your fucking elbows.
I rub my elbows as I read this litany of horrors with a strange detachment. It doesn’t feel real. These things happened to someone else. Not me. Someone else.
Daddy says I’m too soft, he says I need to be tough if