Echoes Between Us - McGarry, Katie Page 0,105
eyes are puffy, like she’s been crying, and my lips turn down.
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head, the way small children do when they are mad or in fear. I steady the hammock and sit, keeping my feet grounded so we don’t swing. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. We keep each other’s secrets, remember?”
Lucy combs her fingers through her doll’s hair then glances at the wide-open back door of the house. “I don’t like being alone in there.”
I remember feeling like that at her age. All the lights are on in her apartment and the back door hangs open. It’s my home, and while the second and third floors have a welcoming glow, I’ll admit there’s something sinister about how the dim light reflects from her part of the house. “Is your mom gone?”
She barely nods then holds her doll over her nose, eyes peeking through, as if hiding.
“Why didn’t you come upstairs? You know you can hang with me.”
Lucy raises the mermaid doll higher so I can no longer see her eyes. As if doing so has made her disappear. Bereft that I have no idea how to get through to her, I lean back in the hammock and watch the fading evening sky above. I suddenly have a ton of respect for Sawyer as I had no idea how much patience it must take to care for a six-year-old.
Movement, and Lucy snuggles next to me. Her head on my shoulder, her mermaid doll she still clutches now lying on my stomach. The evening is cold, her skin colder and I wonder how long she’s been out here alone.
I wrap an arm around her and try to rub some warmth back into her freezing body. Above us, dark clouds float past stars and I must be tired as I usually find joy in the night sky, but all I can think about is how warm it is upstairs.
“I saw you and Sawyer kiss,” Lucy finally says in a quiet voice.
“Does that bother you?” I ask.
She shakes her head against my arm. “He says you’re his girlfriend.”
“I am.”
“Mommy left.”
I go still, scared to even breathe. How her little voice shaking indicates this wasn’t a mom trusting her six-year-old to watch cartoons as she ran to the corner store for a few minutes. “Did she say anything to you when she left?”
“I think she forgot me.”
My throat thickens at her deep sorrow. “Maybe she didn’t,” I lie. “Sawyer texted me and told me to find you. Maybe she contacted him.”
Lucy lifts her head and there’s confusion there. “She said not to tell Sawyer, to stay in the apartment and she wouldn’t be gone long. But she’s been gone long so she must have forgot.”
“When did she leave?”
“After Sawyer left.”
Lucy shivers, and I’m done being patient. She needs to be under two pounds of blankets and have a gallon of hot cocoa in her stomach. “Well, Sawyer will be home soon, and in the meantime, I need help decorating my Christmas tree. So let’s go to my place.”
She shrinks against me. “I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t like it when Mommy yells.”
Well, I don’t want Lucy to die of exposure. “Everything will be okay.”
I stand from the hammock, and Lucy takes my offered hand. As I walk toward the first-floor apartment to shut the back door, there’s a sudden yank on my hand. I glance down and Lucy has dug her feet into the ground and she’s pulling hard on me. “Don’t go in there.”
“I’m just going to shut the back door so no bugs get in.” Or wandering robbers.
“Don’t!” Lucy snaps. “The monster is in there. He’s making Mommy worse.”
I convulse with her words and feel ice hardening my veins. “What monster?”
“The one that changes, the one that comes in the middle of the night.”
I don’t know a monster like this. “When exactly do you see this monster? How is he making your mom worse?”
She yanks so hard on my hand that she loses her grip and falls flat on her bottom. The cruel ground causing the air to rush out of her body. I crouch to help her, but she smacks my arm and the feverish look on her face causes me to flinch.
“The ghost there is bad!” she shouts. “So bad! He watches me! He watches me!”
My heart beats so furiously that it pounds in my ears. I glance at the first floor and the way the blinds are uneven in the window makes it