“Your mother’s okay,” Dad said.
“I barely had a mother, remember? Pictures and stories, that’s all I got, and I don’t have much more of a father.”
Ouch. The words hurt to say them, but they felt good in a way, because they were honest. Digger was more of a fictional character these days than a human being. If only she could erase him like she could Mom.
The verbal slap seemed to pull Wayne back to Planet Earth. “I saw your mother.”
A quiet “Wacaroni” was all she could manage.
His face was earnest, eyes shifting from dull gray to a bright green. “She was standing right there in the corner and she...and she….”
His pointing finger lowered. “She said your name.”
“Mine? Like, she’s dead, she jumped the shark on me when I was barely out of kindergarten, and now she cares?”
She’d said the words louder than she’d meant to, and they rattled off the flat walls of the room and gave an echo among the bathroom tiles. The force behind them was driven by fear as much as anger, because she’d found ways to push Dad’s buttons over the years, through careful trial and error. But now he appeared beyond control, ready for a shrink and a rubber room.
Dad didn’t believe in ghosts. Dad barely believed in Dad.
“Man, you two must have been the perfect couple,” she said.
“No, but we made the perfect child,” he said, fumbling at his hip for his walkie talkie.
“Dad, there’s nothing here,” she said. “There never was.”
“I made a promise,” he said.
“When have you ever kept a promise? How many times was the Tooth Fairy three days late? How many times was I the only kid whose parent didn’t show up for the soccer game?”
“Kendra, this isn’t the time to—”
“I know. It never is. There’s always ‘one day.’ In case you didn’t notice, I’ve got boobs and all my permanent teeth and a driver’s permit and ‘one day’ I’m going to be packing my stuff and heading for art school. And a year later you’ll be sitting there wondering where what’s-her-name went.”
Wayne held the walkie talkie in front of him, thumb resting on the “send” button. “She’s here.”
He brushed past her, lifting the walkie talkie to his mouth. Kendra reached out and slapped at it, knocking it onto the floor. The case cracked open and the batteries tumbled across the carpet.
Her heart fluttered with rage, but a ball of ice lodged in her belly. Dad had never hit her, never even really spanked her, but once in a while he exploded over the smallest thing. And now she was just like him, a character in her own comic book.
Not Emily Dee, not a hero. Just The Digger’s Daughter. A loser.
She looked at her right hand, the one that had drawn reams and reams of goofy mice, fanged fairies, satirical superduperheroes, and even a few sly caricatures of Digger himself. Despite all Mom’s guidance, maybe this was the hand’s true purpose—not to create, but to destroy.
“She told me to get you out of here,” Wayne said, falling back into space-cadet mode.
“She’s dead,” Kendra said, her voice quavering.
“She came back.”
“Where?” Kendra flung up her arms to indicate the shabby elegance of the dark room. “Where?”
“Here.”
“Here is nowhere, Dad. Why should she come back to this dump, of all places? Why couldn’t she show up for my eighth-grade graduation or when I won my red ribbon in the Smart Art contest? Pierced ears and first period? When I got my skateboard scar? I guess I should be glad she bothered to show up for my birth.”
“You were born here.”
“Jesus in butter toast. I was born in Charlotte, remember? Unless I was abandoned by gypsies or dropped by a UFO.” Her hand still trembled, so she wrapped it into a fist, but that was even scarier because it felt good.
“This is where we made you. We weren’t trying or anything, it just happened.”
“Dad, you’re scaring me.” And, Mom, if you can hear me, YOU’RE scaring me, too.
“On our honeymoon. Here. In this room.”
“Too much information.” She didn’t want to think about her parents making out, but she wondered why Dad was so sure this was the place. When Cassie, the trailer-park chick at middle school, started swelling in the belly at age 13, she’d told her classmates that “a woman knew.” But she doubted if the man ever knew.
“In a weird way, this is where we all started. The three of us. And now we’re all together again.”
“Except the part where Mom’s dead. I’m worried about you, Digger.”
He stooped and gathered the walkie talkie batteries. As he did, the shadow behind him seemed a little slow in shifting. But the room was dark, she was jumpy, and she didn’t trust her senses right now. Especially the faint aroma of smoke and the soft, slithery sounds coming from the corners of the room.
Wayne pressed the button on the reassembled walkie talkie. “Digger here. We got activity in 218.”
The speaker spat static and Burton’s voice came through in broken bits. “...problem...control room...equipment on the fritz....”
“On my way,” Wayne said. He looked at her. “Come on.”
“Be there in a minute.” She wanted to prove she didn’t need him. She could stand on her own, tough it out, take his best shot. I ain’t afraida no ghost.
“She’s here,” Wayne said, and then he was gone, as elusive as any wayward spirit.
He left the door open, but the entering light did little to repel the gathering gloom. If only she had her sketch pad, her shield, her greatest weapon. Doodle Girl, saving the world one sketch at a time. Saving herself.
“Okay, room,” she said aloud, startled by the sudden shattering of the silence. She addressed the room because she didn’t want to address her mother. Her mother was only an idea at this point, a memory. A dream of a warm, loving lap, crayons, and laughs. Nothing you could hug when the night grew deep and cold or you scabbed your ankle or freaked out after taking your first puff of grass.
They always leave you with nothing.
“Whaddya got?” she said.
Meaning: Mom, I’d get really freaked out if you’re here.
Sounds came from the hallway, and they were the normal chatter of a ghost-hunting group, complaints about logistics and equipment failure. Kendra wasn’t brave enough to close the door, because then she’d be alone with—
Alone with her thoughts, and no pen and paper to hide behind.
“Mom, where are you?”
“Hey,” someone whispered.
She jumped, though the whisper sounded real enough.
“Who’s there?”
“Me,” said the boy, and Bruce stepped from the shadows.
“How long have you been here?” she said, hiding the quaver in her voice. For just a heartbeat, she’d hoped—or feared—it had been her mother after all.
“Not long,” he said.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Daddy doesn’t know where I am.” The boy’s head hung down and his skin was sallow in the weak light.
“You overheard our argument, didn’t you? Is that what you do, sneak around and spy on people?”
“No, just bored.”
“Well, go be bored somewhere else.”
“You mom’s gone.”
“That’s what I figured. But it’s not any business of yours.”
“Hey, look, 218 is open,” said someone in the hall.
Bruce moved with startling speed and slammed the door. The room was now almost fully dark, lit only by light from the lampposts below.
She couldn’t discern the boy’s outline, so she shouted in the direction of the door. “What did you do that for, twerp?”
He giggled as if playing a game. Someone pounded on the door from outside.
Kendra moved across the carpet, bumping her shin on the coffee table. She bit back a curse and continued to the door, feeling her way in front of her. Voices from outside the door expressed annoyance:
“It’s locked. We’re supposed to hunt here.”
“This is the worst-organized paracon I’ve ever attended.”