“Shit,” Catherine whispered. “I forgot.”
“Not surprised,” Amy muttered, shuffling through her notes.
Principal Koppersmith came over the loud speaker for the morning announcements as Jameson collected the assignments.
When he reached Amy’s row and grabbed the stack of papers she wondered what he would think of her criticism of “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.” As she did with all classics of American literature, she tore it to shreds like a psychopath in a bad horror flick.
“All right.” Jameson laid the stack of papers down on his desk. “We’re going to finish our discussion on the works of Robert Frost. Only this time we’re going to look at one of his lesser-known pieces. It’s titled ‘The Witch of Coӧs’ and can be found on page thirty-three.”
Amy turned to the poem indicated and began reading:
“So suddenly I flung the door wide on him. / A moment he stood balancing with emotion, and all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire / flashed out and licked his upper teeth. / Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.) / Then he came for me with one hand / outstretched, / the way he did in life once…”
A shiver scuttled down her spine and sent prickles of gooseflesh over her arms. She recalled how her father watched her this morning as he stood beneath the carport, with smoke hanging around his face. She remembered how he licked his lips.
“Miss Snow?”
In her mind’s eye, the hand of the Nightmare Man reached for her as he had in her night terrors. The Nightmare Man had her father’s face.
I’m here to collect.
“Miss Snow?”
From a distant memory, she heard the shrill, accusing voice of Jane Barrett, wail:
Why can’t you all see what’s obvious? It’s a cover up! He killed my Ellen!
Amy didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want the accusation in her head. But thanks to the Barretts, it was already there, planted deep in her brain like a splinter.
The Nightmare Man
could
be her father.
“Miss Snow!”
Amy jerked her head up. “Yes?”
“Wake up,” Jameson said, looming bird-like above her. “And answer the question.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Could you repeat the question?”
A long stretch of silence weighed on Amy like a heavy set of chains before Jameson said, “in the future, Miss Snow, might I suggest that you not drift off to never-never land while I’m lecturing. It is unbecoming.”
“Sure,” she said, as all heads in the classroom turned her way.
~
At lunch, Amy met her friends at the picnic table beneath the looming magnolia tree at the heart of the courtyard.
Sitting by Catherine was her boyfriend Michael Knight, who wore a long black trench coat with his greasy mop of black hair swept away from his pale and emaciated face. Seated across from them was Layne Hardy who wore a brown leather jacket, a white polo shirt, and gray slacks. Amy sat down next to him.
“How was that calculus test?” Amy asked, ruffling Layne’s curly patch of shaggy, strawberry-blond hair.
“Sucked,” Layne answered, biting into a sandwich.
“Did you study at all or just screw around on the guitar?”
A smirk as sharp as a reaper’s blade cut along Layne’s long, elfish face. “Screwed around.”
Amy shook her head and opened her lunch bag. “Then you don’t have my sympathy.”
“Goodie two-shoe smart girl,” Layne muttered.
“Slacker.” Amy nudged him with an elbow and smirked. She loved her friends. With them, she could be a totally different person than she was around her father. With them, she was free to be who she was too scared to be at home.
She could be herself.
“So, what’re we going to do for your birthday?” Catherine asked, “Dinner somewhere?”
“No,” Amy said, peeling the plastic wrap from her sandwich. “I’m going out to dinner with my Dad, probably around six. We can do something after if he’ll let me. But what would we do?”
“Go to the bowling alley in Mobile?” Layne suggested.
“Fuck that noise,” Michael blurted. “I don’t bowl.”
“Okay, why don’t we just let Amy decide?” Layne gave her a look that asked, who does this clown think he is?
Amy only shrugged in response. She often wondered herself.
“We can throw a party at my house,” Catherine suggested. “My parents won’t be home until Sunday. It’s their anniversary. They’re staying at some bed and breakfast in Gulf Shores. Want to go for it?”
“If you want. I still have to talk to my Dad.”
Michael looked at her like she was crazy. “Why do you let him control your life?”
“He doesn’t control my life.” Amy felt suddenly hot with embarrassment. “It’s just one of his rules. I ask permission before going out.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Shut up, Michael,” Layne said. “Not everyone loves to piss off their parents.”
Amy’s cheeks burned red. Her embarrassment turned to anger. She hated her when her friends picked on her about obeying her father. If they only knew why she did.
But she would never tell them because she didn’t want them to believe that her father was a nightmare to be feared.
Amy touched the spot where her locket hung and massaged it, hoping it contained some kind of magic, like a charm, and would bring her the comfort her mother once brought.
She missed her mother. And she wished she had the answer behind the mystery of who murdered her. She wished she could find out the identity of the Nightmare Man so she could put all her fears to bed.
And let her mother rest in peace.
“A party it is then,” Catherine said.
“Just don’t invite the entire school like you tend to do for your little soirees,” Amy said, relieved the conversation regarding her father had ended.
Catherine waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry. The last time was definitely the last time. Someone screwed around with Dad’s stereo system. I was able to convince him it was Scooter. Thank God. The idiot is always messing around with his things. So, Layne, can you get us some booze or not?”
“I’m sure I can. Dad keeps us rich in booze,” Layne said, and winked at Amy. “Would love to get this one drunk.”
“I don’t drink,” Amy said. “And you know that, goober.”
“Well, I’ll make it my mission to get you wasted tonight, goodie two-shoes.” Layne pinched Amy’s side.
She squealed. “Jerk.” She slapped him playfully on the arm. “How many times have I told you not to do that? Do it again, and I’ll cut your hand off. I mean it.”
“Better watch out,” Michael said, flashing a jackal’s grin. “I hear she’s pretty handy with razorblades.”
Amy was satisfied when Catherine popped him over the head. “Thanks,” she said.
When three o’clock came around at last, Amy walked through the flow of human traffic moving out into the afternoon sunlight and dispersing into the crowded parking lot. She met Layne by his late model Nissan Pathfinder which was as clunky and gray as an elephant. They settled into the vehicle.
“Got something for you,” Layne said, reaching down beneath his seat for something that crinkled once he grasped it with his fingers. “I forgot about it earlier.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “I told you like a hundred times stop giving me presents. You never listen to me, do you?”
Layne presented her with a yellow plastic bag from Best Buy and handed it over. “I listen when it’s necessary. Happy birthday.”
Amy shook her head, dug into the bag, and pulled out a CD from one of her favorite alternative rock bands. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” Layne stuck his key into the ignition and started the engine.
Heavy metal blasted from the speakers. Amy jumped as the loud noise pierced her eardrums.
“Sorry,” Layne said, turning down the volume and checking around to ensure he had the clear before backing out.
Ears ringing, Amy tore at the plastic around the CD case with her fingernails. “Mind if we pop this in?”
“Go for it. So, did you have that dream again?”
Amy winced. Her stomach grew sour. “Yeah.” She slipped her new CD into the CD player.
Layne pulled onto Main Street. “Tell your Dad about them?”
Amy glanced out the window at the trees and storefronts they passed on their way through the small town’s business district. She sighed. “He doesn’t think they mean anything.”
“Really? Goddamn.”
She shook her head and closed her eyes, wishing she never told Layne about the dreams.
“But what do you think?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. There was only so much she was willing to discuss with Layne, and her worst fear about her father was not among them. Again, she rubbed her locket like a rabbit’s foot, hoping for some magic.
Sometimes her hopes were too high, and sometimes they were a joke.
Chapter 6
Layne took his eyes off the road for a moment to watch Amy climb out the passenger-side window and sit perched in its frame. “You have a death wish?” He shouted. “The hell’re you doing?”
Amy didn’t answer. Layne returned his attention to the road, but, after a few seconds, stole another glance at Amy.
She had leaned far enough out the window for him to see her face— her eyes were closed and she smiled contently as the wind whipped through her hair.
God she is beautiful.
His eyes rode up her slender legs.
God she is gorgeous.
They grazed along her ample breasts.
God she is sexy.
They ran up her swanlike neck to her delicate cheekbone.
God I want her.
“Watch the road, dummy!”
Layne turned just in time to avoid a head-on collision with a Volvo. “Shit,” he muttered, swerving to the right
Amy climbed back into her seat. “You trying to kill me?”
He looked at her and grinned. “Not yet. Not today.”
Amy frowned in what might have been disapproval had her big, slinky brown eyes not twinkled with laughter. “Goober.”
“Nerd girl.” Pulling into her driveway, Layne indicated the empty carport. “You lucky your dad didn’t see you do that.”
“I was pretty sure he wouldn’t home,” Amy said, grabbing her CD and backpack. “Otherwise, I’d be crazy to try it.”
Layne braked to a stop. “You only do crazy things when he’s not around. Why is that?”
Amy opened the passenger door. “Because I can.”
He felt there was more to it than that, but he let it slide. “What if your dad won’t let you go to that party?”
“Then Cat will have to throw it without me being there. Thanks again from the present. I’ll call you later.”
“Yeah, see ya. Happy birth—”
She closed the door before he could finish.
Layne sighed, and watched her stroll along the broken concrete path leading to a small, red brick ranch house decked with light-blue siding and window shudders.
He watched her climb three brick steps to a short rectangle of concrete that passed for a porch and dig around her backpack, presumably for a key. When she found it, she held it up with a smile and unlocked the front door. Layne sat sullenly behind the steering wheel as Amy stepped into the gloomy house and swung the door shut locking herself away from the outside world like a fairy-tale princess in a decrepit old tower, held prisoner by the brutish tyrant she called Daddy.
Michael was right about one thing— it was fucked up how Amy’s father controlled her life, and kept her enslaved with his authoritative rules. Layne wanted to be her knight in shining armor and rescue her from captivity.
But he was no knight. He was no hero.
He was just a seventeen-year-old loser. A zero.
No! Don’t go there. Don’t even think that word!
He thought instead of the person he wanted more than anyone else in the world— his best friend, Amy Elizabeth Snow.
Now if only she wanted me, too.
Though he never asked her whether she did or not, he knew what the answer would be.
She mentioned to him before why she didn’t date. He knew how she felt about going steady in high school— she thought it was a stupid and foolish thing to do.
But he didn’t care about that. All he cared about was finding a way to change her mind and win her heart.
Like you did with Marianne Weber? Remember her?
Yes, but Amy wasn’t Marianne Weber. Amy was different. Amy was just like him.
Damaged.
But what if it gets out again?
Layne shook his head.
You know you’ll have no control over it. You know what it will do.
Gritting his teeth, Layne slapped himself across the face. Hard.
Stop thinking about it like it still exists. It doesn’t!