One by One by D.W. Gillespie

Author:D.W. Gillespie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flame Tree Press
Published: 2019-07-22T12:09:24+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The footsteps grew quiet, and the new house creaked and moaned all around her as Alice slipped into bed, table-side lamp on, diary in hand. It felt even stranger to hold it, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was tied to Mary somehow, as if her soul was trapped inside it like Tom Riddle’s soul in the Harry Potter movie they’d watched that afternoon.

If she felt absurd about the way her imagination was getting away from her, it was hidden under thick layers of apprehension and fear. She snuggled down under the comforter, feeling warmer and safer than she had all day, as if cotton and polyester could somehow protect her from the madness of this place. She opened the diary. This time, instead of flipping around from page to page, she started from the beginning. The page was ragged and worn, but still readable.

I can’t believe my birthday is over. I didn’t even have fun at my party. I told Mom I was too old for an actual party. It was all little kid stuff. Balloon animals. A big, huge cake that looked like a dress. It was nice, but silly. I just wanted friends over. Just wanted to do something that wasn’t so kiddy. I’m ten, not six.

That confirmed one detail Alice didn’t know. She wasn’t sure how many years Mary had written in the diary, but now at least, she knew when she started. Ten years old. Same age as Alice herself.

She remembered her own tenth birthday party. It probably wasn’t very different. No balloon animals, but still very childish. It was at a local place that rented out huge rooms full of inflatables. She’d had a few birthdays there, and it was always a good time, one of the few times that everyone in the family seemed to get on the same wavelength. Even Dean would put up his phone and jump down one of the huge, bouncy slides.

But there was something else there, something she hadn’t considered much before reading that page. She had, in her own way, felt the same as Mary. She wouldn’t have dared tell her mom the truth though, especially once she’d seen the excitement in her mom’s eyes.

“Want me to book the bounce house?” she’d asked.

She imagined what it would have taken to stick a pin in her mother’s excitement, to watch it deflate in front of her. Alice had gotten her ears pierced for her tenth birthday, years later than most of her friends. She’d wanted a makeover party that year, something where she could pick out new earrings, get her nails done, get pedicures. Most of her friends were doing birthdays like that. None of them made any pretense to actually be grown-ups, but it was time to start pretending, to start acting like you understood what was coming.

Women made themselves up. It was a skill, an important one even. Alice didn’t have it in her, not yet at least, but the makeover party wouldn’t have been for her anyway.

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