The Killer in Me by Margot Harrison

Author:Margot Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

I text Mom and Warren two pics of the Arizona desert that I stole from a stranger’s vacation collection. I’m here! Then I turn up the AC in the motel room full blast, yank the bedcovers over my head, and fall asleep.

When I wake up, the sun is painting the Sandia Mountains bloodred above the roofs. Shadows swath the pool. For an instant, I wonder if it’s still the same day.

Everything comes back at once, too fast. The hatchet, now perched on the edge of the desk. The lady with her louvered doors. A stranger saying, “I’ve always told them about my sister.” A dinner invitation.

Too much. I’m in deep water; every movement, every thought is a rugged current threatening to sweep me out to sea. This bed is my safety zone.

I was going to drive up north, out to the mine shaft. Now it’s too late; I haven’t even stocked up on water.

I eat the M&M’S and sit on the bed watching the sky turn violet. When Mom calls, I pick up.

She starts to talk, but I interrupt. “Why didn’t you tell me I had a brother?”

Silence. Then Mom says in a low voice, “I didn’t know. Nina, what’s happening there?”

“Nothing.” A sob wells up in my throat, and I swallow it. Why’d I say anything? Now I have to lie. “It’s just—well, I guess Becca kind of told me, but she didn’t really tell me. And then meeting him here, at her house, it was—a surprise. And not a surprise, because it’s like I always knew. Did you really not know about him? Are you sure?”

Mom starts talking, her voice firmly in soothing-therapist mode, explaining for the nth time that she never met my birth mother. “Maybe I did know about a brother at some point—but the thing was, frankly, I didn’t especially want to know. Once you entered my life, the past didn’t matter. It’s hard to explain, but a baby is all about right here and right now.”

I can’t blame her for not dwelling on my past—but it’s frustrating. “What about Dory? She worked for social services, right? Maybe she met my brother, maybe she talked about him, and I…absorbed it.”

That might explain why the “boy” in my head had a name almost from the beginning, though I could never remember when or how I first heard it. Mom may not recall Dory pronouncing those four syllables—“Dylan Shadwell”—but I loved unfamiliar words and names when I was little. Sometimes I would sing them to myself for hours. Maybe I heard his once or twice, and it stuck.

Maybe I built an image of my big brother from a few careless words. Maybe my night companion was never more than a reflection of what I wanted, and later what I feared.

Which would mean I’m the twisted one.

And the Gustafssons? They did disappear—but maybe, like that Internet commenter said, it was the slaughterhouse protestors who did it. Maybe they thought Mr. Gustafsson was part of a conspiracy to conceal horrific brutality.

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