Talk Me Down

First, the noises on her walk down to The Bar, then afterwards, the front door had been unlocked. She’d thought she’d forgotten, but she’d woken the next morning with the thought still on her mind…I could’ve sworn I’d locked it. But maybe she hadn’t, or maybe it was hard to lock. She didn’t know this house yet, didn’t know its quirks. And that was a problem, too, all the shifts and sighs of the house as it cooled at night.

In her paranoia, she’d even let Mrs. Gibson’s latest nasty e-mail get to her. Maybe the old lady wasn’t so harmless. Maybe she was more like Kathy Bates in Misery than an eccentric grandma. But when she’d done a Google search for Mrs. Gibson’s name and address, all the hits had pointed directly to an eighty-year-old woman who lived in a Long Island nursing home and wrote frequent letters to the editor of the local newspaper. Mrs. Gibson wasn’t only outraged by erotic fiction; she was equally upset by liberal school boards and unfair sales taxes.

All of that pretty much eliminated her as a stalking suspect, which left only Cameron.

It occurred to Molly that she should consider getting a gun, just so she could sleep soundly. Or a dog. “Probably a dog,” she said to the phone.

When the doorbell rang, Molly jumped about a foot and her new phone arced through the air. It clattered against the countertop, slid two feet to the sink and dropped in with a hollow clunk. No harm done.

“Coming!” she yelled, grabbing her bowl of candy on the way. The kids here didn’t have many houses to visit, so she’d filled the bowl with full-size candy bars and packs of bubble gum and had received squeals of approval from all her visitors so far.

“Trick or treat!” the little girl chirped from behind her scarf as her mom offered a wave from the bottom of the steps.

Molly grinned down at the girl in her bulky parka and white sweatpants. A pink tutu stuck out between the layers and a sparkly crown perched on top of her knit cap.

“What a beautiful, beautiful princess you are!” she gushed as she dropped a big chocolate bar in the girl’s bag. The girl’s eyes bulged. Oh, yeah, Molly thought, I’m a rock star in this town. “All princesses deserve chocolate.”

The big eyes sparkled, warming Molly’s heart. She loved this small-town thing—

“I’m not a princess!”

Oops. That didn’t sound like delight. “Oh! Sorry, I’m…”

Big fat tears began to drop from her eyelashes to the scarf. Molly threw a desperate glance to the mother, but she just stood there cringing.

“I’m not a princess!” the girl screamed, waving a previously unnoticed wand. “I’m a fairy. I’m a fairy!”

The mom reached up. “Kaelin, let’s just go, hon—”

“I don’t wanna wear my stupid coat. No one can see my w-w-wings!” She crumpled into a little sobbing mound of down and waterproof nylon. “I told you no one would see my wings!”