CHAPTER 12: Grandmother
"Die?" Val answered when she picked up the phone. Val had been calling me Die or Diane for years and I've never minded but now the word seemed like an eerie connection to The Man.
"Val, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out today?" I asked, having already called Sam and Mel, I was working my way to Jenna if Val said no.
"Any time before six, I'm good."
"You wanna go to a movie?" I asked, relieved to finally have someone to hang out with.
"Sure, meet at the theatre, say eleven?"
"Ok, see you then."
"See ya." Val hung up.
I really needed to take my mind off this morning. I wasn't sure whether or not he was a hallucination. It seemed the only plausible response, who fades away? But he had seemed so real.
I now have an hour and a half to kill. I pulled myself out of bed, knowing Katrina would probably be down stairs.
"Why did you leave your water bottle on the floor?" Katrina asked when I came in. In my haste to escape Him, I had left it there.
"Must've dropped." I said, not completely lying, just suggesting something other then the truth.
"Hm," Katrina said "I'm making a bagel, want one?"
"Sure." I said, I didn't have a fantastic relationship with my baby sister so if she offered me something I tended to take it, just to be polite.
I sat silently at the granite counter. Katrina bustled around the kitchen, apparently happy not to talk. I looked around the room.
Katrina washed the bread knife at the sink.I had been standing with my back pressed against that sink, just a few hours ago, trying to talk to a creepy man who basically gave me a list of questions with no answers and told me he's been stalking me since I was little.
I chided myself inwardly, he could of been fake. Could've. Probably was. Maybe. Then again... Quit it! I mentally shouted at myself. He had to have been fake. Maybe. Could've implies it goes both ways.
"Faye, bagel's up." Katrina said, a little bored.
"Thanks." Katrina rolled her eyes and walked away, presumably to the dining room. Maybe not so friendly.
I tried not to think about the Cheshire guy, that's what I was going to call him. I looked at my bagel glumly. I wasn't really hungry. I contemplated leaving it there. In the end it was easier to put it out with a note that said "For Chris" because Chris would eat it without questioning me.
I started drawing, idly. I was a little bit amused when I found drawing of the cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, it was all I could do not to laugh at myself.
_____________________________________________________
At around 10:30 I realized I didn't really want to go see a movie. Call Val and cancel? Would that be too rude? I decided not a dialed her number. "Hi Die!" Val said
"Hey Val, um" I wasn't sure what excuse I should make up.
"I was just about to call you," Val said, ignoring my um.
"Really?" I asked, "Why?"
"I actually can't do the movie, sorry to call on such short notice." Val said, sounding discouraged.
"It's fine." I said, not about to mention that I didn't want to go.
"Thanks Die! Good-bye!" Val said and hung up before I could say bye.
Die, that's such an unusual thing to call your friend. I still found it so creepily like Cheshire Guy.
____________________________________________________
I pulled my bag out of my car, it was a small bag, and walked through the graveyard. I stopped at a grave. I sat down and leaned against the grave, as the engraving flashed before my eyes.
Alyssa Somnia
A loving mother
A girl known well to all, Alyssa died on a day in spring. She was young but her spirit will live forever.
There were no birth dates or death dates because nobody needed to know just how young she was. My grandmother had been 20 years old when she had died. She had had a baby at 16. Nobody wanted to mark that either.
Who killed you? Why? I asked her, knowing she wouldn't answer. She was a question mark in my life. I just barely knew how she'd died.
In the middle of spring my grandmother had gone out, presumably for a walk but possibly with friends. When she didn't come home people started to worry, there was a search and eventually she was found.
Dead.
Dumped in a trash can, with her blood gone. Supposedly her clothing had been ripped and she had had blood matted into her hair. Several cuts ran all over her body but her wrist, that had been brutally slashed open. That was where most of the blood had come out.
I had heard my mother telling my father one night, she was so scared it would happen again. She had been three or four when it happened, she was traumatized.
I got up and put the flower I had been playing with on the grave, a daisy. A daisy for a woman I never knew, one who was lost to me , forever.
*****************************************************************************************
Picture of Faye leaning against the grave stone------------------------------------------------------->
I'm heading to camp so you want hear from me for a week! Comment, vote and keep reading! Thanks for reading!
-Jodi
---------------------------------------------------------------------------> pic of Faye in the graveyard