Page 11 of If Anything Happens To Me

“Did you remember anything?” I asked. “About what happened to you before I found you yesterday?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Little things, maybe. I didn’t sleep that well, and I had weird dreams. They felt like memories, but not exactly.”

“What did you dream about?” I asked.

“Cats,” she said. “A lot of cats. And a little hawk—I think it was a hawk. And owls. So many, flying overhead, with yellow eyes that looked fake. Like plastic eyes in toys. In dolls.”

I shivered at that last part. It sounded like a horror movie.

“What else?” I asked.

“Girls our age, wearing long white dresses that looked like columns,” the girl went on. “And a blue van, driving around . . .”

“What about your name? Your family?” I asked. “The person who hurt you? Did any of that come back to you in your dreams?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But there was someone driving the blue van. He didn’t seem real. He was like a ghoul, in a black cape and a hood pulled over his head, almost covering his face. But when I looked closely, he didn’thavea face. There was nothing in there.”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” I said.

“It must have been,” she said. “It was too terrible to be a memory.”

“Why don’t you get dressed?” I said to the girl. I handed her a stack of Eloise’s clothes from her dresser. I hadn’t been able to give away any of my sister’s belongings yet, and now I was very glad I’d kept her things. “I’ll go downstairs and make breakfast.”

“Oli, I don’t want to be rude, but if there are other people in the house, I don’t want to see them.”

“Believe me, my grandmother and Noreen had nothing to do with your attack,” I said.

“I believe you, but even so . . .” she began, staring off into the distance. “How do you know when someone’s good or bad?”

“I used to be able to tell,” I said. “I’m not sure I do now.” Losing Eloise had changed that.

“Same for me,” she said. “This isn’t an actual memory, just a sense. But I feel as if the person who took us was nice at first. Someone easy to trust. And then the bad things happened.”

“?‘Us’?” I repeated.

“What?”

“You said the person tookus. Was someone else with you?” I asked, my pulse picking up.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t mean to say that. Nothing is clear, Oli. It’s all a blur. Those owls and those girls in the dream seemed more real than anything I can actually remember.” She looked around my sister’s room. “It’s nice here. I can think better than I could before.”

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

“That black kitty we saw,” she said, her brow furrowed. “There was something about her that reminded me of . . . my old life. I think my family had cats. And those flowers in your garden, the ones that were so wilted . . .”

“What about them?” I asked.

“What is the name of those flowers?” she asked, and I recalled that she had asked me that before. I pictured the garden, and I could see the delicate purple, yellow, and pale pink blossoms, the sharp leaves.

“They’re one of my favorites,” I said. “They’re beautiful—different colors, from pale yellow to dark purple. Eloise and I planted bulbs every fall, and the flowers come up each spring. They’re called . . .”

The girl gasped.

“What?” I asked.

“Irises. That’s what they are,” the girl said, her eyes widening.

I paused, waiting for her to say more. After a minute, I asked, “Do you have irises at home, in your family’s garden?”

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