Page 90 of Shadow and Skulls

“We’re doing okay. Yeah, she’s right here. Just a second.” Gently, he pushes me into a chair and holds the phone to my ear until I take it.

“Hey, Dad,” I answer, the guilt finally forcing me to speak. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you since Grandma passed.”

“Baby. I know it’s hard. It’s hard,” he says, his voice cracking.

I focus on one of the windows of the home. There is a woman sitting on the other side. The reflection of flowers against the glass blurs her face.

“Kelsie, I want you to listen to me. We’re going to get through this together. You’re not alone.”

“What a way to bond, huh?”

He chuckles sadly. “Yeah, what a week.”

Suddenly, the woman in the window leans forward, pressing her palm to the glass. Her sleeve falls back, and I see the scar on her wrist.

“Do you feel like you got some closure?” he asks.

I jump up when the woman leans back into her wheelchair. “Uh, yeah.”

I walk toward the window, my gaze following the woman’s. That’s when I see what she has been looking at. It’s a bright orange plastic dragonfly. Its wings are spinning in the wind as it rests in the beautiful flower garden outside her window.

“That’s good. We’ll talk more when you get home,” Dad says, reminding me I’m on the phone.

My eyes rise to the woman sitting in the window. She’s beautiful and way too young to be here.

“Dad, I’ve got to go. I need to get back to mom.”

JD is behind me. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

“Okay, baby, I love you.”

I hang up the phone after saying goodbye.

My gaze bounces over JD as my mind races. “Nothing is wrong. In fact, I think everything is right. I … I have something I need to do.”

He follows me back inside, pausing when I pass my mother’s hallway. He shakes his head in confusion when I head in the opposite direction. I glance in each room until I find her. My gaze roams over the name on the door. Lizzie.

I don’t know what I’m doing, but I step inside her room. JD reaches for me just as my mother joins us.

“What are you doing?” they ask in unison, but I don’t hesitate.

My feet carry me farther into her room. I sit down on the windowsill, smiling at the dragonfly.

“Do you like dragonflies?” I ask, my eyes going to hers. She doesn’t look my way, her gaze fixed out the window. “Or is it the flowers you like?”

Still no response.

I stare at her for a long moment. Tank told me she was unresponsive, but I’ve just looked at someone for the past several hours who was unresponsive. My mother was gone. Lizzie is very much here. She’s hiding in the shadows.

Perhaps that’s why I see her when no one else can … maybe when you’ve sat in the dark as long as we have, your eyes become accustomed to seeing through the haze.

My fingers dance over the trinket around my neck as my gaze bounces over her room. It’s bare. My mother’s room was full of photos. Mostly of me.

“My name is Kelsie,” I tell Lizzie. “I’m …” I glance up at my mom. “I’m friends with Tank.”

The woman sits stoically silent.

“Has he always been crazy?”

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