Page 86 of Whistle

“I’m glad Charlie is okay. I spoke to one of the officers last night, wondering what had happened. This was after you brought him home.”

“He gave me a scare, that’s for sure.” She dropped her head, paused, then looked up, first at Daniel and then at Dolores. “I feel... a little foolish coming here tonight.”

“Don’t be silly.”

She focused more on Dolores. “I don’t want to bring up a difficult subject, but Daniel had mentioned to me something that had happened to you in that house,” at which point she nodded in that direction, “that precipitated an... event.” She looked worriedly at Daniel. “I hope I haven’t made a mistake, saying that you told me about it.”

“Not at all.”

“The thing is,” Annie continued, “there’ve been some... unusual things happening lately. And the latest... a few hours ago, it really affected me.”

Dolores slowly turned her head to face Annie more directly. “You were scared.”

“Yes, I was scared.”

“And you screamed.”

“I did.”

“Because you saw something.”

Annie nodded.

“Do you want to say what it was?”

She thought about that. “I don’t know. Let’s just say, it was awful. And it was very real. And then it was gone.” A pause. “And there was something last night, too. It appeared, and then it was gone. I’ve been wondering whether I’m losing my mind.”

Dolores, still in a monotone voice, said, “I did lose my mind. A part of it. Like losing a finger. It doesn’t grow back.” She paused, added, “My mind got scared away.”

Annie leaned forward. “What frightened you? What did you see?”

“That’s mostly in the part that’s gone,” Dolores said, and for the first time almost managed a smile. “I suppose that’s a blessing.”

“Do you remember what you were doing at the time?”

“I was cleaning.”

“I mean, specifically.”

Dolores went very quiet and her focus shifted, away from Annie to something undetermined.

“It’s okay, honey,” Daniel said. “You don’t have to think about this if you don’t want to.” He turned to Annie and said, “We have these moments, sometimes, of clarity, but they don’t last all that long.”

Dolores said, “They weren’t a happy family.”

“Was this the photographers?” Annie asked.

Dolores shook her head slowly. “Long before them. The Andersons. They had a son and a daughter. Jeremy. And Glynis. She was a nasty child. Her hand was funny.”

“What do you mean?”

“She lost a finger and they stitched it back on, but the doctors did it wrong and it always looked like she was giving you the finger.” Dolores almost smiled. “They did a couple more operations on it but never did get it right. I wonder what ever happened to her.” Her speech had taken on a dreamlike quality. “Her brother wasn’t much better. Jeremy. Something wrong with him. Something wrong with all of them. They moved away.”

“When was that?”

Daniel stepped in. “A few months into 2002, I think it was. Not long after Dolores had her episode.”

“They didn’t take it with them when they moved,” Dolores said. “They figured it out.”

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