Fairytales

Chapter 19

I didn't sleep that night.

Cowards don't deserve sleep.

I should've run straight to the police, should've told them everything I'd seen. I should have told someone.

Instead, I'd run to my room and proceeded to pace a circle in my carpet. The problem was, what did I have to tell them? That he'd been doing research? Some pretty gruesome research, but still. That he'd disappeared even though his father and stepmother hadn't even seemed to notice that he was missing? That he'd been acting strangely the day before, but only enough so that I would notice it?

I had no proof, no evidence besides the persistent tugging in my gut that told me something was wrong, nothing to keep the cops from laughing in my face.

Still worse, another fear kept me rooted to my bedroom floor. What if none of it was real after all?

It wasn't a particularly big stretch, considering what else I'd been experiencing the last few days. Hallucinations, voices, paranoia. Did I really see those pictures on Chase's computer, or that notebook in his drawer? Had I even gone to his house at all? It was getting hard to tell what was real and what wasn't anymore.

I'd always wondered if this day would come, wondered and feared it. With the constant night terrors, anxiety, and whatever else I couldn't begin to diagnose myself as (especially as a nine year old), I'd spent the first half of my stay in Reinton Heights in constant fear: that my aunt would think I was crazy, too crazy to keep in her house, that my psychiatrist would confirm it, and that I'd find myself in the kind of psych ward they only show in horror movies.

Now, at 17, I was terrified that real life nightmare might actually be coming true.

Rita had come barreling into my room early that morning. Apparently the fact that I'd refused dinner the night before and even pushed away the new carton of ice cream she'd bought me, was cause enough for her to worry about my health. She'd even managed to get herself up on time without my help and, upon seeing my swollen sleepless eyes, had very quickly decided that I was dying.

I'd managed to talk her out of taking me to the ER but going to school was out of the question. I can't say I fought that decision too particularly hard.

Which is not to say that I planned on staying in bed all day. As soon as I heard Rita's car leave the driveway, I was out of bed and slipping into the nearest articles of clothing I had on hand. I wasn't sure what I was going to do yet, but I was going to do something. Hallucination or not, I owed it to Chase to figure out what exactly was going on here. I had that much to hold onto.

The police, due to the reasons I'd listed before, were out of the question. They'd think I was crazy or paranoid. Rita too. Besides those two options, I had no one to run to. My next thought, which I'd come up with sometime in between three and four in the morning but had been too paranoid to go through with, with Rita in the next room, was a little more...creative.

The little jewelry box was right where I'd left it. I wasn't sure why I hadn't thought of it before. Maybe because it was a long shot. Nina would had to have been psychic. She would have had to know she was going to die.

But she'd given it to me no less than a week before she died. It meant something. It had to.

She'd told me I'd know when the time was right. She'd said it like it would be important. Somehow, I had a feeling there would be more inside than a pretty pair of earrings. Though it was terrifying to think that she might have known about her impending death, or at least suspected it, I could only hope there would be something in my little treasure chest, anything, to piece this disturbing new puzzle together.