The Devil Child

Chapter Forty

 Her first mistake was not telling her uncle that she was leaving. Her second mistake was going alone.

She stood at the bus stop, the chilled wind blowing her hair into her face. The bus rumbled away from behind her, and she watched it leave, all thoughts of talking to her parents suddenly daunting.

She hadn't been thinking, and now she was in her old hometown, standing at a quiet bus stop. There were no people walking about, no people mulling around, and certainly no sign of life as she entered the bus station.

Her body was sore from the long bus ride, and she did not want to think about the money she just spent on the ticket to get there. She wished she had stayed in Vermont, and in a few hours, her uncle and aunt would know she was missing. Skipping school had never been a strong suit of hers, and leaving without telling anyway was really not her thing. She was not the kind of girl who was spontaneous. She was not Kenzie.

She was Polly. And Polly was never so rebellious in her entire life. Polly was never so daring. Polly was not the kind of girl to jump on a bus to head back home where her parents were living.

She had not parted with them on good terms. They had called her a devil child and locked her away. They had abused her. They had hated her.

But Polly wanted closure. She needed closure, so here she was, her heart pounding her chest. The walk home from the bus station would be a good chunk of time, but she wasn't sure she wanted to pay for a cab right either. The man sitting behind the counter in the bus station eyed her wearily, but she paid him no attention.

She saw a pay phone hanging on the wall, and she was tempted to dial her home phone number. If she closed her eyes, she could picture the digits. She imagined her mother or father picking up the phone, and she imagined them angry at her.

Hiding behind a phone was not why she traveled so many hours. Polly knew she had to see them in person.

She grabbed a map from the table, and opened it. A large cartoon bus with eyes and a smile proclaimed YOU ARE HERE! on the map, and she followed the road names, looking for her own street. There, only a few blocks down, was her street, and seeing the name gave her a wave of anxiety she was not expecting.

"Miss? Are you buying a bus ticket?" the man behind the counter said loudly. He was chewing gum, and he looked unimpressed with Polly. She straightened up, clutching the map tightly in her hand, crinkling it.

"No. I just got off the bus."

The ticket man blew out a sigh. "No loiterin'," he said as he pointed a chubby finger at a large sign on the wall. The sign was all black, and in white lettering it read the same thing he had said: No loitering.

Polly didn't think grabbing a map meant she was loitering, but she didn't want him to call the police on her. She nodded and left the station in a haste, remembering why she had never liked this town. The people that lived there were rude.

She looked down at the map in her hands, and sighed. She had made it this far alone, and she knew she could talk to her parents. It was the closure she needed, and even Polly knew staying away from them wasn't doing her any good.

The walk to her house was not that long, but she felt sick to her stomach. The last time she was home, her parents had tied her down to her bed. They had yelled at her, told her to behave, told her to be on her best behavior for Doctor Higgins. Just thinking about it made her remember the raw skin of her wrists as she had tried to escape the binds.

This is stupid. Incredibly stupid, Polly couldn't help but think. She had no business back there, in her hometown. She had no business seeing her parents again. The same people who abandoned her.