L I A R - it 2017

t h r e e

        Once Macy had seen Betty inside the woods, her view of the Derry disappearances changed completely. Questions flooded her mind, so many that her head began to ache. Did that clown have something to do with it? Was what she saw in the woods even real? These questions spiraled as she pedaled towards home.

She ran into her house after the incident, heading straight to her room without saying a word to her parents. She changed out of her stained clothes, hoping it might help her forget what had happened. The ordeal replayed in her mind again and again, each memory worse than the last.

Macy knew she couldn't escape it, not when she was still forced to sleep in the room she once shared with Betty. Every night, she lay awake surrounded by her sister's things, trying to sleep while reminders of Betty's absence stared back at her from every corner of the room.

With her knees pulled to her chest, Macy stared at the far wall and thought about telling her parents what had happened about finding Betty's shoes. About the thing in the woods that wore her sister's face, rotting as she stood next to a clown.

As tears streamed down her face, she knew deep down they wouldn't believe her. They'd say she was confused, hysterical, trying to make the tragedy about herself. That thought alone made her chest ache. The truth pressed down on her until she felt too tired to cry.

She wondered, briefly, about telling Beverly, or Bill, or any of the others. Maybe they'd understand. Maybe they'd seen things too. But even that hope felt distant, dimmed by exhaustion, as Macy curled into herself tighter.

She was afraid they wouldn't believe her, that no one would.

That night, Macy stayed awake for hours, crying into her pillow as the images replayed again and again, each time just as vivid, just as cruel. She began thinking about every strange thing that had happened in Derry over the past year, everything refusing to make sense.

Sleep only came when she finally exhausted herself, her body worn down from hours of shaking and silent sobs, drifting off not because the fear had faded but because she had nothing left to give.

The next morning, a tired and shaken Macy passed her mother's room on her way out to see Beverly. Her mother was still in the same position she had been in since the funeral, lying flat on her back and staring up at the ceiling, unmoving.

Macy sighed as she walked past the darkened room, the familiar heaviness pressing down on her. All Macy wanted was a piece of her family again. On her way out the door, she passed the sink, where a pile of unwashed dishes still sat untouched, a quiet reminder that nothing in the Ripsom house had changed in the past month.

"Macy?" A weak voice called from the kitchen, making her stop short. It didn't sound like her mother, not really, but it came from the direction of the sink, and that was enough to make her chest tighten. Still, she hoped it was her.

"Yeah, mom?" she answered, her voice shaky, her body going tense all at once.

Silence followed. The house seemed to hold its breath.

After a moment, Macy forced herself to move, turning towards her mother's room and keeping her eyes carefully away from the kitchen as she went. She peeked inside and saw her mother asleep, just as she had been before, her chest rising and falling slowly.

Fear crawled up Macy's spine. She backed away, then broke into a run for the front door. She grabbed her shoes and slammed it shut behind her, pressing her back against it as she struggled to catch her breath. She only looked up when she heard footsteps, seeing Beverly standing at the bottom of the steps.

"You look like hell. What happened?" Beverly asked her obviously disoriented best friend. Once Macy got a better look at Beverly, her eyes widened. Beverly's long red hair was gone, replaced by a much shorter cut that barely brushed her jaw.