I repeated my story to the detective. I repeated my story to another police officer who came in. But mostly, I repeated my story over and over in my mind, dwelling on each minute detail, but sure I was missing the most glaring facts. The worst was what Levi had said. Get out of here, you stupid bitch. I couldn't get that hateful voice out of my head. He wasn't the boy I knew.

"And your relationship with Alicia, would you qualify it as very...friendly?" the detective asked. He was back in the room.

I lifted my head from my mom's shoulder.

"You know my daughter is very tired. Questions like these can wait, can't they?" she asked.

"I just need a clear picture of tonight's incident, Mrs. Hadder."

"They are friends. Clear enough?"

"My men said there was a moment outside when Alicia arrived....Brooklyn, care to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"What moment outside?" my mom asked me.

I sighed. I was so tired that every time I blinked I fell in a micro-sleep. "Alicia kissed me."

"Kissed you? She kissed you? What kind of kiss, like a French one?"

"Would you feel more comfortable speaking to me alone?" the detective asked.

My mother bristled, but I spoke first. "That's O.K. Normally, we are just friends. You probably want to know why she kissed me like that. All I can say is it most certainly isn't because she loves me. She might have done it to make me think that, to manipulate me, to make you think that, to confuse me, or to make everyone feel sorry for her. I could go on. But I don't know for sure."

"All right. It's late. Why don't you go home and get some rest?" the detective said.

"But what about that man? Is he still out there? He could find out where we live and break in or something," my mom said.

The detective began reassuring her, saying they had patrols out and they would go by the apartment, and that Todd was mostly likely half way across Oklahoma by then.

I watched the hands of the clock on the wall. Eleven fifty-eight. Eleven fifty-nine.

"You are sure it's safe?" my mother was asking.

"Call 9-1-1 if you have the slightest doubt for your safety. A car will arrive in a minute or two. I promise you, Todd has no reason to attack your daughter at this point. He could never get away with it now. You are both perfectly safe in your home."

Midnight.

I started to cry. The anniversary day was gone and past. It was done - the messages on walls and in notebooks, voices in the bathroom and the double visions. No more torn paper notes. I was free to be normal for another year.

What about Levi? The detective didn't believe I had seen him and the longer I sat in the police station the less clearly I could picture my friend's face. Just the shadows in his eyes and under his cheek bones, painting him sharp and ferocious in the night. I was afraid of what I'd seen in him, afraid of what he was willing to do. And if it was all in my head? As my mom would say, there's a rare mental condition called...and then she would explain away the madness.

When we finally made it home, I didn't even take off my shoes or bother brushing my teeth before going to bed. The only thing I did was check my closet. The back wall was smooth and scratch free.

My mother must have taken off my shoes for me and tucked me under the covers. I woke up once or twice later on and, noticing how comfortable I was, rolled over to go back to asleep.

It was her voice arguing with someone that broke through the fog much later. I sat up and checked the clock. Seven thirty? So early? I rubbed my face, amazed at the amount of grit in my eyes and dirt in my nails.

"Well, it was your daughter's idea to go in the first place! How intelligent does that make her?" My mother shouted. Pause. "Good, I agree. We don't need anything from you. We don't want anything to do with you or your daughter, so you can stay out of our lives." Pause. Loud cuss word. Then, she was muttering in the kitchen, which was never a good sign. A string of Spanish accompanied the banging pots.

I stood and made my way to the kitchen, hoping she was cooking pancakes and bacon for breakfast.

"Hijo de puta! Talk to me like that, I'll take off his cojon-Brooklyn! You're up, sweetie. You must have been tired," she said, whirling around when I walked in.

"Hey, Mom. What's for breakfast?"

She laughed and hugged me. I stood there a moment in her comforting warmth, not knowing why she was laughing and not really caring.

"Breakfast? My little vampire, you slept all day. This is dinner. Except now that you are awake, I think I'll run fast to get some groceries. Señora Ramírez says she will babysit if I go anywhere.

"You don't think I'm past the babysitting age?" I asked. I started rooting around in the fridge for some yogurt. Expired, expired, half open and green.... "Get some yogurt, too, please.

"It's just in case. You know, to have someone here if that man...well, you'll be safer."

"'Cause she can stab anybody who breaks in through the heart with her knitting needles?"

"She doesn't knit."

"Then we're screwed."

"Brooklyn!"

"I'm just saying I don't think Señora Ramírez will save my life if it comes to that." I was still grinning, but my mom went quiet and stony.

"You are right. Maybe I could get someone to drop off a few things," she said.

"Mom, I-" An icy wire was twisting my stomach around. I could feel her fear frosting the kitchen over. A man - Todd - could come here and try to kill me. But he wouldn't, it would be stupid. "You can go to the grocery store. I'll be fine."

"I should stay. It is safer."

"Go. I'll be fine."

"I want to make a real meal, but...will you be all right?"

It took me twenty minutes to convince her to go. Not long afterwards, our neighbor down the hall, Señora Ramírez, knocked on the door and gave me her toothless smile through the peephole. I undid the chain lock and let her in.

"Still alive and here?" she asked me.

"Buenas noches, Señora Ramírez, cómo está usted?" That was the extent of my Spanish, so I was glad the old woman prided herself on her English.

"Better than you. You look like hell. The lines are all dead. Lucky for you. You smell bad, too, go take a shower."

"Right. Thank you. Make yourself at home in the living room. Would you like an expired yogurt?"

"How many days?" she asked, padding straight towards the easy chair.

"Three."

"Yes, is good."

"What do you mean the lines are dead? The phone doesn't work?" Wonderful. It sounded like a scene from a cheap horror movie: the old neighbor woman watching TV; a teenage girl in the shower; a kidnapping pyscho on the prowl and the phone lines were down.

"No, the lines for crawlers. You hear them at night, I think you do. The scratching in the walls and closets. I keep my scissors under my mattress. I don't know if it helps. My writer friend, he says it helps. I don't know. At least I have my scissors, yes?"

"Yes. It's good to have your scissors." What else could I say? That icy wire was back, twisting me up inside with fear. Crawlers like rats? Scratching in the walls and closets? I went to the kitchen for a knife and then headed for the bathroom. Was she just crazy or did she get messages in her closet, too?

But that was done for this year. It was over. No dead-alive donkeys, crying babies, cold mud sucking me under - it was done. I only had real people to worry about, which was scary enough.

I hid the knife under my towel on the sink. It was in reach from the shower. Not that I thought it would do any good, but it was nice to have it nearby. Our apartment was on the third floor, so anyone breaking in would have to bust down the front door to the landing or scale the walls outside to the balcony or windows. Were they shut and locked? My chest squeezed in uncertainty.

Mom would have double checked them and Señora Ramírez was too busy watching American Idol to open the balcony door.

Just take your shower.

I turned the water on to let it heat up and stripped off my filthy tee-shirt. A faint jingling came from my room. My cell phone. It was probably my mom, worried that I was duct-taped up and in the back of Todd's car. I hurried out, half naked to grab it.

Alicia had sent me over a dozen messages. They were all the same. Call me.

It didn't even look like she had slept during the night. I didn't want to call her back, though. I didn't have the energy, or a shirt on. I stank from unwashed sweat and greasy hair. And I didn't want to have to face what I thought I saw in the forest. Who I thought I saw, wanted desperately to have seen, but probably imagined. If it had been Levi and the police had found him, my mom would have told me.

My phone gave its tinkling tune for an SMS. Call me.

Oh, for crying out loud! I hit the green phone symbol. "Hi," I said when I heard her answer.

"Do you have your necklace?" Alicia asked.

"What necklace? Did they find Todd? Do they think that I...I imagined seeing Levi?"

"The river rock necklace I gave you. Keep it on. And no, they didn't find Todd. They won't find him. And yes, they think you had some kind of hallucinatory episode after I explained to them that you regularly see weird things that aren't there, like zombie donkeys and Civil War soldiers trying to kill you. They'll probably want you to be tested by a psychiatrist."

I sat on my bed, the breath knocked from lungs. "You bitch. You made me sound crazy. Did you tell them you lied five years ago? Did you tell them you took Levi and Sean to the farmstead and some cave? Did you tell them you faked that fight with Todd? Care to explain how it's possible for him to punch you in the face, but not have a broken nose? You really think I'm the only one who needs to see a psychiatrist?"

"Brooklyn, I don't know what you're talking about. When Todd showed up, both of us ran, don't you remember? I tried to lead him away from you so you could get help. That's all. Don't you remember?"

"Pretend I'm the crazy one all you want. I know what I saw."

"They're going to lock you up, if you keep seeing these things." She made it a warning and a threat at the same time for me to stop insisting.

"I've played your games long enough. You wanted me to see something in the forest and I did. You wanted some sort of séance, well, I was face to face with Levi and it was terrifying. You know something about Todd and what happened to the Walters brothers, but you won't tell anyone. I am finished with you, until you do!"

She sighed. "Brooklyn, we have to stick together. You have to trust me." She was using her broken, little girl voice again.

I wanted to strangle her with it. "I am finished with you!" I shouted. "Understand, bitch?" I swiped the phone to end the call and threw it on my bed, wishing it was an old-fashioned phone I could slam. I hated her. That was the only feeling I had left.

One of the doors creaked from another room and steps were in the hallway. I turned to my doorway, arms around my bare waist. Señora Ramírez was standing there. She had my knife from the bathroom in one hand and a pair of heavy scissors in the other. Her toothless smile spread across her leathery face.

*** Alicia seems to have gone too far this time! Thanks for reading - you're the greatest!!! ***