Chapter Eighteen




Annabel checked the mail as she approached her driveway; there was nothing in the mailbox for her so she left the rest of the letters and bills inside the box, not bothering to collect them. She entered her house and walked up to her room, not bothering to greet her parents.
Annabel shut the door behind her and flopped down on her bed. Her head throbbed with all the information that buzzed around in her head; she needed to talk to someone but there was no one to talk to. Not Joshua, he wouldn't understand even if she decided to talk to him; he would probably think she was even stranger then before, Annabel couldn't forget the look he gave her when she told him that Alex was her cousin. Not Nicolas, she barely knew him but he seemed to know a lot about her, he was one of the biggest pieces in the puzzle. Annabel couldn't even talk to her parents; she needed to get a response from her aunt. However, the letter wouldn't get to Long Island for another few days; why had she mailed a letter in the first place when she could have just called?
There was an idea; in fact, it was the best idea that Annabel had had in a while. However, would her parents find it funny that she was calling her aunt in Long Island? The aunt that she hadn't talked to in years, except for when her aunt asked if she and Randy wanted to visit but even then it was her mother who took the call.
Annabel would have to risk getting the 'third degree', she needed to know about Clear because something was telling Annabel that Clear was another piece of the puzzle. A very important piece.
Annabel decided to use her own phone to call her aunt long distance, despite the fact that she had to pay for the bill herself; there was less chance of getting caught if she was in her own room. 'Getting caught', Annabel repeated the words inside her head; it sounded as though she was doing something she shouldn't be. But her parents never said she wasn't allowed to call her aunt, but the question had never come up.
Annabel dialed her aunt's number, surprised that she even knew the number. It was her uncle that answered the phone; his voice was flat and emotionless. Annabel asked to speak to her aunt and the phone went silent for a few seconds before a new voice answered.
"Hello?" The voice asked, it was her aunt's voice; it was as flat as her uncle's had been.
"Aunt Barbara? It's me, Annabel." Annabel said surprised that her uncle hadn't told her aunt who was calling.
"Annabel, dear it's so nice to hear from you. I'm sorry you couldn't come; it's tragic isn't it? What happened, I mean." Barbara Browning said, her voice lightening up a little bit.
"Yeah." Annabel muttered, wondering if her mother had called to tell her aunt and uncle what happened to Randy. The way her Aunt Barbara talked, Annabel doubted it so she didn't want to bring it up.
"What can I do for you?" Barbara asked.
"Well, it's sort of weird but here goes anyway. I already sent you a letter but then it occurred to me that you wouldn't get it for a while and I needed an answer like right away. You see, I wanted to know everything that you know about Clear. You know, Alex's girlfriend." Annabel said, talking in a rushed voice; she hoped her aunt heard everything she said.
The phone was silent for a few minutes, Annabel suddenly felt guilty about bringing up Alex since his parents were obviously still grieving like his death had happened yesterday.
However, Barbara finally spoke, startling Annabel from her thoughts. "There really isn't much to know about her; she checked herself into a 'metal institution' if you care to call it that. However, I don't think she's crazy; she was a sweet girl, you know. That's really all I know about her, except that fact that her father is dead and her mother and stepfather left her or something like that. Sad, isn't it?" Barbara said, it was clear that she was trying to be of help to Annabel even though she knew very little.
"Yeah, it is sad." Annabel muttered, feeling as though she knew how Clear felt since it appeared that her family no longer seemed to care that she was there. "Do you know what 'hospital' she checked herself into? The name?" Annabel asked, grabbing blindly for a piece of paper and a pen to write the information on. As she grabbed a notebook and pen she knocked something off her desk; Annabel didn't pause to see what she had knocked down.
"I think so, hang on a second." Her aunt said. It was clear she turned away from the receiver -perhaps she placed her hand over the receiver- because Annabel could barely hear her aunt yell "Ken, what was that asylum called, the one where Clear is?"
After a few seconds, her aunt spoke back into the receiver. "It was called something like Harris Hospital for the… oh I can't remember. But it was something like that. Any reason you want to know dear?" Her aunt Barbara asked.
Annabel bit her lip. "Well, Randy wanted to know and I told him I'd ask you." Annabel lied, biting her lip until it bled.
"Oh, all right. Well, take care and do call back soon." Her aunt said, the sadness in her voice returned.
"I will Aunt Barbara." Annabel said and bid her aunt goodbye before hanging up the phone.
Annabel let out a mournful sigh and looked down at the paper in her hand. She laid the paper down on her bed and went to see what fell off her desk. It was an Etch-A-Sketch; Annabel looked down at the red plastic 'toy' and bit her lip again. When she was younger, Randy had gotten it for her for her birthday, since she had wanted one so bad. Annabel reached down to pick the board up and was about to place it back on her cluttered desk when words begun to etch themselves on the board.
It was all Annabel could do to keep from dropping the board; once it seemed like the words stopped forming Annabel read the words. "This is the end." She read aloud, surprised at the words as she read them off.
Before she could react the board fell out of her hands and the words erased from the sand. Annabel cursed aloud, angry that the words were gone; however, on second thought Annabel couldn't think of what she would have done if the words had stayed. There was really nothing she could have done; no one she could have showed.
Annabel placed the board back on her desk and flopped down on her bed; trying not to think about everything she had learned in the past ten minutes. Instead of clearing up everything that was so confusing, the call to her aunt had just fogged things up more. And now the message on the Etch-A-Sketch board; what exactly was it supposed to mean? Annabel, however, wasn't exactly sure if she wanted to believe what an Etch-A-Sketch board said.
Maybe she was losing her mind, after everything that happened she couldn't blame herself. However, after thinking for a few seconds Annabel decided she wasn't losing her mind, she was sure of it. Almost.