November 23
Mrs. Wallace drops off Lindsey again.
Chelsea stops by early in the day. She carries over a stack of newspapers from the past week.
"You're in the tabloids," she announces. She hands me an issue of National Enquirer. The story on the front page is of a girl in Haddonfield that is discovered to be the reincarnation of Judith Myers.
It is Laurie Strode's picture that graces the article.
"That is freaky," Lindsey says, looking over my shoulder. I have to agree in many respects. I realize while Laurie (understandably) bears some resemblance to Judith, I look nothing like my supposed past incarnation. Judith had a warm skin tone, dark blonde hair, and a slender but curvy body. I, however, am pale, with black hair, and I am stick-skinny. I have the flat chest that Judith had once despaired of.
"This is terrible journalism," Chelsea clucks. "But I guess this means that Sheriff Brackett's gag order has some impact if they aren't using your picture."
Lindsey loses interest in the newspapers. She wants to show Chelsea her Georgia O'Keeffe costume, so she runs upstairs to change.
"Any news on Alice?" I ask.
Chelsea shuffles the papers. "They found Hawk's car. At the train station. No blood or anything. Now Mr. MacCready is furious. He was ordering Sheriff Brackett to 'hunt that boy down'."
I should be relieved to hear this. The problem is, I don't believe Alice has run off with Hawk. I don't believe she's safe in some city or road motel, awaiting a marriage license or doing whatever it is people do when they're crazy in love.
Chelsea doesn't seem to believe it either. She continues shuffling the papers. She leafs through the paper sections, then returns them to the stack only to look over them again. The rapid movement of paper fans air into her face, blows out her dark curly hair.
My hand lands on the page just as she's about to turn it. It's the first page of the local section. The page wrinkles under my slap.
I snatch the paper from under Chelsea, smoothing the wrinkled page. I squint at the grainy photo under the headline EPIDEMIC OF RUNAWAYS? MOTHER IN BERRYVILLE PLEADS FOR INFORMATION. This isn't the same mother that we gossiped about earlier this month, I don't think. I scan the article: this woman's daughter is the third to disappear.
"That's Adele," I say.
Adele Thompson, the friend who moved away sophomore year. Only the article gives a different surname: her married name Saunders. Her daughter Amy was last seen on November 14th.
"They decided the first girl from Berryville was a runaway?" I ask.
"Yeah," Chelsea ponders why I hadn't known that before. "That's the official word."
"But Adele's daughter is missing," I argue.
"Who is Adele?"
"Judith's best friend from middle school."
Chelsea's eyes enlarge. But before she can get in a word, Lindsey bounds in.
"What do you think?"
Lindsey has added a few extra touches to her outfit. She wears my new black suede winter boots, which she clacks conspicuously with each step across the kitchen floor. An array of cheap bangles rattle on her wrists. She has tied a navy blue bandanna over her head. She even outlined a prominent set of eyebrows with mascara. I don't own mascara, so she must have borrowed it from her mother's makeup.
She turns, the skirt swirling around her black stockinged legs.
"Wow, nice," Chelsea says. "'You have the look down solid."
"I was looking for southwestern jewelry."
The whole afternoon Chelsea shows phenomenal restraint over her curiosity. Only when Lindsey leaves the room again does she turns and asks, "Are you going to tell Brackett? About the mother of that missing girl being Judith's friend?"
That question startles me. I expected a question, but this is unusually specific, even for Chelsea. She has been paying more attention to my revelation than I like.
"I don't know that Brackett would listen," I stammer.
"Of course he would. After all, you got the part right about Steve's mask."
I feel uneasy that Chelsea and Sheriff Brackett seem to put so much trust in my experiences. I have no doubts that they are all true to Judith's perspective, but - as most of them come in dream form - they are unreliable as evidence, and I cannot present them as that - evidence - to the police. It's not like I'm a psychic or anything.
Chelsea, misinterpreting my pause, refers glibly to the "Small town. Everyone hears everything. Do you want to go now? We can bring Lindsey in town with us. I don't have to go home right away."
"OK," I agree. Chelsea is trying to do me a favor. She realizes that Mom would be happier letting Lindsey and me go out with Chelsea rather than alone. Her insatiable curiosity is a small price to pay.
"Hey Lindsey. Wanna go into town?" I call.
Lindsey hops up from the table. "Yeah. I've got some money at home."
So after I tell Mom where we're going, we stop at the Wallace's. I wait at the front door of the front door while Lindsey dashes in fetch her money. She doesn't take off her costume - it's not too odd looking, as costumes go - but she does scrub off her makeup. I jump from one foot to another while waiting, trying not to get too spooked about being in the foyer where they found Annie and Paul. My doubts resurge, because Sheriff Brackett wants so desperately to catch Annie's killer. What if I'm wrong . . . ?
Lindsey returns downstairs and we fly back to Chelsea's car. We don't talk about my errand, though Lindsey is fully aware of why we're parking at the police station.
"I'll join you later," I say to Chelsea and Lindsey as they head to the drugstore across the street.
II
I hug the newspaper section close to me as I enter the station. The building is small and it feels empty. Besides the receptionist, who looks harried by the phone calls, there are five or six officers typing reports or preparing to switch shifts.
"Is Sheriff Brackett here?" I ask the receptionist.
The receptionist's eyes light in recognition and her lips purse. "Hang on," she says, as she contacts Brackett through the phone. After she alerts him of my arrival, she says frankly, "It's your doing that the whole town is seeing Michael Myers prowling in their backyards."
I know from the true crime books I read that serial killers cause that type of panic. True, it is because of my attack that people are afraid. That and Alice's disappearance, but Alice was in Cremona when she disappeared, whereas I attacked in my own bedroom.
Sheriff Brackett greets me. "Hi Stella." His haggard appearance has grown worse, and his shuffle has turned into a limp.
I return his polite greeting. "Hi, Sheriff Brackett."
"Would you like to talk in my office?"
He escorts me into a glass partitioned room. The office is dark and stuffed full of documents, most of them pertaining to Michael Myers. Old police records sit in organized piles, with The Devil's Eyes acting as a paperweight on them. Black and white news photos of ten year old Michael's face are displayed prominently on his billboard. I suppress a twinge of sadness at seeing Michael's unmasked face.
"How are you doing, Stella?" Bracket asks. I jump slightly and remove my focus from the billboard.
I uncurl my arms, to give Sheriff Brackett another paper to add to his piles. "I saw this article," I begin dumbly. "The mother in the picture is Adele Thompson. Adele Saunders now. She was Judith's friend until sophomore year. In high school."
"Adele Thompson?" Sheriff Brackett frowns.
"She moved before the murders at the Myers' place," I explain. "But she's been at Judith's house a lot of times over the years. Michael complained about how she and Judith picked on him."
I stop short, as I am treading away from reliable evidence.
Sheriff Brackett calls the Berryville station. "Hello, Harry Gilford? This is Sheriff Brackett from Haddonfield." It is because he says Haddonfield, I assume, that they dispatch him so quickly. "Hello, this is Sheriff Brackett from Haddonfield. Is this Harry Gilford?" He pauses to get an assent. "I might have prevalent information on the mother of one of the missing girls. An Adele Saunders. Was her maiden name Thompson?"
He has to wait a little longer this time, as Gilford searches through his files.
Brackett shifts forward, his elbows landing hard on The Devil's Eyes. "It is," he echoes. His astounded expression roves to me.
The dreams were right again.
He explains, on the phone, "I have just learned that the mother has a connection to the Myers family. As a teen, she was a friend of Judith Myers . . . Yes . . . Yes, that rule still applies . . . I'd appreciate if I could speak with Mrs. Saunders myself . . .When it is most convenient for Mrs. Saunders . . . Thank you."
I rejoin Chelsea and Lindsey at the drugstore. They are sorting through the candy while a bug eyed cashier looks on them disapprovingly.
"So?" Chelsea asks.
"It was her," I tell her. She looks so forlorn I have to give a little crumb of information. And she would hear about it soon enough anyway. "Sheriff Brackett called down there. They verified her maiden name."
"Holy shit," Chelsea gasps. Behind her, the cashier's frown deepens. "This is weird. I don't know if it's reincarnation but you must have some kind of connection with Judith Myers if you know all this stuff."
"Do you think you were reincarnated, Stella?" Lindsey asks.
"I don't know," I say.
"I've tried to think of logical reasons you are seeing these things," Chelsea says. "They're not in Dr. Loomis's book or in any of the articles. And they're not that obvious. Like when you said that Steve brought over Michael's mask. Everybody just assumed it was one of Michael's masks. He had a small collection of them back then."
"Brackett only said Steve bought a mask," I have to argue. "It doesn't exactly prove that that it's the one he wore when he killed Judith."
"Still, something is going on here. You can't explain it. I can't explain it. Brackett can't explain it . . ."
"Chelsea," Lindsey interrupts. "You said we were going to get ice cream."
"Yep, we're getting ice cream," Chelsea assures her. "That okay?" she turns to ask me.
"Fine with me."
We pay for our purchases, and trek on to Barney's Restaurant. Ice cream seems like an odd choice today, as the temperature has dropped into the low thirties, but we didn't let that dampen our idea.
III
We finish our ice cream treats and Chelsea drops us off at my house. After we wave as she tears around the corner, Lindsey asks, "Do you want to talk about the Myers?"
"Not so much," I say. I have already expended my urgency to talk with Sheriff Brackett.
Lindsey studies me. Then she reveals, "Chelsea read your diary."
"Oh." I think about the outline of my Judith dreams. "When?"
"When you were in the hospital. When she brought over your homework."
I can't say I'm surprised. If she had found it when she was going through my backpack, there's no way she would have been able to resist. And everything before then was old news and the dreams relatively benign.
I am surprised that Chelsea has never mentioned she read my diary. (Look how readily she told Lindsey, and she's barely known the girl before last week.) But I dismiss that thought. Chelsea was just trying to be tactful.
"I'm not really surprised," I say, ages after I think it.
"OK," Lindsey says. She stomps to fend off the cold air. "It's freezing."
We go inside.