Page 87 of Apathy
“You look just like—” She cut herself off and took a step back, still looking at me with a shocked expression on her face. “I’m sorry, Skylar.”
“I look like who?” Confusion laced every single word, because I knew I didn’t look like my mother, nor did I look like my father. Even my hair wasn’t as light as theirs was, but I always thought that Dylan and I had similar color eyes. “Mrs. Montgomery?”
I started sounding like a parrot, repeating her name, trying to figure out what was wrong.
But whatever she wanted to say and whatever spooked her seemed to go away as fast as it came, and in the next moment she straightened up, and smiled at me.
“No one, my child. You just reminded me of someone I lost a long time ago.”
But I knew who I reminded her of.
Her daughter.
There wasn’t a single occupant of Winworth that didn’t know the story of Eleara Montgomery. I wasn’t really sure what was the truth and what was a lie, but she went missing long before I was born, and she was never found.
Some said she ran away, that she couldn’t handle being in the small town filled with secrets. Others said that she was murdered, but her remains were never found.
She was just a few years older than I am now when it happened, barely twenty-two. I knew that her mother, Mrs. Montgomery, never stopped looking for her.
I couldn’t imagine the kind of pain Mrs. Montgomery went through, and I hoped I would never have to find out how it felt to lose someone you loved so much. I knew why she almost told me that I looked like her daughter.
From everything I heard, Eleara had long, blonde hair, just like I did, and the brightest pair of blue eyes. So I could understand why Mrs. Montgomery looked like she saw a ghost.
“H-how…” she cleared her throat before continuing. “How can I help you today? You haven’t been here for a very long time.”
And I hadn’t. So long in fact, that I didn’t even know if the sections were still the same.
“I know, and I feel terrible about it. But life got in the way, and I just…” I trailed off. “I don’t know. I guess I lost track of the things I loved doing.”
She blinked slowly, and her eyes shuddered for a split second, one moment before she smiled, and I had a feeling she was all too familiar with the feeling I was trying to describe.
“Well, whatever it was, I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me too.”
She started walking toward the desk on the other end of the hallway, and I followed, while our steps echoed in the hallway. The right side was lined with the high, arched windows, and I could see City Hall from here, as well as the fog hiding the tops of the mountains separating Winworth from Emercroft Lake.
Nature here was truly mesmerizing, but the people were a stain, and I hoped that one day in the future, this town wouldn’t be plagued by the monsters hiding in the dark, wearing their perfect little masks in the daylight.
Monsters like my father.
Monsters like the man that attacked me.
“What happened to your arm?” she asked out of nowhere as we reached her desk. We both knew what happened, the entire town knew, but she still asked, and I couldn’t be angry at an old lady for being curious.
I knew that people spewed their versions of the story, and I also knew that they somehow knew that it was my name carved on the bodies of all those dead girls, but I didn’t have it in me to care anymore. They could talk as much as they wanted to, but I wouldn’t entertain their crazy stories.
I decided not to react anymore, because that was what was feeding into their twisted stories.
“I had an accident,” I replied, begging her with my eyes not to ask me anything else. I didn’t want to think about that night, let alone talk.
The crazy messages had stopped since he carved me like a pumpkin for Halloween, and no other girls had disappeared so far. But that didn’t mean that it was over. No, I had a feeling it was just starting, but this time I wasn’t going to run and hide.
I had no idea if I would find anything that could help me to solve this, but I had to try. Whoever left that letter in my locker, they left it for a reason, and I would be stupid not to follow up. Besides, I was in a public library, and it’s been, what, two weeks since I got the letter.
If they wanted to harm me, they would find other ways. They wouldn’t leave me with clues.
“But you’re okay now?” She looked at me above the rim of her glasses, and I felt as if she could see inside my soul.
