Dark Places

yearbooks, and a lot of other old crap.”
    “Like what?” Diondra said, smushing some peas under her fork like a bored teenager.
    “Well, practically half of it was Michelle’s junk,” I offered, eager to be able to answer some question definitely.
    “Like toys?” Crystal said, playing with the corner of her skirt.
    “No, like, notes and crap. Diaries. With Michelle, everything got written down. She saw a teacher doing something weird, it went in the diary, she thought our mom was playing favorites, it went in the diary, she got in an argument with her best friend over a boy they both liked, it went—”
    “—odd Delhunt,” murmured Crystal, nodding. She swallowed some more wine with slug.
    “—in the diary,” I continued, not quite hearing. Then hearing. Did she say Todd Delhunt? It was Todd Delhunt, I never would have remembered that name on my own, that big fight Michelle got into over little Todd Delhunt. It happened right at Christmas, right before the murders, I remember she stewed all through Christmas morning, scribbling in her new diary. But. Todd Delhunt, how did—?
    “Did you know Michelle?” I asked Diondra, my brain still working.
    “Not too,” Diondra said. “Not really at all,” she added and she started reminding me of Ben pretending not to know Diondra.
    “Now it’s my turn to pee,” Crystal said, taking one last swirl of wine.
    “So,” I started, and stalled out. There is no way Crystal would know about Michelle’s crush on Todd Delhunt unless. Unless she read Michelle’s diary. The one she got Christmas morning, to kick off 1985. I’d assumed none of the diaries were missing, because 1984 was intact, but I hadn’t even thought about 1985. Michelle’s new diary, just nine days of thoughts—that’s what Crystal was quoting from. She had read the diary of my dead—
    I caught a flash of metal to my right, just as Crystal slammed an ancient clothes iron into my temple, her mouth stretched wide in a frozen scream.

Patty Day
JANUARY 3, 1985
2:03 A.M.
    P atty had actually drifted to sleep, totally ridiculous, and woken up at 2:02, scooted from under Libby, and padded down the hallway. Someone was rustling in the girls’ room, a bed was creaking. Michelle and Debby were heavy sleepers but they were noisy—cover throwers, sleeptalkers. She walked past Ben’s room, the light still on from when she’d broken in. She would have lingered, but she was late, and Calvin Diehl didn’t seem likely to put up with late.
    Ben Baby.
    Better not to have the time. She walked to the door, and instead of worrying about the cold, she thought of the ocean, that single trip to Texas when she was a girl. She pictured herself slathered in oil and baking, the water rushing in, salt on her lips. Sun.
    She opened the door, and the knife went into her chest, and she doubled over into the arms of the man, him whispering,
Don’t worry, it will all be over in about thirty seconds, let’s just do one more to make sure,
and he tilted her away from him, she was a dancer being dipped, and then she could feel the knife turn in her chest, it hadn’t hit her heart, it should have hit her heart, and she could feel the steel move inside her and the man looked down on her with a kindly face, gettingready to go again, but he looked over her shoulder and his kindly face got mottled, his mustache started shaking—
    “What the hell?”
    And Patty turned her face just a bit, back into the house, and it was Debby in her lavender nightgown, her pigtails crooked from sleep, one white ribbon trailing down her arm, yelling,
Mom, they’re hurting Michelle!
Not even noticing that Mom was being hurt too, she was so focused on her message,
Come on, Mom, come on
and Patty could only think: bad timing for a nightmare. Then: shut the door. She was bleeding onto her legs, and as she tried to shut the door so Debby couldn’t see her, the man pushed opened the door, and yelled
Goddamgoddamgoddaaammmmm!
Thundering it into Patty’s ear, she felt him trying to pull the knife out of her chest and realized what it meant, that he wanted Debby, this man who said no one should know, no one could see him, he wanted Debby to go with Patty, and Patty put her hand hard on the hilt and pushed it deeper inside her and the man kept yelling and finally dropped hold of the knife, kicked the door open and went inside, and as Patty fell, she saw him going for the axe, the axe that Michelle had propped by the door, and Debby started to