Towering

brought my television from home. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, I turned it on and it lulled me into a coma. I could go downstairs and watch. Maybe Mrs. Greenwood was even up, watching Star Trek . Instead, I watched the digital clock turn from 2:21 to 2:22. Tyler and Nikki had had a superstition about praying at 11:11 at night. I didn’t know about 2:22.
    2:23.
    2:24.
    I heard something downstairs, a key in the lock. I swam through the swampy waters of what had almost been sleep. Who was here? What was that sound? But it couldn’t be a key in the lock. There was no one here but me and the old lady, and she’d probably been asleep for hours. I glanced at the clock. 2:49. I’d been asleep, likely dreaming.
    Now that I had slept, I couldn’t go back. It was like I’d slept a full night.
    I felt something hard under my head. The diary. It had been days since I’d read it. I was lucky Mrs. Greenwood hadn’t noticed it. Though I’d told her I would do my own laundry, she insisted she’d do it and informed me that the beds were changed Monday.
    It was Monday today.
    I didn’t know why I didn’t want Mrs. Greenwood to know about Danielle’s diary. Originally, it was because of the way she’d scared me that first night. Now, it was because I didn’t want to remind her, as if she needed reminding. Or, maybe, I didn’t want to give her hope when there was none. Still, I wanted to finish the diary. In these early lonely days, Danielle had become something like a friend.
    Too bad she was probably a dead one.
    I didn’t hear any footsteps in the hallway, nothing but the wind. The door had been my imagination. Of course it had. My imagination trying to persuade me I wasn’t all alone, when I was. Giving up on sleep, I turned on the light and, once again, opened the diary.

Danielle’s Diary
    He’s gone! I’m sure of it! He’s gone, and the world has ended. Ended!
    Every day for a week, he came to me, and it was wonderful. We made love among the trees by the lake, and I saw visions I had never seen before. I used to think this place was ugly, gray, dead. With Zach, it was beautiful.
    But now, he is gone. I have walked Ginger out to the road every day this week, and I’ve returned, having gained nothing but exercise. Has he left town? Or worse, has he died? Been hit by a car? Gotten sick?
    Or has he merely decided he doesn’t like me anymore?
    At night, I have been plagued by the strangest dreams, dreams in which colors have sounds and something chases me across the sky with spidery, flaming legs. I ran away from it, but also, toward something. Was it Zach? Before I could reach the end, I would wake, sweating, unable to scream.
    I began to make plans to sneak away, to concoct a ruse to go to the Red Fox Inn.
    And then, yesterday, I did.
    Mom has been sick for several days. It’s only a cough, but from the way she acts, you’d think she was near death. We are running low on groceries. Earlier in the week, I offered to go shop, but she said it was unnecessary. She’d be better soon. But now, it’s been several days. We’re out of milk and almost out of bread. I told Mom this.
    “We can get milk from Mrs. McNeill,” she said, “and I can make bread.” And then, a cough racked her body, doubling her up and making her hack grotesquely for over a minute.
    When she finished, I said, “I wouldn’t eat any bread you made. I could get the plague. Besides, you should rest.”
    “I’ve been in bed these three days, and it hasn’t helped. I can’t sleep for all this coughing.”
    “Some medicine, maybe. Maybe Dr. Fine . . .” I stopped. I didn’t want her to go to the doctor because, then, she’d come to town with me. “I could call Dr. Fine and describe your symptoms. Then, he could phone something in.”
    “He wouldn’t. Dr. Fine isn’t helpful unless there’s a check involved. He’ll want me to go there, and I’m too sick to go out.”
    Could she be any more difficult?
    “Oh!” I remembered the nighttime cold medicine I had in my bottom dresser drawer. Some kids at school said they took it to get high, but when I did, it only made me want to sleep forever and ever. Nothing like whatever I took with Zach. But if Mom took the cold meds, I could go out or do anything I wanted. “I just remembered I have this really good cough medicine. I’ll get it for you.”
    “Nothing will help.”
    “Try this.”
    I measured the green fluid into the plastic dose cup, filling it a bit higher than