Nightmare Child (18 page)
What would it take for Aunt Diane to understand? Robert Clark had repeatedly tried to tell her. So had Jenny, in her way.
"Aunt Diane, you know the truth but you won't admit it." She leaned over and put her head on Aunt Diane's shoulder. "I'm not alive today."
"Please don't ever say that again," Aunt Diane said, sounding young and scared.
"You know I killed Mindy and Jeff."
"No, pleaseâ"
"And you know I killed Robert. I waited for him in his car andâ"
Aunt Diane jumped up suddenly and ran up the hill, stumbling several times.
Silhouetted against the full silver moon, Aunt Diane raised her folded hands in prayer.
Jenny did not go up the hill for a long time.
She just let Aunt Diane fall to the ground and cry and cry.
Finally, though, Jenny rose and went up the hill and knelt down and took Diane in her arms and said, "Please don't cry, Aunt Diane. Please."
"Then don't ever say that again, Jenny. You didn't kill Mindy and you didn't kill Jeff and you didn't kill Robert and you're not dead, you're alive. And you're a perfectly normal little girl. Won't you please believe that, honey? Won't you please believe that?"
Jenny listened to the vast night, the birds and grass and stones and water and stars and bones and flesh of this night. Jenny wanted to tell Aunt Diane of her great sadness for not being a part of this night, for being something despised and feared on this plane of existence.
But that was not what Aunt Diane wanted to hear, of course.
Jenny leaned over and kissed Aunt Diane tenderly on the cheek. "That's what I am, Aunt Diane," Jenny said, "a perfectly normal little girl."
After a time they went back to the cabin, where Aunt Diane made buttery popcorn and began laughing once more, the way she used to.