Chapter 4
Story: The Girl at the Flooded Window
"I never left you," Dean said.
The words tore out of him sounding like they hurt, rough and broken. He took a step toward the stairs, and the girl took a step back, her bare feet silent on the dusty boards.
"Riley, I looked for you. We all looked. The way you disappeared — I thought something happened to you. I thought you drowned in the creek. I spent every day for a year walking that creek bank looking for you."
The girl watched him with eyes far too old for her face.
"Mom said you were watching me," she said. "She said you were supposed to be watching me, and you went to watch TV instead."
Dean's face crumpled. "I know. I know I should have been watching you. I've been carrying that every day since. But Riley — I never left you. I never chose to leave you."
The girl didn't answer. She just stood there at the top of the stairs, holding the rabbit, looking at him.
Marisol stepped forward, slow, one hand raised. "Riley, sweetheart. My name is Marisol. I'm Dean's — I'm his partner. We live across the street. I saw you in the window this morning, and I thought someone was leaving you here, and I came to help. Can you tell me what happened? How did you get here? Have you been in this house all day?"
The girl's eyes slid to her, then to the rabbit in Marisol's other hand. For the first time, something moved in her face — recognition, maybe. Curiosity.
"That's my rabbit," she said.
Marisol looked down at the grey toy in her fist. "This? I found this in my mudroom this morning. It's been mine since I was a kid — my sister had one just like it."
"It's mine," the girl said. She said it flatly, with no heat. "I had it when I was here. I lost it in the water."
"Dean said they found it in the fence."
"They found a rabbit in the fence." The girl's voice was thin and precise. "But it wasn't mine. Mine was in my hands when I went into the water. The one in the fence was old and grey. Mine was grey too. Mine had the torn ear."
Marisol looked at Dean. He looked back, confusion in every line of his face.
"I found the rabbit in the fence," he said slowly. "I dried it out. I gave it to Mom. She kept it on the shelf for years."
"The one in the fence wasn't mine," the girl said again. "That's why I didn't have it when he came back."
"Who came back?" Marisol said.
The girl's face closed. She took another step back, into the shadow of the hallway.
"I'm not supposed to say."
"You can say anything to us. We're here to help you."
"You're here because of the water." The girl's voice was flat again. "You want to take me away. Everybody wants to take me away."
"We want to take you somewhere safe."
"Nowhere is safe." She said it like a lesson learned by heart. "They know. They find you. They always find you."
Dean took a halting step forward. "Riley — baby — who are 'they'? Who's been keeping you?"
The girl didn't answer. Her hand tightened on the rabbit, and she turned and walked down the hallway, her bare feet leaving prints in the dust.
Marisol followed. Dean followed. The hallway opened onto a bedroom at the end — a child's bedroom, or what had once been one. A bed with a mattress bare and stained. A dresser with drawers hanging open. And in the corner, a small pile of things Marisol hadn't expected to see: a blanket, a flashlight, a cardboard box of food.
Sunlight through the dirty window showed dust motes hanging in the air. Marisol looked at the box. Cans of soup. A box of crackers. A jar of peanut butter. Fresh, not decades old.
"Someone's been keeping her here," she said slowly. "Someone's been bringing her supplies."
The girl had climbed onto the mattress. She sat with her knees tucked under her chin, the rabbit hugged to her chest, watching them with those too-old eyes.
"I don't get to say who," she said. "He said if I told, he'd drown me for real this time."
Marisol's blood went cold.
"Who said that?" Dean's voice had gone low, rough. "Who said that, Riley? Tell me his name."
The girl's eyes slid to him. "You know who," she said. "You knew the whole time. That's why you never told anyone I was still alive. That's why you let them all think I drowned."
"Riley, that's not —" Dean started, but the girl cut him off.
"You buried me," she said, and her voice cracked for the first time. "You got to bury me and you never told anyone the truth. I was six. I was six and I was so scared and you never came for me. You never came."
Marisol stared at him.
"Dean. What is she talking about?"
His face was the color of ash. He looked at the girl, at the rabbit in her arms, at the pile of food in the corner of this dead house, and then he looked at Marisol, and the truth he had carried for seven years rose up in his eyes and sat there, waiting to be named.
"I didn't know she was alive," he said. "I swear to you, I didn't know."
"Then why is she here?" Marisol demanded. "Why is your dead sister living in the house you grew up in, and why does she think you buried her?"
Dean opened his mouth, and a sound came out of him that wasn't a word — a breath, a sob, something caught between.
"Because," he said, "I'm the one who told them she drowned."
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