Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

person becomes a monster in everyone else’s eyes. It doesn’t matter if he’s innocent or not. Not anymore. Because all anyone will ever see when they look at that person again is a monster.”

She offers this up so casually, so matter-of-factly, as if we were merely having a conversation between friends and she’s giving me some sage advice. A helping hand.

“Who are you?”

She looks over at me and smiles. It’s not threatening in any way. Just hurt. It stings her somehow. “You don’t remember me, do you? You don’t remember anything at all…”

I know her. That’s what she’s insinuating. I know her from somewhere. Where? When?

“Jenna.”

Jenna. Had I known Miss Levin’s first name was Jenna?

“Jenna Woodhouse. You knew my father. Levin was my mother’s maiden name. I took it when she changed it back, but…Levin never fit. Jenna Levin. It never felt quite right to my ear.”

He is survived by his estranged wife and daughter…

Had she gone to Greenfield, too? Was she in my class? Had she always been there and I never realized it? Never remembered?

Jenna shifts the car into drive. Before I can protest, we’re heading down the road.

Away from Tamara.

Shadows start to take shape in my mind. I’m beginning to see.

See her.

Jenna Woodhouse.

The girl in the background…

Jenna Woodhouse.

The little girl in the pictures on my teacher’s desk, smiling between her mom and dad…

Jenna.

The girl staring back at me…

I see her now. See her everywhere. In Mr. Woodhouse’s classroom. The courtroom. The studio audience. Wherever my memory takes me, I spot Jenna Woodhouse hiding in the crowd.

“You took my father away from me,” she says.

“I didn’t…I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was—”

“He couldn’t stop people from believing. Even after he was exonerated, after everybody knew it was all just a hoax, people never stopped whispering about him. They still believed.”

“I—I was just a kid.”

“Just a kid? I’m sorry, but why does that matter? Just a kid.”

“Kids—kids make things up for no reason.”

Liar.

“They believed you. They listened to you. You could’ve stopped everything, if you’d just spoken up and taken it all back. You could have saved him.”

“Take me,” I say. “We’ll go wherever you want, but—please. Leave Eli out—”

“It’s my turn to talk!” The outburst sets both children shifting in the back seat, but neither wakes. “Nobody took pity on me. Nobody tried to protect me like they protected you. Everywhere I went, everyone made sure I knew who my father really was.”

A daughter. I keep repeating it to myself. Mr. Woodhouse had a daughter.

“I didn’t…” My words fade away. The car accelerates, pushing us toward the county line.

Over the river and through the woods…

Danvers disappears. There’s nothing but a canopy of trees wrapping around Route 3.

“My life wasn’t like yours,” she says. “I wasn’t allowed to forget who I was. Even after my dad killed himself, people wouldn’t let him go. Wouldn’t let him be at peace. They needed someone to take his blame…so they blamed me. I became the scapegoat for all of your lies.”

Scapegoat: a person blamed for something someone else did.

A sacrifice.

I study Jenna’s face. When I look in her eyes, Mr. Woodhouse stares back.

“I knew you’d need help remembering…We have to finish what you started.”

I can’t focus on her words. Something roils in my stomach.

“The devil doesn’t exist, Sean. But I got you to believe, didn’t I? Believe your own lies.”

My head grows heavier. My chin dips to my chest. My neck snaps back up. The world outside my window spins—the trees, their branches, the leaves won’t stop spiraling.

“You were so willing to believe. Believe everything. I barely had to do a thing.”

“I was just…” I have to dig deep and shovel the words out. “Just a…kid…”

“What about me?” Jenna shouts. “I was a child, too. What did I do to deserve this? What did any of us do to deserve the hell you put us all through?”

The trees thin down to my right. I peer out my window and see the crystalline sheen of the Rappahannock. The sun hits the water’s surface, striking my eyes. I wince at its brightness.

We’re about to cross the bridge.

“How many families did you tear apart? How many lives did you demolish?”

I fumble for my door’s handle. My fingers wrap around it and pull, but my hand slips. The door won’t open. Child safety locks.

“You were never punished for what you did. You never had to say you were sorry. You just got to move on with your life and start over! A clean slate! Like nothing ever happened…”

Afresh start.

My skull rolls over the headrest. My eyes skim across the blur of water outside. We’re coming up on the bridge too quickly. Two narrow lanes suspended over the water.

“I saw you. I saw you following in my father’s footsteps…and you didn’t even realize it!”

The past is never through with us. The stories I created as a child took on a life of their own. I lied—and those lies reverberated into the lives of everyone surrounding me. My stories devoured entire families. They destroyed my family, they destroyed hers.

“Look at me, Sean. Look.” She slaps me across the face, waking me up. “Remember me. Remember what you’ve done. You have to live with your lies. I am your lie. Sandy is your lie.”

Sandy? What about her? What did I do to her?

The river swells around the car. I see blue on both sides now. The Rappahannock’s glassy sheen shimmers with the sun’s reflection. The bridge’s rusted abutments undulate, warping outside the windshield as they wrap around the car, as if the metal is embracing us.

“Do you remember now, Sean? Do you remember me?”

Yes—yes, I remember now. I remember everything.

“Do you believe?”

I believe.

I’m five years old again. I’m back in Mom’s station wagon, barreling down the highway. The world blurs beyond our windshield, nothing but speed, as Mom tries to escape the clutches of that invisible presence always at our backs, always in the rearview mirror, always closing in.

I grab the wheel. I have to make her stop.