Quoted By:
>Self-talk
Probably more than you'll like asking. You're all-too-conscious that she's hanging on your every word— one wrong move could destroy her, and you've destroyed enough. But she'll read into your silence, so you have to say something. What's safe to start with?
You lean over the table. "What book is that?"
"Oh! Ummmm... I don't know." She turns it around to examine the spine. "Somebody got mad at it, so I can't really read it. They scissored it all up."
"They scissored it?"
"Yeah! Look!"
Lottie pushes the book, pages open, across the table. She's right. Chunks of the page have been neatly excised. You peek at the binding, then flip forward: near the back, several chapters are ripped out. Past that, the pages are wrinkled with water damage, but new text in dark ink's been stamped above the old.
You are deliberately not reading the text. You don't think you need to.
"See? And they spilled <span class="mu-i">jam</span> in the middle!"
Lottie reaches over on her tiptoes and steals the book back, then flips through and shows you. Two pages of the book are crusty and red-stained, littered with bits of dried black gunk. The words, though, are clearly visible.
<span class="mu-i">...You withdraw the knife, now coated with blood, and repeat the motion. Your father's face is contorted, but he musters a smile when he sees you looking. "It's okay. I love you, Charlie."...</span>
You recoil. "Weren't those stuck together?"
"Huh?"
"When you found it, weren't those— those pages stuck together? And you couldn't get them open?"
"Umm, they were a little stuck, but I wiggled them and they came apart. I can't read them, though, 'cause the jam. Can you read them?"
"No," you say heatedly. "Can I have the book?"
Lottie shuts the book and withdraws. "I found it."
"Yeah, but I'm— I'm you, so if I have the book, it's the same thing as..." It's no use. You know that look in her eye. "Look, forget the book. Or don't forget it. Where'd you find it?"
"In the house?" She shoves the book under her and sits on it. "Geez, you've been gone a long time."
"Three years. Have you been, um... hold on." Think this through before you blow it up. Lottie isn't real. She can't be, or else you'd remember this from her perspective. And the house isn't real, because it's hell, probably. So did she exist before you got here? If not, have her memories been backfilled? No and yes, are your guesses, but you would like more perspective. "Have you been gone too? It's all dusty in here. Aunt Ruby wouldn't like it like this."
Lottie puffs her cheek out. "Aunt Ruby isn't here."
"She's not?" No, you didn't think she would be. "Who is here, then?"
"Nobody. Just me. Well, us."
"Just us?" You were afflicted with your honest heart early. Lottie is playing anxiously with her hair. "What about Mommy?"
(1/3)
