Help for the Haunted Read Free

went to his office in September, I asked Boshoff if me visiting him was like a person going to a vet to treat a burst appendix. He laughed and clacked his cough drop before using a serious voice to tell me, “I suppose most veterinarians could perform an appendectomy on a human if the situation called for it, Sylvie.”
    That ruined the joke.
    â€œI’ve come to realize in these meetings of ours,” he began now, so many weeks later, “that there are things you might not want to share with me or anyone else. But you might find it helpful to write them down in that journal, where they’ll be safe.”
    I fingered the flimsy lock. With its violet cover and pink margins, the diary looked meant for some other girl, one who would fill the pages in loopy cursive with tales of kissing boys, slumber parties, cheerleading practice. Instead, my father’s voice rolled through my head: People don’t need to know what goes on inside our house, so you and Rose shouldn’t say anything to anyone—no matter who it is.
    â€œWhat are you thinking?” Boshoff asked, another favorite question of his.
    â€œI’m thinking I don’t know what I’d possibly write about in a journal,” I told him, even though I knew what he intended. But I’d spent so much time in other windowless rooms, recounting the details of that night at the church for a white-haired detective and a haggard-looking assistant district attorney, that I felt no desire to do it again.
    â€œWell, you could at least start by writing about your day, Sylvie.”
    I walk the hallways of Dundalk High School and people clear a path. No one makes eye contact or talks to me unless it is to taunt me about my parents and the thing that happened to them—the thing that almost happened to me too. . .
    â€œYou could write about what’s going on at home with your sister now that things have, well, changed for you both.”
    Rose refuses to bother with grocery shopping except when Cora is scheduled to come by with her clipboard. Most nights, we eat Popsicles for dinner. Potato chips for breakfast. Mayonnaise smeared on bread in the middle of the night. . .
    â€œOr you could just open the book and see what memories come.”
    To give the illusion that I was at least considering his suggestions, I turned to the first page and gazed at it, picturing the loopy cursive of that girl: A boy kissed me in his car on Friday night for so long the windows steamed up. . . . My best friend slept over on Saturday and we watched The Breakfast Club on video. . . . I spent Sunday practicing cartwheels for cheerleading tryouts. . . .
    Somewhere in the middle of her happy life, I heard Boshoff. “Sylvie, the final bell rang. Did you not hear it? You know, on account of your ear?”
    My ear. I looked up from the blank page, my expression blank too. “I heard it. I was just, I don’t know, thinking about what I’d write.”
    â€œWell, good. I’m glad it’s got you thinking. I hope you’ll give it a try.”
    Although I had no intention of doing so, I told him I would before sliding the diary into my father’s tote. It used to be that he carried his notes in that bag when he and my mother went on their trips, but I’d been using it to haul my books around since so many break-ins had led me to abandon my locker. High school may not have been the challenge I hoped for, but it certainly was louder. Slamming lockers. Shrill bells. The roar that filled the halls at the end of the day. Any other student stepping out of Boshoff’s office into the stampede risked getting shoved against the wall. Not me. As usual, the crowd parted to make room.
    Normally, after last bell, I walked against the foot traffic to the rear exit and out onto the winding path through the woods, past the distant hum of the highway and along the fence behind Watt’s Poultry Farm toward