In Nightmares We're Alone Read Free Page A

far.”
    “Mommy said it’s called hetero… something.”
    “—chromia,” says Sissy. “We just talked about it in Biology.”
    “It’s really real?” I ask.
    “Yeah,” says Sissy. “More common in cats and stuff than people, but yeah.”
    I shudder. The room feels too cold all of a sudden.
    “Do you think it’s an animal pretending to be human?” I ask. “Like a werewolf or something?”
    Sissy snorts. She shakes her head.
    “You know,” she says. “There was a time… long time ago… when everybody was afraid of witches. All these people, they thought a bunch of the women in their towns were witches. And people said, ‘My mom’s a witch,’ ‘My neighbor’s a witch,’ ‘My wife’s a witch,’ whatever. And the people in the town, they believed them.”
    I must be making a face like I don’t believe her, because Sissy says, “It’s true. I’m not making this up. You’ll learn this in school in a few years. And what they would do, if everybody in the town decided somebody was a witch, they’d tie her up and burn her.”
    I feel sick now. I want to run out of the room. I say, “Okay, I believe you. Stop. I don’t want to know.”
    Sissy laughs. “Don’t get scared. You’re missing the point. The point is they were burning these women because they thought they were witches, when really they were just a little different. A little moody, or ugly, or tall. And in those days, if somebody had eyes like that, I’ll bet you somebody would say she was a witch. And because everybody was so scared, they got crazy, and they’d believe it even though it was stupid. And they’d burn her.”
    I look up at Beth, sitting there with her stupid grinning face. “You think she’s a witch doll?” I whisper.
    “No, stupid. There’s no such thing as witches. She just has weird eyes. Real people have eyes like that, and you know what? They’re just people. But in the old days, they’d burn them just the same, because everybody else thought they were witches. See, the scary people in the story weren’t the ones with the weird eyes, they were the crazy assholes who burned people because they believed in witches.”
    Sissy looks at me like I’m supposed to laugh, so I force myself to. I don’t know if I get the point of the story exactly. I’m just kind of afraid Beth might be a witch doll. But I guess she probably isn’t because Sissy says they don’t exist. Sissy’s pretty smart. Smarter than Mommy, even.
    “Come on,” says Sissy. “Forget that thing.”
    She walks out of the room and I mean to follow her, but all of a sudden I swear I hear something whispered really quietly. I jerk my head to the left.
    But all that’s there is that doll. Stupid ugly Beth with her mean little smile, staring at me with her two-colored bitch eyes.
    I get out of the room as fast as I can without looking scared. It still feels too cold in there. And the more that dolly stares at me, the more it seems like she wants something from me.

Sunday, September 26th

    “Sweetheart,” says Mommy the next day, cracking open my bedroom door a couple hours after supper, talking in that peace-maker voice because we haven’t been talking since yesterday.
    She comes into the room and I turn on my side and face the wall. I don’t want to talk. I already know she took my dolls out of the garbage can. I know they’re in the house somewhere and as soon as I fold, Mommy will make me take them back into my room and put them back on that shelf, sitting there in my room where they’ll watch me while I sleep, watch me with Beth’s eyes.
    No. I don’t want them.
    I hear Mommy take a seat in the pink little chair of my coloring desk, situating herself next to my bed. “Look what I’ve got,” she says in that feigned excited voice mommies use when they want you to get all lovey, or when they want the dog to play fetch.
    I don’t look.
    “Macie,” she says curtly, changing vocal tactics, a full one-eighty in half a second.