Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [11]
But according to today’s paper, the dog’s body had been found yesterday morning in a church garden, its belly opened from stem to stern. Lucky’s organs had been removed with precision and skill, with a scalpel. When the blind man who lived at the Church of the Holy Name noticed the smell, he went out to the garden to investigate and fell over the dog’s body. Lydia thought about her daily runs past the church, her imaginings last night about the garden, and about her nightmare. A dark chill climbed her spine and she felt a flutter of fear in her belly.
“Ready or not, here we go again,” she said aloud, without really meaning to.
Her mother had always called her a dreamer and a storyteller because Lydia was forever concocting tall tales to entertain herself. She had always loved to read and found books much more interesting than the real world. After reading Alice in Wonderland at the age of ten, Lydia had spent hours at the creek in the woods behind her house waiting for a clothed forest animal to lead her to a magical world. After reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lydia had completely disassembled her mother’s armoire looking for the gateway to Narnia.
Rather than be disappointed by the failure of life to imitate art, she kept a journal, which she filled with her grand adventures. On the pages of her black-and-white-mottled composition book, she slew dragons with a enchanted emery board, stole magic from a warlock and kept it in a compact which she carried in her backpack (using it when necessary to defend the innocent or to clean her bedroom), led a band of orphans by ship to an island where a rich, lonely woman who could love and care for them had been exiled by an evil witch.
As she grew older, Lydia tired of fairy tales, but not of storytelling. She found she had the ability to perceive certain truths by observing the subtle nuances others failed to notice. She was thirteen when she first realized her ability.
One day when her mother brought her home early from school because Lydia had the flu, she noticed two cars parked in her neighbor’s driveway. One she recognized as her neighbor’s car but the other she had never seen there before. She felt instantly that something was very wrong.
She watched out the window of her bedroom. Her neighbors, Taylor and Claire Brown, a young couple who had lived there for over two years, both worked during the day. Claire had become friends with Lydia’s mother.
“What do you think is going on over there, Mom?”
“It’s none of our business. Now, I thought you were sick. Get into bed.”
But soon as her mother left the room, Lydia was back at the window. She saw a petite well-dressed woman leave the house. The woman walked quickly, looking around and glancing at her watch. Five minutes after she drove away, she saw Taylor leave the house. He paused and looked at her mother’s car and then glanced nervously over at Lydia’s house.
Lydia moved behind the curtain to avoid being seen. Then he, too, got in his car and drove off. Lydia was certain he was having an affair.
Perhaps it was because when Taylor and Claire had them over for dinner at their house that Sunday, Lydia had noticed they didn’t touch or smile at each other. Perhaps it was because when Claire came over for coffee the week before, Marion and Claire spoke in hushed tones so that Lydia couldn’t hear. Maybe it was because both Taylor and the stranger had seemed anxious and self-conscious when they left. But Lydia was certain of her conclusion.
“You have to tell her,” she said to her mother.
“Tell her what? Just because a young couple is having problems doesn’t mean one of them is cheating, Lydia. They’re thinking of selling that house; that easily could have been their real estate agent. These fantasies are going to get you into more trouble than you can handle someday.”
Lydia insisted.