With one final warning pat, Weston strode from the room and closed the
door with a resounding thud.
• x •
A paranoid is someone who knows
a lit le of what’s going on.
1
ALARM BELLS
Ah. Home sweet home, I thought as I scraped off the remaining traces
of mac-and-cheese into the plastic bucket under the sink. I was
getting ready to wash the dishes, me being the only dishwasher our
house had. And by “house,” I mean the trailer kind, without it even having
the excuse of being a doublewide. It could be worse though—we didn’t live
in an actual trailer park. Although living in a trailer park certainly had its
advantages: they generally had community pools and were within a stone’s
throw of civilization.
Nope. We lived an official eleven point five miles out of town limits,
on almost two hundred acres of dry pasture located on the wrong side of
New Mexico—the one without enchantment . This barren land in the plains of Eastern New Mexico was what my father was bound and determined to
cultivate (without the benefit of an irrigation system, I might add). I mentally
rolled my eyes at the number of hair-brained schemes our father endeavored
to make his living at since leaving the military, ranching being the latest and
greatest, and the one that seemed to have stuck, unfortunately. I thought
ruefully of all the chores involved and shuddered.
Things didn’t used to be quite so awful. When Mama was alive. She
would’ve given us breaks from the monotonous chores we set our clocks by,
taken us to an afternoon movie in a cool theatre, put some clothes on layaway
before school started.
My throat started to feel tight. I will not cry, I will not cry, I repeated this mantra over and over, willing the tears away.
“Katie-girl!” my father bellowed from the living room. “Time for bible
readin’!”
I pictured his sunburnt face in my mind, the exact way he would be
• 1 •
kicked back in his king’s recliner with a popcorn bowl balanced on his belly, and a sweating sody-pop, set carefully on a coaster next to him.
“Aw, come on!” Andrew protested. “Let’s finish till the end tonight—it’s
still summer-time.”
He was the only Connelly kid who could get away with “back talking”
Daddy. But just a little. Sprawled across the sunken-in couch, he was dividing
his time between perusing the encyclopedia for more information on his
growing bug collection and listening to sound bites of World War II.
Last (and least) would be Mikey, lying on the linoleum floor. He was
tossing puffs of sweet cereal into his mouth while inspecting their latest
acquisition: a buzzing cicada. It was trapped in a jelly jar with punched-in
holes in the lid—tonight’s honored guest.
Daddy started to lecture about “yearnin’ for learnin’ more than pearls.”
And nobody could conjure, nor butcher, a bible lesson like my father, so I
intervened before he really got going.
“Daddy,” I called from the sink, up to my elbows in dirty dishwater. “I
ain’t done with the dishes yet.”
“You can finish afterwards. The boys gotta get on to bed . . . Mornin’
comes early.”
“Yes, sir,” I auto-answered. “But there’s a little bit of that strawberry ice
cream leftover . . .” I knew his sweet tooth would be our best bet at getting
our way.
During the pause that Daddy habitually used to make us sweat it out, I
dried my hands, Mikey grumbled that strawberry was the worst flavor in the
world, and Andrew began asserting his opinion that Rocky Road was the best.
“It’ll give me time to finish dishes and take out the trash while y’all finish
your program and eat your ice cream,” I said, plunking frozen chunks of pink
into bowls.
“Well, alrighty then, Katie-girl. Just this once . . . Bring it on out to us.”
“Yes, sir.”
I was on my best behavior since returning from summer camp. I wanted
to reward Daddy for rewarding me with that unprecedented slice of freedom.
A smile curled my lips at the thought of my first real kiss. Right in the piney woods. Right after campfire. It was a doozy. Wel , at least a doozy of a guy, I amended. Abercrombie and Fitch material all the way. If my old friends
could’ve seen him, they would’ve swallowed their tongues.
A crisp whack from a rolled-up Farmers’ Almanac, followed by an outraged
protest from Daddy’s usual scapegoat, Mikey, interrupted my thoughts.
“You can’t sit on the couch and eat at the same time.” My father had a
• 2 •
strict no-drip policy where it came to food and furniture. Even though our couch cost less than most girls’ handbags.
“Yes, I can!” Mikey insisted.
“Whatdi’jasay?” My father released the lever that dropped his boots to
the floor.
“You have the ability, but not the permission.” Andrew cleared up the
confusion.
“All I wanna hear from you boys is yessir.” This was my father’s standard
reply in a situation like this, being of the “Children Should Be Seen And Not
Heard” school of thought when it came to parenting. Andrew was the only
exception seeing as how he was exceptional.
“Yes, sir” was immediately forthcoming from the exception-to-the-rule,
a boy who knew which side his bread was buttered on.
Daddy threw Mikey a dark look when he didn’t respond as prompted—a
dark look reserved for his dark boy. Mikey retaliated by folding his arms into
an X, his lips pulling in to form a tight seam.
Uh- oh. I knew the end to both these beginnings.
Daddy pushed pause on the remote (never a good sign). Andrew and I
exchanged glances. He immediately went to peel Mikey off the floor, moving
him to the other side of the couch . . . and farther away from Daddy’s boots.
“Three bowls of scrumptious ice cream comin’ up!” I barreled in,
practically throwing a bowl into Daddy’s lap and another into Mikey’s.
Andrew said, “Hey Daddy, didja know radar was first developed to use
as a death ray weapon to destroy enemy airplanes?”
Keeping Daddy’s mouth and hands occupied was essential to Mikey’s
health and wellbeing.
“Huh? Yup. Think I might’ve heard somethin’ along those lines.” Daddy
pushed play, popped his footrest back into position, and commenced to eating.
I handed the last bowl over to Andrew, and now we exchanged smiles of
relief. I was struck again by his intelligence and little-boy beauty. His skin
shone lustrous with good health, his blue eyes marbleized with green and
framed by lashes a shade darker than his cornhusk hair.
Daddy always liked to claim Andrew like a winning lotto ticket, using
him like a badge you flash to cut in line. “This here’s my boy!” was almost
always the first thing out of his mouth. Good manners allowed me next:
“Katie’s my girl. Don’t let the purty face fool you . . .”— wait for it—“she’s meaner’na Rottweiler!” This, his go-to public joke.
If Mikey was introduced at all, he was last, as an afterthought, like a
• 3 •
shadow of a real child. Shadow: the nickname Daddy
stuck on him since he could walk and follow his brother around.
I brushed my hand over the Shadow’s bristled buzz cut, a “daddy special”
shorn with rusty clippers in our kitchen the first Sunday morning of each
month. He lived up to his name in a few key ways: wherever Andrew went,
Mikey was sure to follow (not sure Andrew was always deserving of this
devotion), and he was dark, at least compared to his daddy, whose eyes, hair,
and brows were an unfortunate bleaching of color that lent him a washed-out
look. Like the denim overalls he wore for no good reason I could think of but
to embarrass me.
Mikey had inherited Mama’s bronze skin tone as well as her wise hazel
eyes. And, like a shadow, he was easy to miss against the golden light cast by
his big brother.
I looked at my two brothers sitting side by side and had to admit: they
looked nothing alike. Peas and carrots. Milkman comments were routine
from the good citizens of Clovis—said with a smile but with an undercurrent
of something I didn’t understand until a year after Mama’s passing. I didn’t
believe it. Not of her. It was the “disappearance” coupled with the yin and
yang looks of the back-to-back boys that set tongues wagging.
When all I heard was rhythmic scraping of spoon against plastic, I decided
it was safe to head out with the garbage. I was spent and wanted to finish
“my responsibilities” so I could read. I wouldn’t be able to message my new
camp friend, Reese Caruthers, until school started—no Wi-Fi access on the
Connelly compound. Sigh. And no Internet allowed. Double sigh.
Trash bags and ten-gallon slop-bucket in hand, I backed out the door then
watched it bang shut, automatically lock, and snuff out the light. Dang it! I forgot to grab the flashlight. Not wanting to pound on the door and disturb
the peace, I whistled for Blue. A few seconds later, the wet muzzle of our blue
heeler nudged my leg. I was happy to have company on my nightly trek.
I faced the lonely mounds of shape that formed our pasture. A gusty
breeze picked up in a sudden-like fashion, rolling a skeletal tumbleweed
across our dirt backyard. Branches waved around, animating the old elm tree
into a night creature. I eyed the sphere of light glowing neon in the darkness.
Something creep-crawled up my spine. That feeling—the same kind Mama
suffered from.
Shaking off the icy sensation (something I’d been doing a lot lately), my
thoughts turned to the “Andrew problem.” Skipping up another grade wasn’t
an option on account of his age . But he didn’t belong here and everybody and their brother knew it. “Like a gold coin in a bucket full of pennies,” Daddy
• 4 •
always liked to say. Now there was talk of an afterschool tutor. Felt like an invasion. And more homework for him meant more outdoor work for me. My
shoulders sagged at the very thought.
“Come on, boy.” We trudged down the dirt trail, feeling our way along in
the dark. We lived too far out for garbage trucks to come, so we burned most
of our trash. The bigger pieces my father periodically hauled out to the city
dump in a trailer dragged behind his old Bronco. Until then, it was all piled
up in a volcano-trash-heap out in the middle of our pasture.
Sometimes, I was glad we lived so far out in the country.
Just then a sharp rustle cut through the tranquil white-noise of our
pasture. The cattle quit lowing. Crickets ceased chirping. It startled me so bad
I nearly dropped the slop bucket. My heart always beat just a little faster on
these nightly treks, but tonight I had the heebie-jeebies crawling all over me.
Gah Katie! Get a grip! Nobody’s out here, in the middle of nowhere at night, but you and your pathetic life . . . and w e’ve got nothing worth taking anyway. A pit formed in my stomach nonetheless.
Needing to pinpoint my fear, I set down my load and rubbed at my
shoulder while I scanned the brushy horizon for something out of place.
Maybe the coyotes are out foraging in our trash? Doubtful — they usually liked to keep a respectful distance on account of Daddy’s shotgun. A sharp crackle
froze my body. Snap. My head jerked up.
A foot on a dead tree branch?
I dismissed it—just hungry pigs grunting in anticipation of their dinner.
May as well get this over with before I lose my nerve. Yanking off the lid, I turned my nose away from the sickly-sweet stench of our rotting leftovers, and poured
it over the fence into their trough. The greedy slurping noises of the pigs
masticating their meal made it impossible to hear anything else.
We were stumbling determinedly onward to the trash heap, when Blue
stiffened by my side like he was suddenly struck by rigor mortis. He let out
a low growl. “Shhhh, Blue! There’s no one out here but some cows.” Right?
Another twig snapped. Followed by . . . ominous silence.
“W-who’s out there?” I decided not to wait for an answer. My fear of
coyotes, or whatever was out there, had me backing up in double time. Blue barked sharply and lunged forward. I made to grab his collar, but he was
already furiously charging into the pasture. Goosebumps raised on my arms
like poor man’s armor.
“Bluesy, come on boy!” I tried adding a coaxing whistle, but my mouth
couldn’t hold the proper form.
• 5 •
reverberated throughout my whole body. My heart plunged to my stomach, overflowing trash bags fell from my hands. I started running back to the house
like starving zombies were after my brain. Daring a glance over my shoulder, I
tripped over an exposed root and flew forward. Shoot! I threw my hands out to break my fall, and a particularly unforgiving cactus stabbed my palm. That’s
when I saw a figure toss something like a computer—with antennae sticking
out of it—into a bag before peeling off into the night, spewing chewed-up
pasture behind them. It wasn’t a motorcycle, but some kind of souped-up four-
wheeler I’d never seen before. But I didn’t linger long enough to take mental
notes. Scrabbling back to my feet, I took off again.
My heart thudded wildly, gushing blood into muscles. Scraggly bushes
and cobbled-together animal pens flew by in my crazed, adrenaline-rush back
to the house. I made it back, panting and shaking, but in one piece. Sagging
against our trailer, I listened as the last echoes of the buzzing mechanized
vehicle disappeared into the distance.
“Ouch!” I swore under my breath as I yanked the needle from my palm.
That’s gonna leave a sore and bother me relentlessly tomorrow. About that
time Blue came bounding back from his guard dog prowess, shaking with
excitement and pride.
“You could’ve been killed, boy!” I scolded, then exhaled and bent down
to stroke his neck, trying to sort out what the heck just happened.
What was that thing doing out here in the middle of nowhere? I looked up
at the face of the moon as if it had the answer. Got nothing but more chills
so decided to head in. But the industrial strength locks—Mama insisted on
installing—kept me in the dark.
Some kind of intuition flickered around in my brain, grabbing hold of
flashes of memories from when she was alive.
I remembered how, after her
disappearance, she became so suspicious of outsiders. She refused to leave
home, even for church or the grocery store, claiming she was a homebody
and preferred growing our own produce anyway. But instead of alleviating
our fears, we steadily grew more worried for her. After Mikey was born, she
became even worse, refusing to let us leave the ranch. Then her neurosis began to include things like government conspiracies and body snatchers—things
that never happened in real life. Especially not out here in Nowhere, New
Mexico.
By the time she died, Daddy and I had become armchair psychologists.
We’d diagnosed her with everything from paranoid personality disorder to
agoraphobia. Seemed like reasonable explanations for her bizarre behavior. But
• 6 •
since she flatly refused to see doctors (and we didn’t have health insurance to pay for them anyway), we never really knew what was wrong with her.
Now I wasn’t so sure there wasn’t something more to her behavior than
just run-of-the-mill paranoia. Maybe there real y is something sinister out there, just waiting to snatch one of us up? Andrew instantly came to mind. Who wouldn’t want my beautiful, gifted brother?
A pang of remorse hit me as I thought of a dozen ways I’d stopped doing
what I thought were the silly precautions Mama took to protect us from the
external world. Things like going back to public school and allowing us to
be photographed for the yearbook. I also enrolled Mikey in preschool, even
though she made me swear not to. What could I do? Drop out of high school
to raise my brothers? Pathetic.
The tinny voices of the boys calling my name echoed from inside the
metal box. So I pushed all thoughts of body snatchers and four-wheelers out of
my mind for now, retrieved the key from under a cactus pot, and headed in. I
wouldn’t inform Daddy about the trespassers just yet . . . in case he decided we
needed extra precautions that would involve a shotgun. I was afraid he would
shoot first and ask questions next! And I didn’t need the blood of innocent
joy riders on expensive recreational vehicles on my head. I had quite enough
bad luck in my life as it was.
Besides . . . keeping secrets was in my DNA.
But I couldn’t quite stop the weird feeling in my stomach when I went