JOELLE

“Alyssa? How?”

“You’ve been a really bad girl Joelle. I’ll tell everything to mamma.”

“Mamma is not here Alyssa. And I thought you weren’t here either”, says trying to touch her hand, but the little girl pulls away.

“No! You didn’t come back for me!”

“That’s just not true! There was nothing left! It was all burnt!”

“You would come back for her though!”

“Who?”

She indicates the passed out body of Miss Saigon.

“Oh, I’ve read your journal. And I may have forgotten it on Miss Saigon’s nightstand…”

“Alyssa O’Connor, you give that right back to me! This is no way of speaking to your sister!”

“Well apparently you’re not my sister!”

“Don’t say that!”

The little girl pulls out a kitchen-knife from her nightgown.

“Give me that… Alyssa… Someone could get hurt. Cats and rabbit holes are cute… this is dangerous!”

“You’re talking to me like I’m the baby? For 3 years I’ve been trying to make contact with you and you thought that I was a fucking ghost and you were fucking nuts! So who’s the child now?”

“Seriously, it’s because you acted like a ghost Alyssa, what are those red locks and paint in your face? You dressed up like freaking Annabelle to scare me! You made yourself a ghost! If you had just knocked on my door-”

“Well I was mad at you! For leaving me there! You were supposed to be my big sister!” You were supposed to take care of me!”

“You didn’t have a pulse Alyssa! Just like mamma! You think I didn’t check on you before I ran away in dread in the middle of the night with those screaming foxes piercing my ears! And he- he…-”

Joelle finds herself out of breath again as she is beginning to have another attack.

“What’s happening to you?”

“You’ve happened to me! You’ve made me think that I’m insane and undergo treatments I shouldn’t have that made me this crazy girl with the panic attacks who’s constantly doubting herself if she lives reality or just hallucinating the whole time! Do you have any idea what’s that like?”

Alyssa’s eyes feel wet as they’re filled with burning tears.

“I didn’t mean that… Look, drop the knife and we can put everything past us, live together again… as a family…”

Alyssa points the knife to Miss Saigon. “I’m not living with her!”, she exclaims.

“We won’t be living with Miss Saigon, what's gotten into you!”

“You love her!”

“Well yeah I guess she was there for me after everything but-”

“But, but what? You don’t need us anymore…”

“I don’t need you anymore? You and who else?”

“Alyssa, you and who else?” , says shaking up the girl.

Alyssa drops the knife and runs away.

“Alyssa!” As Joelle runs after her, she stumbles again on the log and falls down on her face.

“Joelle? Joelle?”

Miss Saigon’s blurry voice pierces through Joelle’s ears like a siren that made them bleed. “Aurgh!”, she gasped as the nurse sat her up on the bed.

“Why am I here? Miss Saigon, what about your neck? You should be in bed, I mean in another bed here…”

“Joelle, I’m so sorry!”

“What? What are you sorry about, Miss Saigon?”

She hands her her diary.

“You read that?”

“I had to stop… I didn’t want to invade more…”

“It’s not what you think it is. For god’s sake Alyssa why did you have to do that?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“My sister. My little sister. She did this to you. And that to me.”, indicating her diary.

“Did what to me?”

“Aren’t you in any pain, Miss Saigon?”

“I’m in lots of pain seeing you like that sweetheart.”

She sobs. “No. No. No.No. No. No… This was real! It was real! Miss Saigon, you have to believe me. You just have to!”

“Sweetie please…”

“You were there, you saw the fluffy little cat, the girl with the curly red locks…”

“Shhhh”

“No, no…”, her voice breaks. “I think I’m losing my mind Miss Saigon, please!”

“Honey it’s real. This is real.”

“Then pinch me.”

“What?”

“If you think this is real, I wanna see for myself. Pinch me.”

She looks at her with a devilish smile.

“I am afraid I cannot do that, sweetie.” , says caressing her fingers through her hair.

Joelle sits still, breathing heavily. She looks at the counter next to her. There lies some medication and an injection shot. She pulls up the injection shot and does it to herself.

“Nooooooo!”, Miss Saigon screams.

I manage to find my consciousness again and my voice back at once, while still lying on the mud back into the woods.

“I AM NOT INSANE! Also… fuck this log!”

I quickly get up and run towards the house to attend to Miss Saigon’s body.

“Joelle, I saw her… the little girl.”

“I know, it’s all right. She’s gone. I’ll call an ambulance.”

A week had passed and the ghost of my sister didn’t seem much interested in catching my attention anymore. A part of me felt empty, and another part of me relieved. But could this be the end of it? And then I realised. Alyssa was right. I had let her down. And I couldn’t afford to do that again. I already lost my sister once. I had to find her!

After Miss Saigon got discharged from the hospital, she invited me over for a cup of tea.

“I think you should stay with me for a couple days.”

“Are you scared?”

“Not for me.”

“Oh. No signal from my… uhm… that little girl since that night though.”

“Joelle, I’m not worrying about a 10-year old. I mean… I am worried where that poor girl might have gone…”

“Me too…”

“But she’s not the real danger here, is she?”

“No, I suppose not”, says putting down her cup of tea. “I really appreciate your help Miss Saigon, but I have to get going. I promise I’ll come check on you.”

“Take care of yourself Joelle.”

Running towards the bus-stop, I couldn’t help myself from feeling guilty for Miss Saigon’s neck-brace and for leaving her alone like that. Maybe she wasn’t worried about my safety or hers, maybe she just needed my help and while that’s only she’s ever done for me for the past years, I couldn’t seem to repay that, although I wanted to, so bad, because she wasn’t just a friend of my aunt’s- Shit!- What if she called my aunt and told her everything? I guess she would catch the first flight and appear on my front door the next morning. Maybe that’s what I needed, maybe I needed to call her for help, but I couldn’t… not before I found her precious dear little niece she thought she had already said goodbye to 3 years ago…

After I searched through all the local orphanages with my ID and a family photo of me, mum and my sister without any luck, I landed at the police station.

“Good morning”, said I to the police officer with a quite trembling voice.

“Good morning Miss. How can I help you?”

How can you help me? I repeated the question in my mind in wonder. What could I tell him? You know, I just saw my little sister who I had for dead for the last 3 years and she’s apparently pretty much alive, haunting my aunt’s house, where I occasionally reside, on and off and decided to appear to me last week scaring off my college teacher next door who fell down the stairs, misplacing her neck, we had a fight and then she ran away again. And then I realised: My story was my ticket back to the Cuckoo's nest. So I just asked for one thing.

“Could you show me your file on the O’Connor’s case of 2021?”

“Not unless you were-”

“Joelle O’Connor.”, says showing her ID.

“Oh, well, alright then. You may have a look but I warn you that the pictures are-”

“Disturbing. I know. I was there. I remember. I tried to forget but-”

As flashing images run through her mind, she seems to lose connection with the present for a bit.

“Miss O’ Connor? Miss O’Connor?”

Hearing the officer’s voice a little blurry at first, she manages to snap out of it.

“Why do you want to dig into the past?”

“Because I believe that my sister is still alive. I know that my sister is still alive.”

For my good luck, the police officer didn’t seem to think I was nuts as the body of my sister had never been found and was only suggested that it was decayed due to the fire. I couldn’t seem to deny that then as when I checked for her heartbeat I couldn’t find one myself and ran away from the bodies while the fire was still on, probably burning the rest of them alive. What if I had stayed? But I couldn’t… I tried to wipe out of my memory the reason why, but I could still see his devilish smile…

“There’s no records of her being committed to an orphanage, not in Ireland not in the whole UK in fact.”

“What about France? Or America?”

“This would take all day to check.”

“Yeah, of course…”

“But I think you might have a better shot…”, says he while searching on his computer.

“Does this house look familiar to you?”, says showing her the screen.

“Yeah, it’s our summerhouse.”

“It looks like this property has been sold to an anonymous buyer in an auction three years ago.”

“Is that so?”

“I can send a patrol to check it out tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay… Thank you officer.”

Of course I wasn’t going to wait until tomorrow. I had taken my driving’s licence at 18, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to drive after the accident. It was something I didn’t expect to do in my life again, until this day. “Vroom!” I start off the engine and my hands are placed on the wheel, shaking. “5,4,3,2- Fuck this! For Alyssa!” I press the throttler and start the car. I had made the route from auntie’s house to our summerhouse a few times in the past. I trusted myself that I remembered. Something like muscle memory, you know? Or, its equivalent for orientation.

Pulling away to our once-upon-a-time happy-place, I knew there was no going back.

“Mon jolie Joelle?”

Fuck! I already knew it, but didn’t wanna believe it.

“Papa?”