Her face. She had seen him yell at me. She heard what he called me. She looked terrified and furious at the same time. I understood. She lived with that thing every day. She was afraid of him the first time I saw her. So was Mrs. Carrington. I could leave and never come back. They were forced to live with him.

I saw her lips move but couldn’t hear what she said. Shaking, I stepped over to the bushes.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I said, ‘Please go away. You make him mad’,” she whispered.

“I’m … I’m sorry.”

“Please, go away,” she whispered again.

“Katherine, where are you?” a voice playfully called.

I turned to see Mr. Whitlock come around the corner of the house. He saw me and stopped.

“Now, you’ve given me away,” Katherine said, pouting and disappointed.

Mr. Whitlock and I stared at one another.

Without a word, I picked up the bicycle from the bushes and rode off.

I didn’t return to the pharmacy. I rode around the countryside all day. When I returned home, Father was still in bed, asleep, and more whiskey from the bottle on the nightstand was gone.

I’m in bed now. I haven’t heard him get up. I don’t know what to do.

This journal is turning into nothing but sorrow.

25

“Hello, you’ve reached Dana Whitlock. I’m sorry but I’m unable to come to the phone, right now. Please leave your name and number after the beep and I will return your call as soon as possible. Thanks.”

Beep.

“Hello, Ms. Whitlock. My name is Daniel Price … I know this might sound crazy, but I’m actually calling to see if I could talk to your grandfather, Benjamin. I, uh, I live in Kingsbrook, in the Nightingale House where his grandfather used to work, and … I had some questions about Katherine Car … Well, I’ll be able to explain better if I could speak to him.”

I leave my contact info and hang up. I got their number by doing a ton of research on my phone and also paying some money to one of those ‘stalker-services’ online.

I try to do more research online, scrolling through the various links that lead to nothing of value.

I toss the phone onto the passenger seat.

This is infuriating. I need my computer but that’s at the house, so it’s out of the question, and unlike every other author I’ve ever seen at Starbucks, I don’t own a laptop. I’ll have to go to the library or a Kinko’s or some other place that has computers that you can rent for an hour.

I start the car, put it in drive, and begin rolling forward, but slam the brakes.