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Brooke sat next to Mrs. Willoughby on the old woman’s flower-print sofa, holding a glass of water in which several half-melted ice cubes floated listlessly. She was still numb, but was gradually becoming aware of what was going on. The paramedics had arrived and, after poking and prodding at her and finding only a few bruises, gave her the okay and left. Police officers still moved about, trailed by her mother who hounded them with questions and demanded answers that were impossible to give. Her house was being photographed and dusted for fingerprints, and Brooke herself had been questioned, first by Mrs. Willoughby, and then far more intensely by the police. By the time her mother had finally arrived and took her turn, Brooke’s answers had become automatic – although now she could hardly remember what the questions were.
Finally the police moved towards the door, ready to be on their way. Brooke’s mother followed them, still talking, wanting to know what happened next, when the perpetrator would be caught. A second later she poked her head back in the living room.
“I’m going back to the house for a few minutes,” she said. “The police are going to show me the window where they think the guy broke in. I won’t be long.”
The door closed, and Brooke sighed. As always, her mother was off to the scene of the action, even though she would be of more use staying behind. But after sixteen years, Brooke was well used to where her mother’s priorities lay.
She glanced around Mrs. Willoughby’s living room. Through her haze, she registered that it seemed rather typically old-ladyish; in addition to the flowered sofa, there was a muted pink armchair with a white lace cloth draped over top, a matching lace cloth on the coffee table, and an array of little dolls and knickknacks covering the desk and hutch on the far side of the room. Mrs. Willoughby had lived here for decades – long before Brooke’s own family had moved to the neighborhood – and Brooke had always known her to be cheerful when she’d passed the old lady watering her flowers, or getting out of her car with a bag of groceries.
At Brooke’s feet sat her backpack, which her mother had brought over from the house earlier. And in it was her yearbook.
She hadn’t told anyone about the strange messages. How could she? Of course the police wouldn’t believe that all but one had just appeared when she was completely alone. And if they starting thinking she was loony, they might question her entire story of being attacked.
Mrs. Willoughby slowly reached over and took the glass of water out of Brooke’s hands. Brooke turned to study her. She was small and thin with loose, wrinkled skin, and her thin-framed glasses were perched atop her head amongst her puff of white hair. She must be well over eighty years old now, Brooke thought. But despite her age, Mrs. Willoughby still lived alone, was still active, and usually had a twinkle in her blue eyes. At the moment, however, she looked somber.
“How are you doing, sweetheart?” she asked.
Brooke shrugged. Her shoulders felt heavy. There was a pause before Mrs. Willoughby spoke again.
“You know, I remember when you were little – probably six or seven years old. I was out in my yard, and you were playing with a few of the neighborhood children in the street. That unpleasant boy from around the corner came up – oh, he was always such a bully. He must’ve been at least in junior high school, and I never knew why he insisted on picking on such small children. But I’ll always remember how he pushed that little brown-haired boy down on the ground, and before I could say anything, you stepped right up and said, ‘If you want to push someone, push me!’”
Mrs. Willoughby patted Brooke’s knee.
“You were barely chest-high to him, but you acted as though you outweighed him by twenty pounds. You always seemed like such a brave girl. Then and now.”
Brooke raised her eyes to the elderly woman, and felt a weak smile play across her face. But after only a second it vanished.
“I got a weird message in my yearbook,” she said, her voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. She didn’t know why she was telling Mrs. Willoughby, but it seemed somehow appropriate. “It told me not to go home today because there was a man in the house.”
Mrs. Willoughby’s eyes widened. “Someone you know wrote that?” She glanced quickly at the front door. “Did you tell the police?”
Brooke shook her head. “I don’t know who wrote it.” She reached over, unzipped her backpack, and pulled out the yearbook. Then she flipped to the second page as Mrs. Willoughby took her glasses off the top of her head and placed them on the end of her nose.
“Right here,” Brooke said, pointing to the series of messages with a shaking finger. “The first one came at school, but then the others just appeared after I got home.”
Mrs. Willoughby looked at the page for only a second before she gasped and went pale. White. She leaned back with her eyes shut, gripping the arm of the sofa with one hand and her chest with the other.
“What’s wrong?” Brooke asked in alarm. Was Mrs. Willoughby about to have a heart attack? Brooke started to her feet. “I’ll go get help,” she said.
“No, please.” Mrs. Willoughby reached out a hand. “I’m okay.” She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
Brooke was shocked to see that she was teary. Mrs. Willoughby lifted her glasses to wipe her eyes, and when she spoke her voice trembled. “That’s Richard’s handwriting.” She looked directly at Brooke. “Mr. Willoughby’s.”
Brooke froze.
Mr. Willoughby?
She’d never met Mr. Willoughby. In fact, she never realized there even was a Mr. Willoughby. Of course, since Mrs. Willoughby was Mrs. Willoughby, there must’ve been a Mr. at some point, but Brooke had never seen him or heard anyone talk about him. She’d never even thought about him; in the rare instances when she thought about her neighbor, Mrs. Willoughby was always just the little old lady who lived alone.
But despite what Mrs. Willoughby thought, there was, of course, no possible way that her long-deceased husband had written in Brooke’s yearbook. But what about the other messages? Brooke insisted to herself. There’s no possible way anyone else could’ve written those, either.
Brooke had no idea how to respond, but her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. “Are you sure it’s him?” she finally asked.
Mrs. Willoughby stood up and walked unsteadily to the cluttered old desk in the corner. She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a stack of folded papers.
“I read these sometimes,” she said, returning to the sofa. Brooke peered over her shoulder as she sat down and unfolded the paper on top. It was a letter.
And the writing was identical. Brooke shifted her gaze between the letter and her yearbook over and over, matching up particular quirks – the way the lowercase G’s ended in right angles rather then fishhook shapes; the way the dashes were actually little squiggle lines; the way the top ends of the uppercase D’s and P’s extended far to the left of the vertical lines. It was undoubtedly the same hand.
Mrs. Willoughby had a small smile on her face now, and was no longer pale. In fact, she looked strangely at peace.
Brooke could barely move or speak, she was so stunned. At a loss for anything else to say, she asked, “Why didn’t he sign his name? So I’d know who he was?”
“Would you have believed it was really him?” Mrs. Willoughby asked gently. “Would seeing his name have kept you from coming home?”
Brooke thought a minute, and then shook her head. Even if she’d made the connection to her neighbors, “Mr. Willoughby” appearing in her yearbook in the middle of a school day definitely would’ve seemed like a prank.
“I’m sure he thought if he left it open-ended, you might believe it was from someone who actually saw the man enter your house,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “He was always very practical like that.”
Brooke stared at the warnings in her yearbook. Her ordeal of that afternoon, combined with the realization that she’d been contacted by her dead
neighbor, was making her dizzy.
“I think I need to lie down,” she said.
Mrs. Willoughby stood up and fluffed the pillows. “Of course. Get comfortable and I’ll make you some tea.”
Brooke slipped off her shoes. She was suddenly exhausted, but certain questions still plagued her. She looked up at Mrs. Willoughby, who seemed unbelievably calm and accepting of what had just happened.
“How did Mr. Willoughby die?” Brooke asked.
Her neighbor’s voice and gaze were steady. “It was back in nineteen-eighty-four. An intruder broke in here and killed him.”