Chapter 20 – A Promise Made, a Promise Kept – Holly Hayfield

  Lilith’s expression reverted to her trademark scowl. The moment I saw that expression I realized that I made a mistake. She stood up, brushing me aside as she did so. She returned the book to the bookshelf before going back to put on her bag. She pulled out her cell phone and started going through her contacts. She couldn’t be serious, could she? Was she really planning to go home at close to 1AM in the morning?

“You’re leaving?” I asked.

“You’re going back on your promise. I’m leaving.” She said flatly.

I put my hand over hers to stop her from dialing.

“Come on, it doesn’t have to be like that. It was a stupid suggestion. Forget about it.”

She glared at me.

“You never wanted to investigate Malorie’s place to begin with, admit it.”

“I... I wanted to hang out with you. Is that really such a crime?”

“The crime here is that a dead girl’s body was discovered beneath the school and you and Ms. Sampson just want me to act like nothing happened. Wait… She put you up to this didn’t she? This whole sleepover was her idea, wasn’t it?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then what did you two talk about when you were alone? Tell me everything she said. Tell me right now.”

“I…”

“See? As I thought, you can’t. I’m leaving.”

She started to walk away. She grabbed the handle of my bedroom door and I panicked. I threw myself into her, bear hugging her from behind.

“Let go of me.” She demanded.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. I take back what I said. Please don’t go.”

“Why should I waste my time with a liar?”

“I’ll go with you! I promise! I mean it! Just don’t’ go. Don’t leave me… like the others...” I said.

I slid down to my knees, still holding onto her for dear life. I started sobbing embarrassingly. I must’ve looked pathetic. Lilith looked down on me with a pitiful look.

“All I wanted was to spend more time hanging out.” I sobbed, “I didn’t mean it like that. Please stay.”

Lilith sighed. She took off her bag and waited for me to let go over her. Once I did she walked over to the chair and set her bag down there. She sat on the edge of the bed and slid herself into the covers. She pointed at the ceiling light.

“Fine, but we’re going to sleep now. We’re going to the Noelle household in the morning, as planned.” She said.

I nodded and wiped my tears away. I turned out the bedroom light and got into bed with her.

We were up with the sun. Lilith had an alarm set on her phone. She didn’t say anything as we got ready for the day. She went to go take a shower while I prepared breakfast. It was ready by the time she got out. My mother joined us at the dining table in time for breakfast.

It was quieter than dinner the night the before if that was somehow possible. Even my mom was starting to give suspicious looks. Lilith was clearly still upset about what happened last night. I was worried about making things worse by trying to start a conversation. Yet, I was the one that decided to break the silence.

“Mom, can you give us a ride somewhere? There’s a place that we need to visit.”

“Who are you visiting?”

“We’re visiting this girl that used to go to our school. We want to ask her a few questions about when she went to school there.” I said.

“Where is it?”

“I have the house’s location saved on my phone, one sec.” Lilith said.

Lilith pulled up the map app on her phone. She showed the location to my mother and my mother looked at me.

“I can take you there, but is that okay with you Holly? Will you be okay that far from the house?” My mother asked.

Lilith didn’t take her meaning. I did. She was referring to my ankle monitor. My mother was trying to save me the embarrassment of saying that out loud in front of Lilith. Malorie’s household was only barely outside of the range of my ankle monitor.

If I was lucky the ankle monitor wouldn’t register it as outside of range. Even if it didn’t, I was able to spend up to thirty-minutes per day out of range for emergency purposes. I had no infractions so far regarding my ankle monitor. That was mostly because the only places I went to recently were shopping or hanging out with my mom. There was rarely any risk of me leaving my probation area.

“I’ll be okay. It’s close enough to the school that there shouldn’t be any problems.”

“Okay, if you say so. I’ve got some errands to run today anyways. Give me about an hour to take a shower and get ready, then I’ll drop you two off.”

“Okay, thanks mom.”

This little interaction was enough to make Lilith smile at me across the table. This was clear proof that I was dedicated to her cause. It didn’t matter that I thought the cause was ridiculous. What I really wanted was for Malorie to answer the door and instantly debunk Lilith’s theory. Maybe she’d finally rein in her imagination.

She probably spent so much time reading books that she couldn’t separate fact from fiction. Once this was over we could spend our time going back to playing the video games she enjoyed. It would be better than wasting time playing detective. Lilith was so touchy over the Malorie thing but that wasn’t what she needed. What she needed was a friend, the same as me.

On the ride over to the Noelle household I had an uneven feeling in my stomach. What if Lilith was right? What if that really was a corpse we saw? I wanted to dismiss these superstitious thoughts with logic but it was difficult to do so when I knew so little about Malorie. If that was what Ms. Sampson was trying to hide then what did that entail if the story were true? Was there an unsolved death lingering beneath the school just like that? The idea was too heavy to think about.

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Instead of letting the story get to me I decided to focus on the scenery outside the car window. Lilith was sitting in the back doing the same. Even my mother’s vision was wandering from the road from time to time. This was a densely forested area with modest houses scattered on the road infrequently. The remote location of the Noelle household made the thoughts circulating in my mind that much more eerie.

Part of me wanted to ask my mother to turn around and forget about the whole thing. How would Lilith react to that? I looked back at her. Her face was practically glued to the window. She was smiling all the while. There was no turning back.

We pulled up to this dusty old brick manor. The house was practically a mini mansion. When we saw the house’s picture on the map app I didn’t appreciate the scale. The house was a dreary shade of gray that gave the property a listless atmosphere. The driveway was a long stretch of gravel road that curved in front of the household in a crescent shape. My mother pulled up to the middle of the crescent and stopped the car.

“Should I wait here?” My mother asked.

“No, we’ll be a while.” Lilith answered before I could say anything, “I have a lot of questions that I want to ask.”

“Okay. I’m just a phone call away. I’m going to go get some money from the atm and fill up the tank. Call me as soon as you’re ready to be picked up.” My mother said.

“Thanks mom.” I said.

The urge to turn back was high. Lilith hopped out of the car and made her way to the steps. My movement was more sluggish. It wasn’t my own willpower drawing me to the gloomy looking house. It was Lilith’s.

It was like I was on a leash spiritually connected to her heart. Falling away from her too far would guillotine that leash. That would effectively sever our friendship. I was doing this for Lilith’s sake, not to learn the truth. When I thought about like that my resolve to move forward strengthened.

My mother drove off as Lilith and I approached the door. The house was so old that there was no door bell system. Lilith had been brazenly overconfident up until this point. She slowed down when she finally realized something. Playing detective meant talking to a complete and total stranger. This was a skillset outside of her repertoire.

The moment of realization was stark on her face as she opened the screen door. She lifted her hand up but froze just before knocking. She looked over to me as if I was going to happily volunteer. I refused. She closed the screen door and stood behind me. She placed her hand on the center of my back and pushed.

“Really…?” I asked with a bit of a laugh.

“You’ll do better at talking than me. Just make sure you ask about Malorie to whoever answers the door.” Lilith said.

“What if it’s Malorie herself that answers the door?” I asked.

“Then we’ll ask her about the Art and Theater club. Maybe we’ll learn something Ms. Sampson doesn’t want to know.”

“You’re still talking like that? For the sake of our visit let’s not bring up any conspiracy theories.”

“It isn’t a conspiracy if it’s true. Just knock already!”

“Fine, fine…”

I opened up the screen door and knocked on the main door. After a moment of no response I tried again. The only sounds to be heard were the sounds of the birds singing in the trees. When Lilith’s conspiracy theories weren’t on my mind the property seemed peaceful, in a rural sort of way. I knocked one last time. There was no response.

I took that to mean that no one was home. There was an old truck parked in the grass close by but it could’ve been broken. As I stepped away from the door Lilith took my spot. She banged her fist against the door violently. She was knocking like an angry cop, like the swat team had arrived. I stopped her by hugging her and dragging her away. She fought my hold like an angry toddler.

“Lilith, stop! Are you trying to break down their damn door?! What is wrong with y-…?”

“Hello…?” A man’s voice said from behind us.

I turned around to see that a man had opened the door only slightly enough for us to see his chubby face. I let go of Lilith and stood up straight. I was hoping no one was home and we’d be scot-free. Reality was rarely so simple.

“Hi. We’re sorry to disturb you. I’m Holly.” I said, straightening out my clothes.

“If you two are selling girl scout cookies then tell whoever’s in charge that I’m not buying anything until my last purchase gets fixed. I’ve been waiting two weeks now!” He said.

“We aren’t girl scouts.” Lilith said flatly, “We’re from Meredith’s School for Troubled Girls. We were hoping to talk to your daughter.”

The man blinked.

“Excuse me? I don’t have a daughter.”

Lilith and I both looked at each other. We looked back at the man.

“You mean Malorie Noelle doesn’t live here?” I asked.

The man was more interested in us at the mention of Malorie’s name. He opened the door more now and stepped out onto the porch with us.

“Malorie is my younger sister. She’s been missing for about ten years now.”

Lilith looked back at me, wide eyed. She was right. Her suspicions were confirmed and my fears were coming to life. Lilith looked far too excited over something like this. The man stroked his beard suspiciously.

“I’m sorry. Who did you say you were again…?” He asked.

“My name’s Holly Hayfield.”

“I’m Lilith Meredith… We… We’re with the student council. We found something we believed belongs to her at the school but we weren’t sure if she still lived here.”

“Lilith Meredith… You related to Judith Meredith?” He asked.

“You know about my great grandmother?”

“Unfortunately I do. Malorie used to talk about her all the time. She believed in ghosts, curses, and all that occult crap. My mom and I used to joke that she got kicked out of public school just to investigate ghosts at your school.”

Lilith and I were both stunned. We didn’t know what to say. We just stared at the man in silence. He must’ve felt awkward because he stepped back inside the house.

“My name’s Jacob by the way, Jacob Noelle. Come on in, there’s something I want to show you.”

Lilith followed behind him posthaste, leaving me with no choice but to follow them inside.

“You two are the first people to come by asking about Malorie in years. Back when my parents still lived here we used to get people almost every day.”

“What kind of people?” Lilith asked.

“Everyone, you name it. Anyone that wanted to learn more about Malorie’s disappearance showed up. We used to get everything from news reporters, investigators, and one time we got a Hollywood big shot working on a documentary. Even a few students around your age showed up to pay their respects every now and then, which was the most amazing. Malorie never really had a lot of friends. She was… different, to save you a long story.”

“I understand. Lilith and I are quite different ourselves, at least compared to other people at our school. Did you ever learn about what may have happened to Malorie? Did she run off with a lover? Or maybe something happened and she got lost?” I asked.

He stopped just in front of a staircase and looked back at us.

“Actually I was hoping that you two could help me with that. I thought maybe you knew something that I didn’t. You said you found something of hers, right?”

Lilith may have spoken too soon by telling him that earlier. We couldn’t tell him that the ‘thing’ we found was potentially her cold corpse. That was unspeakable. Instead, I needed to soften the blow.

“We found membership papers belonging to the Art and Theater club. She was a member of the club before it shut down. Did you know that?”

“Yeah, I knew. I didn’t know that the club shut down though. Before she went missing she was doing the writing for a school play. I remember her being incredibly stressed out about it too. She said something along the lines that the club’s fate was riding on her. Did the club end up shutting down because of her disappearance?”

“That’s something that I want to find out.” Lilith said.

“Let me know if you do. Her bedroom is right up here.” He said.

Jacob led us up the staircase and down the hall. The closed door still had a sign with Malorie’s name on it. The sign was a black cloth lined with white lace. Her name on the sign was written in old English font. Jacob opened the door and walked in ahead of us. Malorie’s over-the-top room was quite the sight to behold.

The walls were black with white trims. She had a flowery black and white bed with flowery black and white pillow cases. Her desk, her dresser, her two nightstands all fit the same gothic color scheme. The word ‘gothic’ came to mind when I saw the contents of her desk top. Most notably there was a fancy candle holder and ‘decorative’ skull.

The room had other similar decorations that matched the overall ‘dark’ theme. The images presented made me uncomfortable. Lilith on the other hand was walking in with a look of wonder on her face. To her the gothic design was probably reminiscent of the school. She was more comfortable with this type of bedroom than she was with mine the night before. This made me wonder about Malorie as a person.

“Can you tell us about what she was like?” I asked.

“Actually, that’s why I brought you up here. Here’s what I want to show you.” He said.

He went through the top drawer of Malorie’s desk. He pulled out a small black book that had lace decorated borders and a white rose painted at the center.

“This is it.” He said, “This is Malorie’s diary.”