Crossfades Read Online Free PDF Page A

the same time, a rustling of wings came from overhead and he glanced up to see a robin perched atop the coil of rope that attached the swing to the branch. The bird’s red breast swelled as it chirped and warbled, its song sounding light and cheerful in the otherwise stillness of the eternal afternoon.
    “Hey, I guess you thought a bird wasn’t such a bad idea, huh? But I tell you what…you better not let that thing poop on me.” The little girl giggled again, and Chuck took this as his cue to duckwalk a few steps closer to her. “You ever notice how that happens, sweetheart? How you think about something you want and
poof
…there it is. Maybe it’s a different dress. Or a ribbon for that pretty hair of yours. Or even a bird.”
    The girl gasped as she nodded, her startled eyes seeming all that much more wide through the magnification of her lenses.
    “I…I wanted watermelon real bad. And then I had it. Right here in my lap.” The girl’s whisper was so soft that Chuck had to cock his head to the side to hear the words. “And I thought it would be funny if there were puppies everywhere, but there was so many that I got scared when they all started runnin’ at me. So I closed my eyes real tight and when I opened them again all the puppies were gone. I think I…I think maybe I…
killed
them.”
    The girl’s eyes shimmered behind a well of tears and she seemed to pull into herself, as though shrinking away from the memory. Her lip quivered, and Chuck wanted nothing more than to pull the girl into his arms and hold her tightly, to stroke her hair and tell her that everything was going to be okay; but he knew he had to keep those emotions in check. There was a fine line between letting enough out to actually interact with the little girl and allowing himself to get carried away. So he forced another smile instead as he shook his head slowly.
    “You didn’t kill them, princess. They just went back to the same place they were before they came here. Do you remember where you were before you were here?”
    “I think I was in a car. I remember hearin’ Mommy and Daddy’s talkin’ and the radio, too, but they sounded real far away. I was sleepy and I was tryin’ to watch the moon out my window and then…and then…I dunno. I was just here.”
    “Do you know where your Mommy and Daddy are now?” The little girl shook her head as her eyes welled with tears again. Her grip on the tire tightened to the point that the rubber creaked beneath her grip and her nostrils flared as she drew a quick breath through her nose. “Well, I do, sweetie. And I can help you get to them. Would you like that? To be with your Mommy and Daddy again?”
    The girl nodded so rapidly that Chuck was reminded of the bobble-headed figurines some of the cubicle workers kept on their desks.
    “Okay, then. I can help you, honey. But you’re going to have to trust me, okay? And part of trusting me is to tell me your name. Can you do that for me?”
    The girl pulled herself from a slumped position to her full height, throwing her shoulders back as if mustering the courage to answer Chuck’s question.
    “Abigail. Abigail Louise Peterson. But all my friends call me Bug ’cause they say I bug them all the time and also ’cause my glasses make me look like one.”
    “Well, I’m your friend…but I’m just going to call you Abigail because a little girl as pretty as you deserves a pretty name. Anyhow, Abigail, I’m going to tell you a secret. And you’re going to have to listen very closely to what I’m about to say. But—more than anything else—you’re going to have to believe me. Okay?”
    Something flickered in Chuck’s peripheral vision and his eyes darted away, instinctively seeking the change in a world that was, for the most part, static. He knew it was a mistake, that the action could potentially be interpreted as a sign of deceit…but he was nonetheless powerless to stop it.
    Whatever he’d seen had been dark, like a wave