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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BITCHGIRL
1
It was dark outside the Crown Motel, dawn still an hour or more away, when the door of unit 24
opened and a girl stepped out. Heavy fog had moved in, and the world was hardly there at all. The girl
was wearing black pants and a white shirt. She had put her hair up in pigtails, and the face they
framed looked very young. She breathed deeply, the coolness and the hanging moisture in the air
doing wonders for her lingering headache but not much for her unhappy heart. Momo was dead.
Yet, if Uncle Dan was right, not really dead; just somewhere else. Perhaps a ghostie person; perhaps
not. In any case, it wasn’t a thing she could spend time thinking about. Later, perhaps, she would
meditate on these matters.
Dan had asked if Billy was asleep. Yes, she had told him, still fast asleep. Through the open door
she could see Mr. Freeman’s feet and legs under the blankets and hear his steady snoring. He sounded
like an idling motorboat.
Dan had asked if Rose or any of the others had tried to touch her mind. No. She would have known.
Her traps were set. Rose would guess that. She wasn’t stupid.
He had asked if there was a telephone in her room. Yes, there was a phone. Uncle Dan told her
what he wanted her to do. It was pretty simple. The scary part was what she had to say to the strange
woman in Colorado. And yet she wanted to. Part of her had wanted that ever since she’d heard the
baseball boy’s dying screams.
(you understand the word you have to keep saying?)
Yes, of course.
(because you have to goad her do you know what that)
(yes I know what it means)
Make her mad. Infuriate her.
Abra stood breathing into the fog. The road they’d driven in on was nothing but a scratch, the trees
on the other side completely gone. So was the motel office. Sometimes she wished she was like that, all
white on the inside. But only sometimes. In her deepest heart, she had never regretted what she was.
When she felt ready—as ready as she could be—Abra went back into her room and closed the door
on her side so she wouldn’t disturb Mr. Freeman if she had to talk loud. She examined the instructions
on the phone, pushed 9 to get an outside line, then dialed directory assistance and asked for the
number of the Overlook Lodge at the Bluebell Campground, in Sidewinder, Colorado. I could give you
the main number, Dan had said, but you’d only get an answering machine.
In the place where the guests ate meals and played games, the telephone rang for a long time. Dan
said it probably would, and that she should just wait it out. It was, after all, two hours earlier there.
At last a grumpy voice said, “Hello? If you want the office, you called the wrong num—”
“I don’t want the office,” Abra said. She hoped the rapid heavy beating of her heart wasn’t audible
in her voice. “I want Rose. Rose the Hat.”
A pause. Then: “Who is this?”