Mallory showed up around February, maybe the end of January. Whenever it was, it was like 2 weeks after Piper left. My mom had this planned for a few months I think, but they never said anything about it to any of us. Until she was on my porch. It started with a knock. I didn't like anything about her. I watched Adam glance in the rear view and he quickly chose to focus on the road instead. Why wasn't I told? Why was I so upset? Why do I even care? See, I did blow up. Eventually. But it wasn't the second I stepped foot into my childhood home for the first time since December. The gate around our house creaked the same, I could smell our orange tree in the corner of the yard leaking juices from every angle, and the house smelled the same. Underlying scent of dust, wood, and a little bit of Tide laundry detergent. For a split second it felt like nothing had changed. Then the updo of blonde noodles flashed in my peripheral. I pursued my lips and followed the flash of hair down the hallway. My room used to be the first door down the hallway as soon as you entered the house. I couldn't even imagine what it looked like now. I tightened up, bracing for the emotional blow my dissected room was sure to bring me. And I was right. The sea shell cover that used to go over my light switch had been moved, my childhood white wooden twin bed, with cracks down each side from its age, had presumably been thrown out. Same with the matching dresser, and nightstand, and all my decorations. That same anger boiled in me again as I scanned my now empty room. "What do you think?" A voice questioned from across the room.
She stood in the doorway. I watched her for a moment before I answered. Pale, brown freckles sprayed across her nose, shoulder length curly blonde hair. Built just like me too. I stared at her for a few more seconds. "Could be better," I responded, dryly. I flipped the orphaned clothes from her bag over with my foot. "What's your plan? I'm back now, this is my room." "I won't lie to you, they said you probably wouldn't come back this summer, so it wasn't going to be a big deal." She said, her eyes were dark dark brown, and something just wasn't right about them. But I couldn't pin it. I exhaled sharply, turned around, and pushed her on my way out. I could've sworn I heard her giggle. Mallory seemed normal, at first, I'd say. She has this weird vibe about her, almost like she knows something you don't, or is planning something. I don't really know how to explain it, but she freaked me out the first couple weeks. I walked past Mallory and Social Services to get my lacrosse stick and heard something that replays constantly in my head, "...be sure you watch...she's known to be sneaky.." I could only hear so much from where I was. But when I turned around, Mallory's brown eyes, so dark she almost looked possessed, were trained dead on me. A shiver ran down my spine, no way I was going back in there with her. I left my lunch at home that day. That was enough to make me basically sleep with one eye open the next week. It took me a while, but eventually I forgot she was even in the house. She is sneaky, I get what the person who dropped her off was saying, but not in the creepy, murder way I was expecting. She's just quiet and usually is always doing her own thing. Sometimes I forget she exists, until I can't.
I sat on the driveway, baking my pale Northeast skin in the dripping West Coast sun. My mind runs laps around that weird interaction with Mallory. Something is incredibly unsettling about her. But it's weird, because she appears perfectly normal. I flicked the tiny pebbles around the black asphalt of our driveway, listening to the soft bounce of them as they scattered. "If you throw them harder, the sound is hollow." I whipped around, only to be faced with the black eyes peering into my soul again. "Good god we need to get you a bell." I said, scooting forward and away from her. She laughed, and said nothing else for a while. Silence blanketed the two of us, except for the occasional caw of a bird or wind rushing through the pine tree. Mallory sat a few inches behind me. Those creeper eyes fixed on something off in the distance, something I couldn't see. I watched her more, seeing her blonde curls fight in the wind, and the translucent pale skin become angry under the attack of the sun. She didn't blink once.
Freak."Why are you even here?" I finally pierced the eerie silence that had settled. Her bug eyes didn't shift from her focus in the distance, "Same reason as you." "What does that even mean? I'm here because this is MY family, not yours." I snapped. The same cold shiver went up my back as those ink black eyes settled on mine. She smiled, exposing crooked teeth that looked like braces had tried and failed to fix them. All seemed well. But, Mallory was nowhere to be found. We hadn't seen her all day, we thought maybe she went out...but she had no friends. So that wouldn't make sense. Got lost? Fell? Hurt somewhere? We should've just left the situation behind us. But she came back. Then that night, it started with a knock. Again. "So was that before or after The Incident?" The swarms of black uniforms before me questioned. My mind filled with the remains of the day we all finally saw Mal's true colors. This was the second time they had interrogated me about the same timeline. I had my story straight. I'll just say I saw it coming. The knock. The windows opened. The hot air coming in went cold. The room went red. Then silver then red. Then purple. I felt like I was going to explode in that room. It was freezing, it felt like they had the AC on full blast. Maybe to get better answers, who knows. My shaky hands and the hot salt water dried to my face kept me warm. I should've listened to my gut. I should've watched out. I shouldn't have worn that god damn itchy purple shirt when I broke in. I should've- "So one more time, where were you during the events of August 11, 2035 at 3 a.m.?" I had told this story one too many times. From the top. Except no mistakes this time. The purple almost gave me away. And as for Mallory, she never really creeped me out that much. I just didn't like having her around. The knife was easy to hide, the story was easy to frame. She was easier to get rid of.