No Ghouls Allowed by Victoria Laurie Read Free Book Online Page A

running until we reached the huge elm tree at the edge of the drive.
     Once I’d come to a stop, I simply stood there, holding her trembling form and trying
     to figure out what the heck was going on.
    Everything felt real enough to be an OBE—out-of-body experience—but why I was having
     one I couldn’t be sure. And of all the OBEs I’d had in my life, and I’d had quite
     a few, I’d never had one with a version of myself in it. I could only wonder at the
     meaning of it.
    The little girl in my arms trembled and shook and I hugged her tighter. “It’s okay,”
     I told her as she cried quietly into my shoulder. “You’re safe now.”
    “I’m never safe,” I thought I heard her whisper.
    I continued to hold her until she settled down and all the while I kept wondering
     what the purpose of this OBE was. “What’s your name?” she asked suddenly.
    I wondered what her reaction would be once I told her. “I’m M.J.”
    “M.J.?” she repeated.
    “Mary Jane,” I said, pulling my head back so that I could look down at her. It was
     such an eerie thing to see my own young face staring curiously back up at me.
    “That’s a nice name,” she said.
    I nodded. “The same as yours, right?”
    Her brow furrowed. “No. I’m DeeDee.”
    I shook my head a little. “I’m sorry. You’re who?”
    “DeeDee.”
    For another moment I remained confused, but as I stared down at her, I noticed a few
     things that helped me put the puzzle together. It was in the little girl’s nose and
     the set of her eyes. Her nose was a little thinner than mine had been at her age,
     and her eyes were a bit more almond-shaped. “DeeDee?” I whispered. “As in DeeDee,
     short for Madelyn?” My mother’s nickname from childhood had been DeeDee. The story
     was that when she’d been a toddler, she couldn’t pronounce her own name, so she’d
     introduced herself as DeeDee. For the most part the nickname had stuck, although Daddy
     never used it, preferring her given name of Madelyn.
    The little girl in front of me nodded and added a shy smile. “Thank you for saving
     me,” she said.
    For several long seconds all I could do was stare down at this slight, sweet child.
     The fact that I was holding my own mother was a bit too surreal for me to really take
     in. While I stared at her, she took a lock of my hair and studied it. “I like your
     hair,” she said.
    I stroked the back of her head. “It’s dark like yours.”
    DeeDee smiled again and let the lock fall. “Mary Jane?” she asked.
    “Yes, sweetie?”
    She lost her smile and her eyes drifted up to her bedroom window. “Don’t make me go
     back there.”
    My own gaze traveled up to her bedroom. “What the heck was that, DeeDee?”
    “The Sandman,” she whispered, and she shuddered in my arms.
    I hugged her tightly, troubled by both what she’d said and what I’d seen in her bedroom.
     “Tell me about him,” I coaxed, hoping she felt safe enough to trust me.
    DeeDee gripped me around the neck and I rocked her back and forth. I didn’t know if
     she’d be able to tell me about her experience, but I hoped she found the courage.
     “He comes at night to put sand in my eyes.”
    “Sand in your eyes?” I asked. What I’d seen in that bedroom had had nothing to do
     with the childhood fable.
    DeeDee nodded against my shoulder. “He never does, though.” She paused then and I
     patiently waited her out. At last she continued. “I tried to tell Mama about him,
     but she says I’m only dreamin’. She says the Sandman won’t hurt me. ’Cept he does.
     He hurts me every time.”
    I hugged DeeDee tighter to me again, and I couldn’t help wondering if I’d actually
     entered an alternate reality, or if I was somehow revisiting some element of my mother’s
     past.
    What troubled me was a memory I’d had when I was close to DeeDee’s age, and I’d woken
     up in the middle of the night to find my mother sitting in the rocking chair next
     to my bed. I’d