SHUDDERVILLE by Mia Zabrisky Read Free Book Online

floors and screamed, “You lied to me! You said you’d grant me one wish!”
    “I did grant your wish,” he said, limping down the stairs behind her.
    Sophie spiraled after them, down down down, her hand grasping the slick railing until she had reached the underground garage. She pushed through the heavy metal door, her shrill, frightened voice echoing back at her. “Mr. Driscoll! Come back!”
    The short woman was waddling quickly across the parking garage past row after row of shiny cars. “Mommy!” Jayla cried. They disappeared behind a Dodge minivan, and Sophie froze at the sound of slamming doors.
    She raced toward the minivan, then skidded to a stop as it pulled out of the parking space and veered away, almost running her over. She fumbled in the pockets of her robe, but her car keys were back upstairs. She headed for the fire door again, but Mandelbaum blocked her path with his cane.
    “What’s done is done,” he said.
    “You didn’t give me what I wanted! I asked for my daughter back!”
    “Alive, you said. She is alive.”
    “But I didn’t ask for this!”
    “Be thankful.”
    “I only got a few minutes with her before you took her away again!”
    “You wanted everything to be the same, you said. I take people literally.”
    “But that’s obviously not what I wanted,” she pleaded. “Where are they taking her?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “This isn’t what I asked for, you bastard!”
    “Since when do we always get what we want in life?”
    Her ribs heaved in and out as she sobbed. “One wish, you said!”
    “One chance, I said.”
    She stared at him with dawning dread. “Ryan’s right. You are the Devil.”
    A sickening grin stretched across his slack, wrinkled face. “Have a nice day, Sophie,” he said, limping away.
    *
    Cassie and Billy got married in early November, and Sophie didn’t drink at the reception. She’d been sober for six months now. She had improved her life dramatically. She’d taken steps to provide her daughter with a better home—she did everything Child Protective Services had asked her to do, and more. She moved into a bigger apartment. She found a better job. She attended Al-Anon meetings and kept the place spotless. She even joined a church. Still, they refused to give Sophie her daughter back.
    She tormented herself every night with what-ifs , wondering what she could have done differently to make things come out right. If only she’d worded her wish correctly. If only she’d taken more time to think about it. If only she’d cleaned up her apartment. For months, she’d pleaded with Mandelbaum to give her a second chance. When that didn’t work, she tried bribing and threatening him. Finally, she gave up and moved away and tried to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. She tried not to feel bitter about it. She tried to let go of the past and focus on the future—her future with Jayla. But it was hard to cling to hope when a government bureaucracy was holding your daughter hostage and the rules kept changing.
    The wedding reception was held inside a historic mansion down by the lakefront, and the reception hall was full of hundreds of people. Billy’s wealthy parents had paid for everything. There was an open bar. Sophie was seated next to a friend of Billy’s named Shelby, a Yale Law School graduate with a fleshy face and large ears poking out behind carefully combed strands of hair. His manner was blandly persistent.
    “So you don’t believe in pre-determination?”
    “You mean fate?” she said.
    “If you prefer to call it that, fine.”
    “I believe the world turns,” she said. “I believe the sun shines.”
    “And I believe cynicism’s overrated.”
    “I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist.”
    “You know,” he told her, “I abandoned a Nobel laureate in order to sit next to you.”
    She rolled her eyes and looked around the reception hall. Cassie and Billy were dancing together. The wedding had fulfilled its quota of