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It isn’t until John spots the strange, pale girl with stringy brown hair for the fourth time that day that he realizes she’s actually following him. He’d thought himself fairly anonymous, browsing through books in the used bookshop, but perhaps his mother’s infamy had preceded him.
John carefully sets aside the book he’d been leafing through—The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis—and prepares to wind through the labyrinthine arrangement of bookshelves to avoid the odd girl, but when he looks in her direction he notices she’s gone.
Maybe he’d dodged a figurative bullet this time.
John thumbs through a few more pages of the old book before he feels a gentle tug on his sleeve.
“Yeah?” he asks, though somehow—deep down inside, in a secret place he hasn’t even told his mother about—he knows it’s that same girl.
“Are you John Tate?” the girl asks. Her voice is soft, whispery, like a gentle breeze. The girl appears as ethereal and incorporeal as her voice, as if she’s a living ghost, all ivory skin, big dark eyes, and long brown hair. Her pale pink dress drapes her slender frame like an ancient funeral shroud.
“That’s me,” he says. “Can I help you?” John grips the book tight in his hands and holds it to his chest, as if to ward her off. Or to keep her away from his heart.
The girl drops her hand from his arm. “I’m Jamie,” she says, smoothing her hand down her skirt in what John assumes is a nervous gesture. “Jamie Myers.”
John frowns at the name. Myers. His mom had barely even breathed that name since they came out to California, when John was just a kid. He hadn’t always been John Tate.
But surely it’s only a coincidence. Myers has to be a fairly common name.
“Are—are you related to my mom, somehow?” he asks, affording the girl a polite smile.
He pushes violently against the feeling that threatens to roll through him. The strange, shivery sense that he knows this girl somehow, even though he’s never set eyes on her until today.
“Hasn’t she told you about me?” Jamie asks, her brow creasing. Her large brown eyes well almost immediately with tears, and for a split second John feels embarrassed for her.
“I’m sorry, but no,” he says, apologetically.
“I’m her daughter,” Jamie murmurs, dropping her eyes to the space between their feet. “Your sister.”
John settles across from Jamie at a little table outside a nearby cafe. Jamie clutches a paper cup of hot chocolate in front of her, while John stirs a red plastic straw into his coffee—black, scalding, just how he likes it.
“How did you find me?” John asks.
Jamie ducks her head and fiddles with the straw in her drink. “I contacted the adoption agency that placed me with the Carruthers family after the accident, pretending to be Dr. Loomis’ assistant,” she admits. “They gave up a name and a general location after a bit of a hassle.”
“Why have you come all the way out to California?” John asks. What do you want with my mom and me, he doesn’t add.
Jamie tightens her grip on her paper cup. “I—I’m not sure I should be telling you this,” she mumbles to her cup. “How much do you know?”
“About Michael?” John asks, reaching out across the table to touch Jamie’s wrist lightly. “Not much. My mom told me enough so that I wanted to know more, but not enough to keep the boogeyman out of my nightmares.”
Jamie lifts her head. Her dark eyes are smudged with shadows. “She told you about Michael but she didn’t tell you about me,” she says.
“Not much,” John says, feeling bad for her. Feeling irrationally angry with his mom for keeping his sister a secret. For abandoning her flesh and blood and starting a new life with a new family. “She doesn’t talk about her past. I just kept throwing questions at her until she told me about Michael to shut me up.”
Jamie looks away and shakes her head. “I shouldn’t’ve come here,” she says.
“You should—you should come see her,” John says gently. “Talk to her.”
“She clearly doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Jamie snaps. “She left me behind with the family of a girl she babysat a couple times, without a second glance. And then she started a new family.”
“She had her reasons,” John says, feeling as if he should defend his mother even though he can’t blame Jamie for being bitter. “If you’d just talk to her, I”m sure—”
Jamie gets up from the table and pulls out a couple wadded up dollar bills. “I’m sorry for wasting your time,” she mutters, tossing the money down next to her cup. “I won’t bother you or your mother again.”
John gets up too, rounding the table to reach out to her. “Jamie, wait,” he starts, reaching for her arm, but she darts away from him and slips away.
“Goodbye, John.” Jamie gives him a tight smile and turns, hurrying down the sidewalk.
John watches after her, stomach knotting with guilt and regret. Part of him wants to go after her, to convince her to talk to his—their mom.
But he knows his mom. And he knows Jamie’s right. Keri Tate—Laurie Strode—would not be happy at all to come face to face with her past.