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Five told the teacher in plainer terms once Rippyfangs and Mimi weren’t sending the message well enough. Five has a new school and new teacher and new friends. Eventually Six locks Two and Three and Four and Five into a box with their memories, and there they are, screaming. Six gets sent to the principal’s office five times in one month. Six and Seven burn their arms with matches and do not hit or scream anymore. Seven stands in the front of the multipurpose room as she holds a certificate that reads “most improved.”
Seven and Eight and Nine ask for more and more stuffed friends until they have so many that they can barely fit in the bed without putting some up on a shelf directly across. They are watching over her as she sleeps. And they have real friends too, real friends that they see at school every day.
Nine almost never became Ten, but thankfully she didn’t know that nail polish remover wouldn’t do anything besides make her ill for a few days. Fourteen and Forty-Eight and Sixty make further attempts, with varying levels of success.
Eleven is sent to therapy after telling about the bruises on her arms and about what Nine did to escape them. She sees two therapists for a week each before Daddy pulls her out like he pulled Five out of her old school. The last therapist stays.
Thirteen is in health class when Pandora’s box breaks and Two and Three and Four and Five run out screaming. Bits and pieces of them that Thirteen shows to her therapist. Thirteen is full of hope, handing him the crying toddler in her arms hoping he will make her stop screaming. Thirteen looks him in the eyes as she dredges up everything formerly locked away.
“You’re misremembering things.”
“You know some people have it worse than you. I’ve seen people with real problems.”
Thirteen now holds the rotting corpses of Two and Three and Four and Five and Six and Seven and Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven and Twelve.
When Fifteen starts hearing voices and tells Daddy that she’s afraid to sleep alone, he tells her to sleep in his bed, but nothing happens as far as she knows. No need for boxes and locks. He won’t try anything when she’s lucid. Twenty-Two will put two and two together but Thirteen makes her promise not to tell. There’s only room for so many corpses to carry around, so much septic shock their bloodstream can handle, after all.
Twenty takes her stuffed friends with her to college where Twenty-Four meets Rick Schiller. Twenty-Nine wears a dress of white and walks herself down the aisle. She signs her name Mrs. Clarissa Schiller. No more Crotty. Rick buys her another stuffed friend, but makes the mistake of giving it to her the morning after their wedding night, when Twenty-Nine is fast asleep and Four arrives to receive it. She throws it out the window when he is not looking, and feels dirty and cheap and used. Twenty-Five already told him everything, so he knows to pick it up when he finds it in the backyard, wash it off and bring it back to Twenty-Nine when she is ready.
Thirty tells Rick she does not want children, but the choice is made for them once Thirty-five’s niece ruins Thanksgiving like her aunt did all those years ago, saying “I’m not going to pretend that Daddy didn’t touch me.” Thirty-five invites her sister in law and niece and nephew to stay with her after Sean Crotty is arrested. Thirty-six sees her father alive for the last time at the custody hearing. Forty-four dresses in black and lays a daffodil on the grave of Dan Crotty. Four prayed for this day. Six weeps, feeling that he could have changed. Fifteen idolizes her father, for he is the only one that can protect her from the Devil, and is lost without him. Forty-four merely says “I forgive you.”
Seventy-one has since retired from social work, following several hospitalizations, once in the psychiatric ward and twice with heart failure. She makes an effort to volunteer at the library and to visit when she can. They look forward to having Seventy-one read stories to them every Saturday morning, and she looks forward to it too. One day, as if through some sense of premonition, Seventy-one brings part of her collection of stuffed friends with her and gives one to each child. She does not wake up for church on Sunday morning, but is buried there the following week.
The church is packed with those who knew her as Aunt Clarissa or as Mrs. Schiller, MSW. They recount how she changed their lives, how she never gave up no matter what life threw at her. At last, Clarissa is at peace.
Randy tearfully places her stuffed friend into the casket with her. Maybe now they’ll get to play pirates.