Work Text:
Hi.
It’s me.
I told you all about what happened in my town two years ago. But I didn’t say what happened before. Or much of after. I know all about what happened before and after, but if I said it all in one go, the story would have been way too long. So I’ll say it now.
My name is Maddie. My full name is Madeleine Amelia Banks, but I like Maddie. My mom and dad called me that. I should be seventeen by now, but I’m still ten years old. Maybe nine. My memories aren’t good.
When I was in the fourth grade, I had to go to school online. There was this thing called coronavirus going around, and it made everyone sick. Some kids at school got sick. None of them died, but people were dying. Every day I would ask Mom and Dad how many cases there were today, because the less there were, the more likely I could go back to school. But it was almost always a big number, and I couldn’t go back to school, and I hated being shut up in the house with my stupid parents and not able to go out and do things. I didn’t miss class, I just missed getting out of the house and not staring at a stupid old computer to go to class and never talking to my friends and not having to do all my schoolwork at home.
Summer came, and I was angry and sad because there was nothing to do, and there had been nothing to do for ages. So when Mom and Dad came to me and asked if I wanted to go to Auntie Gladys’s house for the summer, I said yes. I thought she’d be more interesting. I didn’t even know Auntie Gladys, she lived outside Maybrook and this was the first I’d heard of her. Dad told me she was his much younger sister. I asked how old she was, and he said twenty. Twenty! Can you believe it? I think my dad was forty! Imagine having a baby sister when you’re twenty!
If she was his sister.
So yeah. I didn’t know Auntie Gladys at all, but she sounded nice and I was looking forward to being away from my stupid parents, and looking forward to something completely new. So they drove me to her house and she opened the door. I remember her then. She was very pretty. She had red hair and a purple dress with flowers, and looked a little like my friend’s older sister who picked her up from school one time. I don’t remember that friend’s name. Or her sister’s name. Anyway, Auntie Gladys was also wearing a little eyeshadow and lipstick, and I thought she looked like a supermodel. She thanked Mom and Dad and they drove away, and I never, ever talked to them or saw them properly again.
My first day at her house was nice. She let me watch TV, and I watched lots of Disney Channel, and we ordered pizza for dinner and we played Guess Who, and she let me go to bed late. I went to bed at maybe nine. I was very happy.
I woke up at the very end of the summer.
I didn’t even wake up in my room. I woke up floating in a fuzzy sort of place, and I knew. I knew what Auntie Gladys had done to me. I knew she’d stolen my hairclip and used it in a spell, and I’d sat in my room doing nothing for months while she used my soul to make herself prettier.
I don’t know how I knew. But I knew.
I thought about Auntie Gladys. I was scared and confused. I didn’t know why she’d done it. She was my auntie. Didn’t she love me?
Well, I didn’t love her anymore. Not at all.
I thought about Auntie Gladys very hard, trying to think of why she’d done it, and then I saw her. She was looking in the mirror of her house. She looked even prettier now. Her hair was thicker and shinier and a brighter ginger shade. Her skin kind of looked like a shop dummy. She was smiling, and saying to herself, “It worked!”
It worked because of me. That was me doing that to her.
I went back to the fuzzy place, and I thought that it wasn’t fair. I was nowhere because she’d sucked out my soul, and she was prettier because she’d basically killed me. I didn’t want her to be pretty. I wanted her to get really, really ugly, and then hopefully die. She deserved to die, because she’d made me die.
Then I thought - maybe I’m somewhere inside her. She sucked out my soul. Maybe if I’m inside her, I can get her.
So, for five years, I did nothing but concentrate on Auntie Gladys, and taking back what she’d stolen from me. I focused on sucking her dry. Everything on the outside would turn inside, and feed me.
And it worked. The fuzzy place was less fuzzy. I didn’t have to concentrate as hard on Auntie Gladys to see her or suck things from her. And she was getting older and uglier really really fast. In five years, she didn’t look twenty five. She looked 100. Her hair was gray and falling off, her skin was all wrinkled and covered in liver spots, she couldn’t walk that good, and she wore a ton of ugly wigs and makeup to look younger. It didn’t work.
Then, she came to another family in Maybrook, and said she was their auntie. But you know that story.
Afterwards, when the seventeen kids ripped her apart, something a bit strange happened. I was there on the lawn, watching everything. Not in the place I’d been before, watching from a distance. Standing there, on the lawn, watching the other kids stand there and look at her. I said ‘Hi’, to Arya Taylor. She didn’t respond, and I didn’t know if she just couldn’t see me or it was because of what horrible old Gladys had done to her.
The police and some ambulance people came afterwards, and so did the kids’ parents. I left.
I walked around town for hours, but it felt a little like minutes. Or maybe minutes felt like hours. I think I walked in a circle, but I’m not sure. Then I decided to go visit my house, but I couldn’t really remember where it was. So I walked in what I think were more circles, and I got there right before sunrise. I looked in the window, and my parents were sitting on the couch watching TV! I was so happy - all this time, I had been worrying Gladys had done something to them too.
I ran through the door - through the door. It was closed. That’s when I started worrying again.
I walked up to Mom and Dad. They didn’t react to me, so I left. But I looked in the kitchen, and I saw a framed photo of me, with a candle on either side of it and a little black ribbon under it that said IN LOVING MEMORY OF MADDIE.
I don’t know what Gladys told them had happened to me. I really don’t. I wasn’t looking then.
So I walked around town, and I saw Alex’s parents! They were walking too, but they were really really pale - even more than when I’d seen them last. They were sort of greyish-white, and their eyes didn’t really have color anymore. The part that’s supposed to have color was just grey. They looked like a pair of zombies.
They walked around and called “Alex? Alex?” over and over. I came up and told them they still looked sick, but I was happy they could move and talk again. They looked a bit scared of me. Alex’s dad told me I was the one who looked sick, and my skin looked like ‘wet paper’. He said that. So I figured that this wasn’t really Alex’s entire dad - it was his soul, and it had been set free when Gladys died, and so had mine! I told them everything, and they both looked very sad. Alex’s mom said that they had seen their bodies being put into an ambulance afterwards, and people talking to Alex about how his parents were going to a ‘special hospital’. I was sad too, and I told them I hope they get better soon.
Alex’s mom told me that they were both lost. They could remember where some places around Maybrook were, but their memories were a bit funny, and they couldn’t find their way back to their own house. I helped them, even though I got a bit lost too - I think my memory was better cause I was stronger from sucking the life out of Gladys - but Alex wasn’t at his house anymore. Alex’s dad said thanks for helping and told me that if I ever see Alex, I should tell him that both of his parents are unbelievably proud of him, very very sorry for letting Gladys hurt him, and will love him forever and ever no matter what. If you ever meet Alex, please tell him that.
So I sat and I thought - the kids must be here in Maybrook too! And they’re probably lost and scared too. I’ll go find them and help them, and if their bodies are still here in Maybrook with their families, maybe I can put their souls back!
So I went to look. I found the other Maddie - Madelyn McNulty - the very next night. She was in the park crying. I went up and said hi, and she was a bit scared of me at first too. She asked if I was another witch. I said no, and told her everything. She came with me, and I played hide and seek in somebody’s yard with her for a bit to cheer her up. She was smiling at the end of it.
She said she was lost too, but waaaay more than me or Alex’s parents. I think it’s either cause she’s a kid or maybe Gladys hadn’t drained her all the way and so part of her soul or brain or whatever was still back in her body. I don’t know.
I tried to help her find her house, but she had no memory. N-o-n-e. She said it was this way, then that way, then left, then right, then up, no, not THAT up, wait maybe it was that way up, no it was the other side of the park, no it’s beside the candy shop, no I am not thinking of candy because I’m hungry, blah blah blah. I found Matthew Graff on the way, so that was something. He was very quiet and mostly looked at his feet. He called me names a few times, but I could tell he didn’t mean it.
I found all seventeen, eventually. All of them have bad memory problems. We look for their houses, and often we don’t find them. Sometimes we find them, but the bodies are away at the hospital or a doctor’s appointment or a relative. But one day we will find all the bodies, and I will put every kid back where they belong.
I’ve promised Alex’s parents that if people bring back their bodies, I’ll put their souls back too. They mostly spend their time waiting by their house or by the road entrances to town. I think they’re either waiting for their bodies or for Alex to come back. Sometimes we see each other, but not much. They’ve apologised to the kids for letting Gladys hurt them, and the kids said it wasn’t their fault that Gladys was an evil witch. They’re right.
I take care of them now. We talk, and we play, and if one of them is particularly sad or sick or hurting a little too much, they usually go to me. Elena Martinez once called me hermana mayor, which I think means ‘big sister’ in Spanish. Matthew made a barf face when she did it, but he doesn’t really like showing how he feels. I think my dad would say he doesn’t have his heart on his sleeve.
Not all of the kids are with me anymore. This year, we finally found some of the bodies - and I put the souls back! Mom and Dad would be so proud of me. I did it sort of by touching the body and the kid’s soul and ‘sucking’ the soul back into the body. It’s actually a little like what I did to Gladys. Not sure how to describe it fully, and it takes a lot of concentrating, but you already know some of them started talking again this year. I miss them a little, but I know that this is what needs to happen.
Of course, if I died because of what Gladys did to me, I’m not sure what’s eventually going to happen to me if my body is buried and rotting. Maybe I’ll walk Maybrook forever. But at least I won’t have any school or chores, I guess. And I won’t be cooped up at home anymore. I have lots of friends now.
So that’s what happened before and after what happened to Alex and everybody else. Maybe if you come to Maybrook, you’ll see us. Somehow. Maybe.
Some say that in the town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, people have caught glimpses of the Missing Class of Maybrook Elementary. Not in their homes or at the hospital, but in the streets, the yards, the parks, walking and laughing and skipping and running as if nothing ever happened at all. Although their appearances are supposedly a bit off - one person supposedly described ‘a lot of little corpses’ in the woods on the outskirts of town.
Of course, the Missing Class are all perfectly alive, and mostly well. Their heartbeats and breathing are strong, and although lots of them are still in a state of catatonia, some have begun a recovery just this year, and are even talking again. Notably, those who have woken up have all mentioned faint memories of ‘a girl with a paper face’ who ‘wasn’t from our class’ but nonetheless was with them for a significant period of time. Physical descriptions of this girl seem to vary, other than the face and the fact that she wasn’t from Justine Gandy’s class. Some therapists have suggested a common coping mechanism - this girl’s description is just vague and generic enough to potentially be imagined by a few children at once. Some have suggested that she is a mutual imaginary friend made up during talks between the children, either before or after the incident, and some have even put forward that she may have her basis in a book or film the children may have watched or read before the night they disappeared.
Whatever the case, every child has mentioned her, and one is bound to wonder. Whoever this girl is, she appears to have helped out, in her way.