SHUDDERVILLE FOUR Read Online Free Page A

back door. I was going to bury her later on, along with her brother. But first I had to rush Estelle to the emergency room. I needed to save my wife, but she was already gone. She never woke up. The doctors told me she’d had a stroke. Died of complications. It knocked the stuffing out of me. I couldn’t believe she was gone. I begged them to do something, to bring her back. They were very patient and kind, but I had to face facts. She was gone.
    “Suffice it to say, after Estelle passed away, I forgot all about the babies—they were already dead in my eyes. I was focused exclusively on my wife. I had to talk to the hospital staff and make funeral arrangements. By the time I got home, early the next morning, I didn’t notice the baby in the shoebox. I’d forgotten all about her. I went upstairs and collapsed. The doctors gave me something to sleep.
    “Next morning, I was awakened by a faint, sweet cry. The cry of an angel. I couldn’t figure out what was making that noise, so I went downstairs and remembered the shoebox, and when I looked inside, I discovered she was alive—just barely.”
    Sophie’s eyes narrowed, and she could feel her willpower and determination beginning to slacken. It was being sucked right out of her, and the more she listened to Mandelbaum’s story, the more twinges of pity and empathy she felt. She didn’t want to feel those things, but it was a losing battle.
    “My little Bella,” he said faintly. “She looked like a newly hatched bird. She pushed out her arms and legs and turned herself over. That’s when I realized… what a little fighter she was.” His eyes glazed with awe and pride. “Her wings were the same length as her arms, but they were folded up against her back. You could see little feathers sprouting out of them. Anyway.” He sighed. “I couldn’t tell anyone about them—Teddy and Bella. Not a soul. It was too terrible. Too complicated. There were no birth certificates. No record they existed. So I kept her hidden, but I raised her like a normal child.”
    Sophie’s face began to itch. Sweat beaded on her skin. “Where is she? What happened to her?”
    “She disappeared one night when she was five years old.”
    “Disappeared?”
    “For the rest of my life, I’ve been wondering what happened to her. Where did she go? Did she fly away? Did somebody kidnap her? Maybe it was my fault? What do I know about raising kids? Especially little girls with wings?” He finished his glass of bourbon. “I hate stirring up old feelings. Makes my stomach hurt.”
    Sophie hardened toward him. “So you don’t know who took her?” she asked skeptically. “You, the great Mandelbaum who grants people wishes?”
    He shook his head slowly, as if to acknowledge that it was worse than that—he didn’t know anything. “I raised her for five years like a normal little girl. She couldn’t fly with those wings of hers. They were undeveloped. They flapped like useless appendages. She must’ve wandered off somewhere. I don’t know. I’ve been looking for her for years. She left the house in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, and she never came back.”
    “What did the police say?”
    Mandelbaum shrugged. “Do you honestly think I’d call the police? After all that time when I’d kept her hidden from the world? How could I explain it? They’d lock me up and throw away the key. As far as everybody else was concerned, Bella didn’t exist.” He sighed. “She weighed next to nothing when she was born, did I tell you? I honestly doubted she’d make it through the night. I went out of town for baby formula and diapers. Finally, she started to grow a little. Two pounds. Three.
    “Then we got used to the way things were. Nobody knew about Bella, and she didn’t care. She’d always lived that way, so it felt natural to her. I loved that little girl to pieces. I kept putting off decisions about what to do when she got to be school age. I figured I’d home-school her. Boy was she