A Head Full of Ghosts

by Paul Tremblay

Ken would quickly become my friend.

This is the second time Merry has mentioned Ken as becoming her "good friend." The way in which she says it makes me wonder if something more sinister happened between them. Something that, at such a young age, Merry didn't understand and perhaps pushed out of her mind along with all the other horrific things she saw.

And, no, I don’t care to comment on the irony/spookiness/synchronicity/coincidence of the father killing his wife in the “Growing Things” story Marjorie repeatedly told Merry, paralleling their real father poisoning his family.)

I read Marjorie’s note three times. Despite everything that I’d gone through, that our whole family had gone through, I felt that old excitement, that familiar flutter in my stomach: Marjorie wanted to spend time with me. I don’t think I can ever fully explain the power she had over the eight-year-old me or the power she still has over me.

I didn’t know where Dad was. I assumed he was down in the basement doing whatever it was he did when he was down there.

Marjorie said, “I know you love him and I love him too, I do. And I know it’s hard to believe, but there’s something wrong with him. He’s sick. It’s so obvious. Haven’t you figured it out yet? He’s why I put us through everything, Merry. I knew he was getting sick, so at first I faked that I was sick so that someone would figure out that Dad was the one who needed help.”

It is both maddening and interesting that we never find out exactly where the potassium cyanide came from. Did the father really get it from somewhere--say, the Baptist he was corresponding with? Or was there really a supernatural force that led Marjorie to it, landing it right on the family's doorstep? I guess we will forever be left to wonder, but that is the fun part, I suppose.