The QPID Archives
Book one:
The Secret
By
Kristi Bledsoe
Garrels Publishing
To my family, who gave me the time and
encouragement I needed to tell my stories.
The QPID Archives - Book One: The Secret
By Kristi Bledsoe
Copyright 2008 Kristi Doyle
All rights reserved
Smashwords Edition
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Ever have one of those feelings that something just isn’t right? Not necessarily in a good or bad way, just not quite right. Like when you get goose bumps in hundred-degree weather or a friend acts like a total stranger. It happens once in a while. But what if it happens a lot? You know, if you stumble once, it’s a fluke. Stumble twice and it’s a coincidence. But stumble a third time and you’d better check your shoelaces!
Julie Hatcher was twelve when she starting noticing lots of weird things that just didn’t add up. There were too many to be simply a fluke or coincidence.
And they all involved her mother.
It all started on a Saturday morning. Julie was with her family at her little brother’s baseball game. Ten-year-old Stuart was in the wrong spot, but it probably didn’t matter since his team was losing again anyway. As Julie’s attention wandered, she realized with a start that her mother, Annette, was no longer in the bleachers.
“Move over, Stuart,” her father, Jack, was yelling, hands cupped around his mouth. Stuart’s baseball cap was in his glove while he ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. “Stuart! You need to be over there.” Jack sat back down, shaking his head and grinning at Julie. “I swear I get a dozen gray hairs with each game.” He swept his hair back just like Stuart had done. It had the same curls but was half gray and half black.
“Ah, Dad. The gray just makes you look distinguished,” she said. She lifted her chin and tried to sound snooty, but her wide smile ruined the effect. Her father’s only response was a groan that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She went to get something to drink.” His hand waved in the direction of the snack bar. “More, Stuart, keep going.” He stood up again and motioned with his arms.
Julie shaded her blue-green eyes with her left hand and glanced at the snack bar to see if she could spot her mother. Flipping her light brown hair back over her shoulder, she smiled to herself as her gaze lit upon the junior high school. Here was the real reason she came along today. A perfect time to sneak a look inside the school she’d be going to next year.
“I’m going to the restroom, Dad.”
“Sure, Jule,” he replied, eyes on the game as he sat back down.
Julie clambered down the bleachers and hurried toward the junior high. She knew that Carrie, Brenna, and Sarah hadn’t been inside the school yet. Maybe it would be open and this time, she would get to be first at something.
She slowed as she caught sight of a group of girls chattering. They were from her school but she didn’t know them well. Julie tried a shy smile as she approached. She was met by blank looks. Feeling her face grow hot, she looked down at the ground and walked on by. She wished she were more like her friend Carrie who could talk to anybody.
The girls slipped from her mind as Julie reached the main doors. A triumphant “yes” escaped her lips as the handle turned and she slipped inside. Echoes from the huge gym encouraged her to look there first. Ah, basketball practice. That explains why the doors were open. She wandered the halls, concentrating on details so she could dazzle her friends during Orientation Week. Individual rooms were locked, but she had other clues to help her figure them out. She peeked through the small window of one door and saw a lot of glass display cases and a table with microscopes. Some sort of science class. Huh, that one with all the computers was a no-brainer. This room had posters of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph. French class would be her guess.
More doors continued on past another hallway to her left. So many rooms! Hope she didn’t get lost the first week. Huge windows drew her attention down the new corridor. Boring locked classrooms were forgotten when she realized she had found the library!
“Wow, look at all those books!” Julie muttered, nose almost touching the glass. Shelves and shelves of new adventures! She couldn’t wait to get her hands on as many as she was allowed to check out. But not until next year.
She sighed. Better head back to the bleachers before her parents wondered why going to the bathroom took so long. Besides, Mom should have those sodas by now.
She turned to go but a sudden movement caught her eye. Who’d be in a school library on a Saturday? She saw a man inside just coming into view from between two bookshelves. He had white hair but didn’t look that old. The man halted by a stack of books, and turned to speak to someone following him.
Julie gasped. Mom! What was she doing here? Who was that man? She pressed her ear to the window but could only make out a faint murmur. It couldn’t be a teacher; her family didn’t know anyone at this school yet. Maybe another parent? But how could her mother just run into somebody in the library? This was nowhere near the snack bar! What was going on?
The man handed a small card to her mother, and they shook hands. Both started for the library exit so Julie ducked below the window and hurried away. She heard the door open as she rounded the corner. Julie ran. She did not want to get caught spying on her mother!
Julie made a beeline for the bleachers, with quick glances over her shoulder to see if her mother had come out yet. She plopped down next to her father only slightly out of breath. Good! Mom hadn’t even left the building yet!
Who was that guy? Maybe Dad knew about Mom meeting someone and he just didn’t mention it. Julie shook her head. This was silly. That guy was probably just someone her mother knew from a volunteer activity. When she came back, she would probably tell them all about it.
“Sodas all around!” Julie nearly jumped out of her skin. Her mother was climbing up the bleachers, carefully balancing three cups. How did she get here so fast? I would have seen her! Julie took the offered drink. Her heart pounded in her ears. She couldn’t think clearly! Maybe her mother came out a different door that Julie hadn’t noticed.
Her mother sat down and turned to Jack. “How’s Stuart doing?”
Julie felt her jaw drop. What about the unknown man? Why didn’t her mother say anything about meeting someone? Was she hiding something? Julie couldn’t ask or she would have to confess that she’d been spying. Her stomach tightened, but she tried to ignore it and told herself to be reasonable. People often said that she had an overactive imagination. Her mother must have run into a parent or teacher, and it just wasn’t important enough to mention. Her mother wouldn’t lie. Would she?
It took about a month before Julie managed to quit thinking about the library incident. But then other strange stuff started happening.
“Julie, Stuart! Who wants to go shopping with me this morning?” Annette called up the stairs.
Stuart’s head popped out of his doorway. “Remember, Mom. Dad’s taking me to get a haircut,” he hollered. He looked at Julie and wiped his hand across his forehead. His hazel eyes twinkled.
“Whew! Got out of that!” He flashed a grin and disappeared back into his room. Julie heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
“How about you, Julie?” Her mother poked her head into Julie’s room. “You can ask Carrie to come. I know she loves the mall.”
“Sure, sounds great.” She shoved her math book to the side with a sigh of relief. Shopping was a great excuse to avoid doing homework on dreaded Math.
“Can I ask Brenna and Sarah, too?”
“Well, I suppose since Stu’s not going, it’ll be fine.”
Half an hour later, they arrived at Carrie’s house. Brenna was already there since she lived only three houses from Carrie.
“Oh, look,” her mother said as the two girls waved and ran toward the car. “Carrie cut her hair!” She winked at Julie.
Julie grinned back. “First sign of summer!” Carrie’s light brown hair took on a slight curl when it was cut short. It looked like it took hours to style. Julie sighed. Carrie always managed to look elegant and spotless with very little effort. Julie often thought that if she and Carrie bought the same shirt and wore them the next day, Carrie’s would actually look better than it did at the store. Julie’s shirt would look like it had been washed a dozen times and slept in.
“Where’s Sarah?” asked Brenna, black hair up in her usual bouncy ponytail as she climbed into the back seat. She was wearing a new Cubs jersey, one step closer to her goal of collecting a shirt from each Major League baseball team.
“You know Sarah,” replied Julie. “Choir over shopping every time.”
“I guess it is the last Saturday for choir practice before sixth-grade graduation!” remarked Carrie. All the way to the mall the girls chattered happily about what they were going to do over the summer.
After only the third store, Julie saw her mother check her watch. That’s about the fifth time she’s done that, thought Julie. After about an hour and six more watch-checks, Julie’s mother said she needed to get some errands done.
“Want us to go with you, Mom?” asked Julie.
“No, you’ll just get bored. Stay together, all of you, and I’ll meet you right back here at a quarter to twelve so we can go to lunch. Can I trust you three to do that?”
Carrie and Brenna nodded enthusiastically, but for some reason, the scene of her mother and the strange man in the library flashed into Julie’s head. She couldn’t help wondering what it was that her mother had to do. Deep in thought, Julie absently followed her friends.
As the three friends came out of a clothing store, Julie did a double take. An old woman was wearing a shirt exactly like one her mother had been wearing today, white with tiny pink flowers. Up until this moment, she’d wanted to borrow the shirt from her mother. But this lady looked as old as Grandma! Whew, thought Julie. Glad I didn’t borrow that! Imagine, wearing an old-lady shirt! Her friends would never let her live it down.
Two stores later, Julie spotted the old woman again. Strange. She’d swear those pants were exactly like the ones her mother was wearing today. Her curiosity was piqued and she couldn’t stop looking at the old lady. The woman turned the corner and Julie pulled her friends along.
“Hey!” said Carrie. “I want to look at those earrings!”
Julie hesitated, suddenly aware that she was acting a bit funny, following an old woman just because she was dressed like her mother. She didn’t want to tell her friends about it; they would think she was weird.
“Sorry,” she said, but Carrie had already moved on.
Maybe she should just forget about it. But that feeling that something was not quite right was stronger than ever.
“Look, a shoe store!” said Carrie. “I need new shoes for my graduation dress.”
“I do need soccer shoes,” said Brenna.
Julie rolled her eyes. “You always need some kind of sport shoe!” When they turned the corner, Julie spotted the old woman only a few yards away, talking to a petite woman with red hair, wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans. Julie deliberately looked away. Ignore her, she told herself, clenching her teeth.
Despite her determination, she kept glancing at the woman. The way she gestured, the tilt of her head. It seemed… familiar. The old woman rummaged in her handbag for paper, wrote something down and passed it to the other woman. They parted, waving to each other.
Julie stood at the entrance of the shoe store and watched the old lady enter a restroom. A strange prickling started on the back of Julie’s neck. She rubbed her neck and tried to shake off the feeling.
Carrie and Brenna ducked into another jewelry store without checking to see if Julie was with them. Julie’s eyes flicked back and forth between her friends and the restroom door. Two women came out but no others went in. Julie saw Carrie buy some earrings as Brenna made her way out. Julie made one more attempt at tearing her thoughts away from the old lady. She told herself it was just her imagination, but couldn’t make herself believe that.
“All done,” said Carrie, stuffing the package into her purse.
“Ready to go?” asked Brenna. “We have to meet your mom in about five minutes.”
Julie made a sudden decision. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
“But we’ll be late!” the other two said in unison.
“I’ll be quick. Come on, let’s go.”
She hurried over to the door. She reached for the handle and nearly collided with someone coming out. All she saw was tiny pink flowers on a white background. She looked up, expecting to see gray hair. She was wrong.
“Oops! Excuse…oh, Julie!” Her mother smiled at all of them. Julie’s mouth dropped open and her mind went numb. “Well, hello girls! Isn’t this lucky? Shall we go have lunch?”
“I, um, I have to go…” Julie pointed.
“All right, we’ll wait.”
She went in quickly, but saw no one else. She opened every stall and even looked for another exit. She found nothing to explain where the old lady had gone or how her mom got in without Julie noticing.
She left, but that prickly feeling was almost a constant itch now.
“Mom, did you see…” Rubbing her neck, Julie glanced at her friends. They just looked at her with puzzled expressions.
“See what, Julie?” But Julie found herself again remembering that strange day at the baseball game. Something peculiar was going on but what evidence did she have? Neck prickles?
“Nothing, Mom.”
The rest of summer was mostly normal. Julie started to think that she was just imagining things. She did her best to ignore those pesky tingles on the back of her neck, but they wouldn’t stay away.
“Mom, Stuart won’t get out of the bathroom.” Julie swung into her mother’s bedroom. Her mother slammed shut her laptop and looked up.
“Oh, Jule. You startled me.” She slipped the laptop into a desk drawer. “I’ll tell him he has three more minutes.” As her mother walked out, those tingles started up again. Her mother used that computer for her job as an accountant, but she had never been secretive about it before.
In the two weeks that followed, Julie noticed that twice more her mother did the same thing. But four other times, she just left the laptop open and Julie could see accounting figures on the screen. Whatever she was hiding, it had nothing to do with work.
One afternoon, Julie sat on the couch, hardly noticing the television blaring something about cleaning products. She was wrapped up with thoughts of a how she could sneak a look at her mother’s laptop. The phone rang in the den. Her schemes interrupted, Julie got off the couch and dashed to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hello, may I speak with Amanda, please?”
“There’s no one here by that name.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Julie hung up the phone, a small frown on her face. She was sure that was the same woman who left a message on the answering machine a couple of days ago. Prickle, prickle. She rubbed her neck fiercely.
“Who’s on the phone?” asked her mother as she came down the stairs.
“Wrong number, looking for an Amanda.”
“Oh.” Her mother paused mid-step. The phone rang again and her mother turned and hurried back upstairs. “I’ll get it,” she said.
Julie followed to see if it was the same woman again but the bedroom door was closed. She went back downstairs and picked up the extension as quietly as she could. Instead of voices, all Julie could hear was static. She hung up. Had the phone broken within the single minute between calls? She had her answer an hour later.
“Mom, what’s for dinn…oops.” Her mother was on the downstairs phone. Julie backed up around the corner. She hadn’t heard it ring so her mother must have called whomever she was talking to.
“Thanks, Fred. I’ll talk to you later.”
Who was Fred? That guy at the library? Julie heard the phone being hung up so she made a mad dash to flop on the couch. As her mother came into the room, Julie played with a lock of hair, trying to look casual. Not rubbing the back of her neck.
“What did you say, Julie?”
“Just wondering what was for dinner.”
“Heading in there now to make spaghetti.”
As soon as her mother was out of sight, Julie tiptoed back into the den. She picked up the phone. Hm, not one crackle of static. She hit redial and, after a moment, a man’s voice answered.
“Weiss Cabinets. Can I help you?”
She hung up. The neck prickles turned into a chill down her back.
That night, Julie woke up around eleven o’clock desperately needing a drink of water.
“Mom must’ve put too much salt in the spaghetti sauce,” she grumbled to herself. As she stumbled down the hall, she noticed light coming from her parents’ bedroom. The door was ajar an inch and Julie stopped when she heard her mother’s voice say the name, “Fred.” Julie held her breath so she wouldn’t miss a word.
“Jack, the assignment will be finished soon, definitely before vacation.” Oh, thought Julie. They were just talking about work and the trip to California they were taking in a month. But her feet refused to move when she heard her father’s reply.
“That blasted organization is nothing but trouble. At least you get paid with your accounting job. I never was happy with all the secrets and that… that other stuff.” Julie eyes widened. Secrets? Organization? And what is ‘Other Stuff?’ Goosebumps raced up and down her arms.
“Don’t worry. I’ve never let it get in the way of our lives before and I won’t now. You know I can’t just leave it. I have a duty, just like my mother and grandmother.”
“I know, I know. You’re right. You usually finish when you say you will. Just wrap it up before vacation and we won’t mention it again. Come on, Annette, put away that laptop. It’s bedtime.”
Julie tiptoed back to her room, thirst forgotten. Just what was Mom into? And Dad knew all about it! So what was going on? She had to find out. She had to know.
The answers came at the end of July.
Carrie celebrated her twelfth birthday with a sleepover. As Julie leapt out of the car, she smacked her palm to her forehead and turned to her father.
“Oh, I forgot, Dad. Mom said she wouldn’t get home from work until about ten o’clock and there’s frozen lasagna for you and Stuart.”
Her father flashed a smile and winked at Stuart in the back seat. “We’ll manage!”
Julie ran up to Carrie’s front door, but it was jerked open before she could knock.
“You’re just in time, Julie,” said Brenna. “Carrie’s mom and dad are taking us to Pizza and Prizes!” She grabbed Julie’s backpack and sleeping bag and tossed it all in the house. Six other girls poured from the house and piled into the van ahead of them. They all talked excitedly about which games they were going to play.
“Come on, Jule. Hurry up and finish eating,” said Sarah. She was dressed up as usual, her blue party dress matching her eyes. It went perfectly with her nearly snow-white hair and pale complexion.
“Go ahead with the others; I’ll just be a minute.” Julie gobbled the last of her pizza and grabbed her soda to wash it down. She glanced out the window as she stood up and froze, her glass halfway to her lips. There was her mother, weaving between cars in the parking lot. She walked past the pizza parlor and went into a gift shop next door. Games forgotten, Julie’s feet carried her outside, the bite of pizza going down with difficulty. It can’t be Mom. She’s working late at her office! Julie peered in through the gift shop windows and spotted her mother almost instantly. Curious, Julie started forward, intending to enter the store. She hesitated when her mother turned to talk to the man beside her. It was the same man that had been in the school library!
Julie’s feet were rooted to the sidewalk, mouth hanging open.
“Excuse me, Miss. You can’t take that outside.”
“Huh? What?” A young man from the pizza place was pointing to her hand.
“That glass. You need to bring it back in.”
“Um, I was just… I mean, I thought I saw someone I knew and . . . I’m sorry.” Julie stared at the glass, not really seeing it as she returned to the pizza place. Suddenly, she clenched her jaw. I’m tired of wondering what is going on, she thought. I’m going to get some answers!
She slammed the glass down on the table and headed back out the door. She spotted her mother just before she turned a far corner. Julie ran as fast as she could to catch up, triumph surging through her. Julie knew that breezeway her mother had just entered was blocked off with a permanent gate. Now Mom would have to explain why she was not at work.
Julie rounded the corner and drew a breath to ask a question, but it caught in her throat. There was no one in the breezeway! Prickles again, with a large number of goose bumps for good measure.
“Mom?” she gasped out. The single word echoed off bare walls. There weren’t any doors or exits or even anything to hide behind. Julie dashed back to the parking lot but saw only cars, none of them her mother’s.
Thoughts raced around inside her brain as she returned to the pizza parlor. She tried to fit this latest mystery with all the other strange things she had witnessed, but she could not come up with a logical explanation.
“Where’ve you been, Julie?” Carrie grabbed her hand. “Brenna’s going for the high score. Come on!”
Tomorrow, Julie promised herself. When she got home, she would do whatever it took to find answers.
That night at Carrie’s, Julie lay awake in her sleeping bag, trying to figure out what she was going to say to her mother. One thing was sure; this was definitely not her imagination. It was deliberate deception. Her mother had lied about being at work. Julie didn’t even want to think about her disappearance into thin air or the prickles might return.
“Psst!” Julie nearly jumped out of her skin. She thought all the other girls were asleep.
“Psst! Julie, are you awake?” She felt a tap on her left shoulder.
“I’m awake, Carrie,” she whispered back. “What do you want?”
“What’s wrong? You’ve been quiet all night, you hardly played any games and you didn’t even finish your cake though I know chocolate is your favorite.”
Julie sighed. She had a lot of friends but Carrie was her absolute best friend. They’d been inseparable since their first week in second grade. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told Carrie about all the strange stuff. But now, she had to tell someone and maybe Carrie would be able to help figure it all out. Julie opened her mouth but could get no sound out.
“Julie? Hello?” Carrie tapped her shoulder a little harder.
“I … I…” She literally could not form any words. It felt like something was stopping the words in her throat.
“Are you okay?”
“I …” Her last attempt turned into a cough and completely different words just came out. “I just don’t feel well, that’s all.” Julie had no idea where that came from.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, don’t give me what you’ve got! I’ve got a riding lesson tomorrow and I can’t afford to be sick!” With that, Carrie flopped back down and rolled over.
Julie felt a chill wash down her back again. I will tell her, she thought. I will, I will! But strangely enough the words never came, and she fell asleep.
Carrie’s mother drove each of the girls home the next morning right after breakfast. Julie, groggy from lack of sleep, hadn’t come up with any answers. What now? Should she confront her mother? Would Mom deny everything? And what exactly would she ask? “Hey, Mom. Been invisible lately? Met any strange guys? Lend old ladies your clothes?” Yeah, right. Her mom would send her to a shrink!