“It’s the new housing development,” she said to her sister.
“Duh!” Meredith said, nearly stamping her foot with impatience.
“Well, when we passed, I noticed the sign,” Mallory said.
Meredith looked up. They were standing under a green street marker.
It read “Crest Haven.”
“You said it would be the old people’s condos,” Meredith whispered, her chin beginning to quiver. “I thought we could run in the back door of the old people’s condos if he did anything. We don’t know what’s back there. There’s nobody here. The houses aren’t even finished. You don’t even know if there’s a tennis court. It’s not that nice out yet. You said it would be.”
“We’ll just walk back there. I’m probably totally wrong.”
“Why? Why, Mallory? Why do we have to do this? Why do we have to know this? What if you’re totally not wrong?”
“Then we do what we said.”
“Mal, I’m calling Dad.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because whether I’m right or wrong, what are we going to tell him? Are we going to tell him this . . . whatever vision I see and you saw? Do you want him to know, Merry? What if we get David to stop this and then we see something else someday? What if . . . what if Dad thinks there’s something wrong with us? I thought about all this. Didn’t you?”
“No, I tried to ignore it. And what do you mean, us? This is all your idea.”
“Ster,” Mallory said. “You know I’m right.”
“We could end up in therapy until we’re sixteen.”
“We could end up in a nut place, Mer. Or boarding school. I could tell that Dad just about had it when the banging thing happened.”
“He can’t blame you. That would be so totally unfair!”
“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean, he was starting to think that something about us . . . okay, about me, was weird. He was acting like I was going hysterical. I think there’s stuff about Dad’s family, about the women in his family, that we don’t know.”
“You were hysterical.”
“No, I mean, like, nutso hysterical. If we just do this, maybe it’s over forever. What if there was a reason we went through all that pain and the little kids were even almost hurt? To save somebody’s life?”
“Let’s just walk back there, then. I don’t want to stand here forever. You’re cleaning these shoes for me.”
“I don’t know why you wore platforms.”
“I didn’t know we were going hiking in the mud, hello.”
Together, glancing left and right despite themselves, Mallory and Merry began to make their way back past the model home with its three gables and huge double bay windows, past the finished houses with their “For Sale” signs, to where the sidewalk ended and paving gave way to planks. The final cul-de-sac was invisible from the road, and only one house was under construction, the raw framing like a child’s Tinker Toy building. The other lots had numbers and strings delineating houses that existed only in the dreams of young families.
“See, there’s nothing here. Thank you, God,” Merry said.
“What’s that?” Mally pointed at a track that went back toward a tiny wooded area—almost the idea of a forest, like a model at a plant nursery. They saw that the pool had already been bucketed out, squared off, and that a contractor was readying the sides for eventual concrete surfacing.
And behind the pool, there was a wide area boundaried by chain-link fence.
The tennis courts must have been poured last summer, before anything else, so that the huge machinery needed to roll out and divide two double courts would never have to go whomping through someone’s future front yard.
Meredith reached for Mallory’s hand.
Parked between the gates of the two separate courts was David Jellico’s car.
“Okay, we’re not going to think about this,” Mally said. “Ster, if we think about it too long, I’m going to lose it and so are you, and, plus, even though we can’t see anybody in that car doesn’t mean there isn’t anybody in it. And so I’m going to run this way. . . .”
“What do you mean, this way? I’m going where you’re going.”
“We’re going to go around separate ways. I’ll be able to see you the whole time. We’re going to go around so we can come in on both sides. He’ll look up and see me, and then I’ll distract him, and then you’ll yell and he’ll see you. If he has anyone in there . . .”
“What if she’s hurt?”
“I told you, we aren’t going to think.” Merry grabbed her hair, as Campbell did when she was worried. “Think, now. Think what Grandma said. If we weren’t supposed to do something about it, I don’t think I would have seen it in my mind pictures.”
“What did he do? What is he going to do?”
“Like the dog, Mer.”
“Oh, no! Oh, Mallory, I can’t . . .” Meredith began to pant.
“Take off your shoes,” Mally said.
“I can’t stand in the mud!”
“It’s okay. I can. I’ll give you my running shoes.”
“Then you’ll have to stand in the mud!”
“I can. I don’t care about it. Let’s just do it.” Meredith quickly laced up Mally’s shoes. Impulsively, they hugged. Then Mally set off at a slow lope between two houses and disappeared into the small stand of birches and evergreens. Merry ran through what would be two backyards and behind what she guessed would be a locker room for the tennis players.
She heard them before she saw them.
“No!” the girl’s voice came, muffled, through . . . through what? Merry stopped, stepping closer. She heard David’s voice, pleading, then lower, almost a growl; and the girl’s cry was sharper this time, accented, “I said no to you!” The green door to the locker room was half open. Meredith did not think that anything on earth would let her open it all the way. But when the girl cried out again—and Merry could tell from the noise that she was fighting, scuff ling—she pulled the heavy door back so fast it slammed against the wall.
“What’s that?” David called.
Meredith crept into the dim interior, past lockers, through a shower stall to what appeared to be some sort of bathroom, with mirrors and counters. A plaid blanket was spread in one corner. A girl’s purse lay on the blanket. But the girl was on the tile floor, grabbing for her bra, struggling, pushing to get up. David was half on top of her, holding her down. She was pretty, little, a Latina girl not much bigger than Merry was. Her sweater was torn and her lip was bleeding. And in David’s clenched fist was his belt.
“Who’s there?” David yelled.
“Your worst nightmare, David,” Merry said. She had no idea how or why she was able to make a sound anything stronger than a squeak. But she came off like Superwoman.
Sobbing, the girl grabbed her purse and ran past Meredith, out the door. She could hear her babbling, in Spanish.
“You psycho little shit,” David said. He sat back, against a counter. “What do you think you saw?”
“Who is she?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
“Tell me or I tell Kim. I tell Bonnie and your dad.”
“Some little slut I picked up at the mall. She works at the freaking pretzel stand. Jesus, Meredith. She wanted to.”
“She so looked like she wanted to,” Merry said. David rose slowly to one knee. “Don’t even think about coming near me. I’ll scream and every construction worker out there will hear me.”
“There’s no one out there,” David said slowly, smiling, as if he wanted to soothe her, quiet her with soft words, as someone might do with an excited animal. “It’s Sunday.”
Meredith turned and ran back through the shower. When David’s hand grazed her back, she forced herself to turn and nail him in the jaw with the heel of one of the platform sandals she carried. Blood pooled in bright red stitches along the cut, and David’s hand went up involuntarily. Meredith didn’t wait. She sp
rinted for the door. She was past his car when he caught up with her again, finally grabbing the back of her sweater and yanking her down into the mud.
“You’re not telling anyone anything,” David snarled. “Ever.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Mallory said then.
David looked up, keen as an animal, his frustration nearly a scent in the air. Mally wasn’t out of breath and looked as calm as she would have looked coming in from her run. “Get up, Merry,” she said.
Merry pulled away from David and ran to stand next to her sister. Under the wide sky, with the sounds of traffic less than a block away, she felt safer. But David was slowly making his way forward. Serpentine, thought Merry. It was a vocabulary word. The blue eyes she thought were so beautiful were opaque, expressionless as water. David’s blond hair was flat with mud and sweat. He was unfolding himself toward them, not quite creeping, not quite walking.
“No closer,” Mallory said, pointing at David what looked to Merry like a big silver drill. “David, this is a nail gun. My dad used one when he built the store building. I was only ten but he let me use it. I know how. It’s not hard.”
“Bullshit,” David said, creeping forward.
Mallory’s knees literally began to shake, as they did after a hard game. “David, no! Don’t! I found it on the floor of one of those houses out there. I’m telling you the truth! There are nails in it. Big roofing nails.” She saw David measure the distance between them. Mally used her right hand to grab her left and stop her shaking. He could run toward her, but if she told him about the nails, maybe he wouldn’t move until they could leave. “If I shot this, it would really mess up your face. I would really shoot you in the face. I would, I really mean it. I won’t let you touch my sister. You’re wrecking your whole life, David! You didn’t do anything really bad yet. You can go to a doctor or something. Think of your mom, David!” Mallory began to cry. “David, maybe you’re not really bad. Maybe you’re sick.”
David stopped. He stood, half crouched. Mallory could feel his readiness to leap at her if she tripped or dropped the nail gun.
Still pointing it at him, Mally felt Meredith pull at the waistband of her jeans. They backed up, opening a bigger space between David and them.
“You have to leave,” Mally said, her tears and her leaking nose coating her face. “You have to. Merry already called our dad, David. You might be able to grab me, but you can’t grab both of us. Lots of people know we’re here. Drew Vaughan knows! He dropped us off.” The girls kept backing up and David still crouched on the ground. The closer she got to the road, the braver Mallory felt.
The phone rang, but stopped before Merry could answer. She opened it and punched in her father’s store. The line was busy, but she whispered to Mally that they really could dial 911 if they had to. It was safer if they could call Drew. Less likely to cause a big fuss for their parents and everyone else. Mallory didn’t want Kim or Bonnie to know this had ever happened. She wished she could forget it had happened.
They made their way back through the sucking mud, step by step. Mally wasn’t sad or even completely terrified anymore, but she couldn’t stop crying. She called, “David, this is your last chance! To just get in your car and leave. You sick piece of garbage! You almost killed my little brother and my cousins. You burned Merry’s hand. You tried to scare me to death. It’s over now, David.” Mallory held the nail gun in her hands, her arms extended. “Merry, try the store again. If no one answers, call the police. Will you admit it, David? Will you tell the police that you tried to burn us up? How could you do such a thing to us? I should shoot you anyhow. Maybe I will if you don’t go right now!”
With a look so purely evil it nearly knocked Mally breathless, David turned and loped toward his car, jumping in and cranking the engine. He shot past them, splattering the two of them with icy mud as he careened past.
Mally dropped the nail gun and sat down hard on the ground. Too wobbly to stand, Meredith plopped down next to her.
“He’s gone. He’s really gone,” she said. “Soso. Don’t cry. He doesn’t know if we really will tell. He’ll never do anything again, Mal. Never.” Mallory couldn’t stop crying. She wiped her face with her shirt. For the only time in their lives to that point, Merry was the one who kept her head. She didn’t shed one tear.
“I thought I would have to shoot him with the nail gun,” Mally sobbed. “And the nail gun didn’t really have any nails! It runs on air and I couldn’t pump it up. He could have . . . he could have run over both of us, Merry!”
“But it was worth it. I saw the poor girl he had in there. She ran by me.”
“What’ll he do?”
“He didn’t get to do anything but hit her,” Merry said. “He was ripping off her clothes.”
“He won’t try it again. You’re right,” Mally said. She got up to her knees and wiped her nose and eyes again with her sleeves.
“That’s so gross.”
“I so care. Do you have tissues?”
“No, but . . .”
“Well then, stop it. I just, God, Merry. Before you believed in this, I did. I sort of lived with it longer than you did. I feel like I’m cracking up!”
“I know,” Merry said. “I’m sorry.” Merry turned to look out at the road. “What about when he’s older, Mally?”
“Mer, we’re, well, we’re children,” Mallory said, her eyes opening wider and fresh tears spilling over. “We can’t guard the world from David Jellico. I think he’s scared. But if he does anything else, adults will have to take care of it.”
At the same moment, they heard the sound of a car, stuck and grinding to get out of the mud.
Mallory gripped Meredith’s shoulder. But fear was quicksand. Neither girl was able to move. The earth might swallow them. At last, choking, Mallory said, “Merry, he is going to try to run us down. Come on! We have to get behind something!”
“I can’t,” Merry screamed. She threw herself on the ground, trying to curl herself into a ball.
“Get up! Get up! We have to run straight back, to where there are houses with people. Behind the housing development. Right now, Merry!”
They heard the car rev its engine and begin to slip and slice through the mud.
With Mallory pulling her, Merry stumbled to her feet. The sound of the car was louder, then even louder, the horn bleating, so near, almost upon them. But he won’t be able to follow us through the tennis courts, Meredith thought, running with all her strength. He’ll have to go around. We just need to get back to the tennis courts,less than half a block. And by the time David made the detour, they would be in those backyards they saw, so far away.
They finally heard the yell.
Drew was shouting, “Stop! It’s me!” at the top of his voice. The girls spun around in disbelief. The green beast of his ramshackle Toyota truck was barely visible under the mud. David had zoomed through the muck like a madman off-roading.
“I never saw anything so beautiful,” Meredith whispered. Mallory put her hands over her face. Drew swung up and out of the driver’s seat and approached them. Mallory leaned her head against his chest. When Drew reached up and stroked her hair, she didn’t stop him. Mallory felt so little. The top of her head barely hit his collarbone. Drew picked up the nail gun.
“Were you going to nail somebody, Brynn?” he asked.
“Yes. But it’s empty,” she admitted. “I’m glad he didn’t know it.”
“Jellico.” It wasn’t a question, so Mally didn’t answer it. Instead, she said, “We’re going to get the seats dirty.”
“I can wash the seats. Let me get a blanket out of the trunk,” he said, his voice breaking. “Just a little trip to the mall, huh? And your bike was stolen?”
“We couldn’t tell you. We still can’t,” Mallory said, biting back tears. “You won’t want to be our friend.”
“Too late,” Drew said. “I was born into it. Now, I’ll take you home so you can get your clothes in the washer before you tell me what this really
is all about.”
“We can’t,” Mallory said, pulling the blanket around her. The sun winked out, and the wind stiffened. Ragged gray clouds seemed to strain overhead, as if winter had forgotten something and was hurrying back to get it.
“Why did you come in here? What happened to work?” Merry asked, for once the stronger, the less depleted of the two.
“I called in sick because Merry didn’t answer her cell. I figured if Merry didn’t answer her cell, she had to be dead,” Drew told them.
“Drewsky, you really don’t want to know,” Mally said as they turned out of the housing development, back toward Pilgrim Court and home.
“I really don’t, but I think I have to,” he said.
“You’ll be sorry,” said Meredith. “We are.”
THE LONELIEST PLACE
For a long time, neither of them would feel quite safe without the other in sight. When they heard parents talking about how much kids changed when they turned thirteen, they had to bite their lips to keep from falling into a frenzy of laughter. They both felt cored out, their whole former souls replaced by other beings.
“All I want,” Merry said one day as she was painting her toe-nails, “is to feel exactly like I felt before. I don’t need a boyfriend. I don’t need to make varsity. I just want to feel exactly like I did before.”
“I’m becoming a nun,” Mallory said. “I’ll be the only one who isn’t seventy-five. I’ll be, like, the beautiful nun, and people will say, why is she here? What tragedy was in her life? I’m going to be Sister Genesius. He was the patron of actors. I spent all those hours watching soaps!”
Campbell heard them laughing behind their door and was relieved. Although she couldn’t figure out why both girls spent so much time at home—doing things like reading! Playing cards and trivia games! Playing Monopoly with their brother!—she felt as though she had not heard them laugh for months. When she overheard Mallory, in passing, tell Adam, “I love you,” she nearly wept.
They were healing, she told Tim.
Tim didn’t mind. Mally was available to help out at the store more often. Merry actually volunteered to babysit Adam, though he insisted that she refer to it as “hanging out” with him. The girls went to school. They went home. They practiced what they did well. Merry went to cheerleading every night until six. Mally began her practices for summer soccer. They listened to music and slept.
The Midnight Twins Page 15
