At Home in the Dark

by Joe Hill

  Why tonight? Why not a night filled with the songs of tree frogs, and the whinnying of contented horses in nearby pastures, under a bright moon.

  The girl reaches him first, falling to her knees, her voice straining over the clamor of the rain. She flings a worn denim bag on the ground beside her. “You’re all right, you’re all right. It’s okay. I promise it’s okay!” Her hands flutter over the boy like moths uncertain where to land. Finally, she slips one hand behind his head and the other beneath his upper back. Rain streams down his face as she gently lifts him to her lap. I wait for him to open his eyes, or make some noise—a scream, or a rattling sigh. I doubt he’s mortally injured from such a simple fall, but I watch, just in case. That moment between life and death is so brief, so precious. When he finally opens his mouth, he sputters at the rain.

  By some miracle the umbrella still rocks on its head only a few feet from us. I kneel at his side to hold it over the three of us, gravel pressing painfully into my skin.

  When the girl pulls her hand from beneath his head, it’s smeared with blood, purple in the glow of the Buick’s taillights. My breath catches. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the blood’s sharp tang seems to linger in my nostrils until we get the boy into the car.

  • • •

  The windows of the Buick are fogged, and the children in the back smell like wet animals. The boy’s head is again in the girl’s lap, this time with my wool travel blanket between them. Given that he has a head wound, there’s little enough blood trickling from it now. I turn on the defroster and swipe my coat sleeve back and forth inside the windshield.

  “You’re absolutely sure you don’t want to take him to the hospital?”

  “Can I be in an ambulance?” The boy is groggy, his voice weary. “Why can’t I go in an ambulance?” If he’s talking he must not be badly injured.

  I’m not sure why I feel relieved. For my usual purposes, he might just as well have died on the side of the road. But indecision still nags at me. Twice tonight I could’ve just driven away. Now that they’re in the car I’ll just have to make the choice again: to let them live, or let them die.

  “You know why we can’t go there,” the girl whispers.

  Pretending I haven’t heard, I ask where they were headed before the rain came on. It’s lessened some, but the Buick’s automatic wipers are still going hard.

  “To a friend’s house.” Her voice is unexpectedly steady. She might be eleven, or at most twelve years old. She has the same wide cheekbones and button chin as the boy, and if they’re not brother and sister, they’re definitely related. It’s too dark to see what color her narrow eyes are, but I think the boy’s are blue.

  “If you know the address, I can take you there.”

  She’s doesn’t answer.

  No address. No friend with a house. Liar, liar pants on fire.

  “What about home? Your parents must be worried.”

  “Wait. I have money,” she says earnestly. “You can drop us off at a motel.”

  I confess I didn’t see that coming. Flicking on the blinker, I ease the Buick back onto the wet road. “You two hungry? But maybe he shouldn’t eat for a while. If he throws up, he really needs to be treated by a doctor. Concussions are dangerous.”

  “I know what a concussion is.” Ah, she’s that age, where they know everything and every adult is an idiot. For the most part I would agree with her about the adults.

  “I want to go to sleep,” the boy whines. “I want to go home.”

  In answer, the girl begins to hum softly, as though she’s soothing an infant. Blacks and bays, dapples and grays, all the pretty little horses. She doesn’t sing the words, but I hear them in my head. If she doesn’t stop soon, I will put them out of the car, no matter where we are, and the decision will be made.

  My answer is to turn up the Satie to shut out the lullaby. Lullaby. What blatant sentimentality. A nasty trick to lull a child into a false sense of security. The girl continues humming as though we’re already in a contest of wills.

  Sorry, sweetie. I will win.

  The turn we would take to reach my house approaches on the right, but I don’t slow. Ahead, the lights of the next town—such as it is—cast a silver glow on the suffocating clouds. If that was where they were headed, they had a very long walk.

  I want to ask who made them leave home. Their parents? A stepmother? There’s usually a stepmother involved. It’s almost as if stepchildren are of less value than children born within a new marriage. Parent can be selfish, selfish, selfish.

  “Almost there,” I say.

  The humming stops. “Where?”

  “The motel.” My voice is honey. My voice is innocence. The boy moans softly in his sleep. “You should wake him. He needs to stay awake for at least a few hours.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  I glance in the rearview mirror. Unlike the boy’s sun-browned face, the girl’s is pale in the dim light from the dashboard. Deep lines crease her shallow forehead. “Suit yourself.”

  “Well, I’ve never heard that.” But after a moment she begins trying to wake him anyway. “Braylee. Braylee, come on.”

  No response.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you both at the hospital—? I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.” Oh, why did I ask? So foolish. Making things harder for myself again.

  “Skyla. My brother is Braylee, and I’m Skyla.” My brain enjoys an imagined eye roll. Skyla. What the hell is a Skyla? It sounds like the name of a women’s douche from the 1980s. Refresh with Skyla!

  “The Red Oak Motel is up ahead. It’s not a bad place. Clean, I hear. And the hospital isn’t too far away. It’s not a big hospital, but it will do the trick if you get worried later.”

  We’re welcomed into town by a badly-lighted car lot hung with sagging ropes of yellow and blue flags. The colors of the local high school. Quaint. Lights blaze from the Taco Bell next to it, but the Hardee’s across the road is uncharacteristically dark, given that it’s only a bit before ten.

  “Do you know how much the motel costs?” There’s a satisfying edge of panic in the girl’s voice. Not so tough now. (Yes, I’m cruel, but it’s an equivocal cruelty.)

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe forty or fifty dollars? Not an expensive one.” I don’t bother to say that no hotel will let a child her age register, no matter how trashy it is. All I really know about the Red Oak is that it has a bar attached to it called The Shady Acorn, whose parking lot is packed most evenings with pickup trucks and motorcycles, as it is tonight.

  I park well away from the bar, and a good forty feet from the tiny motel office. It doesn’t matter how far away from it we are, though. She’s lying about the money, I’m certain. She’ll come around. I’m patient.

  Okay. Maybe a little impatient.

  In the mirror I see her digging in the denim bag, holding it in such a way that the nearest lamp might help her see inside. Her shoulder-length, tangled hair falls into her face. Finally, she rests her head on the back of the seat.

  “I only have nineteen dollars. Will you please give us some money?” She doesn’t beg, but she looks as though she might start crying any second.

  I turn in my seat, setting my lips in a regretful smile. Shaking my head sympathetically, I tell her that I’d like to help, but that I’m on a fixed income. That I could get them some food, as long as it isn’t too expensive. “I’m sorry. Maybe there’s some other way I could help?”

  She looks down at her sleeping brother. I have to give her credit. She hasn’t once indicated that she regrets having him with her.

  “Do you have a house?” she asks. “Can we stay until he gets well enough to leave? I don’t think it will take very long.”

  My face warms with . . . pleasure? Anxiety? So many feelings. I’m glad of the shadows. “Oh, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it first.”

  I like the children to ask if they can visit my house. I’m no kidnapper.

  As we drive away,
my confused feelings harden into disgust. My words and actions contradict all my hopes of changing what I am. I realize I could easily have paid for a room, and given the girl any amount of money. Three times I could have let them go.

  • • •

  Until I was sixteen, I was locked in my room just before my mother brought the child—or children—to the house, and not let out until there was no chance I would meet them. When I was allowed to come downstairs, my mother would be all smiles, the ovens cooling, the windows open, and the house sparkling. It would be weeks until she returned to being the disagreeable mother I knew so well. During those weeks, she would spontaneously grab me and hug or tickle me, making me shriek with surprised laughter. In the living room, she swayed to the music of Jean Ritchie and Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, her mane of black curls loose about her, her feet encased in lumpy wool socks she or I had knitted, and wearing a long denim dress that brushed her ankles. She baked and cleaned and sat with me and played games or did puzzles. She smiled so much, I would do anything she asked, eat anything she put in front of me, say anything, be anything to keep that smile on her face.

  Then one morning, I would tap on her door to bring her coffee, and there would be no answer. She’d be lying in bed, her face turned to the wall, and I would know it was over.

  I was lonely, living here in the woods with her those other forty-nine weeks of the year. There was school, though, and, four or five times in my life, visits to other girls’ houses. I went on day trips to amusement parks and museums, especially once I could drive. I’d still get on a roller coaster if you asked me to. Sometimes, my life outside my home almost felt full. Until I understood what I was, who I would become.

  Pariah. Savior. Lucky charm.

  I’m the last of my kind, and I’m the only one who knows it.

  • • •

  Once I unlock the kitchen door, I flip on the overhead light, and slip my keys and wallet into their drawer. The children follow, the boy shuffling like an old man. Their heads are bowed as though they’re being punished, and not walking into a home where they might be warm and well fed.

  My first order of business is to treat the boy’s injury. I only have a few squares of medical gauze, so after I’ve soaped the wound—under his mewling protests and his sister’s admonitions about not fussing—I place the gauze and wrap his head in a worn Ace bandage I had used on my mother’s tricky knee. When I finish, his head looks cartoonishly large, and his blue eyes enormous. It’s hard not to smile. I find him a long-sleeved t-shirt that hangs past his knees, and give the girl a robe to wear while I wash and dry their clothes.

  We talk little as they eat. I’ve stoked one of the ovens and opened the door, which serves to warm the kitchen better than the electric wall heaters. The boy slurps vegetable noodle soup, which dribbles over his bony chin and onto the kitchen towel I’ve tucked into the neck of the t-shirt. On his feet he wears a pair of my (not at all lumpy) wool socks. Now, he’s less drowsy, but I’m making him eat lightly in case he vomits. His blue eyes stray every so often to the plate of my special walnut brownies sitting in the middle of the table. They smell marvelous, if you like that sort of thing. I’m an excellent baker, but more a fan of savory than I am of sweet. When he asks politely for one, I take pity on him, and allow him one brownie, but that is all.

  Skyla is all eyes, taking in the big kitchen. It is rather grand, with spotless copper pots and pans and colanders hung on a rack suspended from the ceiling. The stove is an ancient eight-burner monstrosity, and the stainless steel refrigerator spits out water and three different shapes of ice on command. The white pine cabinets were taken from a grander French Colonial-style country house some fifty years ago, and the hardware and marble countertops gleam. (Like my mother, I like a clean working area.) But it’s the ovens that are truly remarkable. One hundred-year-old Iron Forge ovens built side-by-side into the chimney wall, each with a heavy iron door with a sliding bolt. Safety first.

  A much slower eater than her brother, Skyla mostly finishes the potato, carrot, and leek stew I set in front of her. She’s scooted the sliced carrots to one section of the bowl without comment. Now her eyelids droop and she looks as weary as the boy. But when I try to clear her plate away, she grabs my wrist and gives it a sharp, unpleasant turn. “What if he has a concussion?” she whispers. “Do you think he’ll die?”

  It’s an awful question for a child to ask. What must it be like to worry about someone you love dying? When my mother became ill, I counted the hours until she would be dead.

  Across the table, the boy’s head tilts onto his outstretched arm, and he makes lazy circles on the wood with one bony finger. The brownies are doing their job. He will be fine.

  I pat the girl’s hand. “Not tonight, not tomorrow night. The future isn’t promised to any of us, but I think he’ll live.”

  • • •

  The cottage is big enough that each of the children can have their own upstairs bedroom. Skyla initially resists when I tell her that her brother should be in a room alone, so he can sleep soundly and recover. But when he pushes past us into the room I’ve assigned him, he gives her a sleepy but rebellious stare and shuts the door in our faces. Again I want to laugh, but I keep it to myself. Skyla gives an adult sigh of resignation and follows me into the adjoining bedroom.

  “The baseboard heater is on,” I tell her. “You can turn it up to high if you get cold.”

  She nods, and glances around the room. It’s simple, with white walls and a white matelassé spread on the painted iron bed. The braided rug is pale blue and pale green, and I’ve hung framed posters of Monet’s various water lilies on the walls. It’s not a bad room, though I never imagined I’d have a guest in it.

  “Good night.” I turn back to the door and leave, closing it behind me. Skyla didn’t eat any of the brownies, but I’m certain she’ll sleep through the night.

  As I go downstairs to clean up the kitchen and move their clothes to the dryer, my mind makes automatic, ugly calculations: The boy is too thin, his cheeks are hollow, and the skin beneath his eyes is the shade of an early purple plum. His collarbone protrudes, and his fingers look almost skeletal. Remembering his politeness about both the brownies and the umbrella, I imagine he might actually be sweet. The girl is of average height and weight, though she hasn’t quite lost her prepubescent baby fat, and has a pleasing, if cautious, temperament. Though the way she twisted my wrist reveals that she has a tough, gristly streak. Metaphorically speaking, of course. We’re a long, long way from the medieval belief that how a person acts or appears has something to do with what they’re like inside. What a barbaric thought.

  • • •

  I don’t know where my great-great-grandmother came from, only that she was a widow with a young son, and they’d lived on their own in this place—godforsaken as it was in the nineteenth century—for several years. But then others came, and it turned into a community of sorts, a loose scattering of cabins with a store and a farrier and a meetinghouse nearby, all surrounded by prairie homesteads. Surely the newcomers wondered how she and her child had survived, and even thrived alone in such a wild and hostile place. What they would never know was that the few remaining native people in the area avoided her, claiming that she was evil. That to know her was to invite death. She knew what they said about her, and laughed about it. But to the land’s new residents, people who looked like her, she was kind, and they knew she was hardworking. She was a maker and seller of baskets, keeper of a few cows and a sizable garden she and her son tended.

  Then a killing winter came in which every family except my great-great-grandmother’s lost someone to starvation, sickness, cold. She nursed the sick, shared her food. She was a savior. A survivor. If she’d lived a hundred years earlier, in another place, they might have called her a witch.

  Winter far overstayed its welcome, and two days after an early spring blizzard an eight-year-old child disappeared from his family’s cabin in the night. His icy footprints led away f
rom the cabin and ended, abruptly, a half-mile later on the snow-covered cow path bordering my family’s land. People said he’d gone crazy from starvation. His body was never found. But spring revived into frantic life just a couple of weeks later, as though the earth and sun had finally had enough. The year that followed was one of obscene abundance.

  Nature is fickle, and the plenty didn’t last, of course. After four years of losses, some superstitious fool remembered how and where the child had disappeared, and imagined he was the sacrificial seed that brought them salvation. It’s never been clear to me to what or to whom that person thought the sacrifice was being offered. People who believe in the invisible are dangerous. What they don’t understand is that there is always a human there at the beginning who creates that invisible thing—a deity or demon or spirit—for their own purposes. Such naïve madness.

  It was a bad piece of luck that it seemed to work again, this time at the cost of a young girl’s life and, later, the lives of the dozens sacrificed after her.

  Thus a terrible tradition was born, with my family secretly at the heart of it.

  • • •

  I sleep better and longer than I thought I would, and wake to the unfamiliar smell of coffee. Dressing quickly, I hurry downstairs holding onto the handrail because you never know.

  In the kitchen the door to the yard is open, and the boy sits on the steps, poking at something with one of my walking sticks. Sleep has caused spikes of blond hair to stick out of the bandage like overnight weeds. He wears only the t-shirt I gave him to sleep in, his childish knobby knees gathered up into it. So, no dire concussion after all.

  You might ask why I didn’t lock the deadbolts on the doors to keep the children from leaving or even going outside. My mother would have. In the past, I would have.

  The year I was twenty-one, the boy offered up to us was too old, too strong, and would not be subdued. Broken furniture, broken dishes, a broken window. So much chaos. It was only chance that he tripped, his face planting in a chair cushion, and I was able to hold his wrists behind his back. I looked away as my mother swung the bat at his head, but I heard his temple cave in with a soft, watery sound I still hear in my dreams. I touch the smooth scar on my chin, the one I cover with makeup. Unlike my mother, who reveled in a quick kill, I believe that the most effective weapons are emotional, and these ejected, rejected children really only want kindness. That’s how to win them over to their fate—or at least how to make them more vulnerable. How’s that for armchair psychology? There are many ways to devour people.