Girl in the Walls

by A. J. Gnuse

  Eddie rolled over in bed and watched the ceiling fan rotate slowly above him. He tracked one blade with his eyes for a while. He toyed with the elastic waistband of his boxer shorts. Pushed his hand through, but only left it there on the thigh. He could do it, and it would help him sleep, he’d learned. Would make him drowsy for long enough that he might nod off and stay there. But even if he lay his pillow across his face, turned on his side to minimize the rise and fall of the sheets, he’d still feel watched. How could he think of anything else?

  Eddie sat up and looked at the crack beneath the hallway door. Marshall was right. He had to be normal. There was nothing here with him. He had to put away childish thoughts. Put an end to fear from imagination. It began now, at night. Each morning began the night before, when he was here alone in his bedroom.

  His old books, the ones that disappeared—they must have been taken by his brother or parents, a sign that they needed him to grow up. A simple explanation. He had never asked, and he wouldn’t ask, but it had to be that simple. The sounds he thought he heard, the feelings he got, those imaginations that didn’t, hadn’t existed?

  It was these thoughts that made him weird. If Eddie could stop them, he’d stop being strange. Like in books: Rumpelstiltskin was strange, Gollum was strange. Strange made them ugly. It made them hated. It kept them alone.

  Part 3

  SUBJECT: SAW YOUR POST

  I believe you. I understand you. Maybe better than anyone.

  I know no one listens. When I was young? The same for me. I told my parents and they said I made it up. I told kids at school. They acted like I had just grown another head. I even told my pastor. For a long time had to think—it was me. But you know? We had every sign then.

  Missing things. Noises in the attic. Closed doors come open in the morning. Strange sudden smells. A cough from the empty room. Rugs kicked over when home alone. Eventually I stopped telling. Mom cried. She asked why I was scaring her.

  But why would I make that up?

  I know how hard it is knowing. Awful and frightening. Lonely. When you know they are there in a house like yours. Hope it is alright that I emailed you directly.

  I wanted to let you know over the years I have learned how to take care of this. I can help if you want. Safest to talk to someone who already knows. You are smart. But no offense I know you are young too.

  First know you have to be careful what you say aloud. If they are in the house they may be listening. If they know you know? You may be in danger.

  Tell me about your house. How many rooms? Count the closets separate. Stairs? Attic? Basement? Do you have pets? Rooms you do not spend much time in? List to me the sounds you hear. Look for things moved or gone. Tell me every thing you notice. Specifically. Pay attention. If you listen a house cracks open to you.

  Not everybody hears like we do. Not everybody grasps the idea. You got to sort out the people to trust. Those you can and cannot. Count me with the first lot.

  J.T.

  On Television

  A FAMILY, GRINNING AT ONE ANOTHER, BARBECUING ON A DECK. The image lasted on the screen a few seconds before the couple and their three children disappeared, replaced by a storm. The trees of the yard roiled, the rain lashed diagonally across the screen. A man’s deep, disembodied voice resonated over the rain and wind: “This is the importance of deck protection.”

  The camera cut to a close-up of the wood of the deck, showing how the bulbous, blue raindrops were each broken, shattered, and disseminated by the Deck Protector Formula. The storm never had a chance. With the rain defeated, the yard once again turned bright and warm, and the family huddled around the grill.

  A terrible commercial, and Elise had seen it too many times to count. She tried to entertain herself by looking at all the parts of the screen she thought she wasn’t supposed to. For instance, this time, just as the ad ended, Elise caught a glimpse of the space behind the family. There, past their brightly colored sundresses and polos, an even brighter bowl peeked between their limbs. Fruit salad—honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon, even cherries.

  “Oh, man,” Elise said. “I would love fruit.”

  “They got any here?” Brody asked.

  “No,” she said. “They have apples, but they’d notice those missing. It’s been a long time since they’ve had grapes.”

  “Hm,” Brody said. He sat beside her on the sofa and picked at a callus on his heel. “You know,” he said. “There’s watermelons in the garden.”

  “Already?” Elise asked. “Mrs. Laura didn’t plant those that long ago. You sure? Anyway, there’s no way you could get one. She’s out there every afternoon. She’d know right away.”

  “What if she thought an animal ate them? I saw them broke open in other yards. I think racoons get them.”

  “It’d be too much of a mess. The juice would get everywhere. We’d get the table sticky.”

  “Why can’t we eat it out there?”

  Unmoored

  THE SAME AIR EXISTS IN EACH PLACE, THE SAME LIGHT AND SHADOW. Something to remind herself of, as Elise turned the television’s volume to its max, and left it on as they left the room. She had done it as a kind of preparation. Elise would still hear the battle cries of Xena, Warrior Princess, even as she pulled open the back door and stood in its threshold. The sound of the inside grounding her. But stepping outside for the first time in the early afternoon, in summer, for anyone in South Louisiana, would always be intoxicating, and awful.

  The sudden heat wrapped her body like hot smoke from an invisible fire, and on the other side of the door, the roar of the cicadas ballooned. Sweat beaded already along the back of Elise’s neck, as she stepped down the brick steps of the back porch. The grass warm and wet with dew. With each footfall, she expected a thorn to lodge in her instep, or a fire ant to sink pincers between her toes. Brody led the way, but when he saw her trailing behind, he doubled back, took her by the hand, and towed her along like she was some unruly calf.

  “It’s bright out today, isn’t it?” Elise said. “Like, really bright.”

  Brody squinted at the clouds. “Not really.”

  “It’s hot, though,” Elise said. And as they neared the waist-high netting of Mrs. Laura’s garden, she said, “Is Ms. Wanda outside? Does she see us?”

  “Who? Wait, why are you pulling? Stop!”

  “I’m just—”

  The house loomed behind her, somehow both massive and very small. She worried the breeze had blown the door shut behind them. That the door had been locked. That they were trapped out now.

  “I just need to check the door,” Elise said.

  But Brody dug his feet into the ground and pulled her hard, swinging her back. “You’ve been outside before,” he said. “You were fine on the roof!”

  “Different!” she said. And it was. The roof was its own room. “I—was touching it.”

  “Listen,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. He let go and pulled out of the overall front pocket the rubber mallet he had taken from the garage before they had come outside. He held it out to her like it was precious. “I’ll let you have first smash.”

  Elise looked down at the watermelons, two of them, that lay there before them, beneath the leafy beans and tomato plants. Only fist-sized. No wonder she hadn’t seen them from the house. They were nowhere near ripe.

  “Picture the whole world right there, the big stupid thing, in front of you,” Brody said. “And then smash it!”

  Elise ignored him. She knelt beside the watermelon. Felt cool here, with the black earth on her knees, under the light shade of the plants; felt sheltered. Her mom had her own garden, not as large—smaller plants, herbs—planted alongside the house. She had let Elise work alongside her, digging holes with a spade, watering with a small bucket. Elise had been younger than Brody was now, probably, and must have been useless in helping her mom. But, those few times, she enjoyed being involved, watching the plants grow when she passed by on her way to the car. The back door was still cracke
d, and Elise could hear the faint mumble of the television out here in the yard—she wasn’t so far. She looked around the yard. Not too far.

  Elise’s hands quivered as she raised the watermelon on its vine. She focused on the fruit. Tapped along its ends with her fingernails. It was dense, heavy for its size.

  “You’re not smashing,” Brody said.

  “It’s not ready yet,” she said.

  As she brought the melon to her face, everything behind it had begun to swirl, dizzying. Each thing throwing off its own heat, the colors vibrant, the grass a yellow-green, the sky blanched. Elise couldn’t last long out here.

  Brody turned and wandered the yard nearby. Elise crouched, digging her toes into the ground to hold tight, and watched a dragonfly’s contorted flight path through the yard. She wiped a grasshopper from her leg. She’d gone light-headed. Felt the tight ache of a sunburn on her pale skin, though she couldn’t have been out there more than a few minutes. She stood, shielding her eyes from the sun. Turned back. Brody, resigned, followed her into the house. She closed the door behind him. In the other room, the television droned on as if nothing at all had happened. The house hadn’t changed. The dim light around her was a dip into cold water.

  Mid-May. It’d be weeks before watermelon turned ripe. Later, Elise told herself, and she’d be out there again.

  Give it a few weeks. Out there, with the house looking down upon her, and the sweet, pink fruit filling her mouth.

  Meeting

  DURING DINNER, WHILE EDDIE ATE ALONE IN THE DINING ROOM, Marshall came in carrying a half-finished plate and a glass of milk, black and chunky with protein powder. Eddie stopped eating when Marshall sat down across from him and placed his silverware on the table, but he didn’t look up from his plate.

  “Marshall?” Their mother’s voice from the kitchen.

  “We’re fine,” Marshall called back. He skewered a potato with his fork, brought it to his lips, chewed it slowly in one cheek. When he spoke again, his voice was muddled with food, but low. “Look, I know this bothers you—having me here, when you’re trying to—” Marshall pointed at Eddie’s plate with his fork, making a circular motion. “But I need to talk to you. So, put up.”

  Eddie kept his head low and peered up through his bangs. On the drive to school yesterday morning, Marshall had reclined his chair nearly into Eddie’s lap, as though he wasn’t even there. It wasn’t until their father smacked Marshall’s thigh with the back of a hand that he sat upright.

  “I’m asking you,” Marshall said. He took another bite, and to Eddie’s surprise, tugged a napkin from his back pocket and covered his lips while he chewed. The whole move seemed self-conscious. Almost girlish.

  “Why?” Eddie asked.

  “Because I need to talk to you about something really stupid.”

  “Are you mad? Mad at me?”

  “No,” Marshall said. He lowered the napkin. “Well—a little. You’re annoying as shit, and it’s a nightmare living with you—” The smirk that had begun to tug at his brother’s face dissolved. “And you clearly can’t take a joke. No, Eddie, I’m not mad at you.”

  “You sound like you’re mad.”

  “Shut up. For the love of—I’m not mad.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “I want to talk!” Hands thrown in the air, as if it were the most obvious thing. “I want to talk,” Marshall said again, and looked into the doorway to the living room, as if expecting to see their parents already standing there, arms folded over their chests.

  They weren’t there, weren’t listening, but Eddie wished they were.

  “Do you ever go in my room?”

  Eddie said nothing. Why would he ask if he wasn’t mad? Marshall must be lying—he had to be angry. The older brother’s forehead ruffled into a thick crease. His face pale, the muscles of his thin neck like tense cords. Marshall checked the doorway again, and when he turned to look Eddie in the face, his eyes were humorless, flat.

  Eddie shook his head no.

  “You don’t go in my room? When I’m not there?”

  “No,” Eddie said. He shifted in his chair, the curve of his spine pressed into its back. Maybe once he would have crossed into his brother’s room, when they were younger, but it was off-limits now, and had been the whole time they’d lived in this house. The space wasn’t his, he wouldn’t belong, would feel watched even if he knew Marshall was away. Even so, he realized this might end with a fist brought down on his arm, with a plate of food flipped into his lap.

  “You don’t eat the stuff that’s meant for me in the pantry?” Marshall asked. “The granola bars, the Pop-Tarts I’d specifically asked Mom for?”

  “I don’t.” Eddie never even wanted them—the granola bars too dry, the Pop-Tarts too sweet, they made his stomach ache—but Marshall leaned across the table, close enough to stab a fork into Eddie’s green beans and eat them right from the plate. “I don’t,” Eddie said.

  Marshall turned and checked the doorway once again. He exhaled, and Eddie felt the passing of his brother’s breath on his face. Marshall slouched back in his chair, sinking low, until the difference in height between them was gone. “Eddie,” he said. “I believe you.”

  Marshall closed his eyes and tapped his fingers along the edge of the table. Opened them and looked up at the ceiling. “What if I had something stupid to tell you? I mean, I think it’s pretty stupid. I just—I don’t know. Can you just tell me this? I feel pretty dumb asking you, but I’m thinking I’d much rather say it to you than probably anybody else—definitely more than Mom and Dad. Obviously. Because I sure as hell know what Dad’s going to say. And because they’ve already totally blown it all off. And, well, I’m realizing I’m being twice as confusing as I should be when talking to someone who doesn’t understand half the shit going on, so . . . I don’t know.”

  “What do you want, Marshall?” Eddie’s stomach hadn’t stopped churning since Marshall had entered the room. Get it over with, he wanted to say. Please. And then go away.

  “Here’s my question: Eddie, do you, or have you ever felt, that besides me, and you, and Mom and Dad, that somebody else is here with us in the house?”

  Marshall stared at him, unblinking. An intense feeling, like a rope tied between their eyes was being pulled taut. Eddie had no memory of the last time Marshall waited for anything he had to say. But the question Marshall asked wasn’t one he wanted to answer. The second he did, the room would grow larger around him, the ceilings craning higher, the doorway farther away. The walls might as well be human skin, their sensitive hairs twitching.

  “I think,” Eddie said. He kneaded the napkin in his lap between his fingers. “Yeah. I have.”

  Marshall nodded. With a voice little more than a sigh, he said, “I think so, too.”

  Brothers

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER DINNER, MARSHALL LED EDDIE TO HIS ROOM. “Check this out,” Marshall said, sitting down in his desk chair. He woke the computer from sleep and motioned Eddie to go across the hall. “Grab a chair from the office.”

  Eddie returned with a blue, vinyl beanbag. He plopped to the floor while his brother opened the browser. Eddie sank into the bag, feeling its insides swell up and around him. He realized the last time he’d sat in it was on the Northshore, years ago, when he used to watch Marshall play Mario on the old Nintendo 64. Eddie had been too afraid to play the game himself—too afraid of falling from a ledge or finding a ghost materialized behind him—but watching his brother had been like a movie that listened to him, that accommodated his requests to stop, go back, and look at something a little longer.

  Marshall gave him a puzzled look. “I thought you’d bring a real chair.”

  “I like this one,” Eddie said.

  Marshall stood and went to close his bedroom door. Then he opened his closet and went into the bathroom to check behind the shower curtain. Then he sat back down, as though nothing he had done was out of the ordinary. Eddie wondered how long they had both been checking.

&
nbsp; “So,” Marshall said. “Look at what I found.”

  Marshall opened a bookmarked web page, and a forum with strips of text loaded from the top of the page down. Small images of avatars loaded to the left of the screen, most with a default outline of a face with a question mark in place of its features.

  “I posted a question on this site a few days back about some of the things I might, you know, have been feeling about our house. Just describing some things. Not much. But look at the responses.” Marshall scrolled to the bottom of the screen, which showed a full three pages of posts. “Some of them are the same people a number of times,” he said. “But, Eddie—it’s kind of blown my mind. This kind of thing happens.”

  “It happens?”

  “People believe us. Some have even said, like this one here with the bloodhound picture, they know of people it’s happened to, they’ve got news article links. When I posted something, this guy started emailing me with actual advice. They all swear it’s happened to them.”

  “That someone . . .”

  “That someone was hiding there, in their home. Sometimes for a really long time. Coming out at night and raiding the pantry, taking things, living in old folks’ homes who can’t move around much. The guy sent a link to an article about this lady that had passed away, and nobody knew it for a long time because, every night, the inside lights kept coming on. The mail stacked up and the lawn grew long, and nobody had any idea.”

  “Why?” Eddie said. “I mean, why did you start thinking about this? What made you start?”

  Marshall turned his chin and regarded him with a single eye. “There’s been a lot of things.”