The Last House on Needless Street

by Catriona Ward

  Lauren was good on the drive there, looking out of the window and singing to herself, the song about woodlice. There was none of the nonsense that she had tried in the past, trying to grab the wheel and steer us into a ditch or a wall. I allowed myself to hope that this would go well.

  When we got to the mall we couldn’t even see it at first, the parking lot was so huge, and we had picked a spot right at the far end. Lauren was impatient and didn’t want to get back in the car, so we walked. It must have been a quarter of a mile, and the morning was close. The big square box of the building got bigger and bigger as we approached. It had fancy writing across it, huge like a giant’s signature. Lauren pulled me on.

  ‘Faster,’ she said. ‘Come on, Dad.’

  I was sweating heavily by the time we reached the doors. The cool air and marble floors were a relief. I had picked a good place; there was hardly anyone else here. Some angry women with small children. Bitten-looking men who didn’t look like they had anything else to do with the day.

  There was a big plastic board with a map on it, and I stood in front of it for a while trying to make sense of the floor plan. But I was too anxious and it all dissolved into lines and colours (those were the days before I had the bug man and the pills). Lauren was no help, she was all over the place, peering this way and that, trying to look at everything at once.

  I went up to a lady in a brown uniform, with a badge on her chest, and asked, ‘Excuse me, where is Contempo Casuals?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘That store closed down,’ she said. ‘Years ago, as I recall. Why would you want that?’

  ‘My daughter, she’s thirteen,’ I said. ‘She wants to get some clothes.’

  ‘And she asked for Contempo Casuals? Has she been in a coma?’

  The woman was being very rude so I walked off. ‘They don’t have that store here,’ I told Lauren.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Isn’t this great, Dad?’ Her voice was loud and I saw one of the tired mothers look over at us.

  ‘If this is going to work, you have to be smart,’ I told her. ‘You don’t talk. Keep close, no tantrums, do everything I say. Deal?’

  She smiled and nodded and didn’t say a word. Lauren has her faults but she’s not slow.

  We walked along the storefronts, looking at all the stuff. There was so much to see, we could have spent all day there. Piano music came out of the white pillars and echoed on the marble floor. There was a fountain playing somewhere. I could tell Lauren loved it, and if I’m honest, I did too. It was great to just walk around together, out in the open, like a regular father and daughter. I got us an Orange Julius in the deserted food court. Burnt sugar and soy sauce fought uneasily in the air. The tables were all messy like people had just left, burger wrappers and plastic forks and crumbs all over the place. But there was no one in sight.

  We went into an empty, echoing department store and I picked up some socks and undervests. All boring white for me, pink and yellow for Lauren. The undervests had unicorns on them.

  To entertain her, I started making up names and histories for the bored-looking clerks standing behind their counters. The buck-toothed girl was Mabel Worthington, working extra hours to help her little brother realise his dream of becoming an ice dancer. The guy with two big moles was Monty Miles, and he had just arrived here, straight from his little ice-fishing village in Canada.

  ‘Those two blonde girls are sisters,’ I said. ‘They were separated by foster care, and they’ve just found each other again.’

  ‘I don’t like that one,’ Lauren whispered, unhappy. ‘That’s not nice, Dad. Change it.’

  ‘You’re a fussy kitten today, aren’t you?’ I was trying to think of a good one for those two when Lauren tugged my hand hard. I turned and saw a pair of leggings hanging on a nearby rack. They were bright blue with shiny gold lightning bolts on them. Lauren held her breath as she looked at them.

  ‘I guess you can try them on,’ I said. ‘I have to come with you into the changing room, though.’

  All the leggings on the rack were too small. I looked around hopelessly. The two sales girls came over to us. Close up they didn’t look much alike, after all. They were both blonde, that was all.

  The taller one said, ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Is this all you have in stock?’ I asked.

  ‘I think so,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I could tell how much Lauren loved those leggings and how disappointed she would be if she couldn’t get them. ‘Don’t you have more in back?’ I gave her my best smile and told her the size Lauren needed. The short one smirked.

  ‘Something funny?’ I asked. In that moment I hoped the smirking girl actually had been raised in foster care and separated from her family. Luckily Lauren’s attention had wandered back to the leggings and she didn’t see.

  The taller woman ignored her friend and said in a professional tone, ‘I can check.’ I noticed that she had a twitch in her left eyelid, some kind of tic. Maybe living with this had made her a nicer person. After a while she came back with more pairs of leggings draped over her forearm, like a fancy waiter carrying a white napkin. ‘These might work,’ she said.

  The changing room was long and quiet, hung with white curtains.

  ‘Go away, Dad,’ Lauren said when we were inside a cubicle.

  ‘You know I can’t do that, kitten.’

  ‘At least – don’t look. PLEASE.’ So I closed my eyes. There was rustling and silence. Then she said sadly, ‘They don’t fit.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, my kitten,’ I said. I really was. ‘We’ll find you something else.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m tired, now. Let’s go home.’

  We left the leggings where they lay on the floor in a sad pile of blue sky and lightning. We followed the green exit signs through what seemed like miles of empty aisles: leather goods, lingerie, then into home furnishings.

  As we reached the store exit I heard running feet. Someone yelled, ‘Stop!’ When I turned, the tall blonde girl was running towards us through the display living room.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ Her voice shook. Her eyelid was twitching furiously.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked her.

  She held out a handful of blue and gold fabric. ‘This,’ she said, and turned the leggings inside out. They were lined with white stretchy stuff. Lauren had treated this lining like a piece of blank paper. On it she had written, in her favourite pink marker:

  Plaes help. Ted is a kidnaper. He cals me Lauren but taht is not my nam.

  And then underneath, she had drawn a map to our house. It was pretty good. She must have been watching carefully as we drove.

  ‘That shit is not funny,’ the woman said. ‘Do you think missing children are a joke?’

  I could feel Lauren starting to get upset by her shouting, and by the cursing, so I said, ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know how that happened. Obviously I’ll pay for them.’ I put a twenty and a ten in the blonde clerk’s hand, which was much more than the pants cost, and took them from her. She shook her head at us and her mouth was a grim little line.

  We walked back through the desert of the parking lot. The sun was high in the sky, now, and heat was shimmering off the asphalt. When we reached the car I said, ‘Get in please, and fasten your seatbelt.’ Lauren obeyed in silence.

  I turned on the AC. The cool air began to dry the sweat on my brow, and I let it soothe me. When I could at last trust myself to speak I said, ‘You must have been planning that one for a long time. Give me the marker.’

  ‘I left it in the store,’ Lauren said.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘You didn’t.’

  She pulled the marker out of her sock and handed it to me. Then she started crying silently. That hurt, it was like a skewer to my heart. ‘You have to learn that your actions have consequences,’ I said.

  Lauren’s back heaved with huge sobs. The tears ran in a steady stream down her face. ‘Plea
se,’ she said. ‘Don’t send me away.’

  I took a deep breath and said, ‘Six months. You can’t come home for six months.’

  Lauren moaned. It was a bad sound that made tears poke out in my own eyes.

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ I told her. ‘It hurts me as much as it hurts you. I’ve tried to raise you right. But I’ve failed. I see that. Defacing property and downright lying. You have to learn that you can’t pull that kind of stunt. What if that woman had believed you?’

  The separation that followed was so painful that I have tried to erase it from my mind. We do not speak of it. During those months the birds in the mornings became an even greater comfort. I needed something to love.

  After that dark time was over and Lauren returned, I put precautions in place. I always triple-lock the door and lock up the laptop. I always count the marker pens before I put them away. It is not easy but I keep her safe.

  Lauren seemed changed afterwards. She was still loud but it was empty, somehow, the temper of a much younger child. My daughter had learned her lesson, I thought.

  I am very upset this evening so I make mint hot chocolate.

  Recipe for Mint Hot Chocolate, by Ted Bannerman. Warm the milk. Break pieces of chocolate into it and melt them. Add crème de menthe, as much as you like. You can add bourbon too. It’s night, you’re not going anywhere! It should all come together in a smooth goo. You can put chopped fresh mint in too, if you like. Pour it into a tall glass with a handle. If you don’t have one, a mug is fine. (I don’t have one.) Then top with whipped cream and chocolate chips or smashed-up pieces of cookie. You need a spoon to eat this.

  I like to make this slowly, stirring the chocolate, thinking about things, which is what I’m doing when I put my hand in my pocket. I often do that, to think, and my fingers meet a piece of paper. I draw it out, wincing. The Murderer. It is the list of suspects I made after the birds were killed. I left it under Lauren’s chalks, locked up in the cupboard. How did it get in my pocket? A name has been added to the list, below Lauren’s. I don’t recognise the writing.

  Mommy

  Well, that is a very cruel and scary joke. If there is one person who could not have killed the birds, it is Mommy. She’s gone.

  I tear up the list and throw it in the trash. Even mint hot chocolate doesn’t help, now.

  Lauren

  Please come and arrest Ted for murder, and other things. They have the death penalty in this state, I know that. He makes me do my social studies homework. When I’m done, I’m going to try to throw this cassette out the mail slot. I hope someone finds it.

  Ted always takes the knife when he goes to the woods. Maybe I will do it to him, maybe he will do it to me. But it will finish in the woods, where he put the others. Out we will go like a little candle, leaving nothing but the peaceful dark. I kind of look forward to it. I am made with pain, for it, of it. I don’t have any other purpose, except to die.

  He doesn’t think I can hear him when I’m down there, but I can. Or maybe he forgets I exist as soon as he closes the door. He’s such a dork with his dumb recipes. He didn’t invent the strawberry and vinegar sandwich thing. Even I know that, from the cooking network. I heard him talking to the cat about making a – what? – a feelings diary. SUCH a dork. But that’s how I got this idea, so I guess it was lucky. I’m not what they call book smart but I can make plans.

  I found the tape recorder in the hall closet. It’s the only closet he doesn’t keep locked. I guess because there’s nothing in here, just piles of old newspapers. But then I found the machine, with the tape in and I thought, Here’s my chance.

  I’m sitting here right now in the dark, so I can put everything back where I found it, if he comes. The tape is really old, with a yellow-and-black label. It had her writing on it. Notes. I didn’t listen to it; I know what’s on there. There’s a hot feeling in my tummy. I feel good about recording over her. I’m afraid, too, though.

  I wonder what it’s like being a regular person – not being afraid all the time. Maybe everyone is afraid all the ti—Oh God, he’s coming n—

  Olivia

  I keep trying to record my thoughts but the whine is so loud. It has become a scream. My head feels like it will split. I can’t, I just can’t.

  Oooeeeeeooo, metal dragging on metal, torture to my poor brain, my soft ears, my delicate bones … It’s a hammer of sound in my skull. So when the voice starts speaking, running underneath it, I don’t hear at first.

  ‘Olivia,’ says the voice. ‘Olivia.’ It’s no louder than a butterfly’s wing. Oooooeeeeeooo.

  Hello? I ease out from under the couch. Where are you? I ask, which is just as useless as me talking to the TV, I guess, because it’s definitely a ted saying my name, and they don’t understand.

  ‘Olivia, in here.’

  My heart is beating really loudly. I am on the edge of something. If I do this I can never give back the knowledge. Part of me wants to get back under the couch and forget about it. But I can’t. That wouldn’t be right.

  I recognise the voice and where it’s coming from. I have never hoped harder to be wrong.

  I go to my crate, in the kitchen. It’s not a crate of course, I just call it that. It’s one of those old chest freezers. I like to sleep in it – the dark, the quiet. But sometimes Ted piles stuff on top of it. Weights. Like now.

  I put my ear close. The whine is high like a lady singing opera. But I can still hear her voice, underneath it.

  ‘Hello?’ she says, tearful, a bare whisper. ‘Olivia?’ The words are faint, she sounds weak and sad, but there is no mistake. I picture her curled up in the dark, in there. I can hear her wet breathing.

  ‘He’s mad that I made a bad dinner,’ Lauren says, her voice coming eerie through the air holes. ‘So mad. The only time I remember him being this angry was after that time at the mall …’ She’s doing that slight, involuntary gasping that happens when people are tired out from crying.

  My mind won’t work properly, it races like that mouse in the walls. My fur stands up in quills.

  Calm down, Olivia, I tell myself. So she got herself locked in the freezer somehow. Careless kid …

  ‘I didn’t lock myself in,’ Lauren says.

  I leap a little in the air. You can hear me? I ask. You understand cat? Oh my LORD!

  ‘Listen. Ted shut me in …’

  What a silly accident, I say, relieved. I bet he’ll feel terrible when he realises … OK. Easy! I’ll go wake Ted, and he can let you out.

  ‘No, please don’t wake him.’ Her voice is like a scream, if a scream could also be a whisper. It’s horrible. It has little bloody flip-flops and scrawls saying help in it. I feel cold marching up my tail, into my spine. Lauren gives a series of hard little gasps like she’s trying to get herself together.

  You can’t stay in there for ever, Lauren, I say, reasonable. That’s my place. It’s a little selfish of you, actually. Anyway, your mom will come looking for you, or the school … Is it a school you go to? Sorry, I forget.

  ‘No, Olivia,’ she whispers. ‘Think. Please.’ I look at the freezer, its size. I look at the air holes Ted pierced in the lid for me. Or were they for me? I feel the answer ebbing through the thick metal door, the rubber seal. The knowledge twists through my organs, flesh and bones.

  You don’t go anywhere, when you go away, I say. You stay right here.

  ‘When you can’t get in, that means I’m here,’ she says. ‘We take turns, I guess.’

  I think of it: Lauren lying quiet in the dark, listening as Ted and I go about our business. I haven’t seen you for over a month, I say.

  ‘Has it been that long? Time drifts here in the dark, it’s hard to tell whether you are dead or not. I wondered. But then I heard you through the wall, and I thought, no, not yet …’

  Oh, I say. Oh, oh.

  ‘I’ve been trying to speak to you,’ she says. ‘Had to find a time when he didn’t stop my mouth too tight, when he was asleep and the music wasn’t too
loud. I wrote notes. I slipped them into his pocket, his pants, anywhere I could reach … You didn’t find them I guess but he didn’t either so that’s good. Lucky he’s so drunk, always.’

  I row uselessly and turn in circles. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry …

  She sighs and I hear the wet catch in her breath. ‘You’re always sorry,’ she says, sounding more like her old self. ‘Always trying to make him feel better.’

  Oh, how could he? I say. To lock up his own daughter like this …

  She gives a tired little laugh. ‘Grow up, Olivia. I’m not his daughter.’

  But you call him Dad.

  ‘He calls me kitten when I’m good – does that mean I’m a cat?’

  I shudder and my tail lashes. He calls me kitten, I say.

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘There have been lots of kittens over the years.’

  I think back to the night Ted found me, a kit in the woods, the night when the cord bound us together. His cuffs covered in fresh mud. The elusive scent in the back of the car, as if the seat had just been vacated. Soft fabric, yellow with blue butterflies. He wrapped me in a child’s blanket. I guess maybe I should have wondered what was he doing at night in the woods, with mud on his cuffs and a child’s blanket.

  I ask, How long have you been here?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Since I was little.’

  All this time, I say. It’s like looking in a mirror, to find it’s really a door. I could really hurt Ted, I could. Oh Lord, I whisper, how awful.

  ‘You don’t know what awful is.’ Lauren takes a deep breath. ‘I’ll tell this once and then never again.’

  ‘Once upon a time I lived with my family. I don’t recall that too well. It was long ago and I was little. I don’t remember much about the day he took me, except that it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. I think my mom used to say that, but I’m not sure. Lauren’s not my real name. I don’t remember that either.