House of Dark Shadows

by Robert Liparulo

  Dad, addressing David’s soccer concern, said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Mom reached through the seat backs to shake Xander’s knee. “It’ll work out,” she whispered.

  “Wait a minute,” David said, understanding Dad-talk as well as Xander did. “Are you saying they suck—or that they don’t have a soccer team? You told me they did!”

  “I said ‘later,’ Dae.” His nickname came from Toria’s inability as a toddler to say David. She had also called Xander Xan, but it hadn’t stuck.

  David slumped down in his seat.

  Xander let the full extent of his misery show on his face for his mother.

  She gave his knee a shake, sharing his misery. She was good that way. “Give it some time,” she whispered. “You’ll make new friends and find new things to do. Wait and see.”

  CHAPTER

  two

  SATURDAY 6:18 P.M.

  Their motel room was decorated like a six-year-old boy’s bedroom. Athletes doing their thing illustrated the wallpaper, bedspreads, hand towels, shower curtain. The bedside lamp was a cartoon-faced baseball player, whose bat held up the bulb and shade. A throw rug between the beds was supposed to look like a giant basketball, but time and lots of feet had worn it into something more like a squashed pumpkin.

  “Who do they think stays here?” Xander said, noticing someone had painted red stitching on the globe of the ceiling light in an effort to make it resemble a baseball. When he pointed it out to David, his brother thought it was supposed to be a bloodshot eye. They were sitting on the bed that, unbelievably, they would have to share until his parents arranged for something more permanent. Xander was going to make darned sure no one fed the kid beans before then.

  “The décor is . . . interesting,” Mrs. King said. Usually she found something charming or at least educational about everything. That she didn’t this time validated Xander’s suspicion that the motel owners were totally clueless.

  “I like the soccer players,” David said.

  “No, really?” Xander pushed him hard enough to send him flying off the bed and onto the road-kill pumpkin.

  One thing Xander appreciated about David was his determination to stand up for himself. Instead of crying for Mommy every time Xander did something he didn’t like, he either turned a cold shoulder or fought back. This time he fought back. Smiling, he sprung off the floor and tackled Xander back onto the bed.

  Xander rolled, so he was sitting on his brother. He grabbed David’s wrists and tried to pin him. David jerked his arms free and landed a blow to Xander’s stomach. Xander jabbed David in the ribs and got a solid grip on his wrists. He pinned his hands to the bed, one next to each of David’s ears. He made a noise in his throat that implied the gathering of something worth spitting onto his brother’s face. David began to squirm, tighten his face, and thrash his head from side to side.

  “Boys!” Mom said.

  “Ah, let ’em be,” Dad told her. “They just spent nine hours in the car.”

  David heaved his legs up behind Xander and drove a knee into his back.

  “Ahh!” Xander yelled.

  David pulled an arm free, reached up, and grabbed a handful of Xander’s hair.

  Xander squeezed his eyes shut. “David . . . let go!”

  “Get off me.”

  “Let go.”

  Somewhere in the room, Mom pleaded to Dad. “Ed?”

  “G, they’re fine.”

  It hadn’t been until Xander was in kindergarten, when the other kids had laughed, that he realized G—as in “gee whiz”— was a funny name for a mom . . . for anybody. His mother had explained that she simply did not feel like a Gertrude, and even at that young age, Xander had agreed that G was much better. In fact, the family had developed a saying whenever Mom did something bold or crazy—like getting in the face of the linebacker-sized neighbor who’d yelled at David to get off his yard or parasailing behind a speedboat in Baja: definitely not a Gertrude.

  “Okay, okay,” Xander said. Slowly, he slid off his brother. David held on until Xander had shifted his entire weight from David’s belly to the bed. David pulled his knees up to his chest, preventing Xander from jumping on again. Then he cautiously released his grip on Xander’s hair. Before David could spin away, Xander spat, nailing his brother’s cheek.

  Xander howled in laughter and bolted for the door. He yanked it open and darted into the parking lot.

  “Alexander!” his mother yelled after him. “You get back here right now!”

  But Dad called to them, “Not too far, guys!” giving him permission to continue on.

  The door slammed. Heading for a big field beyond the parking lot, Xander looked back to see David sprinting after him. He was still wiping his face.

  CHAPTER

  three

  The man in the house lumbered through the corridor. He could tell right away nothing had changed. It was the same dark, empty place it had been time after time. But it was his duty to check. So with a deep sigh, he moved through a threshold into the next room. His shoulders scraped both sides of the door frame. The weight of each footstep rattled the windows and caused the floor to groan under him. His eyes were accustomed to darkness, but still he squinted at the shadows gathered in each room. He grunted at them, and when he was satisfied they were only shadows after all, he moved on.

  A spider dropped from the ceiling, landing on his shoulder. He swiped at it, smearing the grime and sweat already there. It darted to his chest, where he flattened it with a palm the size of a Ping-Pong paddle. Having made his usual circuit through hallways, stairways, and rooms, he heaved his heavy shoulders in a deep, sad breath and headed for the door that would take him home.

  Something stopped him. A sound. He turned and retraced his steps to the front rooms. He looked out a leaded glass window.

  Through a patina of filth, he saw a man approaching. He was ambling through the trees slowly, cautiously. He did not move directly to the door, but cut diagonally to the side of the house.

  The man inside moved with him, from window to window. The outsider returned to the front. He went toward the door but did not come close. He seemed satisfied and began walking away, his gait more confident. At the window, the man inside shifted his considerable weight from one foot to the other. A floorboard creaked.

  The other man stopped to look. He appeared to stare directly at the man inside. But it was dark in the house, and if the other saw him, he gave no clue. He walked on, glancing back only once more.

  For a while, the man watched his breath condense and evaporate on the window. Then he turned and went home.

  CHAPTER

  four

  SATURDAY, 6:58 P.M.

  Halfway through the field, almost back to the hotel, Xander reached out and brushed the most obvious grass out of his brother’s hair.

  David smiled. “Thanks.”

  Xander shrugged. “Don’t want to get in trouble for pounding on you.”

  David appraised him. “Who pounded on who?”

  Xander pushed him. “Look at you.”

  “You’re the one limping.”

  “Yeah, right,” Xander said, trying to ignore the pain in his ankle.

  “If the cops stop us, I’ll tell them you’re a mugger.”

  “I don’t think they have muggers here,” Xander said. “Besides, they’d have to be blind to not know we’re brothers.” They both had dark brown hair, though Xander’s was longer and shaggier. Same smile. And while David had their mother’s hazel eyes and Xander his dad’s blue, they shared an eye shape that was sort of like a teardrop lying on its side. There were times when each of them had mistaken David for Xander and vice-versa in photographs.

  Even Dad had done that, but never Mom; she always knew, and without squinting at them to be sure, the way Dad did.

  “It’s going to be cool,” David said, “us being in the same school again, huh?”

  “Maybe.” Pinedale was so small, it had only one elementary school an
d another school that served seventh through twelfth grades. It had been five years since the brothers attended the same school at the same time, when David was in second grade and Xander fifth.

  “Are we going to find a house before school starts, you think?”

  “That’s the plan, but it’s a lot to do in a week.”

  “Car’s gone,” David announced.

  Xander looked up to see that the 4Runner was not in the motel parking lot. He said, “Dad probably went out for food.”

  “Good. I’m starving.”

  When they entered, Toria and Mom were sitting on Toria’s rollaway bed. They were looking at brochures for what the locals thought were visitor attractions. Toria had picked them up at a gas station outside of town. She was always looking for something to read, was almost never without a book or newspaper. She even read the sports section, for crying out loud.

  “Dad went for some grub,” Mom said.

  “When’ll he be back? I could eat a whole cow,” David said. “Gross,” Toria said.

  Mom checked the bedside clock. “Should have been back by now. Probably making new friends. You know your father.”

  “McD’s?” he asked hopefully.

  She smiled. “’Fraid you’re heading for a junk food withdrawal, Dae. None of that here. There’s a café up the street. Bet you like it.” David looked at Xander, neither of them so sure.

  “Did you know this is the capital of Bigfoot country?” Toria asked.

  Xander made a face. “Bigfoot?”

  “Yeah,” she said, consulting the brochure in her hands. “There have been more sightings in this area than anywhere else in the United States. People have launched expeditions to find him, right from Pinedale.”

  “So?” Xander said. “Did they find him?”

  “If they did,” she said, “it would’ve been in the news. But there’s a Bigfoot museum in town.”

  The door opened and Dad stepped in, a brown grocery bag in one arm. The smell of roasted chicken filled the room.

  “Dinner’s on,” he announced.

  David said, “Oh yeah!”

  They sat at a table near the door. It was chipped Formica with what looked like stickers of sporting equipment plastered all over it.

  As she heaped meat and potato salad onto paper plates, Mom said, “Eat up! I want us to get to bed early. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

  “Doing what?” Xander asked.

  “House hunting.”

  Xander made a face. “All of us?”

  “Would you rather stay here and babysit?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I thought we could swing by and see your new schools too.”

  “Noooo,” David moaned.

  “Oh, come on!” Xander said. “We’re in town less than twenty-four hours and we have to go see the school ?”

  Mom said, “You want to see it before your first day, don’t you?”

  “I can wait,” Xander said.

  “It won’t be so bad. You’ll see,” Dad said, shaking a forkful of chicken at him. “Now eat.”

  CHAPTER

  five

  SUNDAY, 9:20 A.M.

  The next morning, during breakfast at the same café where Dad had bought their chicken dinner, Mom wondered about the local churches.

  Dad frowed and looked at his watch. “I haven’t had a chance . . .”

  Mom shook her head. “Mr. King, next week for sure. No excuses.”

  Dad smiled. “Absolutely.”

  Twenty minutes later, the Kings found themselves in front of Pinedale Middle and Senior High School. Xander could not find the right words to describe it. Okay, it had a nice setting— quaint, peaceful. Situated up a forested hill, it overlooked the town. On three sides the tree-covered hills continued, giving the school a lush, green backdrop. The building itself was a brick single-story. L-shaped. In the square yard between the wings were grass, several flat-rock patios, picnic tables, and a flagpole. A lot like a park, he thought. Still, it was a school.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” his mother said.

  “It’s okay,” he answered, shrugging. “Does pretty really matter when it comes to education?” Trying to sound enlightened.

  She gave him a dirty look. “Hey, you’re the one who has to look at it for the next three years, not me.”

  They all climbed out of the SUV. From their vantage point in the front parking lot, marked Visitors and Fac-ulty Only, they could see the end zone and scoreboard of a football field around back.

  David pointed to the statue of an animal leaping over the scoreboard. “Their mascot’s a cougar. That’s cool.”

  “Panther,” Dad said. “Pinedale Panthers.”

  “That’s cool too.”

  Mom crossed the pickup lane and stepped into the grassy area. “Come on, let’s have a look.”

  David, forgetting himself, ran to catch up. Toria followed.

  Dad stepped up next to Xander. He patted his son on the back, then laid his hand on Xander’s shoulder. He said, “Not interested?”

  “I’ll see enough of it after next week.”

  “I know it’s tough to change schools. I did a lot of that.”

  Xander turned to him. “So that makes it okay?”

  “I’m not saying that. Just . . .” Dad seemed to search for the right words. “I wouldn’t have done this to you if it wasn’t important.”

  “Important to who?”

  “Us. The family. Me.”

  “That’s the part I don’t get. Why is it important? I thought you liked being a teacher. I thought you liked Valley High.”

  “I did. I—” Dad looked up at the sky. After a few moments, he lowered his eyes to Xander’s. “You gotta trust me on this, okay?” Xander turned away, pretending to watch Mom, Dae, and Toria scope out the school. Did he have to trust him? It wasn’t really trusting him he had to do, was it? It was really about going along with his plan, because he was a kid and couldn’t do anything else. Not yet.

  He said, “Sounds like you don’t have a good reason.”

  “I do,” his father said. “I just can’t . . . I can’t get into it right now with you. When I can I will.”

  Xander bowed his head. What is this? he thought. Dad had a secret reason for moving all of them to Pinedale? Or was it Pasadena he was moving them from? Was he going to something or run- ning from something? A hundred possibilities occurred to him at once: Was his father in the Witness Protection Program? Had he discovered a treasure map and was determined to make them all rich? Had he had an affair, and distancing all of them from the other woman was the only way to hold the family together?

  Nothing sounded right. But it had to be something. Probably it was a midlife crisis or something else equally lame.

  “Son,” his father continued, “don’t think you’re here simply because I want to be and I have to bring you along. You’re not baggage or furniture. I need you.”

  “But you can’t tell me why.” Xander held his lips tight.

  His father’s shoulders slumped. He looked miserable. He said, “Not yet.”

  “When?”

  “Soon, I promise. But don’t fight me on this, as hard as it is for you . . . please.” He extended his hand to Xander, wanting to seal his son’s compliance with a shake.

  Xander knew his dad was trying to bridge a gap. He stared at the hand, then grabbed it. He let a weak smile bend his lips.

  He said, “I’ll try to do better.”

  “That’s all I’m asking for.” Dad cocked his head at the school. “Wanna check it out?”

  They started walking. Dad kept his palm pressed to Xander’s back. Mom, David, and Toria were gazing into different windows.

  “Classroom,” Mom called out.

  “Here’s the library,” David informed her.

  Toria said something Xander couldn’t make out.

  Dad and Xander stepped onto the open area’s grass. It was thick and impossibly green. It felt like an exercise mat under Xander’s feet.r />
  “I still want to go home,” he said.

  “I know, Son.” He slid his hand to Xander’s shoulder, squeezed it. “I know.”

  A few paces farther, Xander said, “Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “If I guess your secret, will you tell me if I’m right?”

  His father laughed but didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER

  six

  SUNDAY, 11:27 A.M.

  Two hours later, they had seen three properties that were for sale.

  It was clear to Xander his parents were looking for something completely different from the suburban house they had left.

  The lots were large and thick with trees, the houses more like the hunting cabins he had seen in movies—cabins where college kids seek shelter from ax-wielding madmen or ticked-off ghosts. In those movies, the cabins were never shelter enough.

  One house he and David liked was situated down a slope from the road, nearly invisible through the trees. A river— Dad said it was Weaver Creek—cut so close to the house, Xander thought they could fish from the back deck. The water rushed over boulders, making a surflike sound. All Mom could see was a deathtrap and refused to discuss the possibility of buying it.

  Xander didn’t mind the secluded settings. He figured that since there wasn’t a multiplex or mall within two hundred miles, and given the choice of forested isolation or depressing little cafés and retail shops, he’d rather live near Mother Nature. He started to view the properties from an outdoors-man’s perspective: hiking alone in the woods; dirt biking over the rugged terrain; campfires and pup tents within sight of a refrigerator and bathroom.