“And where is he?” Brenda asked.
Role playing? At least it spurred the conversation.
“This is the cry of the powers! Where is he? Where is he?” Earthsong consulted her crystal ball. “Ask the House. The House will know. The House . . .”
From there she went into a fit, something she must have learned by watching the channelers on television in the eighties. We got nothing more from her except the amount of her fee: Twenty dollars.
Brenda and I made our way up the sidewalk, chained to each other by curiosity.
“What does she mean, ask the House?” Brenda mused.
“What the devil are you doing here?” I demanded, turning to her.
“What are you doing here?”
I explained Van Epps’ invitation, meaning I had to detail the bizarre reasons as well—and explain what I could of the House.
She returned my favor, explaining, “Got an invitation, plane ticket and everything, from a tattoo agent in Seattle, something about starting a franchise. Called himself a tattoo broker! That should have been a clue right there. It was a rip-off. They get me the work and take a percentage, but the fine print says I can only work through them and they own my designs. So screw ’em, but thanks for the free ride.”
“But what are you doing here?”
“Don’t get your boxers in a wad. I saw a poster in the agent’s lobby, said you were lecturing at Evergreen State. I said, ‘Hey, what’re you guys doing plugging a don’t-believe-in-nothing guy like this?’ The agent tears the poster off the wall and throws it in the fireplace.”
I could see her watching it in her mind’s eye.
“I saw you burning, curling up, going to ashes. I called Evergreen—what’s that face for? Yeah, I called ’em, and they said you were coming up here to see a friend.”
“You came here because somebody burned a poster of me?”
“Listen, I’d need more than that to trouble myself over you.” She dug in her shoulder bag and brought out a sketchpad. “I saw this right after that.”
She showed me her drawing of a snaky logo with scaly lettering: Psychic Readings, Fortunes Told. We both looked back to verify the same logo above Earthsong’s front door.
“You saw this on the bulletin board?”
She sniffed her impatience and pointed to her head. “In here, man. I see things in here and I draw them. That’s why I stopped there to talk to the lady. I said, ‘Hey, I’m trying to find somebody,’ and right then, there you were. Now you do what you want with it, but that’s what happened.”
“So that’s how she got the idea we were looking for someone . . .” I mused. “Except I wasn’t. Not you, not the little blond kid.” I chuckled. “She couldn’t have been further off.”
“So why’d you spend the twenty bucks?”
We’d come to my car. I nodded to the passenger door. “Let’s have a chat.”
Inside, I cautioned her to secrecy and continued. “It seems my friend Van Epps has a close relationship with that lady. The moment I reached her front door I caught the odor of her incense—it’s a smell that permeates Van Epps’ leather jacket. He’s been to her place on a regular basis.”
“Did you see the needle tracks on her arms?”
“I was going to ask you—”
“She was high. Heroin. I’ve seen it.”
“High and careless. Being a charlatan, she guessed wrong and told us somebody else’s fortune. But the information is likely true: Somebody’s looking for a child—”
“I’ve seen the kid.”
“—and I have to wonder what Van Epps knows about it.”
“Are we talking or just you?”
“Sorry?”
“I’ve seen that kid.”
I had to clarify. “Where?”
She indicated her head again.
“I suppose you have a drawing?”
“Not on me.”
“Hmph.”
“It’s on Cowboy’s arm. A little blond kid, standing there with the rest of us.”
We were going over a cliff. I applied some brakes.
“Let’s categorize what we have. You claim to be here following information gained through some kind of psychic means—”
“No I don’t!” she argued.
“Whatever, all right? Just for now?”
“I don’t do trances and I don’t trip out . . . and I don’t have a freaky carved raven!”
“Granted. But let’s put all that here in this category”—I indicated a small corral with my hands, then indicated another beside the first—“and another category here, for data gathered the old-fashioned way, through observation.”
She was either bored or miffed, looking elsewhere.
I proceeded anyway. “In the second category, Earthsong is tied to Van Epps, and that being the case, he may know something about this child, something he’s chosen not to talk about.”
She looked at me again. “She’s jealous of the kid, you know that.”
I nodded. “He supposedly has a gift she went out of her way to discredit.”
“So he’s a threat, so he’s real.”
“I agree.”
“So what about the rest of it? The kid in prison and breaking out and somebody wondering where he is . . .”
“And the House knowing . . .” We now had a bag of pieces that didn’t connect. “I’ll have a word with Van Epps about it, if only to get his reaction.” Then, wanting data first and accepting explanation later, I added, “In the meantime, let me know if you see any more pictures.”
She gave me a look.
“No, please do.”
CHAPTER
5
Gustav Svensson
Van Epps disappointed me—not for lack of information I could at least infer, but for lack of honesty with me, his old compatriot in skepticism.
He asked me about my walk through the town. I recounted my impressions and introduced Brenda. He asked if we’d noticed the overburden of mystics and charlatans, and of course we had.
“Places like . . . Earthsong’s Psychic Readings,” he said with a sardonic wag of his head. “So typical.”
How notable that he brought up the fortune-teller without my mentioning her. I pursued it. “We gave her a try, as a matter of fact. She put on quite a show.”
He sneered, he scoffed, he chided me for wasting my time and money.
“She spoke of a missing child,” I said with a mockery to match his. “Obviously, a ‘reading’ that had nothing to do with us.”
He laughed along with me but drummed his fingers nervously and would not dwell on the subject.
From there, things went into a limbo that became more and more constricting. We went to several homes around the neighborhood and town, but the reactions we got were as Van Epps predicted from his own experience: No one talked about the House.
After that, a day passed, then another, and we became like survivors in a lifeboat, stuck in close proximity with nowhere else to go. Van Epps and I fell into quarrels over old information when we weren’t exhausting each other in protracted academic discussions. His house was sizable enough for his guests but not sizable enough to prevent friction between myself and the two women.
Andi, lacking something to do, began jabbering about patterns: The dimensions of the cupboard doors were golden rectangles, the teakettle played a continuous tone progressing through ten degrees of the scale and ending on an accidental, the pattern of the living room carpet repeated every forty-eight inches, which was the same number of flowers in the pattern multiplied by four, so there had to be more twelves or multiples of twelve somewhere. There was no turning her off.
Brenda, always edgy, wandered, explored, got to know some people, but the idleness weighed upon her and she simply could not find something to like. She didn’t like the town, she didn’t like the house, she didn’t care for Van Epps and, of course, she could not accommodate herself to me—a mutual feeling I had no incentive to correct.
And all along, Van Epps kept pressing us: “It’ll show up again. Count on it. You’ll see.”
Then came October 6. The day held no significance for me, but for Andi, it was the number six, the number the Institute seemed so fond of, which was divisible into twelve, which constituted the pattern she was waiting for. “It’s the sixth! I think we’re going to get something today!”
I got out of the house—alone. That was the point.
I walked the same loop around the neighborhood, past the same trees, hedges, yards, and yapping dogs I’d memorized by now, vexed by the monotony, the sameness, the cyclical repetition . . .
Until I noticed a different sensation. Beneath my vexation, a sense of gloom moved in like a mood swing on a cloudy day . . . feelings associated with the memory of a woman I could not have . . . shadows of regret . . . anger . . . the day I tore off my clerical collar.
Blast! I had long ago buried all such issues. It had to be the town, the idleness, and now my being exiled as it were, a solitary soul on an empty sidewalk in a strange town. I dashed the memories from my mind—
And felt a sense of foreboding as if being followed. Watched.
I looked about. No one behind me—
The moment my eyes came forward, I saw only twenty feet away . . . Him? It? I will use the term specter to convey the appearance of the man and, I admit, the chill, the danger I felt. He was motionless, like a post. His eyes, pasted over like those of a dead animal, were locked on me. How he could make such an instant appearance and from where, I could not tell.
He was dressed like an aged mariner: old slicker, drooping hat, work boots. His complexion was cold and gray, and he was dripping wet, standing in a puddle of water though it was a rainless day.
He took a step toward me, and then another, the grim expression steady as a mask. Intuitively, I considered my size and strength and so resolved to stand my ground. The boots squished and left wet footprints on the street. The slicker dripped as if being rained upon.
Now he seemed he would move by me, so I stepped aside. He passed by, his pasty eyes probing me, and it had to have been Van Epps’ prior description that made me feel he was looking into me, knew me, knew my sins.
The specter’s back was to me now. I fumbled for my cell phone to snap a photo. Even as I composed the picture, he stopped and looked back. Click. A photo I might fear from that day on.
What? The man gave his head a little jerk as if to say, Come this way.
I followed him at a distance even as I swiped and tapped my phone to raise Andi’s number. When she answered, I found myself whispering. “Come quickly, all of you.”
Oh, the frustration!
“Come where?” she said. “Where are you?”
Somewhere in Port Avalon, blast it! “I don’t know the street name. I’m near the big white house with the black mutt.”
“Well, where’s that?”
I came to a street sign. “Mossyrock.” The man kept walking around a corner, up a hill. “Make that 48th.”
“Forty-eight!” she exclaimed.
I hated how she could make me curse, especially to her. “Do not start, Andi! Just get down here!”
She indicated that Van Epps knew where I was. I tapped Off and holstered the phone.
The specter rounded a wooded corner and went out of sight. I ran to catch sight of him again.
There he was, relentlessly walking, squishing, dripping.
And just beyond him, at the end of the street where, I’m sure, nothing but woods had been, was a house. Two-story Victorian, dull purple, richly detailed, turreted, with a covered porch and sleepy front windows.
CHAPTER
6
The House
The “posthumous manifestation” of whoever this was seemed in no hurry. Rather, he stepped and squished up the seven steps to the front porch of the House, turned, looked at me, then waited until the others arrived.
Andi and Brenda spilled out of Van Epps’ car. “Who is it?” “What is it?” Then they stood next to me and gawked.
“Looks like an old fisherman,” Andi observed.
Brenda chose to respond by invoking the sanctity of excrement.
I was relieved that they saw it too.
Van Epps remained in his car, hiding, it seemed, behind the steering wheel even as the apparition stared at him with much the same expression as Clyde Morris had in that photo. A pattern there, but now I could relate.
The specter scanned us as if taking attendance. The front door opened by itself. He went inside, and the door closed with a creak and a clunk.
Only then did Van Epps scramble from his car with a video camera and tripod. “See? I told you! There it is, right in front of you!”
“Looks real enough,” said Andi. “Different landmarks, though. No knotty tree or fire hydrant. Not this time.”
Emotions were running high, mine included. I dared not be fooled. I studied the House, cautious to sort reality from illusion, scanning the lines of the walls, gables, roof. The windows drew my gaze, and I found myself looking the House in the eyes, if such a thing were possible. Van Epps’ observation was not unfounded, though subjective, as mine was at that moment: I couldn’t shake the impression that the House was staring me down, just like the old fisherman. I couldn’t ask the ladies what they might be feeling lest I suggest the idea to them. I tried moving from side to side. Still, the gaze of the windows followed me. I know all about you, said the House. I know all about you.
By now, word had filtered through the town. People showed up in little clusters, keeping their distance, gawking, taking pictures with their cell phones.
It was Gustav, someone said. Gustav Svensson. They tossed the name around, repeated it, passed it from one to another.
I listened. I counted and recorded faces, trying not to stare too long at a man and woman stationed behind the others. I may have seen them before, but impressions were questionable at the moment.
Brenda and Andi were looking to me for the next move. I looked at Van Epps. He was behind a tree with the camera.
“Shall we have a closer look?” I asked.
“Yes, by all means,” he answered. “Go ahead. I’ll keep recording.”
“Recording what?”
“It might move again! It might—we need a record.”
I looked at the ladies. “Shall we?”
Brenda, clearly unsettled, swore again. I couldn’t have said it better.
It was getting dark, which seemed to be a cue for the crowd. They began to back away, then disperse in ones and twos.
A glow appeared in an upstairs window and there were gasps from those remaining—and from Andi.
“Hey,” said Brenda. “Somebody’s home.”
“Yeah,” said Andi, “the dead guy.”
“Ghosts don’t need lights.”
Van Epps called from behind the tree. “We need data. You should go inside and check around. I’ll keep the camera going in case something happens.”
Reading Van Epps’ voice and body, I agreed. “Yes. I think you should stay out here.”
The walkway was real, as were the front steps, as was the porch. Brenda thumped on a porch post and gave a little shrug. Andi was counting things: the lap siding, the light fixtures, the—
“Hey,” she said, “there’s no house number!”
She could even get excited about the lack of numbers.
Since the House was real enough, I thought I should try a real knock on the door. No answer. I knocked two more times, but still no answer. I tried the door. Locked. Brenda had to try the door for herself. Still locked.
The daylight was fading to a steely gray. I led the way around the House while we could still see the details: concrete foundation embedded in the ground; small yard with grass a bit shaggy; planting beds, but flowers withering this time of year; moss growing on the roof; some paint peeling.
We continued to circle, breathing easier. For a phantasm, the House was so normal as to be disappointing—
“Well, howdy!”
We wilted with relief.
“Whatcha guys doin’? Buildin’ a fire?”
I dropped the branch. It would have been nice if Tank, our gentle giant, were an illusion, but of course that was not to be. He was carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder, a traveler just arrived. Brenda and Andi embraced him, their high-pitched greetings as pleasant to me as worn brakes: “How’d you get here?”
So this was their new masculine protector, I supposed.
“Hitched a ride. A techie was coming right by here on his way to Port Townsend.”
“So how’d it go?” Andi asked.
Tank was gushing with the news. “Gonna be a dawg! Full scholarship, baby!”
Ah yes. His football scholarship to the University of Washington. A wonderful, happy subject to take up time and distract all of us from the enigma now demanding our attention.
Brenda frowned. “I don’t know much about college football, Cowboy, but how is it that you’re eligible to play in the middle of a season?”
Tank shook his head good-naturedly. “They just tell me to play football, and I do.”
“So why are you here?” I cut in. “Don’t tell me. You had a vision, or God spoke from a cloud, or . . .”
Tank’s eyes went mystical. “I . . . received a message!”
Of course. I rolled my eyes.
“Andi called me.” He stood there grinning at his own cleverness. The three shared a laugh—at my expense.
I directed an icy employer’s look at Andi, who justified herself. “Calling him was logical, objective, totally pragmatic! Case in point right here.”
She looked at Tank and nodded toward the front door. “It’s locked.”
The Haunted Page 2
