The Piper

by Lynn Hightower

  The school bell rang, and Olivia was vaguely aware of the fleeting pause of quiet before the scramble of footsteps.

  ‘Livie? Livie, honey, come on, take deep, slow breaths.’

  McTavish was opening the door on her side of the car. Unstrapping her seat belt. Coaxing her to one side and making her put her head between her knees. Olivia heard the mingle of childish voices and the occasional call of an adult until she heard the right flavor of mom. She sat up straight.

  Teddy was running, holding out an oversized flap of paper that was clearly artwork still damp to the touch. She had that smile that reminded Olivia so much of Emily – if she remembered one thing about her big sister, it was that way Emily had of tilting her chin, squinting her eyes and letting the smile spread all the way across her face.

  ‘There she is. I noticed it at your brother’s funeral, you know? How much she looks like Emily,’ McTavish said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Hey.’ He turned to look at her. ‘You steady, sweetheart? I’m sorry, I should have handled that better. I’ve been a homicide cop too long. You going to make it there?’

  ‘Need a minute.’

  ‘Wave at her,’ McTavish said. ‘That’s good. You sit tight, and I’ll go round her up.’

  Olivia watched them, saw Teddy stop and squint up at McTavish, the sun in her eyes. McTavish pointed at Olivia and she waved again. Something McTavish said made Teddy laugh, then Teddy ran to the car.

  ‘Hey. Kidlet. How was school?’

  Teddy was climbing into the back seat. ‘You were right, Mommy, it is friendly here.’ She looked over the headrest at McTavish. ‘Did you know my teacher is a man?’

  McTavish was climbing back into the car. ‘Is he old and ugly and mean?’

  ‘Mr Oswald?’ Teddy ducked her head and looked sideways at a boy kicking a soccer ball as he headed toward the circle of buses. ‘He’s younger than you.’

  ‘Teddy,’ Olivia said.

  McTavish shrugged. ‘He must be a baby, then. I’m surprised they let him teach school.’

  ‘He’s really good, he teaches us a lot and he makes it fun. And you’ll never guess what. The whole third grade is going to do a play. But Annette says Aunt Charlotte won’t let her be in it.’

  ‘Your cousin can’t be in the play? How come?’ McTavish started the car. ‘What play are you going to do?’

  ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin. I get to be a rat. The rats are the narrators so it’s an important part. I’ve already learned some of my lines.

  ‘Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick.

  By famous Hanover city;

  The river Weiser, deep and wide,

  Washes its wall on the southern side;

  A pleasanter spot you never spied;

  But, when begins my ditty,

  Almost five hundred years ago,

  To see the townsfolk suffer so

  From vermin, was a pity.’

  SIXTEEN

  Olivia tried to call Charlotte before she went to bed. She felt bad about their fight, but no one picked up the phone. She left a message, asking Charlotte to call her about hiring a plumber. A mundane request, and a perfect way to break the ice.

  Olivia curled up against the pillows, thinking of Chris saying he paid the piper. Imagining him lying in his bed in the dark house, afraid and unable to move, strangling in his sleep, the words hereditary condition echoing in her mind. She drifted in and out of sleep, until the sound of a barking dog brought her fully awake.

  She sat up in bed, listening.

  And there it was again. The deep throated huff of a big dog, somewhere close by the house. It sounded like Winston. What was he doing outside?

  Olivia sat up, wide awake now, and switched on the lamp by the side of the bed. The bedroom, dormer windows and dark woodwork, was still unfamiliar, but it was her bed, and her lamp. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and slid as soon as her feet hit the floor. She went down on one knee and grabbed the mattress to break her fall.

  The floor was wet. She looked up at the ceiling, thinking there might be a leak. The ceiling was dry. Olivia turned on the overhead light, saw that the water trailed across the room toward the hallway, as if someone had left wet footprints, as if someone had come in from a bath.

  She thought about Teddy getting up in the middle of the night, taking a bubble bath, then wandering around the house. Preposterous, but what else could it be? Maybe whatever caused the bathroom ceiling to come down was causing the water on the floor. She would call Charlotte again in the morning about a plumber. Or go on Angie’s List and look.

  The dog barked again, sounding hoarse and frantic, and Olivia headed out into the hallway, turning on lights as she went. She had left that hall lamp on, hadn’t she? Maybe the bulb had burned out.

  But Winston was inside, not out, pacing and restless outside of Teddy’s room, lifting his head and whining. Teddy’s door was closed.

  Olivia felt the thump of her heart. ‘What’s going on, Winston? What are you doing out here?’

  Because Teddy always slept with her door open, comforted by the stream of light coming in from the lamp they always left on in the hall. And Winston slept on the bed beside her, taking his half out of the middle. Teddy complained that he hogged the pillow, but Winston had been sleeping beside her since the night they brought him home from the pound.

  The door creaked as Olivia pushed it open. It was dark inside the bedroom, the last unpacked boxes stacked in front of the window so that even the moonlight didn’t relieve the pitch blackness inside.

  Teddy was quiet, and very still and at first Olivia thought she was asleep. Until she saw her daughter’s eyes, wide open, shining like a possum’s eyes did in the dark.

  ‘Teddy? Teddy, are you okay?’

  Olivia hit the overhead light, and felt tears come to her eyes when she saw her daughter move. She wasn’t sure what she had thought. Teddy had been so still in her bed.

  ‘Mommy. You came.’ Whispering. But wide awake. Teddy’s face was pale, her little freckles standing out against the blanched whiteness of her skin.

  Winston bounded into the room and jumped up on the bed. Teddy sat up and hugged him and she trembled, though it wasn’t cold.

  ‘Teddy, are you sick?’ Olivia put a hand to her daughter’s forehead. Warmish. Maybe yes maybe no on a fever, possibly something on the way. Which made perfect sense, new school, new germ pool. ‘What’s going on, Teddy? Why was Winston out in the hall?’

  Teddy’s lower lip trembled. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  Winston groaned and put his head on Teddy’s knee.

  ‘Teddy, don’t lie to me, tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t?’

  ‘He won’t like it if I tell.’

  ‘He? Who is he? Teddy. Who is he?’

  ‘Duncan Lee.’

  ‘Who the hell is Duncan Lee?’

  ‘The one that texted me. At Aunt Charlotte’s house, you remember, that day in Janet’s room. He talks to me now since you took the phone away. He likes to sit on my bed. But he doesn’t like Winston. He says that Winston can’t come in my room anymore.’

  ‘Teddy.’

  The tears came suddenly, a downpour, and Teddy sobbed hard as Olivia wrapped her in her arms.

  ‘He said something bad would happen if I let Winston come in anymore. He said I had to lie in bed and be still and very quiet and I wasn’t allowed to wake you up, or tell you. He said if I didn’t do what he said that he would hang Winston from the attic fan with a red leather belt. Oh, Mommy, I was so afraid. How did you know? How did you know to come?’

  SEVENTEEN

  Olivia told herself that she was humoring Teddy when she agreed to take Winston to work the next morning. Her daughter had seemed happy when Olivia picked her up from school, checking carefully that Winston was safe in the car. She had news of Mr Ogden, who had brought in an aquarium and
introduced them to a gecko named Eduardo. It would appear that geckos ate crickets and worms, loved honey, communicated with chirps and had special toe pads to help them walk across ceiling tiles. Mr Ogden was very hands on when it came to science.

  ‘Because,’ Teddy said, ‘Mr Ogden says that science is how you understand the world.’

  Olivia looked up from her computer screen at her daughter, who was curled up reading. Teddy’s color was good, there was no fever and she seemed her usual self except that she had refused her after school snack. Even McNuggets from McDonald’s didn’t tempt her.

  Olivia’s office was shaping up. It was good to have her own desk, photos of Teddy on the wall, and the special client chair that Teddy helped pick out in the far left corner of the room.

  Teddy had seemed so afraid, in the night, but back to her usual self today. Was it possible that once her cousin Janet planted the ghost stories in Teddy’s mind, she was using them to get attention from her dad?

  Olivia knew the attention seeking was fallout from the divorce, but she missed the old Teddy, the quiet child who entertained herself. When she was little she had spent hours quietly coloring, using two crayons only, pink and yellow. Olivia herself had gone through a pink and yellow phase at the same age – she wondered if that kind of thing could be genetic.

  She did not like not trusting Teddy, did not like wondering if Teddy was sliding away into lies and drama. Olivia reminded herself that Teddy was only eight years old. That this was the third time she had changed schools. It was the adults who were having the drama. Teddy needed structure, patience, and a firm but loving hand. She needed stability in her life.

  Robbie gave them a cold glance from the hallway as she headed toward the shredder in the back.

  The figures on the screen began to waver and jump, which always happened when Olivia got tired or stressed. ‘Shut the door, will you, Teddy?’

  Teddy folded a page of the book and set it on the floor. ‘Good idea. That person doesn’t like me.’

  ‘What person?’

  ‘Mrs Arliss. She gives me funny looks.’

  ‘If she doesn’t like it, too bad.’

  ‘Yeah, ’cause you’re the boss.’

  Olivia smiled but her stomach was tight. She was on very shaky ground. Kids at work were questionable enough, but dogs were strictly against corporate policy, and Olivia wondered if having Winston in the office could get her fired. Robbie had been very unhappy when Winston had chugged through the back door with her that morning, though he had been good as gold and only barked once. Robbie did not seem to be an animal lover. Admittedly, there was a certain amount of shedding, but that was what vacuum cleaners were for. Olivia wondered if putting Winston in a UT football jersey would help.

  ‘Can we go back to California, Mommy?’

  ‘No, Teddy, we live here now.’

  ‘I miss Daddy.’

  Olivia nodded. ‘I know you do. Why don’t you call him tonight, after we get home from work.’

  Olivia’s cell phone rang.

  ‘Maybe that’s Daddy. Maybe he knows I needed him to call.’

  ‘No, it’s Dr Amelia. She told me she wanted to talk to you today, when you got home from school.’ Olivia handed Teddy the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ Teddy stood at attention right by Olivia’s desk. ‘Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh huh. His name is Mr Ogden.’ Teddy turned pink. ‘You might say so.’

  Olivia wondered what Amelia had said.

  ‘We have a lizard in our class room, his name is Eduardo. No, he doesn’t have a last name, or if he does, Mr Ogden didn’t tell us. What?’ Teddy crossed the room and picked up her book. ‘No, it’s The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, I finished The Secret of the Old Clock ages ago.’

  Teddy slumped suddenly, shoulders sagging, little tummy poked out. ‘No, ma’am. No, ma’am. No, there aren’t any red leather belts in the book. They don’t hurt animals in Nancy Drew.’

  Teddy snapped the phone shut and slammed it down on the edge of Olivia’s desk.

  ‘Didn’t she want to talk to me?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘I hung up.’

  ‘Teddy.’

  Teddy grabbed her Nancy Drew book and threw it at the wall.

  Olivia stood up. ‘Teddy. What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘You told her, Mommy. You told Dr Amelia about Duncan Lee and she said it was all a dream. It was supposed to be private, just between you and me, and now we’re all going to get it, because he told me not to tell.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Tuesday night was the spaghetti special at Naples Italian Restaurant, so Olivia told Teddy they’d have dinner out. It would have been a matter of five minutes to stop at the house and drop Winston off, along with Teddy’s backpack, to give Olivia a chance to put on a pair of jeans. But somehow, they didn’t. Olivia told herself that her fantasy of cuddly dinners with Teddy in the little sunroom off the kitchen would have to wait until all the kitchen boxes were unpacked, and they were better settled in.

  Naples was a block down the road, on Kingston Pike, and their parking lot was half full. Olivia and Teddy giggled about how close the restaurant was. They’d done a lot of driving in LA. They parked the Jeep on the left hand side of the restaurant, and left the windows down a double snout length. Winston seemed content to curl up and sleep and Teddy promised him a share of her spaghetti for later on.

  The restaurant was small, and had not changed, which made Olivia feel nostalgic and relieved. This was where she’d celebrated birthday dinners as she grew up, where she and Hugh had their first date. She and Teddy could smell garlic sautéed in olive oil, and freshly baked bread. Wooden booths with red upholstery, darkly papered walls, two tiny alcoves in the corner for private, intimate dinners – a traditional family Italian restaurant right down to the wine bottles along the wall.

  Olivia and Teddy slathered herb studded butter on warm bread from a basket, ate spaghetti with meat sauce, and ended by splitting an order of tiramisu. Normally Olivia would have had a glass of Chianti or Shiraz, but for some reason it didn’t seem wise. She was glad, later, that she had passed.

  Teddy ate a good dinner. Olivia was relieved. They took the leftovers with them for Winston. But eventually, they had to go home.

  Olivia was sure she had left a light on in the kitchen, but the house was dark when they pulled into the drive. The dog was barking again, the one Olivia had heard the night before. Winston stuck his head in the crack of the window and growled.

  ‘Mommy, do you hear that dog? I think he’s trapped in that yard, where that house is for sale.’

  ‘Which one, Teddy? There are a lot of houses for sale.’

  Teddy pointed. Past the trees to the privacy fence, the tangle of bamboo, honeysuckle and forsythia that shrouded them from the house next door.

  Olivia shook her head. ‘That house is empty, Teddy, nobody lives there.’

  ‘But listen.’

  Olivia stepped out of the car. Teddy opened the door for Winston, who jumped out and headed straight for the woods that divided their yard from the one next door.

  ‘I don’t hear it anymore, Teddy. The barking’s stopped,’ Olivia said.

  ‘But what if the dog is in there, trapped in the backyard?’ Teddy pushed her glasses up on her nose and her eyes seemed to glint in the dark.

  Olivia had an image of the way her daughter had looked last night, so still and afraid in her room.

  ‘People do that, you know. They move away and leave their animals, I heard it on the news. Please, Mommy. Can’t we just look? If they left him in the backyard, he’ll starve.’

  Olivia left her purse and briefcase on the front seat of the car. The truth was the barking had seemed to come from the fenced in backyard. ‘Okay. We’ll take a quick look.’

  Teddy went first, calling to Winston, who led the charge. Olivia lagged awkwardly in her heels. She trudged behind Teddy and Winston, past the koi pond that was now full of dead decaying fish, and the old brick barbecue grill gummed up with the dried, char
red remains of cookouts past. Chris and Charlotte had left things in a bad way. Olivia knew she needed to clear things out, but she didn’t have the energy right now.

  But it reminded her of how things used to be, and she liked thinking about those days, the early ones in particular, when they were all there and safe, Emily, Chris, her mother and father and Hunter the dog. They played Monopoly every Saturday night, and cooked barbecued chicken outside on the grill, and sometimes on cold weekend days her daddy built a fire in the fireplace. The images were good ones, a timeless loop she liked to play in her head.

  The For Sale sign next door was crooked. It had been up a while. The windows of the house were dark, with the bereft glaze of vacancy, no shutters, curtains or blinds. The grass was high and weedy, wet and itchy on Olivia’s ankles. Slats of wood had fallen from the side of the house. Someone had heaped branches and grass clippings in a pile that was too close to the house for the garbage men to pick up.

  Olivia hesitated in the driveway. Teddy and Winston charged ahead.

  The wood gate that led into the backyard was not locked. It swung inward with ease. A security light on the utility pole in the back made spotlights and shadows. Olivia went in first, with Teddy at her back, and she took Teddy’s hand as Winston rushed past them. He covered every inch, running in a zigzag, following scents, nose to the ground, investigating every tree, every dip of ground. The yard was terraced, tangled with neglect, and lonely somehow. There was no dog to be seen.

  ‘I know I heard him, Mommy,’ Teddy said.

  ‘I heard him, too. He’s just a neighbor dog, honey. Maybe he lives over there,’ Olivia pointed. ‘Or even across the street.’

  ‘The barking came from here.’

  Olivia didn’t argue.

  ‘I can prove it. Let’s come back tomorrow, when it’s daylight, and look for poo.’

  ‘Come on, Kidlet. You need a hot bath and I want to get out of these shoes. OK, Winston, here boy.’

  Olivia was careful to close the gate behind them. She noticed, as soon as they turned back for home, the light in the kitchen was on now, just the way she’d left it that morning.