No one moves.
“Ice was coming off him,” Sheldon says. “You got to see it, man—water just turning to ice.”
Pickett trembles but restrains his fury even when Jack winks.
“Everything all right, Jack?” the staff member asks.
Jack grins. “Perfect.”
He dries off while the staff member watches. The others move away. Pickett is silent. Jack hums a little Christmas tune while he gets dressed.
“Nipping at your nose,” he sings.
“Willie.” Jack holds out his fist. “Knuck it.”
“Don’t do that.”
Jack falls into a chair across from the desk. He had the old, military-green jacket buttoned near his throat to hide the blue patches on his chest. Willie stares at the back of Jack’s hand.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t hide that.
“What’s going on, Jack?”
“What? This?” He points to the bald spot on his hand. “I got stung by a bee… or wasp, I think. I can’t tell them apart.”
“It’s blue.”
“I know, right? Weird.”
Willie pinches his nose and closes his eyes. He still looks exhausted when he opens them. “You got to leave in two days, Jack.”
“I know.”
“Look, I’ve done everything to help you. You’re not doing much to help yourself. You have no ID, no record, and no history. We can’t let you stay here. You could be dangerous.”
“How can I have no history, Willie? I’m here, right?”
“You know what I mean.” Willie straightens a pile of papers. “I like you, Jack. But I’m worried.”
“You’re so worried you’re kicking me out?”
“Don’t give me that; take some responsibility. I got a feeling you know exactly what’s going on and, to be honest, I feel like a damn fool. I’m giving you a few days to make some plans, but after that, you got to go.”
“Okay, cool.” Jack pulls open his collar. It feels like a steam room inside his jacket. “That it?”
“You all right?”
“Yeah, fine. This weather’s crazy.”
“Thermostat’s at sixty-eight.”
One hundred and sixty-eight.
Willie taps the desk, thinking. “I’m concerned about your health, Jack. You don’t look well. Maybe now you got a fever…”
Willie wants to say something else. He is suspicious, of course. Everyone jokes Jack isn’t human, but the joke is wearing thin. It’s starting to look a lot like the truth.
Of course it is the truth, but no one ever heard of an elven outside of bedtime stories. And Jack looks mostly human—a very strange and odd-looking one, but human nonetheless.
“Your hair is falling out, Jack. Your skin is blue.”
“You calling me a freak, Willie?”
“I didn’t say that. You don’t look right. Your hair is kind of green, your skin blue. Your feet are snowshoes.”
“That’s racist.”
“Cut it out.”
Willie shakes his head, the braided ropes swinging across his forehead. Jack can taste his anger; he can feel it in the back of his throat. It has a different flavor than Pickett’s anger, no hate mixed with it. Willie’s anger has more sadness and regret.
Jack doesn’t get as much pleasure from it. Maybe because he likes Willie.
“I’m sending you to a doctor before you go.” Willie slides the papers over to Jack. “I must be out of my mind for not doing this earlier. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, figured you just had a skin condition or big foot disease, hell, I don’t know. I just wanted to help you, that’s all.”
“I’m leaving in the morning.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I got a plan, Willie. I’m leaving whether you kick me out or not.”
“Let the doctor look at you, at least,” Willie says.
Jack picks up the papers that summarize the health benefits of regular exercise and eating right. He pretends to read it because Willie’s a good dude.
“Hey, Willie.”
“Yeah?”
“You ever heard of Frost Plantation?”
-------------------------
Sura slides the last hay bale from the truck and pulls her glove off with her teeth. The dry taste of grass and leather lingers on her tongue. She looks at her phone.
Why aren’t you working? Joe texts.
Who says I’m not working? she types.
Sura takes a drink of water and wipes her brow. Her phone sounds off.
Frost said you’re fired, he texts back.
Sura gloves up, grabs the twine, and lugs the bale across the backyard. If she starts replying, she won’t get a thing done. And there’s plenty to do. Fences need mending, the horses need trimming and hayed. Just this morning, the autofill valve on the water trough broke.
Her boots squish through the mud. The two horses follow along, heads bobbing, necks craning. She waves them off and spreads the hay. If she could seed the front pasture, they could graze a little easier. Add that to the list.
The phone buzzes.Frost just hired you back.
Sura marches to the shed and comes back with a bucket of tools. It takes fifteen minutes to fix the autofill valve. She waits while it fills the trough, pulling her list from her front pocket.
The hinge is broken on the side pasture. She uses baling wire to keep it in place until she can pick up supplies. Gerty wanders over while she twists the wire. Hot air blows into Sura’s ear. Gerty’s nostrils flare. Sura puts the pliers down and plays with her rubbery lips.
“You getting lonely, girl?”
Gerty nudges her onto her butt. Sura gets up to scratch the old workhorse behind the ears and finds the soft spot that rolls Gerty’s eyes. The horse sways with pleasure.
“How are those hooves?” Sura picks up Gerty’s front leg and inspects the dirt packed inside. She needs to trim the horses before the hooves start splitting—
Gerty jumps back, snorting and stamping.
“Hey, hey, hey.” She tries to calm her, but the horse thunders off.
A gust of wind passes through the treetops.
A strange sensation haunts her. Sura has lived in the country long enough to know that thoughts are her worst enemy. The mind can transform thoughts into seething monsters. She looks around the open space, smells the fresh air, and hears dogs bark in the distance. The horses are in the corner of the pasture, as far away as possible.
Something doesn’t feel right.
There’s movement near a rotten log in the woods just on the other side of the fence. Twigs snap in the rustling leaves. She remains as still as a turkey hunter, eyes on the log.
Chills grasp her heart and run up her neck.
Something is looking back.
She remains frozen, not swaying with a gust of wind, eyes locked on the hole in the log. There’s something on the other side, holding as still as her. Sura looks around without moving and spies the rusty T-stake lying on the ground. Her movements are slow and deliberate.
She opens the gate with one hand, the T-stake in the other. The horses throw a fit. Nothing moves near the log, but she still has a sense of being watched. She’s had that feeling ever since she pulled up to the Frost Plantation entrance the very first day. She didn’t mind the noises at the plantation, but she’s not happy to hear them close to home.
Sura wraps both hands around the T-stake, the rough edges biting into her palms. Her first step into the trees is noisy, dead branches snapping under her boot. She stops and waits. The log is ten steps away and she still swears it’s looking right at her.
Her arms ache with tension. Her steps are slow and steady, breath shallow, muscles taut, arms coiled, stake back—
Her pocket buzzes.
Sura jumps back and yelps, gasping for air.
Joe’s smiling face looks back from her phone. “Hey,” she says.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
She pokes the log with the T-stake. It
sinks through the decayed wood. Spongy chunks fall away. Sura peeks over the top and sees the gnarly cypress knee emerging from the ground.
“Hunting,” she says.
“Hunting what? Rabbits? You sound like you’re chasing them.”
“I’m kidding. I just got myself all freaked out, thought something was watching me.”
“What do you mean?” His tone becomes tense.
“It’s nothing. What are you doing?”
Pause. “Working, like usual.”
“Poor baby. You need some help?”
“Actually, I do. But since you’re taking a vacation day, I’ll settle for lunch. You want to meet in town?”
Sura sits on the log. “Sure, I need to pick up supplies anyhow. What do you have in mind?”
“Meet me at my house, I’ll pick you up and buy you lunch. I’ve got the Christmas spirit.”
“I got an appetite.”
“I don’t know if I’ve got that much spirit.”
Sura leans closer to the cypress knee. The top is pointed, which isn’t unusual, but the burgundy color is. It almost looks like a cap. And the bark is extremely knobby, kind of looks like a face.
“Sura?”
“Yeah, sure.” She rubs the cypress knee, the bark flaking off. “Lunch sounds good.”
They say goodbye. Sura stuffs the phone in her back pocket and stares the cypress knee in the distorted face. Maybe she’ll come back and cut it down, put it by the front door. It’d make a cool ornament.
She finishes working on the gate and cleans out the horses’ hooves before checking her list of materials. The chills of being watched never fade.
It never occurs to her there are no cypress trees on her property.
Joe’s backyard is small, with an oak tree, a little bit of grass, and a million mosquitoes. For a gardener, it lacks… everything. Sura sits on the back steps next to a concrete garden gnome, the tip of its nose chipped off. Joe texted that he was running late.
Back door is open.
She rests her arm on the gnome’s pointy hat, waving off the bloodsucking insects. She checks her supply list and figures there’s still plenty of time to get everything done. There might even be enough time to run out to the plantation around dinner.
The feeling of being watched got in the car with her. She turned around at a stoplight and checked the backseat. If she thinks about it, the feeling had gotten really strong when they picked up the homeless guy. He was easily the strangest-looking man she’d ever met and, quite possibly, the smelliest. What she didn’t notice at the time was the surreal sensation she experienced when he slid into the front seat, when he turned around and smiled at her.
It was a quiver that radiated from her belly, like a bell had been struck. It was unsettling, frightening. She thought it was just fear, whether that man was going to do something weird.
Sura tips the weighty gnome back and stares into its blank eyes. The scrapes around the cheeks look like it’s tumbled down the steps a few times. The hat is stained yellow. Paranoia clenches her chest.
The concrete gnome looks sort of like the cypress knee.
“I’m losing it,” she mutters. “You hear that? I’m losing it.”
She swats another mosquito and stands up. She’s had enough fun talking to the gnome and feeding the mosquitoes. Sura puts her hands against the glass and stares through the back door. She’s looking through the kitchen, but the house beyond is dark. The door’s unlocked.
“Hello?” She barely cracks it. “Mr. Jonah?”
There are no trucks in the driveway, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure the old man isn’t napping on the couch and Joe forgot to tell her.
The house smells like a musty aisle in a library. A clock ticks above a dripping sink. The kitchen table is smothered with newspapers, notebooks, and a stack of plates. A crust of pizza is on top. She’s officially breaking and entering into Jonah’s house, and this puts her head in a spin cycle. She steadies herself on the kitchen table.
She starts clearing the dirty dishes, running water in the sink. The empty pizza boxes go in the trash, along with a soda bottle. The dishwasher gets loaded. She starts hand-washing the rest of the bowls and cups, piling them in the sink. She has to hunt for a dishtowel. A clean one is hooked on the refrigerator handle.
There are pictures on the freezer door.
They are printed on bond paper, the edges curling around flexible magnets. It’s mostly photos of trucks and flowers, pictures of Jonah and Joe.
There’s one of Jonah and an older man.
Sura drops the dishtowel and plucks the picture from behind the magnet. She holds it close to her face while grabbing the handle. Memories are coming back, things she’s been forgetting, like images tucked behind a screen, out of sight for her recall. This picture raises the curtain, refreshes her memory.
The old man has to be Joe’s grandfather because… they look exactly alike.
The picture of my mom and grandmother is gone. It was on the refrigerator. Someone took it.
Something scuttles through the living room.
Sura hangs on to the sink to keep from falling. Vertigo swishes inside her head; paranoia smothers her like a blanket. She can’t get enough air; no matter how deep she breathes, there’s not enough oxygen. The floor heaves like a ship riding up a wave. Her head feels like it’ll crack, but her brain feels soft, overheated. Waxy.
She takes half a step toward the door when something crashes in the front room. Sura presses against the refrigerator. A yellow broom leans in the corner. She holds the bristled end, the plastic-tipped handle in front of her like a toy sword. Whatever is out there shuffles across the carpet. It’s not a dog or a cat.
It mutters.
The words are all crammed together. Bernie was talking like that.
When she woke up the other morning, when there was a noise in the kitchen, her cockatoo was talking at the wrong speed.
It was in my house. And now it’s out there.
She slides to the floor. The picture is crushed against the broomstick, which remains pointed at the living room entrance. If it comes at her, she’ll poke it at least once. After that, she’ll be no good.
She should crawl. She should run.
Each time she moves, there’s another noise.
Instead, giant tears roll down her cheeks. It’s too much. She just wants to sit there until it goes away.
Until it all goes away.
Mufflers rattle outside. A truck pulls into the driveway.
Joe walks through the back door. The sink is half full of dishes soaking in cold, flat water. Sura is in the corner, broomstick in one hand. She holds a piece of paper in the other.
“Sura!”
“What is this?” she says.
“Where’d you get that?” He starts towards her.
“No.” She points the broom. “Why do we look just like our parents and grandparents?”
“Just put the broom down, and have a drink of water. You’ve had a rough day; let’s talk.”
She shakes her head, crumpling the picture. The floor feels spongy, her legs soft and wet. At first, she thinks she wet herself, but she’s sweating through her clothes. The world is still spinning and she can’t make it stop. There’s a dreadful feeling that the lens through which she understands reality is about to come into focus; that the curtain around her world, the wall that protects her, is about to drop, and she’ll see monsters behind it. Everything is a lie.
“Sura.” Joe slowly crawls near her and gently touches her hand. “Come here.”
“Something’s in the house.”
Joe stiffens. “What?”
“Something is moving, making noise.” She swallows a hard lump. “Talking.”
“Where?”
“All over.” She swings the broomstick. “I wanted to leave but was afraid I’d keep running if I did, and I’ve got nowhere to go, Joe. There’s nowhere for me to go!”
Sura’s holding back tears, but panic has swell
ed in her throat, blurring her voice. The broomstick taps against the floor. Joe brushes the hair from her cheeks and cups the back of her neck. His hand is firm and warm.
He gets up, holds out his hand for her to stay, and steps into the living room. Something scurries away. The steps creak. She waits for Joe to come back, tell her a squirrel got inside, or the radio alarm is running… but he follows it upstairs!
Sura puts both hands on the broomstick. There are voices. One is Joe’s; the other’s too fast to understand. They’re talking. He’s having a conversation with whatever is out there. Heavy footsteps take the stairs three at a time.
Joe hustles into the kitchen. “Come on.”
He pulls her off the floor. The broom clatters. Sura’s legs start out like noodles. Joe wraps his arm around her and guides her out of the house. The living room is silent this time. They rush through the yard.
“What were you doing up there?” she asks.
“Just hang on, I’ll tell you in a minute.” He doesn’t let go of her until they’re through the gate and in the driveway. He opens the truck door. “I’ll be right back.”
He opens the garage and searches the shelves, tossing rolled sleeping bags, duffel bags, and boxes into the back of the truck. He swipes one whole shelf into a bag and tosses that back there, too. The items scatter across the bed.
He looks under the truck before climbing in.
His frantic pace slows once he’s in the driver’s seat, his fingers twisting the steering wheel. He looks back at the house.
“Turn off your phone.” He puts his phone on the dashboard.
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you everything, Sura, just do what I say for now, okay? We can’t talk for a while, all right? You just need to let me get us somewhere first, and then I’ll tell you everything I know.”
The picture is balled in her fist. “Okay.”
Joe backs out of the driveway, pauses in the road, and looks at the house. Doubt passes through him a third time. He shakes it off. Sura notices something.
The concrete gnome is gone.
-------------------------
Mr. Frost stands on the back steps. The coolsuit feels loose around his midsection. He hasn’t been eating, not enough to keep up his blubber. He’d often thought of losing the fat layer since the added insulation is more of a hindrance than a necessity. But he’s elven. His body had adapted to the weight. Losing it would alter his chemistry.
Claus: The Trilogy Page 40
