by Rick Hautala
“You know,” his father said, “this is the same bedroom I had when I was a—”
“I know—I know. You already told me a dozen times,” Brian said, huffing with exasperation. “This is the same room you grew up in and shared with your brother Mike.”
“My brother—?” Edward said, jerking back in surprise. His eyes blinked rapidly, and for just an instant his glance shifted to one side as though he suspected someone was creeping up behind him. “When did I—? I don’t remember ever telling you about my brother.”
Brian flushed, realizing that his reaction may have already given him away, but he stammered, “Sure—sure you di-did. I—I don’t remember when it was, but sometime tonight … you mentioned him.”
His father shook his head, looking completely confused. His mouth opened as if he was about to say something more, but he remained silent as his gaze shifted over to the bedroom window. Brian looked in that direction, too. Outside, the moonless night was as black as slate. The single overhead light reflected double in the windowpane, looking like two glowing eyes, staring in at them. And he couldn’t stop thinking about that tree branch right outside the window, all set to start tap-tap-tapping on the glass as soon as a little night breeze came up.
Scritch—scritch—scre-e-e-ch.
Just the thought of that sound set Brian’s teeth on edge. He wished he was young enough to ask his father if he could sleep in his room.
“Well,” his father said, “just don’t you worry about anything, all right? Everything’s gonna be just fine.” Brian detected a slight tremor in his voice, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself, but all Brian could think was—I already blew it! Scritch—scritch—scre-e-e-ch! I’ve given Uncle Mike away!
His father leaned forward and ruffled his hair, but Brian pulled away, not wanting to be treated like a little kid. He realized that he had his own concerns and fears to deal with—plenty of them!—but, wasn’t it about time he started dealing with them on his own? He watched his father, feeling a pinprick of loneliness and loss when he got up from the bed and headed for the door without giving him a good-night hug.
“Hey, Dad—?” Brian said. His voice sounded tight in his throat.
His father snapped off the overhead light, then turned and said, “Yeah?”
The words were right there on the tip of his tongue, all set to come gushing out—the truth about how he had met Uncle Mike out at the mill. Why was his uncle living alone out there? Why had he come back home? What was he up to? Could he be trusted, or was he really as dangerous as he seemed at times? And the scariest thought of all: could Uncle Mike have started the fire at their house today?
The glow of the hall light haloed his father’s head, making his features indistinct. Brian stared at the silhouette, feeling a faint stirring of mistrust and doubt. Twisting internally with guilt, he recalled his promise to Uncle Mike not to tell anyone—especially his father—that he knew he was out there.
And isn’t that what growing up is all about? Brian thought. Giving and keeping your word!
“I, uh—I hope everything’s gonna be okay, you know? … for all of us, I mean.”
“Yeah, me too,” his father replied as he backed out into the hallway. He eased the door shut in front of him, but paused and pointed his index finger like a gun back at Brian.
“Now do what I told you,” he whispered. “Go to sleep … and stop worrying about everything, all right?”
Brian licked his lips, swallowed hard, and said, “Yeah—sure, Dad. Uh, could you keep the door open a crack?”
“Sure thing.”
Then he was gone.
Brian listened to the light tread of his father’s footsteps as he moved down the hall to the bedroom where they were staying.
They’re sleeping in the same bedroom … the very same bed Grandma was sleeping in that night last June, the night before she died!
A cold, prickly feeling raced up his back, making him hunch up his shoulders. The faint glow of light from the hallway seemed not nearly bright enough to push back the heavy shadows that lurked in the corners of the bedroom. Dull yellow light reflected off the flat, black windowpane, looking like a thin line of fire. Brian could still taste the acrid tang of burned wood and plastic on the back of his tongue. Sucking in a deep breath, he licked his lips again and swallowed, but the taste only sharpened. From outside, against the windowpane, he heard a low whistling sound as the wind began to pick up.
And then …
Scritch—scritch—scre-e-e-ch.
Dianne wasn’t feeling any better than Brian about all of this, although at the time she didn’t realize it. While Edward was talking to Brian in his bedroom, she was sitting on the edge of the bed in Evelyn’s room, lost in thought as she towel-dried her hair. She couldn’t stop fretting over whether or not she had caused the fire, but whether it was that or everyone’s obvious discomfort at spending the next few nights in the house or something else—something was making her feel as jumpy as a cat.
Dianne thought the old house was creepy, there was no doubt about that! It was furnished throughout with old-fashioned items that looked as though they’d be better off heading to Goodwill. In every room and on the stairs, floorboards creaked underfoot. Old, rusted door hinges wailed like banshees whenever a door was opened or closed. The gauzy curtains, yellowed with age and heavy with dust, hung like funeral lace in the windows. The smell and feel of disuse filled the house like heavy incense.
But beneath the superficial atmosphere of creepiness, Dianne also sensed on a deeper level that there was something dreadfully wrong with the house. If it had been human, she thought, it would have been diagnosed as having a terminal illness gnawing away at its insides. It might be as simple as the fact that Evelyn Fraser had lived for so long in this house—her entire life, in fact—and even now that she was gone, the walls and floors—everything in the house—was still imbued with her presence; but Dianne couldn’t help but think it was more than that … that there was something essentially “wrong” or “evil” lurking either inside the house or nearby.
The instant they had entered the house, she had wanted to mention to Edward how she felt, but he seemed too shattered and preoccupied by the day’s events to bother. Besides, there were too many things around the house to get into order, so she never had the opportunity to speak with him without Brian around. It was close to midnight now, and they were finally settling down for the night. Just as soon as Edward came back to the room, she knew she should tell him her concerns and fears, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to burden him further. Didn’t he already have enough to deal with without her laying another load of worry on him?
And what would I tell him, anyway? she wondered as a light tickle of chills traveled up her neck and shoulders. What is it I’m so afraid of?
The sound of Edward’s footsteps coming down the hallway drew her attention. She dropped the towel to her lap, took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders as her husband eased the door open and entered the room. The door hinge squealed loudly.
“Is he all set now?” she asked. Her voice sounded off-key, but Edward seemed not to notice as he went over to the bureau where Dianne had stacked his pile of clean clothes. He took off his work shirt and slipped on a fresh T-shirt, shaking his head and masking a yawn behind his hand.
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s still a little bit wound up, though.” He looked at her, but his gaze seemed to pass straight through her. His eyes had a haunted, hunted look that bothered her deeply.
“I think we’re all due a good night’s sleep, don’t you?” he said.
Dianne nodded, but a faint voice in the back of her mind whispered, How are you ever going to sleep, knowing what you know? The thought chilled her, and she watched silently as Edward took his toiletries bag and went down the hall to the bathroom.
And what—exactly—do I know? she wondered, hugging her arms tightly to her chest as strong shivers coursed up and down her back.
Do I know that I s
tarted that fire? Do I know that I might have done it on purpose? And do I know that my mother once tried to kill my father, and that, ever since I dredged up that memory, I’ve been wondering if I had that same kind of rage bottled up inside me—the kind of rage that would make me want to kill someone? Should I—can I even talk to him about any of this?
The current of panic inside her grew stronger. She covered her mouth with her hands, but a faint whimper escaped her. From down the hall, Edward called out, “Did you say something, honey?”
“Uh—no, no,” Dianne called out in a voice barely above a squeak. She listened as he ran the water and brushed his teeth, and then started back to the bedroom. When she saw his face, the winding tension inside her spiked even higher.
Is that what I’m so afraid of—that I’m still angry at Edward? That I blame him for what happened to me, and I’m afraid that I might want to do something to hurt him? Like maybe burn his house down? Or that someday I might even try to kill him?
Edward didn’t seem to pick up on her anxiety. Without a word, he went over to the other side of the bed, slipped off his jeans, and dropped them on the floor, then turned down the bedspread and slid under the covers. After punching the pillow into shape, he let out a loud sigh and, folding his hands behind his head, eased himself down. Dianne could feel him staring at her back, but she didn’t move. She didn’t dare to. She was immobilized by the mind-numbing thought that this was the problem eating away at her: she had the same thing wrong with her that her mother had wrong—a black widow drive that forced her to bottle up the resentment she felt for her husband until it would suddenly boil over, and she tried to kill him!
“Aren’t you tired, too?” Edward asked, sounding more dejected than sleepy.
“Yeah,” Dianne replied, but she made no move to turn out the light or get under the covers. Her mind was filled with the need to talk to Edward, but still, she held back, knowing with a gut-twisting certainty that, no matter how upset she might be, and no matter how much he understood how she felt, he wouldn’t—he couldn’t even kiss her … not with her jaw wired shut.
Tears formed in her eyes, but before they could fall, she boosted herself off the bed and went over and slapped off the wall switch. The room was plunged into darkness. A stifled sob was lodged in her chest, aching as if her heart were about to burst as she felt her way blindly back to the bed and crawled under the covers.
“G’night, hon,” Edward said.
His hand fumbled around in the darkness until it found hers and clasped tightly, but Dianne lay there with her back to him and said nothing. She couldn’t. Fighting back her tears, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
And all she could think was, That’s okay … There are no words left to say, anyway!
Chapter Seventeen
Hearing Voices
The next two days were busy ones. The family reluctantly decided to stay in the old homestead until Edward found time to repair the fire-damaged house, and they all worked hard to salvage what they could from the wreckage and make Evelyn’s house—the Old Witch Lady’s House, as Brian now thought of it—at least marginally livable. Most of the time, though, Brian thought that—just like the whole damned town of Summerfield, Maine—there wasn’t much point in even trying; the rickety old place seemed damned near impossible to get used to. His mother had been upset the night he called her in Arizona and told her what had happened. More than once he had thought of asking his father to send him home earlier than originally planned, but he held back, not wanting to hurt his father’s feelings. He at least had to give his dad credit for trying so hard to improve their relationship. Brian just wasn’t sure it was all worth it.
For the past two days, though, his agitation had been steadily mounting, and not just because he was stuck in the house, usually with Dianne working somewhere nearby. Since the day of the fire, the distrust and hostility in his and Dianne’s relationship had grown steadily stronger until it was at the point where neither one of them could communicate or even look at the other without bristling with defensiveness. But angry words seldom flew; they retreated, instead, into hostile silence. More than once, Brain’s father talked to him about it and asked him—almost pleaded with him to cut Dianne some slack, and he was sure his father was also giving Dianne the same pitch, but it did no good. Throughout the day, whenever they met, they eyed each other like caged tigers who each wanted the choicest scraps of meat.
Was it his father they were competing for? His attention? Or was it the house and the sense that one of them belonged here more than the other?
Brian didn’t know—or care. He just knew that he couldn’t stand being around her, and he was anxiously looking forward to the end of the summer just so he could get away from her!
Another reason Brian was feeling so frustrated was because for the past two days he never found an opportunity to go back out to the old mill and talk some more with Uncle Mike. He felt some pride in the fact that he still hadn’t told his father that his brother was living out there, but besides wanting to make good on his promise to deliver more food and supplies, he wanted to ask his uncle a single, simple question.
Did you do it?
Did you try to burn down my father’s house?
The thought was utmost in Brian’s mind most of the time, day or night, but it didn’t seem to bother him as much as he thought it should have. Wasn’t he, after all, living in danger if Uncle Mike had tried to burn down their house? If his uncle was truly, dangerously insane—and he had admitted that, until recently, he had been in a mental hospital—he might try something like that again on this house. And they might not all be so lucky next time. Someone might get hurt … or killed.
If only I could make sure it was Dianne who got hurt! Brian thought, feeling only the slightest twist of guilt.
On Monday morning, his father went out to the new construction site to oversee the work while Henry Lessard and his son, Josh, started excavating for the foundation and septic system. Brian had wanted to go along with him, if only to get away from Dianne for a while, but he had promised to get the upstairs bathroom cleaned and was doing that now in hopes of getting out to the mill in the afternoon. He was doubly frustrated because, now that his tape player was plastic slag, the best he could do for music was a pop-rock station from Portland on his dead grandmother’s AM radio. The mall-metal strains of Bon Jovi filled the house as he swirled the bristle brush around the inside of the toilet bowl.
He flushed the toilet, and as the water was whooshing away, he thought he heard something in the next room or downstairs. He cocked his head and listened, but could hear nothing over the cranked-up radio and the rush of water as it refilled the tank. This was far from the first time he thought he’d heard something in the house—a voice whispering or a faint, crying sound—and he shuddered, hating the creepy feeling this house gave him. But he pushed all of that aside and told himself he was just nerved up, imagining things because his grandmother—the Old Witch Lady—had frightened him so badly.
“But now she’s dead,” he whispered, not really liking the feeling that thought gave him.
The toilet finished filling, so he poured a dash of Lysol into the water, swirled it around with the brush, and flushed it again. He watched vacantly as the cloudy disinfectant water drained away with a deep-throated gurgle. He shivered in spite of himself when, as the water was filling the tank, he heard the sound again. He strained forward to hear it but could only make out a faint, wavering voice just at the edge of hearing.
“Brian … Brian …”
He glanced over his shoulder as goose bumps broke out over his arms. Through the bathroom door, the hallway seemed unusually dim. For a fleeting instant, he thought he saw a shadow shift against the wall. Then the voice came again, louder this time.
“Brian … could you come down here and help me?”
It still sounded far away, but he finally realized what it was—the strangled sound of his stepmother, trying to call to him through that dam
ned bird cage that filled her mouth!
After shaking the water from the toilet brush, he put it back into the closet and stepped out into the hallway.
“You call me?” he shouted. His voice bounced back oddly from the hallway walls as he looked back and forth, trying to get a fix on where she was.
“I need help … with this!”
She was downstairs. Her voice sounded tight with tension.
Good! Brian thought.
He started down the stairs, taking his time just to show her he wasn’t going to jump at her beck and call. At the foot of the stairs, he almost laughed aloud when he looked into the living room and saw her in front of the picture window, balanced on the back of one of the cushioned chairs. Her arms were high above her head as she struggled to put the recently laundered curtains back onto their support brackets. She twisted her head around, her face flushed with effort, and nodded at him as he made his way over to her.
“If you could … just get that … other end for me,” she gasped. The curtain rod was at least seven feet long. The unsupported end weaved and dipped dangerously.
“You know, it might be a little easier if you used a stepladder,” Brian said.
“I couldn’t … find it,” Dianne said, struggling to keep the far end from dropping. “Could you hurry … just reach up and … and hook that end on?”
As she spoke, she let go with one hand and pointed. As soon as she did that, the end of the curtain rod started to drop. She made a grab for it and lost her balance. The curtain rod fell, rattling and banging against the windowsill, and with a stifled scream, Dianne lost her balance and started to pitch to one side. She twisted toward the window, her hands clawing furiously at the window frame for support, but she missed. Before he could think about what he was doing, Brian darted toward her. When she fell, he was there beside the chair with his arms up to catch her. She screamed and he grunted heavily as her weight bore him down. They both hit the floor hard, with Dianne landing on top of him.
