by Leo Hunt
I look down at my sneakers. The whole thing is just off. Dad leaves everything, every last thing, to a son he hasn’t spoken to for a decade? Why not Mum? Did he not trust her with the money? Is that one of the reasons they broke up? He just decides to make me a multimillionaire? If I didn’t know better, I’d almost expect there to be a hidden camera watching what I do, like this is a setup for a prank show. And Mr. Berkley is starting to creep me out, smiling far too much, asking me to write my name on some goatskin . . .
I decide there isn’t much choice. The image of me and Holiday driving through the Alps is too strong. I’m being given more than I ever thought I would earn in my life, and that’s just for starters. Freedom from exams, from having to get a job, freedom from Mum, even . . . who’d say no? I press Berkley’s pen into the vellum and create a passable version of my signature. The nib gets stuck in the fibers and I need to use more force than normal. As I lift the pen the clock seems to hold its tick in for a moment longer than it should, golden pendulum frozen in space, like the room decided to skip a beat.
Mr. Berkley relaxes, leaning back in his chair. He smiles, and the expression reaches his eyes for the first time.
“I think you made the right decision,” Berkley says. “I must note that there are some other conditions that must be met before the financial and property transfers can be made, which I’m not currently at liberty to disclose. But I’m confident that they will resolve themselves shortly. If not, I will contact you within the fortnight to furnish you with the full details. Oh, and there are some miscellaneous items you’ve inherited, which I’m under instruction to give you immediately.” He reaches into another drawer and brings out a bundle of papers tied together with ribbon, a dull metal case that looks like something you’d keep a pair of glasses in, and a small green book.
“What’s this?” I ask, picking up the book. It’s small and thick, only a bit larger than the Bibles they leave in the drawers of hotels. It smells old, almost ripe, and what I can see of the paper looks as yellow as a smoker’s teeth. It’s bound in pale-green leather, with no visible title or author. There’s an eight-pointed star embossed in gold on the front cover. The book is fastened shut with a pair of dull metal clasps. I try to open them, but they’re stuck somehow, and they dig painfully into my fingers.
“An antique, I’m given to understand,” Berkley is saying, “quite what it meant to your father I’m unclear, but he was insistent that you be given it immediately. It’s — do be careful — it’s rather valuable. I suggest you treat it gently.”
I put the book down and pick up the metal case. It rattles when I move it, sounding like there are a lot of small loose objects inside. It opens at one end. I tilt it and a shower of rings fall out onto the dark wood of the desk: golden rings, rings set with red stones, blue stones, black stones. A ring in the shape of a lion, and another with a grinning skull set into it. I count nine in all. I pick up a few of the rings at random, turn them over in my hands. They feel cool, heavy. I’ve never seen Dad without them; they were sort of his trademark. Someone must’ve pulled them off his fingers after he died.
I put the rings back down.
“He didn’t expect me to wear these, did he?” I ask.
“He intended for you to have them,” Berkley replies. “What’s done with them is entirely yours to decide.”
“What about these?” I ask, pointing at the papers.
“Items from your father’s desk, I believe. Correspondence and so forth. He wished for you to read them.”
I look at the tattered stack of papers.
“I’ve got exams, you know?” I say.
“And I’m sure your father would be thrilled to hear how devoted you are to your studies,” he says, smiling, without a detectable trace of sarcasm. “In their present state, they’re somewhat inconvenient to transport. . . . Here, let me get you a document wallet.” Mr. Berkley stands and moves over to a cabinet at the back of the room. He returns with a heavy brown file folder. “Don’t want to be caught without one of these in my line of work. Never know when you’ll need somewhere to keep a contract. . . . There. All safe.”
The lawyer stuffs Dad’s papers into the folder and then arranges the green book and ring case alongside it. He pushes them toward me.
“Is that everything?” I ask. My mind flashes again to the money, and then I wonder again if this is some kind of trick. I’m half hoping he’ll pull out a briefcase full of fifties.
“For now. As I said, you won’t receive the money right away. There are those lingering conditions that need to be met, tax to be negotiated, that sort of thing. Details, details. I’ll be in touch once everything’s settled.”
“OK,” I say, scooping Dad’s ring collection back into the case. I stand up and put the book and rings into my coat pocket. The documents are tucked under my arm. Mr. Berkley springs to his feet, thrusts his arm at me. I shake his hand.
“May I say once more how sorry I am for your loss, Luke. Horatio was very dear to me. It’s been extremely interesting to finally meet his heir. I hope very much that if there is ever anything you need, anything I can help you with, you won’t hesitate to contact me.”
“It’s nice to meet you as well,” I say, prising my hand from his grip. I immediately decide that, once I get Dad’s money, I will never speak to this man again, for any reason. I’ve never been more sure of anything. I want to get as far away as possible from his clicking golden clock and his creepy stare. I step backward, away from him, waving good-bye with my free arm.
“A pleasure,” Mr. Berkley says, “a pleasure, Luke. I feel certain we shall meet again.”
I take some more time to wander around Brackford afterward so it looks like I’ve been to practice after school, and I get the bus back into Dunbarrow at six o’clock. As I sit on the top deck, watching the darkening sky unroll endlessly above the highway, bits of my day ricochet around my head like pinballs. Golden dreams of wealth, of shoes, new jeans, cars, houses, mixed with darker thoughts: the letter, Mum standing at the sink, saying today was a blue day. Berkley sizing me up, peering without any warmth through his vivid blue eyes. The parchment I put my name on, the green book that I’ve got tucked in the pocket of my raincoat. I feel like I got offered something I couldn’t refuse, and in return I agreed to something I don’t understand. Why did Dad name only me in his will? What about Mum? How did he die, and why does nobody but me and Berkley seem to know anything about it? What happened to Dad, exactly?
The last time I saw him — other than the day he left us, other than glimpses of his face on the cover of discount paperbacks — I was fifteen, home from school with the flu, slumped in front of our TV. My forehead was crying sweat, and my body felt inflated and sore, like someone had stuck me with a bicycle pump. I was channel surfing, and Dad’s face came up on the screen.
He’d been eating well, you could see that, and his white suit looked a size small for him. His beard was like something you’d pull out of a drain, his fingers laden with rings.
Dad was talking intently with an old woman who was convinced her dead husband was still lingering in their house. She had seen him in his favorite chair, she said, or not seen him exactly but she had sensed him. She had smelled his scent, the aftershave he’d always worn since his days in the army. She mentioned this point several times, that he’d been in the army, giving it greater weight than the fact he was dead. A man of habit, Dad said, sympathetic, and she agreed. The woman said she’d seen cushions pressed back, as if by an invisible head. And every morning, she said, his shoes would be laid out beside the welcome mat — no matter how many times she put them back in the attic. She said this last part with the breathy intensity of the truly batshit insane.
My dad nodded and said he’d like to see the chair, if he might. The camera followed through to the living room. She solemnly indicated the chair her husband still favored, and Dad took off one of his rings and hung it on a chain, then dangled it over the chair saying, “Yes, yes, I can feel
his spirit lingering here. He has not crossed over.” He took the widow’s hand in his and, looking into her eyes, told a grieving old woman that her husband needed help getting himself to the afterlife, and that he was the one to provide it.
Seeing the look of feigned love and concern on his face — because he looked at me like that before he left, whenever I fell down in the park or came to talk to him about the monsters in the closet — hurt an amazing amount, like being stabbed, and I changed the channel and was careful not to watch his show again.
It’s fully dark, spotting with rain, as I walk down the drive and come in through the front door. I realize with a jolt of annoyance that I’m not muddy or carrying my sports bag, which calls my rugby story into question, but Mum doesn’t come close to noticing. She’s sitting on the sofa with a face mask packed with ice strapped to her head, which is never a good omen. She’s ignoring a soap opera. Ham lies like a living rug at her feet.
“Hello, love.”
“All right, Mum.” I squeeze her hand.
“We had some sparrows in the garden today. I’ve always been so glad we came out here. Real birds, you know? Not just pigeons. How was your day?”
I discovered that my estranged father — your ex-husband — is dead. I met Dad’s weird solicitor and signed for four million pounds, conditional upon who knows what. I don’t know if I did the right thing.
“School was all right. Nothing happened.”
Mum smiles in a half-focused way.
“Are you OK?” I ask.
“I’ve been getting some fireflies, just this past hour. Don’t worry yourself.”
The “fireflies” are sparks and flashes Mum gets in the corner of her eyes when a big headache is coming on. I should have said something to her this morning. She’ll barely be able to stand up for the rest of the week. I won’t get any help from her. I decide we can talk about Dad when she gets better. She looks strange in her neon-blue ice mask, like an extra on a cheap superhero show.
“Get some rest, Mum. I’ll get myself dinner.”
“Good lad. Glad to hear it. Be a darling and feed Ham, would you? He’s been doing my head in all day, scratching and yelping.”
“All right.”
I feed Ham a tin of Mr. Paws’ Doggy Deluxe before shoving him outside. I put some pasta on, and by the time it’s done, Mum has dragged herself up to bed. She probably wanted to go hours ago, but I know she likes to wait until I’m back in the house so that I don’t come home to empty rooms. There’s a proper rainstorm starting, and when I let Ham back in, he’s soaked to the skin, his downy gray fur plastered over his thin back and legs. He gives me a pained look when I laugh, and slinks off to lie under a radiator. I check my texts. Kirk sent one this afternoon, saying he and Mark set Nick Alsip’s tie on fire with a Bunsen burner in chemistry today. Kirk says it was “legendary.” I obviously missed a big day at Dunbarrow High. I wash up and then, on a whim, go into the hallway and take Dad’s green book from my raincoat pocket. The wind rises outside. I look the book over in the dim light of the hall. Berkley said it was valuable. What’s so special about it? I run a finger over the eight-pointed star on the cover. The leather is smooth and cold.
I go and sit on the sofa in the living room, with the TV still burbling in the background. I mute it and try to undo the clasps on the book. They’re stuck, stiff as corpses. There’s no give to them at all. I try to work out how to force them, but I don’t want to damage the book. It looks so old. I definitely don’t want to break it open — that’ll ruin the sale value. I put it aside and watch soccer on TV. The white ball is a tiny speck against green grass.
I don’t know what time it is. The windows are black eyes in the wall. The TV is on standby, projecting a hollow blue light. Ham lies asleep in front of it, furry chest inflating and contracting as he whines in his dream. The wind is a muted rushing noise outside, and I can hear something — a pipe, maybe — rattling in the walls. I’m lying on the sofa. Dad’s green book is on my chest, clasps closed.
I sit up slowly, feeling like I’m still asleep. I move the book off my chest and onto the arm of the sofa. The boiler must have shorted out or something, because I can see my breath hanging in clouds. I stand and walk quietly across the living room into the kitchen. There’s no light except the glow of the microwave control panel. Weren’t the lights on when I sat down on the sofa? Did Mum come back and switch them off? As my eyes dilate the darkness seeps into me and I see more clearly, the way you do when there’s no light, see the kitchen in soft shades of gray. Outside the window in the garden, the apple trees are thrashing. The noise of the wind is louder in here. The sky is a whirl of blacks, the horizon stained dirty orange by distant street lights.
The cold from the stone tiles is climbing my legs, heading for my insides. I want to turn the lights on, but something stops me, saying that if I turn on the lights then whatever is outside the house will be able to see me.
This is stupid. I’m scared because it’s dark and cold and my deeply buried monkey brain has been programmed by millions of years of evolution to be freaked out in situations that are dark because my eyes are not as adept at seeing in the dark as our predators’ eyes used to be. This is the reason I’m afraid. There’s nothing outside the house. I listen for Mum coughing or moving, but there’s no sound from upstairs.
Walking with deliberate care, I exit the kitchen and stand in the hallway. There aren’t any windows in here, and even though that makes it darker than the kitchen, I feel calmer. This is ridiculous. I’m sixteen, not a six-year-old with a night-light.
Before I can think this over anymore, I stride back into the kitchen and flick on all the lights. For added defiance, I turn on the kettle. The house echoes with the sound of bubbling water and angry steam. Relaxing completely, I walk over to the fridge and pull out a packet of processed turkey. As I eat one of the delicious, if rubbery, slices, I congratulate myself. It’s perfectly natural to feel uneasy when alone in a dark place, but giving in to such animal fears is shameful. I am a candle of reason in the demon-haunted world, etc.
I’m interrupted during these thoughts by a gigantic crash upstairs, like someone just dropped a bowling ball through the roof. Ham starts yowling. He rushes into the kitchen and presses himself against my leg.
I put the turkey back in the fridge — I should make it clear that my hands are definitely not shaking as I do this — and reach over into the fancy-cutlery drawer and take out the sharpest meat skewer that we own. Emboldened by the eight-inch spike, I force myself across the kitchen and into the dark hallway. Ham follows with his head bowed, moaning softly.
“Shut up,” I tell him, and he obeys. I try to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach like I just stepped off the side of a bridge and am plummeting toward black frozen water. I focus on the skewer. I am an Alpha Male with testosterone leaking out of my sweat glands. Ham, my loyal and subservient pack member, is looking to me for guidance in this situation.
“Mum?” I ask, projecting my voice upstairs.
The trees creak.
“Mum!”
Ham pushes his head harder against my legs. It would be just like her to sleep through this, but the stillness upstairs is freaking me out. I need to know that she’s all right.
I take a deep breath, straighten my spine, and quietly put one foot and then another on the stairs, and then the landing. It’s hard to say exactly where the noise came from. Was it the bathroom? Ham pads past me and points his nose toward Mum’s room.
“You’re sure?” I whisper. He whines.
I stare at the white wood, breathing hard.
There’s nothing inside the house . . .
I put my hand on the door.
Ham shifts his weight and whimpers.
I close my eyes and imagine that Holiday Simmon, blond and gorgeous, is watching me somehow, on TV maybe. She wants to see me win. This is where I prove I’m worthy.
I grip the skewer tightly, and then, before I can think twice, I burst into Mum’
s room, ready to stab as many burglars with my meat skewer as I can before they take me down.
There’s nobody except Mum in the room.
I whirl around in case they hid behind the door, but there’s simply nobody else here.
I also can’t help but notice that Ham didn’t actually follow me into battle. He’s still standing out on the landing, with just his shaggy head peering around the door frame.
“Judas.” I spit the word at him, waving my skewer. “You furry little Judas.”
He pads into the bedroom and licks my hand.
Cowardice aside, it seems Ham was right about coming in here. The windows are completely open, and wind is ranting into Mum’s bedroom. This must’ve been the source of the noise. Mum’s green-and-orange curtains are flapping about, but apart from that, nothing seems out of place. Her tribal masks are still hanging on the wall, her map of the stars is still in prime position. She’s lying in bed, hair tangled over her pillow.
“Mum?”
She raises her head like a swimmer, takes a breath.
“Yes, love?”
“Mum, your window just flew right open. You didn’t hear anything?”
“No, no. Oh, gosh . . .”
“You didn’t —”
“Luke, love . . . please. I need to rest.”
“OK,” I say, unable to believe she didn’t notice her window blowing open in the middle of a storm. Her doctors aren’t shy with the prescriptions.
She’s already sinking back down onto the pillow.
I close her window, making sure to latch the bolt properly. I stare into the backyard, which is lit by the lights still burning in the kitchen. Mum’s breathing becomes deeper and slower. There’s nobody out there, or rather no evidence of anyone that I can see. I don’t know what I was looking for, whether I expected to see Mr. Berkley out on the lawn or what. It starts to rain again, and the droplets are like little diamonds on the glass. Soon there are too many of them for me to see anything.
“It was probably just the —” I start to say to Ham, and then stop myself. Whenever someone in a film says it’s just the wind, they’re immediately murdered.
