This was also something Caroline should be happy about. He doubted a bestselling author had ever set a novel at the bed-and-breakfasts in Exton or any of the other surrounding towns. This book would give their inn something that none of the others had.
Of course, Ben knew that good books were born of more than just a compelling setting and a hook. He needed his characters to be tested under stress. He needed danger and suspicion and horror and revelation, because these were the kinds of books that he wrote. But he had the feeling that a little research would be all the kindling he’d need to set the story ablaze.
He looked back at the sentence he had written.
In God’s country, the Drop seemed like heaven itself.
The cursor blinked at him, and he began to type.
And for a time, it was.
13
Ben thought restoring the home of those who’d preceded him at the Crofts might help him understand the satisfactions and trials of their lives. He also hoped that making some tangible progress on the house would improve Caroline’s mood. She’d been depressed since the meeting of the Preservation Society, eating little and sleeping less. It was not so deep as many of the episodes he’d seen her fall into, but he didn’t like the boys to see her this way. He assumed it had been set off by the stress of meeting so many new people at once, but he couldn’t be sure. Now Father Caleb’s impending visit seemed to have her on edge.
He’d promised to keep the priest to the first floor, veranda, and grounds. This was why he’d spent the last two afternoons on his tractor, working to make the fields closest to the Crofts more presentable.
The rains had fed wildflowers along the edge of the forest, and the scent of the freshly mowed grass was intoxicating in the warmth of the day. It took Ben back to the summer afternoons of his teen years, to that feeling of anticipation that swelled in his chest as soon as he and his brother hit the sidewalk outside their house. Life back then had been far from perfect, but at least it had been uncomplicated.
Around he went in minutely smaller squares. He imagined the track he left on the ground looking like the minotaur’s labyrinth from the air. By the time he finished, the sun was directly overhead, expunging the fields of shadow. Since leaving the city, he’d begun to notice such things.
He was trimming the edges of the gravel path when a shudder of movement drew his attention south to the tree line. A murder of crows rose toward the sky. As they flew for the valley, they darted and swarmed like smoke caught in the wind.
On impulse, Ben rerouted the tractor for the place where they’d taken flight. He was close to where he’d buried the dripping pieces of the deer two weeks ago, and his curiosity was piqued. It had been the shallowest of graves, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the birds had been undeterred by the scrim of soil he’d shoveled over the remains.
A part of Ben hoped that scavengers had indeed uncovered what was left of the poor creature. He’d never seen an animal torn apart like that, and he was curious what it might look like after some time in the wild. It was sure to be terrible: rotting intestines, maggot-infested viscera, bones gnawed to the marrow. But for the kinds of books Ben wrote, every experience—especially a horrible one—was another card in his deck. Ben had to see it.
He pulled the tractor alongside the ruined outbuilding. As he stepped from the vehicle, he could already see a depression in the ground ahead where the soil had once been mounded. When he got to the hole, he saw it was empty.
Gone were the organs and bones; all that remained was sludge that had mixed with dirt and writhed with maggots. When Ben leaned in to take a closer look, the reek of it sent him back on his heels. It was the kind of stench that was less a smell than a feeling: a punch to the solar plexus.
As he backed away from the hole, Ben stepped on something that felt like gravel under his feet. It looked like stone, too, but when he picked up a larger chunk he realized that it was shattered bone. There were other pieces, closer to the trees.
A sound sliced through the quiet of the forest. Something like a scream, though there was nothing human about it. Ben peered into the dark maw of trees. A hawk, he thought.
He turned his attention back to the ground and began to notice tracks all over the wet earth. They didn’t look much different from Hudson’s, which made him guess coyotes. Coyotes wouldn’t have had any more trouble sniffing out the dead deer than they would have had digging it up. They would have eaten the deer’s organs, and Ben could also imagine them chewing up its bones. This explanation satisfied him.
Then that scream from the forest again.
There was something plaintive about it that tore at Ben. And as with the temptation of the deer’s shallow grave, Ben couldn’t help himself. He stepped into the trees.
The forest could have been a world away from the wide fields of the Drop. It lay in perpetual dusk, and the temperature was ten degrees cooler. Sounds were different, too: Some were soaked up, while others were given new prominence. Though the woods were so choked with trees and vegetation that Ben couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead, they gave the impression of endlessness.
Moss was slick on the ground, while fungus studded the roots and trunks of trees. The air was heavy with the tang of vegetative rot.
Each time Ben ventured into these woods, he was reminded how different this place was from anything he was used to. It was the palpable age of the trees as much as their scale. Some of these oaks had been old back when the Swanns first set eyes on this valley. The creatures here were also a mystery. Ben knew their names and had seen their pictures in books, but it was hard for him to imagine what they did here in the dark of the forest, unimpeded by man.
The scream had a penetrating quality that made distance and origin difficult to pinpoint, but it was definitely getting louder. And there was a new sound: a rapping like branches caught in the wind.
The shrieks themselves sounded now like the panicked lowing of a cow, though that was unlikely. The closer Ben got, the less sure he was that it was a scream at all. The tapping sound was strange, too. It seemed to move in the dark.
“Hello?” Ben called into the trees. When he saw a clearing ahead, he found himself hurrying for it. There was something disturbing about the trees and the way anything might be hiding behind them. When Ben reached the clearing, he was startled to see a small gray face staring back at him.
It was the statue of an angel. She had wings spread as if about to take flight, the muscles of her calves tensed in preparation. Her head and shoulders were stained from the accumulated wear of bird and tree droppings. Thin scales of lichens stretched through the striations of her plumage.
Behind the angel stood a low stone wall with a single bare window. A chapel, Ben thought, or the ruins of one. He remembered seeing a cross etched onto one of the maps he’d found in the cellar. There wasn’t much left of the little structure. The clearing was a mess of rubble and the detritus of the plants that covered it.
The tapping from the woods was insistent again, and Ben instinctively moved away from the trees. He could not imagine what made the sound, but he was sure it was following him.
He jogged to the far end of the ruin. He couldn’t remember at what point he’d become afraid, but now his pulse drummed in his temples and his breath caught in his throat. There was a field southeast of here, where the cemetery was, but he would have to go through the trees in order to get away from them. He was trying to orient himself when he came face-to-face with a large plaque with an engraving of a creature.
The plaque was propped against the chapel’s one remaining standing wall. The creature was a ferocious thing, formed in Gothic style. Ben could have fit his head in its mouth. It had sharp teeth and long nails, but except for the mouth and an oddly distended stomach, the figure looked almost human.
Any other time, Ben might have admired it. Now he hesitated to turn his back to it. Then the rapping sounded loudly from directly behind him.
“Hello?” he called into the tre
es. Someone was playing games with him. “Hello?” he shouted again. “Who’s there?”
“There you are, Benj!”
Ben backpedaled and tripped over a root. He landed hard, knocking his elbow against the iron roots of a basswood.
His brother stepped out from the trees.
“Jesus Christ, Ted!”
“Jeez, so jumpy,” Ted said as he picked his way toward him. In his Nantucket reds and Ray-Bans, he looked dressed for the beach. “I was trying to surprise you, but I was going more for Surprise, I’m here! than Surprise, cardiac event!” He helped Ben to his feet.
“Did you hear those sounds?” Ben asked. He worked hard to keep the fear from his voice.
“Yeah, that loud squeaking or whatever? What was that?” Ted stretched and ran his hand through his tousled hair.
“There was this tapping sound, too. Like someone hitting a tree with a stick.” Ben scoured the tree line, but the tapping had stopped.
“It’s a forest, man. Probably the wind. Or maybe woodpeckers? I don’t know.” Ted turned to the engraving of the monstrous creature propped against the wall. “Well, that’s an ugly fellow.”
“First the sound was over here.” Ben pointed. “Then it was over there.”
The scream sounded again, and this time it was directly above them.
The top of a spindly sugar maple had broken from its trunk and swayed by a few taut sinews. As it rocked in the wind, it filled the air with a piercing cry.
Ben felt stupid, but he also felt relieved.
Ted looked him over carefully. “You’re not losing it, too, are you, Benj?”
“What are you even doing here?” Ben asked. He brushed leaves from his jeans.
“I saw you pull off the road in that tractor thingy and thought I’d follow.” Ted frowned at him. “I feel like you’re not happy to see me.” He contrived an expression somewhere between a pout and a frown.
“You just surprised me,” Ben said.
“Are you sure? I can find a hotel to stay at if you want. Or a motel. Whatever they have in a place like this.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
Ted looked at him for a moment, then grinned. “Come on, big brother.” He stretched his arms toward Ben and beckoned with his fingers. “Bring it in, bring it in.”
Ben let himself be hugged.
“It’s good to see you, Benj,” Ted muttered into his neck.
“You, too,” Ben said, disengaging himself. “But you should have called. Or e-mailed, or texted—there are so many ways to not completely blindside people.”
As they made their way out of the woods, Ben realized that he hadn’t trekked as deep into forest as he’d thought. He wished his brother hadn’t seen him so panicked. The trees and sounds must have disoriented him, and his imagination had done the rest.
Ted had pulled his silver bullet of a sports car off the road just behind where Ben had parked the tractor. The car’s driver-side door was left open, its single gull wing gesturing to the sky.
“What is this thing?” Ben tapped the hood of the roadster.
“It’s a McLaren—you’ve never seen one? What do they have up here? Pontiacs? Toyotas? That kind of thing?”
“It’s yours?”
“God, no. A friend loaned it to me. But, hey, your ride’s nice, too.” He jutted his head in the direction of the tractor. “Gotta say that that’s one long and tedious drive. But this is where our people are from, huh?” Ted turned to take in the view of the valley.
“Some of them.”
They looked at the scattered buildings of Swannhaven, dilapidated even at this distance. “It’s weird, isn’t it?” Ted asked.
“You have no idea. Can your spaceship take us up to the house?”
Ben opened the passenger-side door and chuckled as it separated from the car’s body and pivoted into the air.
“This is an absurd vehicle.”
“You think this is absurd?” Ted asked. He swung himself into the car, shut the door, and peered up at the sprawling house between the mountains. “Oh, Benj.” He shook his head. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
—
Ted watched Bub roll peas across the rim of his high chair and then drop them onto the floor.
“Young Robert likes his greens.”
“Likes playing with them,” Ben said.
“You think Caroline will be in bed long?” Ted asked. “Should we wait for her before we go to Grams’s?” Ostensibly, Ted had come up here to visit their grandmother’s run-down farmhouse.
“If she needs to rest, we should let her,” Ben replied. Caroline had said hello to Ted but left soon after with a headache. Charlie had also made a brief appearance, but he’d already fled for the forest. Ben had seen the red soil of the lakeshore on his bare feet, but he knew the boy could be anywhere.
“Is she still spending a lot of time in bed?”
“How about a tour before we head to the farmhouse,” Ben said. “What do you want to see?”
“It is sort of amazing how much there is to choose from, isn’t it? Oh, and before I forget, I have a box of books in the car for you to sign. Monica’s book club is reading—did you ever meet Monica? I think you’d like her. Anyway, her book club is reading one of yours next month, so I thought she’d get a kick out of giving the girls signed copies. Never hurts to have an in with the friends, you know?”
“Which one are they reading?”
“They’re all in the car.” He hopped off the counter. “You think Charlie wants to go on the tour with us?”
“I’ve only published two.”
“Come on, man, you know I can barely keep up with my blogs.”
Ben doubted this was true. In their youth, Ted had been just as avid a reader as Ben—any chance to visit a world beyond their own. He tossed a hand towel at Ted, aiming for his head. “All right, I’m going to give you the abbreviated version, because we can only see Grams’s place in the light.” He pulled Bub out of his high chair and stepped into the hallway.
“This place looks like a museum,” Ted said as he walked into the first room, one of the largest on this floor. Six windows probed its fourteen-foot ceiling, which was studded with medallion moldings, remnants of a past illuminated by a series of decadent chandeliers.
“None of the rooms on this floor are finished, except for the kitchen and a bathroom. We’re thinking of making this a lounge. Maybe set up a bar over here with a few couches so people can enjoy cocktails before dinner.”
“You have enough space for it.”
The next room was smaller but had an opulent marble fireplace that came up to Ben’s shoulders.
“We think this would make a great library,” he said. “We’ve commissioned someone to build shelves into the wall. Maybe have them add a few of those sliding ladders so people can reach the books on the top shelves.”
“You always wanted one of those,” Ted said.
Ben stooped to peer into the fireplace’s cold hearth, then ran a finger along the blackened stone. “A fire roaring on a winter’s day. You’re wearing thick socks, your feet up on an overstuffed ottoman. Little glass of port on the side table. Reading a book you’ve been meaning to read for a while, and wishing you hadn’t waited so long. Can you see it?”
Ted nodded. “Music playing—fun but reflective. Something with the feel of a single but loose enough to be background noise at the right volume.”
“Can you see it?” Ben repeated.
“I see it,” Ted said, smiling at Ben.
They’d played the game in ten thousand variations when they were young. After school and waiting for their mother to go to work, they’d distract each other with the places they’d rather be. Their hands would be under their heads as they lay on their twin beds in the small room they shared. Once she was gone, the house would be theirs again, but until then they had any island or castle they could conjure. One of them would come up with a place of peace or fun or riches or just a place of their own
, and the other would add to it until they could see it and almost believe they were there.
A version of the same game could be said to have led Ben and Caroline to the Crofts in the first place. A fresh start in a new home. A place where Charlie can be himself and be safe. A place where the money we’ve saved can be stretched to last. A place where Caroline can heal herself with busyness and reap the satisfaction of work completed with her own two hands. Where Ben can spend his energy on his family and his books and not on the futile task of pretending that everything is okay. Can you see it?
“Bub won’t need the imaginations we had, will he?” Ted asked.
“I hope not.” Ben smelled the baby’s hair and savored the feel of it against his cheeks.
They briefly looked into the other rooms on the first floor, with Ben telling Ted what each would ultimately become. A large room with a set of French doors that opened onto the veranda would become the dining room, and a smaller room down the hall could become the professional kitchen. Ben envisioned one room for billiards tables and another as a card room.
Though the renovations to the second floor were closer to being completed, they breezed through the guest rooms and made right for the section of the house that they occupied. They stopped in front of the room Ben thought of as the Claret Room.
“Figured we’d put you in here,” Ben said. It was one of the smaller rooms on the second floor, but it had a fireplace and enough room to comfortably place a king-size bed, a table, and chairs. Two windows faced east toward the verdant expanse of the Drop and the forest at the foot of the mountains. The red paint looked deep and rich framed against the glistening floor and stark white of the ornate molding. “I’m sorry it’s not furnished, but we’ll set you up with an air mattress.”
“This is top-notch, Benj,” Ted said. He stepped into the bathroom and looked over the wrought-iron fixtures and the steam shower. “This all looks new. Don’t tell me that you—”
“I wish I could take credit, but we hired guys to add bathrooms to all the rooms that needed them.”
“That’s a relief. I was about to become extremely impressed.”
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