Behind him, something was fixed to the silver belly of a mighty birch. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing. It had been an opossum, Charlie thought. They were the only creatures with coiled muscular tails like that. Its head had been removed, its fur stripped. The creature had not just been skinned but disassembled; organs ranging in color from near white to darkest purple were staked carefully side by side among the animal’s strewn musculature. The raw flesh glistened, but there was a strange absence of blood. When he looked closely, Charlie could see the way the pieces were linked by veins and tendons with the finest of textures. The animal’s fur was staked to the tree just below its fleshy remains. It looked as if it had been unzipped and set aside like winter pajamas.
Two large block letters were inscribed between the two presentations of the animal. They were written in red, but Charlie thought it wasn’t blood but a paste formed of mashed flesh.
GO, the letters read. Charlie frowned as he searched the trunk for other marks. Go? Go where? For Charlie, there was no place but this one.
Charlie turned his attention to the animal and touched a flap of its raw flesh. Though the opossum looked as if it had been bled dry, Charlie’s fingertip still came away rimmed with scarlet. He smelled his finger before tasting it. He tried to imagine how a wolf or Hickory Heck or the Watcher itself might like the taste.
The opossum’s blood was warm on his tongue, and that made Charlie smile. He smiled because that meant that the kill had been fresh and personal. It meant that the Watcher had indeed left the opossum just for Charlie. Most of all, it meant that their brief encounter on the mountain had not been the end of their games.
It had only been the beginning.
17
“Moving up here just seems like such an extreme reaction,” Ted said. It was brutally hot outside, but they’d taken a jog with Hudson anyway. “It’s not like you didn’t already have your hands full.”
This conversation had been wearying the first time, and by now Ben was thoroughly sick of it. Ted had been here nearly a week, and Ben had no idea how long he planned to stay.
“I mean, I could see Westchester or Connecticut, but—”
“I’ve run out of ways to say it,” Ben said. “The city wasn’t working for us anymore. We had to get out.” Ben knew that with absolute certainty. For Charlie and Caroline’s sake, they’d had no choice but to leave.
“Yeah, but you had friends there, Benj. You had a life. You had me.”
“And how exactly did you help us when we were there, Ted?” Ben asked. He came to a dead stop in front of the Crofts. “Remind me again? Did you babysit Bub when I had to take Caroline to her doctor’s appointments? Did you help look for Charlie when he went missing? You think this concerned-brother routine is helpful now that you can’t possibly do anything for us?”
Ted stopped and turned around. He looked utterly stricken. Ben had a sudden vivid memory from one of their rare childhood tussles, when Ben had split Ted’s lip. He remembered his feeling of horror at seeing the blood dripping down his brother’s face and the way Ted had stared at him, too dismayed to cry. Ben hadn’t meant to get angry.
“I was in L.A. when Charlie went missing,” Ted said. “You know that.”
“I know,” Ben said. “I didn’t mean to—” He shook his head. “But second-guessing every decision I make isn’t helpful.”
He turned away from Ted to throw a tennis ball for Hudson to retrieve. On their jog, Ben had made sure that they stayed far from the northeasterly fields. He’d woken up once in the night, imagining the stink of the pit on him.
“I get that you’re stressed, Benj,” Ted said. “Maybe you just need to slow it all down a little. Take some time off and relax somewhere, go on vacation or something. Caroline’s trying to do too much at once.”
“There’s a lot to do.”
“She’s manic, Ben. Has she kept in touch with her shrink?”
“She checks in with her psychiatrist once a month to talk about the medications, but she doesn’t want to find a therapist up here.”
“Then you need to find someone for her.” Ted put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I’m serious. Don’t you see how it’s affecting Charlie?”
“Thanks for the advice, Ted.” He shrugged out of his brother’s grip.
“And whenever you don’t have that dopey smile on your face, you look like you want to jump out of your skin. Like right now. Do you think I haven’t noticed?”
“Got it.” He accepted the soggy ball from Hudson.
“Come on, who knows you better than me, Benj?” Ben met his brother’s gaze. Ted looked away first. “Fine. I’m not going to fight with you.” Ted took off his T-shirt and mopped his forehead. “I think I’m going to take off after I shower.”
“Don’t be like that,” Ben said.
“I have to make an appearance at the office at some point. And you’ve got that meeting, anyway.” Lisbeth had called Ben the day before to tell him that there was another meeting in the village this afternoon. At first, Ben had thought that she was talking about the Preservation Society, but this seemed to be something else.
“Well, you should come back soon. Whenever you want.”
Ted turned and took in the view of the Crofts for a few moments. “You got everything you ever wanted, didn’t you, Benj? Your big house, your pretty wife and kids.”
Ben paced his breathing so that he didn’t say anything else he’d regret.
The kitchen door shut, and they turned to see Caroline walking down the steps with a bucket full of paint rollers.
“Ted’s heading back to the city this morning.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sure you don’t want to stay for lunch? I was going to make paninis with the leftover cheese and pork.”
“Nah, thanks, though. I want to beat the rush-hour traffic.”
Caroline nodded and headed back to the kitchen.
Ben threw the tennis ball down the field again and watched as Hudson bolted after it. He turned to his brother and was surprised to feel a pang of sadness when he looked at him. Despite everything, he’d miss Ted. He hadn’t realized how much until this moment.
—
Ben helped Ted load his bags into the McLaren.
“Are you sure you don’t want the quilt?” Ted asked, gesturing to the Lowell family tree folded on the passenger’s seat.
“You hold on to it,” Ben said. Caroline would be annoyed when she found out that Ben had given up this provenance of his local roots, but Ben wanted Ted to have something from the ruined farmhouse.
“Okay. You know, if you ever need a change of scenery, you can stay at my place,” Ted said. He popped the trunk. “Even if I’m traveling, you have the keys. It’s yours if you need it. If you need a break. A place to write or something.”
“Thanks.”
“And you should call. Me or your other friends. Sometimes you need to talk to an adult that you’re not married to.”
“Father Cal’s a nice guy.”
“I knew you’d like him when I met him. From your books, it’s clear you have a weakness for old men who speak in aphorisms.” He swung himself into the car, pulled the gull-wing door down, and stuck his hand out.
“A couple days ago you couldn’t even tell me the title of one of my books. I thought you hadn’t read them.” Ben grabbed his hand.
“Of course I have, Benj.” Ted squeezed his hand. “Every word.”
18
You got everything you ever wanted, didn’t you, Benj?
They’d parted on good terms, but Ted’s words sat inside Ben like a shard of ice. He’d gotten everything he wanted, and look where that had left him.
It would be easy to dwell on the burdens he’d saddled himself with, but they’d bought the Crofts to avoid exactly this kind of introspection. They’d come here for unsullied horizons, new challenges, and fresh tasks. And Ben had more than just the house to occupy him. There was some time before the village meeting, and he decided to spen
d it doing research for his book.
In his attic nook, he clicked through pages of Google search results, but most that mentioned Swannhaven referred only to its dairy farms or budgetary shortfalls.
Eventually he came to a site with something, a link from the archives of the Belleford Weekly. Ben knew Belleford only as an exit off the interstate, about twenty miles south of Swannhaven. The article was entitled “Suspicious Fire Alarms Residents,” and part of its final paragraph most interested Ben.
…but there was speculation at the scene that an accelerant had been used to start the blaze. If evidence is found to support this claim, this will be the first act of arson in the county since the fatal fire at the historic Crofts estate in Swannhaven in 1982. According to the Swannhaven Dispatch, that fire—which resulted in several deaths—was set by a troubled teenager “looking for attention.” With the surprise defeat of the Belleford Sergeants in Saturday’s football game against the Stoughton Minutemen, many wonder if teens are also responsible for this week’s fire.
Ben found himself irritated that the reporter had referred to his home as the Crofts estate instead of the Crofts. Then it occurred to him that he’d never heard of the Swannhaven Dispatch. Google produced only a handful of links. Like the piece in the Belleford Weekly, these were mostly articles from other regional newspapers that referenced something that had once appeared in the Dispatch.
When it came time to leave for the meeting in the village, Ben closed his computer and went to find Caroline. He’d succeeded in distracting himself for a while, but now that restless anxiety had returned. He entered the second floor through one of the tower’s ornate doors. The hallway on this floor had been sanded, stained, and varnished. Each wide plank had been restored to its intended depth and iridescence. The floor was beautiful, but something in the way the dark muscles of wood meandered along the primed walls made Ben think of a great serpent. He hesitated to step onto it for a moment, seized with the sudden thought that its planks would wrap themselves around his foot and pull him down through their gleaming surface.
Caroline usually worked to music, but the second floor was oddly silent. Headphones, Ben guessed. He did his best to ignore the weighty quiet of the rooms, but when she wasn’t in the room she was supposed to be in, a worry began to grow in his gut.
“Caroline?” he called.
He quickened his pace as he headed down the hallway toward the rest of the rooms.
“Caroline?” Louder this time.
There were usually any number of noises in the house. The song of birds through an open window, the creak of old planks, the squeeze of water moving through pipes. This quiet was oppressive, as if something had gathered these sounds and crushed them.
His heart was pounding by the time he got to their bedroom. Then he saw her silhouetted against one of the windows.
“Why didn’t you answer me?” he asked her.
“Bub’s asleep. I didn’t want to wake him,” she said without turning around.
“Will you answer me the next time I call you?” As with the time he’d followed the sounds into the forest, he found himself suddenly afraid. In his voice, fear sounded like anger.
She turned around and he saw her face. She could have sliced through a tree with the expression she wore, but her eyes were red and swollen.
“Are you crying?” He moved toward her. He noticed that the bed was covered in papers: bills, bank statements, and forms from their investment-management firm.
“What happened?”
“Things don’t always need to happen, Ben. And you don’t get to yell at me, then look at me like I’m a lunatic. I don’t always need your help.”
“Cee, I was just worried because you weren’t where I thought you’d be, and then when I—”
“Despite what you may think, the need to emote does not constitute a flaw. Not all of us have the talent of becoming whoever the situation calls for.”
“I’m sorry,” Ben said. He tried to calm himself. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m not sure how you’d be able to fit anything else into your day beyond holing yourself up in the attic, wandering the house, and driving across the countryside.”
“Is there a reason why all this financial stuff is out?”
“You want to be the one to handle our finances now, Ben?” Caroline asked him. She scooped an armful of papers off the bed and held it out to him. Sheets fluttered to the floor around her.
“I came to tell you that I’m heading to that meeting in the village. Do you feel like anything in particular for dinner? I’m happy to make it. I can stop at the store if we’re short on anything.”
“What makes you think I’m not planning to make dinner myself? Don’t I spend half the day cooking? What else could I possibly do with myself?”
Ben walked back into the hallway. He knew the longer he stood there, the worse it would get. There was no upside in engaging her when all she wanted to do was rage.
“Hopefully it won’t take too long,” he called over his shoulder. He closed the door gently behind him. When she was like this, refusing to argue with her was one of the things that made her the most angry, and he didn’t want Bub to wake up, either.
He blamed himself. That fear that had suddenly gripped him when he couldn’t find her was no less irrational than the fury she had leveled at him. He had raised his voice first. It might have been what woke the Wolf. He never knew what would do it.
Keep up the light, he told himself as he climbed into the Escape. His grandmother’s old saying had crept back into his brain since Ted had reminded him of it. When Grams was dying, Ben had asked her what it meant. He had an idea from the way she’d used it over the years, but he wanted to hear it from her. She was in hospice then, her face heartbreakingly old. When she’d been healthy, her face was wrinkled, every crease a waypoint in the map of her life, but now she’d lost so much weight that her skin was taut, her bright-blue eyes as wide as a child’s. It was as if she were transforming into an angel. Beautiful and only half there. He was trying to get a wise smile out of her with the question, but her mouth tightened and her eyes welled. “You know the right thing, and you know you gotta do it no matter what,” she told him. She grabbed his hand, tears beginning to stream. “No matter what.”
He shook off the image and started the car. Even when Ben was halfway down the gravel path, the Crofts seemed to take up the entirety of his rearview mirror.
19
Caroline took the hill with a vengeance. She slammed the balls of her feet into the turf as she launched herself up the Drop. Her face tightened as the burn in her quads flared into pain, then she pressed herself harder. Bub was napping, and while the baby monitor clipped to Caroline’s waist had excellent range, she ran a loop that never took her far from the house.
She didn’t need to look at her watch to know she was off-pace. If she was more than a minute off, she’d punish herself with something. Having left her personal trainer back in the city along with so much else, Caroline had become her own drill sergeant. Maybe she would do another hundred crunches or force herself to run a lap around the lake. She’d gone up there a few days ago, and the bugs had been terrible. The clouds of gnats went for her eyes while mosquitoes attacked her arms and neck. The shoreline was clotted with the fester of their larva. She didn’t know how Charlie could stand it there.
Though Ben had recently placed limits on Charlie’s exploration of the forest, Caroline still thought the boy spent too much time by himself. He’d always been a quiet child, but every day he seemed a little more remote. He was only eight years old and too young to become a stranger. And it cut her more than she’d admit that Charlie was growing into someone she didn’t recognize. Growing into the kind of person who kept entire pieces of himself hidden. The idea that Charlie was becoming more like Ben made her pump her arms faster.
She wondered if Ben would be painfully careful around her when he returned from the village. Caroline wished, as she always d
id, that she hadn’t yelled at him. Sometimes she wanted him to scream at her the way she did at him. Sometimes she believed that nothing could be worse than the way his mouth tensed when he smiled at her, curved with pity.
Her psychiatrist had told her that when she suffered an uncontrolled emotional reaction, she should examine the circumstances that surrounded it. It hadn’t been a coincidence, she felt sure, that she’d yelled at Ben just after going through their most recent financial statements. They had not held good news. Most of the proceeds from the sale of their apartment and Caroline’s severance had gone into buying and renovating the Crofts, but this was not nearly the end of their expenses. They hadn’t yet begun to restore the grounds, and 90 percent of the house remained unfurnished. Without Caroline’s salary, their financial resources were spread thin and becoming ever thinner. The fact that Ben had decided to scrap the book he’d been working on and begin another would also cut into their cash flow. But misplaced anxiety about this wasn’t the only reason she’d lashed out at him.
Caroline tried hard not to resent Ben for the time he spent on his book and all the drives and meetings and other activities he claimed were related to his writing process. The new book he was working on could well be a tremendous resource for the inn. But the cavalier attitude with which he approached the Crofts bothered her. Sure, he was always game for a few hours of painting and sanding, but it was Caroline who worked long days, every day, to fix up the Crofts. When she wasn’t restoring molding or varnishing floors or scrubbing away mold, she was coming up with a unified interior design, haggling with furniture manufacturers, or trying elaborate dishes for the restaurant’s menu. Ben seemed to think that if the Crofts didn’t work, they could simply sell the place and try city life again. He didn’t understand that they didn’t have the resources to do that anymore. He didn’t grasp the fact that they didn’t have the luxury to fail at this. That this wasn’t a chance for them but the chance.
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