“Just got dizzy. Stood up too quickly,” Caroline said. Her voice sounded thick. “With only eight of us, we’ll be spread thin along the table.”
“Yeah, you said that already. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine; stop asking me.” She sat down anyway.
The front doorbell rang.
“Must be the flowers,” Caroline said. She began to massage her temples with her fingers.
This was the first Ben had heard about flowers. He went to answer the door.
“Morning, Ben,” said the chief. “Sorry to drop in unexpected.”
“Please, come in.” The outside air was below freezing. “Can I get you some tea or coffee?”
“Appreciate the hospitality, but I’m not alone.” He thumbed over his shoulder toward a pickup idling on the gravel drive. Ben recognized it as one of the trucks that had sped up the Drop from the village to gawk at the shed fire back during the summer. The truck’s cab was similarly crowded today. “Tommy White called for help finding his mother. Apparently she wandered off again. He said you ran into her a couple days ago?”
“Just missed her, but I know what you mean.”
“Seems she tends to head toward the mountains. Gathered up some men and thought we’d look for her through your woods up here, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course.” The air from the open door had begun to numb his bare feet. “I hope she’s dressed better than she was when I last saw her.” Thinking of the old woman in the cold reminded Ben of Hudson. How he must have been cold and frightened at the end. It didn’t seem fair, a lifetime of comfort wiped away in a burst of terror and pain.
“Tommy said she took a coat, so that’s something,” the chief said. He looked gaunt and tired under his winter hat. “Already got some boys looking through your land along the road. Should have asked your permission for that, too, but small towns sometimes gotta make their own rules. She’s a good God-fearing woman.” He sniffed at the air in a way that also reminded Ben of Hudson. “Storm’s supposed to hit soon.”
“How much snow are we expected to get?”
“Not too much tonight, six to ten inches. But a bigger storm will hit Sunday. That one could drop twelve to eighteen, but you never know. You ready for it?”
“I think so. I bought a plow for the car, and the furnace has been running fine. Got lots of hot cocoa,” he said.
“The Crofts has survived worse than a nor’easter.” The chief slapped his palm against the frame of the door. “Doubt you’d even notice if it weren’t for the wind.”
“The boys will like the snow. The Drop seems made for sledding.”
“You keep an eye on them, though. Kids can get lost in the drifts. The winter here doesn’t forgive mistakes.”
“I’ll make sure they’re careful,” Ben said.
“Mary is really looking forward to tonight,” the chief said as he turned to go. “Sure do like their dress-ups, don’t they? Been too long since an invitation has gone out from the Crofts.”
“You’ve both been so welcoming,” Ben said, but the chief waved him away.
“Just being neighborly. I better get the boys settled. See you tonight.”
Ben closed the door and rubbed his hands together to warm them. He thought about going back to Caroline, but he guessed she would be occupied in the dining room for a while, making minute changes to each setting. He decided to take the chance to slip away unnoticed.
He’d taken brief notes from articles written about the Great Fire of 1878, but it was the fire at the Crofts in 1982 that had most attracted his attention.
Ben had heard people talk about only the death of the two Swann boys, but he’d learned that three others had also died in that fire. He was tempted to ask Lisbeth Goode and Chief Stanton tonight about their personal recollections of the event, though he doubted Caroline would think the subject appropriate for dinner.
The other matter of interest was the newspaper’s coverage of John Tanner, the foster kid held responsible for the fire. Over the course of three months, the Dispatch had referred to Tanner as being disturbed, schizophrenic, depressed, and a pyromaniac, which made Ben wonder where he could find an official evaluation of the boy by a real mental-health professional.
Ben was nearly to the tower stairs when Caroline called down the hallway.
“Was it the flowers?” she asked.
He turned on the ball of his foot to head back the way he’d come. “Chief Stanton. Mrs. White wandered off again, so they’re going to search our woods for her.”
“Again? Why isn’t someone watching her?” Caroline said. “I went to her house yesterday, but she didn’t answer the door.”
Ben reached the dining room and saw that the place mats were all over the floor and the silverware was back in a pile at one end of the table.
“No one’s going to want to sit down and have a meal while one of their friends is missing in the cold. And I can’t blame them; I feel the same way.” Caroline slammed the stack of plates she held onto the table. “What was I thinking, inviting people up here before everything was ready? And in the middle of a blizzard! It’s like a nightmare.” She was actually wringing her hands.
Ben knew that this was the moment to reach across to her, but he was so tired of the endless tiptoeing and glad-handing that had become necessary to their daily life. On Monday he’d call Dr. Hatcher to figure out how to get her to go back into therapy. She’d hate him for a while, but he was out of ideas.
“It’ll be fine,” Ben said. Hosting a dinner party was the last thing he wanted to do, and he wondered how on earth he had become the one to assure her that everything would work out.
“I guess I should get started on the stuffing,” Caroline said.
“It’ll be a great night,” Ben said as she walked out of the room. His words sounded wan, even to himself. “One we’ll make sure they never forget.”
35
Everyone at school was excited for the snow. Everyone except Charlie.
Mrs. Crane drew a diagram with the clouds and the wind and the sun on the board to explain it. Charlie did his best to listen to her, but he could not stop looking out the window, trying to imagine what the forest would look like under a blanket of white. The thought of it tied his insides into a knot.
In the cold, in the dark. All alone. That’s what the Watcher had told him.
A lady Charlie didn’t know came into the classroom. Charlie thought she might be someone’s mom. Sometimes moms came into class if something bad had happened. But then she called Charlie’s name, and Mrs. Crane told him to go with her. This had never happened before, so he moved slowly to make sure that he was doing what they wanted him to. He put his workbook in his backpack and zipped the bag all the way closed before standing up.
The lady had a nice smile and smelled like something baking in the oven. She told Charlie her name and shook his hand, like Dad’s friends from the city used to. He followed her to the building where the teachers went at the end of the day. The doors here were all open. It smelled like coffee, and that reminded Charlie of the name of the lady’s smell. The lady smelled like vanilla.
She took him to a little room with three big green chairs. She told him to sit wherever he wanted. He sat in the one closest to the door. It was strange to sit on the soft chair, because the chairs in the classrooms were wood and metal.
“Charlie, did your dad tell you that I was coming to talk to you?”
Charlie shrugged. He wished the room had windows. Though he couldn’t do anything to stop the weather, he felt it was important to know when the storm began. The storm would bring the kind of cold and dark that the Watcher had spoken about.
“Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing, Charlie,” the lady said. “You’re not in trouble or anything like that. Your teachers say you’ve been doing great in your classes. You’re a very smart boy.” The lady looked at Charlie as if he was supposed to say something, but he hadn’t heard a question. “But I know it must be a big
change coming up here from the city. Wow. What a difference! I love New York. Have you been back to visit since moving up here?” she asked.
Charlie shook his head.
“Do you ever miss it?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. He’d never been afraid of the cold or dark in the city.
“Can you tell me about your house up here?”
“It’s old,” he said. “The stone it’s made from came from the mountains. The wood in the floors came from the forests. The walls are thick to keep out the cold, but the cold comes in anyway.” It got colder every day.
“Stone houses are very nice,” the lady said. She smiled at him, and Charlie could see himself in the shine of her eyes. “And you’re right, old houses can be very drafty. Must be a really big change from the city. But I bet you get to play outside more, right?”
Charlie nodded.
“What kinds of games do you play out there?”
“I like to run and sit and watch.”
“Oh, me too. What do you see out there?”
“In the summer there are bullfrogs in the lake, and herons, too. There are rabbits and moles and voles and mice and groundhogs in the fields. There are deer in the forest and chipmunks, squirrels, opossums, and raccoons in the trees. There are hawks and coyotes and crows and turkey vultures, too. But some of them only come out when it’s warm. The winter is different.”
“Yes, it’s too cold for a lot of those animals now, isn’t it? And how about your family? How do they like it up here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’d probably know if they were unhappy, right? How about your little brother?”
“Bub,” Charlie said.
“Bob?” She reached for a red folder on a side table.
“Bub,” Charlie said again.
“That’s an interesting name.”
“It’s not his real name. I called him Bub when he was born, and my dad liked it, so we call him that now.”
“Does Bub seem to like it here?” she asked.
“He’s a baby.”
“I know, but is he a happy baby? Does he cry a lot or cause trouble? I have two little brothers, and they were always causing trouble.”
“He’s nice. When he kisses me it tickles.”
“That sounds very sweet. He sounds like a nice baby.”
The lady returned the red folder to the table. She turned the back of her neck to him as she leaned down, and that reminded Charlie of the position a deer might be in before you slit its throat.
“How about your mom? She used to have a big job in the city, right?”
“She was a banker.” Charlie imagined the deer thrashing its broken legs and tossing its head. Blood had sprayed from its neck to cover the ground, but it had never made a sound.
“And what does she do now?”
“She used to like going to parties, but she doesn’t do that anymore. She used to like food, but now she cooks for us and doesn’t eat a lot.” The lady’s pencil tapped against her notepad.
“And your dad’s a writer? That must be neat. Have you ever read anything he’s written?”
“When I was little, he wrote me stories and drew pictures on the pages, like a real book.”
“That sounds fun. Do you play with your dad in the forest?” the lady asked.
Charlie shook his head.
“You play in the forest by yourself? Alone?”
“Not alone, not always.”
“With friends, then?”
“No, but…” He had promised himself to never tell.
“But what?”
“In the forest…” He’d learned from Dad that there were all kinds of stories. Some were filled with monsters and villains, and some had happy endings while others had sad ones. The trouble was that it was hard to tell what kind of a story it was when you were in the middle of it.
“Yes?”
The Watcher would know if he said something. Charlie knew it would know. His head began to feel warm.
“It’s hard,” Charlie said. He did not know how to answer the question and keep the promise to himself. “The winter. It’s hard. It’s cold and dark. But I wouldn’t want to be alone. Not ever. I know that now.”
The lady wrote something in her notebook. “You just have to find some friends. There are good people up here, and soon you’ll find some nice friends.”
Charlie shook his head. His shirt felt too tight around his neck. He wondered if it had started to snow yet. He wondered if it was beginning.
“It’s okay, honey. Do you want some water or—oh, let me get you a tissue.”
Charlie reached to touch his nose, and his hand came away streaked with blood.
His head felt warm again, and he looked for the lady but couldn’t find her. He saw nothing but darkness; then he felt the rough carpet on his cheek.
“It’s okay,” he heard the lady over him. “Just stay down there a little bit. Got to get the blood back to your head.”
Charlie could see again, and he looked up at the lady. He could feel the blood from his nose slide past his eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said again.
But Charlie thought of the forest between the mountains. He thought of the winter and the snow and the cold and the dark, and he knew that she was wrong.
36
The Dispatch had devoted an entire issue to the fire at the Crofts, and its aftermath was abundantly covered in the issues that followed. The incident had taken place on the evening of December 21, 1982, during a Christmas party being thrown by the Swann sisters. Back then, the village had its own fire truck, so they were able to mobilize in time to save the bulk of the house. The paper included a list of fatalities from that night: Claire Armfield, age 51; Jason Armfield, age 18; and Arthur White, age 27. Mark Swann had been 15 and his brother, Liam, had been 11.
There was a murky black-and-white photo of the fire; all you could see were the snowy outlines of the mountains and a flare of white in the center, but it appeared in every issue. There were no quotes from Miranda or Eleanor Swann, but considering the circumstances and the sisters’ status in the community, this didn’t surprise Ben.
The most concise account of what had happened was a synopsis written by Lisbeth’s father, August Goode:
While the official cause of the fire at the Crofts has yet to be determined by the county investigators, there is little doubt as to the conclusion they will reach. Survivor accounts uniformly agree on a great many facts, and the police investigation also supports the view of the tragedy that has emerged.
Dinner was served in the dining room at approximately 7:00 p.m. There were 25 adults and 12 persons under the age of 18 present. With respect to the privacy of those in attendance, this publication has decided to withhold the party’s guest list at this time. At 7:20, most of the children excused themselves from the room, while the adults remained at their tables.
According to witnesses, it was at this time that John Tanner, age 16, separated himself from the rest of the children and entered the home’s exterior supply shed. Mr. Tanner had lived in the Crofts as a ward of Miranda and Eleanor Swann since 1976 and was familiar with the house. It’s believed that, once in the shed, he wrapped a large rag around the head of a rake and drenched it in kerosene. It appears that he then returned to the house and entered a back parlor, where a fireplace had been lit in preparation for the coffee and desserts that would be served there after dinner.
Mr. Tanner lit the kerosene-soaked rag in the fireplace and set the draperies in the parlor ablaze. He then ran to the room next door to set its curtains on fire.
It is unknown how long the fire burned before the adults in the dining room became aware of it, but most agree it could have been only a few minutes. However, the Crofts being an old structure, these few minutes were enough for the fire to burn deep into the floors and climb the wood panels of the walls. When the adults discovered the blaze, the hallways were already thick with smoke.
At this poi
nt, accounts diverge due to the chaos of the situation. While the guests of more advanced age began to leave the Crofts, others rushed to find the remainder of the children and escort them to safety. It was at this point that Mr. Tanner and his burning rake were found. Upon discovery, the teenager ran out of the house, attempting to hide in the estate’s south woods.
While the children were being counted and escorted from the house, other adults attempted to extinguish the blaze. By most accounts, they initially succeeded in stemming the spread of the conflagration. At the time, they were unaware that the fire had already pressed inside the walls and reached the second story. Just minutes before the Swannhaven fire volunteers arrived, the wood-beam supports in the affected section of the house collapsed, crushing several in the wreckage.
In the articles Ben had read, John Tanner was never depicted as anything more than a caricature. Ben didn’t find this surprising. A story like this needed a villain. Tanner was put through the usual paces and sent to the Lockwood Institute, a state psychiatric facility.
Ben was about to Google the Lockwood Institute when the nurse from the priory called his cell phone. “A nosebleed and a fainting spell” was how she described what had happened to Charlie.
When Ben found her, Caroline was still in the dining room. She sat at one head of the table, contemplating the grain of its wood. He was relieved to see that the place mats and silver had all been rearranged, but for some reason the forks were on the wrong side of the plates.
“The nurse from school says Charlie’s sick, so I’m going to pick him up,” Ben said. Charlie hadn’t been sick for years. Children his age were walking petri dishes, but he’d seemed impervious.
Caroline turned to him and shook her head, as if roused from sleep.
“What?”
Ben told her what the nurse had told him.
“Poor little guy,” she said. There was a slur to her voice, as if she were drunk. “Did the flowers come yet?”
“I didn’t hear the doorbell ring.”
“Can you call them from the car? The number’s on a card on the kitchen table. If they haven’t left, you can pick the flowers up on the way back from school.”
House of Echoes: A Novel Page 21
