Phantom

by Thomas Tessier

"There's something about it—the house. I don't know what it is, but I get a funny feeling sometimes."

  "He still thinks it's haunted," Cloudy said with a laugh that was just a trifle forced.

  "Maybe," Ned allowed quickly. He sensed that he had the initiative and he enjoyed the feeling. He pressed on. "So tell me what happened."

  Peeler yawned again. He seemed so bored that Ned suddenly wondered if he might not be wrong after all about the Farley past. .

  "There ain't an old house in the country that don't have some kind of story or other about it," Peeler said in a tone of complete dismissal.

  "I want to know about the Parley place," Ned insisted. "I live there now, Peeler. Please tell me."

  Ned was glad to hear that the light drizzle outside had grown into a steady rain. It drummed on the metal roof of the baithouse, and a few drops leaked through in places. He had Peeler and Cloudy cornered, at least until the rain let up. Ned leaned forward on his seat, propping his elbows on his knees. Undisguised expectation showed on his face.

  "There ain't a whole lot to tell," Peeler began reluctantly. "It was before my time, really. Well, I mighta been a little kid then, I don't know. Anyhow, the thing is, the Farleys had some kind of family trouble, that's all. I believe one of the sons worked on the fishin' boats, and a storm come up real quick, like they can sometimes, and blowed him over the side and they never did get him back. He was lost at sea. That sort of thing used to happen all the time in those days, you know. It was a lot worse than it is now. And probably nobody'd remember it except that not long afterwards the mother got killed too. Now, I don't know the ins and outs of what done her in, whether it was an accident or natural causes, or what. But comin' so soon after the death of the son, well ... it made a little more impression on folks."

  Ned didn't speak. All he could think was, That's it, that has to be it.

  "There was some trouble about that time with the Sherwoods too, wasn't there?" Cloudy asked. "Didn't they own the boats?"

  Peeler nodded. "Yeah, they owned the boats, they ran the fishin' fleets hereabouts. Made a lot of money too. I guess some said it was their fault about the Farley boy, but that's just stuff. I don't see how it could be their fault if somebody gets blowed away in a storm."

  "Seems like more people died young in them days," Cloudy said. "You had big families—eight, ten, twelve kids—so it wasn't unusual for some of 'em not to make it. More folks died from accidents while they was workin' too. And sickness—they didn't have all the medicines they got now. So, all in all, you had a lot more of that kind of thing goin' on .... "

  "Yeah, that's right." Peeler took up where Cloudy trailed off. "There wasn't nothin' special about it."

  "What happened to the rest of the family?" Ned asked.

  "You got me there," Peeler said. "Nothin' I know of. I guess the other kids just growed up and went their ways. The old man never married again, that I'm aware of. He musta packed up too, somewhere along the line. Anyhow, I ain't never heard no more about any of 'em."

  "Seems to me the house sat empty for a while," Cloudy said. "I can't swear, but I got a vague recollection it was some time after the father was gone before somebody else moved in."

  "Yeah," Peeler agreed. "I think you're right about that, but the main thing about the Farleys is that it was just one of them things that happens now and again. Tragedy strikes, a family drifts away, finally the last one pulls up stakes and that's the last you see. They settle down elsewhere and start over again, that's the way it is, but because folks don't hear about that they only remember the unhappy part."

  It didn't escape Ned that Peeler and Cloudy had seemed wary of this subject at first, but then had teamed up to sketch it out as a very ordinary, down-to-earth matter. They were making a great effort to convince Ned that the Farley story was in no way remarkable or unusual, that it was "just one of those things." But they were wasting their time with that; Ned knew he was on to something. In some way, the Farleys had to be a part of what he had been experiencing. Tragic deaths. A son and his mother. Ned's parents, and Peeler and Cloudy too, probably. would explain it away as a coincidence of local history and a young boy's imagination. But Ned couldn't. He had been through too much. He wondered about the Farleys all the way back home.

  "What'd you go and tell him all that for?" Cloudy asked, after Ned had left.

  "I dunno," Peeler admitted. "I wasn't gonna say nothin' at all, and then it just kinda eased out." He rubbed the side of his jaw, and then looked up. "You did a pretty good job of beatin' your chops too."

  "Once you got goin' I had to help out."

  "Yeah. sure."

  "Keep it from gettin' outta hand."

  "Outta hand—how?"

  "He's just a boy, Peeler. That sort of story could get him all scared now, afraid to sleep in his own bed. That ain't right, it just ain't right."

  "He was scared already. Didn't you see that?"

  "I know, I know." Cloudy looked miserable. "But all we go and do is make it worse for him. Probably got him scared stiff now."

  "Maybe," Peeler said. "Maybe that's a good thing, too."

  Cloudy said sternly, "Ain't nothin' never happened to nobody in that house all these years, and that's the gospel truth and you know it."

  "Ain't never been a boy child livin' there since the Farleys," Peeler said. "Till now."

  * * *

  23. On The Street Where You Live

  "He was scared," Linda stated flatly. "Really scared. It took the longest time before he was asleep enough so that I could leave the room. He wouldn't let go."

  She scraped the plates clean of chicken bones and unfinished food. Michael sat at the table, sipping the last of the white wine and listening patiently. They had eaten dinner a little while ago. The skies had cleared late in the afternoon and Ned was out in the backyard stalking night crawlers, figuring that the day's rain would bring them out early. He was eager to go fishing with Peeler the next day and night crawlers were easier to put on a hook than red wrigglers. The kitchen radio played an instrumental medley of show tunes.

  "I was scared too," Linda went on. "I didn't know what to do or what to say to him. He was quite beside himself, almost hysterical. And then he just burst into tears."

  "It's happened before," Michael said quietly.

  "Before, yes, but—"

  "He's been like that when he's had nightmares."

  "But he wasn't sleeping, Michael. I told you that. He was wide awake, sitting at the window with his telescope when I went in. Then we sat and talked for a few minutes and-it all came out. It was like something he'd been holding back, keeping inside of himself, and it finally broke loose."

  Michael was nodding his head rapidly, as if prompting Linda to finish. "Okay, I know," he said. "It wasn't a nightmare. All I said was that it was like a nightmare. Like the last time."

  Linda emptied the garbage into a large green plastic bag under the sink and then she put the platter into the dishwasher.

  "He's convinced someone is going to take him away from us. He is absolutely terrified of it."

  "Yes, and we've been through that before, too. When he had the sunstroke he said something like that."

  "It's not just an idle thought he dreamed, Michael."

  "What is it, then?"

  "It means something."

  "Ha!" Michael exclaimed, unable to restrain himself. ''I'm not laughing, honey," he added quickly, "but do you really believe that stuff?"

  Linda's face clouded with uncertainty. "A week, two weeks ago, I would have said no. But now ... I'm not so sure. I don't know what to think. I feel so stupid and helpless."

  Michael watched his wife nearly drop the carton of milk as she went to put it in the refrigerator. Her expression was a worried, distracted frown and her movements, wiping the tabletop, were jerky and nervous. He thought she looked like an actress laboring to achieve a certain effect but not completely succeeding. She was being too dramatic about it, letting it get to her this way. It was impossi
ble for Michael to accept all that his wife was telling him. The real problem was how to calm her down and make her see sense.

  "That's a mistake," he said. "You can't keep blaming yourself—and for what? If something is bothering Ned, we'll deal with it one way or another. But I don't want it to get out of hand with you."

  "Out of hand?" Linda's voice wavered upward. "Michael, he's my son. What do you want me to do—act as if nothing has happened?"

  "No," he answered loudly. Then he softened his tone. "It's· just that I have to worry about you, too, as well as Ned, and the last thing I want to see happen is for you to work yourself into such a state of anxiety and nerves that you ... well, bring on another bad asthma attack. You know that tension and stress are big contributing factors."

  "I used to be afraid of that," Linda said. "But now I'm afraid for Ned. He's the most important thing right now."

  Was it just a good try at bravado, or was she serious? Michael couldn't tell, but it was hard to believe that his wife could pull off such an about-face as far as asthma was concerned. For the. last five years she had feared nothing in the world more than a repeat of that terribly severe attack.

  "It doesn't matter how you feel about it," Michael argued reasonably. "The fact is, you're still susceptible to it. You're in the high-risk bracket, and to me it looks like you're pushing yourself closer and closer to the edge. Now tell me something: How are you going to help Ned if you get to the point where your own health breaks down and you wind up in bed for a few weeks, or maybe even the hospital? How will that help Ned, or any of us?"

  "E-Z listening from E-Z Radio," a syrupy voice announced. "Coming up next, the One Thousand and One Strings and their interpretation of 'On The Street Where You Live' from My Fair Lady, followed by ... "

  "I understand," Linda said. "I know what you're saying, and you're right."

  "Okay, now we're getting somewhere."

  "No, we are not," Linda went on hastily. "We're not getting anywhere by talking about my health at a time when we should be doing something about Ned. His problem is real, it's very, very real, at least to him. And it's going on right now, it's not something that might or might not happen, like an asthma attack. It's here. Now. Do you understand?"

  Michael tapped the tabletop with one finger. "All right, Linda, I'll ask around tomorrow and get the name of a good child psychiatrist, and we'll take Ned in to see him. Or her." He said it with an air of resignation, thinking that this unpalatable alternative might force his wife to back off. The change on her face suggested the tactic was working.

  "Wait a minute. No," Linda said. "I didn't mean that."

  "Why not?" Michael followed up promptly. "He's been to the doctor, and he got a clean bill of health. So if there's a problem, it must be a mental problem, and he should see a shrink. Right?" Michael had lowered his voice and looked out the kitchen window. He was relieved to see that Ned was safely out of earshot in the backyard. Christ, the boy'd really have a problem if he heard his parents talking about him like this, Michael thought. He had to put a stop to this nonsense, once and for all.

  "No," Linda repeated. "I don't like that idea."

  How could she possibly admit that her son, not yet ten years old, might need a psychiatrist? No way.

  "What then?"

  "You don't think there's any chance he could be right?" she asked hesitantly. It was too much to expect that Michael would agree, but she could think of nothing else.

  "About somebody taking him away?"

  Linda nodded, staring at the table.

  "Honey, we've been through all that before," Michael said. "If I thought there was any chance, any chance at all that Ned was right, I'd have to hire armed bodyguards to follow him around from the time he got up in the morning until the time he went to bed at night and put padlocks on his bedroom door and bars on the window. Is that what you want me to do? Because if it is, we'll have to start thinking of ways to come up with all that money, and—"

  He let it go. Linda's shoulders sagged, and he could tell she was giving up on that angle. Michael took another sip of wine and smiled to himself. Nothing like a little reductio ad absurdum to shake out a situation.

  "Michael ... Help us .... "

  Her voice was striving to sound disconsolate and little-girl-lost. Again Michael had the sensation that she was purposefully dramatizing. How much longer could he indulge it without leaving the way open for real trouble? To move to Lynnhaven was proving more difficult for Linda than he had expected. Much more difficult, it seemed, than for Ned even. Maybe the boy was bothered by something, but it would pass. Let a plant grow, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred it'll grow. The conditions are right. If Linda refused to take Ned to see a counselor or a specialist of some sort (and Michael really didn't want that either), then there was nothing more to be said. It was time to be firm.

  "All kids have fears, Linda," he said. "Big, vivid, bone-freezing fears. They see things in the dark, and then they think they begin to see them during the day too. Things that aren't really there. But what you're doing is taking Ned's natural childhood fears and blowing them up into your own, and then Ned gets them back from you, worse than they were before. The two of you are feeding each other's fears, in bigger and bigger doses. Can't you see what's happening? It's a vicious circle, round and round, back and forth between the two of you. Something terrible is being created out of nothing. Linda, you can't let yourself get into Ned's fantasies and perpetuate them by acting as if you believe them too. It's got to stop."

  Linda reached for the wine bottle, found it was empty. She grabbed the sherry decanter and poured herself a large measure.

  "I mean it, honey," Michael continued. "Fact: our son is perfectly healthy. Fact: our son is not, repeat not, being shadowed by kidnappers or a child molester or a ghoul or anything else. Fact: you ... "

  Linda kept her back to him as he rattled on. He's right, her mind said, but that was no help. She hated it when Michael got off on one of his fact-this and fact-that routines. The annoying thing was that he even had her doing it sometimes. Take all your facts and stick them under your pillow, she wanted to tell her husband. Maybe the tooth fairy can make use of them. I can't. What did it always come down to in the end? Talk, talk and more talk. That's all.

  Linda couldn't even hear him now, although he was only a few feet away, talking to her. She couldn't hear, and that was worrying. Were they beginning to drift away from each other? It had always seemed that they were deeply attuned to one another, locked on the same wavelength, body and soul. But you have to wonder if that can last forever. How many marriages do? If they were so far apart on something so vital as their only son ... Had they run the course to its end?

  Something he had said still rankled—what was it? Talking about if Ned was right, that someone was going to take him ... Michael had said that he would "have to hire armed bodyguards" to protect the boy. Not what you would expect, the automatic I would hire, but the grudging I would have to hire. Bodyguards were out of the question, of course, but Linda felt her husband had betrayed himself, as well as her and Ned, in that choice of words.

  "Ned worries about whatever it is he worries about," Michael was saying. "You worry about Ned and I worry about you. It's ridiculous."

  Once, up until a short time ago, Linda might have responded to that with a smile and said, "Cheer up, dear. I know for a fact that your mother still worries about you," or some remark like that. Now she couldn't manage it. She felt alone, and bitter that they should be put in this position at a time when they should have everything going for them.

  She hammered the start button on the dishwasher with a white-knuckled fist.

  * * *

  24. Stony Point

  Peeler was in a better mood the next day. It was clear and crisp, with late August hints that autumn was just around the corner. When Ned showed Peeler the night crawlers he had caught, the old man laughed and said, "You don't need worms that big to get sunfish. Hell, you can cut up one of them
things into three or four pieces, it'll do the trick. You use 'em if you want to, but it's like tryin' to feed a roast buffalo to a cocker spaniel; he'll have a go at it, but a lump of baloney'd do just as well."

  Baxley Mill Pond was outside of Lynnhaven, but on the same side of town as Peeler's baithouse, so they didn't have a long walk to get there. Ned had seen the place before, although he hadn't fished it. As they approached, he noticed again the complete absence of any shoreline development. It was lightly wooded, with occasional clear patches along the edge of the water, but not a single cottage. It looked more like a pocket lake than a mill pond.

  "Why is it called Baxley Mill Pond?" Ned asked.

  "Come to think of it, I don't know. Must go back a long ways, because that's what it always was, to my knowledge. And it always looked the same as it does now," Peeler said, gesturing around him. "Just a punk lake, clean but shallow. Ain't nobody never had no use for it, at least none to speak of."

  "Maybe a hundred years ago it was different," Ned speculated. "Or maybe back around the time of the Civil War."

  "Maybe," Peeler said doubtfully.

  They found a clear spot on the shore that was big enough so they could fish without getting in each other's way. The ground was covered with tall field grass and a sprinkling of cool water; Ned knew it contained a supply of beer. The old man set about his preparations as if they were a sacred ritual. Ned, who could have his line baited and ready in under a minute, stood watching. Peeler was never in any rush to get to the casting stage.

  First, he carefully untied the faded cloth wrapper and took out the two sections of his fishing rod. Next, he rolled' the inside tip of the second section along the side of his nose, so the skin oils would provide that tiny bit of lubrication to ensure a smooth fit. Then he lined up the guides and put the rod together. A last, small twist of the flange might be necessary for perfect alignment. Peeler would whip the rod through the air several times, until he was satisfied with the action. After clamping on the reel and threading the line, he sat down with the rod across his legs and brought out his battered folder of hooks. He chose one of the smallest and tied it on, snipping off two or three inches of excess line. Then he caught the hook in the first guide and cranked the reel until the rod arced obligingly. Now he was almost ready. He attached a small bobber to the line about a foot and a half above the hook. Peeler glanced up and saw Ned watching him.