“Do you want to say goodbye to Peter and Sylvia? Maybe say thank you?” she asked him. “They’re going to be coming over for dinner tomorrow. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
Kevin nodded, rubbing an eye with his little fist. “Thank you,” he said groggily to Peter.
“My pleasure, sport. Take care of this, all right. It’s one of my favorites.” He tapped the brim of the hat. “We’ll have to do a rematch of Go Fish sometime. Maybe tomorrow if your mom says that’s okay.”
“I could make an exception,” she said. “Even though you nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Kevin smiled, but he was fading quickly. He looked tuckered out.
“Hope your feet feel better, wild guy,” Sylvia said. “No more exploring the woods without your—” But before she could finish the sentence, he stuck out both arms. At that, something familiar and pleasant rippled through her. Her eyebrows shot up, and her jaw slackened. She was caught flatfooted by both the gesture and the feeling.
“Somebody wants to give a hug,” Laura said, teasing. Then to Sylvia, she added, “He must really like you. He’s usually a little shy with goodbyes. I think you might have a new secret admirer.”
Sylvia leaned in and let the boy wrap his arms around her neck. He still smelled of smoke and something else unpleasant. His little nose, the tip of it icy cold, pressed against the top of her ear as he squeezed her tightly.
His breath tickled as he whispered to her. Then it was over. Kevin let go, pulled back, and gave her a comforting little smile as he sat perched on his mother’s hip. “Thank you,” he said, and rested his head back against his mother’s chest as he closed his eyes.
“You’re welcome,” she responded, rather late. She was trying to mask her trembling voice.
Later, this entire fifteen-second exchange would be reduced to something that felt more like a dream than an actual occurrence. But here, in this moment, it was crystal clear. And it was real.
By the time Sylvia regained her presence of mind, Laura was already walking back up the path to her car with Kevin in her arms. The driver-side door was still open and the engine idling. She had never shut it off.
Sylvia watched them leave, and as they drove away she became aware of a fading sensation—a connection to the boy. It was as if they had been briefly bonded together and were being peeled apart. And in the yawning rift, the words he had whispered in her ear hung suspended like a dying breath in the dark. Smoke letters floating in a sea of black.
3
“You don’t look so good. Are you okay?” Peter asked when they returned inside.
“Give me a second.” Sylvia went to the sink and got herself a glass of water.
“What happened to you at the end there? You hugged the kid and then looked like you were about to pass out,” Peter said.
He was watching her as she sipped the water, one hand anchoring her to the counter. She could smell her breath mixed with the water in the mug. A cold, pondlike smell.
She closed her eyes. Her body hummed with electricity.
The boy’s words were still echoing in her head. She needed a moment to process. Had she imagined it? Was it some sort of psychotic break? After all, she had tried to take her own life just two days before. Yes, let’s consider that for a moment, shall we. Without any motivation that she could recall, she had swallowed her entire bottle of tranquilizers. She had little memory of the whole thing, only a vague sense that she had been compelled to do it.
She opened her eyes, looking into dead space above the sink. “Did you mention Noah to him?” she asked, turning to him.
Peter looked smacked by confusion. “What? To who?”
“To Kevin. Did you tell him about Noah, or say his name at any point?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’m positive,” he said.
Sylvia tilted her head and cocked a doubtful eyebrow at him.
“What? I swear I didn’t. That would be a little strange, don’t you think? Telling a six-year-old about our dead son?” He laughed nervously. Then, sobering, he said, “I don’t understand. Why’re you even asking me this?”
“This will sound absolutely mad, I know, but when he hugged me goodbye just then, he whispered something to me.” Sylvia hesitated on the punch line. “He told me he was sorry about Noah.”
“What?”
“That’s what he said to me.”
Peter stood expressionless for a beat. A long beat. She expected a derisive laugh to come from her husband at any moment, but she got nothing like that, to her surprise.
He pulled a chair out and sat down at the table. It looked like a vital cord that had been holding him together at the seams had been pulled from his core stitching. He rested forward and clasped his hands.
“Are you going to say anything?” She sat down opposite him at the table, trying to find his eyes.
He lifted his gaze to her. “What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It’s impossible, Sylvia. How the hell would a kid know that about us?”
“I don’t know. But he did. He did know it. I could feel it.” She reached her hand across the table and rested it on his forearm. It was tight. “I know you think I’m losing it—that I’m depressed or something—but I’m telling you what that boy said. I’m certain of it.”
“Certain of what you heard, or what he said?” An accusatory edge bled into Peter’s tone.
Sylvia withdrew from him, shaking her head. “Why on earth would I make something like this up? Of all people, I wouldn’t expect you to be so skeptical.”
“Now wait, hold on,” Peter said. “I’m not saying he didn’t say something to you—I’m sure he did—but maybe you misheard the words, that’s all. You know what I mean?”
“I’m not mistaken. I know what he said, it was crystal clear.”
Peter rubbed his hands over his face. “Okay. Okay. Let me start over… I believe you. I don’t understand it, but I believe you. I’m sorry.”
Sylvia was caught off guard. “You do?”
“Yes. If you tell me that’s what he said, then I believe it.”
Sylvia reached out and rested her hand on top of his. It was hot; his body always put out so much heat compared to her own. That was something she had always found oddly attractive about him. In bed on cold nights, she imagined Peter was her own little furnace keeping them both warm. She missed that feeling: skin against skin, him holding her, his arm draped across her chest, face pressed against the back of her head, toes tickling the bottoms of her feet.
“I’m not trying to convince you of something I’ve created in my head. I don’t know how he knew it, or why I’m so sure he did.” She hesitated, averting her gaze. “But I can understand how crazy I must sound. How silly it is.”
“No, it’s not silly,” Peter said, and sighed. He assumed the look of a man who was about to unshoulder a burden of his own. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve had a feeling since I first came to this town. It’s a little hard to explain. But it’s like I’ve been here before. And I know I haven’t been. I feel it so strongly, like I’m wandering through an old memory or something. I don’t know.” Peter scoffed at himself.
Sylvia laughed softly.
“What?” Peter said.
“You know, for a writer of make-believe stories, you sure do have a hard time with the fantastical.”
“Am I missing something?” Peter asked.
Sylvia regarded her husband for a moment. She had never seen him look so vulnerable as he did right then. “Just because something doesn’t make sense to you,” she said, “doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
4
After nearly forty-five minutes of rearranging furniture to get things just right, Peter managed to turn the second bedroom of Shady Cove into a decent workspace. He was sitting at the small writing desk that had originally overlooked the backyard. He had moved it for
his purposes, pushing it up against a windowless wall to avoid distraction. When he worked, he liked a dark room—all the shades drawn, all the doors shut, no music. Although since his son’s death, he had made a minor adjustment to that routine and transitioned to keeping the door open. That had taken some getting used to. He had fought it at first, but the crippling case of anxiety that showed up every time he tried to close it finally made the decision much easier.
He was sitting in front of the Olivetti typewriter. It was his travel typewriter, and compared to the new IBM Selectric he had in his office back at home, it was an ancient machine, but it was reliable. Solid and steady. He had also used it to write his first two novels, so there was some sentimentality there, too.
He was chewing on the end of a red felt-tip pen as he read the last lines he had just written on the Olivetti:
Hilly turned her back on it all, the old question losing its shape against the new context of her life: Does God weep for the sinners, for the worst of them, for the ones who cannot be saved? Does God weep for any of us?
She wondered what it meant that she no longer cared to know the answers to these questions.
A decent end to a pivotal chapter, he thought. He leaned back, hands laced behind his head, and spoke to himself. “Not bad, but not great. You’re trying a little too hard, Peter.”
He would tighten it up on the next, and final, go-around. This was the fifth draft of a particularly fussy—but important—middle chapter that continued to feel clunky. He would go over it one more time, make his final tweaks, then type it fresh on the Olivetti again. If it still didn’t sit right after that, then he would scrap it and come at it from a new angle from the ground up. Sometimes killing the tired thing and starting over with a new approach was best.
Isn’t that what we’re doing up here at a lake house—starting over? an internal voice suggested.
“Maybe,” he answered himself aloud. “Or maybe trying a little too hard.”
He took the page of copy from the typewriter and shuffled it together with the rest of the fifth draft of chapter fourteen of Untitled Novel #3. Normally he would let a fresh draft—whether it be a single paragraph or an entire chapter—sit for at least a day or two before attacking it with The Red Pen of Death as he liked to call it. But today he was feeling impatient and just wanted to get the scene finished so he could move on, or at the very least, accept that he would soon have to kill a darling. Understanding that invested time was in no way a valid excuse for saving a piece of writing that didn’t work was perhaps one of the most valuable lessons he had ever learned. If it doesn’t work, kill it. That didn’t make it any easier, though. And it didn’t mean he had to like it.
With his teeth, he uncapped the pen, turned it around, and reset it. Now it was armed.
He took a deep breath, trying to switch on his brain’s more critical eye. The house was so quiet. He could hear the duck clock in the kitchen ticking away. The smack of his typewriter had sounded like an industrial invasion cracking the serenity of the lake with each key punch. The machine was resting now, though, and it was time to do the fine detail work by hand—the stitching and the trimming. But before he could get started on that…
He was supposed to keep a close eye on Sylvia while they were at the lake house. He didn’t think that was quite as necessary as Dr. Zaeder had, not to the degree the doctor had suggested, anyway. She didn’t need a babysitter. He didn’t discount what had happened, but he also knew his wife, and she was perfectly okay so far as he could tell.
He leaned back in his chair, dipped his fingers underneath the shade, and lifted it. Sylvia was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs in the backyard. She had changed into a thin pastel-yellow summer dress. She was drinking the iced tea she had made and reading a copy of Catch-22. It had been among the books on the bookshelf in the living room. It also happened to be one of her favorites.
Peter began to read chapter fourteen. Two lines in, he found his first typo. It was a real rookie spelling error: definate instead of definite. He went to strike a line through the misspelling, but the pen tip was bone dry.
“My luck,” he said, scribbling it on a piece of scrap paper to get its blood flowing. Nothing. He licked it and tried again. Nothing.
He chucked the pen in the wastebasket beside the desk, then grabbed his briefcase to look for another. But before he even began to search, he had a clear recollection of the fresh pack of red Flairs he had bought from the drugstore the day before sitting on the dining room table back at his house. He had forgotten to pack them.
Flustered, Peter stood and pulled open the deep side drawer in the desk. It was packed with kitchen linens—placemats, tablecloths, and cloth napkins. He shut it with his foot, then tried the knee drawer. It opened a few inches and jammed. It felt full, wanting to sag forward. Through the narrow crack, he could see a messy nest of loose papers and other odds and ends. A junk drawer. Every house had one somewhere. Usually it was in a kitchen, but not always. He had just found Shady Cove’s tucked away in an old writing desk in the back bedroom. Dollars to donuts, there was at least one pen in there somewhere. That would do for now; he could pick up more at the store later.
He hooked his fingers into the opening, sliding them along and trying to feel for whatever was causing the jam. After feeling nothing obstructing, he pushed the drawer back in and pulled it out again. It didn’t work. He wasn’t in the mood for this. He pulled a little harder, favoring force over finesse.
Something gave, and the entire drawer flew out of the desk, scattering its contents across the floor and around his feet. Right away he spotted at least two pens in the mix. One slid under the night table next to the little twin bed.
“Shit!”
Hard thumping started to pound at his temples. He wanted a drink.
Peter clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, and breathed. Opening his eyes, he put the now-empty drawer on the bed and knelt to gather everything that had fallen out. Junk drawer was right. And there was plenty of it. The paperclips would be the biggest pain in the ass.
And they were.
Ten minutes later, he had most of the junk back in its drawer. He had found three pens—two blue ballpoints and a red Flair felt-tip, just like his own. What were the odds?
He was finishing up the last of the cleanup when something caught his eye. The majority of the papers he was picking up off the floor and gathering together were blank. Some looked like old score tallies from one of the various board games in the living room. There were a few brochures for local attractions. An unsigned copy of the very same rental agreement he had signed. The owner’s manual for the refrigerator. A Sears catalog. None of those mattered, though. What did, however, was the piece of high-quality bond paper. It was similar to the paper he used in his typewriter. In the top left corner of it, the initials DW were written in neat red handwriting. Next to the initials was a date: 3/1/62. And in the very top center, underlined, two words stood out in all capital red letters: GILCHRIST PROJECT. Dots connected: the red pen, the initials, the paper, the timeline. Declan Wade.
According to both Leo Saltzman and George “Don’t-Call-Me-Georgie” Bateman, Declan had stayed in the house a few years back. Peter sat down at the desk and studied the paper. His hands were trembling with depraved excitement. It was a glimpse behind the scenes—a voyeuristic peek at a fellow writer’s process.
He knew what he was looking at immediately, because he had scribbled out countless pages of his own that looked nearly identical in the same primordial way. They were early story notes for a book.
It was almost hard to believe they were the product of a supposed professional writer who sold millions of books to the masses. His own, he had to admit, probably never looked any more professional than DW’s, though. One thing he had discovered was that there was no right or wrong way when it came to a writer’s process. Just do what works.
5
The notes were on one side of the page, nothing on the back. Peter read through it th
ree times, a feeling of unease growing in his chest as he saw the eerie parallels to his own current situation.
DW 3/1/62
GILCHRIST PROJECT
Haunted house? Been there, done that. Haunted town???? Haunted people?????? Better idea. We all have ghosts. Towns have ghosts, secrets. Bloody roots.
Possible town name: Jackson Hill, Massachusetts. I wonder if Shirley would notice or mind.
There is a “thinness” to the town, barrier breaking down, something radiating through from another side. From where? What caused it? Why here? This is the kind of place that can get to you—that calls to you. A constant feeling of déjà vu. It summons. Possible title?—It Summons or The Summons. Or maybe just Jackson Hill. I don’t care for any of these. Keep trying, you’ll get it.
What is it? A membrane between here and there. What’s on the other side. Can it be controlled or stopped? Is it just a different form of natural disaster? Something we simply haven’t seen before? Perhaps we haven’t looked hard enough.
Could be a gishet. Remember Nana’s stories? Do some research on gishet. Death Harvester… now there is a title.
Possible plot line: A failing marriage saved, or destroyed, in Jackson Hill. Catalyst for something else? Why is marriage failing? What happened? How is town important (significant) to them? Remember your dreams.
It’s almost time for lunch. I think I’ll make a couple hot dogs.
And that was all. A few story notes—a disorganized brainstorm, really—then, presumably, some thoughts on lunch. Hot dogs. But Peter was left feeling as though his flesh had just been shucked and he was sitting in the open air, raw nerves exposed.
“What’s that?” Sylvia said, startling him.
Peter flinched, reeling around in the chair. “You almost gave me a heart attack. Jesus, Syl. I didn’t hear you come in.” He glanced back at the paper in his hand and put it facedown on the desk. “It’s just some notes for a story idea I had.”
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