Family Skulls

by Luc Reid

  “Hi Aunt Tessa,” Chloe said. “I was just trying to catch up with this jerk. He just came to our house. I had to convince dad he was going around offering to mow lawns.”

  “You can mow our lawn!” Tessa told Seth brightly. “Of course it’s 34 acres, so it might take a while. How’s ten dollars sound?” She glanced back at him. “Oh, don’t look so grim. I’m just kidding.”

  Tessa led them into the living room, where Chloe flopped down on the couch as though she were at home. Seth sat in an armchair across the room. Aunt Tessa. He should have guessed. What kind of a situation had he just walked into? And yet Tessa Larsh was still acting all sunshine and lollipops.

  Seth looked around the room warily. He was so preoccupied when he pulled up on his bike, he hadn’t noticed whether or not Jerry’s police cruiser was parked out front. Was he home?

  Most of the living room floor was taken up at the moment by dolls, matchbox cars, and a wooden toy train set. Inside the circle of track Junie sat enthroned, holding a conversation between a racing car and a naked Barbie doll.

  “Do you kids want some lemonade or— no, we’re out of that,” Tessa said. “How about iced tea?”

  “Thanks,” said Chloe.

  “Uh … yeah. Thank you,” Seth said.

  “Junie, do you want to do the ice cubes?”

  “No,” Junie said placidly. Then, immediately: “Yes!” She leapt up and followed Tessa out of the room, in the direction of the kitchen.

  Seth leaned toward Chloe and hissed “What are you doing here?”

  “This is my aunt Tessa’s house. What are you doing here?”

  “I was invited,” said Seth.

  “Why did they invite you over? I thought your family had a thing about the Lar—” she clamped her mouth shut, looking up. Tessa came back in and set the glasses of iced tea on the nearest flat surfaces she could find. In Seth’s case, this turned out to be a pile of a half dozen National Geographics on an end table.

  Then Tessa flopped down and put her arm around Chloe. “So, are you two friends?”

  Neither Seth nor Chloe answered. Seth didn’t know how to answer: “No,” was too blunt and “Yes” was a lie that he suspected Chloe would call him on.

  Tessa looked from one to the other, a smile playing on her lips. “I retract the question,” she said. “Let’s change the subject. Chloe, did this young hero tell you what he did the other day?”

  “Hero?” Chloe said, openly doubtful.

  Tessa nodded. “You know how Junie is not allowed ever,” she directed her attention at Junie herself for a moment, “ever, under any circumstances to go in the old barn, because it’s a death trap?”

  “She didn’t—” Chloe started.

  “Oh, yes she did. She climbed right up into the hayloft, and of course the floor gave way.”

  “Oh my god!” said Chloe, jerking her head around to look at Junie as though she might have just disappeared. Junie continued playing, oblivious, carrying on the conversation. Thomas the Tank Engine seemed to have gotten involved, and seemed to be trying to mediate some kind of dispute between Barbie and the car.

  “And guess who climbed up and walked a beam around half the barn to rescue her?”

  Chloe looked at Seth with frank amazement. “What were you doing in Aunt Tessa’s barn?”

  “I was in the woods. You know how I like to walk in the woods.”

  “Uh-huh,” Chloe said, frowning.

  “So now we’re adopting him,” Aunt Tessa continued. “We offered him my car, but he wouldn’t take it.”

  Chloe burst out in laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Seth said.

  “Nothing,” Chloe gasped through laughs.

  “Something is obviously funny.”

  “It just seems a little unlikely.”

  “Miracles always do, honey,” Tessa said.

  “Now you’ll be stuck in the ditch forever,” Junie crooned to the matchbox car. “Because you’re cursed.”

  Seth drew in a sharp breath.

  “Junie, I told you to stop playing that game,” Tessa said. “That is not OK. Where did you get that?”

  Junie looked up at Tessa and gave a theatrical sigh. “Oh mom,” she said. “It’s just playing.”

  “I didn’t see Uncle Jerry’s car outside,” Chloe said.

  “No, he’s on duty today. He’s out chasing stolen bikes and ticketing jaywalkers,” Tessa said.

  The mention of stolen bikes struck uncomfortably close to home, but Seth shook the feeling off. If Jerry was out, maybe it was time to try to get some questions answered. Tessa clearly knew what was going on—how could she not, since she had been the one to urge Jerry to hide the skulls?—but at least she might not have the power to make curses herself. In any case, the sooner Seth got some answers, the better off he’d be, and Tessa seemed like the safest and quickest source of information in the house.

  The skulls or the journals? Maybe it would be better to ask about the journals. He still didn’t know for sure whether the Larshes knew about the visit he had made when only Junie and Grant were home, and it would be a bad move to give it away if they didn’t—or even if they just were pretending they didn’t.

  “What are those books?” Seth asked, pointing to the journals.

  Tessa hopped up and went to them, her voice brisk and cheerful. “Oh, these are wonderful. They’re journals from Jerry’s father and grandfather and so on, going back years and years. His family … it’s hard to describe. They always thought of themselves as … oh, sort of back-woods sorcerers.” She took down one volume of the journals and opened it, walking back to Seth and Chloe and flipping through the pages. “They dowsed for wells, especially. You know what dowsing is?”

  “Finding water,” Chloe said. She certainly seemed eager to answer now. Was she still playing a part? The other day she’d pretended not to know what a dowser was, and of course Grandma Neddie had told her—while all the time, apparently, she had been related to one.

  “Well, that’s one thing they do. I’ll say this for the Larsh forbears: there are a lot of wells around Caledonia County that were dug because a Larsh somewhere along the line said ‘dig here,’ and most of them seem to produce pretty well. Of course, around here it’s hard to dig and not find water.

  “But they did all kinds of things. They knew a lot about herbal medicine—both for people and for livestock—and about weather and so forth. People would say that a Larsh could predict a blizzard or an ice storm a week or two in advance. They were into all kinds of things. But up to and including Jerry’s father they were a little …” Tessa only now noticed Junie’s rapt attention on her.

  “What’s happening in your town, honey?” Tessa said.

  “Thomas isn’t cursed any more, but now Mr. Father is cursed and he can’t find his glasses.”

  Tessa heaved a sigh before turning her attention back to the journal, flipping through. Chloe got off the couch to take a look at it.

  “That’s exactly what they were like,” Tessa whispered. “They talked about curses and magical revelations as though they were power tools.”

  “But not Mr. Larsh?” Seth said.

  “Jerry?” Tessa said, and she laughed. “No, not Jerry. His father tried to foist the whole package on Jerry when he was oh, five or six. But according to Chet—that was Jerry’s father—Jerry never took to any of it, even the dowsing. They had a huge argument when Jerry was 12 or 13, and Chet finally stopped.

  “Oh, here it is!” she said suddenly. “Take a look at this. These journals are full of it, loony stuff in excruciating detail.”

  She handed the book to Seth, and Chloe looked over his shoulder at it. There, in that same faded, brown ink was sketched a complicated map or diagram, the only recognizable elements of which Seth could make out being the house and the barn. Tiny arrowhead shapes were scattered across the diagram, arranged loosely along undulating lines that cut through the property, with names written in carefully next to each arrowhead. Around t
he edges were jotted calculations and even sketches of phases of the moon. It looked like the work of an archaeologist, or perhaps a gifted madman.

  One of the arrowheads, right next to the house, was labeled “Wall.” As in Seth’s mother’s family. Seth stared at it, not daring to look up. Was Tessa baiting him? What did she expect him to do? What should he do?

  He heard Chloe catch her breath. Maybe Tessa had made a mistake, and he wasn’t supposed to see this? He stared at it, trying to memorize how the undulating lines flowed and where the arrowheads were.

  Chloe reached over and flipped a page. Another diagram here, this one of some kind of structure. No scale was given, but it seemed to be made of slabs of rock and unless the rocks were meant to be too large to lift the structure wouldn’t have been much more than knee-high at most. Another arrowhead shape was drawn in the center.

  The caption said Barton spell cairn. A cairn was a pile of rocks, wasn’t it? So was this the kind of thing he’d found out in the woods, the rocks you couldn’t move, that were so cold?

  “That’s funny … it’s not here,” Tessa said from across the room. Seth looked up and saw she had walked back to the bookcase while he’d been looking at the diagram. “They had a special one, filled with little poems, sort of, or essays. Chants and curses and little bits of supposed folk wisdom about magic, like ‘A watcher hates the sand and ash/It flees the mixture as the lash,’ absolute doggerel.”

  She went to the hallway and called up the stairs. “Grant! Can you help me find something?”

  She came back and began looking behind the journals and on the other shelves. Grant’s heavy footsteps drummed down the staircase, and he appeared a moment later. He stopped short when he saw Seth and Chloe, looking them over for a moment before continuing on to the bookcase.

  “What are you doing here, Chloe?” he said gently.

  The sound of a car pulling up came from outside, and Tessa pushed aside a curtain to look out. “Is it noon already?” She turned to Seth and Chloe. “Kids, I’m sorry, but I have a client here now and I’ll be tied up for the next few hours.”

  “Aunt Tessa does bookkeeping and taxes,” Chloe said.

  “Grant, can you help me find that book with the rhymes?” said Tessa.

  “Grandpa’s book?” said Grant.

  “That’s the one. Can you help me find it? Rats, here she comes.” Tessa hurried out of the room.

  Grant walked up to Seth and Chloe and gently took the book out of his hands. “I don’t want to be rude, but my dad would have a fit if he saw you touching this,” he said. “Old family things are important to him, and Tessa isn’t always careful with them. This is the kind of stuff I meant when I said to watch out. So be careful, OK? My dad has a temper.” He turned the book around and glanced over the page they had been looking at, then closed the book and replaced it on the shelf.

  “I guess we’d better go,” Chloe said.

  Seth wondered how she had gotten it in her head that she and he were any kind of “we.” By now she must know he was on to her. He didn’t know exactly what she was doing, but it was obvious she was hiding something and that she was in league with the Larshes.

  Still, the illusion of friendship with the Larshes had served him pretty well so far, and he didn’t intend to create any trouble by being rude to their niece in their house. He stood and followed Chloe toward the hallway.

  “Disappear again!” Junie called out to Seth.

  “What?” Grant said. Chloe looked at Seth quizzically.

  “He knows how to disappear, like an angel,” Junie said.

  “Yes I do!” Seth said. He’d better take control of the situation before Junie gave him away. “OK, close your eyes, Junie!”

  Junie closed her eyes and giggled, almost nervously. Seth ran down the hallway, almost into Tessa. “Ta da!” he shouted back at the living room and heard Junie’s answering laugh.

  Tessa stood just inside the open front door with a white-haired woman in a pale blue business suit. Chloe slipped by the visitor, with Seth right behind her.

  “Come back tomorrow, kids!” she shouted. “Jerry will be home then!”

  Seth turned and waved, forced himself to smile. Chloe shouted out “See you soon!” and climbed on her bike, taking off before Seth could say a word. He climbed on his own bike and rode after her. Should he catch up and try to confront her, or keep away from her until he figured out what was going on?

  As it turned out, the decision was made for him. He came around a bend in the dirt road and almost ran into Chloe, who was blocking it with her bike.

  Chapter 10

  Seth dropped one foot to the ground as he got close and let his toe drag the bike to a stop. Chloe stood behind her own bike, glaring at him. In the trees to either side, birds twittered and the wind brushed through the leaves with a sound like rushing water.

  “What?” Seth said.

  “I can’t believe you went to their house. What did you think you were doing?”

  “I told you. I was invited. I happened to be in the woods the other day—”

  She made a faint gagging sound of disbelief. “I’m not stupid, Seth. You don’t just make friends with someone when you …” She trailed off. “Do you believe in this curse or not?”

  Seth didn’t respond. Did she think he could be cursed and not be aware of it?

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “So why does a person go to the house of someone who they think cursed their family?”

  Seth still didn’t respond. She knew his answers as well as he did. He didn’t need to play whatever game she was playing.

  “Do they even know who you are?” Chloe said. “Do they know you think you’re cursed?”

  Now she was making it sound like he had made the curse up. “They know,” he said. “They pretend they don’t, but they know. Just like you pretend you don’t. What did they tell you to do? What’s your job? Do you help them?”

  Chloe took a step back involuntarily, almost dropping her bike. “You think they’re … didn’t you see how Tessa treated you? I’m surprised she didn’t send you home with a batch of cookies and a twenty dollar bill! You really did save Junie, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And you still think they’re cursing you? That they hate you?”

  Seth looked at Chloe hard for a moment. Could she have been just following him after all? Is it possible she didn’t realize her own relatives kept curses? He looked at the battered diving watch on his wrist, took it off, and pointed to the side of the road, where ferns grew thickly. “Watch the ferns,” he said, and when he was sure she was watching he turned his head away and threw the watch into the undergrowth. He heard it hit the leaves, but waited a moment before turning his head back, so that he wouldn’t be able to make out any telltale movement of plants.

  “Did you see where that fell?” Seth said.

  “Of course,” Chloe said.

  “Where?” Seth said.

  Chloe’s gaze wandered away from him and down the road. “Maybe we should get out of the road. A car might come.”

  “It’s a private road. Nobody’s coming. Can you tell me where my watch fell, so I can find it?”

  “I …” Chloe looked confused. “Why do you think they …” She looked down at the ground, her brow wrinkled. “What were we talking about?”

  Seth pulled his bike over to the side of the road, lay it there, and walked to the ferns. He hated forcing this on Chloe. Whenever he’d tried to show anyone the curse—only a few times in his life—it had been uncomfortable, frustrating … and very difficult. Probably he was being a fool: she might still be playing some kind of part for the Larshes. But even if she was, after this she wouldn’t be able to pretend the curse wasn’t real. That is, not unless she shared Jerry Larsh’s immunity to the it.

  He got down on his hands and knees and started looking through the ferns, purposely doing a bad job, not paying close attention. “Where’s my watch?” he said.
r />   “Why did you throw your watch in the ferns?” said Chloe. “That was stupid.”

  “I threw it so that you would see you weren’t a damn bit of help to me in finding it.”

  “You didn’t ask me to help.”

  “Yes I did. Just a minute ago. And I’ll ask you again: will you please, pretty please with a cherry on top, tell me exactly where my watch fell?”

  “It … it … why should I help you?”

  “It’s not whether you should or not: you can’t. You can’t tell me where it is because that would be helping, and nobody can help our family. Because of the curse.”

  Chloe seemed to be trying very hard to concentrate, but her gaze drifted away from the ferns. She looked down at her bike, wrinkling her brow. Seth got to his feet and strode over to her, taking grabbing her chin with one hand and turning her head to look directly at his.

  “Tell me where my watch is!” he demanded. “Help me find it!”

  “Your watch? I didn’t see your … did I? Can’t I … ?”

  Her face was lined with confusion and even fear. Her eyes, which from this close up were an arrestingly rich brown color, like dark coffee in a glass mug, had opened wide and were darting around, trying to avoid his gaze.

  “Tell me,” he whispered. “Help me find it. Help me.”

  She wrenched her face from his hand and covered it with her hands, gasping. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t, I can’t.”

  “That’s right,” Seth said. “You can’t. Nobody can.” He went back to the ferns and went through them, more carefully now, hoping he hadn’t just thrown his watch away for good. He had been over the patch where he thought it had fallen twice without any luck by the time Chloe spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you made it up.”

  Seth ranged a little further along. His aim might have been bad. He hoped no poison ivy lurked under the ferns.