He walked back into his room and grabbed a shirt from the pile, throwing it on as he moved down the hall, sidestepping the stairs and the warming light from above. He stepped across the landing and hurried down to the ground floor, again avoiding the problem steps without pausing to think of it. He landed catlike on the dining room floor, but when he didn’t see Daisy immediately he knew what had happened. It was the same feeling as getting hit in the gut unexpectedly, before you have the opportunity to brace yourself. She’s gone outside. Crouched low, the palms of his scraping along the floorboards, he crept forward, but he already knew what he’d see. The front door was open. Through the holes in the screen door he could see the drive extending out and into the trees, blue and forlorn in the moonlight. The noise of the crickets pulsing with harmonious regularity. Have to move now. He turned and almost ran, using all the stealth he possessed, back through the living room and dining room, dancing up the stairs, back through the hall to his room. He pulled the door shut and switched on the light, rooting through the objects on his floor until he’d unearthed his battered sneakers. They were at the stage where they’d been molded to his feet so well that he could slip them on without needing to untie the laces. He cut the light and stopped in the hall long enough to raise the lower section of the ladder into its niche above, then he pushed on the underside of the trapdoor so the steps swung up and out of sight. He waited to release his hold on the loop until the trapdoor was close enough to the ceiling so that it would shut without making a noise, but there was still a muffled shiver of impact as the whole apparatus vanished from sight, leaving the hallway in darkness again. He froze and counted the precious seconds before moving again with all speed, satisfied that no one had heard. This time he didn’t stop until he’d cleared the stairs, raced through the living room and stepped out onto the porch, letting the screen door swing to a close behind him.
How long had passed since she’d left the house? Two minutes? Less? I should go inside and wake Pa. There’s no reason for me to be sneaking around. It’s not like I can get in trouble for this. But it seemed more and more lately that he’d been developing a natural aversion to going to his parents about anything. The very idea of it galled him, even when it comes to something like this, a situation where it’s only natural for a boy to seek out adult supervision. Because let’s face it, you know what’s happening here. Or you think you do. But is that right? Is that really what’s going on? He heard her voice again and he turned toward it. It was a casual voice, conversational, speaking as though the person it addressed was standing no more than a foot or two away. But it didn’t seem to be Daisy’s usual crisp, deadpan delivery, and it wasn’t just the distance either. There! He had seen, hovering just in sight among the trees, off to the right of the garage, the shape of her head and shoulders as she drifted through the shadows. The moon’s unearthly light winked out again like a window slamming shut, as a cloud threw itself in front of it, and Tad leapt from the porch. Go back. Go back and rouse Pa, and tell him, tell him…tell him that you’re just a boy and you’re afraid of the dark, and it’s not like he’d never been in the woods at night before. Years before, back when Casey wasn’t such an asshole, Walt had taken the two of them out in the early morning, before the sun had risen, to dig up night crawlers for their fishing trips. Or coming back from a football game that had run late, or hide and seek, he’d had to walk down the drive, alone sometimes at dusk, when the summer night rolled in like a fog to smother the last of the day like a candle wick being extinguished. But those times he’d stayed on the drive. He hadn’t left the safety of the path, and he’d hurried home too, hadn’t he? And those times digging for worms he’d been with Casey and his father. Not so, now. And it didn’t look like Daisy had any intentions of sticking to the driveway either. She had vanished into the trees.
Tad had passed the garage and was running across the open space of a couple hundred yards that separated the house and garage from the trees. “Daze!” he hissed, in a loud whisper, sure he was far enough away so he wouldn’t be overheard. He felt still an irrationality to what he was doing, but something else had come into his mind as well, his mother’s voice, speaking to him, admonishing, only a few days before. Here’s the thing of it. You’re getting older, and getting older means more responsibility. It means more freedom too, but the responsibility has to come first. You’ll be able to make more choices for yourself. Well, here was a choice, but what exactly was the responsible thing to do? “The hell with responsible,” Tad said. “I’m handling this myself.” And he stepped into the trees, at the spot where he thought he’d last seen his sister.
Not far from where Tad was struggling with his internal compass, Daisy was moving diagonally through the trees, heading deeper into the forest. She seemed entirely unperturbed, but then, she hardly seemed aware of where she was or what she was doing either. She moved with the same half-step shuffle, her arms hanging at her sides, eyes nearly closed. Still, she avoided the trees and underbrush effortlessly, steering clear of obstacles in the dark as easily as any other nocturnal creature. As she went, she kept up the same slurred conversation, an ongoing diatribe devoid of any recognizable words, sometimes breaking into a wheezing chuckle that started in her chest and died around the throat, never quite making it to her lips. Sometimes she nodded slowly as if agreeing with someone. Ahead of her now stretched the three strands of barbed wire that marked the western boundary of the Surrey’s property.
All about, the nighttime forest was alive. The trees bent toward one another, straining and whispering. Sometimes they seemed to shake with silent laughter. Tad moved with the same frantic awkwardness that had propelled him through his dream a few minutes before. Shadows became Daisy, became shadows again. He had the sudden wild fear that time was speeding up again, that the night was almost spent. He slapped at his pockets, but he’d left his grandfather’s watch back at the house. He looked up to try to get his bearings by the position of the moon, but the branches above him had threaded their rough fingers together in a tightly knit embrace, and through them the light of no heavenly body could penetrate. The darkness had become so absolute that it had taken on a solid quality. He realized he was no longer sure in which direction the house lay, and which direction led to the fence that marked the border, as he had lately begun to think of it, between his world and Daddy’s. It was a name he didn’t even want to think of at this time, in this place. If I think of him he’ll know it. If I speak his name he’ll appear. Is he out here somewhere, taking down the night’s flavor in his little notebook? Can he see in the dark with his mad eyes? If Daisy comes to the fence, will she duck between the wires and just keep on going? Or will she run right into it and cut herself to shreds in the dark like so much coleslaw? He broke into a fast trot again, almost running. He wanted very much to call out her name, but he didn’t want to break the silence. He was afraid of what, or who, might answer. But I have to call to her. It’s my only hope of finding her now. “Daze?” he said. It was little more than a squeak. He took a deep breath, balled his hands into fists, and sang out “DAISY!” Somewhere ahead of him and to his right there was a crashing as something bounded away. He could hear a heavy body tearing through the brush. Then stillness again. “DAISY!” he called again even louder, and there was a noise directly behind him, and a bright light flared, throwing shadows of trees leaping for cover. He spun toward it, temporarily blinded. “Who’s there?” he cried, holding his hands in front of his face. “Who is it?”
“Who in the heck do you think?” a familiar voice said, and then Tad knew that everything was going to be fine. It was the voice of Walt Surrey. The powerful beam of the flashlight lowered to the ground, and his father’s large body slowly materialized, separating itself from the other dim shapes. He was holding the heavy chrome flashlight in his left hand that Tad recognized from years before, when the two of them and Casey had gone hunting for night crawlers. In his right arm he held Daisy, whose head lolled against his shoulder. Tad could not see he
r face; her hair was hanging in the way. He could see bits of leaves clinging to it.
“Pa,” he said. It was impossible to keep the relief out of his voice. But when he looked into his father’s face, the feeling began to fade, and the thought of the consequences this night would surely bring began to intrude. Tad had a hard time reading his father under most circumstances, and this moment was no exception. “Pa?”
“Take the flashlight, son,” Walt said. He held it out, and Tad stepped slowly over and took it from him, and Walt shifted Daisy to a more comfortable position in his arms. She moaned fitfully and clung to his shirt. Her eyes were closed. “Follow me, now,” Walt said, and he made off without another word. To Tad it seemed that they were moving in the wrong direction.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“Home. Where do you think?”
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?”
“Reckon I know where I’m going on my own land.”
Tad trained the flashlight ahead of them and hurried to keep up with his father’s long stride. “Pa?” he said again.
“What?”
“Is Daisy all right?”
“I reckon.”
“How did you find her?”
“Caught sight of her slippin’ through the fence. I run to catch up but lost her again. Finally found her in this open space in the trees, up Roy KcKenton’s land a ways. She was just hunkered down on a big sawn-off tree stump, and I come and picked her up. She didn’t never wake.”
“How did you know we were gone?”
“Heard you all walkin’ around, and I looked out the window and seen you crossin’ the yard. Now hush up. I don’t aim to talk about this any more now.” Tad fell silent, and he and his father walked on, passing like ghosts in the night. Every now and then he would look up at his sister’s head bobbing along, but Daisy did not wake. They came out of the trees and met with the driveway a few hundred yards from where Tad had entered the woods. They approached the house, neither of them speaking. Tad could see lights burning in the downstairs windows. As they walked up the steps onto the porch the phone rang shrilly from inside. They stepped across the threshold into the living room and Walt nodded toward the nearer couch, indicating that Tad should sit. His mother was standing by his father’s easy chair holding the phone.
“Hello,” she said. Then, more sharply, “Hello!” Her face drawn, the lines in her forehead and cheeks standing out sharply in the harsh lamplight. She replaced the receiver. Tad wanted to ask who it had been, but decided against it. His mother seated herself. They sat in an invasive silence until Walt descended the stairs. He came through the dining room to join them in the living room, bypassed Marta and stood in the center of the floor. He clasped his hands in front of him and turned his eyes upward for a moment as though waiting for some sign to begin. Then he lowered his eyes to the face of his younger son and began speaking. Tad started to rub the palms of his hands together, stopped, and started again.
“Somethin’ is goin’ on round here,” Walt said. “And I don’t know what it is.” His voice was very even. Very steady. He maintained eye contact with Tad as he spoke. Tad knew this style of behavior from a few scattered instances of watching his father at work, down at Busey’s auto body. This manner of speaking and acting was reserved for the occasions when one of the other mechanics who worked under him was giving him lip, or being otherwise unreasonable or confrontational. Walt Surrey could be an intimidating presence, when he wanted to be, and he didn’t achieve the effect by posturing or raising his voice. He became frightfully calm, and stiflingly courteous, and those that knew him well, like his own children, were aware that this was a time to tread with great care. “So before we proceed any further,” he said, “I’d like to give you the opportunity now, if there’s anythin’ that you’d like to tell your mother and me about.” He waited, during which time several explanations for his behavior flashed through Tad’s brain, each less plausible than the last. “Anythin’ at all.”
“No sir. There isn’t anything.” Tad felt that this tactic was tied in closely to another one of his father’s sayings, that this particular month was worth a point to Daisy every time he said it where both of them could hear- give a man enough rope, he’ll hang himself every time. The key here was to keep up the poker face and not wilt beneath that stern gaze. Tad stopped rubbing his hands together and stuffed them in his pockets, like a person trying not to scratch an itch.
His father nodded, as if he’d been expecting nothing other than this response. The lines on his mother’s face tightened, as if she’d bitten into something sour. “So you wouldn’t know of anythin’, say, that’s goin’ on with your sister.”
“No sir.”
Walt let out a long breath, slowly. “You all know that we don’t like to talk about that girls’ condition overly much. The fact is, for a long spell we haven’t needed to. She gets good marks in school, and we do all we can to make her feel welcome here at home.” Marta reached out from the chair where she sat and took hold of her husband’s right hand. He looked down toward her as if momentarily surprised she was still there. Then he took his hand away. “But you know that your mother and me, we worry about her an awful lot. She don’t have a lot of friends, she keeps to herself, and she stays up in that attic all the time. And all that’s fine,” he said. “Just fine.” He was looking up at the ceiling again. “But the point I’m tryin’ to make is that she don’t really open up to nobody. Except maybe you. The two of you is close.” Walt nodded, as if confirming this to himself. “The two of you is close, but I don’t know what she tells you, and I don’t know what she doesn’t. Maybe she doesn’t tell you anything. But the point that I’m tryin’ to make is that if there was somethin’ goin’ on with your sister that was worth knowin’, you’d be the most likely one to know about it. And you say to me that you don’t know anythin’, and that’s all well and good. But let me just say this,” he said, and now he did raise his voice slightly, and he stepped forward and leaned all the way down toward his younger son, and Tad’s eyes widened and he tried to sink into the couch cushions. His father’s eyebrows had dropped down like threatening storm clouds over the unblinking hazel orbs that blazed and snapped with golden sparks and he was trying to burn a hole through Tad, who was squirming in his seat six inches away. “There is somethin’ goin’ on. Anyone can see that, after tonight. This is the first episode she’s had in more than four years, and I had hoped to God it was over and done with and she’d never have another one. The doc said that it’s triggered by stress, so there must be somethin’ in that girl’s life that’s causin’ her problems, more than she normally has. So I’m goin’ to ask you, one more time, if there’s anythin’ going on with her that you know about. And the reason I ask is not because I’m angry with her, or because I’m angry with you, but because your mother and I care about that girl and want what’s best for her. Do you understand me?”
Tad nodded. He did understand, and he also couldn’t remember the last time his father had said so much all at the same time. He might go for a month and not say as much to Tad as he’d said in the last minute; that very fact alone indicated the depth of Walt’s concern. But Tad still didn’t have anything to say. He didn’t know what had caused Daisy’s episode, and he wasn’t about to share any theories that he might have. So he said nothing, while his father watched him with the lamplight splashed over his face, increasingly ugly, like some disfigured goblin of parental concern, and his mother wrung her hands now too, as if in parody of her son. She in reality only wanting something to hold onto, some solid object to anchor her to the chair and her husband, to keep her from floating away.
“Very well,” Walt said. He straightened up again, and resumed the same outward appearance of calm, and what bothered Tad most was how quickly he seemed to snap back to his previous mindset, the process taking no more than a second. “I have just one more thing I want to ask you, then. Your bein’ her brother, and carin’ about her, and not wan
tin’ her to come to harm, why, when you saw her leavin’ the house in that state, in the middle of the night, did you decide the best thing to do would be to try to sneak out after her, without so much as a flashlight, instead of rousing me? What, I ask you, in Christ’s name, were you thinkin’ about when you did that?”
And Tad had no answer for this either, but one seemed to be required, as his father continued waiting for a reply. “I don’t know, sir. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”
The sky was darkening again. “No,” his father said very quietly. “No.” Again Marta reached out a hand, but this time Walt pulled it fiercely away. “There you’re tellin’ me a lie. Because you were thinking somethin’. There was a thought process that was happenin’ in your mind, when you went and got your shoes on, and snuck downstairs, and closed the door, and ran into the woods screamin’ your damn fool head off. And I don’t know what it was you were thinkin’, and I don’t know what it was that made you decide that was the best course of action to take, but it was the wrong course of action, and you’re lyin’ to me right now, and that I won’t tolerate, and that’s why I’m goin’ to lay into you. Because you may not know what’s goin’ on with your sister, but I know there’s somethin’ goin’ on with you, and if you won’t be honest about it with your mother and me, and if you’re goin’ to be actin’ like a damn fool without a lick of sense, then I reckon you’re not too old for me to take you out to the garage and strap your ass red, so help me God. Then maybe you’ll remember to act in the best interest of others if somethin’ like this ever happens again. Now stand up, and march out to the garage like a man, and let’s get this over with.”
Woods Page 9
