by Rick Hautala
“Shit!” Julia shouted, pulling her hand away from the door and staring at the dot of blood that welled up like a ruby bead. A tiny splinter was sticking out of her palm. It was easy enough to grab it with her fingernails and pull it out. Squeezing with her thumb and forefinger, she forced the blood to flow and then put the cut to her mouth and sucked on it. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, and she spat onto the ground.
A soft chuckle sounded from the darkness inside the barn drew her attention. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked wide-eyed through the opening, wondering if that had been laughter or the sighing of the wind in the grass.
Leaning forward but being careful not to enter, she looked around inside, trying to pierce the gloom. The musty smell of old hay filled her nostrils as she looked at the broken-down stalls, the collapsed workbench, the rickety ladder and trapdoor leading up to the hayloft, and the arching beams of the roof, no doubt populated with spiders and bats, The spaces between planks on the roof where shingles had been torn away let in brilliant shafts of sunlight, but as soon as the pure light of day entered the barn, it seemed to be swallowed up by the dusty shadows. If it was possible, the place seemed more decayed on the inside than it did on the outside.
If from a distance she had seen motion inside the doorway, there wasn’t any evidence of it now. The only sound was the harsh whistle of wind as it whisked through cracks and holes in the barn. The only motion was the gentle swirl of dust spun up into the rafters by the breeze where it spiraled in the beams of sunlight.
“Don’t go in there,” a voice said behind her.
Julia spun around with a frightened squeal and broke into a relieved smile when she saw John coming toward her from the woods. After casting a cautious backward glance into the barn, she started moving toward him, smiling and waving. She couldn’t believe how happy she was to see him even as she hoped he hadn’t noticed how much he had surprised her.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked when they met in the middle of the field.
Taken aback by the hostile tone in his voice, Julia refrained from hugging him as they looked each other in the eyes. After the gloom of the barn, the brilliant sunlight made her eyes water.
“I wanted to see you,” she stammered. “See what you were doing.”
“You shouldn’t be snooping around,” John said.
The tension in his body more than bothered her — it frightened her. It was as if she had caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, and he hadn’t appreciated the interruption.
“I was just taking a peek inside the bam,” Julia said defensively. “This is Haskins’ barn, right?”
John nodded.
“I think old places like this are interesting. “
“You’ve got to be careful,” John said, his voice low but still sounding unnaturally tight. “An old relic like this could collapse without warning.”
“I don’t think there’s any danger.” Julia looked back over her shoulder at the barn. “It’s lasted this long. I say it’ll hold up a few more winters.”
John shrugged. “It’ll all be gone in a few weeks, anyway.”
“Kind of a pity, don’t you think?” Julia’s mind was filled by the sense of loneliness, the same wistful feelings for the long-gone past she had experienced out in the field.
“Why’d you come out here, anyway?” John asked sharply.
“I saw your car and figured you were working around here. You didn’t hear me calling?’’
John shook his head. “Nope. I was checking the farthest boundary line over there.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the woods.
Julia squinted and, looking out across the field, was struck by something curious. If he had been off in the woods not too far from the big oak tree where she had been, why hadn’t he heard? Why hadn’t he answered? He certainly would have been close enough.
“Everything okay at the house?” John asked.
Julia nodded, but she noticed how he still seemed agitated — as though she had interrupted him doing … something.
“Yeah … Sure,” she said vacantly as she looked across the field. “Everything’s fine. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about out here, is all.” She paused, then added, “I thought you said Barry was helping you today.”
John hesitated, then said, “He left a while ago — probably pulled out just before you got here. You must have passed him on the road.”
Julia shook her head, fairly positive she hadn’t passed any cars on her way out here. What bothered her even more was the feeling that John was lying to her … hiding something from her. If she’d had a more suspicious nature — and if she hadn’t known John as well as she did — she might have suspected he was meeting a woman. But the idea that John was having an affair was ridiculous. Even if, by some remote chance, he was meeting someone he didn’t want her to know about, why would they meet out here, on a cold, windy field or in Haskins’ barn?
Julia told herself she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t screwing around, but then, what was he doing out here apparently alone?
“Did you leave your surveying equipment in the woods?” she asked, looking past him toward the lines of trees.
John glanced over his shoulder, his eyes momentarily widening. Then he shook his head. “No — it’s all down by the road near the house. I was — uh, walking the boundary line. It was all mapped out before I got the job.”
“I see,” Julia said simply, noticing that he didn’t have any surveyor’s maps with him. She was convinced, now, that earlier, when she was sure someone had been watching her, it had been John, hiding in the woods and not wanting her to know he was there … at least until he yelled at her not to go into the barn.
But why? she wondered.
Was she being ridiculous, suspecting something was going on that she wasn’t supposed to know?
Was the truth simply that Barry had left early, and John was walking the boundary line alone … that he hadn’t heard her calling him … and that he first saw her just as she was entering the barn?
Or was there more?
“I haven’t had lunch yet, and I’m hungry as a bear,” John said. “If Dad and Bri are all squared away, how ‘bout we head into town and get something. There’s a lobster house in Yarmouth that used to be the best in the area. Let’s see if it’s still there.”
“Sure,” Julia said. “I’m not that hungry, but I’ll join you. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about your father.”
“What now?”
“We had a bit of a religious discussion this morning.”
“Oh, boy,” John said. When he rolled his eyes upward, it reminded Julia of Frank when he had his momentary memory lapses.
“Nothing serious,” Julia said. “We can talk about it over lunch. I’ll get your car and bring it around. Why don’t I meet you in front of the house over there?”
They each started out across the field in different directions. Julia was enjoying the prospect of lunch with just the two of them, something they hadn’t done for so long. The thought of what John might have been hiding from her receded. She leaned her head back and inhaled the fresh ocean air.
As she passed the open barn door, still swinging back and forth with the gusting wind, she couldn’t forget the sensation she had had of seeing motion in the darkness inside. She couldn’t push aside the conviction that someone had been hiding somewhere nearby … watching her with icy hatred.
Julia shivered and didn’t start to feel better until she was well past the barn. She jumped and cast one last fearful glance backward when the door slammed open with a resounding bang against the barn wall. She forced herself not to look too intently inside, and most of all, she tried not to speculate who or what might be waiting there in the darkness.
V
“I always thought he was bad, and by the sound of things, he’s gotten worse,” John said. He tipped his head back and sucked noisily on one of the small lobster legs. When he ha
d gotten out the tiny nugget of meat and swallowed it, he wiped his chin with his napkin and took a sip of beer.
Julia sat with her hands folded in her lap. She hadn’t been hungry, and she had never much cared for lobster, but John had insisted that she try a “real” Maine lobster. Watching him work at his, though, had taken away what little appetite she might have had.
“Maybe we can put mine in a doggie bag,” she said, frowning as she pushed her plate away.
“They’re best hot out of the pot,” John said. He took his lobster and ripped off one of the large claws. Using a nutcracker, he broke the shell and extracted the wad of speckled pink meat.
“Sorry. I’m going to have to pass,” Julia said. Her stomach churned as she watched him dip the meat into the melted butter and stuff it into his mouth.
“So, anyway,” John said, chewing as he spoke, “you and the old man squared off, huh?”
Julia nodded.
“And you think you came out on top?” He chuckled. “That’d be a first.”
“What was he like as a father?” Julia asked. “You’ve told me some before, but you never got into the religion part.”
John smirked as he wiped his hands on his napkin and then stared out the window at the bay for a moment.
“I don’t think he was into it as much when I was growing up. Certainly not as bad as you make it sound now. We’d go to church and all, but it was never hellfire and damnation like you said he laid on you.”
“Not exactly hellfire and damnation, but he was really pushy about it, saying there was only one way to get to God and going on about how Halloween is a holiday for Satan.”
“That I’ve heard before.” John snorted with laughter before taking another drink of beer. Julia was glad to see him actually relaxing and enjoying himself.
Maybe, she was thinking, this is all we needed … to get out together now and again … just the two of us …
“I always figured he’d end up a Bible-thumper,” John said, still snickering. “Especially after my mother died. I think it’s some kind of guilt thing because he feels like maybe he was responsible for her dying.”
John suddenly started coughing so hard his face turned bright red, and his eyes began to water. It took a while for the fit of coughing to subside, but when it was over, he wiped his face with a fresh napkin and smiled weakly at his wife.
“You okay there?” she asked, settling back into her seat.
John nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding strangled. “I … I must’ve swallowed down the wrong pipe.”
‘‘I’m not surprised, the way you’re gobbling up that lobster,” Julia said. “We’re not in any hurry.”
“Yeah,” John said, stretching out his arm and looking at his wristwatch. “But can we talk about something besides my father?”
“Sure,” Julia said, and they turned their conversation to things other than Frank or John’s condo site or Bri’s problems making friends at school. Their time in the restaurant and their drive back to the island passed too fast, and looking back on it, Julia realized it was one of the last times they had a genuinely good time together.
EIGHT
Trick or Treat
I
Off and on all week, Julia wondered if Bri was planning on going trick-or-treating. Granted, she was a bit old for it, but last year she and several of her friends had dressed up and gone out and had a great time. Julia was hoping Bri had made friends with at least a few kids at school so she wouldn’t sit home moping all evening.
At four-thirty, as the sky was darkening, Bri got the bowl of candy from its hiding place on the top cupboard shelf and placed it on the small table in the entryway. She opened the front door and stared up at the thin branches of the trees, which looked like black lace against the fading sky.
“So, you’re not going after all?” Julia said when she walked into the living room and found Bri leaning out the door.
Bri shrugged, shut the door, and went over to sit in the armchair, her feet splayed awkwardly in front of her. She grunted a reply, but Julia didn’t need to catch it.
“How about that girl you told me about? … Audrey?”
Again Bri sniffed. Leaning forward, she reached around the doorjamb and grabbed a bag of M&Ms. She peeled it open and popped several into her mouth, chewing noisily as she stared blankly at the floor.
“I haven’t seen her since that time out on the point,” she said. A thin glob of chocolate formed at the side of her mouth, and she wiped it away with her fingers, then licked her fingers clean.
“Why don’t you give her a call?” Julia said. “It’s not too late to throw something together for a costume.”
Bri shook her head and dumped some more M&Ms into her mouth. After chewing and swallowing, she looked at her mother and said, “Her name’s not in the phone book. I already checked.” She moved to grab another bag of candy, but her mother stepped forward quickly and gave her a light rap on the back of the hand. “Leave something for the kids.”
Bri frowned and turned back around in the chair with a sigh.
“She doesn’t want to be friends, I guess,” Bri said, and Julia could see her lower lip trembling. “We talked that day and … that’s all.”
“You said you thought she seemed nice,” Julia said.
“I guess I was wrong,” Bri said. Now that her mother had moved over to the couch, she snatched another bag of candy uncontested, except for the frown Julia gave her.
“I kinda hoped we’d have a class together or something, so we could get to know each other, but I haven’t seen her all week. She must be in high school.”
“Gotta be if after two weeks you still haven’t bumped into her.”
“I thought I saw her a few times, but — I don’t know.” She shook her head as though unable to put the pieces of the mystery together.
“Did you ask any of the other kids about her?” Julia asked.
Julia was thinking back to her own high school days, and to one of her classmates in particular. Her name was Ann Clifford, and she had been the “new kid” the beginning of sophomore year. She had been so quiet and withdrawn the kids nicknamed her “Phantom.” Slowly, though, as the school year went on, Phantom loosened up, and she and Julia became close friends — at least until they went their separate ways after graduation. But several of the students never did accept her into their tight little circles.
Julia had no idea what to tell Bri. If Audrey was the class scapegoat, one of the school’s loners, it would be nice of Bri to befriend her. The expression “misery loves company” kept drifting through her mind, but she dismissed that. The cliché she thought of to counter it was, “Still waters run deep.” On the other hand, if Audrey was a social misfit — and no one was better than junior high school students at tagging and tormenting social misfits — it wasn’t going to help Bri’s acceptance into the school social structure to associate with her.
“I asked a couple of the girls, but they said there wasn’t anybody named Audrey Church in the school. I think they might have been putting me on.”
“They must have been, unless Audrey doesn’t go to school. You said she acted sort of standoffish, talking about her home life. Maybe she’s dropped out.”
“I dunno,” Bri said. “Maybe her parents work and she has to stay home to do housework or take care of a younger brother or sister or something. “
“Maybe that’s it. Both her parents work, and she stays home to baby-sit. Dad drove Granddad over to his lodge meeting tonight, but when they get home, I’ll ask Frank about the family. He should know them if there are anyone named “Church” lives on the island.”
Bri shrugged as though it didn’t matter anymore, but before she could say anything, there was the sound of running feet on the front walkway, and a chorus of voices hollering, “Trick-or-treat!”
Bri and her mother went to the door to see the troop of costumed children on the doorstep. As Bri put a handful of candy into each bag as
it opened up in front of her, she addressed each child as the character he or she was. The tally was one witch, two ghosts, and — what sent Julia into near-hysterics — an IRS auditor, complete with blood-splattered rubber ax in hand. Seeing a knot of parents standing down by the road edge, Julia waved, but only one of them waved back.
After that first round of kids, only two other groups showed up to the door that evening. It wasn’t for lack of trick-or-treaters out and about. From the living room window, Julia saw dozens of children, white sheets or vampire capes flapping behind them as they raced up and down the street. The streetlight cast long, lean shadows on the street. But not many of the trick-or-treaters came up the walk to the Carlsons’ door.
“I guess we’ll have plenty of M&Ms left over,” Bri said, once it was obvious their house was off limits.
“Don’t let your father find them, all right?” Julia said, winking.
“No problem,” Bri said, smiling thinly. “But how come they’re not coming up here?”
Julia shrugged as she went to the window and looked out on the now fully dark street. Eerie, silhouetted figures flashed by under the corner streetlight, but she could tell there wouldn’t be any more visitors tonight unless they got a late-night window soaping.
“Probably because Granddad hasn’t given out Halloween candy in years,” Julia said.
“How do you know that?” Bri asked, opening another bag of M&Ms and filling her mouth.
Not wanting to get into the “religious” discussion she and Frank had that afternoon, she shushed Bri and went to turn off the light over the front steps. She took what was left of the candy and walked into the kitchen.
“I thought you said I could have it,” Bri said, following behind her.
“I just said to keep it away from you father,” Julia said. “Looks like I have to keep it away from you, too.” She opened the cupboard and put the bowl up onto the top shelf and then swung the door shut. “You’ll know where to find it tomorrow.”
