by Jodi Picoult
The house looked like it had been crying, black shutters hanging off their hinges like a fringe of damp eyelashes. Ethan stood back and craned his neck, so that he could see all the way to the top. It was white, or it had been, once. Most of the windows had been broken by local kids years ago. Ivy grew up and over the doorframe, a spotty handlebar mustache.
“Ethan!”
Startled by his uncle’s voice, he raced up the steps. In the entry-way, he froze. Plaster rained down from the ceiling, and the floorboards were thick with dirt. On the walls where patterned paper used to be there were smudged handprints and graffiti: SARI GIVES GOOD HEAD. Underneath the staircase were the remnants of a bonfire and about thirty empty beer bottles.
Ethan glanced from the broken banister to the black hole of an adjoining room, then to the ceiling. So it was creepy, he thought. So what. He squared his thin shoulders, convinced that if he played his cards right, he could get picked for Fear Factor or one of those other reality-TV shows. He could get Uncle Ross to take him along on every case. After all, Ethan only came out at night. Maybe it took one to know one.
He was braver than any other kid he knew . . . not that he knew many kids.
Or so Ethan was telling himself, until a touch on the back of his neck made him jump a foot.
Kerrigan Klieg was the New York Times reporter who did the obligatory vampire piece at Halloween, who wrote about the chemical nature of love for Valentine’s Day, who interviewed the parents of the city’s first millennium baby. In other words, he was a slacker. He didn’t have the heart or the inclination to follow up on police corruption or political stress; his pieces were human interest, although they weren’t all that interesting to Kerrigan himself. What he did like, however, was getting out and about to do the research. To Mercy Brown’s grave in Rhode Island, for example, to see the undead for himself. Or to Johns Hopkins, where researchers were measuring the melatonin levels associated with lust. Kerrigan liked being reminded that there was a world outside the island of Manhattan, one where people actually walked down the streets and looked each other in the eye, instead of pretending they were somewhere or someone else.
You couldn’t beat the combination of elements in this particular piece: a hundred-year-old Indian, a group of frightened townspeople, a real-estate development mogul, and a purported angry ghost. And they were only at the tip of the property—the part with the house on it. Who knew what lurked in the acres of woods behind it?
Kerrigan walked beside Az Thompson, the guy who had called the features editor in the first place, and wondered what the old man had done to stay alive this long. Did he eat yogurt, like on those Dannon commercials? Practice meditation? Inject B-12? “People have been taking our land away forever,” Thompson said. “But it sure is depressing to think that might keep happening to us, even after we’re dead.”
Kerrigan stepped over a dog that was chewing on an old shoe. “It’s my understanding that Spencer Pike, the owner of the property, hasn’t lived here for some time.”
“Not for twenty years.”
“Do you think he was aware before then that this land was an alleged burial ground?”
The old man stopped in his tracks. “I think Spencer Pike knows a hell of a lot more than what he lets on.”
Now this was interesting. Kerrigan opened his mouth to ask another question but was distracted by a man and a kid walking inside. “Who are they?”
“Rumor says it’s someone van Vleet hired,” Thompson said. “To make sure there are no ghosts.” He turned to the reporter. “What do you think?”
Kerrigan was used to doing the interviewing, not to being interviewed. “That the whole thing makes for a great story,” he answered carefully.
“You ever wake up with someone else’s dream on your tongue? Or slip on your boots to find them filled with snow, in August? You ever seen squash blossoms vine up through a sink drain overnight, Mr. Klieg?”
“Well, no, I haven’t.”
Thompson nodded. “Stick around,” he said.
When Ross put his hand on his nephew’s neck, the boy nearly leaped out of his skin. “Ethan,” Ross said, “you okay with this?”
Ethan was shaking in his shoes. “Yeah. Oh, yeah, sure, I’m totally cool.”
“Because I can take you home. It’s not a problem.” Ross stared soberly at Ethan. “You can tell everyone I was the one who wouldn’t let you stay.”
In response, Ethan took hold of the splintered railing on the stairs and started to climb.
With a sigh, Ross followed. Maybe Ethan wanted to be here, but he sure as hell didn’t. When van Vleet had asked him to investigate some of the paranormal phenomena at the Pike property, he’d refused. And then he’d seen his sister watching him, waiting.
He’d set four conditions. First, Ross was in charge of the investigation, and would take orders from no one, including the head of the Redhook Group himself. Second, the only people allowed on the property during the investigation would be Ross and his assistant—Ethan, to the boy’s utter surprise and delight. Third, Ross wanted no information about the history of the property until he asked for it— otherwise, the impressions he got might be tainted. Fourth, he would take no money for his services—unlike the Warburtons, who would give any client a ghost, for the right amount of cash.
In return, Ross promised to keep this investigation “quiet.” Because the Powers That Be at the Redhook Group didn’t want the entire world to know they might actually be giving credence to a belief in the supernatural.
So now, here he was, setting up for a night observation and falling back into the familiar as if it were a featherbed. Ethan waited at the top of the stairs like a zealous puppy. “Put the camera down,” Ross instructed. “Let’s do a walkthrough and see if you get anything.”
“Get anything? Like what?”
Ross had to stop and think for a moment. How did you explain to a kid the sensation of splitting your mind at its seams, so that every scent and sight left an imprint? How did you describe the feeling of the air growing heavy as a blanket, settling over your ribs? “Close your eyes,” Ross said, “and tell me what you see.”
“But—”
“Just do it.”
Ethan was silent at first. “Light . . . shooting out from the corners.”
“Okay.” Ross gently turned him in a circle, like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Then he steadied Ethan’s shoulders. “Now . . . without peeking . . . where are the stairs?”
“Behind me,” Ethan said, the wonder of this sixth sense shaking through his voice.
“How do you know?”
“It . . . well, it feels like a hole in the air back there.”
Ross pivoted Ethan, then tapped him on the head hard enough to make his eyes fly open. “Good job, Boy Wonder. That was lesson number one.”
“What’s lesson number two?”
“To stop asking for lessons.”
Ross walked through the hallway. Any furniture or family relics that had been in this home were long gone, their original placement marked only by the fading of the paint or scuff marks on the filthy floor. The upstairs held three small bedrooms and a bath. A staircase led up to a tiny servant’s alcove.
“Uncle Ross? When will they get here?”
“If there are ghosts, they’re already here.” Ross peeked into the bathroom. The claw-footed tub was there, cracked in the middle, and an old commode with an overhead tank. “In fact, they’re probably checking us out. If they decide they like what they see, they’ll try to get our attention a little later.”
When Ethan turned the faucet, a brown residue leaked out. “Do they care that we’re here?”
“They might.” Ross felt along the window, examining the seal. “Some ghosts are desperate to get someone to notice them. But some ghosts don’t know they’re dead at all. They’re gonna see us and wonder why we’re in their house. That is,” he challenged loudly, “if there are even any here.”
Come and get me, Ross thought.
“Uncle Ross? Is Aimee a ghost?”
He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and it had nothing to do with the paranormal—only true, human shock. “I don’t know, Ethan.” He shoved aside the image of Aimee that rose to his mind, like a mermaid surfacing from the otherworld of the ocean. “Dying . . . well, I think it’s like taking a bus. Most people, they enjoy the ride and go on to whatever comes next. But some people get off before that last stop.”
“Maybe she got off to see you.”
“Maybe,” Ross said. He turned away, intent on heading up the stairs before he embarrassed himself in front of his nephew.
“Why do you think the ghost that lives here got off the bus?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if—”
“Ethan,” Ross interrupted. “Shh.” He turned in a circle, trying to catch onto the minnow of a thought that swam through his mind, too quicksilver to show itself clearly. Trying to focus, he leaned over the railing to frown at the filth littering the base of the stairs, at the quiet twitching of rodents. He glanced at a hornet’s nest in the corner.
Other organic detritus netted the hall—spider filaments and dust mites, moss and mold—the thriving scars of negligence and damp weather. Ross walked into the bedroom that looked out onto the rear of the property. There, the wooden planking was black with dirt, and strewn with broken pottery and candy bar wrappers. But the ceiling was as bare as if it had been swept clean that morning. Not a single cobweb, no fungus, no insects. In spite of the condition of the rest of the residence, no living organism had taken root in this room for some time.
Ross turned to his nephew. “This,” he said, “is where we’ll set up.”
“I don’t know what happened,” said Lucy’s camp counselor, a girl so young she might have passed for a child herself. She hurried Meredith down a path toward the supply shed, inside which Lucy had locked herself forty-five minutes ago. “One minute she was playing dodgeball, and the next minute she ran away screaming.”
One of Meredith’s heels caught on a rock and nearly sent her pitching forward. Did she have Lucy’s medicine? If she was scared, so scared she couldn’t be coaxed out of the dark, she was probably having an asthma attack. “We called home right away,” the counselor said. “Your mother said she can’t drive.”
“My grandmother,” Meredith corrected absently. In her late seventies, Ruby was smart as a tack, but she no longer felt comfortable behind a wheel. She’d called Meredith at the lab. An emergency, she’d said.
They had reached a small wooden building at the edge of the woods. “Lucy?” Meredith rattled the handle. “Lucy, you open this door right now!” She banged against it with her fist, twice. On the third strike it swung forward on its hinges, and Meredith crawled inside.
The stale heat hit first. A net bag filled with rubber kick-balls to form an oversized molecule blocked her from getting to Lucy, who was wheezing hard behind a tower of orange safety cones and badminton racquets. Her daughter clutched a train of purple satin to her chest, the remnant of a costume from an old summer musical. She was crying.
“Here,” Meredith said, handing over the Albuterol, which Lucy dutifully corked into her mouth and sucked in. She had learned long ago that no matter how difficult it was to see your child struggling for air, you could not breathe for her. Her first instinct was to drag Lucy out of this musty closet, for the sake of her asthma; but something told Meredith that not attending to Lucy’s fears first might be equally as damaging. So she slid an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “How come it’s even called Dodge ball?” she mused, as if it were perfectly normal to be holding a conversation here. “I mean, why not Jeep ball or Lexus ball or even Chevrolet ball?”
“You’re supposed to move out of the way.” This, from the side of Meredith’s shoulder, where Lucy had buried herself. “That’s what the dodge is for.”
“Ah.” She nodded slowly. “I probably knew that, once.”
Lucy’s chest was still swelling like a bellows. “It wasn’t the game,” she confessed. “I saw something.”
“Something?”
“Something . . . hanging. In the tree. From a rope.”
“Like a tire swing?”
Lucy shook her head. “Like a lady.”
Meredith forced herself to stay calm. “Will you show me?”
They stumbled outside past Lucy’s counselor, past the arts-and-crafts pavilion, over the narrow bridge at the mouth of the stream to the athletic fields. A new group of campers, all older than Lucy, was playing dodgeball.
“Where?” Meredith asked. Lucy pointed to a grove of trees on her left. Firmly grasping her daughter’s hand, Meredith marched to the base of the tree and glanced up. “No rope,” she said quietly. “Nothing.”
“It was there.” Frustration roughened Lucy’s voice. “It was.”
“Luce. I believe you saw something. I just think that somewhere between your retina and your cerebrum, things got a little screwed up. There’s a perfectly good explanation, one that has nothing to do with a woman hanging from a tree. For example, maybe the sun got in your eyes.”
“Maybe,” Lucy repeated, without a shred of conviction.
“Maybe it was a branch that the wind moved for a second.”
Lucy shrugged.
Suddenly Meredith toed off her heels and handed her lab coat to Lucy. “Hold this,” she said, and she started to climb the tree.
She didn’t get that far—she was wearing a skirt, after all, and was in her stocking feet—but managed to reach an overhead branch, where she perched like an outsized squirrel. By now, all the campers in the field were watching, and even Lucy had a tiny smile on her face. “Nope,” Meredith said loudly, willing to play the fool so that at lunchtime and during swimming and on the bus ride home, campers would be talking about the crazy woman in the oak tree instead of the frightened kid who’d run away screaming. “Luce, the coast is perfectly clear . . . oh . . . oh!” With a calculated tumble that would have done Ringling Brothers proud, Meredith fell out of the tree, landing in a squat, and then rolling to the side until she came to rest a few yards away.
She was filthy and scraped and her hair had fallen out of its barrette, but Lucy put her hands on either side of Meredith’s face. “It might have been the sun in my eyes,” Lucy whispered.
Meredith folded her daughter into her arms. “That’s my brave girl,” she said, fully aware that neither of them believed a single word they’d said.
Eli Rochert did not want to wake up. He knew this as well as he knew the perfume that seemed to surround him in his dreams, a curious blend of apples and rainwater; as well as he recognized the pitch of a woman’s voice, floating like a note that had never existed on any musical scale. He had only gone to bed two hours ago, having pulled a double shift to keep the Indians and the developers from coming to blows. But the telephone would not stop ringing, and finally he reached out from the cocoon of his bedclothes and snatched the receiver. “What?” he growled.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Rochert. Is she available?”
“No.”
“Can you tell me when she might return?”
Never, thought Eli, with a pang beneath his ribs that, even after all this time, surprised him. He hung up the phone without answering, then rolled onto his belly, only to find Watson hogging the pillow. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Eli muttered, shoving the dog’s muzzle away. From within the folds of his face, Watson blinked, then snuffled right back down where he’d been.
“I should have never let you sleep on the bed,” Eli said aloud, his back pressed along the broad spine of his hound. He heard Watson begin to snore, and that wa
s when he knew he wasn’t going to be able to will himself back into his dreams. Throwing back the covers, Eli got out of bed and padded into the kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents.
His doctor had told him that he should give up eating red meat, which would have been fine for most people, but devastating to Eli, who considered it one of two food groups (the other being potatoes). To this end, the insides of his refrigerator were as uninspiring as some of the vegetarian recipes he’d downloaded off the Internet—two jars of mustard, milk that smelled suspicious, a six-pack—hallelujah, a lunch meat that might have been turkey a week or three ago, and tofu—a food he positively did not trust, because it slid down one’s throat like a rumor.
Cool air spilled over his boxers and pooled at his feet. Eli closed the refrigerator door as the telephone began to ring again. He reached for the kitchen extension. “Hello?”
“I was hoping to speak to Mrs. Rochert?”
Eli counted to ten. “Mrs. Rochert is not here. Mrs. Rochert left approximately seven years and six months ago, in the company of the guy who happened to be fucking her at the time. She took all the money in our savings account, our cat, and my favorite sweatshirt. She explained to me just before she walked out the door that it wasn’t about me, because I hadn’t been around enough for her to make that sort of assessment, although in my defense all I’d been doing was working my ass off to get money to put into the bank account that she liquidated. The last I heard, she was living in New Mexico, but I’m going strictly on the grapevine here. So, no, you cannot speak to Mrs. Rochert, no matter how much you’re hoping to. And in fact, should you get the opportunity to speak to her, you might want to let her know that you’re only the first in line.”
By the time Eli finished, he was breathing hard. It made up for the silence on the other end of the receiver.
“Oh,” he heard, finally, faintly.
