by Dalya Moon
Embarrassed by the volunteer overhearing my greedy talk about Rudy's fortune, I head for the stairs to go down a floor. James stays behind to talk about hunting foxes.
Wandering around the maze of rooms, I could easily forget who I am, the season, and even the year. A boy's bedroom, painted dark green, speaks to me, telling me to step over the rope and play with the train set, but I mustn't. I wonder if the bed is a real antique, or if underneath the hand-stitched blankets is a bottom-of-the-line, mass-produced mattress.
Gravity pulls at my eyelids. This room is the perfect shade of green, not too bright and not too dark, but just right. And the bed is so soft. I'm so warm and happy here.
Chapter Sixteen
A voice barks out, “Sir! Step back over the rope!”
I open my eyes, surprised to see the thin man standing in the doorway. Why's he in my room? I'm confused, because I'm just lying on my bed, like I always do for my afternoon nap. Soon I'll play with my trains, then Clara will call us for dinner.
“Sir!”
Like a splash of cold water, I remember who I am and roll off the bed as best I can without disturbing the blankets.
“I'm sorry,” I say. “I must be dehydrated. I don't remember ...”
There's a big frown under the volunteer's thin mustache. “Normally I would have to escort you out, but just between us, some of the rooms have been heating up lately. You're not the first one who's succumbed to that bed. This is why we warn people to tour in pairs at minimum.”
“I, uh, didn't know.” I squeeze past him, out of the room and into the hall, where the air is chilly by comparison.
He tilts up my chin and studies my eyes. “You'll be fine, but you'd best seek a companion.”
“What do you mean by heating up? Is the heating system malfunctioning?”
“If only it were that simple. I'm afraid it's the spirits at work.” His face brightens. “Say, why don't you and your friends volunteer for a spot? We could use some young, fresh blood.”
“I'll think about it,” I say politely as I make my way down the flight of stairs. They must really be hurting for volunteers if they're making up ghost stories to try and entice people. No thanks, buddy, I already have one ghost sending me crow-mails. Heh. Crow-mails.
On the next floor, I find Austin in one of the plainer rooms, one of the maid's quarters. “Zan! Come look at this old photo. The girl is wearing a necklace exactly like mine.”
I step into the room, noting the temperature seems to be equivalent to the hall. “Bah!” I take a step back again.
“What's wrong?” Austin asks.
I don't mean to be rude, but the young woman in the photograph—if it is a woman—is the ugliest girl I've ever seen. The photographer could have probably positioned the lights to be more flattering, but he didn't have a lot to work with. I know it's wrong to judge people by their looks, and honestly I try not to, but sometimes photographs scare me, especially when the eyes seem to be looking right at you.
I clear my throat and step in again.
“Poor homely girl,” Austin says. “I feel sorry for her. Still, you would imagine they had tweezers even in those days. There's no excuse for all that eyebrow, really, unless it's hiding something else.”
“She has a nice … she looks sturdy. Healthy.” I take a closer look at the necklace. My head is still fuzzy from my mini-nap upstairs, and the photo seems to swim in front of me. “I guess your necklace looks similar to hers. Though the Historical Society is pretty enthusiastic about acquiring the family's things to display in the house. You'd better not let anyone see your necklace.”
Austin makes an exaggerated gasp, holding both hands over her mouth, kicking one foot up behind her as though posing for a pin-up picture.
“Hey weirdos,” James says, entering the room. “You guys making out in here?” He throws his hands in the air suddenly. “HOUND GIRL!”
I take another look at the inscription under the photo: Simone, date unknown.
“I don't think it's The Hound Girl,” I say. “This is a maid's room, so it's probably one of the servants.”
Austin tucks her necklace inside her shirt, where the pendant can't be seen, then the three of us continue our tour together.
Some of the rooms haven't been restored or decorated, and a cracked linoleum flooring install in the '60s covers the original hardwood. During its history, the mansion was the base of operations for City Hall, before their new and current building was built. Gran works there now, in an office that is decidedly less interesting than a spooky old mansion.
The rooms awaiting restoration echo hollowly with sadness, caught between two times and forever neglected.
After a dozen more rooms, I'm ready to leave. The formula for each area is the same: old stuff artfully arranged on top of old furniture in old rooms, all decorated the same. The rooms and antiques are authentic and wonderful, I'm sure, but after a bit they're homogenous and not terribly exciting. No wonder the volunteers talk up the ghosts.
What would be cool, and what I would do if I were the head of the Historical Society, would be to make some creatively anachronistic rooms. Like, you push open a door expecting a boring pink ladies' sitting room and it's actually a movie theater and video game room with surround sound. They could still have all the antique stuff, but reupholstered in black leather. Some of these couches would look really sweet in black leather.
“I could stay here all day,” Austin says.
“You'd get hungry,” I counter, hoping she doesn't mean it.
Something makes a terrifying grumbling noise.
“Sorry,” James says. “Did somebody say hungry?”
* * *
After our tour of the mansion, we visit the gift shop at the bottom floor. I would have thought they'd sell antique-looking things, but the shelves are filled with the same colorful ceramic frog figurines, flower-covered photo frames and corny fridge magnets you'd find anywhere. The only thing relevant are a few books about the history of the mansion.
Now my stomach is growling too, so we drive over to The Bean, the coffee shop where Austin works.
We snack on the half-price vegan cinnamon buns from the day before. They're not bad, considering they're butter-free. The day-olds are supposed to be for takeout only, not for dirtying up plates inside the cafe, but since Austin is with us, we're allowed.
We take a seat away from the windows, where the cafe's less crowded, because I have a lot of things to talk to Austin about, and they're not the sort of things I want overheard.
She sips her triple-shot Americano and listens as I tell her all about what she's missed in the last few days, from finding Newt's body in the pawn shop, to the threatening yet unhelpful notes he's been sending me. I tell her about my powers being dysfunctional lately, and James interrupts me when I get to the part about the twin girls at the lake.
“I totally hooked up with those girls,” James says. “In case that wasn't clear from how Mr. Monogamy was telling the story.”
She rolls her eyes. “Sure you did. Two girls had sex with you the same night they met you.”
“That's what you did with Zan,” James says.
Austin's mouth opens, but no words come out. I kick James under the table.
Austin looks down at her cinnamon bun. Changing the topic artfully, she asks me, “What exactly have you figured out so far about Newt's murder?”
I admit to having nothing.
“I don't want you mixed up in any of this voodoo stuff,” she says. “Or witchcraft. Whatever. It was cute at first, but come on. Murder is serious. It's for the police. Just cut it out, okay? Promise me?”
I was expecting a little help from her, but not this. “What am I supposed to do when the next crow-mail comes? Return to sender?”
“Yes. Just ignore it. Ignore it until it goes away. Do not get involved.”
“Fine. Will you poke me in the belly button to see if my power's working again?”
She crosses her arms. “No. Too personal.”
/> “Come on, you've done it lots of times.” I grab her hand and pull it toward me.
“No!” Some people in the coffee shop turn and stare. She tells them she's fine, that we're only joking, and while she's distracted, her hand goes limp. My shirt's already hiked up, so I pull her finger into my belly button and it connects, just briefly, before she yanks it away.
“How dare you!” she says, getting up from her chair, its wood feet scraping the cafe's rough concrete floor.
James says, “Not cool.”
Now everyone in the cafe is definitely looking our way. I should say or do something, but I'm too shocked to move. In that brief instant, my power must have kicked in, albeit dimly and fleetingly. I caught a flash of a vision of Austin. With a gun.
* * *
I don't say anything about the vision of Austin to anyone. I have to assume it was a product of my overactive imagination, because the alternative is too awful. Could Austin have been downtown on Halloween without me seeing her? Could she have shot Newt? Is that why he asked me to solve his murder?
Is that why Austin won't test my power?
James and I leave the coffee shop, though Austin is too annoyed for words and decides to stay behind to talk to her cousin, who's come in after school for her shift.
I'm quiet on the drive back to my house, but James is talking about the twins at the lake, gleefully reliving the experience through words, so he doesn't notice I'm preoccupied.
James pulls the Jeep up in front of my house and asks if I want to hang out and watch TV or something for the next hour, before Gran gets home from work.
Normally, I'd say yes, but I don't feel very normal today, so I make something up about being tired.
“That was a pretty decent day off,” he says.
“Except for my first fight with my girlfriend.”
He looks down at his hands, not meeting my gaze. “I shouldn't have said anything about your first night together. You romantic couple types think that stuff's private.”
“You didn't have to say it so loud.” I put my hand on the door of the Jeep, preparing to step out now that we're at my house, but James throws his arms around me.
“I love you, man,” he says into my shoulder. “Don't ever change.”
“Uh, yeah. Stay gold, Ponyboy.”
He sits up and blinks at me. “You're quoting The Outsiders to me? You DO love me!”
“I do, but equal to Julie. Give her some hug for me, okay?” I step out of the vehicle and wave.
He's grinning, because everything is peachy in his world. He doesn't have a weight on his shoulders about a crime he had nothing to do with, or a girlfriend who's choked at him and would be even more choked if she knew she just became a suspect.
The white fences and white trim of houses have gone gold again as sunset draws near. Shadows are long and skinny. Another day down and I'm no closer to figuring anything out.
Across the street, the curtains are still drawn at Crystal's house and three newspapers have collected on her porch. She's suffering, and I wish I could do something for her, but I don't know what.
* * *
Seated at my wood desk in my room, I pull up browsers on both of my computer screens and check again for news about the murder, scanning every article in the day's newspapers. The police blotter includes some arrests, including those of some teenagers, drunk and disorderly from drinking homemade moonshine. They were also linked to some property crimes, mostly graffiti.
There's nothing useful to me.
I hear a familiar vehicle pull into the driveway and so I climb into my bed before Gran comes in the house. I hear the metallic clunk of her putting her keys in the bowl, then the sounds of her taking her shoes off and walking toward my room, talking to Mibs the whole time. She comes into my room and sits on my bed. Mibs jumps up and ferociously butts his head in her hands as she pets him.
“Aren't you afraid I'll make you sick?” I ask.
“Zan, I know you're not sick. You want to tell me what's going on? Is someone bullying you at school?”
“No, nothing like that.” I roll onto my side and look at her. She's even thinner than I thought, even though she says she's doing better now on the gluten-free, no-wheat diet. “How about you? How's your stomach? You look skinny.”
Smiling, she says, “Guess I'll fit in my wedding dress.”
After a few seconds, I say, “Gran, do you know all about Rudy's financial situation? I saw some stuff he threw in the garbage can. I wasn't snooping, I swear. He's got a huge bank account.”
“Compared to me, of course he does.”
“No, I mean he's got a lot of money.”
She takes off her pink-framed glasses and rubs her eyes, smearing her eyeshadow around. “He did say he had some deals he was working on. I suppose if a man is going to keep a secret from his fiancee, that's not such a bad one, now, is it?”
I laugh and agree with her.
“What about you?” she asks. “Got any secrets you're ready to share?”
I should tell her about my magic power. She's pretty cool, and she'd understand.
She closes her eyes to rest them, and I look at the cross on the chain around her neck. She might understand, but then again, if I told her about my ability, it could be a matter of hours before she'd get the pastor at her church and try to have me exorcised.
“Just that I love you,” I say, leaning over to give her a hug.
She pats my arm. “All right, then. You know I allow you your freedom so you don't have to steal it. You'd be surprised how understanding I can be.”
“Okay.”
“I'm going to make you some chicken noodle soup. I have some special rice-based noodles I want to try.”
“Why not chicken and rice soup?” I ask.
“Then it wouldn't be chicken noodle soup, now would it?”
She gets up and goes to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I heard the chop-chop of onions and carrots being sliced.
Since I have all night at home instead of going to karate practice, I reach under my mattress for the bee book, but my fingertips find nothing.
It's not there?
I get up and lift the whole mattress, but the book is not where I left it, or anywhere in my room.
Could Gran have found my book? Was that what she was hinting at? That doesn't make sense, though, since she was at work all day. Unless she came home on her lunch break.
When I stopped by to get Austin's necklace, I thought I heard someone in the house. Could it be? Could someone have broken in and stolen my stinky, old book?
Compared to the likelihood of a strangely selective book burglar, Gran taking the book, perhaps after I fell asleep last night, is the more plausible explanation, but I don't want to believe Gran would search my things, any more than that my girlfriend would wield a gun. There must be another explanation. Maybe I put the book somewhere safe and can't remember where.
Tomorrow after school, I'll go to the used book store and see if they have any others.
And then, after that, I'm going to go see Detective Wrong and do something crazy.
My options have been narrowing down to this. I need help, and the police need help, so I'm going to do what Julie's been suggesting the whole time, and offer my services as a police psychic.
* * *
On Wednesday at school, everybody seems to be lost in their own worlds, getting books from their lockers and talking about school assignments, as though grades and report cards actually mean something.
At lunch time, Julie asks me what's wrong and I pour my heart out about all my fears and the fight with Austin, and how she won't answer my phone calls now. This takes about three minutes, after which, Julie looks up from her bowl of cafeteria chili and says, “Bummer.”
“So what do I do?”
She shrugs. “Austin's a bit flaky.”
“Thanks.”
Julie pokes at the chili with her plastic spoon. “Why are there no kidney beans in here? Are we having Texas-
style chili?”
“Julie, as my designated best friend who's a girl, I expect a little more from you in the girl-management department.”
She gives me an oh-no-you-didn't look. “Girl-management?”
“Never mind.” I look down at my empty bowl. It's so empty and I'm still so hungry. “Will you go to that book store with me after school?”
“What's in it for me?”
I point back to myself and grin. “You get to spend time with all of this.”
“Overrated,” she says, smirking. “Fine, I'll go.”
* * *
Compared to how helpful Julie was with my romantic problems, she's even less effective at the book store, continuously pulling some random book off a shelf and asking me for a comment on how cute the cover is, how nerdy a title is, or how it would be funny to buy the book in question for James.
At my request, she asks the woman who works there, Moira, the one with the girl-mustache, for the occult section. Moira takes Julie by the hand and leads her to a series of books with apples and flowers on black covers.
I whisper to Julie, “See what I mean? Not helpful at all.”
“Twilight is technically occult,” Julie says to me with a shrug.
“But it's not real,” I say.
“Tell that to the fans.” She chuckles and pulls one of the books out to examine.
I leave her there and wander up and down all the aisles, but the little bald kid who helped me before is nowhere to be seen. My heart breaks for the young boy as I imagine the worst. I approach the wobbling counter and ask Moira about him.
“Orion? Little guy with no eyebrows?” she asks. “Oh, he's fine. He has alopecia, which makes his hair fall out. People assume he's getting chemo, but it's an autoimmune disorder or something. It's not contagious.”
“So he's okay?”
“Yeah, he was here a few days ago.”
As Moira is talking about Orion, she's also writing something on a notepad, but when I try to focus on what she's writing, I discover her hand isn't touching the pen. Moving on its own, about a half inch from her fingers, the pen writes: Butter, Quinoa, Onions.
“You practice magic,” I say.
The pen flies straight up, lodging itself in an acoustic ceiling tile high above us.
