Help for the Haunted: A Novel

by John Searles

  I stepped closer. The waitress was right: gray smudges lay all around the seam between Penny’s body and head.

  “Plus, she’s got that dainty gold bracelet twisted tight around her wrist. Looks like somebody—one of you, I guess—has been hating on her and loving her at the same time.”

  My sister said nothing, and neither did I.

  “Well, unless I want to end up with fingerprints on my neck, I better get back to my tables,” Shawna told us. “Nice to meet you girls. Hope your mom feels better.”

  And then we were alone in the restroom. Once more, I asked my mother if she was okay. This time, her voice sounded stronger when she told me to stop worrying, that she just felt queasy from so much driving in a single day. As she spoke, I looked to my sister, but Rose stared down at her hands.

  “Is that woman gone?” my mother asked from inside the stall.

  “Yes,” I called back.

  “She didn’t touch Penny, did she?”

  Rose was still studying her hands, so I gave my mother the answer she wanted and told her the waitress had only looked. With that, my sister walked to the sink farthest from Penny. I watched her crank the hot water and pump the soap dispenser before scrubbing away. When I asked what she was doing, she said her hands were greasy from the popcorn and chocolate at the movies this afternoon. But I knew better.

  I walked to the trash can and pulled out the red yarn, which I’d slipped in my pocket before leaving the car, since I didn’t want my parents to see. Beneath the humming fluorescent lights, those strands appeared brighter, more alive than they had while driving in the dark. I moved my hand over the trash can and let go of the doll’s hair so it landed on top of the waitress’s damp paper towel. As I crossed to a sink and washed up too, I couldn’t help but stare over at Penny.

  “You could do surgery with those mitts,” my sister said when I kept pumping the dispenser and worked up a good lather. “Let’s go.”

  “What about Mom?”

  “Alive in there?” Rose called out.

  “No need to wait,” my mother said after a moment. “Go on back to the car. I’ll be there shortly. Keep Penny where she is, though.”

  I worried about leaving her, but there seemed no other option but to listen. Rose and I left the bathroom then weaved among tables, spotting that waitress who looked up while pouring coffee and winked at us. We passed the register, where my sister scooped a handful of pinwheel mints out of a donation box. Outside, our father was waiting in the car, all buckled in and ready to go.

  “What happened to your mother?” he asked.

  “She’s inside,” I said.

  “Is she okay?”

  “So she says,” Rose told him.

  It took a while for my mother to emerge from the doors with Penny in her arms. As I watched her get closer, I couldn’t help thinking again that she seemed not herself. When she got in, my father asked if everything was okay. Her answer was the same: motion sickness brought on by so much travel in a single day. He started the engine, and as the wheels began to turn, I told Rose, “I’m surprised you remembered those names.”

  “What names?”

  “The ones I gave my horses.”

  “Well, I pay more attention to things than you might think, Sylvie. Sabrina’s the white one with blue eyes and a genuine horsehair tail. Esmeralda is black with rippling muscles and glowing green eyes. Am I right?”

  I nodded, more surprised than before. “How do you remember that?”

  “It’s all you used to talk about. I can tell you about the others if you want.”

  Something told me to let the moment be. And soon Rose closed her eyes again and drifted off. Despite my mother’s insistence that she felt fine, as we drove on in the dark, it became apparent she was anything but. In the course of my childhood, I couldn’t recall another occasion when she came down with anything more than a case of sniffles. My father was the one who fell prey to the flu and bronchitis and strep, not to mention the troubles with his back. Rose and I carted home the expected stomach bugs and fevers from school. Always, my mother had been the one to deliver ginger ale and soup to our bedsides, to smear VapoRub on our chests and slip a thermometer in our mouths, so it felt strange to see her so ill.

  For the remainder of the trip, the radio stayed off. Instead of preachers bellowing about how to avoid an eternity in hell, my mother’s soft, suffering moans filled the car. She pressed her cheek to the window, because the glass felt cool against her skin. Thirty or forty minutes a stretch—that’s the most we were able to drive before she asked to pull over. Each time, my father clicked on the emergency flashers and stopped on the side of the highway. In a frenzy, my mother unbuckled her seat belt and burst from the door. Cars and trucks roared past, headlights brightening and receding over her as she carried that doll—more loosely than before—into the tall grass. In the silence between passing traffic, we could hear her heaving, until growing quiet and emerging from the shadows to climb into the car once more. Somehow, my sister managed to stay asleep the entire time. But my father and I remained alert, silent except when it came to asking my mother if there was anything we could do.

  “Let’s just get home.” That was her response each time. “I’m fine.”

  And so, after making countless stops, we turned into our driveway just as the sun began sifting daylight into the sky. More wearily than before, my mother unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the car. I woke Rose, and we got out too. My father took my mother’s arm and led her to the door, where he found an envelope wedged between the knob and the frame. He squinted at the words before shoving it in his pocket.

  Once the door was unlocked, my mother entered first, moving through the dark to the kitchen. I heard her fill a glass of water while my sister shot up the stairs. My father followed, carting our luggage to the second floor. I used the time to move around the living room, snapping on lamps. When I was done, I saw him at the bottom of the stairs again, the letter from the door in his hand. His face looked grim, and I couldn’t help asking if something was wrong.

  “Huh?”

  “I was wondering if something is wrong? You look worried.”

  “Things are fine, angel.”

  I might not have asked who had left a letter for him, but I felt tired enough from the long night that the question slipped out.

  “This?” He held it in the air. His normally neat hair was mussed, and I could see in his eyes that he was worn out from the trip too. “Oh, it’s just from that reporter. Sam Heekin. I’ve been letting him interview me for his book.”

  The two of us must have sensed her standing there, between the kitchen and living room, because we both turned to see my mother. Now that we were home, I kept waiting for her to put down the doll, but she carried it with her still. “What about Sam Heekin?” My father folded the letter, tucked it back in his pocket. “We can discuss it later when you are feeling better.”

  “I feel fine,” she said, but she went to the sofa where she settled in with Penny on her lap. “I think I’ll just rest here awhile, though.”

  “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your bed?”

  She leaned back, closed her eyes. “I would. But the thought of climbing those stairs. I can’t just yet. You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Sylvie, sweetheart. Is that you?” She said the words without opening her eyes, and I had the impression she’d gone blind, a woman left to feel her way around the world. “What are you doing up? After the night we had, you should be in bed asleep.”

  “I’m on my way. But I’m worried about you.”

  “No need to worry. Now good night to you both.”

  I looked to my father, who hesitated before adjusting the pillows on the sofa so my mother could lie back. When she was comfortable, he tugged a blanket off the armrest and draped it over her. Over Penny too. He leaned down and kissed my mother’s forehead. “It was a long day for all of us, but especial
ly you. So get some rest.”

  I went around the room snapping off lamps I had only just turned on, pulling the drapes shut. Once the room was dark, I went to her and kissed her forehead too, keeping my distance from Penny. My mother’s skin did not feel feverish or sweaty as I expected, but perfectly cool and dry, too. Whispering, I told her, “Good night, Mom.”

  “Good night, my sweetheart. Thank you for being such a good daughter.”

  Her words made me think of the lie I’d told earlier about that waitress not touching Penny. I thought suddenly of Dot too, the way I’d helped Rose in order to protect my essay from being destroyed. “I’m not always good.”

  “Sure you are,” she said in a weak voice. “You never disappoint us, Sylvie. Now go on and get up to bed.”

  My father and I climbed the stairs, giving each other a quick hug before heading to our rooms. I flopped on my mattress and fell immediately asleep. Only an hour or two passed before so much morning sunlight spilled in the window that it nudged me awake. In my drowsy state, I lay staring at the shelf above my desk. I’d been too young to remember my uncle giving Rose and me those horses. But my father said Howie frequented a racetrack near his apartment in Tampa. A big win did not come often, but when it did, he liked to buy a few from the collectors’ shop there. Since he didn’t trust himself not to pawn them the next time he found himself hurting for cash, he gave the horses to us. My father disapproved of his brother’s gambling but loved those horses anyway, and especially when he saw how much I loved them too.

  But something was different the morning after our return from Ohio.

  I got out of bed, crossed the room, pulled out my desk chair, and stepped up on it.

  When I saw what had been done to Sabrina—the spotless white pony with glassy blue eyes and a tail made from genuine horsehair, the one Rose had remembered—my lips parted but no words came. I reached for the black pony with rippling muscles and green eyes. Esmeralda—Rose had remembered that one too. I held them both by their bellies, staring down at their limbs, which had been snapped off. Their legs, carved carefully to showcase their knobby knees and broad hooves, littered the carpet below. I climbed down off the chair. One by one, I began picking up the pieces, growing more angry, more bewildered with each that I found.

  My sister was the most obvious culprit. But difficult as Rose could be, it was hard to imagine her sneaking into my room and doing something so unprovoked. Even less likely was my father. Besides, he was sleeping down the hall and had no reason. Listening, I could hear the faint rise and fall of his snores. As for my mother, she must have been downstairs on the sofa still, right where we left her, drained of even the small bit of energy required to climb the stairs. That’s when I thought of that doll. Cradled in my mother’s arms. Smiling her placid smile. Her blank black eyes soaking in our home, a place she had traveled so far to be, bringing nothing more than the fingerprints around her neck, a dainty bracelet twisted tight around her wrist.

  Chapter 15

  Birds

  People scattered along the winding path in the woods, hands frozen in the air. Heekin instructed me to whisper while we passed, to walk softly so as not to disturb them. When we reached an open space by a pile of twisted branches, he came to a stop. As he knelt to unzip his duffel, I looked down at the wiry gray strands weeding up among his black hair. His thin fingers were wide and flat at the tips, as though somebody had taken a mallet to them. I watched as he pulled out a small plastic baggie and handed it to me.

  “What exactly do I do with this?”

  “Same as the others are doing. Pour some in your hands, then hold them out.”

  I did as he said, dumping seeds into my cupped palms. He poured a little in his hands too, before tucking the baggie back in his duffel. “Remember,” he said, looking at me with his rubbery face and narrow eyes. “You’ve got to keep absolutely still and silent.”

  He lifted his arms and so did I. Even though I was wearing a sweater and coat I had pulled from my closet the night before last, when he had first called, a chill worked its way down my back. “And my mother did this too?”

  “Yes. Just like I told you.”

  “When did you two come here?”

  “A number of times. The first was after the interview she granted me while I was writing the book. I had the idea to bring her here when she spoke about the heartbreak she felt after the loss of her father and the smaller tragedy of those birds, which always haunted her. I’m guessing she shared those details of her life with you?”

  Embarrassed as I was to admit it, I told him she had not. “I read that part of your book, though, so I know.”

  “That part?” Heekin said. “I would have assumed you’d read the whole thing.”

  I told him I’d held off on the final section out of respect for them. “They didn’t want Rose and me to read any of it. They weren’t happy with what you had to say.”

  Something changed in Heekin’s eyes then, a kind of clouding over. He let out a breath and said, “I feel bad about that and always will. It’s the reason I wrote your mother asking if she’d see me.”

  “And did she?”

  He looked at his hands, the mounds of seeds in each open palm. “No.”

  We stopped talking after that. Down the path, I could see others standing, arms in the air. I raised mine higher.

  Finches. Blackhead Grosbeaks. Those were the birds that would land in our hands if we were patient, Heekin had told me. I glanced over at him in his maroon Members Only jacket, zipped up tight. He had nicked his neck—shaving, I assumed—and a dab of dried blood held a torn tissue in place, making me think of Dereck’s gloves. Those flecks on the material, that unexpected story of how he’d come to ruin his fingers, my visit with Father Coffey—all of it had lingered in my mind during the long wait on Saturday. Since a deadline at the paper kept Heekin from meeting sooner, I’d spent the day before at home with Rose. The two of us had not spoken since the incident with the money, so the only sound in our house had been the chiming clock at the top of each hour as time slipped away, bringing me closer to the moment I’d have to face Rummel and Louise. This morning I told Rose I was going to the library—a reckless lie, considering the place was closed, but I knew she’d never check—then I met Heekin at the end of Butter Lane. Now he had driven us to the Bombay Hook Nature Preserve across the state line in Delaware, and with only twenty-two hours remaining, I was beginning to think he’d be no help after all.

  “Can I ask how you found that letter?” Heekin said. His speech, I noticed, just as I had on that initial call, was nothing like the long-winded sentences he wrote and nothing like the stuttering, rambling man my father once complained about.

  “It was in my sister’s room. I was looking for one from my uncle, actually. I wrote him weeks ago, but never heard back.”

  “So it was nowhere special then? My letter, I mean.”

  It seemed like such an odd question, I couldn’t help but feel a flutter of annoyance. “Sorry, but no. Somehow it ended up under Rose’s bed, which was why I thought it had been meant for her.”

  He sighed. “Well, we should stop talking or they won’t come. The quiet and stillness attract them, same as the globules your father used to claim appeared to him.”

  A breeze moved past, shaking the last stubborn leaves that clung to the bare branches. A chill moved through me again that had less to do with the cold, I suspected, and more to do with the sense of betrayal I felt toward my parents. When no birds came after some time, I broke the silence. “Obviously, you didn’t believe him.”

  “Your father? No. Not in the end. Did you?”

  I thought of the light in the basement that had yet to go out, of those pictures he showed during his lectures, of the story he told about his fateful first meeting with my mother. “I did and I didn’t. It was hard not to, though, when you listened to him talk.”

  “I know that feeling. The first time I went to see them, your father did most of the talking up onstage. He
had the gift of gab. But your mother, she had a greater gift.”

  We were quiet again, waiting. Not far away, a small bird with black and white feathers perched in a cedar tree but showed no signs of coming closer.

  “Where did you write your uncle?” Heekin asked, ignoring his own instructions to keep quiet and sending that tiny creature away.

  “Tampa. His address there.”

  “Well, that explains why you never heard back. Your uncle moved, Sylvie.”

  “Moved? Where?”

  “Not far from here, actually. A couple hours away.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a reporter, remember? Maybe not the best one out there, but I’ve covered every detail of your parents’ story for the paper. A number of times I even tried to talk to your uncle, but he refused. Same as your sister when I reached out to her.”

  On the ride to the preserve, in his wheezing, beat-up Volkswagen, Heekin had told a story that was fast becoming familiar: Not long after my parents’ deaths, he stopped by our house only for Rose to turn him away. She said he’d been nothing but trouble for my mother and father and she didn’t want to see him again. But he had not mentioned anything about my uncle. “Why did you want to talk to him?”

  Heekin shrugged. “Other than you girls, Howard was one of the few people in your parents’ circle I never once interviewed. Not while writing the book. Not after they were gone. I just thought he might know something.”

  “But he was in Florida that night,” I said as the note in Rummel’s folder floated into my mind. “What could he possibly tell you?”

  “I know that. I’ve read the police reports with his statement that he was home drinking, having lost his job. It was just an attempt—a desperate one on my part—to get whatever answers I could. It doesn’t matter, though. Your uncle was as firm and dismissive as your sister when it came to sending me away.”

  The bird, or one just like it, landed on a nearby branch. I needed to be quiet if I wanted it to take seeds from my palm. Even so, I couldn’t keep from asking why he cared. “I know it’s your job. But . . .”