Going Home (Cedar Valley Hauntings Book 1)

by Renee Bradshaw

  The windows were rolled up to keep the papers from flying out, and I thought of the witch in Hansel and Gretel. The children tossed her body into the oven, baking her to a crisp. I might be baked in that station wagon, right then. A living fairy tale with a foot in reality these days. I thought of all those children left in vehicles in the summer heat, their bodies cooking, flaking away as their screaming parents lifted them into their arms.

  My own skin felt thin and no longer like the armor that kept my bones and organs in place, but like worn and dog-eared pages of a book. I glanced down at my hand on the steering wheel and saw the skin lifting from my knuckle. Thin and drifting.

  I cracked my window and ignored the fluttering tips of the newspapers in the passenger seat. The wind made the tiniest of dents to the heat, but my skin lost its paper-like appearance. I spotted the recycling center, six dumpsters in a small parking lot laid out like a giant metal U. Other than the dumpsters, the parking lot sat empty, and I pulled to the center of the bins and threw my car door open. The cool air was a relief.

  I peered between two bins to look across the empty lot that separated the recycling center from the garage. Two figures stood inside the open garage, leaning over a truck engine. I couldn’t tell if one of them was Jordan, but all that mattered was they were too engrossed in their work to look over at the recycling center.

  My carload covered the bottom of the empty newspaper dumpster. I paused once to twist and stretch my lower back, and then quickly finished the job. As I walked around the car, rolling all the windows down, my gut started to do some major butterflies. Was I really going to get out of there without being spotted?

  I hopped in and sped out of the parking lot onto the highway. My tires screeched as I came to a quick halt at the red light.

  “Fuck.” Of course. Slipping an unlit cigarette between my lips, I glanced out the side of my eye towards the garage. Strutting and looking around as if he owned the whole damn street, Jordan Dieter stepped out of his garage and into the parking lot, stuffing a rag into the back pocket of his jeans. A lump appeared in my throat.

  He held a cell phone to his ear and laughed, his smile as genuine as ever. He had his mother’s Mexican complexion, deepened by a summer tan. As Jordan looked up into the sky, his black hair loose at the sides of his face fell back, and he kicked a rock across the parking lot towards the street.

  A flood of good memories came back. Sleepovers. Camping in the woods. Baking cookies with Aunt Dee. Holding hands at school. Telling each other all of our secrets. Helping each other with ice packs and Band Aides when our dads were mad and big brothers weren’t around to help. That stupid crush I had on Jordan. The even stupider crush I had on his older brother, Nathan. An uninvited smile tugged at my lips. No, it hadn’t been a crush on Nathan. I had been sure it was love.

  Jordan said when we were old enough I’d marry his brother, and we’d be brother and sister for real.

  I bit onto the filter of my cigarette butt and stared down the light, determined not to let the good memories in. I’d let them flow away, with the traffic streaming in front of me down the highway. Good memories would only bring a longing to be here for more than a week, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t stay. I wouldn’t pretend like the bad had not happened.

  I looked to my right again to see Jordan’s smiling face before I would completely forget. But, his smile had gone sour. He stared at me, cell phone forgotten at his side. I stepped on the gas, just enough to inch forward, but the light had not turned green. Traffic flowed on the scenic drive to the coast, not leaving me room to run the light. I looked back.

  “Megan!” he yelled, but I read my name from his lips more than actually heard him.

  Oh what the hell was wrong with me? Sweat started on my upper lip as he jogged towards me. I focused ahead of me again. The traffic had thinned, but still with the damn red light. Instead of going straight, I’d turn right and go the long way.

  I glanced over again just as he approached the passenger side of my car and grabbed the handle. The door handle snapped back, when, without looking at the traffic, without thinking, I stepped on the pedal and turned right. Jordan jumped back from the car, and I heard angry horns all around me. I glanced up in the rearview mirror just as two cars narrowly avoided slamming into each other, coming to a quick halt for my spastic getaway.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jake stomped instead of walked. He paused only to place a tag with the care of a man caressing a butterfly, on each item the auction house would take. I expected him to have a drawl like John Wayne because he wore the big boots and a black Stetson tilted back on his head. Contrary to his appearance, he had a nasally voice. If I had to guess, he moved to Oregon in the past five years, and still spent his days playing out a Wild West fantasy in his head.

  “The smaller stuff we’ll set in boxes as a lot,” he said, picking up a wood carved rose from the top of the television. He blew on it, and dust danced in the sunbeams streaming through the windows. He set it back down. “Some stuff, like your TV, we aren’t taking. I’d suggest the dump.”

  I nodded. Something heavy hit the ceiling, and we both jumped as a muffled, “mother fucker,” followed from the same space. We both looked up.

  I asked, “Is he okay up there?”

  I had not been upstairs since returning home, and had let Jake’s partner go alone to see what the boys had left behind. Footsteps creaked on the ceiling.

  “We could go up and see,” Jake offered.

  I shook my head.

  “Make sure he didn’t break anything.”

  “I really don’t care.”

  He slowly nodded, clearing his throat and rapping on the ceiling twice with a back scratcher he picked up from beside the recliner. “You all right up there, Hank?” he yelled.

  “Yeah,” Hank shouted back. This seemed to pacify Jake.

  “We’ve got a garage too. My dad has a lot of stuff out there, tools and stuff.” He nodded and followed me out to the garage. The lights were still on in the garage from my short visit. “I thought if you didn’t want all these guys, I’d call the state park. Do they still have that little museum thing— Don’t open that!”

  He yanked his hand back from the deep freezer as my elbow landed on the lid.

  “We can clean ‘em out,” he said. “If it ain’t too bad that is.”

  “There’s no cleaning this one.” He looked doubtful, I forced a polite smile. “Trust me.”

  He nodded and stepped away, but kept a side eye on the freezer. He started to walk around, animals of all shapes and sizes everywhere he looked, but it was the moles that grabbed his interest, as they grabbed most.

  “Never seen anything like this,” he muttered, lifting a mole holding a doll sized dictionary in one hand, a sliver of chalk in the other. He set it down and stepped closer to the twelve moles climbing a rope into a small door in the ceiling. He touched the mole with a peg leg. “How’s he supposed to climb up with one leg?”

  “Uh, I think it’s just for decoration.” I shifted, ready to get out of the garage. “Do you think you can take it all?”

  “Too much to tag out here, but I’m sure we’ll take most of it.” He stepped back from the moles, and then his attention caught on Wolfy. He walked over and popped the beast on the head, and I swear the animal’s lips pulled back, revealing a deep and serious growl and threat. I squeezed my eyes closed and counted back from ten in my head.

  “I bet we’ll get a lump for this one. Don’t see a lot of them this pristine.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at Wolfy again. Pristine? He was as mangy as the day Dad stuffed him. But, Jake didn’t sound like he was being sarcastic. Maybe he meant the craftsmanship. The obvious fact that the animal had been sick at the end of his days was hard to ignore. Still...

  “Yeah, I’m not actually sure.” Sure of what? Sure that I want to sell him? What the hell would I do with him? Take him with me on the Greyhound back to — I didn’t have a home to go back to.
“Right, well, whatever.”

  When I said that, Wolfy’s eyes turned to me. Jake didn’t notice.

  “Everything you want to keep, haul into one room—”

  “I don’t want any of it.”

  “You sleeping here?” he asked and I nodded. “Then you’ll want a mattress right? You want any of that food in the pantry you’ll need to save that too.”

  “People buy food at auctions?” My lip curled.

  “You’d be surprised. We get a lot of preppers.”

  “Preppers?”

  “Yeah, you know?” He stroked Wolfy between the eyes. “Doomsday preppers? It’s a big thing ‘round here. All sorts getting ready for the end of the world.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know. Is that happening soon?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, exactly. Some people got nothing else to do with their time.” He adjusted his round belt buckle. “I’ll advertise his shop goods, it’ll be a good selling point. Not much else worth anything, but people love junk. You might want to go down to the hunting club, few other places and put up a flier.”

  I nodded. He looked down at Wolfy just as the animal’s head turned towards him. There was no mistaking it. Jake had to have seen that time.

  “What the?” He said, and his hand darted into Wolfy’s mouth, fishing around. I opened my mouth to tell him sometimes everything in the garage came back to life. The forest continued to bleed life into everything, piece by piece. Dee told me. She told me one day everything came back to find its ending. The right ending. The dirt was made of life and it gave life. I would shout all of this to him when he screamed and ran from the garage. The world compressed and released around me, as visions of terrible pasts and unforeseeable futures surrounded me. When I got my voice back I would say that, because right then, it was only raspy sounds from my mouth.

  His calm demeanor reminded me of the days growing up here. That just because things moved, and spoke, and breathed and lived, didn’t mean they did that for anyone but me.

  Wolfy’s tongue dropped out of the side of his mouth as he panted. Large teeth glossier than ever. If he took a bite out of Jake’s hand, would he become alive to someone other than me? Jake pulled something out of Wolfy’s mouth and held it out for me. “Got to take care of these things. They’ll sell for more the better condition they’re in.”

  A key hung from a long necklace chain. I looked back at Wolfy, and he looked the same as always with the start of a snarl on his face, glassy eyes facing forward.

  “Wonder what it goes to?” I said, looking at Jake as though he might have a clue.

  “I’d guess something in this room.” He pushed the moles from the bottom of the rope, letting them swing.

  My head had that garbled feeling I got when waking up from a vivid dream of Mama. Confused and upside down. Wolfy was Wolfy, not a moving breathing wolf. My imaginary friend. Still imaginary.

  Between the heat and the stress of being home, my mind traveled faster away from me than I wanted it to.

  Jake walked around the room, not uttering another word about the wolf as he looked in cabinets and behind a dresser. A few comments about the moles, but I had nothing other than “weird, right?” to offer, and soon enough he went back to silently making marks in his notebook.

  I slipped the key into my pocket and stepped outside, needing light and fresh air. My thoughts were still a little on Wolfy, but I stacked it in the back of my mind on top of all the other things I wanted to forget. Stress. That’s all it was.

  A thud came from the garage, and Jake yelled, “What in the holy fuck?”

  I almost ran back in to check on him before it registered what caused the sound. He staggered outside, gagging and dry heaving, on the side of the garage, and I held back a laugh.

  “Told you not to open the freezer,” I said.

  I spent most of the afternoon dragging everything out of my room besides the lamp, mattress, some of my clothes from high school I had left behind, and my duffel bag. The Trent Reznor poster stayed on the wall too, because he made me feel normal in comparison to his electronic goth splashed against the childish wallpaper.

  I stood in the middle of the room. These were all the things I owned. The only pieces of my life I still could reach out and touch. And I’d only be able to take my duffel with me when I left.

  Angela came back to town a few years ago for a wedding. While she was here, she took all the photo albums, and some of Mama and Aunt Dee’s mementos, junk jewelry and odds and ends. Promising me when I settled down and had a real home, she’ll split the lot with me — if I wanted. I told her no. The boys wanted nothing to do with it all.

  Now, all four of them distanced themselves from anything that would remind them of Dad. I didn’t want the reminder either, but I was already there in the mess. Why should I be the only one living with a reminder?

  After I finished in my bedroom, I mindlessly sifted through the chest of drawers in the living room. A bundled up collection of personal letters and legal looking documents were the only things inside that looked too personal to sell. I brought them both out to the burn barrel instead.

  I dropped the legal papers on the ground, but hung the letters over the barrel, contemplating dropping them in. I wanted to, in fact, I couldn’t think of a logical reason not to, but for whatever reason my hand would not let go. Instead I bagged everything and shoved it all to the back of my closet with plans to mail it all off to Angela.

  I sat down at the kitchen table and dropped the key on the table, pinching the bridge of my nose and wondering where it had come from. There was a familiarity about it. Had it been Aunt Dee’s? No, it was more than a memory. Something more recent. I leaned close to it; squinting and hoping the answer would leap out.

  I jumped as the howl came through the cracked window. If I ignored whatever stray dog this was that kept scaring me, it would go away.

  I closed the window and went to bed, tucking the key under my mattress. I was exhausted, but sleep did not come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same image. Wolfy.

  I wasn’t letting Jake take Wolfy.

  I didn’t know where the thought came from, but as soon as I had it, I shot out of my bed and halfway across the driveway before I allowed another thought to drown it out.

  The air had chilled outside, so different from the unbreakable heat the past few days. Dampness in the wind crept up my arms and down my back, lifting my hair in tiny strands around my face. The air felt alive like the forest, little electric currents zapping around my body and snapping in the air around me. Leaves dancing and wind chimes alive behind me, I pushed away the feeling of being watched. A low howl cut through it all.

  I leaned against the garage, all fear gone. The howling came from inside the building, not from the woods like I had assumed the past few days. The walls swelled against me with each howl, with each sad cry.

  “I know,” I said, pressing my cheek and hand against the side of the garage. Currents pulsed through my hand, almost seeming to fuse it to the door. “It really fucking sucks.”

  I pushed open the door with a mixture of excitement and dread filling my stomach. Mid-howl, the sound stopped, my hair fell back against my neck. The electricity was gone. All silent as it should be in the dark garage, even through the smell of rot and chemicals. Relief fell over me like a cloak, and my shoulders relaxed.

  I pulled the chain, and the light blinked to uncertain life, sputtering on and off. I ran towards the main switch, flipping on the light, flooding the room with light and normalcy. Normal as one can get for florescent in a room full of eyes. The rope of moles swayed.

  Wolfy was there, quiet, still, his face unmoving, his eyes unblinking. No howling. I pushed away the thought that any of this could be real and focused on my decision: Wolfy belonged with me. He might not be alive, but he was the only family I had in Oregon. Running my fingers over his fur, I was surprised to find his pelt softer than it looked. Softer than I remembered.

  A memory hits me of the night I hid
in the back corner of the garage and pulled Wolfy in front of me to block my tiny body. I must have been, six? Seven? Mama was gone, and Dad was mad about something. Glass broke. Aunt Dee’s black eye. Todd’s bloody nose. Dragged down the porch minutes earlier by my hair, I’d been soon forgotten as Dad turned to the boys.

  Wolfy’s side was soaked with my tears and snot by the end of the night; I had to pick out my own switch as a punishment for compromising Dad’s work. Everyone was too exhausted by then to come to my rescue.

  There was another memory, one that always came close, materializing slightly before I could shove it away. One where Wolfy growled and snapped at Dad when he stumbled drunkenly into the garage. I pushed that memory to the back of my mind again. To the forgetting pile. Willing myself to forget. Stack it on top of the teetering tower of things I had already spent a lifetime pretending didn’t happen.

  I wrapped my arms around Wolfy and tried to lift him. His wooden base made him bottom heavy. Instead of carrying him under my arm like I should have been able to do with a Styrofoam filled pup, I dragged him across the floor of the garage, then across the graveled driveway. I ruined the base, subtracting the amount Wolfy would be worth if I allowed Jake to take him to auction.

  When I made it up the stairs, Wolfy stood at the edge of the deck, and for a moment I wondered if I should leave him there. He was a terrifying presence perched by the door. He would keep all the forest eyes at bay, but I decided to drag him in any way. We were expecting a big storm according to the radio. And if I left him outside he’d be ruined.

  Besides, wasn’t I dragging him in so he would be safe from auction in my room? If I left him outside he’d be tagged and dragged off with the rest of the lot.

  I grabbed a tarp hanging over the edge of the porch and lay it out on the floor of the kitchen. Then hefting with a long forgotten strength, I picked Wolfy up and carried him into the kitchen as if he were a bride on his wedding night. I dropped him on the tarp, wincing as a crack sounded through the kitchen. The base had split clean in a thin line between right and left sides of his body.