Restless, she stayed awake for nearly an hour, staring at the yard. She could barely make out the shapes of the summerhouse and the bird hotel, black forms against a blacker night.
Her alarm clock went off at dawn. Yawning, Natalie grabbed rubber gloves, trash bags, and cleaning supplies, and headed to the summerhouse.
She’d hoped it might look better in the morning. It didn’t. Standing alone in the doorway, she could feel the hatred lingering in the air like an electric charge, see it in the smears of animal blood across the walls.
Jason had dumped the bureau drawers and taken a buck knife to most of her clothes. The same blade had been ground into the top of the bureau in mindless patterns. The sheets were torn and smelled like they’d been pissed on. The only toiletries she’d kept out here were a stick of deodorant and a bottle of lotion, and both had been smeared on the floorboards and her clothes.
Afraid to hope, she righted the cot, expecting to see fragments of matryoshka doll scattered everywhere. The mattress had flopped off the frame, and she found the bag underneath it. Jason had been in such a frenzy that he’d slashed the mattress and moved on. Inside the bag, the doll and the locket watch were intact.
She started scrubbing, losing all track of time. A noise came from outside, and she found Teddy gathering broken glass from the step. “I don’t want help,” she said. “It’s my mess.”
“Too bad.”
She ducked back inside and returned to cleaning the walls, glancing up when he eventually joined her. They worked together in comfortable silence.
When Cilla found them, the summerhouse was almost back to normal. She put her hand out to Natalie, touching her sleeve. “Want to talk inside for a few minutes?”
They sat at the kitchen table, the house full of the thudding of the washing machine as Natalie’s few salvageable clothes cycled around.
“I’m scared, Nat. I really am. This isn’t a safe place for you to be anymore.”
Natalie's voice was hushed. “I know.”
“You know that even if the cops come up with enough to arrest Jason, his mother will pay his bail? Patsy hasn’t said no to that boy once in his life. That’s why he is the way he is.”
Cilla sighed and took her glasses off, looking at her niece with gray eyes the same shade as Natalie’s own.
“This summer is really important to you, isn’t it? Coming to Bernier. Facing those kids.” She brushed some microscopic crumbs onto the floor. “I understand that you want to prove something. That’s why I fought so hard for you when your parents told me that you wanted to waitress at the Grill.”
Natalie thought of the house on Morning Glory Lane, with all its secrets still locked up inside. She thought of Lowell, how it felt to be near him.
“It’ll look like Jason won,” she said softly. “That’s what he’ll think, too. That he scared me off.”
“I’m going to leave it up to your parents. Call them tonight and tell them what happened. Until then, we’re going to change the way we do things around here. Don’t go anywhere alone; remember to lock the doors behind you. I’ll ask the police to have a car swing by at night and make sure everything’s okay, at least until I hear from Sergeant Ward about where we stand with the investigation. I know you and Teddy have today off. Promise me that you’ll stick together.”
From the corner of her eye, Natalie saw Teddy’s fair head bob past the window; she wondered how long he’d been out there, pretending to weed or water the garden. “I promise.”
After Cilla left for work, she and Teddy did indeed stick together. They went to the one place, oddly enough, that felt safe today.
Morning Glory Lane.
CHAPTER 24
It was too cold now to stay in the house for long; Teddy waited outside again while Natalie took careful steps down the slick and icy corridor, letting the house take her where it wanted her to go.
#
Winter 1948
Old Orchard Beach was a summer town, but tonight, lampposts burned all the way down the boardwalk pier.
The grand casino ballroom sat at the end, a double-decked funhouse wrapped with verandas that hung out over the water. Vsevolod joined the crowd bottlenecking at the ballroom entrance. The local radio announcer had made much of this holiday extravaganza, the ballroom opening for one night only to celebrate the season. Booze would flow. Girls would be out. A chance, after empty weeks. He had no choice but to see and be seen.
“Cigarette, sir? Cigar?” Some fleshy, nearsighted thing extended her box of wares from the strap around her neck. He registered milky cleavage, a sequined uniform, and moved on.
Evergreen garlands and strands of lights hung from the rafters, mistletoe from every veranda doorway. On stage, the orchestra was in full swing. Vsevolod ordered two fingers of Black & White whiskey from the bar and went up the broad stairway, finding a shadowy place to survey the floor.
Did she ever feel it, that girl in scarlet velveteen with the silver tinsel pinned in her hair? As she laughed, jitterbugging with one partner and then the next, as she let them buy her glasses of rum eggnog and the room began to float . . . Did she ever pause to scan the crowded ballroom with a feeling of something amiss?
It was her hair. So fair it was almost white, styled in a Veronica Lake wave that he could easily follow through the crowd, especially with that bit of tinsel.
The orchestra dropped into “Moonglow.” The sconces dimmed and the mirror ball began to rotate, sprinkling the room with light. The girl in scarlet was stumblebum and without a partner as couples brushed past her onto the floor. He made himself available. She held onto him like he was keeping her afloat.
Several drinks later, they were on the pier together, trailing a lively group of revelers who kept bursting into song. She murmured what a doll he was, treating her so nice.
“You don’t mind taking me home? Straight shootin’?” She hooted suddenly, tossing her head back. “The old lady’s gonna pitch a fit when she sees me.”
“Shhh. Pleasure’s mine.”
“I don’t gotta go straight home, you know. Maybe we could warm each other up.” She giggled, stroking his lapel. Her fingernails were lacquered red.
“Edie!” someone called from behind them, making Vsevolod stiffen. But the cry didn’t come again.
After they passed through the gabled entrance way, the girl’s attention was drawn by the carousel off to the left.
“Oh, I used to ride that all the time. I had my favorite pony. What was her name? Th—Thunderhead, that was it.” She grinned. Her left canine tooth was crooked. “If some other kid was on her, I wouldn’t ride. I’d just stand there mad as a wet hen, watching them go ’round and ’round. . . .”
At the coupe, she slipped on an icy patch and went down. He caught two fistfuls of her coat, her sleeve separating at the shoulder with a purr of ripping fabric. A cheap goddamn coat, and she was unperturbed, laughing up into his face.
“Whoopsie-daisy, I didn’t—”
He drove her head into the car door. Then he did it again.
She lay prone. Blood welled at the part in her hair. Making a frustrated sound in his throat, Vsevolod glanced around, and then carried her to the trunk.
Long drive home. Better get started.
#
The same tiny woman sat at the Historical Society desk. She smiled as Natalie put a dollar bill into the donation box. “Back again, I see. More probing questions?”
“Sort of.” Natalie glanced at Teddy. “We heard that you have a collection of old photographs from around town?”
“Oh, you are gluttons for punishment. Superb.”
She led them into a workroom and opened a closet containing half a dozen cardboard boxes.
“I’m sorry to say there’s no secret system here. It’s just a mess. We get more old pictures donated to us than we have time to organize, and most of
them aren’t of anything special—or particularly well-shot. But you’re welcome to wade in.”
When she had gone, Natalie opened their backpack and pulled out the article they’d copied at the library before coming here. It had taken some time, but they’d finally found who they were looking for in the Portland Press Herald archives, dated December 17, 1948.
There was a small faded photograph of the girl accompanying the article. Edith Anne Soucy, age seventeen, looked like a sharp-shouldered, square-jawed ghost, only her eyes—incongruously dark—well-defined in the exposure.
The article had run a week after Edith’s disappearance. She was last seen on December 10 at the Old Orchard Pier Casino Ballroom, way down in York County. The only witness to come forward was her older sister Ruth, who worked at the ballroom as a cigarette girl. She and Edith had argued earlier in the evening about Edith sneaking into the party and getting drunk; later, Ruth saw her leave with a man and called after her, but her sister didn’t stop. The assumption was that Edith had run away from home.
They didn’t find any further mention of her in the microfilm. Just like Irene. Gone.
Natalie rubbed her temples. She should’ve known that Raisa and Irene weren’t the only girls in Vsevolod’s collection.
“Nobody made the link between Edith and Irene’s abductions.”
“They happened on different sides of the state. Two different kinds of girls,” Teddy said. “Nobody was going to think a good girl like Irene was a runaway. It sounds like Edith was pretty wild.”
“So she had it coming?”
Teddy stared her. “Wow. Not at all what I meant.” She slumped over the table, and he eyed her. “Freaking out?”
“Just a little. A few days from now, I’m probably not even going to be in Bernier anymore, and all of this”—she smacked the article—“will be left—just—hanging. I mean, if I could at least give the cops an anonymous tip, tell them where to look for Irene’s remains, anything . . . But all my coming here did was wake up the house. Now I’m leaving it behind again.”
Teddy crossed his arms. “What do you think it’ll do when it figures out that you’re not coming back?”
“Get to me the only way it can, I guess. Through my dreams.”
The search of the boxes took most of the afternoon. They found pictures of Main Street when it was nothing but packed dirt; the old sardine factory, still in its prime.
“Okay. Last box. Let’s split it.” Teddy was quiet as they worked. In time, he stopped. “Hey. What was the name of the family who sold Vsevolod the farm?”
“Leary, I think.”
“Hey. Hey, look.” The photo, taken from a distance, showed people clustered together in the dooryard of a connected farm building, the women distinguishable from the men only by the tent of their full skirts. Crabbed handwriting on the back read Leary—Massy, Henry, Patience, and James, 1910.
It was the house. A Colonial standing two and a half stories tall with twin chimneys and an ell branching off the east side, providing a passageway directly to the barn.
“This is it,” she said in a hushed tone. “This is what we were missing. The door in my dream eventually leads to the barn. This is what the house wanted me to know.”
“Why do you think that matters so much?”
“I don’t know.” She sat back. “It seems like sometimes the house gives us an answer before we’ve even asked the question.”
CHAPTER 25
That evening, the phone call with her parents lasted nearly an hour. Dad kept asking her to repeat things, and Mom was so silent that Natalie wasn’t sure if she was still on the line.
She actually considered telling them the truth about the house on Morning Glory Lane—for about two seconds—before she shoved the idea away. Her parents were commonsense types. They didn’t believe in much more than attending Mass on Easter Sunday and playing the Megabucks lottery. They’d think she’d completely lost her mind, and all because they’d trusted her, this one time, against their better judgment. Wouldn’t let that happen again.
Finally, Mom spoke the inevitable phrase: “Put your aunt on.” Her tone was so icy that Natalie handed the extension over to Cilla without another word.
She went out on the porch, where Teddy sat on the swing, pretending to be interested in a book. She sat with him and they pushed the swing, not speaking until Cilla came out of the house. She looked at Natalie; the decision was written plainly on her face.
“How soon?” Natalie said.
“This weekend. Your dad’s driving down on Sunday.”
Cilla watched her lack of reaction, and then rested her hand on Natalie’s head.
“It’s probably for the best.”
Taking in their grim expressions, she said, “Well—think. Saturday is the Fourth of July. You two can go to the fireworks, have a good time. It’s been a long time since we’ve done that together.” She watched them. “I’m sorry, kids. Wish it could be another way.”
She went back inside, shutting the screen door gently behind her.
Teddy slapped his book down. “They can’t do this.”
Natalie thought of Lowell and the feeling that something was building between them, unexpected but right. She thought of Edith Soucy, locked in the trunk of the coupe, traveling through the winter landscape toward the house on Morning Glory Lane.
“They already did.”
She stood up.
“Where’re you going?”
“To call Lowell. I promised him I would.”
She left him on the swing, staring.
After supper, Teddy biked to the Quik Stop to get a few things for his mother, and Natalie rode along, not wanting to sit around the house thinking about how she’d be back in Lincoln before summer was even half over.
As always, the line at the store was long. By the time they emerged with their purchases, the smattering of working streetlights had come on down Main Street.
Somebody stepped on the back of Natalie’s sneaker, making her stumble. A flat tire: classic middle school move.
“Hey there, sunshine.”
The bright tone was unmistakable. Jason peeked around her side, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
She stepped back, working her heel into her sneaker and hating the rising pitch of her voice. “Did you follow us?” She was aware of Teddy behind her, motionless, the grocery bag dangling from one hand. “What’re you doing, watching our house now?”
Jason wore a T-shirt with a sleeveless flannel over it, the usual assortment of bracelets and rings. His pickup idled by the entrance, spilling some epic guitar solo from the windows. Grace sat in the passenger side, looking off at the street, one bare foot flat against the dashboard.
“I heard you had some trouble out at your place,” Jason said. “Something to do with . . . birds?”
Natalie began walking toward their bikes again.
He fell into step with her. “Must’ve been serious to get the cops involved.”
“Go away.”
“They came to my house this morning and wanted to talk all about it.” He smiled. The expression was vacant, like somebody was switching on a dim bulb. “I kept getting this feeling like they were waiting for me to admit to something.” He shrugged. “I dunno. Anyway, they left after a while. Guess they must not have found much evidence or they already would’ve arrested somebody. They’re really bad at that, huh?”
“You’re disgusting.” Natalie grabbed her bike, but Jason leaned against the siding, blocking her. A horn blared; Grace, laying her palm on the wheel.
Jason talked over the noise. “So . . . now you know. Anybody can walk onto your aunt’s property and do whatever they want, whenever they want. Whoa.” He widened his eyes and sucked air through his teeth. “Scary. If I were you, I wouldn’t be sleeping so good right—”
Teddy slammed his hands
against Jason’s chest, knocking him back.
Recovering, Jason allowed himself to be pushed several feet away, his own hands raised. “Careful.”
“Stay away from us.” Teddy’s voice was harsh and shaking. “You even talking to us right now is harassment. I’m going to tell the cops every word you said.”
“What’d I say? I asked her how she was doing.”
Teddy’s face worked, almost too upset to speak. “Want another criminal threatening charge?” His words were a hoarse whisper. “Want to go back to juvie?”
Jason’s smile broadened, showing dimples so deep they looked carved. Then he nodded, flicking his hand in a mock salute. “Bye, guy.” He glanced at Natalie. “You’re never happy to see me. I don’t get it. I guess Lowell gets special treatment, huh.”
The horn blared again. The engine revved as Grace worked the accelerator. “Come on,” she shouted out the window. “Let’s go.”
By now the Quik Stop cashier had come over to the glass doors to gawk. Jason slid his hands back into his pockets and strolled off to his truck.
After he had peeled out, Natalie stared at Teddy. “That . . . was awesome.”
“Really?” Breathless and wild-eyed, he wiped his palms on his pant legs. “I didn’t think I could do it. I mean, I’ve thought about it enough, but I didn’t think I actually could.” He laughed a little hysterically. “But I did.”
In the forest of her dreams, Natalie got down low, crawling on her belly into a thicket. The whispers softened around her, blending with the rustle of branches, the distant burr of a squirrel. Breathing shallowly, she tucked her arms and legs in close to her body.
The footsteps crunched, paused, headed off in another direction. Natalie risked a peek. Through a frame of leaves, she saw a muddy gully with a copse of birch trees on the far side. She caught a glimpse of dirty white Adidas.
“I say we call it.” Peter, shooting for coolly bored but sounding more relieved, like the game hadn’t been much fun after all. “They probably made it home by now. I know where they live—it’s not real far.”
The Door to January Page 10
