She found the key and slotted it into the lock, turned the knob and gave it the same old lift as she opened it, a time-worn habit to minimize the noise of the ill-fitting frame, a remnant of days when sneaking in at midnight would have woken Gran.
It had been apparent from the street that the house was dark, but stepping inside, Becca felt a wave of grief wash over her at the cold emptiness of the place. Somehow the vacancy of the house she had grown up in made the loss more visceral than the body at the funeral had—that cosmeticized shell that didn’t quite resemble the woman she had loved. Here, in the silent interval before a realtor removed the scuffed furniture and the wax-stained carpets, before the painters changed the color of the walls just as the embalmer had changed the color of her Gran’s complexion, there was still a sense of the woman’s soul in the musty air. Here, where Becca had memories attached to the scuffs and stains, she could still smell the woman who had been a mother to her, could almost hear her voice.
Drawing the mingled perfume of moldy curtains, old incense, and baking spices deep into her lungs, she knew that this was the smell of home. And it would soon be sold to pay off debts.
She set her bag on the couch and flicked a switch by the door, filling the room with warm illumination from a lamp on an end table—an orange and yellow beaded globe suspended from a curling iron arm. A star pattern of stained-glass diamonds set amid the beads and plaster gave the lamp a Turkish vibe. Gran had acquired it on one of her travels, and it had always reminded Becca of a sunrise in miniature. There were similar lamps and hanging globes in other rooms. Becca recalled the cool blue and purple glow of the one on Gran’s desk in her study. The woman had abhorred plainness and had brought the rich cultures she’d studied into every room of her home. Rafael was turning on his heel, taking in other adornments: the African statues, the framed illuminated manuscripts, the Persian rugs and jade carvings.
Becca felt a tingle of relief at their presence. That her uncle Alan hadn’t yet cleared the place out and boxed everything up for sale was an unexpected blessing. She had been under too much stress since the funeral to even begin to confront and process her feelings. She had come here in search of something—that was true, there was an objective to the visit—but she realized now that she had also come seeking refuge, seeking a sense of Catherine’s presence. Maybe what she sought was still here. She collapsed onto the couch with a bone-weary sigh.
“You grew up here?” Rafael asked, taking it in.
“It seems a lot smaller after living in a warehouse. Or…with her not here.”
They had risked stopping at a convenience store on 1A, and now Rafael found the kitchen and set a bag of food and a six-pack of Sam Adams on the counter. Becca watched him across the opening in the wall through which she had so often talked with Catherine while the older woman cooked. Rafael opened and closed drawers until he found a bottle opener. Becca knew he’d succeeded when a sound like a spinning coin winding down reached her ears.
Django, finished sniffing out the living room, jumped onto the couch and laid his head in her lap. She stroked the downy fur around his ears. Rafael returned and set her beer on the end table beside her. She pulled herself up, opened the end-table drawer, and fished around for a coaster. There was a cash-register receipt in the drawer, penciled with a list of words in Hebrew and Greek distilled to numeric calculations. Becca felt a pang, as she removed the cork coasters, passed one to Rafael, and slid the drawer shut on the scrap of paper. She had grown up surrounded by similar notes; they’d been more common than grocery lists.
“Cheers,” she said. “To getting the hell out of the city.”
Rafael laughed. “You make it sound like a weekend getaway.” Clinking his bottle against hers, he said, “To not spending the night in custody.”
After a long pull on the bottle, Becca got up and retrieved the dog food from the jeep. She poured some into a Tupperware bowl, filled another with water, and set the pair down in a corner of the kitchen. Django, who had tracked her every move, took to them with relish.
Rafael waved his hand at the table where he’d set two plates: one with his own plastic-wrapped Italian sub, the other with a sad-looking peanut-butter sandwich and a banana for Becca.
“Thanks, Raf.” She scratched the back of her head and her stiff hair failed to fully resettle. She knew she must look a wreck and hardly had the energy to even eat. She wanted a hot shower and sleep, but to stay the night here would be risky. If SPECTRA still considered her a priority, they would pay a visit to her prior residence sooner or later.
“Sit down,” Rafael said, “You gotta eat, girl.”
She nodded but didn’t sit. The idea of lingering was making her nervous.
“What? You already have your peanut-butter quota for the day? Guess I should have got spaghetti—the other thing you eat,” he teased.
“No, it’s good, it’s fine. I just need to check the study first.”
“You said she had a lot of books, right? Could take a while. At least have a bite, or take it with you.”
She shuddered theatrically. “Handling books with peanut butter on my fingers? Gran would have another stroke. I just need to know they’re still there. Then I’ll eat.”
Rafael unwrapped his sub and dug in with an enthusiasm to rival Django’s. The dog sniffed the air beside the table, and when no cold cuts were forthcoming, turned and trotted after Becca, his tail swishing against the narrow walls of the hallway.
At the top of a steep staircase Becca came to the hushed, carpeted sanctum of the second floor, Gran’s domain. When she’d lived here, Becca’s bedroom had been on the ground floor, and every trip up the stairs to the old woman’s bedroom, private bath, and study had brought a feeling of crossing a threshold and passing into more rarefied air. Voices were kept at library volume here, and doors were to be knocked at before entering. Knowing that Gran was gone and never coming back did little to diminish Becca’s sense of reverence for the woman’s domain, and as she paused at the bedroom door, she almost raised her hand to rap her knuckles gently against it before pushing it open.
The room was dark, the bed made. The green globe lamp sat on a white doily where it always had. The same wood and stone artifacts still congregated around the bed: guardian figures rendered in plaques on the walls, statuettes on the bureau. The Sumerian Marduk hunting the winged dragon Tiamat with his arrows and thunderbolt trident; the Archangel Michael brandishing his flaming sword and grinding the serpent beneath his boot heel; the thousand-armed bodhisattva, Chenrezig, his limbs fanned out like spokes in a wheel of weapons and gifts for the protection and aid of all sentient beings. As a girl, Becca had heard the tales of these heroes and countless others. And now, with one foot in a wedge of light from the hallway, she offered up a silent prayer to the retinue of protectors who had watched over her Gran through all her nights of dreaming, and petitioned them to accompany the great lady on her final journey through the deepest dream of all.
At the end of the hall, she came to the carven oak door of the study, and for the first time in her life, found it ajar. Something squirmed in her stomach. She pressed her fingers against the wood, and watched it drift inward with a rising whine.
It was dark, but as she stepped over the threshold from the Persian carpet runner onto the hardwood floor of the study, she knew from the echo—before her eyes could even adjust to the faint streetlight through the window—that shelves laden with leather and cloth were not absorbing her footsteps.
The curator of the university library had already been here with his movers. Uncle Alan or Catherine’s attorney had let them in, ushered them up the stairs, and in accordance with the late scholar’s last will and testament, granted them access to her most private room.
Becca found the light switch. Ripping the shadows from that room was like pulling a shroud off of a naked corpse. The bookshelves, all of them, were bare.
* * *
Django was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, sitting on his ha
unches and swishing his tail. She had told him to stay, and to her surprise, he had. Maybe training him would be easier than she’d hoped. Or maybe he was afraid of some lingering vibe on the second floor. Becca could well remember being afraid of the study herself when she’d been small. The door had seemed to tower above her, locked more to keep abominations in than people out. Had she acquired that vague notion through an accumulation of things Gran had said to keep her curiosity in check? Or from scraps of conversations with colleagues over tea in the den? Had Becca seen things she had thrust into the dark recesses of her mind? Things that would have made it impossible for her to grow up sane if left unrepressed?
The smell of old leather and parchment lingered in her memory. And incense. And ink. And something…else. Something fishy. She patted Django and went to the kitchen for her sandwich. Peanut butter didn’t exactly go great with the taste of beer in her mouth, and she wanted to finish the beer more than she wanted to eat at this point, but she knew she needed the sustenance. She took an ice pack from the freezer for her aching wrist and carried it with the sandwich into the den, where she found Rafael kneeling in front of the fireplace, positioning chunks of firewood from the iron ring around some balled up newspaper, his boxers hanging out of his jeans.
“That might not be such a great idea, Raf.”
He looked at her over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.
“Having the lights on is probably risky enough, but if someone sees smoke from the chimney, we might draw unwanted attention sooner.”
“It’s cold in here, Becca. I tried turning on the heat, but it didn’t kick in. You think they shut off the gas?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not sure we should spend the night here. And I sure as hell don’t want to burn the place down.” She settled on the couch, and took a tug on her bottle. “For all I know the chimney could have a bird’s nest in it. I don’t remember Gran ever having a fire in that thing.”
“Ever? There’s firewood.”
“Pretty dusty firewood. Seems like it’s been there forever. I think it was just for show.”
Rafael stuck his head into the fireplace and peered up the chimney, as if he had any chance of seeing an obstruction in the dark channel. Kneeling, with his arms akimbo, he looked over his little teepee of wood and paper, then sighed and got up, fetched another beer from the kitchen, and joined Becca on the couch.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I really miss her.”
Rafael took her hand and squeezed it.
“Of course you do. She raised you. It’s gonna take time.”
“It just seems wrong, being here and not hearing her voice. After I moved to Boston, when I visited, I’d always hear her voice calling from the kitchen. So excited to see me. And when she hugged you, she’d squeeze the hell out of you. So strong for her size.”
“She sounds cool.”
“She would have liked you. Would have made you tea and told you stories all night. And she would have wanted to hear all about Brazil. Would have told you things your grandparents believed that you never knew.”
“So your dad, he just took off after your mother died, and dumped you with her?”
“It’s complicated. He was afraid.”
“Of what?”
Becca sighed. “My mother couldn’t deal with my grandmother. At all.”
“She sounds pretty easy to get along with.”
“As a person, yes, if she liked you.”
“And she didn’t like your mother?”
“Not really. I was probably too young to be a reliable source on that, but you pick stuff up. Gran was into some dark things…her research. I know if she were here, she’d understand what’s happening now. She’d be able to tell those agents something about the nature of it, maybe even how to stop it.”
“Maybe someone at the university, whoever has her books now, you know, maybe a colleague could help. But what does it have to do with you and me? Maybe we should just get on the road and drive. Get away from it.”
“That’s what my dad did. He ran away.”
“From what? You think something your Gran…called up is the cause of what’s happening?”
“No. She used to dabble, I think, to test the validity of her theories. But that was before she realized just how serious the consequences could be. Before my grandfather went insane and my mother killed herself.”
“Jesus.”
“I try to forgive my dad for not forgiving Gran. I try to remember what he lost.”
“No. Fuck that. You lost the same, and then you lost him too. He should have put you first and stuck it out, or taken you with him.”
Becca sighed. It was the same old black hole in her heart, and nothing new to be said about it. The same unresolved loss and abandonment, shrouded in the mystery of having been so young at the time that everyone had tried to keep her in the dark, to shelter her. As if that were possible.
“You think your mother saw something?”
She nodded.
“When you lived here did you ever see anything? Any kind of supernatural manifestation?”
Becca sat staring at the inert firewood, sifting her memory. She put her fingers to her lips and laughed. The sound startled Rafael.
“What? You remember something?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling, “But it’s a good memory. I’d forgotten all about it.” She pointed the neck of her beer bottle at the hearth. “The only mythical creature I ever saw evoked in this house was Santa Claus.”
“Huh?”
“For real. It must have been my Grandpa because I was young enough that he wouldn’t have been in the asylum yet. Fucking Santa Claus in a red suit with the beard, boots and all climbed out of that fireplace one Christmas Eve while I was crashed on the couch with the tree all lit up. I totally forgot about that until now.”
“You sure it wasn’t a dream?”
“I’m sure. They set it up to trick me somehow. I think they let me sleep on the couch just so I’d see it. And it was perfect. The sack came out first, and then Santa. How awesome is that?”
Rafael was squinting at her with a half smile. Then he committed and the smile kicked out into a skeptical smirk. He shook his head, his dreadlocks swaying. “There’s no way a man and a sack could fit in there. He had to be crouching with his ass in the fireplace, waiting for you to wake up.”
Becca sat up with a jolt.
She slid off the couch onto her knees, crawled on all fours to the fireplace, and started tossing the split logs out onto the rug. She uncrumpled one of Rafael’s newspaper balls and laid the sheet on the hearthstone to keep the soot off her clothes as she crawled into the black aperture. On a typical expedition she didn’t give a damn if she got dirty, but on the run without a change of clothes and the possibility of her picture on TV, she didn’t need to be marked in any way that would attract attention.
She ran her fingertips over the bricks at the back and realized that the black coloration didn’t come off. It might have even been spray-painted on to create the illusion of long use, but for all she knew there had never been a fire set here. Ever. The newsprint was more likely to blacken her hands and pants than the stones were. She swept the paper away and crouched in the brick frame.
It was a large fireplace, probably larger than most, but Rafael was right—it was too small to contain a man in a fat suit. She ran her fingers over the bricks, pushing on each in turn, and feeling a little silly. Wasn’t that the device always used in old movies? The key brick in a wall? She ran a finger across the seams—top, bottom, and sides, felt around behind the hearth frame, and there: a cold metal lever, rough with rust or oxidation. She jiggered it, unsure of how to turn, push, or pull it, and then getting a finger underneath what felt like the short branch of an L, she jogged it, and with a thump, the brick wall at the rear shifted and settled. She gave it a push, and it swung inward on invisible hinges.
A door. A patch of darkness delineated only by the light of the table lamp falling on dust m
otes caught in the gossamer cobwebs billowing gently around the tunnel mouth on a faint draught from below. Somehow she knew that the stale air she tasted came from below and not behind or above. This was not a doorway onto a recessed room hidden in the architecture of the ground floor, nor a stairway leading to the second floor or attic. It led down to a basement she’d never known existed, a hidden cellar with no other door. She knew this as she stared into the blackness. Before the stairs were even lit, she knew they were there.
Rafael, beside her, closer than she’d realized, said, “I’ll grab the headlamp.”
But before he could stand up, Becca had found a chain of brass beads and pulled on it gently, afraid it might break in her fingers. A bare, yellow bulb came on, revealing a tight, winding, stone-and-mortar stair. She shuffled in, feet first.
Rafael put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me go first; make sure it’s safe.”
She shook her head, staring into the tunnel beyond her boots. Then she tilted her chin up and planted a quick kiss on his lips over her shoulder before using his momentary surprise to slip out of his grip and push her butt off the floor with her hands braced behind her.
Django darted into the space between them, sniffing at the musty air, and then Becca’s feet were on the stairs, her upper body and head clearing the doorframe, and passing the faux brick wall with its artfully cut fragments. She scraped down the first three steps on the seat of her pants like a half-awake child bobbing down a staircase on Christmas morning, until the ceiling was high enough for her to take the remainder standing.
The curve of the stairs prevented the dim bulb from illuminating the room at the bottom, and again she groped in the dark, feeling along a beam at the obvious height for a light switch. Her fingers found the edge of a metal plate mounted on a two-by-four. With an indrawn breath to brace herself and a click, a small stone cell lined with crowded bookshelves flickered into existence.
Red Equinox Page 19
