“I’m Trenton,” he said. “I live here.” It was far better when Trenton didn’t look at her directly. He scooted up on his elbows, leaning back against the headboard, and stared instead at the wall, where he could see the faint outlines of posters he’d had tacked there when he was a boy—places where the sun had bleached more or less, and small nicks in the wall from the thumbtacks. In his peripheral vision, she seemed far more solid. “Who’re you?” he said, although he thought he knew.
“I’m nobody anymore, am I?” she whispered. Then: “The others told me I was dead. They told me to get used to it.”
“The others?” Trenton said. His throat was dry.
“They’re always fighting,” she said simply.
For a minute, there was silence. Trenton was waiting for the girl to ask him for help—to avenge her death, or something. Wasn’t that why ghosts hung around? But she said nothing. Would anyone believe him? No. Of course not. He wasn’t even sure he believed him. Maybe he was imagining this whole thing, hallucinating. Maybe he’d finally cracked.
Or maybe the accident had killed him, and the past four months had been one weird dream, and he’d been dead the whole time, and he was only just discovering it. There was a movie like that.
“What’s your name?” Trenton asked.
“Does it matter?” she said. Then: “Why am I here? What is this place?” Her voice broke and she began to cry. The holes became even deeper and darker. He quickly looked away. “I miss my mom,” she said.
Trenton felt the sharp wrench of sadness again, an emotion so strong it seemed to bring his stomach to his throat. He wished he could reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. But she would break apart, he was sure of it. And he wouldn’t be able to handle it—if his hand passed through her. He might throw up.
“You were killed.” He swallowed. Jesus. It was hard to break the news of someone’s death. He sympathized, a little, with the nurse who had called his mom with the news of Richard’s death, even though she’d been a bitch about it. “A long time ago. You were shot here, in the house—”
“That’s her,” she said. “One of the others. Sandra. She got shot. Some guy stole a letter from her . . . ” She flickered briefly and Trenton thought she might vanish. But then she was back: a small dark curve in his peripheral vision. “The others don’t like me very much.”
Trenton closed his eyes and opened them again. The voices he’d been hearing . . . he must be hearing all of them. The ghosts. One of them had been killed in the house, his house. But there were others . . .
It was crazy. He hadn’t even believed in ghosts, at least not until the accident.
The thought returned to him: maybe he was already dead. And even though this was what he had wanted, and been planning for, he felt sick.
“Do you remember anything?” he said.
There was a pause. Trenton shivered. He felt as if a wind had come in through the window and tickled the back of his neck, before realizing that the ghost had shifted, that they had briefly touched.
“I remember Ida,” she said. “She lived next door. But there was something wrong with her bones. They grew all crooked. She always wanted me to play cards, but I didn’t like to. Does that make me a bad person?” Before Trenton could answer, she went on, “And the church—we lived down the street from the church. The bells drove Mom crazy. But I liked them. Especially at Christmas, when they played the hymns.” She fell silent again.
“I meant about what happened,” he said, because he had to say something, to take control, to keep her from crying again. He had to do something to fight the feeling that he was about to cry.
And he suddenly remembered what Minna had said about the cops; they’d come looking for a girl who’d disappeared. He felt a tingling in his spine. It might be her. It must be.
She hesitated. “I remember a car,” she said quietly. “It was raining. I think—I think I screamed.” She broke off. Trenton could feel her tense, gather together; she was suddenly as still as the sky just before a storm. “Someone’s coming.”
“Wait,” Trenton said, but it was too late.
There was a loud bang, then a grating noise outside Trenton’s window. He cried out as a large red blob came into view. Next to him, the ghost disappeared. She simply evaporated, like a mirage when you approach too close; one second she was a brushstroke of shadow, and then even that was gone.
It was Katie, wearing a hat far too hot for the weather. She got an arm over the windowsill. She was red-faced from the climb.
“What the fuck?” Trenton crossed over to her and grabbed the back of her jacket—his jacket, he realized, which he’d left at her house last night—too angry even to be impressed by the fact she’d managed to drag the ladder all the way from the greenhouse.
“A little help?” she panted.
He hauled and she pulled, and finally she managed to get her legs over the windowsill. Then she snaked herself headfirst into his room, banging her knees on the floor. Trenton almost asked if she was okay, then decided against it.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said, backing away from her so that there was at least ten feet between them.
She sat back on her heels, whipping off her hat, which was too large. Underneath, her hair was wispy and obviously unwashed. Trenton wished he didn’t think she looked cute.
She unzipped her jacket—his jacket. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” She tossed the jacket on his bed. “Return service. You don’t have to thank me.”
“Thank you,” Trenton said.
“You’re welcome.”
She stood up, wincing as she bent and unbent a knee. Underneath the jacket, she was wearing a T-shirt with a faded rainbow logo, so small and tight he could see the silhouette of her bra straps when she turned around. It was the same thing she’d been wearing last night, and Trenton wondered whether she’d been to sleep yet. He thought of that guy, Marcus, and the stupid tattoo—pictured that hand working its way across Katie’s thighs—and then tried really hard to think about something, anything, else.
“So these are your digs, huh?” she said, walking the small room, forcing him to step aside and around her.
“We have a front door, you know,” Trenton said. Every time she came close, he smelled her: the same mix of lemon, Marlboros, chemicals. He felt her, too. He could feel the warmth of her skin but also the blood flowing underneath it, the pulse working beneath her skin, her lungs expanding, all those countless valves shutting and opening. She was so alive, it frightened him. He didn’t feel half so alive as she seemed.
“I like to make an entrance.” Katie said it lightly, but she wasn’t smiling. She seemed anxious—hopped up, maybe. “Besides, I’m allergic to parents. Your parents are home, aren’t they?”
Trenton decided not to correct her use of the word parents by pointing out, once again, that his father was dead. “My sister is,” he said.
“Same thing.” She spun around in a circle, still scanning the walls, as though trying to learn some secret from them. Trenton was suddenly embarrassed that his father had never removed the cluster of sports decals from one corner of the room. But Katie didn’t comment on them. “So why’d you pull an Irish exit last night?”
“A what?”
“You left without saying good-bye.”
“You looked like you were busy,” Trenton said, before he could stop himself.
She turned to him at last. Her eyes were bright. “You’re mad about Marcus.”
“I’m not mad,” he said, crossing his arms, then realizing it seemed like he was trying too hard to look casual and dropping them again. “Why would I be mad? I don’t care what you do. I don’t even know you.”
“Okay.” Katie exhaled. She sat down on his bed and drew her knees up to her chest without asking whether she should take off her shoes. Trenton noticed the way the bed sagged under her weight. He wondered whether, even now, the ghost was watching. Weirdly, he felt guilty. “I just thought you might be upset
, because . . . ” Katie trailed off.
“Because why?”
She looked up at him from underneath the heavy fringe of her bangs. “Well, because it kind of seemed like you wanted to kiss me last night.”
Trenton wanted to laugh, but his face was frozen. A high whine, like the noise of a cornered animal, worked its way out of the back of his throat.
“I wouldn’t have stopped you,” she said quietly, so quietly it was practically a whisper, and Trenton thought he might have misheard. He couldn’t think of a response. He could do nothing but stare. Then he heard footsteps coming down the hall toward his room.
Instantly, Katie rocketed off the bed.
“Trenton?” Minna’s voice came through the door. “It’s me. Let me in.”
Katie dropped to her knees, as though thinking of trying to crawl under the bed, where Trenton had shoved his suitcase and a load of dirty socks. She drew back.
“What are you doing?” he whispered, and then said, louder, “One second.”
Katie crawled across the floor and opened the closet door. This was mostly empty: his only suit and nice dress shirt, which his mother had insisted he bring, hung forlornly on an otherwise empty rack. Katie backed into the closet, put a finger to her lips, and then closed the door. Metal hangers clinked together faintly.
“Trenton?” Minna said again. “Today?”
Trenton crossed to the door, feeling a slight thrill in his stomach: there was a girl, a pretty girl, hiding in his closet. At Andover, girls snuck into boys’ rooms all the time—but never his room.
“What is it?” he said, opening the door, hoping he wasn’t blushing.
Minna was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, cinched tight around her face, which made her look even thinner than usual. “Look, I’m sorry about yelling earlier, okay?” she said, not looking at him.
“Okay,” Trenton said. He almost preferred when Minna was a bitch, because then he didn’t have to remember how close they had once been. “Is that it?”
She turned her eyes to him. “I asked Danny—my friend, the cop, remember?—about that woman who died. Here.” She passed him a piece of paper, folded in half. “He e-mailed me the details. So if we see him again, be sure to thank him.”
Trenton unfolded the piece of paper. It was a short e-mail, subject: SANDRA WILKINSON. Trenton felt dizzy. Sandra. The ghost had said something about a Sandra, and a stolen letter.
That means he couldn’t have invented it. He couldn’t have made her up.
Sandra Wilkinson, aged 41, was found at home on the morning of March 14, 1993 by Joe Connelly, roofer. Single shot to the face, removed two of her teeth. There were no prints on the gun but her own, but the door was open and there were signs someone had been with her the night before. Inquest returned inconclusive verdict.
Then, after several spaces:
This is the kind of thing you wanted, right? Looking forward to seeing you. Danny.
“Happy now?” Minna asked.
His hands were shaking. He folded up the piece of paper and put it in his back pocket. He was surprised to feel that there was already something folded up there and then remembered, with a jolt, his suicide note. “What about the girl—the disappearance. Have they found her yet?”
Minna had already started to turn away.
“No. No, they haven’t found her,” Minna said. “She’s probably hacked up to pieces and buried in a well somewhere.”
“That’s disgusting,” Trenton said loudly.
Minna shrugged. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry. “You asked.”
Trenton closed the door and locked it. His heart was beating very fast. He was remembering, then, the time their new kitten had gone missing and they’d found it after a week, fur matted, frozen stiff with cold, at the bottom of the old well.
His closet door opened, and Katie crawled out.
“It smells like my grandma’s bathroom in there,” she said. She stood up, slapping the back of her jeans.
“You can go now,” Trenton said. He was tired, and he was sure she was making fun of him. I wouldn’t have stopped you wasn’t the same as I wanted to. Maybe she’d come all the way here just to make fun of him.
“Don’t be like that,” she said. She came close to him, and it seemed as if she might say something else. Instead, she reached out, snatched the piece of paper from his hand, and started to read. “Cool,” she said. “So someone was murdered in your house?”
“Maybe,” Trenton said, taking the paper back. “It was never proven.”
“The good crimes never are,” she said, as if she had some great knowledge of it. He’d liked her better last night, in the darkness on the porch, underneath a black tarp sky that made everything seem small. She had seemed more real to him then. “Hey, you know what we should do?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “A séance.”
“A what?” Trenton said, although he’d heard. He couldn’t help it; he thought how nice it was to hear her say we.
“You know, a séance. Ouija board and candles and all that. We’ll call up the ghost, make her tell us who did it.”
As she said the word ghost, Trenton thought he heard an echo voice in the walls, in the room and floor, a response too faint to make out. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said.
“It’s a great idea. Come on, let’s.” She took a step closer to him. Her eyes were the exact color of good weed—like something you could fall inside to get high. “Please. You and me. Tomorrow night?” She made her eyes big, and even though he knew it was the kind of trick girls did, it worked: he felt his body responding, felt a sudden ache through his fingers, like they wanted to touch her all on their own.
He took a step away from her. “I’m babysitting my niece tomorrow,” he said. He was glad for the excuse—and also a bit disappointed.
Katie shrugged. “Can she keep a secret?”
Trenton felt himself relenting. “As well as any six-year-old.” He added: “She goes to bed early.”
Katie smiled. “So we’ll be alone,” she said. She stared at him for a second, and her smile faltered. “Hey, Trenton?”
“What?”
“I really am sorry. About the party last night. It’s complicated, with me.” She touched her fingers to her lips and then brought them to his cheek.
Trenton jerked away instinctively. He hated people touching his face.
“See you tomorrow,” she said, and then she climbed out the way she had come, through the window.
ALICE
Next to the bookshelf in the Blue Room is a place in the wall gouged at various heights: three foot ten, four feet three, four foot four.
This is where Trenton marked his growth, year by year, picking and chiseling with the Swiss army knife Richard bought him for his fifth birthday—briefly confiscated by his mother, who thought he was too young, but then commandeered by Minna from Caroline’s underwear drawer and returned to Trenton, as a bribe, to keep him from telling when he caught her smoking from the bedroom window.
This is how we grow: not up, but out, like trees—swelling to encompass all these stories, the promises and lies and bribes and habits.
Even now—especially now—it is hard to say what is true.
One thing I do know: it was Thomas’s idea to run away.
I ran away once when I was a little girl. That was the year I got a suitcase for Christmas, after I’d begged my parents for a briefcase like the kind my father took with him to work. I loved my father’s briefcase, with its dark velvet interior and recessed compartments, and places for his pipe, his eyeglasses, and his papers. It was as clean, as ordered, as regular as my father himself.
My suitcase was small and powder blue, with brass latches and a fleecy soft interior and little pockets for putting in whatever I liked. It wasn’t my father’s briefcase, but I liked it even better, especially the small lock that kept it closed and the accompanying key, which I wore like a necklace. Inside, I kept my prized possessions: three silver bar
rettes; a snow globe my grandparents had brought me from New York City, featuring a tiny bridge and even the miniature figure of a girl standing on it who looked just like me; a small china doll named Amelia, missing one arm, which I’d rescued from the trash after my older sister got tired of her.
For months I carried that suitcase with me everywhere, even though my sisters ridiculed me endlessly about it. I even insisted on taking it to school, and my teacher, Mrs. Hornsby, let me keep it by my desk, instead of among the jumble of overcoats and rubber boots and mittens dripping snow by the radiators in the back.
One night, I came out from the bath and found my sisters in my bedroom. They’d broken the lock, just snapped it in half, opened the suitcase, and laid everything out on the rug. Their fingerprints were all over the snow globe. Poor Amelia was discarded facedown on the floor. They were laughing hysterically.
I lunged at Olivia, my middle sister, first. She’d had bad pneumonia as a kid and was weaker than Delilah. I managed to wrestle her to the ground before she kneed me in the stomach and Delilah hauled me backward. She pinned me and sat on my chest.
“You know why Mom and Dad bought you that stupid suitcase, don’t you?” Delilah leaned forward so that her hair tented around me. Her face, mean and gloating, was all I could see. “They want you to run away.”
“You’re a liar.” I was doing a bad job of trying not to cry.
“They told us so,” Delilah said. “They never wanted you in the first place.”
I spit at her. She slapped my face, hard, and finally I couldn’t swallow back the tears anymore, and I started to cry, huge heaving sobs that nearly made me throw up. Later, they must have felt badly; Olivia made me warm milk with honey and Delilah braided and pinned my hair so it would curl in the morning. But I didn’t forgive them.
I had my revenge. The next day, a Sunday, I snuck away through the crowd congregating after church and circled back around to the stairs that led into the basement, where the church held socials and doled out soup on Easter. It was colder than I’d expected, and darker. For hours I shivered alone, listening to the distant echo of voices, praying both that I wouldn’t be discovered and that I would.
Rooms Page 14
