“We’re looking for an old photo album with a blue cover,” he said as they flipped open the flaps of the boxes.
“Simon, everything in here is old,” she said.
With the sun beating down on the tin roof, it was a sweatbox inside the garage. Sunlight streaked through gaps in the old boards that made up the walls. Outside, the boards had been painted, but here the bare wood was all splintery and splotched with damp. The dust storm they’d set off as they dug out the chairs churned in the shafts of light that sifted through the corrugated tin roof.
An hour went by. Now and then a car came bumping down the rutted lane, grinding the gravel beneath its wheels, pinging pebbles off the side of the garage as it went by. They pulled down all the boxes and went through them one by one, but failed to turn up the missing album. Tired and sweaty, they looked down bleakly at the boxes strewn round them on the floor.
“Wait,” said Abbey suddenly. “We took two loads of four boxes in the wagon that night. There should be eight boxes here. There are only seven. One’s missing.”
They started rooting through the clutter again, looking for it. It was Simon who finally found it, tucked beneath the workbench on top of Granddad’s old wooden tool chest. He had no memory of putting it there. The box was unmarked. It was not one of the ones he’d gone through.
They set it down on the floor between them and popped the flaps. Halfway down, buried beneath a pile of old gardening magazines scooped from the shelves in the Hawkins living room, they found the missing album.
As he started leafing through it Simon recalled the first time he’d gone through the album, under Mr. Hawkins’ watchful eye. He came to the page with the blank space where the photo of the boys on the porch stairs had been. It was just one in a flurry of pictures taken that summer. On the following pages were others he hadn’t seen that day, including two pages of photos taken inside the museum. One showed young Hawkins bending low to peer into the mummy case.
After that, there was only a smattering of photos from Hawkins’ high school years, as the gangly boy grew into a handsome young man. The last of them, taken at the grad dance, showed him standing with his date. Beneath it, in her careful hand, Eleanor Hawkins had written, “First date.”
After a break of two pages, the album started up again, now with Eleanor’s family photos. Her father had been a stockyard worker, and they’d lived in a humble little house down near the tracks. There were no formal studio shots, just random snaps of the family as it grew. Dog-eared and wrinkled, they showed signs of having been stored haphazardly down the years, then rescued and consigned to the calm of the album. All were neatly labeled in Eleanor’s hand.
There were two children in the family. Eleanor’s sister, Daphne, was older—lean and long like her mother. Eleanor was short like her father. Daphne loved the camera, while Eleanor clearly did not. Daphne wore the latest fashions, while Eleanor dressed simply and starkly. By the time she was in her teens, there was already something of the bohemian about her.
After high school, the sisters went their separate ways—Daphne off to university, Eleanor to college in town. There was a shot of Daphne and her beau in their caps and gowns at graduation. And a wedding photo two years later, with Eleanor standing amidst the matching bridesmaids looking glum.
Then, Daphne with her newborn baby at the hospital. A photo from the christening—the baby in a long lace gown, the new mom and dad beaming as they held the child.
Then an ominously empty page, followed on the next by a prayer card with a picture of an angel leading a child by the hand over a little white bridge. Below it was an obituary notice clipped from the local paper:
Charles and Daphne Grosvenor are grieved to announce the death of their infant child, Alice Jane, age six months.
Beneath the brittle notice Eleanor had written two stark words: “Crib death.”
After that, the photos were few. Daphne and her husband posing for Christmas pictures down the years—graying, aging. Loss had left its stamp upon them—a guardedness about his eyes, grief tucked among the folds of her gown. Finally, a prayer card from the funeral of Daphne Grosvenor, with a photo of a young Daphne on the front, before death came to call.
“So sad,” said Abbey.
“You see what this means though, don’t you?” said Simon. “That baby who died is the niece Alice Loudon claims to be.”
The wind chime hanging from the beam above them began to tinkle lightly in the hot, still air. Abbey put a finger to her lips and pointed toward the side of the garage skirting the lane. There was a faint scrabbling just on the other side of the wall, followed by a high, troubled whine. Then, the sound of footsteps approaching along the lane, and a light, eerie whistling. Simon recognized the tune as the one he’d heard Alice Loudon play a few nights before, and his blood froze.
A shadow passed slowly along the side the garage, quenching the light through the cracks, now here, now there. There was a sudden, frenzied scratching at the double doors of the garage, followed by loud, insistent barking.
“Stop that, Caesar.” The voice was unmistakably Alice Loudon’s. The dog whimpered and let out a flurry of stifled barks.
“Come away from there—now. There’s nothing for you there.”
The shadow passed and the dog scurried off. Simon and Abbey began to breathe again. As the sounds faded into the distance, they stole over to the double doors and put their eyes to the crack between them.
Alice Loudon was ambling off along the lane, with Caesar trailing behind. Even as they watched, the dog turned and took a lingering look their way.
26
All through July, the Loudons spent long hours in their yard, tending their garden and taking in the sun. Since the yard ran along the side of the house, much of their activity was on view to the neighbors. Simon was convinced this was no coincidence. Their actions increasingly appeared to him to be part of an elaborate performance.
To the casual observer they doubtless seemed the perfect couple, their lives like something clipped from the pages of a magazine. But no one watched them with the same attention that he did. They might glimpse them briefly from a window, see them for a moment as they passed by the house. He alone remained fixed at his perch hour after hour like an eagle in its aerie.
Illness had shaped him to see what others did not. He studied their body language, their gestures, the fleeting expressions that crossed their faces. Math problems, science concepts, even the simplest of words often eluded him in the fog that filled his brain. But here was a study perfectly suited to him, and he noted every nuance like a scholar.
“There’s something strange about them,” he said to Abbey. “The way they are with one another.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s not so much what they do; it’s what they don’t. It’s like they’re playing at being affectionate. But in all the time I’ve watched them, I’ve never once seen him take her hand, give her a hug or a kiss, show any sign of warmth toward her. It’s weird. My folks are far from being lovebirds, but they laugh at one another’s jokes, they touch, they kiss. I’ve never seen the Loudons do any of those things. That’s what’s strange.”
Later that week, they were sitting at the window in his room. Across the street, the Loudons were out in their yard. They had set up a patio table on the lawn at the side of the house, shaded by a large, bright umbrella. She was sitting reading at the table. It was late afternoon. He was mixing drinks for them, as he often did at that time of day. He poured a shot of liquor into a glass, added a spritz of soda, dropped in two ice cubes with metal tongs, and then passed it to her.
As she glanced up from her book to take it from him, his hand happened to brush hers. She recoiled as if she’d been shocked. The glass fell to the grass, and a dark look flashed across her face as she sat bolt upright in her chair.
James Loudon stepped back, brought his hands up t
o his chest, and bobbed his head, before stooping to pick up the glass. The whole exchange lasted mere seconds, then all returned to normal. He remade the drink, but now he set it down on the table beside her.
“Did you see that?” said Abbey.
After that, Abbey’s eyes were glued to everything they did. And she noticed something even stranger about them, something that was to prove a vital clue to who Alice Loudon really was.
“He makes this elaborate show of mixing her drink,” she said as they were observing the ritual another day. “But have you ever actually seen her drink it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Watch,” she said.
They watched Alice Loudon absently turn the glass on the table as she read. From time to time, she took it up in her hand and touched the cool glass to her cheek, then set it down again, untasted. Finally, she picked up the drink, held it down by her side, and discreetly emptied it onto the lawn.
“See,” said Abbey. “It’s the same when he makes her something to eat. He barbeques steaks, puts one on a plate and sets it down on the table in front her. She cuts it into small pieces, toys with it, but never eats a bite of it. Eventually, he wanders off into the house. A few minutes later, the dog comes running out and stations itself by her side. By then the steak is cold. She tips it onto the grass as if she were emptying scraps. And the dog gobbles it up.
“And that’s another strange thing. The dog. You see it alone in the yard. You see it with her. But have you ever seen him and the dog together?”
“I’m sure I have.”
“Well, I haven’t—ever.”
* * *
Caesar had grown alarmingly since the Loudons first moved in. He spent most evenings shut in the yard alone, ceaselessly prowling the property, ever on the alert for any small animals that might wander into his domain. It was then, as the dark fell and the shadows claimed him as their own, that he most reminded Simon of the dog he’d seen from the study window.
The squirrels that once ran wild in the Hawkins yard were strangely absent now. The birds had deserted the cedars, taking their songs with them. The cats that once crossed the yard on their way to and from the cat-lady’s house next door now went a safer way. All save for one—the old tomcat with the torn ear.
Rather than slink down the alley with the others, he strutted along the top rail of the high fence that separated the yards, safely out of the dog’s reach. From time to time, he’d pause to lick a paw and cast a disdainful glance down into the Loudon’s yard, before leaping down on the opposite side to enjoy his dinner outside the cat-lady’s door. All the while, the dog sat on its haunches, absolutely still, staring intently up at the cat.
The display went on for several weeks as Simon watched. Then one day, as the cat paused midway along the fence to scratch its ear, the dog struck. Without a hint of warning, it sprang from a sitting position high into the air, and plucked the cat off the rail like a ripe peach off a bough. There was one quick startled cry, cut short, as they dropped out of sight behind the bushes. Then silence. A long while later, the dog emerged…alone.
After that, the dog took to leaping the Loudons’ fence many nights, prowling the street for strays of all sorts. More than once, Simon stole to the window in the night and found it stationed in front of the house, staring up at him.
27
Everyone assumed that when school started up again in the fall Simon would go. He’d been ill for months and missed the better part of a year of school. He’d passed through a period of blankness. But the worst of it was behind him now, and things would soon return to the way they’d been before he became sick.
Summer school would help ease him back into the swing of things, Mom said. It would just be for a month, and there’d only be the one subject to worry about. The daily trek to and from the school would help build up his strength. And since it was only for half a day, he’d be able to nap in the afternoon if he was tired. She was so gung ho about it, she left little room for doubt. How could he begin to tell her what he’d come increasingly to believe—that things would never again be as they’d been before?
No one wanted him to be well more than he did himself, but all the wanting in the world couldn’t change the way he felt. It was one thing to tinker around the house, sit reading by the window in the wingback chair, nap when he needed to, and spend much of his time alone with his thoughts. It would be another entirely, come September, to head off early in the morning, walk almost a mile to school, socialize with “friends” who had quietly faded from his life since illness struck, troop from class to class all day long with an armload of texts, meet new teachers, and be barraged with a bewildering flood of new information. And then, at the end of the day, make the long trek back and be ready to face an hour or two of homework in the evening. The mere thought of it filled him with dread.
As he set off to summer school that first morning, he felt like a little kid heading off for his first day of kindergarten. He kept looking back at the house with vague desperation as it faded in the distance. After his last disastrous experience, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to find the school. He’d pored over the city street map the night before, and made a rough sketch on a scrap of paper of the route he was to take. He kept it clutched in his hand now while he walked. He still had a knack of tucking things away, never to find them again.
He told himself he wouldn’t really need the map, but by the time he’d taken a couple of turns, he found himself in suddenly alien surroundings. He was standing on a corner, staring up at the street signs and checking his map—on which neither of the street names seemed to appear—when someone stole up behind him.
“You took a wrong turn two blocks back, Simon.”
“Abbey. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been shadowing you since you left home. I was the one who found you the last time you tried to get to school, remember? I was worried you might get lost again, so I decided to follow you.”
“Thanks, Abbey. You’re a life saver.”
“What’s that you’ve got there?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, pushing the piece of paper into his pocket—where it would doubtless vanish forever. He followed meekly after her as she retraced his route. Two blocks back, they came to the street he’d turned off last. She crossed it and headed in exactly the opposite direction.
“You’ve got a whole different Caledon in your head, Simon. Everything’s all switched around, and none of the streets get you where you want to go.”
They hadn’t gone far before he recognized where they were. He’d wasted valuable time by taking the wrong turn. They had to hurry if he was to make it to school on time. He was fine as long as he was sauntering along at the slow shuffle he’d adopted since he became sick. But two blocks of jogging at a brisk pace now and he was totally depleted. They stopped to rest in the park where Abbey had found him before.
“You sure you’re up to this, Simon?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
They were a block away when the bell rang. Abbey walked him the rest of the way, wished him luck, and left him at the door.
They’d changed the school since he was last there. The halls were twice as long, the stairs so steep he had to grip the handrail and haul himself up. Someone had jumbled up all the numbers on the classroom doors, and he couldn’t find the class he was looking for. He had to poke his head into every room along the hall until he finally found the one where math was being taught. He slipped in the rear door and slid into the nearest seat.
There were a dozen kids in the class, all of them clustered near the front. He recognized a few faces. They seemed to belong to another lifetime.
The teacher was writing on the board. Someone he’d never seen before. She turned around, saw him sitting back there, and motioned him to move up to the front. She asked his name, checked it off her list, and handed him a text from
the pile on the corner of her desk. She had that earnest look novice teachers have, like a new car off the lot, before it gets all rusty and worn down.
Her name was Ms. Hart. She’d written it in big block letters on the board. It was the only thing she’d written on the board that he understood. The rest was numbers. He was not good with numbers. They were reviewing decimals. In no time at all he was totally lost.
Abbey was waiting for him in the yard when he came out. She took one look at him and said, “Oh, my god.” The walk home was a blank. He felt as if someone had stood him against a wall and shot decimals at him all morning. That night, he went to bed at the same time as Babs. She read the bedtime story.
The next day was a bit better. He made it all the way to school with Abbey without stopping. He understood a little more of what was written on the board. Ms. Hart was slow and patient with the class and explained things in a way that almost made sense. He napped in the afternoon, but was nowhere near as exhausted as he’d been the first day.
By the second week, he’d sorted out the route well enough that Abbey decided he could make it on his own. She dropped by in the afternoons after his nap to help him with the homework. With her help, he did well enough on the final exam at the end of the month that Ms. Hart gave him a passing grade.
* * *
The last two weeks of August, Abbey went away to a cottage with her family. He hadn’t realized just how important she’d become to him, until suddenly she wasn’t there. At the start of the second week, a picture postcard came in the mail—a shot of half a dozen cottages huddled on a little slip of a beach backed by rocky cliffs and giant pines.
Yup—every bit as exciting as it looks, she wrote. Hope you’re doing well, Simon. Feels like we’ve been gone about a hundred years. Max sends Babs a big kiss.
The Egyptian Mirror Page 14