Creep

by Eireann Corrigan

  The next morning I came down to run and found Jillian sitting at the kitchen island, my mom emptying the dishwasher, and my dad reading the paper. “You can’t just forbid her from going over there,” Jillian was saying. I hung back on the stairs and silently cheered her on.

  “Of course I can. I’m the mother. Part of my job is to forbid.”

  “You are the mother of a teenager, and forbidding her will immediately drive her away. You might as well start paying that family rent.”

  I heard the paper rustle and my father sigh. “I don’t even understand the problem.”

  “It was just a gut feeling, Brad. I can’t explain it.” Both Dad and Aunt Jillian raised their voices in objection. “I know, I know. But I trust my instincts. He’s smarmy, that Donahue guy. It felt like he was trying to sell me something. He just seemed off somehow. The whole thing was peculiar. The letter for one, but it was all so melodramatic. She wanted to call the police about an anonymous note in the mailbox.”

  “To be fair, it sounded like a bizarre note,” Jillian pointed out.

  “Yes, but to fall to pieces like that? And he kept asking me if this was that kind of neighborhood? I wanted to ask, What kind of neighborhood?”

  “I’m telling you—this is not the parental hill to die on.” I heard my dad fold his paper. “Speaking of paying rent—are you going to start writing checks, Jill? Are we your official residence now?”

  “You got a room for me, Brad?” They were teasing each other, but in the way my aunt and my dad always teased each other, with an underlying edge.

  “The two of you—enough.” My mother’s attention had shifted from the Donahues’ problems to our own problems. And at that moment, our family’s problems were much less intriguing to me. I stood up and stomped down the last few steps. When I breezed through the kitchen, they were busying themselves, acting as if they hadn’t been talking about Janie’s family like a bunch of seventh-grade girls at a slumber party.

  “You going for a run?” Aunt Jillian asked too brightly.

  “Yep.” As if the shorts and sneakers weren’t self-explanatory.

  “And then what?” My aunt asked the question, but it was my mom who was obviously waiting for the answer.

  “I don’t know.” I drank my water, closed the fridge door, and stared at my mom.

  “If you go to Janie’s house—” she started, then paused. The room felt swollen, as if we were all holding our breath. “If you go to Janie’s house, please make sure your phone is on. I’d like you to check in.”

  “Can I ping you?” Ping meant I didn’t have to write anything really, just the word Ping. Ping meant I was alive and well and didn’t need my mom to rescue me.

  “Sure.” My mom and dad exchanged a look—a kind look, like they were running on the same team and she had just posted an awesome time.

  “Okay,” I said. And then, “I love you.” I said it to everyone in general. Right then I did love them all. My dad didn’t offer to time me and that was also okay. I took a few deep breaths. I shook myself loose.

  Then I ran.

  Pounding through the neighborhood, I rehashed everything I knew about the Donahues, every unexpected facet I’d seen of each of them, every question I had filed away for later. Hard as it was to admit, my mom wasn’t entirely wrong—Mr. Donahue tried hard at everything, and his trying wore a veneer of someone who hoped to distract the world. At my mom’s annual company party, her boss always hired a magician to circulate around the tables, possibly to entertain us kids. But the magician always worked so frantically and failed so often that you spent most of the time eating your food really enthusiastically, hoping he wouldn’t approach. Mr. Donahue reminded me of that.

  Until she sat across from her husband at dinner, Mrs. Donahue had seemed more sincere. Or maybe she had more effective camouflage. I thought of Mrs. Donahue’s chore charts and systems and the careful way she spoke to her children and wondered if she ever relinquished her relentless self-control. If my mom could have been more patient, they might have been friends with each other.

  Lucy was mean and bitter and pretty high-strung. She scared me because she didn’t appear to be scared of anything. I knew that Janie had predicted she’d lay it on thick and pretend to like me, and sometimes Lucy did that. I recognized that, but mostly I knew Lucy didn’t like anyone and was one breath from saying that at any given moment.

  I ran harder, faster, and admitted to myself that what Ben thought of me mattered more than it should have. Like the night before, cracking jokes clearly meant to make Janie or Lucy shriek in outrage, he looked at me. He noticed me there.

  But something had happened with Ben, back in Northampton. You could tell. His parents treated him so gingerly, like a delicate flower or a live grenade.

  And then there was Janie. Shrouded in mystery, basically a mermaid. How she’d text on her phone when she thought I wasn’t looking but never wanted to talk about her last school. It felt like I knew Janie, but I didn’t understand Janie. So I kept running—through the stitch in my side and the pain in my chest. I ran past the aching in my legs.

  When I ran past the park, I spotted Janie in the visitors’ dugout as if I’d conjured her. I veered off course and slowed to a jog. She sat slumped on the bench. She’d pulled back her dark hair in a braid, the lighter strands glinting in the sun.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” she said when I got to her. “I’m just sitting.”

  “I need to stop.” I heard the wheeze in my voice. “What are you doing here?”

  Janie looked around. “I’m at the park.”

  “Yeah, I just—” I caught myself before I said it aloud, before I said, It’s my park.

  But Janie heard it anyway. “You don’t have to show me around everywhere.”

  “It’s just a place I come to a lot.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t own it.”

  “Whoa.” I almost asked, Where did that come from? But I knew where it had come from. It came from me acting ridiculously possessive about a park.

  Janie stopped herself too. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just—eventually I need to not feel like a guest here, you know? At the park, at the pool, in my own house.”

  I sat down beside her and propped my legs against the chain-link fence. “Were you scared? Could you sleep?”

  “Yeah, I slept.” Janie watched me stretch. “What did your mom say?”

  I searched for something that wouldn’t make Janie feel worse. “She thinks it’s a dumb joke. Probably kids.”

  “We’re kids.”

  “Well, she doesn’t think we did it.”

  “Right. But would you ever do something like that?”

  “Of course not.”

  “See? I don’t think it’s kids.”

  “So you think someone is obsessed with your family’s new house and has watched over it for generations? Really? Somebody’s just giving you guys a hard time. I’m sorry. It sucks and you don’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this.” I stood up. “Listen, I have to grab a shower. Then do you want to go to the pool? Maybe ask your mom to go and sign your family up. Then it will feel like your place too, you know? Or let’s ask Lucy to go up to the high school—”

  “I have to get back.” Janie spoke in a flat voice that I hadn’t yet heard. “Mom wants us to all stay in. She has an appointment with the realtor.”

  “Janie, are you okay?”

  “Have you ever felt like there’s something you can’t outrun?” She looked up at me and at first it looked like she would cry any second. But instead she started giggling, a little maniacally at first and then sounding like her old self, or at least the self I’d known for about five whole days.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Look at you”—she gestured to my sneakers, my gym clothes—“you’re training to outrun everyone.” Janie laughed harder and I tried to laugh with her, but really it didn’t seem so funny to me. It seemed like a strange question for anyone to ask, let alone a fourteen-year-old girl,
and I got the uncomfortable feeling that my mom might be on to something.

  Maybe there was something wrong at the Donahue house after all.

  But that didn’t stop me from heading there immediately after showering. I texted Janie and asked, Do you need anything? She wrote back, You mean like weapons? So that clued me in on what to expect from the afternoon. She wrote, Come right in, but it still felt weird to just barge into the house, so I went around to the back door and lightly rapped on it, hoping she was in the kitchen. But instead Mr. Donahue answered; he was on his cell phone, so he just mouthed a greeting to me and pointed toward the stairway three times, which I took to mean the third floor.

  All three Donahue siblings sat in the turret room. Lucy sat on the bed, with her legs tucked beneath her and an iPad on her lap. Janie perched on a fuzzy stool in front of what looked like an old-fashioned vanity. And Ben sat sprawled on a fur beanbag.

  If Janie’s room was a kaleidoscope of cheerful colors and busy prints, Lucy’s looked like the stark canvas of an unapologetic perfectionist. Her bed, bookshelves, chair, rugs—all of it shone pristinely white. I worried about sitting down. I had grabbed a blueberry muffin on my way out the door and maybe a stray crumb had stuck to my leg. Because of its rounded walls, the turret room was smaller than most bedrooms. Lucy had piled in so many white pillows, gauzy blankets, and fuzzy rugs, it felt like we were tucked inside a roll of paper towels. We were cramped but not exactly uncomfortable. Everything was so soft and plush.

  “Welcome to our Center of Operations.” Ben sat up straighter in his seat and I could hear the beans resettle in the bag.

  Lucy pointed to the foot of her bed. “Take a seat.”

  “Your room is really glamorous,” I said, sitting delicately on the white quilt.

  “She means ridiculous,” Ben corrected. “How many polar bears had to die for your ice princess palace?”

  Janie swiveled toward me on the stool. “We’ve been organizing a plan of attack?” Her voice lilted like she was asking a question and her gaze shifted to Lucy, as if seeking confirmation. Janie seemed younger sitting in the room with her older brother and sister. But maybe that happened with all families.

  “Do you have the note?” I asked. Three heads shook in response.

  “Mom still has it,” Janie reported. “She brought it to the realtor.”

  “Why?” I asked, and got three shrugs in return.

  Lucy looked bored. “I basically know it by heart.”

  Janie told me, “We’re putting together a list of suspects.”

  “Okay.” Before I could stop myself, I looked at Lucy’s screen. It was as blank as the rest of the room.

  “You’re not a suspect,” Janie assured me.

  Ben looked up at me. “We didn’t agree on that.” I didn’t think he was serious.

  “If I were to write a threatening note, I’d address it only to you.” The words just spilled out of my mouth.

  “Oh no, Olivia’s getting sassy!” Ben crowed. I saw a look pass between Lucy and Janie.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. “So I’m not a suspect. Who is?”

  “You tell us.” Lucy picked up her stylus.

  Janie added, “We figure you know all the neighbors. Is there anyone you can think of? Maybe someone who’s a little … off?”

  “No! I mean, I can’t think of anyone.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous. Every neighborhood has weirdos.” Ben slapped the ground beside his chair. “Do you remember Mr. Cuddy? How he’d never want anyone to park in front of his house?”

  “He’d threaten to tow people,” Janie explained.

  Lucy added, “Like our grandparents on Christmas morning.”

  “He was a little high-strung.”

  “He was insane.”

  “There’s nobody really like that.” I thought harder. “My dad says Mr. Park gets angry when people let dandelions grow.” Janie looked quizzical. “They spread. One year he tried to organize all the dads to go to Home Depot together and get the same lawn treatment so that everyone’s yards matched. But that didn’t really get off the ground.”

  “The letter didn’t really address landscaping,” Ben pointed out.

  “Right.”

  “What about the lady on the corner? The yellow house?”

  “Miss Abbot?”

  “I don’t know her name. She look likes Anna Wintour, but older.”

  I watched Lucy carefully write out the name of the sweet older lady who never failed to compliment me on my first day of school outfit every September. “Miss Abbot would never send hate mail,” I said.

  “She’s always peering out her windows. Or sitting on her patio. Watching.”

  “She smokes cigarettes.”

  “So?”

  “That’s why she spends a lot of time on the patio.”

  “So why is she looking out the windows?”

  “Because that’s why you have windows—to see through them.”

  “It’s creepy. Is she married? Kids? Grandkids?”

  “You know this is what happened in Salem, right?”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “We grew up in Massachusetts,” she reminded me. “We know all about Salem.”

  “Well, then you know they accused single women living on their own, who didn’t have family to protect them. Mostly because the judges wanted their land.”

  “We have plenty of land,” Lucy replied.

  “We even have a turret,” Ben added, pointing at the ceiling.

  “You can’t just go accusing little old ladies who’ve lived here forever!”

  “That is the whole point of this exercise.” Lucy raised her voice to match my own, held up her hand, and made a face to Janie, as if to say, I told you so. “You saw the note. It’s not like we made it up. Somebody had to have written it. The note talked about ‘waiting generations.’ Apparently Miss Abbot has lived here for generations.”

  “She smokes.”

  “You’ve said that.”

  “Did the note smell like cigarettes? At all?”

  Lucy sighed. “I didn’t smell it.”

  “It didn’t.” We all glanced at Ben. “Don’t look at me like I’m a crazy person.” He shifted uncomfortably in the beanbag. “I was using all my senses. It just smelled like paper, maybe a little earthy, like wet cardboard.”

  “We’re not eliminating her,” Lucy decided. “But let’s move on for now.”

  The silence stretched out until Janie spoke up. “Okay, you can’t get defensive, Liv.” Long pause. “There’s someone else we should consider. Other people.” I waited. Seconds ticked by. Janie took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know them that well, but from what I do know …” She trailed off.

  I looked around the room, incredulous. “Are you talking about my parents?”

  “What? No! I’m talking about Brooke or Kaia. I’m not trying to criticize, but Brooke especially seems to enjoy stirring things up.”

  “Could you please stop apologizing and just own an opinion?” Lucy threw her stylus and it left a long, squiggly line next to Brooke’s misspelled name. She turned to me. “Apparently, your friends are not the most welcoming crowd. Maybe they’re mad you ditched them for Janie? Or they’re just testing her or something before she gets to join your pseudo cool girl group? Maybe this is hazing?”

  It might have made me disloyal, but I wasn’t angry. I understood how Lucy had arrived at the thought. But it didn’t feel right.

  “It’s too polished,” I told them. “Even if they were working at it, they would have oversold it, I think. And they would have typed it rather than risk me recognizing the handwriting.”

  “That’s excellent analysis,” Ben said, and I tried not to let the compliment matter to me. “But we’re all ignoring the obvious: the people who used to live here. Either the Langsom kids or their parents, whoever’s more emotionally eroded over the whole move.”

  “Dr. Langsom sort of lost it, professionally.” As soon as I offered that tidbit up, I
regretted sharing anything I’d overheard during Sangria Saturdays.

  Lucy leaned in. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “Well, is he mental?” Ben asked. “Could he have done this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lucy wrote the name Langsom down, then neatly indented and added Dr. Langsom. “I sort of pictured a kid.”

  “Well, yeah,” Ben said. “You pictured me.”

  She talked on as if her brother hadn’t spoken. “I mean, he’s a surgeon, right? Aren’t you vetted before you’re allowed to cut people open?”

  “Right,” Janie said. “He was vetted and they decided he couldn’t handle operating anymore. Right, Liv?”

  “I guess so. I don’t know details.”

  “Can you find them out?”

  “I can try.”

  Lucy nodded. “Olivia, you take the doctor. I’ll see what I can dig up about Mrs. Langsom. There are three kids, right?”

  “Yeah.” I thought of Thatcher behind the coffee shop counter. And his brothers, both slightly older, equally attractive, alternate versions of him.

  “But the older ones are in college, right? They don’t care. Ben, you need some friends anyway. Cozy up to Thatcher. He’s in our grade.”

  “How is that going to work? We just bought their foreclosed house.”

  “Figure it out. If he wrote the letter, he’d want to keep you close just to stay connected with the house.”

  “What about me?” Janie asked, and I glimpsed how she must have looked as a little kid, running frantically to catch up with the twins.

  “Miss Abbot.”

  “What?” she groaned. “That’s not even a real assignment. We ruled her out.”

  “No, we moved on. Go on over and introduce yourself. See if she has a lot of stationery around. Maybe she’s a stretch, but if she’s peering out the window as much as you say, maybe she saw something. You never know.” Lucy jotted down a bunch of notes. “It goes without saying that we only report to each other.” Ben and Janie nodded. “Right?” Lucy added, possibly for my benefit only.

  “Of course,” I answered immediately and waited for Lucy to say something else, like maybe I believe in you or Go team or something inspirational to break up the family huddle. Instead she just reached over to her lacquered bedside table and grabbed a set of earbuds. She plugged them into the iPad and turned over on her side with her back to us. We were dismissed.