Black Creek Crossing

by John Saul

  “What is it, Angel?” Myra pressed. “It’s all right—you can tell me. I’m your mother.”

  But Angel only shook her head again. “Nothing happened,” she insisted. “I just feel like—” She fell silent, then shrugged. “I’ll be okay.” But as they heard the front door slam, followed by Marty Sullivan’s slurred voice as he shouted for Myra, Angel bit her lip. “I’ll set the table,” she said, and by the time her father staggered into the room a moment later, she was already pulling the silverware out of the drawer next to the sink.

  “I quit,” Marty Sullivan announced, his face red and his voice thick from the half-dozen drinks he’d had before he came home. “Won’t work for that son of a bitch O’Donnell anymore!”

  As her husband’s words echoed in the kitchen, Myra Sullivan’s heart sank.

  Once again, her husband was drunk.

  Once again, her husband had been fired.

  And this time she doubted there would be a new job, because she was fairly sure Jerry O’Donnell was the last man left in Eastbury who would give Marty Sullivan a chance.

  Maybe, after all, it was time to go talk to Joni.

  Chapter 4

  ETH BAKER WAS SO FOCUSED ON THE COMPUTER screen that he didn’t hear his father’s first rap on his bedroom door. The image that had captured his attention for the last ten minutes was one of almost a hundred photographs he’d taken that day, wandering around Roundtree after school with the digital camera his mother had given him for his birthday last week.

  “A camera?” his father had groused when Seth ripped the paper off the box. “For God’s sake, Jane—he’s fifteen! What does he want with a camera?”

  “All I know is that he said he wanted one,” his mother had replied. “I didn’t ask him why he wanted one.” Then she turned and smiled at him, but it was the same kind of smile he’d seen her put on a million times before, when she was pretending to be interested in something but really wasn’t. “Did I get the right one? It was the most expensive one I could find without going all the way to Boston.”

  Seth had given her the nod he knew was expected. “It’s cool,” he’d said, though he hadn’t even looked at it yet.

  But that night, he read the instruction manual and decided that the camera was, indeed, very cool. The biggest problem was that though it would take pictures at very high resolution, the memory card it came with wasn’t big enough to hold more than eight pictures at full resolution. And ever since taking a class in photography at summer school, he’d been taking dozens of pictures a day.

  His father had been grumbling about that too. “For God’s sake, Jane,” he’d said when Seth’s mother told him about the class. “What’s he want to spend the summer in a darkroom for? He should be out playing baseball with his friends.”

  Seth had said nothing, knowing there wasn’t any point in trying to explain that not only did he hate baseball, but nobody wanted him to play anyway. That was one of the things he loved about photography—in the darkroom, nobody paid any attention to what anybody else was doing, and no one was choosing up sides, and no one was yelling at him because he wasn’t very good at sports, which was about all anyone else seemed to care about. For as long as he could remember, he’d always been the last one picked when they chose up sides for football or baseball, and though he could sort of swim, he wasn’t good at it, and though he could dive off the low board, the high board terrified him so much he couldn’t even bring himself to climb up the ladder. It seemed he managed to fumble every time someone threw a football at him, and strike out every time at bat in baseball.

  But in the darkroom, he was alone with the pictures he’d taken, with no one waiting for him to mess up. Ever since he’d developed his first roll of 35mm film last June, and the teacher had looked over the pictures and pronounced them “not bad—not bad at all,” he had been hooked. All through the summer, he’d used whatever money he had to buy film, and he spent hours every week in the darkroom in the basement of the high school, developing pictures, experimenting with printing them, enlarging them and cropping them, playing with exposures, as he did with the camera as well.

  The funny thing was, the more pictures he took, the more he discovered he liked looking at the world through a viewfinder and then bending its reality in the darkroom. But the amount of film he had to buy had become a problem. Then, a month before his birthday, his teacher gave him the solution. As they were looking over the three rolls of film Seth had burned over a weekend, Mr. Feinberg shook his head and said, “You’d better get a digital camera, Seth. At the rate you’re taking pictures, you’re going to need a student loan just for film.”

  So when his birthday came around, all he’d asked for was a digital camera, and his mother had come through.

  His only problem then was the small memory in the camera, which he’d dealt with by setting the resolution as low as possible, so he could take as many pictures as he wanted, and reshoot the good ones at a higher resolution.

  Until today, it had been working out pretty well. But on his way home from school, he took pictures of some of the oldest houses in Roundtree, and when he got home and looked them over on his computer, he saw that most of them weren’t good, that the lighting hadn’t been right. But he expected that and knew he could go back another day and take the good ones at a higher resolution. It was the shot of the old house at Black Creek Crossing that presented a problem he couldn’t resolve.

  When he brought it up on the screen, there was something wrong with one of the upstairs windows. It looked out of focus, though the rest of the picture was in focus. How could one window on the second floor not be? As he looked closer, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it wasn’t out of focus; maybe it was just a shadow, or a reflection. But the sun wasn’t shining on the front of the house, and even if it was, where would a shadow have come from? And if it was a reflection, it should have been mirroring something outside the house. But what?

  Seth fiddled with the picture, using the controls in the program first to zoom in on the window, then to try to sharpen the image and increase the contrast. But no matter what he did, the area of the window wouldn’t come into focus, wouldn’t sharpen up like the rest of the picture. Not that the rest of the picture was all that sharp once he’d blown it up, because of the low resolution, which was fine if he was just going to look at the pictures on the computer screen. They might even print okay, if he didn’t try to make them much bigger than three-by-five; they weren’t much different, after all, from the contact prints he’d made from the innumerable rolls of 35mm film he shot before he got the digital camera, most of which he’d never bothered to blow up at all. But with film, if he’d found something like he was now seeing in the photo of the house on Black Creek Road, he’d have been able to enlarge it until he knew exactly what it was, instead of having it turn into a bunch of pixels that didn’t form into anything at all.

  Seth began experimenting with the color controls, thinking the image might be clearer in black and white, when his father’s second rap on the door—much louder than the first—broke his concentration. Then the door opened and his father came in.

  Blake Baker’s eyes darkened. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Just working on some pictures.”

  “ ‘Just working on some pictures,’ ” his father repeated mockingly. “What kind of pictures?” He moved closer to the computer, and Seth could see the suspicion in his eyes.

  “Just some houses,” he said.

  “Houses? For God’s sake, Seth! You’re fifteen! What are you doing taking pictures of houses?”

  Seth said nothing, knowing that whatever he said would be wrong.

  “Chad Jackson and a bunch of his buddies are out in the street playing softball. How come you’re not down there with them?”

  “I was just working on my pictures—” Seth began, but his father didn’t let him finish.

  “Not anymore you’re not,” he said, reaching out and switching off the computer. As Se
th helplessly watched his unsaved images vanish from the monitor, his father said, “You’re going to go down there and play ball with your friends like a normal kid, understand?” Seth felt his eyes begin to burn, and he bit his lip. “Understand?” his father repeated.

  Knowing there was nothing to be gained by arguing with his father, Seth stood up and started downstairs, his father’s words echoing in his mind.

  . . . play ball with your friends . . .

  Didn’t his father know he didn’t have any friends?

  . . . like a normal kid . . .

  Was that what his father thought? That he wasn’t normal? Just because he wasn’t like the rest of the kids, did that mean he wasn’t normal?

  Seth grabbed a jacket off the hook by the front door, pulled the door open, and went out into the fall afternoon. But instead of trying to join the game in front of the Jacksons’ house down the block, he turned the other way.

  If he hurried, there might be just enough light to see whatever it was his camera had caught in the upstairs window of the old house at Black Creek Crossing.

  “Tell me you’re kidding,” Zack Fletcher groaned, his dark eyes fixing on his mother, the Kentucky Fried drumstick in his hand quivering at the halfway point between the plate and his mouth. His expression was a combination of disbelief and something that resembled panic. “Please, Mom, tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Why would I be kidding?” Joni Fletcher countered. At the far end of the table, Ed had also stopped eating, and though his face was impassive, there was a flatness in his eyes that told her he shared their son’s lack of enthusiasm for the news she’d just given them. “I don’t see why you’re so surprised,” she went on, deciding to concentrate on Zack first. “It’s not like your aunt Myra and I haven’t been talking about them moving here for years. And the house is perfect for them—absolutely what they’ve been looking for.”

  Zack rolled his eyes with the disdain typical of a sixteen-year-old who has recently discovered that his parents know nothing about anything. Shaking his head in disgust, he returned his attention to the chicken.

  Ed, on the other hand, chose to respond on behalf of both the males in the house:

  “As far as I know, they haven’t been looking for a house at all,” he said. “Seems to me it’s been you who’s been doing all the looking.”

  “I’m a real estate broker, remember?” Joni reminded him. “It’s my job to look at houses and match them up with people.”

  “Couldn’t you match them up with people who are actually looking for a house?” Ed replied. “And can afford one?”

  Joni decided to ignore the first question. “They can afford the one I found today.”

  “Must be some house,” Zack observed darkly. “Does Uncle Marty even have a job?”

  “Do you?” Joni shot back, fixing her son with the kind of look that up until a year ago would have silenced him. Now he only shrugged.

  “I’m only sixteen, remember, Mom? What do you want me to do, drop out of school?”

  “When your father and I were your age—” Joni began, but Ed didn’t let her finish.

  “When we were his age, your folks didn’t have a pot to pee in, and neither did mine. That’s why we worked, remember? If we wanted any money, we had to earn it ourselves.”

  “Which didn’t hurt either one of us,” Joni replied.

  Ed’s brows arched. “And we both decided that we’d never put our own kid in the same position.”

  There was just enough emphasis on the word both to make Joni squirm. “Maybe we were wrong,” she suggested.

  “Maybe we were,” Ed agreed in a tone far more affable than the expression on his face. “But it’s not what we were talking about. So why don’t you tell us just which house it is you think would make such a perfect home for your sister and—” He hesitated a moment, his eyes darting toward Zack, and Joni could see him censoring whatever phrase he’d been about to utter. “—your brother-in-law,” he finally finished.

  “Gee, Dad,” Zack said, a broad grin spreading across his features. “That’s not what you called him when we were out fishing last week.”

  Joni cocked her head, eyeing her son. “Really? And just what did your father call him?”

  “A shiftless son of a—” he began, but his mother cut him off.

  “That’s enough, Zack!”

  “Jeez, Mom,” the boy complained. “I didn’t say anything Dad didn’t say! How come you’re not picking on him?”

  “Because he’s not sixteen,” Joni retorted. Her gaze shifted to her husband. “And I suggest you be a little more careful of your language.” Ed Fletcher rolled his eyes, and Joni felt a twinge of anger rise inside her. “If I talked about your sister and brother-in-law the way you talk about mine, you wouldn’t put up with it for a moment.”

  “My sister is a nurse, and her husband is a doctor,” Ed shot back. “Which puts them a little further up on the winners’ list than the scullery maid at the rectory and her shiftless drunk of a husband.”

  “That’s a very mean thing to say,” Joni said, her anger coalescing into a hard knot in her stomach. She pushed her chair back from the table, suddenly no longer hungry. “If they decide to move to Roundtree and buy the house at Black Creek Crossing, I expect that you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head.” She shifted her attention back to Zack. “And I’ll expect you to take care of your cousin Angel and make sure she meets all your friends.”

  Now Zack shoved his chair back and stood up, his face stormy. At six feet tall—a height to which he’d grown seemingly overnight—he loomed over her. “Angel?” he yelled, his handsome features contorting in sudden anger. “Why do I have to take care of her? She’s a—”

  “Don’t!” Joni commanded, holding up a hand as if to physically block whatever words Zack had been about to utter. Her eyes darted between her husband and her son. “I think it’s time both of you started getting into the habit of speaking as nicely about other people as you’d like them to speak about you.”

  “Aw, Jeez,” Zack groaned. “I’m gonna go get a pizza,” he declared, and started out of the dining room.

  Joni rose to her feet. “You have not been excused from this table, young man!” Zack ignored her, and a moment later she heard the front door slam. “Are you just going to let him go?” she demanded, wheeling on her husband.

  “Oh, come on, Joni, calm down,” Ed Fletcher said, reaching for the box of Kentucky Fried and helping himself to another piece. “He’ll be back when he cools off.”

  “And you’re just going to let him speak to me that way?”

  Ed shrugged. “What do you want me to do? Hit him the way my dad always hit me?”

  Joni was about to respond, then changed her mind and dropped back onto her chair. “Of course I don’t expect you to hit him,” she replied. “But am I the only one that thinks he’s getting a little big for his britches?”

  “Well, you’ve got to admit, he’s got pretty big britches,” Ed drawled, and Joni, caught off guard, found her anger giving way to a laugh.

  “I swear to God,” she sighed, “the two of you are going to drive me to an early grave.”

  “If your sister really does wind up moving here, the men in this house aren’t the only ones who will have to clean up their language,” Ed observed. “As I recall, Sister Myra doesn’t take kindly to taking the name of the Lord in vain.”

  “Don’t call her ‘Sister Myra,’ ” Joni grumbled. “It makes her sound like a nun.”

  “No nun would be married to Marty Sullivan. He’d be more likely to drive a woman into a convent than make one leave.” Rising from his chair, Ed came around to Joni’s end of the table, bent over and nuzzled his wife’s neck. “You know, there’s a good chance Zack won’t be back for a couple of hours,” he whispered huskily. “If you’re not still mad at me . . .” He let his voice trail off suggestively, then nibbled Joni’s ear in the way that always drove her crazy. He felt her resisting, but then a shiver ran through h
er. “Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered.

  An hour later they lay curled in each other’s arms, with Joni’s head resting on Ed’s broad chest. As his fingers idly twisted her hair and stroked her ear just the way she liked it, she said, “You do remember that you promised to give Marty a job if they ever moved here, don’t you?”

  “Oh, Christ,” Ed groaned, but it was a far more exaggerated groan than he would have uttered if he was really angry. “That was years ago! You’re not going to hold me to that, are you?”

  “A promise is a promise,” Joni said, snuggling closer and running her fingers down her husband’s naked thigh.

  “Not fair,” Ed protested. “Not fair at all.” But as she rolled over and kissed him, he knew it didn’t matter if it was fair or not.

  Chapter 5

  ETH BAKER GAZED AT THE HOUSE THAT HAD STOOD at Black Creek Crossing for more than three hundred years, his eyes fixed on the second story window that had shown up blurred in the photograph he’d taken only a few hours ago. But now, in the fading light of the early evening, it looked perfectly normal; just an ordinary window in a house that, though one of the oldest in Roundtree, didn’t look that much different from any of its neighbors.

  Not that it had many neighbors. Even though the actual address was 122 Black Creek Road, there weren’t many other houses this far out. Everyone in town merely called this one the house at Black Creek Crossing because it was supposed to be the house where the man who ran the ferry lived back when the stream was wide enough and deep enough that horses and wagons couldn’t just ford it. An overgrown path behind it still led through the forest to the old crossing spot, and there were even a few rotting timbers near the stream that could have been the remains of an old ferry landing.

  Black Creek Road itself was a narrow lane that had never been completely developed, even after more than three centuries, which was one reason it had always been one of Seth Baker’s favorite places. There was natural beauty to the area, with the dense forest and the meandering stream that ran through it. But even more important to Seth was that few people lived in the area and there were no families at all with children his age. When he was playing along the banks of the stream, or exploring the thick undergrowth of the maple forest, he didn’t feel lonely. Ever since kindergarten—maybe even longer—Seth had always felt like he wasn’t part of the crowd, that somehow he was set apart from the rest of the kids.