’Tis the Season

by Judith Arnold

  Maybe Billy would open up to Evan, and maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, Evan’s heart swelled with love and rattled with anxiety. Should he hire help? Find a nanny? Find a wife? Badger his kids until they told him what was bugging them?

  Molly had told him he was a wonderful father. But sometimes—far too often—he wasn’t so sure.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THANK GOODNESS the gas company had come through. The house had grown so cold Sunday night that Filomena had gone to bed wearing a nightgown, a turtleneck, a cardigan and knee-high socks, and she’d burrowed under two blankets, one down, one wool. Even with all that she’d awakened shivering before dawn. She could have built a fire in the living-room fireplace—if she had any firewood, which she didn’t. So she’d washed in icy water and then dressed, driven down to Dudley Road, bought a jumbo coffee at an upscale café she didn’t recall having been there before and started making telephone calls.

  By ten that morning she had the gas turned on. That meant not only heat for the house, but a working stove and oven and hot water for bathing. The phone company hooked her up, but although the electrical company had promised she’d have power by the evening, she was still in the dark.

  She could survive without electricity. The air in the unheated garage shed was cold enough to keep her milk and fruit from spoiling, and the house could be lit with candles and her mother’s blown-glass oil lamp. In fact, she liked the way the candles and the oil lamp gave the place a mystical ambience, all those flickering golden flames creating tiny spheres of shimmering light.

  After dinner, she sat in her candlelit living room, sipping a glass of wine and contemplating her surroundings. The furniture was massive, well suited to the massive dimensions of the room. The tables and upholstered pieces were old and faded but in generally good condition. She was amazed her mother had thought to cover everything when she’d closed up the house five years ago. Her mother usually didn’t think that far ahead.

  If Filomena had been able to afford it, she would have arranged for a professional service to come in and clean the place. But given the debts she’d inherited, she didn’t want to waste money on that. Once she had electricity, she would find out if the vacuum cleaner in the upstairs closet still worked. If it did, she could clean the floors herself. Dusting and washing windows certainly fell within her range of abilities. The yard was a mess, but in mid-November she wasn’t sure what a landscaper could possibly do to make it look better. Maybe it didn’t matter. By the time she put the house on the market in January, the ground might be covered with snow, and the unkempt grass, scattered leaves and overgrown bushes would be concealed.

  She took another sip of wine, held it on her tongue and then swallowed, feeling it warm her all the way down to her stomach. She’d found a full rack of Bordeaux in the cellar, thickly layered in dust. Twenty-four bottles, none of them less than ten years old. She wondered what they were worth—enough to pay off some of her mother’s debts?

  It didn’t matter. The house sale would cover the debts. She was going to keep the wine for herself. The bottle she’d opened had aged magnificently, and even if she wasn’t quite the connoisseur her father had been, she appreciated a good wine. She could still remember some of the things her father had taught her about wines when she’d been a child. He used to explain about color and balance and bouquet, and then he’d let her take a tiny sip from his glass. Wine had tasted peculiar to her then, but she’d felt naughty and very mature drinking it.

  She didn’t feel so mature now. Impractical and abandoned was more like it. She was twenty-seven years old, working on a Ph.D. dissertation for a degree that was never going to land her a job—and she was an orphan. An orphan. God, that sounded strange.

  Actually, it sounded awful.

  Her father had been eighty-three when he’d died. She’d grieved for him but taken comfort in knowing he’d lived a long full life. Her mother had been only fifty-five, though. Way too young.

  “You died happy, at least,” Filomena murmured into the candlelit room. “You died doing what you loved, Mom, didn’t you?”

  She sighed. If she didn’t get electricity soon, if she didn’t get to work scrubbing the house from floor to ceiling, if she didn’t get her CD player plugged in so she could listen to music while she whipped the place into shape, she was going to sink into a maudlin state. Sitting alone in a dark room, drinking wine and talking to her dead mother? Sheesh.

  She needed electricity—and she needed visitors. She needed human contact. After living in Manhattan for the past five years, she found the silence of the house almost terrifying. Dudley Road had been bustling that morning, and she’d savored the din of voices and traffic.

  She liked tranquillity and she enjoyed solitude. But still…She wanted visitors.

  The children hadn’t come back today. She assumed that because it was Monday they’d been in school all day, but she had hoped maybe they would come prowling around her property after school so she could meet them. She’d even bought a bag of cookies, just in case they’d wanted a snack.

  But they hadn’t returned.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” she said out loud, and the possibility made her smile. Thinking about her mother, her debts, the numerous tasks and chores that awaited her was depressing. But thinking about the children who’d left their little fingerprints and footprints on her house lifted her spirits.

  She hoped with all her heart they’d visit her house again.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Gracie squealed.

  “Shh!” Billy waved her off, then tiptoed through the hall to the top of the stairs. Down in the kitchen, it was poker night. Dad and a bunch of guys played every Tuesday night, always at the Myers house because Dad claimed he had baby-sitting problems. Billy was glad the game was at his house. If Dad had gone to someone else’s house and left a baby-sitter behind, she might actually pay attention when Billy made his escape.

  He hovered near the stairway, listening to the sounds of the men’s voices. They were talking about the New England Patriots, debating whether the team had a shot at the Super Bowl this year. Billy wanted to shout, “Of course they do!” but he kept his mouth shut.

  Dad and his buddies were fine. They were drinking beer, rattling their chips—Billy believed they played for maybe a nickel a game, something really cheap—and they sure weren’t thinking about him. Which was a good thing.

  He tiptoed back down the hall. Gracie blocked his bedroom door. She was wearing her nightgown and her fluffy slippers with Minnie Mouse sewn onto the toes. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “I’m going out.”

  “You can’t go out!” Amazing how loud her whisper sounded.

  “Shh.” He ducked into his bedroom.

  She followed him in, her hands on her hips and her head tilted to the side. “Where are you going?”

  “The haunted house.”

  “You can’t go there, Billy! It’s haunted!”

  “It is not. Anyway, you told me you don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “It’s got spirits in it. I saw a spirit. You did, too.”

  Well, yeah, he had seen a spirit in the big stone house. And that really bothered him. It bothered them both. Him more than Gracie, because she wasn’t too good at hanging on to an idea from one day to the next. But he hadn’t stopped thinking about the ghost, or spirit, or whatever it was he’d seen moving in the house on Sunday. Wondering about it was driving him crazy. He had to go back and figure out what was in there.

  He couldn’t go during the day, because by the time Dad picked him up from Scott’s house or the after-school program, it was time for dinner, and then he had to read or do a page from a workbook or something. So there was no way he could hike over to the stone house to see if it was really haunted.

  He could do it tonight, though, because of the poker game. His dad wouldn’t notice he was gone. He’d just run through the woods, peek in the window, come up with an explanation for what it was he and Gracie had seen on Sun
day and then come home. Dad would never even know.

  “How are you going to get out?” Gracie asked as he pulled a hooded sweatshirt over his head. He couldn’t go downstairs and get his jacket. He hoped it wasn’t too cold outside.

  “Through the window.”

  She darted past him to his window. The screen was easy to unhook—he’d already done it—and it opened onto the roof of the garage. From there, he could reach the oak tree and shimmy down. He’d climbed the oak tree lots of times, and he’d been able to swing from one of the limbs onto the garage roof, so he knew he’d be able to get back in once his mission was accomplished.

  Gracie seemed excited and a little frightened. He hoped she wouldn’t race downstairs and tell on him the minute he was out the window. If she did tell…well, he’d sure be in trouble. Grounded for life, probably. “You’re not going to tell, are you?” he asked, making sure his sneakers were laced tight.

  She shook her head. Her eyes were so wide they looked like they were going to pop out of her face. “What if there is a ghost?” she wanted to know. “What if you don’t come home? What should I tell Daddy?”

  “There’s no ghost. Whatever is in the house, I’ll figure it out and tell you.” That promise ought to keep her from tattling on him. “And I’ll come home. Why wouldn’t I come home?”

  “Because if there’s a ghost, it might kill you.”

  “We don’t believe in ghosts. Right, Gracie?”

  She thought about that for a minute, then nodded uncertainly. “Right.”

  “Okay. See ya.” He shoved the window as high as it would go and then maneuvered himself over the sill. The garage roof was right beneath his feet. This was so easy he wanted to laugh.

  Climbing down the tree was easy, too. He jumped the last few feet to the ground and glanced through the sliding glass door in the family room. He could see across the family room into the kitchen, where Dad and his friends were playing cards around the table. Dad had his back to Billy.

  Convinced that his father was too caught up in the game to notice him missing, Billy turned and started into the woods. The three-quarter moon shed a lot of light, and the path was visible. He’d gone to the stone house enough times to know his way.

  About halfway there, he started hearing footsteps behind him. Or imagining them, probably. It was dark, and even though he pretended to be tough for Gracie, he had to admit he was, well, not scared but a little nervous. He knew there wasn’t a ghost in the house—but something had been in there. He’d seen it move, and it had scared the heck out of him on Sunday. He really wished he could have gone back to check the place out during the day, when there was still some sunlight.

  But he couldn’t stand not knowing what he’d seen. Day or night, he had to go back for another look.

  He took a few more steps and halted. Definitely someone was following him.

  Sucking in a big breath, he curled his hands into fists, just in case he had to fight off a monster or something, and turned around.

  Gracie stood on the path in her pink nightgown and her Minnie Mouse slippers, with her denim jacket—his denim jacket—pulled around her shoulders. She stomped toward him, snapping twigs and trampling on leaves and breathing heavily. “What are you doing?” he asked. He could hear the impatience in his voice.

  “I thought I should come, too.”

  “You climbed out the window? Gracie, you are so stupid! You could’ve gotten hurt! I can’t believe how stupid you are!”

  Her mouth started twitching like she was going to burst into tears. “I’m not stupid!” she wailed. “Take it back!”

  She was stupid. No way would he get caught if he was doing this himself, but with her along…How was she going to get back into the house? Maybe she could climb down the tree, but she was too little to climb back up. He was going to have to hoist her or something.

  “You’ve spoiled everything,” he said, even though he knew that would set her off. He was just so mad.

  “I did not!” She charged up the path, pushing past him. “If there’s a ghost, I wanna see it, and you can’t stop me.”

  She was right about that—he couldn’t stop her. If he sent her back to the house, she’d wind up ringing the doorbell, and then Dad would know and come after him and he’d be in big trouble. He had no choice but to let her accompany him. It made him even angrier that she’d twisted things around to get her way. He knew a couple of swear words—the fifth graders used them all the time on the bus, and he’d heard his dad use the s-word a few times when he thought Billy wasn’t around. He whispered it under his breath and caught up to Gracie. If he was going to wind up in trouble anyhow, he might as well swear.

  The woods weren’t too thick. They spread behind the houses on the side of the street where his house was, down a little dip and then up a rise to the clearing where the stone house stood. He supposed the house was on another street, but there were no other houses near it, so Billy guessed it was set back from the road by a long driveway. He’d tried to find the street on his bicycle once, but he’d come to a major road and there’d been too much traffic, so he’d turned around and biked home. But even if the stone house was hard to reach by the roads, it really wasn’t that far away if you just hiked through the woods.

  He and Gracie reached the clearing and paused by the forest’s edge, in the shadows. The house looked dark. It looked spooky, too, the porch overhang casting a black shadow, the roof steep. Gracie slipped her hand into his and he didn’t pull away. He would never admit he needed to hold her hand as much as she needed to hold his, but it helped to know he wasn’t alone, even if she was just a kid.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “And don’t make a sound.” He tugged her toward the house. She wasn’t so brave anymore; he practically had to drag her around to the side of the house. But she didn’t talk or whine or complain. Her slippers hardly made any noise on the grass.

  Nearing the side window, he positioned her against the wall, not too close to the window. “I’ll look first,” he whispered. “You stay out of sight.”

  She nodded. Her eyes appeared ready to pop again.

  Shrugging to make his shoulders feel bigger, he let go of her hand and crept up to the window, hunching slightly so he wouldn’t be visible. When he reached the window, he straightened slowly until he could peek inside. What he saw made him gasp.

  Candles. Four of them, maybe five, flickering on a table where there used to be just a big white sheet. More candles were visible through the doorway in another room, creating little dancing shadows on the floor. And music! He could barely hear it through the thick glass, but it sounded weird and tinkly.

  He sank back down below the edge of the window and ran over to Gracie. “Did you see the spirit?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “But there’re candles all over the place.”

  “Candles?”

  “Yeah. And they’re lit.”

  “Like on a birthday cake?”

  “No, like in candlesticks. On tables and stuff.”

  “I wanna see!”

  “Shh.” He glanced toward the window, thinking. If he didn’t believe in ghosts—which he didn’t—then the candles must have been lit by a person. Which meant someone was inside the house. Which meant that if the person inside saw them spying through the window, that person could do something bad, like chase them or call the police, or maybe even pull a gun on them and shoot them. Billy just didn’t know.

  Gracie started revving up. “I wanna see,” she said in the whiniest whisper he’d ever heard. “You saw the candles. I wanna see them, too. I bet the spirit lit them. I wanna see!”

  “I think we should go home,” Billy said, feeling very old and responsible.

  “That’s no fair! I wanna see! If you make me go home without seeing the candles, I’m gonna tell Daddy.”

  She would, too. She’d go right ahead and get herself in trouble over this if it meant she could get Billy in trouble, also.

  Sighing, he weighed his optio
ns. He hadn’t seen anyone through the window, so maybe if Gracie took a quick look, she wouldn’t see anyone, either. And with the music, maybe they wouldn’t be heard. And if, just if, there was a ghost in the house, they were as good as dead, anyway—which was probably better than getting in trouble with Dad.

  “Okay,” he muttered. They moved together toward the window, Billy hunching down as they neared it. Once they were under the window, he wrapped his arms around Gracie’s middle and straightened, lifting her as high as he could.

  She gripped the windowsill and gazed inside. She didn’t squirm, didn’t speak, didn’t try to scramble higher. She didn’t even seem to breathe.

  And then, all of a sudden, she blasted out a scream loud enough to explode his eardrums. She shoved away from the windowsill so hard he fell backward, losing his footing and sprawling on the ground with her on top of him, still screeching like a maniac.

  “Shut up!” he shouted, trying to wriggle out from under her. “Shut up, Gracie!”

  “Aaaiiieee!” She clung to him and howled.

  “Shut up!”

  Through her wailing he heard the creak of a window opening, and then another voice. A woman’s voice. “Hey, there! What’s going on?”

  “Get off of me,” he grunted, figuring if Gracie wasn’t going to shut up, at least she didn’t have to be sitting on his stomach, pinning him to the ground, with her mouth so close to his ear her howling was making him deaf. He wanted her off him, and he wanted to see whoever was talking to them. He peeled Gracie’s fingers away from his sweatshirt and heaved her to one side. She jumped to her feet and started running in circles, yelping and flailing her arms as if she was being attacked by wasps.

  He ignored her and turned to the window. It was brightly lit now, with real light, not just candlelight. The woman standing in the window was just a silhouette. But she was a real human being, not a ghost.