If You Find This

by Matthew Baker

  X was a variable. X18471913 could have meant anything. A cross. A crossing. Crosswords, crossbones, crosstrees, crossroads, crossbeams. The trunk could be anywhere. Buried at a crosswalk. Buried at a railroad crossing. Buried on one of the thousands of islands in Lake Michigan.

  From the desk, I eyed the classroom, unfolding and refolding the black spot, waiting for the lightbulbs to shatter, a bookcase to topple. The spirits had seen death coming. I didn’t know how it would come for me, but it would come. A roof collapsing. A bus swerving. Poisoned meat.

  I understood Grandpa Rose now. Why he had tattooed himself. Why he had struggled off to the ghosthouse alone. Why he was willing to live on canned peas, drink murky water with soggy leaves, wrack his brain all day for memories under a leaking roof, make a nest of crumpled blankets on a dirty wood floor, sleep in unwashed clothing, be woken by bats, kick away mice, suffer anything. If I had to die, I would die. Nothing could stop death now. But first I was going to save my brother. I was going to do one good thing.

  “Did you see Skulltooth?” Jordan (piano)said.

  “He wasn’t at school,” I (piano)said.

  We (forte)thumped off the bus. Girls leaned through windows, (homophony)jeering at Jordan. The band class and the choir class had been practicing together lately. The band had learned that homophony means “play together, all at once, together make your chords.” The choir had learned that falsetto means “sing in your highest shrillest voice,” learned that creak means “sing in your lowest raspiest voice.” Some girls had their faces painted already for the homecoming game, were wearing mesh jerseys, had tinsel braided into their hair.

  The bus jolted away toward the next stop.

  “I have the keys,” I (forte)said.

  “I’m grounded again,” Jordan (forte)said.

  “The odds of that were about 100%,” I (forte)said.

  “Somehow my sister’s shampoo got dumped in the trash,” Jordan (forte)said.

  He knotted his high-tops.

  “Then replaced with mud,” Jordan (forte)said.

  He stood.

  “Anyway, wait here, my mom has to at least think that I’m home,” Jordan (forte)said.

  He walked into the house, shouted something to his mom (who was racking dishes in the kitchen), walked through the living room (the living room light flicked on, off), walked upstairs (the staircase light flicked on, off), walked into his bedroom (his bedroom light flicked on, off), then threw open the window and dropped to the ground.

  He walked back to the road.

  “What about Zeke?” I (forte)said.

  “He’s at his house probably,” Jordan (forte)said.

  “How are we going to find that?” I (forte)said.

  Jordan started walking, shoving the sleeves of his sweatshirt to his elbows.

  Glancing backward, Jordan (forte)shouted, “You think yesterday was the first time I’ve ever followed him?”

  Zeke’s house was tucked into the woods beyond the Gelusos’ farmhouse. Its gutters overflowing with dead leaves, its windowsills greening with mold. Jordan (forte)knocked. A woman with cheekbones like Zeke’s answered the door.

  “Skulltooth around?” Jordan (forte)said.

  “What?” Zeke’s mom (forte)said.

  “Zeke?” I (forte)said.

  Zeke’s mom pointed at a door with a silver Z painted on the doorknob. She (piano)shuffled into the kitchen, knotting her bathrobe. We heard a chair (pianissimo)groan, then the (piano)clacking of typewriter keys. Tufts of fur were clumped along the iron floor grates, the legs of an empty coatrack, the bottom of an umbrella stand spiked with dry umbrellas.

  “Ezekiel isn’t going anywhere until we solve this problem with the other kids,” Zeke’s mom (mezzo-forte)shouted. We didn’t know what she was talking about—or if she was even talking to us—so we didn’t say anything.

  Jordan twisted the doorknob with the silver Z. The door swung onto a basement. I rubbed a thumb over the X key’s X, over the ROSE key’s ROSE. I (piano)creaked downstairs after Jordan.

  Sunlight had puddled in spots on the floor, but otherwise the basement was dark. Something (pianissimo)growled. A wolfdog loped into a puddle of sunlight, sniffing our hands.

  “Skulltooth?” Jordan (piano)whispered.

  Bedsprings (pianissimo)squeaked. Zeke’s voice drifted from the darkness.

  “My dad kept hunting gear down here, before he moved away,” Zeke (piano)said. “After my mom sold everything, she let me move my room to the basement.”

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness, 23%, 47%, 71%, shapes appearing there. An unlit lamp. A sleeping wolfdog. A mattress lumpy with twisted sheets. Piles of books—mermaids on their covers—topped with antique perfume bottles. Inside a blue bottle, a firefly blinked, then faded to nothing. Across the room, inside a green bottle, another firefly blinked back.

  “How do you keep them alive?” I (mezzo-piano)said.

  I could see his silhouette on his mattress.

  “Once a month you feed them flowers,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said.

  Jordan (fermata)sworeunwritable, I didn’t know why, but then my eyes adjusted 100% and I saw Zeke’s face. Zeke’s eye was swollen. Zeke’s lips were cracked and scabbed. Zeke’s chest was more bruise than skin. If Jordan normally looked beat up, Zeke looked beat upbeat up.

  “Did that happen at the lighthouse?” I (mezzo-piano)whispered.

  “No,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)muttered.

  He (piano)coughed. He shoved himself sitting. I couldn’t stop staring at his face.

  “The lighthouse keeper lectured me awhile, then gave me a choice between a police record or a month of labor. So now I have to work at the lighthouse every weekend, scrubbing the rowboat with bleach. I didn’t tell him your names, though. Although he’s making me work an extra weekend for that,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said.

  He pointed at his bruises.

  “It was after the lighthouse, walking home again, that the Isaacs jumped me. They said I have until the end of the week to give them what I stole. Otherwise they’re going to pound me like this again,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said.

  “Are you going to give them what you stole?” I (mezzo-piano)said.

  “I can’t. I would, now. But Jordan needs it,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said.

  “What do you mean, I need it?” Jordan (mezzo-forte)said.

  Zeke (mezzo-piano) grunted, leaned toward a pile of books, set aside a maroon bottle with a blinking firefly. The pile (mezzo-forte)toppled as he slid out the book at the base. It was the dictionary—its cover even more tattered and stained than ever.

  Zeke flipped the cover. There were no words there. The dictionary had been hollowed with a knife, leaving a rectangular hole in the pages where the words had been. Hidden in the hole was a stack of paper bound with twine.

  Zeke unbound the stack, flattening the papers.

  “Little Isaac had them under his bed in a box marked ISAAC NOTES,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said. “Notes from Little Isaac to Big Isaac. Notes from Big Isaac to Little Isaac. Every note they ever wrote.”

  “Why were you in Little Isaac’s bedroom?” I (mezzo-forte)said.

  “I snuck through a window one night while he was at basketball practice,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said. “I wanted to see what his room was like. Also he had a pair of high-tops I wanted to steal. I never found the high-tops, but I did find these.”

  The notes had been written on graphing paper, prealgebra handouts, the flip sides of loose-leaf essays. Zeke handed Jordan a page of prealgebra. Jordan (piano)said, “Is this…?” and Zeke (piano)said, “Yes.” Jordan (piano)said, “Impossible…” and then didn’t say anything. I stood with him to look at the page.

  Penciled among the numbers on the page was a title, THE BALLAD OF DIRGE AND KEEN. Underneath, with some lines crossed out and reworded, were the lyrics to the song. Half of the handwriting Little Isaac’s. Half of the handwriting Big Isaac’s.

  “How do you know they wrote the song, though? Maybe they wrote this after they heard
someone singing it,” I (mezzo-piano)said.

  “Prealgebra was sixth grade,” Jordan (piano)said. He pointed at the date on the homework. 09/29. “And this was written in the fall. Nobody was singing the song until winter. I remember it wasn’t until after winter that everybody started hating me.”

  “I’m going to show it to Emma and Leah. I’m going to show it to everybody,” Zeke (mezzo-forte)said. “The Isaacs pretend that they’re the perfect friends, that they’re only mean to kids like us, but their friends should know the truth.”

  “Do you know what the Isaacs will do to you if you do?” Jordan (mezzo-piano)said. He stared at the page. He tossed it to the floor. “I don’t care if everybody hates me. This isn’t worth those bruises. Give the Isaacs their notes.”

  “But everybody hates you for a song you never wrote—” Zeke (mezzo-forte)said, but Jordan (sforzando)said, “Even if I never wrote it, I’ve given kids other reasons to hate me.” “But—” Zeke (mezzo-forte)said, but Jordan (crescendo)said, “Listen, I’m trying to help you, I’m trying to be your friend, so would you stop fighting me? If the notes are what they want, give them the notes.”

  Zeke stared. A firefly in a brown bottle blinked, then faded to nothing. Zeke nodded.

  “Okay,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said. He gathered the papers, bound them with twine, and shoved them into the waist of his jeans. Then he tugged a sweatshirt from a pile.

  “Can you walk?” I (mezzo-forte)said.

  “More or less,” Zeke (mezzo-forte)said.

  “Your mom said you aren’t allowed to leave,” I (mezzo-forte)said.

  “She always says that, which is why I’m always leaving,” Zeke (forte)said.

  The wolfdogs stalked through the ferns ahead, scattering (staccato)clucking pheasants. The sun had set, the hillside was turning bluish in the dying light, and everything was transforming into silhouettes. I rubbed a thumb across the black spot, the paper rough, the ink glassy. I hadn’t told Zeke and Jordan about the black spot, but I should have. Being close to me put them at risk. If the roof of the ghosthouse collapsed, it wouldn’t kill only me. It would kill them too.

  At the ghosthouse, Grandpa Dykhouse was scribbling notes on the floor. Grandpa Rose looked clammy, tired, like someone with a fever. He kept (forte)coughing into a fist. He was (mezzo-piano)sawing the lid from a can. Lately, when they played chess, they would bet each other cans of peaches. The loser had to eat the peas.

  “We were outnumbered nine to one,” Grandpa Rose was (piano)saying, spooning peaches from the can.

  Grandpa Dykhouse gaped at Zeke, dropping the pencil.

  “Who hurt you?” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

  Zeke shrugged at Grandpa Dykhouse, looking at the floor.

  “We have a problem,” I (forte)said. I held the X key and the ROSE key, pinching them at their bows. “There were two keys in the bottle instead of one.”

  “No keys was a problem. Two keys isn’t a problem,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said, (forte)coughing again. He pointed at the ROSE key. “That’s a skeleton key. That’s the key to the trunk.”

  “Wouldn’t the X key unlock the trunk, since the clue has an X?” I (forte)said.

  “No, that X key is way too big for the trunk,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.

  I felt the black spot. Death could come from inside of you even. I might have had brain cancer already for years and never even known.

  Jordan skimmed the notes Grandpa Dykhouse had been making.

  “Anything about where the treasure is buried?” Jordan (forte)said.

  Grandpa Dykhouse shook his head.

  “We have a key to nothing,” Jordan (piano)muttered.

  Jordan flopped backward, (piano)grumbling. Zeke stood at the cupboards, (piano)hitting a fist against the wood. I felt < smart. The key was useless without the trunk.

  Grandpa Rose had stopped chewing, was staring off toward the kitchen, cheeks bulging with a mouthful of peaches. I had learned by now that there was this certain look he would get when he was trying to remember Grandma Rose’s face. This certain way of creasing his forehead, and squinting his eyes.

  He (forte)set the can on the fireplace, suddenly, and swallowed the peaches. He leaned in, gripping my wrists with both hands. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “Kid, don’t lie to me, tell me the truth,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said. “Do you think one good thing can make up for eighty-nine bad years?”

  “Definitely,” I (forte)said.

  Grandpa Rose frowned. He shook his head, angrily, like I had misheard him, or like I was wrong. He leaned closer, clutching my wrists in a death grip.

  “But just one?” Grandpa Rose (forte)said, urgently, stressing each word.

  I paused, to think, about whether I really believed. I glanced away. I glanced back.

  “I’d count it,” I (forte)said.

  Grandpa Rose stared at me, then nodded, and patted my hands.

  I had never seen Grandpa Rose looking this desperate before. Seeing him that way scared me. He (forte)coughed again, wiped some syrup from the curls of hair around his mouth, reached for the peaches.

  His tattoos, I suddenly realized, were completely gone, totally hidden again under beard.

  Jordan was sprawled backward, staring bleakly at a water stain on the ceiling. Zeke was leaning against the cupboards, with his face pressed into the wood. We had come so far, and had gotten nowhere, all just going rondo. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I didn’t want to think about anything. All the feelings inside of me were going flat and sharp. I brought a fistful of the notes to the porch, sat cross-legged in the dark there with my back to the door.

  I fanned the memories across the porch—pages and pages of “bodies” and “moonshine,” “heirlooms” and “nightsticks,” “petoskey” and “the nobody towns”—reading by the light of the lantern in the ghosthouse. Everything was connected but not connected. What our village had been, what our village had become. I had learned to swim in the same water where Grandpa Rose had learned to swim. Grandpa Dykhouse had sailed his sailboat across those same waves. Ships had been buried there. Little Isaac and Big Isaac wrote notes. Grandpa Rose had sung to birds. Grandpa Rose was a criminal. Kayley Schreiber had moved from Florida to Michigan, from peninsula to peninsula, from saltwater to freshwater, talked to spirits in a treehouse. Jordan’s ancestors had come here from Scandinavia, Zeke’s ancestors had come here from Korea, my ancestors had come here from Italy, from peninsulas to peninsula. The settlers had buried their dead in dunes, had dueled on islands to their deaths. My parents’ initials were carved into their school, our school, my school. Mr. Carl and Mr. Tim were always alone together, Ms. Wilmore heard things no one else could, Ty said that everyone’s stomach had a gray pod, Genevieve’s backbone was the wrong shape but once had been perfect. The ghosthouse had been built by my great-grandfather—then the shingles had peeled from its roof, the wallpaper had peeled from its walls, its gutters had rusted, busted, collapsed, its floors had rotted, the slats of its porch had weakened from the sun and the rain and the years—had become a ghosthouse, somewhere no one could live. The Gelusos had lost their dog to a storm. The Yorks wanted to build a hole in the ground. The smugglers had dug a pit for moonshine. Ty had fallen. Jordan had posed for photos with Mark Huff, had fought with Mark Huff on classroom floors. My dad called me from the Upper Peninsula, Mark Huff’s mom sent him postcards from Florida, Mr. Wilmore was somewhere where he couldn’t send anyone anything anymore. The music box was priceless but broken. Grandpa Rose’s brain was priceless but broken. Every month Zeke stole flowers for his grandfather’s grave. Every month Zeke fed flowers to his fireflies. My brother was a tree.

  Owls (mezzo-forte)whooped. Something (forte)cooed, (mezzo-piano)fluttered, (piano)scrunched through dead leaves. I reread a note about Grandpa Rose’s father. Then I heard the wolfdogs (fortissimo)baying.

  Flashlight beams swung through the birch trees, illuminating a pair of boulders, a thicket of ferns, the stone well.

  I ran t
o the door.

  “Someone’s coming!” I (forte)said.

  “Who?” Grandpa Dykhouse (mezzo-forte)said.

  “Everyone hide!” I (forte)said.

  Grandpa Rose hobbled to the staircase. Jordan scooped an armful of blankets, Zeke snatched the fire stick, they vaulted upstairs. Grandpa Dykhouse snuffed the lantern, started gathering empty cans. I ran for the notes I had been reading, (forte)raked the notes into a pile, but as I stood with the pages, a flashlight beam swept across me, blinding me.

  “What are you doing here?” someone (forte)shouted.

  Other flashlight beams swept across me. The Geluso twins stepped from the trees. Emma Dirge and Leah Keen, wearing matching jackets. Mark Huff, high-tops triple-knotted. Kayley Schreiber, wearing unlaced boots, mismatched socks, a shirt the size of a dress. Her blotches had changed shapes again. She was clutching a faded scroll. The blueprint to the ghosthouse.

  “Who told you about the seance?” Mark Huff (forte)said, frowning.

  “No one,” I (forte)said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I thought of a lie. I unfolded the black spot.

  “I came here hiding from this,” I (forte)said.

  The Geluso twins (piano)muttered something. Mark Huff (mezzo-piano)murmured, “He’s a goner,” and Emma Dirge (mezzo-forte)said, “You got the black spot?” and Leah Keen (forte)spat, “That’s what you get for hanging around with a jerk like Jordan Odom!”

  “Why aren’t you at the homecoming game?” I (forte)said.

  The Geluso twins beamed.

  “We’ve got something way better than that,” Crooked Teeth (forte)said.

  “Mark Huff in an amazing rematch,” The Unibrow (forte)said.

  “—him versus the ghost that tripped him—”

  “—a few months ago he got totally humiliated—”

  “—maybe you heard—”

  “—a ghost tripped him out the attic window—”