Blessed Mary, and all the saints, especially Joan, I pray, under my breath. Please don’t let Mr. Rutledge come up the stairs and catch me.
Roo is still barking, barking, and I think he must know I’m here. But he doesn’t come any closer. I can hear his toenails scraping on the wood floor like he’s being pulled away backwards. Is he on a leash?
“Quit it!” says Mr. Rutledge, sharply. Roo whines and whines, but he stops barking. I guess that’s the problem with a dog that barks a lot—you can’t tell when he’s trying to tell you something special. Lucky for me.
Mr. Rutledge goes down the hallway, and I hear him muttering and groaning to himself. In our house that hallway leads to the living room and the kitchen, although I’m not sure it’s the same here. I can’t get back down into the basement without him seeing me, even if I could open that window again. Which I probably can’t, since it was above my head. Maybe I can creep right down the stairs and out the front door before he even knows I’m here? But how can I be sure he won’t come back and catch me? It’s hard to think straight. I just want to run straight home to Uncle Donny.
If I wait longer, he might let Roo off the leash and then he’ll come for me and I’ll be caught. I can hear Mr. Rutledge rummaging around and the sound of couch springs squeaking. Maybe he sleeps downstairs like Mama does when she has bad dreams. He might be tired, since he was out in the middle of the night.
I put my bare feet right up against the edge of the wall and creep, creep, down the hallway, holding my breath. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee—
Roo starts barking again when I get to the top of the stairs.
“Shut up!” yells Mr. Rutledge, but I hear the couch squeak like somebody’s getting up out of it.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb—
I tiptoe down the stairs, sure at any moment that he’s going to catch me. The hardest step is the one halfway down, where I won’t be hidden by the railings anymore. I’ll be right out in the open where anybody can see me. I don’t want to put my foot down. I’m frozen. I’m going to be sick.
I pretend that Saints Joan and Catherine are with me, a shining line of beautiful women, cheering me on. I close my eyes. I step down.
The dog comes running down the hallway, making a racket. I run down the last six steps like a shot rubber band, and Roo comes right up to my heels, barking that high-pitched bark. I think for sure that he’s going to bite me, right through my pajama pants, but maybe because he kind of knows me, or because the saints are protecting me, or just because he can’t see that well, being old and blind, he just jumps around my legs, barking.
“What the fuck?” I hear Mr. Rutledge say, and that’s a bad word. I think that he shouldn’t say such a bad word, but I just run clear across the hallway and pull open the first door I come to. My hands won’t work properly to open the lock. I know Mr. Rutledge can hear me, and I can hear him coming down the hallway, but I can’t get it—until finally I manage to throw open the door and half fall out down the steps.
It turns out that the door leads out into the garage—our house doesn’t have a garage so Mama has to park the van in the driveway—but it’s too late now, and I keep on, straight down the steps, hoping the door closed behind me.
“Hey! Who’s out there? I know you’re there!” yells Mr. Rutledge.
I can’t open the big garage door. I don’t have the button. There must be a regular door to the outside somewhere, but I can’t see it in the dark.
I’m trapped.
I squish down between the wall and the rusted old car that’s taking up most of the space, trying to crawl underneath, even though the bottom of the door is digging into my arms and cutting me. There’s sharp stuff—broken glass?—here among the old leaves on the cement, but I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.
“I know you’re out there!”
I close my eyes and cover my face. This is probably just what it was like when Mr. Rutledge murdered Theo. I try to stay still, still.
I hear a chuck-chuck sound, and then there is a noise so loud I clap my hands over my ears and duck because there are little shavings of wood falling all around me. I turn around and there’s little holes blown clear through the garage door behind me and over my head, and there is a cloud of dust in the air that makes me cough.
He shot off a firework right here in the garage.
But with the streetlights shining in, I can see the door to the outside. I see it.
“I’m calling the police, you hear me!” yells Mr. Rutledge, and I duck lower and don’t move. I’m not here. I’m at home, safe and sound.
I hear Roo barking, and then I hear the clicking of his little nails on the cement floor, getting closer, and then he is barking and snapping at my face, and I fall backwards onto my butt and skin my palms. I hear the inside door slam and I know this is my chance. I’m already climbing up to my feet and pulling hard on the doorknob that leads out of the garage. But it’s locked, and I can’t get out. Mr. Rutledge is going to be right back any second, and I can’t get out.
Except there’s a doggy door down by my feet. It’s locked on the inside with a latch, but I can open it. I’m already through before I can think about it, crawling on my hands and knees. Roo comes with me, pushing past me, but he doesn’t try to bite me, just barks and barks. I fall forward and hit my palms and my knees. I smack my chin, and I feel my loose tooth fall right out and I swallow it. I don’t make a sound. I bite my lip and think don’t cry, don’t cry.
“I have the police on the phone, do you hear me! They’re on their way here now, you piece of shit!”
I’m already on my feet, Roo jumping up with me, and then I run through the shadows. Across the street and into the grass. All the way down the sidewalk in the dark. I run and run even though I’m tired and my feet are hurting from the cracks in the pavement, which have sharp little stones in them, and I scuff my toes on the cement.
Roo runs part of the way with me, but at some point he breaks off, still barking, and gets left behind. I hope the cat from next door was smart enough to go home and not get attacked. I don’t stop for anything. I just run straight into the shapes of bushes and trees. I let the darkness swallow me up.
Chapter Eleven
I can hear sirens coming closer, and I remember Mr. Rutledge said he was calling the police. I can’t believe there are police looking for me. They’ll take me to Children’s Prison when they find out that Teddy and I stole Mac’s cigarette lighter and broke into Mr. Rutledge’s basement.
And I swallowed my tooth! I’m not even going to get a quarter for it. It’s going to sit in my stomach like a watermelon seed, growing out of my ears like Hannah said.
It’s only when I remember the lighter that I realize for the first time that Teddy isn’t with me. He must have stayed back inside the house, but I don’t know why he’d do that—he never used to appear and disappear like this. He used to always, always be there, wherever I was. I hope he’s okay back in Mr. Rutledge’s house. He does like dogs, so maybe he wanted to stay and play with Roo? I wish he had come with me, because I’m scared, and I don’t care what I did, I don’t want the police people to catch me. I have to hide.
I run in the direction of the dark for as long as I can. When I can’t go anymore, I stop and lean over, trying not to throw up. It takes me a while to catch my breath and realize that I’m lost.
It’s starting to get just a little lighter, and it probably won’t be too much longer before there are cars on the road and people walking around, and they’re going to ask why I’m in my pajamas, and maybe they could point me back to my house or call Uncle Donny.
But Uncle Donny is the one who held the door open. He wanted me to go solve the mystery. I’m not sure he’ll even let me back in, since I only found one clue and I don’t even know what it means.
I can’t go to Hannah’s house because she’s mad at me.
And even though Mac says he’s my dad, that doesn’t m
ean anything—he’s been my dad all along, and mostly he wasn’t around. I don’t even know where he lives. I only learned his whole name yesterday.
So I just keep walking, keeping the sound of the sirens behind me. I’m really tired and I’m so hungry my stomach is eating itself. I got a little bit of sleep on and off—some on the rock, maybe, and some in Ned Slater’s rocket-ship bed, but I don’t think it was nearly enough, because I’m about to fall asleep standing up. And I really miss Teddy.
I wish I’d worn shoes to bed tonight, because the bottoms of my feet really hurt. And my knees hurt from crawling on the cement, and my palms are scuffed up from the garage floor, and I have bits of wood in my hair from the firework Mr. Rutledge shot off in the garage.
I’m just starting to think that maybe the best thing to do would be to find a dark space under some bushes and go to sleep like someone from the city, when I hear a low chime—dong, dong, dong, dong, dong—five times, for five o’clock in the morning.
It’s the church bell ringing.
It’s almost exciting to hear the five-o’clock bells, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard before in my whole life. Best of all, church means sanctuary—that’s what Mama always says—and sanctuary means Mr. Rutledge can’t get me. Even if I wasn’t on a mission from the saints, Jesus would protect me in the church, which is his Father’s house. So instead of looking for my house or anything on the street that I recognize, I look up above the buildings to try and find the church steeple. And there it is, over the trees, looking down on me just like God does.
It’s a lot easier to find a street to get there, and I only take one that dead-ends without taking me to the church. The whole time I’m half waiting for Mr. Rutledge to come out of the bushes and grab me. I don’t even know what I would do if he did, except maybe pray. Praying worked last time, at least, because the saints did take me to the garage and then the doggy door instead of letting Mr. Rutledge catch me.
I’m too tired to run anymore, but I walk slowly on my sore feet until I get to the Sacred Heart of Mary. I already know exactly where to go. I don’t even need the saints to tell me, because the chapel off on the far end of the church is never, ever locked.
I cross the grass where we play red rover when we have a substitute counselor at church camp. It feels so good under my feet, way better than the gravel around the road or the twigs I’ve been walking on all night.
Still looking out for Mr. Rutledge, I sneak around the back to the door of the chapel. Just like I knew it would be, it’s unlocked. Inside, the windows are purple and pink stained glass, and there’s wooden benches, and a cross, and the box that looks like a tiny coffin for a baby doll, but which Mama says is part of the altar and that I shouldn’t say that.
I hear a car driving by real slow on the road, and I can see a big flashlight lighting up all the windows, but I don’t duck down even though I think about it, because I know the saints will protect me here. They’ll turn the glass windows black so Mr. Rutledge and the people from Children’s Prison can’t see me inside.
The windows look the same to me, but it must work, because the sound of the engine doesn’t stop, it just creeps down the road, shining the flashlight into the bushes as it goes.
I say an extra-special thank you to all the saints, particularly Saint Catherine and Blessed Saint Joan, and of course to Holy Mary, Mother of God. I don’t mention Jesus because he is probably too busy to come down here and intercede with Mr. Rutledge for me (but of course I am always grateful to him anyway, all the time). I know I ought to say a Hail Mary and an Our Father or something, but I’m so, so tired now that I can’t hardly remember the words—that is, I mean, of course I remember them, but I keep forgetting where I am in the prayer after just a couple lines, and have to start over.
I’ve still got so much to do, and I’m running out of time. But what am I supposed to do next? Why would the saints lead me all this way but not show me the answer? I’m still missing part of the jigsaw. I almost wish Hannah and I were still friends in case she could explain it. I know I need to figure it out, but it doesn’t make any sense.
I’m sitting up on the pew, but then my head gets heavy, so I let it slide down, down, to the wooden seat, and then I pull my knees up in my torn pajama pants and curl into a ball, which makes me think of Teddy, who likes to sleep in a furry blob. That makes me sad, but I’m too tired to even really be sad, so I just close my eyes and send a last thank-you prayer especially to Saint Joan for helping me to be brave, and then between one blink and the next I fall asleep.
* * *
In my dream, the first thing I see is the bird. Mama said it was a starling. We found it dead in the grass when we went outside in the morning on our way to church.
What happened to it? I asked.
It fell, she said.
It looks like an angel, I said.
It was almost grown, but maybe not quite all the way. It looked perfect, except for being dead. Its feet were spread pointing two different directions, and its wings were spread, and its feathers looked soft and fluffy. But it was dead. Its eyes were open. And Mama said that God’s eye is on the fall of a starling. But she also said that the bugs would eat it, or the next-door kitty, and she moved it under the bushes so I wouldn’t see.
I used to picture the little bird falling from the nest. Maybe it got too close to the edge by accident.
Or maybe the other birds pushed it out.
In my dream, the bird’s wings twitch, and Mama and I step back. It gets up and shakes itself off, and its eyes, which were dried up like raisins, are little black beads again. The starling hop-hops down onto the grass, and then in the next breath it takes off and flies away.
* * *
The next time I open my eyes, everything is pink. I’m cold. I don’t want to move, but then I realize that the reason I woke up is because someone is outside the door, turning the knob.
Has Mr. Rutledge found me? I sit up although everything hurts and my head feels swimmy like I’m still half asleep. Teddy isn’t back yet. I wish he was here. Would Mr. Rutledge break down the door of a church to get in? He might because I don’t think he’s even Catholic. He never comes to service. The door opens and I want to scream, but I bite down hard on my lip to keep the sound in.
But it’s not Mr. Rutledge. It’s Father Paul. When I see him, in his weekday clothes, his bald head, and his big wire glasses, I’m so relieved that I start to cry.
“Aoife? What on earth are you doing here this early?”
“I’m sleeping,” I say, sobbing. At least, I was trying to, before he woke me up.
Father Paul kneels down in front of me so he can look at me square. “Aoife, what happened?”
I’m not sure what to say. No one thing happened, but everything. I didn’t solve the mystery even though I tried to be very brave. I had a really weird dream.
I try to push my hair out of my face, but my fingers get stuck in the tangles. My feet hurt, and I need to brush my teeth. I’m still tired. I sort of wish he would go away and come back later. “I was following the saints,” I say. “But then—they almost got me in big trouble. Why would they do that? And Teddy left!”
I put my head down in my hands and I’m still sobbing.
“Aoife.” Father Paul puts his hand on my shoulder. “Aoife, this is important. How did you get here? Does your mother know you’re here?”
“My mama’s at the hospital because she’s crazy,” I say, starting to cry harder. “And Uncle Donny opened the door last night and Teddy told me to go! And I was just following the saints, but then I got l-l-lost.” It’s hard to talk at all, because every time I breathe it all just goes into pushing out more tears.
“Lost? But why are you in your pajamas? Where are your shoes?”
“My house!” I say. Where I wish I was now.
Father Paul looks confused, but he doesn’t look mad. “I think you’d better come on back to the office with me,” he says, standing up and holding out his hand, “and m
aybe we can give your mother a call, hmm?”
That just makes me cry harder and harder, until I think I’m going to throw up. “She’s not there,” I say, trying to talk through my tears and not doing a good job. “She left and I can’t get her back.”
“Come along and we’ll get this all sorted out,” says Father Paul. “Who is at your house right now? We can go find your home phone number in the church directory.”
“Uncle Donny,” I say, still sniffing. By now all the snot is running down my face and my nose hurts and my eyes hurt from crying, and my head hurts, too. “My uncle Donny is at home.”
“Would it be okay if I called your uncle Donny?”
I take a few breaths and try to stop crying. You can stop crying if you really, really have to. It’s a secret that Teddy showed me once, a long time ago. “He might be mad at me,” I say.
“How about I’ll talk to him first, and I’ll make sure he’s not angry with you?”
I don’t answer, but I reach out to take Father Paul’s hand when he offers it again.
“You know, Aoife, if you don’t feel safe with your uncle, I can call someone else. I won’t call him if you don’t want me to.”
That sounds a lot like when the Carrie/Loris asked me if I feel safe in my home. I don’t know why grown-ups keep asking me that. Of course I feel safe with Uncle Donny, and it’s not like I know how to reach Mama at the hospital even if they let her talk on the phone, which I don’t think they want to do again.
“Can we call him for you?”
“Okay,” I say. And then I follow Father Paul to the office, where the nice secretary is waiting with the phone.
* * *
“Jesus God, Aoife,” says Uncle Donny. He picks me up and squeezes me tight, tight.
I would tell him not to take the Lord’s name in vain, but I don’t think he is. He sounds like he really means it.
“Hi Uncle Donny,” I whisper.
“Aoife, I thought you were asleep upstairs. What the hell?”
“She says she got lost,” says Father Paul. He doesn’t seem very warm towards Uncle Donny. I don’t know why.
All That's Bright and Gone (ARC) Page 16