by Dawn Metcalf
“No,” Joy said. She’d been storing the rest of her mother’s messages. Not playing them. Not deleting them. Not even thinking about them. Not yet. “Have you given anyone my number?”
“What? No.”
“Gordon or anybody?” Joy fished. “Did he borrow your phone?”
Monica’s happy face dropped several degrees, her tone dipped into low centigrade. “When I say no, I mean no. Nobody got your number from me.” She frowned. “Is somebody cyber-bothering you?”
Joy killed her screen. “No. Just being paranoid.” She started walking. Fast.
Monica jogged to keep up. “Somebody comes and breaks your window, that’s not paranoid. That’s legitimately scared. And now someone’s texting you?” She sounded worried.
“Wrong number,” Joy lied. “They might not be related.”
“Yeah, but they might,” Monica said. “Seriously, I don’t want to see your name on the news and feel bad that I didn’t say something.” She tapped Joy’s shoulder. “You tell your dad about this? About what really happened at the Carousel?”
“No,” Joy muttered. “You know he’d freak.”
Monica shrugged as they made for the doors. “Let him freak. It’s okay to freak. Especially if things are freaky.” She shook her head, jangling the gold hoops in her ears as she took the stairs. “Just tell him. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Joy said with a wave, but she knew she wouldn’t. Dad was just coming out of that zombie state of post-marital shock and they finally had a delicate peace. Then he’d been out at 2:00 a.m. and called her a liar. She’d told Dad about the thing at the window and look what had happened! Joy wasn’t about to do that again any time soon.
Joy stayed in the stairwell and clicked into Maps. There were highway 40s in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, New York and Florida. A quick search of Alice Mooreheads turned up hits in Maine, Connecticut, Kentucky.... There were too many to be sure. Something snapped into place as she looked at the White Pages listings. A number plus a street equaled an address!
She hesitated, popping back into Maps, and typed 48 Deer Run with her thumbs. Three hits. One in Glendale, North Carolina.
Joy enlarged the image and smiled at the map. She didn’t even need directions. She could practically walk there from here.
She took the stairs two at a time, determined that no one was going to mess up her life and leave her behind to pick up the pieces. This time, she was going to do something about it first.
* * *
She didn’t walk, she ran. It felt good, even with too-heavy clothes and an underwire bra. Joy’s feet hit the pavement with an even, steady thud thud thud. Her skin tingled with heat and sweat, cooled by a breeze that smelled of dry leaves. It didn’t feel as good as training, but it felt better than sitting still.
She’d tied her hair back with a rubber band, missing half her bangs, and her taped-over eye made her awkwardly blind on one side, but it felt good to move, to be doing something. Joy grinned and added some speed.
Her feet took the corner, pounding the sidewalk squares and squashing the tiny sprigs that had dried in the cracks. She barely realized when she’d turned onto Deer Run Avenue. She slowed to a walk and placed her hands on her hips, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth, digging a knuckle into her patch as she read mailbox numbers.
Number forty-eight was a gray clapboard house tucked into a wooded lot. Its roof was littered in pine needles and the shutters were painted dark red. Joy hesitated at the mouth of the gravel drive. Now that she was here, she didn’t know what to do. Whatever might or might not have happened would have happened last night. Midnight. But everything here looked normal. Joy wiped her face with her hands. What had she expected to find?
Walking up the driveway, Joy was all too conscious of the sound of her footsteps crunching loudly on loose gravel, reminding her of shattered glass. As she approached the porch steps, she saw the first hints that something was wrong. There was a mess of overturned planters and downed hanging baskets, trampled, half-buried flowers littered the porch, and smears of what looked like mud dripped down the steps. Joy looked up at the door, also splashed with mud. The windows were intact, but there was something about them.... She didn’t want to climb the stairs. She didn’t want to touch the mud or the flowers or the broken pottery. Some instinct told her to back away, and she did. Joy knew that there were answers here, but if there was more to see, it was around the back of the house.
Joy had never considered trespassing before.
She hesitated, then walked quickly around the side of the garage, blood pulsing in her ears. Her steps crushed bits of stone and crispy, dead leaves. Joy kept glancing anxiously toward her blind side, afraid of getting caught.
She stopped. It was as if this was what she’d expected to see.
The back deck was destroyed. Smashed planks, broken fence posts, and wide pieces of fiberglass lay scattered in the grass. Chunks of raw wood had been gouged out of the wall with what looked like a hand rake with four tines. Joy squeezed the straps of her backpack and whirled around. Whatever it was that had been at her window had come here, too.
With one hand on the railing and the other outstretched, Joy sidestepped the splinters and pieces of glass. Easing herself around the corner, she peered into what had been the kitchen. It was demolished; the sink, counter and opposite wall were completely blown through. The floor was nothing but shattered tile and crumbly powder. Even the light fixtures were husks of busted glass, their tiny hanging wires trembling in the wind.
That’s what made her look up.
The ceiling was a thick canopy of green—an enormous mandala of leaves, shoots and thorns spreading out from a decorative center medallion. Climbing ivy hugged the plaster with millipede roots, and clusters of red berries shone ripe in the dark. It was unlike anything Joy had ever seen, beautiful and eerie. It made a picture, almost like writing. She craned her head sideways, trying to make it out.
There was a blur on her blind side.
Joy spun around. The backyard was empty. A cloud moved, casting shadows and bringing a sudden scent of rain. Branches flickered. Twigs creaked. A shower of sound rustled as the wind overturned leaves.
There was a whisper of something....
A crack of wood turned her stomach cold.
Her curiosity vanished. She’d seen enough—she wanted out of here! Joy crept down the stairs, being careful where she placed her feet, and stepped off the path onto the grass.
“Excuse me?”
An old man stood on the edge of the yard wearing a soft felt hat and a long wool coat, clutching a ragged umbrella. His mismatched clothes were all the colors of brown and his face was a raisin of smiles. He hadn’t been there before.
“Excuse me,” he continued. “Did you see the Kodama?”
Joy swallowed her first response. While she wasn’t certain what he meant, it was pretty clear the answer he expected.
“Yes,” she said.
“Ah, good,” he said, visibly relaxing. “It is you.” He shuffled forward, and Joy watched him shake his head. “Bad business,” he clucked and gestured offhandedly to a Japanese maple that had been recently cut down; its smell permeated the air and a large twist of rope lay coiled around the stump. “He tried to warn them, you know—tried asking for help—but do they listen? Hardly ever. Pity that.” He smiled up at Joy. The man was a good deal shorter than her. His eyes were soft and his hair was the color of bone. “If you would be so kind...”
He offered her a wrinkled envelope. It looked as if it had been sat on, left in slush and dried overnight. Joy looked at the envelope and him, not knowing what to do. This didn’t seem like a drug deal, but that was the only thing she could think of that made sense. Maybe this “Ink” was a dealer? Maybe she was under surveillance? Maybe this guy was an undercover cop? She glanced around the yard with her one go
od eye. The old man waved his envelope with an imploring smile.
“I would’ve waited but, you know, he’s so very busy,” he said almost apologetically. “And with you being here, I thought, well, it never hurts to ask.” Joy still hadn’t moved to take the letter. The man paused and tugged at his many layers of clothes, growing awkward and confused. His eyes suddenly lit up.
“Ah! Of course...” He hooked his umbrella over one elbow and fumbled inside his coat pocket, then tried an inner coat pocket, his jacket pocket, a shirt pocket, a vest pocket and his pants pocket before he found something that made him grin. “Here.” He placed a small white shell in her palm and folded the envelope gently atop it. “With my compliments,” he added, beaming. “If you listen, you can hear the ocean.” He winked and made encouraging gestures. Joy held the conical shell up to her ear. There was a cold tickle of air and a tiny whooshing sound. She flinched. With a satisfied bow, he turned to withdraw.
“Wait!” Joy was uncertain whether she intended to say that this was all a big mistake or demand some sort of explanation, but his next words cut her short.
“If you would be so kind as to deliver that missive to Ink, young lady, I’d very much appreciate it.” Then he pointed to the shell in her hand and winked. “Don’t spend that all in one place!”
“Ink...” Joy began. The man stopped and turned slowly, his eyebrows twitching with a sort of itchy suspicion. “...is really busy,” she amended quickly. “I don’t know when I’ll see him next...to give him this.” She held up the envelope, which quivered in the wind. “And I’d hate for you to have to wait.” He looked at her and then at his envelope in her hand. Joy folded it carefully. “Is there anything you’d like me to tell him? In case he asks?”
The man’s face shifted. “He lets you handle the business, then?”
Joy nodded. “Yes.”
His face relaxed into a gentle smile. “Oh, well, lehman—I’m old. What do I know?” He shook his umbrella at the envelope. “It’s all written down, of course. Always best to keep records. But then, this won’t involve the Bailiwick, so that hardly matters, does it?” It didn’t sound rhetorical and he looked expectantly up at Joy.
“No,” she said.
“Fine, fine,” he said happily. “I don’t mind if you read it, then. Just be sure to let Ink know.” He shuffled off, pausing to pet the tree stump with a gentle hand. “Pity,” he muttered and gave a sad, parting smile. “Well, good day.”
“Good day,” Joy said and watched the little man amble off through the trees, picking his way through the neighbor’s yard and poking at the ground with his umbrella as he continued out into the woods. Joy followed. She kept her eyes on him as she circled the house, one hand outstretched, touching the wall. She squinted across the neighboring property, but between one tree and the next, he disappeared.
She backed up a step and then inched forward. She turned around. There was no one there. Nothing.
That did it.
Joy sprinted across the driveway, half-blind with tape and fear, crossing the open expanse of lawn in a rush and dashing out into the street. Kept running. She ran herself to exhaustion, finally slowing halfway between home and school. Gasping, Joy tore open the envelope and read the shaky script:
Twelve roses on her bier, as promised.
Mary Anne Thomas-Wakely, Thursday, 5:15
Love marks her twice. Let it be done.
Thank you for the honor of your service,
Dennis Thomas
She folded the paper and placed it in her backpack. It didn’t sound like a drug drop. It sounded like a sweet old man ordering flowers for a grave. Joy walked home, regaining her breath. But what did any of this have to do with a gutted house, a woodland monster, a bunch of strange messages and some guy named Ink?
The answer was as elusive as a pair of all-black eyes.
* * *
Joy fumbled with her keys as she punched in the new alarm code. The security system beeped clear. Instead of feeling safer, Joy felt caged. Something was out there and she was locked in here. Alone. Now Dad didn’t even have to come home from late nights at work. He could just log on to the site and check in via remote. It was worse than being invisible—it was a high-tech way of being ignored.
Dropping her backpack, Joy went to get some ice water, gulping it down painfully cold. She ground her teeth against brain freeze and filled the glass again. The kitchen window was taped over, crisscross lines obscuring the view. Dad’s note on the fridge said that a repairman was coming at five. She hurried out of the kitchen to avoid standing too near the glass.
Joy wrapped herself in the afghan. She didn’t know what to think about what she’d seen at the house on Deer Run, or what she’d thought of the old man out in the woods, but whatever had happened there at midnight, she didn’t want it happening here.
She picked up the rumpled envelope and Officer Castrodad’s card. From her corner of the couch, Joy considered both pieces of paper. She should call. She should file a report or make a claim or whatever. But she wasn’t sure what she could say that didn’t involve admitting that she’d both trespassed and withheld evidence that might have prevented a crime. Did that make her an accomplice? She didn’t watch enough police dramas to know for sure and wasn’t eager to find out. The last thing she needed was another reason to get in trouble with the police or, worse, Dad.
She read the two strange texts on her phone again. Maybe she could tell the police to warn everyone named Alice Moorehead or to keep watch over every South 40 overpass at 4:00 p.m. But that made her sound like a terrorist. How would she explain? She didn’t even know what to say, because she didn’t know anything herself and it would just link her to them—whoever “they” were—with no proof that she wasn’t involved. Would the police even believe her? Would anyone?
Joy sat debating what to do when the doorbell rang. As if on cue, her stomach rumbled. Monday. Dad’s late day. Frozen dinner in the fridge. She’d forgotten about the repairman.
The bell rang again.
She got up, wincing around an old injury of two broken toes, and dropped the afghan on the way to the door. For the first time ever, Joy looked through the peephole, attempting to see into the hallway with her untaped eye. Colors slid up the sides of the lens, bowing out of focus and bending out of shape. Frustrated, she called through the door.
“Hello?”
She felt the second knock by her ear. Joy flipped on the lights and opened the door.
Five frail women glowed in the hall.
They were identical in that they all had long golden hair, warm, honeyed tans and the same high-cheekboned faces with tiny, button chins. They wore plain sleeveless dresses that hung down to their knees, and all five were barefoot. Their toenails were far too long.
“Ink,” they said together.
Joy shook her head. Their mouths had moved, but the sound hadn’t come from them. The word hadn’t even sounded like a voice, but more like feedback from hidden speakers. It buzzed in her teeth.
“Um...” She felt her fingers on the doorknob. She couldn’t remember how her hands worked.
“Ink,” they repeated.
The world slowed, unfocusing into a fuzzy, muzzy mess. Joy tried to think of what you were supposed to do when something like this happened. Glowing, honey-colored girls appearing on the doorstep did not compute with her version of something like this.
“I think you have the wrong apartment,” she said thickly.
“You bear his mark,” they said. “We have a message for Ink.”
Joy’s hand still wasn’t working. Everything felt slippery.
“We require a witness at Grandview Park by the head of the foot trail at 3:16 post-meridian, tomorrow.” There was a pause. “Can you remember that?”
Could she? Why should she? She couldn’t quite recall. Breat
h oozed in and out of her lungs, shaping words.
“I think so,” Joy said.
“Tell him,” they chimed.
“Wait,” Joy managed. “Who is Ink?”
While they might be identical, they each had a unique expression of disdain.
“Don’t be coy, lehman.”
And the door swung closed under her hand.
* * *
They were gone when she opened the door a second later.
The fuzzy feeling wore off as she stomped down the hall, slammed the bathroom door and yanked off the patch.
Glue stuck in gobby smears across her cheek and above her eyebrow. Light speared a quick flash into her brain. Shaking the prescription bottle, Joy tipped back her head and dripped several cold drops onto her eyeball, runoff spilling into her ear. She blinked into the mirror, monofilament light splicing her vision. It happened every time she opened her left eye: Flash! Flash!
She scrubbed her face with a washcloth. Her skin burned angry pink.
Swaying on her feet, she grabbed the edge of the sink, trying to focus on her own face. There was an afterimage of something superimposed over her left eye. She blinked, trying to see it clearly—Flash! Flash!—no good. The rush in her ears grew louder and wilder. She felt faint.
This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. She wouldn’t let it.
Joy slapped off the lights as she stormed into the kitchen. She scooped up the card with Officer Castrodad’s number and snagged one of the handheld phones, dialing on the way back to her room, letting her feet fuel her anger. The phone rang as she paced.
“Castrodad speaking.”
“Hello. This is Joy Malone.”
“Hello, Joy. How can I help you?”
She stopped suddenly, trying to catch her breath. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m the one with the broken window at one-forty Wilkes Road....” She trailed off, wondering where to begin.
“I remember,” he said. “Is there something you wanted to tell me?”
“Forty-eight Deer Run,” Joy said.