He imagined a pile of boxers suddenly appearing on some family’s kitchen counter one day.
Each boy would also get his own night table and bedside lamp. It was almost like having your own room. But not.
Dad’s music pounded from the master bedroom. Most of the lyrics and high notes didn’t make it as far as the brothers’ bedroom, but the bass thumped in the floors and off the walls.
Xander opened a box full of rolled posters and began sorting through them. He selected one and flattened it against the wall above his bed. The edges were torn, the tips of the corners lost long ago. It was a lithograph of a tiled mosaic hanging in Naples’ Museo Archeologico Nazionale that featured a scene of Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus. Xander was named after the ancient Greek king of Macedon.
It was a family tradition, dating as far back as anyone could remember, to name King children after great kings and queens. Fortunately, the practice did not extend to marrying people with royal names. That would really crimp their pursuits of love. Still, Mom insisted there was a Queen Gertrude. Dad said only in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and that didn’t count.
The Alexander in the poster had long sideburns, down to his jawline—the guy would have been hip today, twenty-three hundred years after his death. Xander touched his own face. He could not grow sideburns yet, just a bit of fuzz; as soon as he could, he would.
“Whatcha think?” he asked David, who had settled on the floor with his PSP. He glanced up at the poster.
“Aren’t you sick of looking at that? I am.”
Xander let the poster spin back into a roll. He said, “Just because you don’t put up the one Mom and Dad gave you.”
“Michelangelo’s David ? The guy’s naked.”
“It’s art.”
David made a disgusting sound with his lips. “I’ll find a different poster of King David, thank you.”
Footsteps in the hallway drew their attention. The clomping boots of the moving men. When they’d arrived, all they wanted to do was grumble about having to haul the stuff through the woods to the house. Then Dad had slipped each of them some extra cash and that was that.
“This one?” someone said.
Another answered, “No, down there. She said by the bedroom.” A man came into view carrying a box. He opened the linen closet door and stepped in to slide the box onto one of the shelves. Another mover, coming up behind, bumped the door and it swung shut.
David gasped.
The door didn’t latch, however, and the second man kicked it open with his boot. The first man turned in the closet and took the box from his colleague. The second man looked in at them. “Hey, boys.”
Xander and David were too stunned to answer. The man gave them a puzzled look, then both movers pushed the closet door shut and clomped away. David turned from the open dresser drawer to stare open-mouthed at Xander, who returned the expression.
David said, “He almost . . .”
Xander nodded. “And another thing . . .” He walked to the linen closet door. David moved up behind him. Xander opened it. Two boxes inside. “It must only work with people.”
“Good thing. We’d lose all our towels.”
“We’d get them back dirty,” Xander said, “along with some kid’s schoolbooks.”
When they shut the door, they jumped. Dad was standing there. He had turned down the music and they hadn’t noticed.
“How you guys doin’?” Dad said.
“Good, good,” Xander said, a little too quickly.
“Fine,” David said in that higher Toria voice he got when he was scared or nervous.
Dad looked past them into their room. “Getting settled in there?”
“Getting there,” Xander said, and went into the bedroom. David and Dad followed. Xander sat on his bare mattress. David sat on his, facing Xander.
“What do you think?” Dad said. “Is this going to work?”
Xander looked around the room appreciatively. “It’s cool.”
“Yeah,” David agreed.
“So . . .” Dad looked from son to son. “Stay here tonight?” “Really?” David said, hopping up.
Dad said, “If we can get the lights back on.” He looked at his watch. “An electrician should be by anytime now.”
“All right!” David said.
Xander smiled his agreement. Dad scanned the floor near the walls. “You haven’t seen any mice up here, have you?”
Xander shook his head. “Did you catch some?”
“A couple in the kitchen cabinets.” He put his finger to his lips in a hushing gesture. “Don’t tell your mother.”
“Can I see?” David asked.
“Next time.”
David furled his brow. “Do they have a mouse problem at the school?”
Xander kicked his leg, then stood to make it look like an accident.
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Why?”
Before David could complete the task of wedging his foot into his mouth, Xander said, “I was telling him that rodents are everywhere out here in Hicksville. Not just in old houses.”
“Yep,” Dad agreed. “They’re everywhere.” He turned to leave then stopped at the door. “Mom’s got the boxes of sheets and blankets in our room. Come get some.”
“Be right there,” Xander told him.
When he was gone, Xander punched David in the arm.
“Idiot.”
David frowned. “I’m not used to secrets.”
“Everybody has secrets,” Xander said, irritated. He brushed past David on his way out the door. Over his shoulder, he said, “Even this house.”
Mom was sitting on her bed when Xander looked in. She was examining the pages of a photo album that was open beside her. With her hair falling over her face, he thought at first she was crying. He rapped gently on the master bedroom door. He was relieved to see a beaming smile when she looked up.
“Hey, Xander. Come sit.” She patted a clean spot on the bed. Boxes and items wrapped in newspaper covered the rest.
“I came for our sheets and blankets,” he said. “Dad said you had a box.”
“Oh, sit with your mom a sec, will ya?”
On the way over, he glanced around. “Big,” he said.
“Needs some work.” She was talking about the old wallpaper, stained and hopelessly outdated. “I like it, though.”
When he sat, she tapped a picture in the album. “Remember this?” Xander about six years old, standing next to Mickey Mouse in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland. Xander’s face was twisted in terror, his face glistening with tears. His mouth was open so wide, you could almost see that little hanging thing at the back of his throat. Uvula, he thought it was called. What made it worse was David—three years old, big happy grin, holding Mickey’s white-gloved hand. Xander frowned. “You made me stand next to him. I thought he was creepy.” He thought about it. “David was too young to know better, that’s all.”
She smiled, closed the book. She touched his hand. “I want to show you something.” She stood and went to a bookcase, where a half-dozen ceramic figurines had been unwrapped and were on display. She selected one and returned to the bed. She rotated it in her hands. It was a chipped and faded ceramic rooster, about a foot high. He knew it meant a lot to her.
“Nana gave you that before she died,” he said. Cancer had taken his grandmother when Xander was two. He sometimes thought he remembered her face, but couldn’t be sure.
Mom nodded. “And her mother gave it to her. She brought it over from Portugal, when she immigrated to the States. She used to say it was the only thing they had left from the old country, except our blood.” She pushed her fingers into a hole in the base of the rooster and pulled something out. It was a fat roll of dollar bills. The outside one was a twenty.
“Mom!” he said in a hoarse whisper.
She held up the roll. She said, “It was going to be a surprise, but this move has been so hard on you . . . It’s for your car.”
&nb
sp; “My car?”
“It’s not that much yet, and you have to chip in, but maybe by the time you’re sixteen . . .”
“But how . . . ?”
“You know we don’t have a lot of extra money. When you were born, your father and I decided I’d quit my job and be a full-time mom. That made things tight, but . . .” Her eyes scanned his face. “It was the right decision. Last year, when you started talking about a car, I realized we weren’t ready for something like that. The car, gas, insurance . . .” She shook her head. “I started putting a little aside every month. I cut more coupons, didn’t go to the hair salon so much.”
“Mom . . .” He didn’t know what else to say.
“It added up,” she said, looking at the wad. She seemed as amazed by its size as Xander was.
“How much is it?” A pang of guilt rippled through him for asking.
“Almost two thousand, but I hope we’ll have more by the time you turn sixteen in January.”
“Two grand ?” He leaned over the album and threw his arms around her neck. “Thank you.”
“Now, Xander, you have to contribute. I only meant to—” “I will! I will! I’ll get a job as soon as I can!”
“Your bedding is right there. David’s too.” She indicated a box on the bed.
Unable to stifle his grin, he stood and picked it up. “Thank you,” he whispered again.
CHAPTER
twenty - one
SATURDAY, 12:02 A.M.
The bulbs in the bathroom emitted only a dim, yellowish glow. Better than nothing, Xander thought, standing in front of the toilet bowl in only his boxers. The electrician had kept the power off in some parts of the house—the basement, the library, the far hallway on the second floor. He’d explained that some wiring and fixtures needed replacing first.
He flushed. The toilet shook and rattled like an excited dog at the end of a short leash. The water in the bowl disappeared in a loud whoosh. It filled again with a choking-gurgling sound that made Xander believe stepping into the woods to relieve himself would prove a better experience. At the sink, he turned on the faucet. Water did not immediately come out. Rather, the faucet sputtered and spat. A trickle of water followed, slowly building to a steady flow. He splashed it onto his face and looked at himself in the murky mirror. His hair was a mess, but he didn’t look as tired as he felt.
He had tried to sleep, but found himself watching the shadows of branches and leaves play across his ceiling in the moonlight. Finally, he’d tossed his bedding aside and gotten up. His clock had read 11:57. He was glad his mother had put a night-light in the hall; he might have never found the bathroom without it.
He dried his face on a hand towel, relishing its familiarity. Living out of a motel room wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but it wasn’t home. Neither was their new house yet. Still, as their things from Pasadena started to settle into their new locations, Xander realized these things, as much as his family, would help change that.
When Xander opened the bathroom door, David was there, clad only in pajama bottoms. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said.
“It’s a new place,” Xander said. “That’s—”
Something fell over in the corridor. The boys spun toward the noise. Boxes were stacked at intervals all the way past the landing to their parents’ bedroom. Another night-light glowed at the far end, making the boxes black and their square edges sharply defined. Dad had made a point of telling his kids and the movers to place the boxes against only one wall. That would keep half the hallway open to walk. Now, a box lay in that path just beyond the landing.
“Xander?” David whispered. He stepped back into his brother. Xander whispered, “Just a box. Someone didn’t stack it right.” Another sound reached them. A scraping that seemed to come from the entryway.
David pushed back even farther into Xander.
“Get off my foot,” Xander whispered. David didn’t budge. “Maybe it’s Dad.”
“In the dark?” David said.
Xander thought about the way sounds couldn’t be trusted in the house. Whatever had made the noise could be anywhere. That made him spin around to look the other direction, toward their bedroom.
David jumped, said, “What?” He grabbed Xander’s hand.
“Nothing. Just looking.”
A door thunked shut. Somewhere on the first floor . . . maybe. Xander took a step toward their bedroom. “Wait here,” he said. He tried to shake him loose, but David was having none of that. “No way,” David said.
“Then you go. The flashlights are on my dresser.”
“No way,” he repeated. “Turn on the hall light.”
“I don’t know where the switch is.”
“All right,” David said. “Stay here.” David released his hand and walked to the bedroom. He looked back every second step. He could have been swimming, turning his head regularly to breathe. He hesitated outside the bedroom, then reached his hand around the frame to flip on the light.
Moments later, Xander saw the two flashlights come on and shine against the linen closet door.
When David emerged, Xander asked, “Is the switch down there?”
The beams flashed around.
“I don’t see it,” David said. He hurried to Xander and handed him one of the lights. They moved down the hall toward the landing. Toria’s door was open. A night-light revealed her sleeping in bed. David cast his light into the room.
Xander pushed his hand down. “Don’t wake her,” he whispered. At the landing, they leaned on the banister. Xan-der panned his light over the base of the stairs, the few feet of dining room visible to him, and the front door.
David shined his light directly below, onto the corridor leading to the kitchen. “It’s like we’re in a guard tower.”
“Shhh.” Xander’s beam caught the chandelier. A thousand sparkles of white and blue light danced on the walls.
“Whoa,” David said. He added his light to Xander’s. A galaxy of stars exploded around them, swirling over the walls and their faces. Despite their unease, they shared a smile. Then David’s light fell from his hand. It tumbled end over end, until it crashed on the floor way below and blinked out.
“Dae—” Xander said and stopped. His brother stared wildly at something past Xander. David reached out. He found the flesh of Xander’s arm and squeezed.
Xander hissed in pain. He looked over his shoulder, down the hall. Where the corridor made a ninety-degree turn toward the back of the house, a figure stood. Just like the boxes, it was backlit by the night-light. He could make out no features. Whoever— whatever—it was, it appeared huge, but that could have been a trick of the light. “Dad?” he said.
The figure swayed, seeming to shift its weight from one foot to the other. Its arms became more distinct. Muscular and massive.
“That’s not Dad,” David whispered.
Xander turned to swing his flashlight around. At the same time, David grabbed for it. It flipped out of Xander’s hand. He fumbled for it, caught it, and flashed its beam down the hall. The light captured a flash of shoulder, a foot as the person disappeared beyond the corridor’s bend. David’s other hand shot out, and he sank both sets of fingers into Xander’s bare torso.
“What was that?” David said.
“Come on,” Xander said. He moved toward the spot where the figure had disappeared.
“No, wait . . . Xander!” David was right on his heels.
“Don’t you want to know?” Xander whispered.
“Not like this! Let’s wake Dad. Xander! Wait!”
They were approaching their parents’ bedroom on the left.
It was a wonder Dad wasn’t already bolting out to investigate.
He suspected the noise had rippled away from their sleeping parents. Whether the house had randomly kept Mom and Dad from hearing the sounds or had done it purposely, Xan-der could not guess. He hoped it was not intentional.
In any event, he had the opportunity now to burst in and get their help. He pull
ed up beside their door. The shaking flashlight beam betrayed his nerves. He braced himself, turned to David.
“We have to look ourselves, first,” he whispered. “We’re right behind him. It may be our only chance to figure out what’s going on.”
“What’s going on is somebody broke into our house.”
“How’d he get in? Where was he when we searched?” He tried another tactic: “Look, if it’s a false alarm, Dad’s going to really think I’m crazy.”
“False alarm?” David said between clenched teeth. “Didn’t you see him?”
“That doesn’t mean he’s there now.”
David knew as well as Xander did that the bend in the hall led only to the servants’ quarters. David said, “Where could he have gone?”
“The house, Dae. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Then what are we doing living in it?” He kept looking past Xander to the bend, so Xander didn’t have to.
Xander held his index finger to his mouth. “Shhh,” he whispered.
“Hear that?”
Somewhere outside, a dog was howling.
“Something’s got him spooked,” David said.
For some reason, that bothered Xander even more than seeing an intruder. He said, “Okay, listen. If we’re attacked, we go crashing into Mom and Dad’s room, sound good? Let’s just take a look, see what we see. Just a look.”
David reached past a box and picked up a shower curtain rod. He got a two-handed grip on it, shook it to test its weight and balance. “Let’s do it,” he said.
CHAPTER
twenty - two
SATURDAY, 12:20 A.M.
Xander and David followed the flashlight beam around the corner. It found the closed guestroom door, and Xander held it there.
“Was it closed before?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Being closed was worse. It meant opening it to who knew what. Stepping nearer, he expected the door to spring open and the man with the big feet to charge out. The backsplash of light filled the hallway. Their own shadows danced around them. David was near enough for Xander to feel his breath on his back. He glanced back at his brother. Big eyes. Tight lips. He held the shower curtain rod straight up, ready to bring it down hard on any head he didn’t recognize.
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