Arrowood

by Laura McHugh

  I held on to Ben as I placed one foot on the ladder and carefully tested my weight. A dank, musty chill emanated from the hole, the smell like roots poking blindly through the earth, toadstools with moist accordion caps. I took a step down, and then another, letting go of Ben’s hand when I could grab the top rung. The cold crept up my legs, as though I stood in rising water.

  “Be careful,” Ben said as I descended beyond his reach.

  Once I passed through the opening, I got a better sense of the room’s size. It was narrow enough that I could reach out from the ladder and touch the rough stone wall on either side, but I could feel the empty space stretching out behind me, and when I looked over my shoulder into the darkness, I couldn’t see the back wall.

  I stopped near the bottom of the ladder, the air so damp and close that moisture collected on my skin and beaded on the rungs. I tried to imagine what it must have been like to hide down here in this dark, silent vault of earth and stone, sealed in and praying not to be found. How scared they must have been. I was hesitant to step down from the ladder onto the hard-packed dirt floor.

  “What do you see?” Ben called down.

  “Nothing so far,” I said. I took my phone out of my pocket and clicked on the light. Black lichen covered the wall in front of me, flaking off like old scabs. I held on to the ladder with one hand and turned to shine the light across the room with the other. I could make out the far wall, maybe ten feet back. Lichen crusting the stone. Chunks of crumbled mortar on the ground. I swept the light to my left and yelped, dropping the phone. The light had caught on something in the far corner. It had looked like someone was standing there. I froze, my heart juddering.

  “Arden?” The phone had landed with the light facing down, and as Ben leaned over the hole to see what was wrong, he blocked out much of the light from above, plunging the room into darkness. My lungs constricted in a sudden flash of claustrophobia, and I couldn’t breathe. Dizziness washed over me and I dropped to the floor, scooting away from the corner where I’d seen the figure. The ground was ice-cold, and I had the disconcerting feeling that I was sinking down into it, the opening up above stretching farther and farther away.

  Ben disappeared from the hole for a moment and returned with a light of his own, shining it down on me. “What happened? Did you fall?”

  I couldn’t answer right away. I was wheezing. I snatched up my phone and whipped the light back and forth. Something glinted in the corner, but it wasn’t a figure, like I’d thought. Along the seam where the walls met, water seeped through the stone, the light reflecting off it. That was all. Still, I couldn’t shake the jittery feeling that I hadn’t been alone in the room.

  “You’re freaking me out. Say something, or I’m coming down to get you.”

  “I’m coming up.” I hurried up the ladder, my heart hammering with the irrational fear that something would reach out and grab my feet, pulling me back down. When I was almost to the top, Ben reached down and helped me out of the hole, kneeling next to me on the floor.

  “You’re shaking.” He held my face in his hands, his eyes lit with concern.

  “I thought I saw something, and I panicked. I was just scaring myself. There’s nothing down there.”

  “Breathe,” he said, taking my hands. We knelt on the floor, breathing together until I calmed down, our chests rising and falling in the same rhythm. He was watching me closely, his skin flush with heat despite the chill in the room, his fingers curled around my wrists. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me; if he thought of the old me, the one hardly anyone knew. If he remembered how he had felt at sixteen. I couldn’t forget. I leaned forward and kissed him, fiercely, ten years’ worth of pent-up longing coursing through me, and he answered without hesitation. I pressed myself against him, inhaling his warm, woodsy scent, and as I slid my hand up to the nape of his neck, I felt him go still. It happened quickly, as though his mind had caught up to what his body was doing and put a stop to it. He retreated, gently, his fingers lingering on my cheek for a moment. I could tell, as soon as it was over, that it wouldn’t happen again.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I was sorry, but I didn’t regret it. I could stop wondering, now, if there was a chance that Ben and I could be together. It was better to know.

  “Don’t be,” he said. “It wasn’t just you.” We sat together on the floor, enough space between us for someone else to sit there. “It was selfish of me not to talk to you about Courtney right away. I’m sorry for that. But I don’t want to mislead you. I’m serious about her, more than I’ve been about anyone in a long time. I think you’ll like her, too, if you give her a chance.”

  I couldn’t deny that Courtney had been perfectly nice when she had spoken to me at the Miller House. Maybe it would be possible to be friends. I wanted to be happy for Ben, and I knew that any lingering attraction I felt for him was part of my disease, nostalgia creating a visceral response to my memories. It was my own fault that things had turned out the way they had. After that last summer, he had written to tell me that he was in love with me. He had made a little comic book, drawing scenes of the two of us over the years: wading through piles of mayflies, doing cannonballs into the pool, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of the carriage house. I love you, the illustrated Ben had said in the last panel. I always have. I always will. The bubble drawn next to my mouth was blank, waiting for me to fill it in. I never wrote back.

  In the years that followed, I wrote him dozens of letters, letters I tore up and didn’t send. I asked if he remembered the night we broke into Arrowood, if he had pushed the pointer on the Ouija board to spell out my name. I told him how I felt when he kissed me for the first time. I told him how much I missed the river, and asked if he still thought of me when the mayflies came. I hadn’t kept in touch with Ben, or Lauren, or anyone else. I had let my old friends slip away, and the new ones I made I always kept at a careful distance.

  It was too late to tell Ben that I had loved him, too. I had wanted to tell him, back then, but I couldn’t. I was waiting for the twins. I had spent my life waiting for them to come back, to catch up to me, not wanting to leave them too far behind. It was my fault that they had been outside alone, my fault that they were taken. Ben’s comic book arrived on the anniversary of their disappearance, and I took it as a sign. It didn’t feel right to move forward, to be happy and fall in love, to fill in the empty spaces, and so I had stood still and saved their place while the rest of the world moved on.

  —

  The night before the open house, I hooked up Dad’s old stereo and put on Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. It was early for Bing, not quite Thanksgiving, though my father would have approved. Arrowood looked much as I remembered it from my parents’ long-ago holiday parties, except that I had not hung any mistletoe or bought a twelve-foot spruce. There were garlands on the staircase, bells on the mantels, and mercury glass ornaments on the lopsided artificial tree that a woman from the historical society had loaned me. Nana’s antique nativity set was displayed on the table in the hall. Earlier in the day, Mrs. Ferris had carted over six gallons of apple cider, cups, napkins, and several boxes of sugar cookies. In case you run out, she said, clearly aware that I’d forgotten about refreshments altogether. She also brought a gift, tucked in a bag of crinkly tissue paper: candles that smelled like pine trees and cinnamon apple pie. Fake holiday scents to disguise an empty house.

  I lit the apple pie candle in the foyer, and it smelled enough like hot cider that I could close my eyes and listen to Bing Crosby croon about going home for Christmas and picture my father standing in the doorway, wearing his tweed sport jacket. Hi, sweetie. Did you see the mistletoe?

  He had been kissing Mrs. Ferris, not for the first time or the last, and my mother had begun to draw into herself. My life had not been perfect before the party, though that was the first time I felt it tilt hard off-center. The loss of the twins may have been our undoing, but we were in trouble long before.

  I stepped out into the co
ld to admire the lights Ben had hung on the house. They wound around the posts and railings and outlined the roof of the porch. On the left side, one strand had come loose and dangled down, too high for me to reach. Mrs. Ferris had noticed, and called me to see if I could have Heaney come fix it. That wasn’t going to happen.

  I had received another package from the lawyer earlier in the day, erasing all doubt as to what had been going on. There had been no mistakes. I had a stack of signed invoices from Heaney to prove it. He had been charging the trust for things he hadn’t done, like a labor-intensive project to replaster all the walls—walls still covered with their original antique wallpaper. I’d left a message with the lawyer to call me back first thing Monday morning.

  I stared at the lights, transfixed, my eyes watering in the frigid air. The house was beautiful, and it was all I had left. A collection of stone and wood and glass.

  I was still standing on the front walk in my socks and flannel nightgown when headlights spilled into the drive. My face and ears had gone numb, and the bitter wind cut through my gown as though I wore nothing at all.

  “Arden?” Heaney called, approaching me in the dark. “You’ll freeze out here! What are you doing?”

  “Looking at the lights,” I said dully.

  “I was driving by and noticed that some of them came down. Figured I’d put them back up for you so it’ll look good for tomorrow. Why didn’t you tell me about the open house? I could have hung the lights for you, helped get things ready. I didn’t know until I saw it advertised in the paper.” He unzipped his coat and shrugged it off. I stepped back as he tried to wrap it around my shoulders.

  “Let’s get you inside,” he said. “I mean it,” he added when I didn’t move, taking me by the elbow and guiding me up the steps.

  I didn’t want to confront Heaney about the trust until I’d talked to the lawyer, but I couldn’t continue to have him in my home acting like he belonged here, as though he had somehow replaced my father. I pulled away and turned to face him.

  “I got a detailed list of invoices that were paid by the trust,” I said. “I know what you were doing.”

  Heaney froze, and then realization flickered across his face and his eyes widened. “Arden—it’s not what you think,” he said, his head swiveling side to side.

  “You were stealing,” I said, backing up to the door and wrapping my hand around the knob. “It’s obvious. There was a bill for a new washer and dryer. Did you buy them and return them, and keep the receipt? You went to a lot of effort. Don’t try to tell me it was an accident.”

  Heaney looked stunned. His jaw tightened and he swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry,” he said finally. “But you don’t understand.”

  “A woman named Deirdre came looking for you, too. She thought you were Eddie, and that I was your daughter. Did I misunderstand something about that?”

  “Arden—”

  “Please leave,” I said. “Please.”

  I didn’t wait to see if he did. I yanked the door open and darted inside, locking it behind me and sinking down to the floor. White Christmas had finished playing and the house was silent.

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  My bedroom floor was ankle-deep with discarded outfits. I’d waited until the last minute to get dressed, as usual, and nothing looked or felt right. My go-to green dress was too summery, and I couldn’t wear anything that needed ironing, because I still hadn’t located the iron. I settled on a conservative wool skirt that hit below the knee, a turtleneck sweater, and faux leather boots that looked nice but pinched my feet. The skirt was tighter than I remembered, the waistband cutting sharply across my stomach, the result of two months of nostalgic eating. I was sweating before I made it down the stairs.

  Cookies and cider sat out on a folding table in the center hall, and fires burned in all the fireplaces on the first floor, just as they had at my parents’ last Christmas party. A red ribbon stretched across the grand staircase, dangling a DO NOT ENTER sign, and another ribbon draped across the middle of the laundry room in an attempt to prevent guests from climbing the back stairs or falling into the newly opened hole, while still allowing them to get close enough to peer inside.

  I was exhausted from trying to get everything ready in time. The house looked cheerful and festive, and it only made me feel more alone. Ben was busy helping his mother next door, and while Josh had insisted on coming, to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity, he hadn’t yet arrived.

  I walked through the house a final time as the clock ticked toward six, my heart ricocheting in my chest. A line had formed outside the front door. The cellist Mrs. Ferris had arranged from the high school ran her bow back and forth over the strings, but I couldn’t hear the music. All I heard was the rush of my pulse and the din of the crowd as I opened the door.

  I retreated as people flowed in, stopping only when I could go no farther, backed up against the fireplace in the drawing room. Strangers approached to shake my hand and ask questions about the house. They spoke of the twins among themselves, in whispers, as though they didn’t want to offend me by saying their names out loud. One older gentleman in a plaid golf cap gave me a probing look as he shook my hand. It made me uneasy, the way he stared at me, as though he knew me somehow. His voice sounded vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place it, and then he was crowded out of the way as Lauren pushed through to crush me in a hug.

  “Surprise!” she said. “Mom bribed me into coming back for the weekend to help out. I had to sneak off for a minute to come see you. Jesus, did she dress you, too? We look like Stepford children.” Lauren wore a long plain skirt similar to mine with a matching cardigan set, her hair swept into an elegant French twist, though I could still see streaks of magenta and a new bit of blue and the procession of studs riveting her ears.

  “You look nice,” I said. “How’s the crowd over at your place?”

  “Not quite this bad. Ben wanted to come say hi, too, but Mom has him, Courtney, and Dad pouring cocoa and telling everyone in earshot about how one of the Roosevelts spent the night at our house.”

  “It was Theodore.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. “How do you always remember that? I’d better get back before Mom notices I’m gone. Oh, hey, did you know that Midwest Mysteries guy is here? He’s right out there in the hall, cornered by some groupies. Looked like he was trying to make his way in here. I can see why you agreed to help him with the book. You didn’t tell me he was kind of hot. Something about the gray hair, right?” She winked and pinched my arm, then squeezed back through the crowd.

  The man in the golf cap was still standing there, waiting, a wadded-up handkerchief tucked in his palm. His hands were blotched with liver spots. “I’d very much like to continue our conversation,” he said. I tried to remember if he’d told me anything more than his name, which I’d already forgotten, and the fact that he’d driven up from Quincy. “Could we talk privately, please?”

  I glanced around. People were walking in and out of the room, no one paying particular attention to us. “If you have questions about the house,” I said, “there’s a detailed write-up in the guidebook.” I was growing increasingly hot and uncomfortable in my thick sweater and too-tight skirt, and my skin had begun to itch. I wanted to sneak outside to cool off, and hide on the terrace until everyone had left.

  The man edged closer, pushing rimless glasses up on his nose. “I’m not here about the house. I need to talk to you. You never answer your phone.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been calling,” he said. “I don’t know how many times. You never pick up.”

  All those calls, dead air on the machine. The messages where he’d spoken my name. We were surrounded by people, yet I felt strangely detached, a surge of nauseous unease making me light-headed. Josh had said he wanted to be here to keep an eye on things, in case any Midwest Mysteries fans got out of hand, but I wondered if his real reason had been something darker. If he’d thought that the kidnapper might t
ake this opportunity to revisit the scene of the crime, to meet the girl he left behind. This man had not come here to see the house. He had come to see me.

  “Why were you calling me?”

  He clenched the handkerchief in his hand. “Let’s step outside for a minute, out back, where we can be alone.”

  “No.” It came out louder than I intended, cutting through the chatter in the room and drawing curious stares. I caught sight of a familiar cap, and there was Josh, striding toward us.

  “Something wrong?” he asked, casually wedging himself between the man and me.

  “No,” the man said, clearly agitated. “Please excuse us.”

  “He says he’s the one who’s been calling me and hanging up,” I said.

  “What?” Josh twisted around to face me. “Why didn’t you say anything about that before?”

  “I wouldn’t have hung up,” the man said, “if she’d answered the phone.”

  “Right,” Josh said. “Listen, Miss Arrowood is busy right now hosting this open house, so it’s not the best time to bother her. I’m Josh Kyle, from Midwest Mysteries.” He reached out and the man reluctantly shook his hand. “Let’s get you something to drink and then you can talk to her in a bit.” He put his hand on the man’s shoulder and guided him out of the room, turning to shoot me a quick reassuring glance before they disappeared into the hall.

  —

  By the time Josh came back, the cookies had all been eaten, the fires had died down, and the high school girl was preparing to pack up her cello. I felt like I had been up for days, a tension headache gnawing at the inside of my skull.

  “I had my cousin down at the station check him out,” Josh said. “He’s who he says he is.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “A retired minister from Quincy. He was your dad’s sponsor. Some twelve-step program for gambling.”