Hannah is going through his drawers. “I can’t find a diary here either,” she complains.
“I don’t think boys keep diaries,” I tell her, watching her push the drawer shut. Hannah keeps one, I know—I saw it once, all pink and tied up with pink ribbon.
Hannah goes over to the bookshelves, looking at Theo’s Star Wars series. “There’s nothing good here,” she says.
“There’s schoolbooks,” I say, pointing at the bottom shelves. “Notebooks and stuff.” I remember those from when Mama was gathering things to give to a rummage sale at church. She gave away all the clothes I outgrew, but in the end she didn’t get rid of one thing of Theo’s. “He was really good at school.”
“This is useless,” says Hannah, pouting. “What we need is a firsthand account.”
“An account?”
“That’s what they call it when somebody can tell you an important clue that solves the case,” Hannah explains. “And I know just who to ask.”
Hannah goes back to the top of the stairs and takes the last picture of my brother off the wall.
“You’re not supposed to touch that!” I say. Mama would be so angry if she saw Hannah’s fat fingers on the glass over Theo’s face. That’s her favorite picture of Theo, the one she kisses goodnight.
“Don’t be a baby, Aoife. We need it,” says Hannah. She takes the picture back into Theo’s room.
Teddy growls. He thinks that Hannah is bossy, and sometimes he threatens to eat her. But after a minute he goes in after her, and I follow behind him.
Hannah sits down in the middle of the floor and opens the backpack. “Look.” She takes out the apple-shaped scented candle that her mom keeps in the bathroom at her house, and the ceramic dish that used to sit on the back of the toilet. She puts it in front of the picture in the middle of the floor. She’s also got the notebook where she wrote down her list of suspects.
“What good is that stuff going to do?” I ask.
“Wait. Turn out the lights and pull the curtain.”
Nobody has touched the curtains in a long time. They’re full of dust, and the folds have been turned lighter by the sun. But between the two of us, we get them closed, and then Hannah shuts the door so no light comes in from the hall.
“What are we doing?” I say again. Teddy doesn’t like Theo’s room. He wants to go. He’s scratching on the door like the cat next door when it’s time for Mama to feed it.
“Don’t be a baby,” says Hannah. She pulls something else out of her backpack, some kind of funny little plastic box. “This is my grandma’s,” she explains. “She left it at our house.” She does something to the end of the box, but nothing happens.
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s harder than I thought.” Hannah is pushing a little lever on the end of the box, but slowly, like she’s afraid it’ll make a loud noise or something. Then all of a sudden there’s a little snick sound, and the end of the box is on fire.
Hannah shrieks and drops the box.
“Hannah!” I yell. But by the time it hits the carpet, the fire is already out.
“Phew,” she says.
I’m thinking this is not such a good idea. “Hannah, I’m not supposed to play with matches.”
“This isn’t matches,” she says. “It’s a lighter. It just startled me. Don’t worry, I can make it work.” But she doesn’t sound so sure. This time, when she picks it up, she’s even more scared trying to push the button, and for a long time nothing happens.
“We’re going to get in trouble. Your mom is going to notice we’re gone.”
“No she won’t. My grandma’s always late, and my cousins are really bad.” Hannah pushes the button and the lighter makes the snick sound again. This time, she manages to keep hold of it, and the fire stays on.
“It’s getting hot,” she says, nervously. She’s trying to light the wick of the candle without putting her fingers in the flame. The wick doesn’t catch.
“Put it out,” I say.
“I can do it. There!” The candle lights up. The lighter goes out. “Okay, we got it.”
“Your mom’s going to know we lit that candle,” I say.
I’m not scared, even though Hannah’s face looks creepy with the candle flickering underneath her chin, and in the dark, Teddy’s eyes glow like headlights. The picture of Theo looks funny, too, like all the shadows on his face are long and dark.
“We need to interview Theo about who murdered him,” Hannah says. “I saw this in a movie. It’s called a séance. You light a candle, and then you summon his departed spirit.”
“Is this witchcraft? Because Father Paul says witchcraft is a sin.”
“It’s not witchcraft, it’s just good detective work. Now be quiet.” Hannah picks up the candle in her hand again. She’s lucky it comes in a little ceramic dish, or that wax would melt over her hands.
“I summon you, Theodore Scott,” she says dramatically. “Reveal yourself!”
Teddy starts whining, but that’s the only thing that happens. It’s creepy sitting in the dark, but other than Hannah’s heavy breathing I don’t hear my dead brother or anything.
“I don’t think it worked,” I say.
Hannah closes her eyes and leans closer over the candle. I think her hair is going to catch fire, but she flicks it behind her ears just in time.
“Are you praying?” I ask her suspiciously. Because I don’t think she should be praying about this.
“Be quiet, Aoife, I’m not praying. I’m just … concentrating. Now, Theodore. Tell us who murdered you. Was it Mac? Or was it Ben? Wait … do you hear that?”
“No, what!”
“Tapping,” says Hannah, triumphant. “I can hear him tapping in the walls!”
All the air gets trapped in my throat and I can’t breathe. I think I’m going to throw up. I get up and run to the door.
“Aoife, come back,” calls Hannah, sounding annoyed. “Aoife, I was just kidding! I don’t even hear anything, do you? Huh?”
But I’ve already thrown open the door and run back out into the hallway, where I’m confronted with the blank wall where Theo’s picture is supposed to be.
“I’m sorry!” I say. “Theo, I’m sorry!”
“Aoife, you’re being such a baby right now.” Hannah comes out of the room. She’s blown out the candle already and the hallway is light. I’m not as scared and my stomach feels better.
“Were you really kidding?” I ask.
“I thought I heard something. But maybe I didn’t. But, it didn’t happen until I asked about Ben and Mac. I think that supports my theory that one of them murdered your brother.”
Why would Mama be Mac’s special friend if he killed Theo? And Mama was smiling in the picture with Ben, which she wouldn’t do if he was a murderer, right?
“I know it’s scary,” says Hannah, putting her hand on my shoulder. “And you’re just a little kid. How can you stop an evil murderer? But I promise, if Mac or Ben killed your brother, we will find the evidence and take them to justice!”
“I think we should go back to your house now,” I say, wiping my nose. “Did you get the stuff out of Theo’s room?”
Hannah puts the lighter and the ceramic dish back in her backpack, but she hides the apple candle under the bed “for later,” and I know she hasn’t given up. Except for some places where wax dripped on the carpet, you can hardly tell we were in the room at all. The curtains fold back into exactly the same shape they were in. Then Hannah puts the picture back on the wall, and although it’s a little crooked, I don’t think anyone will notice.
“I’m sorry you were scared, but we found important evidence,” says Hannah as we go back downstairs. Teddy presses close to my legs until we’re all the way in the hall.
As I follow her out the front door, I realize that, unlike Joan of Arc, I wasn’t very brave. I don’t think Joan of Arc ran to the hallway when it was time to fight off the British soldiers. Maybe Theo really was trying to tell me something and I was jus
t too much of a baby to listen to it.
“Hannah, do you really think Mac might have killed Theo?” I ask. Somehow that seems a lot worse than Ben, who I’ve never even met. I shiver, remembering the sound of that plate breaking against the wall.
Hannah nods her head. “It all fits,” she says. “Maybe we don’t know for sure yet, but he’s definitely one of my top two suspects at the moment.” I didn’t know there were more than two suspects, but I don’t want to ask.
Back over the fence, Hannah was right—her mom hasn’t even realized we left the yard.
* * *
Uncle Donny picks me up from Hannah’s house not too much later. By then I’m practically falling asleep on my feet.
“Stephanie really wore you guys out at the park,” says Uncle Donny, sounding impressed. Like Stephanie did anything.
“Did you have a good time playing with Hannah?”
“We just went to the playground,” I say, because I don’t tell anyone about the Secret Place and I definitely don’t want to talk about our investigating. “Hannah’s boy cousins were there, but they were always fighting. And Liam, the older one, pushed down Ethan and he cried.”
“Yeah, boys are the worst, aren’t they?” That makes me laugh, because Uncle Donny is a boy.
“I miss Mama,” I say.
He stops walking and leans over to pick me up in his arms. “I miss your ma too,” he says, carrying me over the yard and through the front door. He’s so strong that he can walk and carry me at the same time.
“Can we talk to her on the phone again?”
Uncle Donny sighs. “I’d like that, munchkin, but the doctors say your ma has been—she’s extra confused right now, and she won’t be able to talk for a little while. I’m sorry. As soon as she’s feeling better, we’ll make sure to have a call, okay?”
It’s not really okay, but I don’t say anything. It makes me sad to think that Mama has been confused. I know she isn’t going to get any better until I solve the mystery.
Uncle Donny puts me to bed and doesn’t even have to read me a story, I’m so sleepy. But just as I start to fall asleep, I hear the front door open and Uncle Donny talking to someone.
I know I’m supposed to be in bed, but I creep out of my room with Teddy right alongside me. I know how to walk real quiet down the stairs. Not like Uncle Donny. I put my feet on the outside of each step between the railings on the stairwell. When I get to the bottom, I sit on the step and peek.
“We’ve got to keep it down, I’m afraid,” Uncle Donny is saying. “My sister’s kid is asleep upstairs.”
I’m not, but I put my hand over my lips so I won’t give myself away. I don’t know the man with Uncle Donny. He’s dark black all over with a shiny bald head. Father Paul says God makes people different colors but we’re all the same on the inside. He says God makes a beautiful rainbow out of all the colors, but I don’t know why nobody comes in any fun colors.
Uncle Donny is holding the man’s hand like Mama holds mine when we walk to school, and he leads him over to the couch. They watch a movie on his laptop, because we don’t have a TV, and I can see the screen from here. It’s the kind of movie I don’t like, where people just talk and talk and nothing fun ever happens. I like movies where there’s animals or princesses or magic. I lean my head against the railing of the stairs and wait.
The stranger puts his arm around Uncle Donny and they huddle up on the sofa just like Mama and I do, his head on Uncle Donny’s shoulder. After a while of nothing happening except them hugging more, I creep back upstairs. It’s nice that Uncle Donny has a best friend, too, I guess.
I get back into bed, and this time I fall straight to sleep.
At first, I dream about fishes. We’re all swimming, me and Teddy, Uncle Donny and Mama. Teddy is still a bear, but underwater, he’s sleek like a seal. Maybe seals are just bears that decided to go swimming and never came back out.
But then the dream starts to shift. Like how dreams do, when they don’t make sense but you don’t notice until you’re thinking about it later. I forget that I was ever swimming, and instead it’s me and Teddy in the park like always.
Teddy is facing away from me, and although I call out “Hi Teddy!” he doesn’t answer and he doesn’t turn around.
Teddy starts walking away, and I follow him through the park. Just like Hannah and I do, we go through the bristle bushes, and they grab at us like hands. We see my favorite tree, crooked and white like a lightning bolt. We go around the tree, and there, halfway down the hill, is the Secret Place.
Theo is waiting in the Secret Place.
With a gasp, I wake up. It’s not morning yet. It’s still dark outside. I can hear the sound of Uncle Donny on the stairs, walking up and down. I know it’s him because Teddy goes out in the hallway and checks.
It was just a dream, I tell Teddy. He goes to get Monkey Sock Puppet, which Mama made me and is his favorite stuffed animal, and puts it on the bed to guard us.
And outside the door, Uncle Donny creaks and creaks, up and down the stairs.
Dear Theo,
I know that Father Paul says there is no demon stalking our family. He tells me that the Devil and his servants wage their holy battle far from the sight of mortal eyes. He tells me to listen to the doctors and to take my pills. He has always been a friend to me and to our family, and I believe that he is a good man and the servant of our faithful Father. I believe that he is washed in the blood of Christ.
But he is wrong about the shadow that follows us. It is real, and it lives still, and it is still seeking us. It sends my brother unnatural desires. It appears to my daughter and whispers duplicity. I have seen her talk to creatures that can’t be seen, and I know that the demon is awake and following us.
Perhaps it was his cursed hands over my own that turned the wheel of the car into traffic. The sound of my daughter shrieking was only a prelude to the screaming of the souls of the damned in Hell. I pray abjectly that the Blessed Mary will intercede, not on my own behalf, but on behalf of my sweet girl, who needs a mother and has no one else in this world to watch over her except for Her.
But I tell you, it is better that that car should have hit us full on and carried us safely to my Father’s Kingdom than that I should lose another child into the hands of Satan.
She talks about you sometimes, but God help me, I have asked her to stop.
I’m sorry, Theo. I did the only thing I could do.
Do you hear me?
I did the only thing I could do.
Yours Ever in Christ,
Ma
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Uncle Donny is already awake when Teddy and I get up. He’s sitting in the study looking at the paperwork on Mama’s desk, and he’s on the phone.
Then he looks up and sees me. “I gotta go,” he says. “Yes … No, I’ll talk to you later. Bye for now.” He hangs up. “Morning, midget.”
“What are you looking at?” I ask, climbing up on the chair.
“I’m trying to figure out how to pay the bills around here. We don’t want them to come shut off the electricity, do we?”
No we don’t, because it was really cold last time.
“I’m hungry,” I say. “Is there breakfast?”
“There sure is,” says Uncle Donny, walking with me into the kitchen. “What does madam prefer this morning?”
When I open the refrigerator, there’s so many different kinds of food in there that it kind of makes my stomach hurt. All the drawers and the shelves are full. Are more people going to live here? Who is going to eat all this food before it starts to go bad?
Uncle Donny makes me s’mores Pop-Tarts, which turns out to be Teddy’s new favorite food ever, and then he says I need to make sure to take a shower before I get dressed because I’m starting to smell bad. Uncle Donny is funny. Mama always makes me shower at night, because the house gets so hot when we turn the air conditioning off because we’re on a budget. If you go to sleep with wet hair, then you
won’t mind so much.
“Listen, Aoife,” says Uncle Donny, and he has the paper in front of him but he isn’t reading it, so I know what he’s saying must be important.
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember Dr. Pearlman from the hospital saying that some people from CPS wanted to come visit us?”
“Teddy didn’t like Dr. Pearlman,” I say.
“Great,” says Donny. “Well, I think some of her friends would like to come over later; does that sound like fun?”
“What’s sea-pee-ess?”
“That’s the part of the government they’re from. They … try to help families when they have some difficulties, like ours.”
“Oh.” The ones who take you to Children’s Prison? But I can tell Uncle Donny wants me to say yes, it sounds like fun, so I swallow hard and nod my head anyway.
“Okay, good.” Now Uncle Donny reaches for the newspaper and unfolds it. He likes the box-game, same as Mama. You put letters in the little boxes and then you win. Teddy climbs up on the chair to look over his shoulder.
“What if Teddy doesn’t like Dr. Pearlman’s friends either?” I ask.
“You know, I think it would be a good idea if you asked Teddy to wait in the bedroom while you talk to them,” says Uncle Donny. “Okay? Just so that he doesn’t get upset when they come visit.”
“Okay,” I say, although Teddy doesn’t exactly do what I tell him to. He makes a face, sticking his tongue out.
“In fact, it’s probably a good idea to talk about other things with Dr. Pearlman’s friends, and not Teddy, okay?”
“Mama says it’s rude to talk to someone if nobody else can hear them,” I say.
“Right, exactly. We wouldn’t want to be rude to the CPS ladies, would we. Right?”
“Right,” I say. But Teddy won’t eat his Pop-Tart now, because he’s mad at me.
“Now, this morning you wanted to go to Bible study at the church, right?”
“Yes please.” I like to go to church anytime, because Father Paul is nice and there’s food and because Mama says the demons can’t get you if you’re in the church where the angels are watching you—but now I have an even better reason to go to church, because maybe my own special saints will come back again and tell me better about how I’m supposed to solve the mystery of Theo’s death.
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