The Waiting

by Joe Hart

  Sighing, Evan slid his laptop across the table and turned it on, opening his Word document once it booted up. The cursor on the screen blinked below what he had written two nights ago.

  No. He’d already decided they were leaving today, they couldn’t stay here, not anymore. He would find a job close to home, something that could at least pay the bills. He’d find a bank that would loan them enough money to pay off the bulk of their debt. Consolidate, that’s what Jason always told him.

  His eyes wandered across the room and lit on the basement door, the kitchen chair still propped where he had left it. It looked silly now. Not as much as it would look in full daylight, but silly enough. The screen of his laptop dimmed, and he looked at the words there, imagined the clock down in the dark basement, stolid, mysterious.

  Gripping his tea, he rose from the table, removed the leaning chair, and eased the basement door open. Not waiting for his mind to conjure something to be afraid of, he walked down the steps and flipped the light switch on. The basement sprang into view. The doll still lay where he’d kicked it. He made his way to the table and found a folding chair against the end of the nearby workbench. He sat at the table, one hand cupped around his mug of tea, the other flipping through the papers before him.

  Most of the sheets contained the detailed diagrams he’d spotted before, their numbers and instructions gibberish as far as he could tell. Deeper in the pile were some handwritten notes. Nearly all of them were illegible, scrawled in erratic angles that spoke of derangement or drug use. Evan had known a kid in college who only wrote poetry when drunk, and then had a fun time the next day trying to decipher his own hand. The writing on the pages looked like drunken messages, and he put several aside before finding one that seemed clearer.

  If this is possible, it will change everything. No more night sweats and nausea. No more running from place to place, job to job. I can fix it all.

  He reread the text, but farther down the page the writing changed into drawings. He held the paper up, examining the doodles. All of them were round and had two lines running through them at different points. Another, smaller circle sat in the middle of the larger one.

  Frowning, Evan sifted through more pages of incoherence and found another legible sheet.

  I’ll go back and stay inside that night. I won’t go out, won’t go out, won’t go out.

  The writing became larger and larger, until it filled the rest of the paper with erratic slashes that cut through the sheet itself.

  Evan set it aside and flipped through the remaining notes. A few more diagrams of grandfather clocks, these looking like they’d been pulled from a book, lay at the bottom of the of the stack. He was about to reorganize the shuffled pile when he saw the imprint of letters on the last page, but he couldn’t read them since the writing was on the opposite side. He turned the sheet over and stared at the words traced repeatedly into the paper.

  I CAN SEE THEM.

  Evan dropped the page and glanced around the basement, turning his head to look at the clock behind him. Its face stared back. He stood and walked closer, again mesmerized by the detailed carvings covering its surface. His hand wandered to the trim, tracing the curved lines, their arcs trying to tell him a story. The smooth glass was frigid beneath his palm; he worried for a moment that his hand might stick, but was able to pull it away.

  Blinking, Evan turned and picked up his tea, which was cold. Upstairs, he heard Shaun’s voice, groggy with sleep.

  “Da?”

  “Coming, buddy,” he yelled, and moved across the room, stopping only once on the landing to stare at the clock before he shut off the lights and went upstairs.

  11

  During breakfast Shaun kept looking at the basement door.

  Evan watched him, waiting for another hysterical outburst, but none came. He simply glanced in the basement’s direction after every few bites of pancake that Evan fed him, an uneasy look in his eyes. When they’d finished with breakfast, Evan got Shaun dressed and then went through his exercises with him.

  By mid-morning they sat in the pontoon, cruising across the lake, fingers of wind that spoke of warmer temperatures combing their hair back. When they walked by Collins Outfitters, Evan waved through the open door to Jacob, who stood chatting with several customers. Jacob waved back, motioning for them to stop in later. Evan nodded, then buckled Shaun into the van and pulled away down Main Street.

  They stopped at the same café as before and sat outside at the same table. While Shaun drank his malt through a straw, Evan flipped open his laptop and almost sighed with relief at seeing a Wi-Fi signal come through strong and clear. Not wasting any time, he punched Abel Kluge, Mill River, MN into the search engine and watched a few dozen hits come up. Clicking the first one, he read:

  Abel Kluge (1878–1920) was a prominent clockmaker during the early twentieth century. He is well known for his intricately devised pocket watches that wound using a face dial rather than the traditional stem. Although he made great innovations, such as the wristwatch, which would later become popular, his true passion was long-case clocks, or grandfather clocks. It is unclear how many grandfather clocks he made during his short career, but some historians believe the number to be somewhere near one hundred. The dark mahogany that he used to build his clocks is a primary indicator of his style, as is the double pendulum that many of the long cases contained.

  An emigrant from Hungary, Abel first made a name for himself when he moved to America in 1897. Settling in Chicago with his young wife, Larissa, he began to produce highly sought-after timepieces from a small shop on the north side of the city. His renown grew quickly, and although being rumored as a “man without character,” soon Kluge had made enough money to retire, which he did in the winter of 1905.

  Little is known of his life after moving from Chicago. The small town of Mill River, Minnesota, became his and Larissa’s home, and after the completion of a veritable mansion in comparison to the other structures in the town at the time, Abel Kluge receded from the art of clock making altogether.

  Until his death in 1920, he and his wife lived in seclusion, relying on a small staff of maids and butlers to venture into Mill River for supplies. On November 10, 1920, a member of the staff received no reply from the Kluge’s third-floor bedroom, and upon entering, found Larissa seated in one corner of the room, dead. There were no wounds on her body, and cause of death was ruled natural. Besides a small pool of blood on the floor, Abel was nowhere to be found. A subsequent search yielded nothing in the woods surrounding the property. Abel’s automobile was present and accounted for, his coat, hat, mittens, and shoes were all found in their proper places in the entry. Temperatures were near fifteen degrees Fahrenheit the night of his disappearance, and after a week the search was abandoned. Abel was officially pronounced deceased a month later. To this day, historians and theorists alike have yet to come to a conclusive answer about what may have killed Larissa Kluge and where her husband may have gone. Some theorize that Abel had a young lover in the nearby town of Mill River and slipped away with her after somehow poisoning his wife. Others contest that he merely wandered away into the night after seeing his wife had died of some natural cause, unable to continue living without her. It is a mystery that may never be solved.

  Evan sat back from the laptop and gazed across the quiet highway, at the lake. He studied where he knew the island was, though he couldn’t see it. Coming back to himself, he exited out of the webpage and scanned the other articles. Most repeated what the first piece stated, and he glossed over the words until the last entry. The screen displayed an ornate page from the Mill River Chronicle, dated November 13, 1920, and highlighted in the bottom right-hand portion was an obituary. He squinted, leaning close to the screen to read the text.

  Larissa Kluge: 1880–1920. Resident of Mill River since 1905. Deceased Wednesday, November 10, 1920, at her home.

  Allison Kaufman: 1885–1920. Resident of Mill River since 1885. Deceased Wednesday, November 10, 1920. />
  “That’s too much of a coincidence, buddy.” He looked at Shaun, only partially seeing him. “Two young people in a small town both die on the same day and another disappears?”

  Shaun finished his malt with a loud sucking sound. Evan chuckled.

  “Was it good?”

  Shaun burped a little and smiled. “Ah.”

  Evan laughed harder. “Ah, like you’re satisfied?”

  “Ah!” Shaun yelled.

  He got up from his chair, still laughing, to kiss him on the forehead.

  “You’re a card, buddy.”

  “Car.”

  “Yep, card.”

  Evan sat and shot a quick email off to Jason, covering his ideas about the article he wanted to write. He finished it with the facts about Abel and his wife’s mysterious deaths.

  “And now we wait for Uncle Jason to come through again,” he said, shutting his laptop.

  Shaun stared at a crow perched on the top of a towering pine behind the café. The crow cocked its ebony head and stared back. Evan watched it for a time before finishing his cooling coffee in a few eager gulps. The sleeplessness of the night before hadn’t caught up with him yet, and he didn’t want it to. After ordering another coffee to go from the waitress, he glanced at the pine tree again as they got up to leave. The crow was gone.

  The sun brightened the day further, warming the air into a promise of summer. When they parked the van at Collins Outfitters, Evan’s heart lightened at the thought of his afternoon plans. He carried Shaun into the store and stopped inside the door. A smell of minnows pervaded the air, but other than that, the shop looked clean and tidy, with racks of fishing poles beside coolers, stacks of tackle boxes, and several hangers full of sweatshirts and rain gear.

  “Ho! There they be,” Jacob said, as he strode into the main area of the shop from a rear entrance. “Good mornin’ ta ya both.” He shook Shaun’s hand and lightly slapped Evan on the arm.

  “Good morning,” Evan said. “Looked like you were busy earlier.”

  “Aye, nice fer a change too, been a bit slow round here lately. What are you two fine fellers up ta this mornin’?”

  “We came in to have a little coffee and a malt,” Evan said, shifting Shaun to his other hip. “Did the twins give you my message yesterday?”

  Jacob scowled for a second, then smiled. “Ah, yes. Sorry, boyo, got home late yesterday evenin’ and thought ’twas too late ta call. Was on me list this mornin’, though.”

  Evan nodded. “No problem. Actually, Arnold helped me out quite a bit. I’m working on an article concerning that clock that’s in the basement at the house, and I was looking for some background information on it. I didn’t know if you knew anything else about Abel Kluge and his wife.”

  Jacob shook his head. “Those boys would know a fair bit more’n I would, all I ever heard was the man was a recluse, and not a kind one at that. No doubt they mentioned Cecil ta ya?”

  “Yeah. She hung up on me when I called her.”

  Jacob laughed. “Oh, that’s Cecil all right. She don’t come ta town more’n twice a year. Gets some groceries delivered every few weeks. You’ll be lucky if ya get ’er ta talk.”

  Evan knew he was right. Part of him wanted to drive out to the woman’s house right then, bang on her door until she let him in, but that wasn’t how these things were done.

  “We’ll see,” Evan said, with a smile. “Anyway, we wanted to do some fishing today, and we’re going to need some bait.”

  Jacob’s face lit up. “Oh, that’ll be great. Sure, I’ll setcha up with some minners and crawlers.”

  “I’m guessing I’ll need a license too,” Evan said.

  “Let’s take care of that first,” Jacob said.

  In a matter of minutes he had the small page filled out for Evan, asking him the occasional question. He then bustled around the shop, gathering a couple of small cartons, filling one with dirt and the other with water. When he’d finished, small, dark shapes flitting against the inside of the minnow container.

  “Thanks so much,” Evan said.

  He tried to walk toward the cash register at the far end of the store, but Jacob tightly held on to the bait and herded them toward the door.

  “Get on with ya, can’t carry young Shaun here and the bait all at once.”

  “Jacob, I’m going to pay you,” Evan said, reaching for his wallet.

  “Three beers,” is all Jacob said, winking at him as he walked with them down to the pontoon.

  After filling up the boat with gas, Jacob pointed to a small bay down the shoreline and told them about two other spots on the north side of the lake that were always good for a walleye or two. Evan thanked him and then piloted the craft away from shore, waving once at Jacob, who hurried back up the ramp to his store.

  They stopped at the island to grab two fishing rods and then set off, eventually dropping anchor at the first spot Jacob had pointed out. Evan sat behind Shaun, helping him hold his rod and cast into the cool water, shaded by an overhanging birch tree. At first Shaun became frustrated as he tried to crank the reel, but soon he got the hang of it. Evan had to slow down his furious pace, otherwise the bait barely touched the water before the boy had it back in the boat.

  After some time, he noticed something missing. Doing a mental check, he sat back, still steadying Shaun’s hands on the rod. The sun shone down on them from a cloudless spring sky. A few waves rocked the pontoon, and the far-off whine of a boat motor could be heard intermittently. He finally realized he felt peaceful. His mind wasn’t clogged with worry or apprehension, and the lack of it had thrown him off. Hugging Shaun close, he kissed his hair, just above his small ear.

  “Shaun, are you having fun?” he whispered.

  “Fun,” Shaun said, yanking the pole back as something tugged on the other end of the line.

  “Wooo, you got one, buddy,” Evan exclaimed. “Reel it in. Reel it in.”

  Shaun cranked and fought the fish until it gradually surfaced, flashing and leaping from the water in a shower of droplets beside the pontoon. Evan hauled the fish aboard when it got close enough, and Shaun shrieked with delight, flapping his arms so hard it was a struggle for Evan to balance him and unhook the bass at the same time.

  “We’re keeping him, pal,” he said, putting the fish on a stringer. “Supper.”

  “Sup-por,” Shaun echoed.

  They whiled away the time until early afternoon, catching a small mess of fish for a meal. Shaun’s head kept dipping on the ride home, and Evan held him tight, smiling as his son fought to stay awake. Evan docked the pontoon and carried Shaun up to the porch, laying him on the most comfortable reclining chair. Shaun grinned at him once and then shut his eyes, exhaustion dragging him into sleep before he could say or do anything else.

  While he slept, Evan cleaned the fish on a small wooden table he found to the north side of the house, his eyes shooting to the porch over and over.

  We’re both going to have to sleep in the house tonight anyway.

  He threw the fish guts in the woods and took the white fillets into the house to soak them in cold water. The urge to pick up the phone and invite Selena over for supper struck him, and he went so far as to pull her business card out of his wallet. Sliding it carefully into its slot again, he put it back and went to the porch.

  Evan lay down on the daybed beside Shaun, the sleeplessness of the night before finally claiming him. The sun and fresh air paired with the low tinkling of the wind chimes became too lulling, and his last thought before he fell asleep was he should’ve propped a chair against the basement door.

  He barely makes it into the hospital bathroom before throwing up. The vomit courses out of him, sloppy ropes landing in the toilet water. As he heaves he feels the round container in his hand, even though it isn’t there anymore; he’d dropped it back into the bag the moment he pulled it out.

  “Honey, I’m sorry, I—”

  But her voice is lost in another gagging hack as he doubles over again. When t
he nausea lets up enough for him to flush and wipe his mouth clean, he leans in the doorway, not looking at where she rests in bed but at the crumpled bag on the floor, at what lies inside.

  He moves forward, his feet full of lead, his head throbbing in time with the pulse running like a jackrabbit in his chest.

  “Goddamn you,” he says, still not looking at her.

  He bends, feeling the urge to throw up again, and grasps the bottle, pulling it free. Its contents rattle in his shaking hand. When he looks up, Elle is gone.

  Instead of her bed, the clock lies on its back upon the floor. Its three glass doors are different; they are rounded and made of the same polished mahogany as the rest of its body. The three cases look like coffins. His mouth falls open, and the pill bottle slips from his hand as he takes a step back—

  —and watches the middle lid rise, pushed from inside.

  Evan cried out, his arm spasming as he rolled off the daybed. His fist struck Shaun’s recliner, pain blossoming in each knuckle. Shaun’s eyes leapt open, and he made a frightened sound, something between a shriek and a moan. Evan landed on his hands and knees, panting, his stomach roiling with sick. Sweat hung in beads from his hair and rolled down his forehead. His arms threatened to drop him, and he pushed himself back onto the bed with enormous effort.

  “Da?” Shaun asked, his eyes wide as he struggled to sit up.

  “I’m okay, buddy, I’m okay. It was a dream.” He spoke more to himself than to Shaun, and when he looked up, he saw an expression of concern on the boy’s features. “I’m fine, honey, just a dream.”

  “’Kay?”

  Evan’s brow creased and his throat constricted. He stood and then sat on Shaun’s chair, holding his son’s hand in his own.

  “Yep, Dad’s okay.” He summoned a smile, shoving the residue of the dream away, praying that it would fade further. “Are you hungry?” Shaun nodded. “Okay, let’s rustle up some food.”