by Lisa Wingate
Benji popped out from behind a bush, then ran by and tagged Opal on the elbow. She squealed and tried to tag him back. Ty trampled a plant on his way out of the flower bed, and right about then, I figured it was time to leave.
“We’ll sure think about it,” I told Pastor Al. We thanked him and Mrs. Kaye, and herded the boys to the car. I talked Tam into pulling over to Terence’s studio for a minute, and I introduced them and showed off Terence’s paintings, but he wasn’t much on conversation, and the kids were getting restless in the car. Terence opened the back door and gave everybody gum from a pack in his pocket. I slipped around the front of the building and peeked in the bookstore windows, but it hadn’t opened back up after lunch yet, so Tam and I headed for Walmart with all the boys smacking Doublemint in the backseat.
Benji started pouting on the way, because we didn’t get to go in the bookstore. He didn’t care that it was closed; he just wanted to pout. He kept it up all the way across the Walmart parking lot and all the while we were shopping, which was seriously embarrassing in front of our new friends. Of course, Tam’s brothers were not a pack of peaches either, and by the time we’d done our shopping, the Walmart people were probably glad to see us go. A pack of Skittles at the Walmart checkout finally fixed Benji’s problem, and by the time we loaded up in the car, I was tired, but it seemed like a pretty good day. It’d been a while since I’d been out shopping with a girlfriend, and it felt good. Tam was interesting to talk to, but nothing about her made much sense. I had a feeling there were a lot of things she wasn’t saying. A girl who graduated from Highland Park, which meant she must’ve lived there, wouldn’t all of a sudden be moving into our neighborhood, whether her parents were tied up in some messy divorce or not.
“It’s kind of temporary,” she said as we pulled out of Walmart and started down the street. “We’re just living in this old house until we can work out something else.” She flicked a glance my way, embarrassed, like she’d just clued in to the fact that she’d called my house old.
“Ohhh,” I said. “Well, I hope y’all decide to stay. We’re here for good. We just bought our place from Householders. They made everything real easy. No closing costs, and the monthly payment’s super low, which is good, because we just found out the insurance on this new truck is a lot more than we expected, and the insurance on the house is higher than we thought, too. Cody spread the bills apart, so it’d work out better with the times his paychecks deposit. He’s the math genius in the family. Actually, there’s not a math genius in the family, and there’s so much we want to do on the house, and it all costs money, which is why Cody’s taking on a little night work at a parking garage downtown. It’s quiet there, and he can study for his classes while he sits in the booth.”
A monkey wrench turned in my stomach, torquing everything. I’d just gone out to Walmart and spent another twenty bucks. It was all stuff we needed—some more spackling and caulk, lightbulbs, a $3.99 rug for the bathroom, some more grout for around the tub—but when Cody found out, he’d have a fit. I just gave you twenty bucks, he’d say. What’d you do with it? It was probably the pregnancy hormones, but with the fun at Walmart over, I wanted to crawl into a corner and cry for absolutely no reason. Any minute now, I was gonna crack open like a watermelon. As soon as Tam pulled into our driveway, I grabbed the door handle and put on a happy face the best I could. “So, thanks for the ride, and for going to story time with us. Maybe we can give it a try again tomorrow, huh?”
“I’ll check with Barbara.”
“The thing about the reading class sounds cool. We could go tomorrow night and see what it’s all about.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I’ll check. Everything’s kind of, like, up in the air right now.” Tam wiped the dust off the top of the steering wheel, and then seemed surprised to see that her fingers were dirty.
I felt myself sinking lower and lower. “So, I was thinking we ought to trade phone numbers, so we can get in touch easier.”
“Sure.” Tam pulled her phone out of her purse and checked it.
“Mine’s dead. There are, like, almost no plugs in that house that the Fearsome Foursome can’t get to. I’ll give you my number, and you can just ring me, so I’ll have yours on my call log.”
“Sounds good.” I plugged her number into my phone and called it before we said good-bye. Then I unloaded Benji and Ty, who were definitely ready for a nap.
Inside the house, I went down for the count almost before the kids did. I meant to crash just for a minute, but by the time I woke up, it was past suppertime. Like usual, the kids weren’t happy, because Daddy wasn’t home, so instead of getting anything done on the house, I refereed fights and helped build a blanket tent in the bedroom, and then argued with Benji about a bath and bedtime, and then whether or not he could wear the dirty pajamas out of the laundry hamper.
While I was putting dirty stuff back in the laundry, Ty got the idea to make himself a glass of chocolate milk without asking. A gallon of milk and about a half bottle of chocolate syrup ended up on the floor, and by the time I cleaned that up and tried to keep from saying something to my kids that I’d be sorry for later, I felt like I’d hit a brick wall. Even though I usually hated going to sleep while Cody was gone, I was on the couch and out like a light ten minutes after the kids got in bed.
A charley horse woke me sometime later on. Since I was up, I staggered off to the kitchen in the dark for a cup of water. Just when I reached for the refrigerator, something caught my eye out the back door . . . some kind of . . . light. Yawning, I tried to clear my vision, then moved closer to the glass.
A creepy feeling crawled over my skin. Something wasn’t right.
The glow was coming from . . .
The shed?
The door shifted in the wind, widening the dim wedge of light falling on the grass.
I moved closer to the back window. We hadn’t even been in the yard today. Maybe we left it open yester—
A shadow passed through the light, blocked it for a sec, then disappeared. My heart launched against my chest.
Someone was out there. . . .
Chapter 19
Tam Lambert
The cell phone ringing snapped me upright. Swinging my legs around, I collided with something that shouldn’t have been next to my bed. My mind groped for an explanation as I searched for the phone. A hazy memory floated by, out of focus like a minnow a few inches below the water, darting in and out of the light, clear for an instant, then gone. I went somewhere today. I drove Barbie’s car. I took the sibs. . . .
The ring came again as I tried to put the memory together. Through the blur, I saw the phone lighting the table. The coffee table. I must have fallen asleep in the media room. That was probably Emity on the phone. . . .
I grabbed the phone and muttered drowsily, “Hey, what’s up?”
“Somebody’s outside in my shed.” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It wasn’t Emity.
“Wha . . . Who’s this?”
“It’s Shasta.”
Shasta . . . Shasta . . . Shasta was the kind of name one of Barbie’s friends would have. Shasta, like soda pop. Something sweet and bubbly.
“Across the street?” the voice whispered with an undertone of urgency. “We went to Walmart . . . and the church. Story time?”
The day came rushing back like a speeding train crashing headlong into the station. I knew why I wasn’t in my father’s house, why Shasta’s name was familiar, why I’d hit my knee on the coffee table.
Our new reality snapped into focus—the white church, story time, Walmart, Barbie stumbling in when Fawn dropped her off. The sibs had barely noticed as she staggered through the living room on the way to her bed to pass out. Jewel was busy in her bouncy seat, and the boys were watching Aunt Lute. She’d picked up a palette and climbed onto a chair, then touched her brush to the wall, slowly drawing a long, brown line on the plaster.
I gasped, and she glanced over her shoulder, teetering as she smiled at me.
“Look,” she said, and pointed to this morning’s paint spatters, now dry. Instead of cleaning the smudges off the walls, she’d turned them into butterflies. “They’ll need a vine.” Nodding at her own observation, she went back to work.
By bedtime, the living room had morphed into a forest. I’d lain awake looking at it and wondering what Uncle Boone would say. Finally I gave up and let sleep take over. . . .
Pulling the phone from my ear now, I looked at the time. A little after midnight. Why was Shasta calling? “There’s somebody where?”
“Outside in my shed. The light’s on, and I know this sounds crazy, but I think somebody’s in there. I saw a shadow.”
Pushing off the sofa, I stood up, crossed the room unsteadily, pulled up the queen-size sheet we’d tacked over the window, and peered out. Other than a single light in the kitchen, Shasta’s house was dark. Along the creek, trees were blowing, casting shadows in the green-tinged glow of a lone streetlight. Underneath, a small brown dog sniffed at a pile of leaves, then trotted to the curb, seeming tranquil enough. “I don’t see anyone. There’s a dog wandering around out there. Maybe that’s what you saw.”
“I don’t think a dog could turn on the lights in my shed,” Shasta breathed. “I saw something go by the window.”
A shiver ran down my back, raising gooseflesh underneath the old sweats I’d slept in. “Maybe you should call the police.”
“Are you kidding? If a unit shows up out here, and I’m wrong, Cody’ll have a fit, and, since he’s not here, they’ll figure out he took the night job. They’re really picky about stuff like that. And besides, to be a police officer’s wife, you’ve got to, like, be able to hold it together when he’s on patrol and stuff. I’m gonna go out the carport door and sneak around there and see if I hear anything. I just didn’t want to do it without somebody knowing what’s going on, in case . . . Well, the boys are asleep in here.”
My heart did a groggy barrel roll, fanning the sleep fog from my thoughts. I peered across the street again. “I’m coming over there, all right? Turn on your porch light and open your front door for me.”
The porch light lit up, and I realized Shasta had wanted me to come over all along. “Hang on.” I slipped my feet into my sandals, grabbed my house key, and checked the street once more. The stray dog was still sniffing around the bridge. If anyone was out there, he’d be barking, wouldn’t he?
Turning on our porch light, I slipped out the door and whispered into the phone, “Here I come.”
Shasta blinked her light. “I see you.”
A rapid pulse fluttered in my neck as I ran across the yard. The night air was cool and damp, heavy with a coming storm. Dashing across the street, I smelled flowers, pavement, the fishy scent of the water in the creek. On the bridge, the dog started, turned my way, then tucked its tail and trotted off. Lightning flashed far away on the horizon, illuminating a distant line of thunderheads that would be moving in sometime later in the morning.
“Come on.” Shasta’s greeting quavered in a whisper as I crossed her porch, and the boards groaned underfoot. “Ssshhh,” she breathed, then added an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. I feel like an idiot who’s been watching too many horror movies. Like this is Elm Street, and Freddy Krueger’s out in the shed.”
“I’m not sure this is the best time to bring up Nightmare on Elm Street.”
We shared a tense laugh that made me think of all the times I’d sneaked across the street to Emity’s house when I was supposed to be studying in my room.
Shasta and I stood in her living room, the situation suddenly awkward. It felt strange to be here, visiting her house for the first time in the middle of the night.
“You probably think I’m an idiot, bugging you so late.” Threading her arms over her stomach, she shivered, tugging the front of an old T-shirt she must have been sleeping in. “I couldn’t think who else to call.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.” Oddly enough, that was true. It felt good to know that across the street, what had been just another house was now the house of a friend.
“I just didn’t want to leave the boys alone in here, in case . . . well, you know, in case there really is someone out there.”
Trepidation prickled over my skin and caused my shoulders to do an unintentional shimmy as we crossed the dimly lit living room, then slipped through a doorway into a parlor area furnished with a desk and bookshelves of the kind that come in a box from a discount store and start leaning the first time they’re moved. Shasta snagged something from the shadows beside the bookshelf, and when we entered the kitchen, she was carrying a baseball bat.
“I really think we should call the police,” I whispered. My heart was pounding like the raven tapping at Poe’s chamber door.
Shaking her head, Shasta proceeded through the kitchen, her steps growing lighter, more careful, as if she were afraid someone might be right outside. “If I hear anyone in there, I’ll come back, and we’ll call nine-one-one.”
“All right,” I whispered, but this felt like one of those idiotic plans Emity was known for conjuring up. Typically, those plans landed us in trouble.
Shasta tiptoed closer to the door, and I found myself creeping behind her. I leaned over her shoulder as she inched the back curtain aside.
“There’s probably no one in . . . Holy mackerel, the door’s wide open!” Sweeping the curtain over, she jerked upward so suddenly that we collided. I staggered backward, tripped over a laundry basket, and landed against the washing machine.
Before I could regain my footing or argue, Shasta had opened the door, turned the lock on the burglar bars, flipped on the floodlight, and was headed outside. I followed without giving adequate consideration to whether or not it was a good idea, and by the time I reached the garden shed, Shasta was standing in the triangle of light, staring at the interior, the baseball bat slowly lowering until the barrel rested on the ground beside her.
“There’s another one,” she whispered, pointing into the shed and taking a stiff sidestep so that I could see. Among the gardening tools, rolled-up hoses, and workbenches that looked like they’d been there forever, a single lightbulb swung just slightly, as if someone had brushed by the pull chain. The shed smelled moist and earthy. Safe scents. Nothing dangerous.
Following the trajectory of Shasta’s finger, I took in a bag of potting soil on the shed floor. The center of the bag was dented inward, as if someone had been sitting on it, and in front of the indentation lay a carved bird small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.
Shasta reached in and scooped it up. Her face paled, then hardened. “Someone keeps leaving these. Someone keeps coming here.” Her dark eyes narrowed with a mix of fear and anger, her hair swirling around her, blue-black in the moonlight, as she backed several steps into the yard, tossing the bird into the dirt and raising the bat. “Go away! Leave my house alone or I’ll call the police, do you hear me? Go away!”
Next door, a light came on.
“Let’s go back inside.” Touching Shasta’s arm, I shivered, my pulse jittery with the sense of someone watching us—someone closer than the woman peering through a gap in the curtain next door. “Come on, all right?”
Shasta yielded to the pressure finally, and we turned off the light and closed the shed, then started toward the house. Inside, with the doors locked, I leaned against the counter and caught my breath as Shasta returned the baseball bat to the front room, then stood looking around the kitchen, as if she were suddenly afraid, even inside the house.
“The sibs found some of those carvings at our house, too,” I said finally. “Maybe they’re just around here, you know. Maybe someone who lived here before left them, or maybe kids in the neighborhood got them in an Easter-egg hunt, or painted them in school, you know?” The explanations didn’t make a great deal of sense, but neither did the idea that inanimate objects could appear in strange places on their own. Anything was preferable to the thought that someone was sneaking around leaving behind little talismans w
here we would find them.
Shasta rubbed her forehead roughly, then combed her hair from her face, leaning against the refrigerator. “How did that thing show up on the floor of my shed?”
“It could have fallen from overhead. From the rafters. Maybe it was tucked up there, and you never noticed it before.”
“Did it turn on the lights, too?” It was more a plea for an explanation than a question. Both of us had the sense that someone had been there just before we entered the shed, but neither of us wanted to admit it.
“Maybe you left the lights on earlier today, or even yesterday, and you didn’t notice until you looked out there after dark.”
Shasta’s lips twisted to one side, and she let her arm fall, so that it slapped against her thigh, conveying frustration. “You sound like Cody. That’s what he’ll say if I bring it up.”
“Sorry. It’s the reporter in me—always looking for a logical explanation.”
“Reporter?” One eyebrow lifted and one descended. “So you’re, like, one of those disgustingly pretty girls who’s also disgustingly smart and will be showing up on the evening news someday, ridding the world of evil and that kind of thing?”
My throat tightened, and I looked away. I didn’t feel like one of those have-it-all girls anymore. I wasn’t one. The broadcasting degree and the got-connections job I’d always been so sure would fall right into my lap now seemed a million miles away. “Not so much. It’s just what I was going to major in—broadcast journalism.” Who knew what would happen to the college plan now that there was no one to pay the bills? Even if the money were there, I couldn’t leave the kids and Aunt Lute with Barbie—not the way things had been lately. With Uncle Boone making excuses to avoid us—everything from busy work schedules to out-of-town business trips—there was no one to look after things but me. I had no way of knowing when our situation would change, if ever.
The start of the fall semester was just a few weeks away. The truth, the reality, was that I wouldn’t be going to college, or Europe, or anywhere.