The Canary List: A Novel

by Sigmund Brouwer

  If Mr. G was mad that she caught him crying or looking at his photos, he didn’t say it. He was frowning, though. Jaimie guessed it was because Mr. G was drunk and was trying to concentrate on what to say. She knew all about drunk people. But she didn’t think Mr. G would hit her. Drunk people, she had decided, just became more of what they really were. Mean people showed more of their meanness. Nice people became happier.

  Mr. G? He was mostly sad. So she guessed getting drunk just made him sadder.

  She waited for him to speak.

  “Tell me what happened,” Mr. G said. “Why are you scared? Why aren’t you at home?”

  She couldn’t tell him the truth. The scary truth. That she could feel Evil stalking her. That always inside was something dark and angry that she pushed down. Like a thundercloud. At the edge of the sky. Getting blacker and blacker and boiling upward. That’s what it was like inside her. And that sometimes around certain people, the thundercloud mushroomed out of control, darker and scarier as she got closer to the person who added to the feeling that she tried to keep pushed down. When a person like that got near, the thundercloud started in her chest and went into her head, and it hurt her head and her brain. She felt like it was going to explode, maybe like the egg she’d once put into a microwave. It would make her so afraid, like the other person knew she could feel the badness and the person would want to hunt her down. It felt like the darkness was going to pounce on her and suck out her brains.

  She couldn’t tell him about Evil, the hunter, because he would think she was crazy. And because of Jaimie’s deal with Dr. Mackenzie, who had made Jaimie promise to keep everything secret about the stuff they were doing to fight Evil. Like how wearing the bracelet could protect her from Evil.

  “I snuck out of my foster house,” Jaimie said. “I do that a lot on weekends because I like to ride my bike to the beach at night. I went out through a window and climbed down a drainpipe. But tonight some homeless people tried chasing me, and now I’m too scared to be alone, so I rode my bike here. I didn’t go home because after midnight their security system goes on automatically and stays on till six in the morning.”

  Part truth. Part lie. Best way to do it.

  “I thought you would trust me,” Mr. G said. It looked like he was trying to be careful as he spoke, so the words came out slowly. “Please listen to me. You need to get back to your foster parents. I’ll call them. They’d rather know the truth than have you alone at night.”

  She shook her head. The man with Evil knew that Jaimie lived at the foster house. He could return anytime. “You don’t know my foster parents. I feel safe around you. I just need a place to stay. One night. In the morning, maybe you can take me to Dr. Mackenzie. That’s all I need. Time here, safe, until she answers her phone.”

  “Dr. Mackenzie.”

  “She helps me with a lot of things. But I can’t find her.”

  “We’re going to call your foster parents,” Mr. G said.

  Jaimie quivered.

  “They’ll be worried about you,” Mr. G said to enforce his argument. He was still blurring his words, and she had to work hard to understand him. “Maybe they’ve already called the police. They’ll need to know you are safe.”

  “Call them, but let me stay with you.” Jaimie wished she could tell Mr. G the truth. But Dr. Mackenzie was right. He probably wouldn’t believe her anyway—that sometimes the feeling of darkness was so real. “Just till the sun is up. Please.”

  “Your foster parents will stay awake with you,” Mr. G attempted. “We’ll explain to them how you feel. They’ll know what to do. Their job is to protect you.”

  No, Jaimie wanted to say. They can’t. Not from this. No one can. The only way is to be out of reach. It was like she swam all alone in a room without walls. Black. With a howling cold wind. And something hunting her, something Evil.

  “Mr. G,” she said. “My foster parents aren’t as nice as you. When you break their rules, they get really, really mad.”

  “Then let me call them to let them know you are here.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I’m getting my cell phone,” Mr. G said. “I think I left it on the bathroom counter.”

  It was a small house. Just a living room and a kitchen and three doors she saw beyond the kitchen. One open, to the bathroom. Two other doors that she guessed were bedrooms. She watched Mr. G walk unsteadily to the bathroom. He left the door open, and the house was small enough she could see him throw cold water over his face. A couple of times. He dried off as he swayed in front of the mirror.

  She went outside. Jaimie never cried, but maybe now was the time to pretend. No way could she go home. She needed Dr. Mackenzie and a way to stay safe until then. If the darkness could find her on the beach, it could find her anywhere.

  She buried her head in her hands and thought about how nice it would be not to feel the scary darkness and how nice it would be to have a family. She allowed herself to feel sorry enough for herself to cry.

  Mr. G sat on the steps beside her.

  “Don’t call them,” Jaimie said. She sniffed through tears. “Just let me spend the night. I need to sleep without being afraid. It’s been so long since I could. Please. Just one night.”

  “It won’t solve anything,” Mr. G said.

  “This can’t be solved,” Jaimie said. It could, if only she was able to reach Dr. Mackenzie. “I just want to feel safe for one night.”

  “Your foster parents will know what to do,” Crockett said. “You just have to tell them.”

  Jaimie straightened to look at Mr. G. Maybe he knew she was putting it on a bit. She recited her phone number in a monotone.

  Mr. G had to ask Jaimie to repeat it. He fumbled as he slowly punched in the numbers. Listened to the ringing. Ten rings, no answer.

  She could hear the ringing too.

  Mr. G hung up the phone.

  “It’s not appropriate for you to be here,” Mr. G said. “So we are going to go get someone else.”

  Seven

  anna opened her door in a bathrobe—red and fuzzy. With a face like hers, she could model for a cake-mix box. Apple cheeks, soft white hair. Round eyeglasses. He knew he’d woken her, but nothing about her smile showed it.

  “Didn’t check the peephole, did you,” Crockett said, slightly more sober. He’d installed it in her door himself a month earlier because she refused to spend money on nonsense, which was her word for security technology.

  “I most certainly did,” she said, grammar correct despite the hour and despite her indignation.

  “I had my thumb over it. Nanna, it’s midnight. You can’t just open your front door without knowing who is on the other side.”

  “I refuse to live my life in fear.” She frowned. “What are you doing? It’s your anniversary night.”

  “Need help,” Crockett said. He pointed at his front step, where the outdoor house light showed Jaimie sitting, hunched over. “Actually, she needs help. She’s twelve. Ran away from her foster home.”

  In her bathrobe, Nanna marched past him without asking who the girl was. She walked across the lawn that separated the two houses. Nanna had a vigorous step for any sixty-year-old, and Crockett knew she was at least eighty.

  When Crockett got to the step, Nanna already had her arm around Jaimie and was leaning in, whispering.

  “Leave us be,” Nanna told him.

  Five minutes later, Nanna found Crockett in his refuge, a hammock he had hung in the backyard. Crockett had been staring at the stars, thinking about the illusion of how cold the light looked, when the source was an incomprehensibly hot process of nuclear fusion. Not fission—energy released as atoms broke apart. Fusion—the immense gravity of a star forcing atoms to squeeze into each other. These were the types of thoughts to take him away from memories of Ashley, since his memorial evening had become a train wreck.

  “We’re going to her house, all of us,” Nanna said. “We’re going to talk with her foster parents. No child should
be as terrified as she is. If her foster parents can’t help the poor child feel better, we’re taking her back to stay with me for the night.”

  Crockett rolled out of his hammock, fighting a wave of queasiness. He had sobered somewhat, but his digestive system was punishing him for the excess. He was too exhausted to complicate things any further.

  “You drive,” he said. He didn’t have to specify that he meant his Jeep. Nanna had only a motorized scooter, but every once in a while, she borrowed his Jeep. Eighty plus, but she loved the stick shift and the wind in her hair.

  “Yes, I’ll drive,” she said. “You can sleep in the backseat. The top is down, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Good. I’m not fond of the smell of scotch.”

  Crockett tried to doze off as Jaimie gave directions, but the motion of the Jeep made him feel too nauseous. So he sat, head hanging like a dog’s. He wished he’d thought to bring a bottle of water.

  “It will be fine,” he told Jaimie, as they slowed for a red light and he could be heard above the wind noise.

  “That’s an idiotic thing to say,” Nanna told Crockett. She was still in her bathrobe. “If it was fine, she wouldn’t feel as bad as she does. You and I are going to do our best to help her feel better, but don’t make promises you don’t know if you can keep.”

  Crockett swallowed back another wave of nausea with a side of pride. Perhaps it’d be better if he just kept his mouth shut.

  Nanna spoke to Jaimie. “You’ve probably already discovered that men can be well-meaning but totally clueless.”

  Crockett didn’t mind when the Jeep picked up speed and the sound of their conversation became an unintelligible buzz.

  It wasn’t until they approached the foster home that Crockett understood why no one there had answered the phone.

  Flashing reds and blues.

  The foster home was burned almost to the ground.

  Eight

  wo cruisers blocked the entrance to the street. Five houses down, high arcs of spray from fire-truck water cannons were clearly visible, as were the flames shooting from the roof.

  It jolted Crockett into a new level of near sobriety.

  Crockett glanced at Jaimie, who was now sitting rigidly upright.

  Nanna downshifted the Jeep and found a place to pull over. Not an upper-end neighborhood by any stretch. Best it had going for it were the mature trees in the yards.

  “You talk to the police,” Nanna said. Up and down the sidewalks, bystanders were clustered in about a dozen groups. Few gave the Jeep any attention, even those so close that Crockett could reach out and touch them from curbside. “I’ll wait in the Jeep with Jaimie. But make sure you protect her first. Don’t give her up unless you know she’s going to be protected. Last thing she needs is a night at a firehouse or police station or worse.”

  Crockett had to push through a small crowd to reach the cop holding all of them at bay. Neighbors. Easy to guess. Many of them, like Nanna, in bathrobes, strobed by the red and blues, their necks craned as they stared at the burning roof.

  “No one past this line.” The cop was impassive. Young. Standing straight, taking his command post seriously. A fleeting thought hit Crockett. He was old enough that a rookie cop looked young to him.

  “I’m a teacher of one of the students who lives there,” he began as introduction, showing he wasn’t just a rubbernecker.

  The cop sniffed.

  “Have you been drinking?” the cop asked.

  “Yes,” Crockett said. “A lot. But I haven’t been driving. I wouldn’t be here unless it was important. Trust me, I’d rather still be drinking.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Need to talk to the student’s parents.”

  “Not a chance,” the cop said. “Anything you do now will just get in the way. We’re not even sure if anyone got out.”

  “It’s a foster home,” Crockett said. He swayed slightly.

  “Yeah?”

  Crockett was about to explain that one of the kids was back in his Jeep. Even in his haze, he realized he’d have to explain she was a runaway. He wasn’t worried about himself. Nanna’s presence made everything aboveboard. But if he told the cop about Jaimie, given the circumstances, the cop would have to make a call that would bring in Social Services. Which would mean Jaimie would spend the night with strangers, on top of her fear and on top of the stress of knowing that the home was on fire. Nanna had warned him against that; not good when Nanna got angry.

  So he’d allow Jaimie to become Nanna’s responsibility for the rest of the night.

  “Let me give you my name and number,” Crockett said. “Have someone call me in the morning when this settles. It’s about one of the kids in the foster home.”

  “Yeah.” The cop’s expression remained flat. But he took out a pad and wrote down the information.

  Despite an absentee father and a trailer park upbringing, Nathan Wilby had been an honors student all through school and an enthusiastic member of the drama club in his senior year. All had seemed normal and promising, with a college scholarship waiting, but Nathan had hidden from the world the presence of his personal demon, and just after turning eighteen, Nathan Wilby had killed his mother.

  He’d put a pillow on her face, as commanded by this demon, named Abezethibou. Mostly Nathan thought of his demon as Abez, but when Abez knew Nathan was reluctant to do something, the demon seemed to swell with power and invoked his entire name. As in, I, Abezethibou, command you to follow my instructions. And on that night just after Nathan turned eighteen, Abezethibou had commanded Nathan to put his full weight on the pillow until his mother stopped moving. Nathan had been surprised by his own indifference to the way his mother flopped until she died, but it made Abez happy. Abez had cheered him on the entire time.

  Ten years of prison after that. It wasn’t a bad time. Regular food and exercise, continuous protection by Abez. Since then, in his years outside, managing a trailer park because he loved the familiarity of his upbringing, Nathan sometimes missed the comfort of his prison cell with Abez prowling the confined space.

  Now Nathan stood among the gawkers. To see clearly, he needed to be at the front. Nathan was so small that he could have been mistaken for a boy.

  Abez, on the other hand, freely roamed up and down the street, his shambling walk making him look like a lopsided chimpanzee. Abez was missing his left wing, so keeping his balance was difficult. Nathan didn’t know any other demons, so he assumed this deformity was the main reason for Abez’s irritability. Much as Nathan had appreciated Abez’s protection during the years in prison, there were times when Nathan would not have minded a break from the cantankerous and constant conversation.

  Now Abez bounded toward Nathan, energized by something.

  “Look,” Abez said, his head waist high to Nathan and turned upward to speak. It was strange to Nathan. He could never get a full view of Abez. It was as if Nathan’s eyes could only focus on one part at a time. When he looked into the hideous face, Abez’s stumpy, wide body seemed to shimmer into the background. When Nathan gave attention to the one leathery wing that curled batlike around Abez, the potato face would be gone. Nathan had long ago accepted this strangeness as part of a demon’s character. He couldn’t ask other people about this, because they didn’t see anything when he pointed to Abez.

  “She’s back,” Abez croaked. “I told you she escaped the house when you went inside. I told you she didn’t die in the fire. We know everything.”

  Sure enough, one of the street lights showed a Jeep Wrangler that had just arrived. Driven by an old woman, with Jaimie in the front seat.

  This was good. Very good.

  The Prince had been very specific when he told Nathan that tonight was the night to start the fire and get rid of Jaimie. The girl had a psychiatrist protector, but The Prince knew that tonight the psychiatrist would be too busy to help.

  Usually, Nathan didn’t like to think for himself. He preferred instructions and
doing exactly as The Prince requested. But if Jaimie had escaped the fire, Nathan needed to take care of the situation. There wasn’t time to arrange to ask The Prince what to do. Sometimes it took days for him to hear back from The Prince.

  The Prince had told him a lot about Jaimie, and he would use the information to his advantage. So now all Nathan needed to do was make sure he didn’t lose sight of her.

  Nine

  nother knock on Crockett’s front door.

  This time, just after dawn. He’d fallen asleep on top of his bed, still in jeans and T-shirt. He felt like someone was trying to punch holes through his skull with splinters of wood.

  There was no choice but to answer the door. He’d given the cop his name, address, and phone number.

  He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. From the kitchen came the sound of his coffee brewing. Automatic timer, set for 5:45 a.m. Good. He’d pour a cup, let the thick black coffee travel directly into his veins and jolt him out of his grogginess.

  But first, the door.

  Where Jaimie darted inside and ran past him, into his bedroom.

  So much for the coffee.

  He followed and saw her heels disappear as she slid beneath the bed.