by Luc Reid
Because of Grant, he went to leave by the front door, threading his way through the living room in the process. The new banjo still lay on the couch, gleaming in the light that filtered inside from the porch. He felt a pang of disappointment at seeing it. If he had been living a normal life, his biggest problem at the moment might be either learning to play the banjo or worrying about offending the Larshes by deciding not to. He wanted to live a life like that. After tonight, maybe he would—or maybe he would fail, and things would get much worse. Still, he was almost to the out. Everything was going smoothly. His vision blocked by the box he was carrying, he reached out to try to open the door.
It was locked.
Seth had to put the box down for a moment to see the lock, and his heart sank when he did: it was the kind of lock that required a key on the inside as well as the outside. Short of a window, that meant to get out of the house he would have to go past Grant again, and there was no guarantee Grant wouldn’t be able to see the skulls. They were too closely connected to the Larsh family to hope that they would share Seth’s invisibility.
He started when he saw movement on the porch, then realized it was Chloe. She made a motion with her hands: did you do it? Seth shook his head and pointed to the edge of the door, then mimed talking with a hand. Chloe put her ear to the crack between the door and the doorjamb.
“Count fifty Mississippi and then bang on the door,” Seth whispered. “Plan B, like you just had an argument with your parents, OK?”
Chloe stood straight again and nodded, mouthing “fifty?” Seth nodded back. Then he carried the skulls through the living room and back to the hallway where the storage room was. He hid in the doorway of the half bath there and waited.
It seemed like it was quiet for a long time. Seth began to worry that Chloe hadn’t understood him, and even took a step out into the hallway. Then the banging on the front door started. Seth caught his breath and ducked back into the bathroom. He heard movement upstairs, and a moment later he heard Grant’s heavy footsteps from the kitchen, running toward the front door. He waited until it sounded as though Grant had turned the corner into the living room and then a few extra seconds, just in case. Then he ran down the hallway, through the empty kitchen, and out the back door into the darkness.
It occurred to him now to be worried for Chloe. When they’d talked about the plan, it had seemed as there would be no danger to her: she was a relative, and even if what she was pretending to do was very unusual, it wasn’t suspicious. But then, Grant would be in a suspicious frame of mind, and he had seen the two of them together very recently. Would he suspect? If he did, what would he do? Assume Seth was nearby and seek him out? Or hurt Chloe?
But the best thing Seth could do to prevent that was to destroy the skulls. If he ran back inside now, he was more likely to endanger Chloe than to help her. Still, he regretted now even letting her come along. If she got hurt or—or anything, well, it would be his fault.
He kept as much as possible to the trees in the back yard on his way to the barn. Fortunately the place where he had parked the snowblower was in deep shadow from the barn, as the moon was on the other side. The snowblower would make a god-awful noise, but Seth couldn’t do anything about that if he was going to try to destroy the skulls right away, and in case Chloe was in danger, he had better do just that.
As dark as it was, he almost tripped over the timbers he had laid out. He opened the flaps of the box and tilted it gently on its side, letting the skulls slide out into the U, raking them out with one hand while holding the box with the other. When they all lay there, gleaming even in that blackness, he threw the box aside and took his position behind the snowblower. He shoveled snow in winter for extra money, and old Mr. Pretty, who had a really long driveway, had a snowblower that looked a lot like the Larsh’s. He hadn’t offered to let Seth use it— that would have been help—but he hadn’t seemed bothered when Seth tried it on his own.
From the direction of the house he heard Chloe scream. He hesitated only a fraction of a second, caught between running to her and using the snowblower, before he jabbed the ignition button. The engine roared to life, so loud and revealing that he felt a spotlight had been turned on him. He pushed the snowblower forward, reining in his anxiety so as not to jostle any of the skulls out of the U.
The first skulls banged against the intake, but none were pulled in. He shoved the machine forward with nervous energy, and the bangs increased. A moment later, the first skull shot out and smashed into fragments against the stone wall. Others followed.
Another scream came from the house, but this one was a man’s scream. Grant’s.
It wasn’t taking in the skulls as quickly as Seth had hoped. He had forgotten to put on the goggles and turned his head partly away from the wall. He shoved the snowblower forward again and it took up more skulls, flinging them against the stone. Each one made a hollow, splintering sound as it struck.
Grant was running at full speed from the porch. Only four skulls left. Now two. Now one, shoved into the corner. Seth jerked the snowblower forward, and the skull was bumped over the timber and out of the U, rolling downhill toward Grant. Seth ran after it, knowing that Grant would reach it first. Grimacing with the knowledge that Grant was older and bigger than him, Seth tore his attention away from the skull and focused on Grant. Grant reached for the skull, and Seth leapt at him, ramming his shoulder into Grant’s stomach.
They went down to the ground and Seth could hear other footsteps coming toward them across the driveway. He had trouble getting to his feet, but Grant seemed to have the wind knocked out of him and was gasping for breath. Seth scrabbled for the skull as Grant’s hand caught the St. Christopher medal. With a jerk, Grant broke the chain. Seth lurched to his feet and pegged the last skull at the stone wall for all he was worth.
It shattered.
Chapter 18
Seth saw a shudder go through Grant’s body as the last skull smashed. He turned his head toward the barn and saw gleaming fragments of bone scattered at the foot of the stone wall. The noise of the snowblower hurt Seth’s ears; he wondered if he had broken something in it by using it as he had. He walked over to it and switched it off. The wind blew against the empty cardboard box, and it slid over the grass.
Where was Chloe? Seth glanced up and saw her on the porch, arguing with Jerry.
Grant got slowly to his feet, staring at Seth. “You had no right to touch those. Those were my grandfather’s!”
“You had no right to set our house on fire,” Seth said quietly. He wished now that he had brought something to along to physically defend himself. Grant was older, taller, and from the look of him stronger than Seth. Even if he had no magic left at all, Seth didn’t want to tangle with him. And was he still able to do magic? Seth had expected to feel something change when the skulls were destroyed, for there to be some sort of burst of light or sudden feeling of elation inside him that told him the curse was lifted. He hadn’t felt anything.
Grant picked up a stone and rubbed it between his hands, murmuring something. Was he doing more magic?
“What did you do to Chloe?” Seth said.
Grant didn’t answer, but although he hadn’t looked up, his voice was faltering. He went quiet and held the stone up so that the dim light on the porch could catch it. Then he threw it down in disgust.
In the mean time, Seth walked past him, toward Chloe.
“Are you all right?” he shouted at her.
“Fine!” she shouted back, and came down the steps toward him.
Fine? Then why had she screamed?
Jerry strode down the porch steps and toward Seth as Tessa emerged onto the porch holding Junie, who had her face buried in Tessa’s shoulder. Chloe began to talk to Tessa. Seth saw Jerry looking past him at the snowblower with a grim expression.
Chloe was staring at something behind Seth too, and he began to turn when Grant grabbed him from behind. Grant spun Seth around, threw him down to the driveway, and kicked him, hard
, in the stomach. Seth gasped. The pain was as bad as when the bug was attacking him from inside. Grant dangled the St. Christopher medal over Seth’s face, just out of reach.
“Where did you get this?” he said.
Jerry caught up with Grant and grabbed his arm, jerking him away from Seth. Chloe was standing in the middle of the driveway with a look of confusion on her face. Seth’s heart sank: Chloe had seen Grant and hadn’t shouted out a warning, which meant that she still wasn’t able to help Seth. The curse wasn’t broken after all, and when Grant took away the medal, Seth had lost his temporary protection.
“Are you all right?” Jerry asked Seth curtly. Seth nodded. Jerry turned his attention back to Grant.
“Did you set their house on fire? Is that true?” he barked. All Seth’s worries about the fire came back. Did he even have a house any more? If not, where would they live?
“He smashed Grandpa Chet’s skulls!” Grant said harshly.
“Did you start that fire?” Jerry said. Grant stared back at him, defiant, but didn’t respond. “What were you thinking? Someone could have been killed! I didn’t raise you to—”
“Grandpa Chet raised me, not you,” Grant said. “He taught me all of the traditions you wouldn’t keep. He told me all the secrets you wouldn’t listen to. He told me why mom died.”
Jerry let go of Grant’s arm and gawked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“She died because of that room. You let her stay in that room, and it killed her. Grandpa Chet told her not to use it, but she wouldn’t listen and you ignored him.”
“The storeroom?”
“The curse under it killed her. You let her die.”
“He got you to believe in the curses, that sick bastard,” Jerry said. “You still believe in them.”
“You would too by now, if I hadn’t fixed you. I’ve had to do it three or four times already, when you’ve found things out. I had to fix you to forget that there was an extra skull up after Grandpa Chet died.”
“You think you cast a spell on me? My God, what has been going through your head, Grant? Do you really believe in all this?”
Grant ignored the question, instead muttering a low chant that Seth recognized from the day before, when Jerry had all of a sudden forgotten what had just happened. Seth couldn’t let him do it again: he’d have to jump on Grant and hope that prevented him from finishing the spell.
But Jerry didn’t react in at all the same way as he had the day before. He listened to Grant for a moment, puzzled. “Stop that,” he said sharply. Grant kept chanting. “Hey!” Jerry said, and Grant stopped cold.
“It’s gone,” Grant said, as though he didn’t believe his own words. He looked at Seth. “You killed it. It will take us a hundred years to get that kind of power back.”
Jerry took Grant’s arm again, more gently this time, “We need to get you some help, Grant. It’s not your fault. Grandpa Chet made you believe in it. I know what it was like. Don’t worry: it’s not your fault.”
“You don’t know anything about it!” Grant snapped, and jerked his arm away and took off, running, across the driveway. Jerry gave chase, but Grant was faster, and a moment later Grant roared down the driveway on his motorcycle, helmetless, and disappeared up the dirt road. Jerry went to his car.
“Wait!” Seth said. “You don’t know what’s going on yet.”
“I know Grant set fire to your house,” Jerry said.
“There’s more to it,” Seth said. “He was keeping a curse …”
Jerry slumped against the car, suddenly looked worn out. “You believe in it too,” he said.
“Can I show you?”
Jerry threw up his hands in exasperation. “Yes. Sure. Show me.”
He untied one sneaker and threw it across the driveway. It landed a few yards from the porch, not far behind where Chloe stood looking bewildered. It stood out starkly blue and white in the illumination of the porch light. “Could someone get my sneaker for me?” he shouted. “It’s right over there.” He pointed.
Tessa didn’t seem to hear him. Junie craned her neck around in curiosity and watched a point a couple of feet away from the shoe, as though expecting something to materialize there.
“What shoe?” said Chloe.
“You have got to be goddamn kidding,” Jerry said. “Somebody get Seth’s shoe for him!”
“Where?” said Chloe.
Jerry tramped across the shoe until his feet were practically touching it and pointed down. “There. Could somebody please pick that up?”
“What are you mumbling about?” Tessa said.
“There’s no shoe there, Daddy!” Junie said.
“That’s a rock,” said Chloe.
“Are you all kidding me?” Jerry said. “This shoe. This shoe!” He seemed badly upset: Seth guessed he was thinking about his father and his son and the Larsh family magic.
“I can see it! Why can I see it, if none of them can?” he demanded.
“You’re a Larsh man,” said Seth.
Jerry stood looking at the shoe, then picked it up and threw it half to, half at Seth. He looked furious. “You’re cursed?” he said. The disbelief was still evident in his voice. “How do we lift it?”
“I thought smashing the skulls might do it, but it looks like we have to do one more thing,” Seth said. “Come inside and I’ll show you.”
*
Junie was asleep again and Tessa had rejoined them by the time Seth found the diagram he and Chloe had seen in the journal a few days before. He had found the arrowhead labeled “Wall” and another that he hadn’t noticed the other day, small and written more recently, in pencil, marked “Wall #2.” Uncle Guy’s curse.
“We used to play on those when I was a kid,” Jerry said in a dull voice. “The ones that weren’t broken were cold even when it was ninety degrees out. My father always told us not to touch them. But most of these are just piles of rocks now. At some point they just fell apart.”
“That’s what happens when they die,” Chloe said quietly. “The person or the family with the curse on it. I read it in the book.”
“Die of the curse, or just die?” Jerry said.
Chloe shrugged: who knew? Seth remembered that part of the book too: it hadn’t said one way or the other. He tried to imagine what kinds of trouble all of the other people who had been cursed had to face, and why, but it was a painful exercise, and he gave up after the first few, frightening possibilities occurred to him.
“They won’t come down easily,” Jerry said reflectively. “They’re solid little constructions.” He took the journal away and studied it. “This Wall number two pile looks like it’s out front somewhere, maybe in the woods. Why are there two for you?”
“My uncle,” Seth said.
“He has his own curse?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“Of course I didn’t! I never … wait. Is your uncle named Guy, Guy Wall?”
“You remember him,” Seth said.
“He threatened me once. He said I’d cursed … he threatened me, and I thought he was crazy.”
Seth pointed to the pencil mark. “Is that Grant’s writing?”
Jerry’s mouth was clenched tight; he seemed to be having a hard time keeping his composure. “Yes,” he said finally.
“What color was Grant’s raincoat five years ago?” Seth said.
“What color? Blue, just like mine.” Jerry took a deep breath and turned his attention back to the book. “The other one—your curse—looks like it was right outside the kitchen before we built the addition. About where the storage room is.”
Seth opened his mouth to agree, then realized: the cairn must still be there, under the storage room. It had been there when Grant’s mother had used the room, and it had killed her. And it had been the thing that had affected Seth so strongly when he got near it.
“We’re going to break that one down right now,” Jerry said quietly.
“Under the storage room?” said Tessa. “
That’s a concrete foundation.”
Jerry dropped the book in Seth’s lap and crossed the room to pick up a cordless phone from its cradle. He held the phone with his chin while he took out a phone book and flipped through the white pages. “Tessa, Chloe, could you do me a favor and empty out the storeroom? I don’t care where you put everything. The downstairs bathroom and the hallway are fine.”
He found the number he wanted and dialed while everyone watched.
“Hi Bill,” he said. “Sorry to call you at so early. No, everyone’s pretty much all right here, but I really need a favor. Does the town own a jackhammer?” He covered the mouthpiece and looked up at Chloe and Tessa. “Could you get those boxes, please?”
They left, heading toward the storage room.
“OK, then who has one?” Jerry said into the telephone. “No, just a sec.” He covered the mouthpiece again. “Seth, get me a pencil. We’re going to Montpelier to get a jackhammer.”
Chapter 19
After they got back from Montpelier, Seth had to wait in the living room while Jerry worked in the storeroom, because the curse made him immediately faint without the protection of the medal. Seth sat with the banjo on his lap, plucking nervously at the strings while the sounds of first an axe, then the borrowed jackhammer shook the house. Junie woke up soon after the axe work began, but Tessa got her some Cheerios and brought her upstairs to play in her room. Chloe was in the storeroom with Jerry, having harassed him into letting her help.
“Found it!” Jerry shouted from the next room, and the next moment the sound from the jackhammer was redoubled. A wind stirred the open journal and wafted a foul, burning smell into the room. Then Seth felt, as though it were coming from inside him rather than from the other side of the house, a tremendous crack, like an avalanche. Jerry shouted something Seth couldn’t make out over the deafening stutter of the jackhammer, but at this point Seth didn’t need to hear anything to know what it meant. He raced upstairs and found Junie’s room, where Junie was playing with a dollhouse while Tessa read to her.