The Ghosts of Mertland (An Angel Hill novel)

by C. Dennis Moore

  Joey stood on the top landing, staring up at the third floor, not wanting to go all the way up. He looked up at the ceiling that seemed to rise forever above him. It was easy to feel so small in this house. It would be easy to get lost. He couldn't believe they had this whole place to themselves. Maybe there were people who lived here nobody knew about. It would also be easy to hide, especially up here, without anyone finding you. Joey took a step up, then froze when he heard movement up above, from somewhere on the third floor.

  He was too short to see over the top of the stairs without going further. He stopped and listened, but the sound didn't come again. He waited, then decided he really had heard something, but didn't want to see what it was. He didn't have to see to know it scared him.

  Only silence came. He didn't even hear his dad and the other men coming in and out of the front door with their things. Joey turned and bounded back down the steps, hurrying as if being chased, and he knew if he turned around, he just might see something coming down after him. He raced to the bottom floor and into the living room, leaping onto the couch.

  "What's the matter, Joey?" Liz asked. She scooted a box of dishes into the kitchen.

  "Do you promise my bedroom is down here?"

  "Of course, silly-head. All our bedrooms are down here. It'll be a while before we move anything upstairs."

  "Do you promise, even if Dad says I have to move my bedroom upstairs, do you promise I can stay down here?"

  Liz looked at him crookedly, wondering what was the matter.

  "Of course. He wouldn't make you sleep upstairs unless you were older and you decided you wanted to."

  "Promise?"

  "What's wrong? Did he say you were going to sleep up there? He was just trying to scare you. He's being silly."

  "He didn't say anything. I just don't want to go up there."

  "Okay. Now come here and help me put up these dishes.”

  Joey ran into the kitchen where he was safer with Liz than on the couch.

  Liz put away the last plate and closed the last cabinet as Jack came into the room, rubbing his eyes.

  "All done."

  "You got everything?"

  "I hope so. If I didn't, it's still in Houston. The truck's empty. Wow, you got all this stuff put away already?"

  "Already? You've been unloading that truck for over two hours. I didn't even think we had two hours’ worth of stuff."

  "Well, we put some of it away as we went. The beds are put together and . . . listen."

  Liz was quiet, head cocked.

  Jack held his breath and waited. After a minute, he said, "Maybe not. I thought I heard a mouse in the wall. I didn’t even think to check for mice."

  "Well go get some traps," Liz said. "We're not sleeping here with mice. I'm not coming in here in the morning to find mouse poop on the counter. Go, go. There's a store in town somewhere. Don't come back without at least half a dozen."

  Jack groaned and rubbed his head.

  "But I'm so tired from carrying every single piece of furniture we have out of the truck, up to the house, and down all those stairs," he whined. "Can't I do it later? Or tomorrow? Tomorrow sounds like a good time."

  "No," she said. "I'm telling you, if I see a mouse run past me I'm gonna freak out. Please."

  "Well," he assented, "we do need food, too. I'll grab a few things for the next couple days. Then you can go get all the good stuff once we get settled. How's that?"

  "Whatever," Liz waved him away, "just don't come back without traps."

  "I won't," he said, kissing her head. "I'll see if Joey wants to go. Where is he?"

  Liz scanned the kitchen. "He was in here, helping me. I don't know."

  Jack found him asleep on the couch. Joey's two middle fingers hung limply from his mouth and his knees were tucked up underneath him.

  "I guess he doesn't want to go."

  "That's okay. I'm kind of beat, myself. I'm gonna lay down for a little bit, too." Liz stretched and yawned, mocking Jack who wrinkled his face and growled at her. He kissed her again and was gone.

  Liz found their bed, unmade, of course, in the bedroom directly across the hall from the living room. If she kept the doors open, she'd be sure to hear Joey if we woke up. She stretched out on the bare mattress, covering her head with her arms, and drifted off immediately.

  Her mind went far away and her thoughts made everything a jumble, mixing Joey calling her Liz with the thought of Alex. Things could change completely in one year. It took Alex only that long to decide their marriage wasn't working. So why, after a year, did Joey still call her Liz? Jack was probably right, Joey would call her Mom when he was ready. And what if he never did? Was it really a big deal? Liz had already been more mother to him than the real one. Everyone knew that. What he called her shouldn’t matter that much. She knew he already thought of her as a mother, and that would be enough.

  She came half out of her doze when the bed squeaked and she felt someone lying behind her. She didn't want to wake up, not yet.

  "Jack?" she murmured. When he didn't answer, she decided it was Joey. She smiled in her sleep and felt fine.

  She woke up later when she heard Jack coming down the hall and the crinkle of grocery sacks in his arms. She rolled off her side of the bed, stretched, and looked down at the empty spot where she’d expected to see Joey. Where was he?

  He must have heard Jack coming and got up, too.

  Liz wandered into the kitchen to put the groceries away while Jack finished carrying them in. She stopped in the doorway and her fingers came away from her eyes, suddenly clear, her vision fine.

  Joey lay sleeping on the couch, his two fingers still hanging from his mouth.

  He must have come back in here after I fell asleep, she thought. That had to be it. Because she knew she felt someone on the bed; the mattress squeaked, and she felt the weight behind her. Then again, there was every possibility she’d dreamed it.

  Liz pushed it away and went into the kitchen to make sure Jack hadn't forgotten the traps.

  "So what do you really think?" he asked, pulling a package of traps from the bag.

  Liz took the traps and opened them, knowing this would be the only time she touched them. Once set, they were Jack's domain. And once used, she didn't want to see them.

  "Think about what?" she asked.

  "The house? Honestly?"

  He pulled a jar of peanut butter from the bag, handed it over.

  "I told you. I think it's big." She set the peanut butter on the counter next to an unwrapped trap. "God, I just realized I haven't even been upstairs yet. All I've seen are the few rooms down here. Why don't you finish with the traps and I'll go see the rest."

  Liz rounded the first landing and saw the huge open room in the middle of the second floor.

  "Wow," she said. "That's a big room."

  She continued up and wandered the second floor, marveling at the spaciousness of the rooms. Each room boasted high ceilings, clean white walls. There was a door leading off from the main room. Liz opened it to find the perfect study. Even though the room was empty, one wall held a five-shelf built-in bookcase and Jack could move his desk in here and have an official home office.

  There were two windows in the room, one looking out on the front yard, the other on the front porch. Liz was leaned over, watching the houses across the street when she heard thumping. She stood up straight and listened. It came again, from above. Joey was upstairs? She hadn't heard him coming up, but she heard him now, and he sounded like he was having fun up there.

  She poked her head out of the room. The stairs were there in front of her and the space was open all the way to the third floor ceiling. She heard him making play noises, the rrrrrrrrrr of an imaginary car engine. He chuckled. She smiled. He made another sound, something she couldn't distinguish, and then he screamed, loud and high. Liz leaped up the stairs three at a time, yanking herself around the post when she reached the landing, then up to the top.

  When she reached the thi
rd floor, she found herself confronted with four choices. Each door was closed and Joey was nowhere. She entered the first door on the left and found an empty room. Another door in here led to a corner room. It too was empty. Liz went into the next room and found nothing except ugly yellow walls. Then another empty room, and finally a dirty, but no less empty, bathroom.

  So where was he? She made the rounds of the rooms again, calling, "Joey. Come on out. What's the matter?"

  He wasn't up here. But she'd heard him.

  Just like you felt him get into bed with you?

  But I did feel him, she told herself.

  So where is he?

  I don't know, she thought.

  Then, before Liz could move, the scream came again, directly behind her. She whirled, expecting to see Joey lying half-dead, by the sound of that scream. But she was alone.

  Liz turned and went down the stairs quicker than she'd come up them.

  When she got to the bottom floor, she found Jack in the hall, shining a flashlight down into the cold air vent.

  "I gotta get my keys out of there," he said.

  "Where's Joey?" she asked, ignoring his search.

  "On the couch, last I saw. He was waking up a bit, but he was still in there. Why, you find something upstairs he'd like?" Again she didn't respond, but if Jack had bothered to look up, he would have wondered why his wife was staring at him like he'd just crushed her cat's head with a hammer.

  Liz went into the living room. Joey was awake, a toy car in his hand, driving it along the edge of the cushion.

  "What'cha doing?" she asked. She sat next to him, just behind his outstretched feet.

  "Playing."

  "Did you have a good nap?"

  "Uh-huh." She nudged his feet and he kicked back, a game they had.

  "Did you just wake up?"

  "No, I been awake fifteen hours already. I'm hungry."

  "We'll eat in a bit. Did you go upstairs to play when you got up?"

  "Huh-uh." He rolled his car along the couch and didn't bother to look back when he said, "I don't like it upstairs."

  "You don't?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know I don’t like it up there.”

  “I meant, are you sure you didn’t go up there?”

  Of course he’s sure, she told herself. What’s he going to do, forget? Stupid question. No, he said he hadn’t, so he hadn’t. Didn't explain what she’d just heard, but something would, she was sure. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since they left Houston three days ago; her mind was messing with her. It was a bird outside, or in the ceiling, that’s all it was.

  Didn’t sound like any bird I ever heard of.

  Then again, who knows what kinds of birds were common to Angel Hill. A Screaming Banshee bird might be a common sound in this town. She hoped not.

  Was it just a couple hours ago he’d come to her begging not to have to sleep up there? She wondered now if he’d heard something up there, too.

  You know, not all big houses are haunted, she told herself.

  “I don’t think they knew I was listening,” Joey said.

  “What?” She hadn’t been listening, either.

  “The ones upstairs, I don’t think they knew I was listening.”

  “There’s no one upstairs,” she told him.

  He didn’t respond, just turned back to his car and drove it over the bumps in the cushion.

  She wanted to continue with this and see what he meant, but instead she took a lesson from Jack and tried to think it through. He heard people upstairs. Of course he did, she thought, the movers were in and out. Maybe they were talking about something and didn’t know Joey was listening. It’s not impossible, is it? That’s what he meant.

  She didn’t ask what he’d heard, a conversation, a thump, a scream--bird, she reminded herself--and she wouldn’t ask because it was their first day in their new house, the first day of their new lives and right now the uneasy feeling in her gut had her so clenched--from a stupid bird?--she knew she’d be sore tomorrow.

  She put it aside and went into the hall

  Jack pointed the flashlight into the cold air vent in the floor, still searching for his keys.

  “Are you hungry?” Liz asked. He left the beam pointed where he had it and looked up.

  “What?”

  “You want a sandwich?”

  “No. Thanks. I’ll get something later.”

  Liz turned away, leaving Jack to his keys. In the kitchen, she made Joey a peanut butter and jelly, set it on a plate next to a couple of cookies and called him into the kitchen.

  "But there's no table," he said.

  Liz realized he was right and looked around. Surely with all these boxes, he could sit on something other than the couch.

  "Can I eat outside?"

  Liz smiled at his ingenuity. "Yes, that's a good idea. It's an awful nice day."

  The backyard had two levels and they sat together on the step from the higher to the lower. Liz wondered at the huge back yard that included the empty lot next to their house. Jack will have a ball mowing this thing, she thought.

  Joey chewed loudly, mostly playing with his sandwich and munching the cookies.

  "Put the cookies down," she said. "You can eat those after your sandwich."

  "Just one more?"

  "No. Now eat."

  Joey nibbled the bread. A drop of jelly oozed from the bottom and dropped to his leg. He didn't notice it.

  She turned around to stare at the house and noticed for the first time another door, about ten feet to the left of the back door. She got up, asking, "Where's this go?"

  Joey sat staring at his food. He stayed put as she reached the door, turned the handle. It was locked, but she pushed against the door anyway. It didn't budge.

  Just then Joey laughed and pointed.

  "Look, Liz," he said, smiling, "a naked woman!"

  Liz looked and sure enough there was a naked woman, an old naked woman from the looks, staring at them from the window of her apartment in the building just across the alley from the Kitch house.

  "Joey, don't look at that!" She tried not to laugh. Liz covered Joey's face and the old woman ducked behind her curtain. Her face peeked out again, just enough for her to see Liz was still trying not to watch.

  "Come on," Liz said. "I think we can go inside now."

  "Did you see her?" Joey laughed. "She was naked." He laughed with childish hilarity and almost dropped his plate. A cookie slid toward the side, but stuck in a smear of peanut butter. Joey kept laughing as Liz carried him in and set him on the couch. She plugged in the television, then went looking through the maze of junk for the DVD player and Joey‘s cartoons.

  Jack came into the room, tossing the flashlight onto the couch, asking, "What's so funny?" She told him and Jack said, "Great. Nice to know we picked the good neighborhood."

  "Did you find your keys?"

  "No. I'm going to have to take the vent cover off and get down there myself. Those keys are down there, I just can't see them from up here."

  "Why don't you just make copies of mine?"

  "Because my keys would still be down there and it would bug me."

  "I see," she said. She spotted the DVD player and pulled it from the box it had been stuffed into. She was unraveling the cord when she remembered, "Do you know where that other door outside leads?"

  "What other door?"

  She told him and Jack said, "That goes to the laundry room. It's downstairs."

  "There's another floor?" she asked.

  "Two, actually," he explained. "The basement has two levels. The laundry room on one, and then another level down to the furnace and the water heater.”

  "This house is just too big. And you have to go outside to get to it?"

  "No," he laughed. "You can get outside from the laundry room. There's a door by the stairs in the hall that leads down."

  Liz shook her head at the floor and asked, "How did I miss all
this stuff? I was up before you, I looked around. I was even outside earlier this morning. I'm just not paying attention to anything." She searched for an outlet to plug the television into.

  "There's one by the window," Jack said, then. "You just gotta realize, babe, I got the brains of the marriage, you got the body."

  "Oh, so I'm stupid, but hot, right?" She plugged in the television, then set the DVD player on top of it, hooked it up, and plugged it in.

  "Hey, I didn't say stupid."

  "You didn't have to." As she talked, she tried to find the box with Joey's cartoons. She should have packed them with the DVD player.

  "What I meant was, um, see, uh, what I--"

  "That's okay," Liz smiled. "I know what you were trying to say. We'll just leave it like it is for now." Jack groaned and frowned at Liz. She raised her eyebrows at him, then turned toward the bedroom. "You can look for Joey's movies. I'm gonna do some unpacking."

  "Do you want to go out for a little bit instead?" Jack asked.

  Liz stopped in the doorway. "What did you have in mind?"

  Jack shrugged. "Just a drive around. I've got a week until I start work, we might as well get as used to Angel Hill as we can."

  Liz shook her head. "Naw, I'd just as soon get this mess out of the way. But why don't you take Joey for a ride around town? When you get back, I should have the bedrooms livable and then I'll start dinner."

  Jack asked Joey if he wanted to go and Joey leapt at the chance.

  Liz started by shoving her dresser into place against the wall and filling it with her clothes. Jack's dresser would go against the opposite wall, on his side of the bed. She put the clothes away and made the bed. She was about to start on the bedside table, setting the clock, locating outlets for the lamps, when the front door slid open then clicked shut. She yelled, "You guys are back soon. I'll be done here in a minute. Why don't you start on Joey's room while I'm cooking?"