by Jenny Goebel
Next thing I knew, I was dreaming about lying in a bed (which, incidentally, is never a good opening for a dream because it makes what is real and what isn’t all fuzzy and blurred from the very beginning). Again, a smelting pot spewed fire in the darkness. I realized then that my bed was nothing more than a simple cot in the corner, and the floor of the room, dirt. On the cobblestone wall hung charcoal drawings: grotesque images that forced me to turn my head away. They were nothing like my own sketches. I always tried to capture life; these seemed to have the opposite intent.
Then a man stepped out of the shadows. His back was to the flame and he was holding something in each hand, though I couldn’t tell what in the dark. He moved forward again and moonlight fell through the window and lit his face. I could see a beard clinging to his chin like a furry marmot.
Suddenly, I was flat on my back in my own bed, and in place of the bearded man stood Mr. Stein. There were tools in his hands, moonlit and sharp — cutting the night with flashes of silver. He carried them toward me. I was frozen, unable to blink an eye, as Mr. Stein pressed the iron chisel to my chest, and raised the hammer high in the air — ready to strike.
I awoke with a scream in my throat and the feeling of cold metal on the skin just above my thumping heart. But that wasn’t the most disturbing part. In that murky place between sleep and wakefulness, I saw her standing at the foot of my bed. The beautiful woman was not any part of my nightmare. She was in my room. My room — with its purple curtains and sea-foam-green walls. She was REAL.
I grabbed the portrait from my nightstand. It trembled in my shaking hands.
“Who are you?” I asked. But when I looked again she was gone, and in her place was only darkness.
I sat awake for the rest of the night, just staring at the woman’s portrait, the memory of her apparition playing over and over in my mind. When the morning light finally came creeping in through the window, I quickly changed into a pair of jean shorts and layered a couple of tank tops. But even though the heat of the room had never left, and the day was set to be a scorcher, the chill of the night, and the portrait before that, lingered with me. Apparently, I couldn’t strip off my nightmares as easily as I could my pajamas.
My knees felt wobbly as I stumbled down the hallway to Mama’s door. I stopped outside. It was too early to bring in her tray, but Dad (who always rises before dawn) was sure to have left the room already.
I cracked the door open and slid inside.
Mama was asleep. I could hear her long, deep breaths, and I was thankful her night seemed to have been better than my own. I stood by her bedside, gazing down at her face. It was smooth. Her features didn’t yet hold the ache of remembering, and I realized how badly I needed to see her like this. How badly I needed to see her at peace this morning.
Then my mama’s lips parted, and she whispered my brother’s name in her sleep. It came out full and sweetly heavy, her lips twitching up at the corners as she said it.
I winced.
Her dream wasn’t plagued with smelting pots and cold, sharp chisels. She was having a pleasant dream about my brother, Thomas — named after Saint Thomas, of course. My brother who would forever be worthy of his saintly name, and never have it shortened to Tom or Tommy. I felt the sharp stab of jealousy.
Mama rolled over in her sleep, still wrapped warmly in her dreams of soft baby skin and dimpled chubby knees. It was time for me to leave. If she were to awaken while I was standing there, I’d have to watch as the truth came flooding back. I couldn’t bear that.
Michael was sitting at the kitchen table chatting with Mimi when I finally made it downstairs. The sight of him threw me back a little, but I didn’t know why. Seemed like everything happening lately was unexpected; what was one more surprise? I plopped down in the seat beside him.
Mimi clasped her hands together. “Oh my, I’ll just carry this out for Mr. Stein.” She hopped up and grabbed a tray stacked with blueberry pancakes. “So the two of you can have some time alone.” Mimi leaned in close to me on her way out the door. “Nice family, the Romanos,” she whispered.
I didn’t even want to know what was going on in Mimi’s head. She hadn’t seen what I had. She knew nothing of Mr. Stein’s milky eyes and strange behavior. Nor did she know enough to question the strange timing of Mrs. Finley’s and Sam Fuller’s portraits. She probably just saw Michael being here as some sort of old-fashioned courting. I shuddered. If any thought could be worse than the truth — that was it.
I slid a pancake onto my plate and busied myself sprinkling it with powdered sugar from a ceramic bowl shaped like a rooster. Next, I cut a bite off the pancake with my fork. It never made it to my mouth, though, ’cause as soon as Mimi left the room, Michael was grabbing at my arm. Blood raced to my face, and for a horrible second, I thought Mimi wasn’t the only one who saw this as some sort of date.
“Don’t even think about running,” Michael hissed as he released my arm.
“What?” I dropped the fork and it clanked against my plate. For the first time since before we’d spied Mr. Stein etching or whatever it was he was doing in the carriage house, a smile almost reached my lips.
“Every time I see you, you bolt. I was scared, too, you know? You took off with that portrait and … and … I was worried about you.” Michael’s face was as straight as I’d ever seen it. Not a hint of humor anywhere.
I sat there just blinking for a moment. I wasn’t sure what to think of Michael Romano looking so serious. But he was wrong. I wasn’t thinking about running. I was thinking about telling him to get lost so I could eat my pancake in peace and move on from my nighttime nightmare to a more frightening, daytime one. One where I had to figure out what to do about Mr. Stein living in my backyard.
“Don’t worry,” I grumbled. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Are you okay? Did Mr. Stein come after you, or what?”
I thought about my dream and shifted in my seat. “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
Michael was still looking all tight-lipped and white in the face. He brushed my hand lightly with his fingers. I noticed his fingernails were clean, pink, and neatly clipped. Funny. I would’ve pegged him for a dirt-under-the-nails kind of guy.
I slid my fingers back. Couldn’t he just tell a joke or jab me with one of his insults? The last thing I needed was for him to be acting all nice.
“Don’t mind me,” Mimi sang into the kitchen. “I just need to grab a dishcloth. Sloshed a little orange juice, see?” The way Mimi was beaming at the two of us, I was certain she’d seen the hand brushing but had not caught anything else.
I shoved a bite of pancake in my mouth, and Mimi, after retrieving the cloth hanging by the sink, left the room again.
“Is there somewhere around here we can talk?” Michael said, watching my grandmother leave.
I shook my head. “Dad and Mimi will be walking through all day.” And even though I didn’t mention it, there was no way he was coming up to my room. Mimi may have liked him and all, but she would undoubtedly draw the line at that.
“We’ll go to my place, then. Mom’s on shift. She won’t be home until late this afternoon.”
I nodded and took another bite of pancake. The soft, squishy blueberry inside warmed my mouth, but nothing else. Considering the shivers still running through me, I didn’t much feel like arguing with Michael. “Okay.” This time I carefully set my fork down beside my plate.
We both rose from the kitchen table. “Wait right here,” I said. Since I finally had the woman’s portrait in my possession, the last thing I wanted to do was leave it behind. By the time I returned to the kitchen with it tucked inside my school bag, Mimi was back from delivering Mr. Stein’s breakfast.
She looked me up and down from behind her spectacles, and I felt myself waver under her glare. Could Mimi see the dark fear that had planted itself in my heart and had been growing there ever since Mr. Stein moved in?
�
��Don’t worry about the lunch trays or cleaning up the showroom today, Bernie. I can take care of it all myself,” she said, apparently finished with the fine-tooth combing she’d been giving me with her eyes. “You look a little pale. And tired. Maybe I’ve been working you too hard. I’m sure you could use a day off with a … friend.”
Dumping my chores on her, in addition to all she had to do, wasn’t exactly part of the plan for bringing my family back together, but I had more pressing concerns. “Thanks, Mimi,” I said. “You’re right, I could.”
Michael bounced his toes on the floor and kept glancing at the pogo stick leaning against his dresser. I guess you could call it progress. As annoying as his jiggling was, at least he was sitting down.
We didn’t fully buy the trance story or that the timing of Sam Fuller’s portrait had been a coincidence. But it didn’t take long to realize neither of us was gonna come up with anything short of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. And I hadn’t even mentioned the lady appearing in my room at the crack of dawn.
I sat stiffly on the yellow-and-orange striped comforter draped sloppily over Michael’s bed. (I had to give him credit, though, for at least trying to make it.) Sitting across from me in a chair, Michael went from bouncing his knees to drumming his fingers on a small wooden desktop. I looked carefully at his hand again. This time I noticed not only his clean fingernails, but his long, wide fingers as well — they seemed almost out of proportion on his skinny wrist. Like five fat popsicles on a single stick. I don’t know why, but I imagined sketching them.
Michael noticed me watching, and I quickly turned my head away, moving my gaze around his room instead. He seemed to like his stuff like he liked his life — busy. There was a marble track on the floor, a model airplane on the desk behind him, photographs of buildings and architectural drawings all over the walls, one of those scientific weather barometers, a chessboard, and a whole load of other stuff I didn’t recognize. Still, as much stuff as there was, it seemed more or less organized.
I stood up from my place at the end of the bed, stepped over a rogue pair of boxer shorts that looked like they might’ve accidently slipped out of his dresser (a sight I immediately tried to erase from my memory) and walked over to a row of photo frames on his headboard. Michael riding a roller coaster … Michael outside a large sports arena … Michael on a baseball team. Moving to Stratwood, where the biggest event was a farmers’ market in the middle of town, must’ve been really rough. No wonder he thought springing around on a pogo stick was a good idea. He had to come up with something to do.
I picked up a photo of a spunky-looking girl in a cheerleading uniform. “Your girlfriend?” I asked.
Michael burst into a sudden, tear-spilling belly roll of a laugh. I stood waiting. Just like with his eruption of laughter upon jumping out from behind one of the backyard headstones, I was not nearly as amused. Finally, he gathered himself enough to say, “That’s my cousin, Giovanna.”
Cousins always seemed liked a good idea to me, maybe ’cause I didn’t have any. “You two close?” I asked.
That sent Michael into another fit of laughter. “Giovanna’s only close to herself. She gave me that photo as a Christmas present.”
“I see your point.”
“And she lives in Silverton, so I don’t see her much,” Michael added.
“Silverton?”
“Uh-huh, why?”
“That’s where Mr. Stein said he was from.”
Michael stood up now, too, all traces of laughter gone from his face. “Oh yeah? Why didn’t you say so? C’mon.”
Michael’s house was quiet as we stepped into the hallway. No humming sandblasting machine, no one bustling around in the kitchen, either. Michael said he had three older brothers, but they stayed behind in the city, and his dad traveled back and forth between the two for business. I imagine, except for when Michael’s blabbermouth filled it with noise, his home was pretty peaceful.
As I followed Michael to the study down the hall, I noticed I’d finally sloughed off the chills. A feeling of warmth seemed to come not from the air, but from family photos on the wall and a board game on the coffee table. From a long-haired cat curled up on the couch purring softly and three pairs of running shoes lined up by the front door. There was clutter, for sure, but it was the happy-making kind.
Inside the study, Michael reached up to open the cabinet above a massive oak desk. I stood close to him as he pulled on the brass knob. He smelled like a mixture of soap and freshly peeled oranges. He smelled nice. I frowned at myself for thinking so.
Michael withdrew a phone book.
“Why do you have the yellow pages for Silverton?” I asked, shaking off whatever had come over me.
Michael looked at me with his big, dark eyes. “My mom’s a cop, remember? So is Giovanna’s dad. Crime does cross city lines from time to time.”
Michael flipped to the section for Ss.
“Give it to me,” I said. “Don’t you even know how to use a phone book? These are business listings. Not personal ones.” I turned to the M page looking for monument companies. There was a slight chance that if Mr. Stein had really worked for one, his name would appear somewhere on an advertisement.
“There’s none here,” I said, disappointed.
“What about that one?” Michael pointed to an ad for National Insurance on the opposite page.
“I hardly think Mr. Stein worked for an insurance company,” I said, starting to close the book.
“Then what’s his name doing there?” Michael held the book open and pressed his fat finger down on a line of the ad I hadn’t seen before. Sure enough, Abbot Stein was listed as the local insurance agent for National Insurance.
“Nah. Who’d buy life insurance from a man who looks like a murderer himself?” I said. “It’s gotta be a different Mr. Stein.”
“We could call the number and ask,” said Michael.
“Yeah, and what are you gonna say? ‘Hey, are you the scary man living in the Morrisons’ carriage house who etches headstone portraits with lightning speed?’”
Michael shrugged and picked up the phone to dial. After six or seven rings, he set it back down. “Answering machine.”
“What did I tell you?”
“Maybe he didn’t answer because he is living in your backyard instead of in Silverton.”
“Yeah, or maybe the guy’s just out for lunch.” I looked at the hands on the old-fashioned clock hanging on the wall, both pointing straight up. “I should take off.”
Michael gave me a look that was half hurt, half confused. “Mimi said you didn’t have to be back for lunch-tray duty.”
“It’s not that …” I said. I didn’t want to explain what a rare thing it was for me to have an afternoon off. And I certainly didn’t want him to know how I was planning to spend it.
“Well,” said Michael. His big-footed sneaker twisted back and forth on the carpet. Was he nervous or something? “Can I walk you, wherever it is you’re going?” he spat out at last.
“Heck, no,” I said, more out of reflex than anything. Then, when I saw the hurt on his face grow, I added, “Maybe next time, okay? I just want to be alone right now.”
Michael nodded. He was still looking glum when he saw me to the front door and carefully shut it behind me. For a second, I almost felt guilty. Then I remembered this was Michael Romano we were talking about. Why should I feel bad about disappointing him?
THERE’S A CERTAIN KIND OF CHARM TO A CEMETERY. THE trees are tall and strong — no weak young saplings you can’t depend upon for shade. The grass is green and cut weekly. And it’s quiet. Always quiet. The perfect place for thinking.
The older monuments sit on a hill along the back side of Stratwood cemetery. They were placed there long before Grandpa started the family headstone business. I could just barely make out the split pillars, crooked crosses, and concrete angels sinking into the ground from where I was standing. The newer ones, those sold by our very own Alpine Monuments, were set in nea
t rows — standing straight and proud. But, to be honest, the warmth from Michael’s house had worn off, and I was feeling more like the old headstones — cracked and sinking under the weight of it all.
Yes, this thing all started with Mr. Stein, and, of course, I didn’t like him none. But there was more to it than that. Stuff I didn’t understand. I knew Mr. Stein was etching portraits in some bizarre manner that seemed connected to the deaths of Mrs. Finley and Sam Fuller and possibly even the woman from the portrait, but how? And was it really Mr. Stein that ran a chill so deep down my spine? A chill so cold I could feel it even with the sun directly overhead. Maybe it wasn’t Mr. Stein. Maybe it was simply Death himself.
I knew people probably thought Death was a friend to the Morrison family, bringing us so much business and all. But really, our family had been chewed up and spit out by it more than most. We knew all too well how Death, like Mr. Stein, could be an unwanted guest — rarely seen, but a dark presence just the same. A darkness my mama could never seem to shake.
I moved easily through the sea of headstones, as I knew my way well, finally stopping at our family monument. Grandpa picked it out decades ago, the very week he started Alpine Monuments. He thought that being the owners of the local monument company and all, we should have the most impressive monument in the cemetery.
And it is.
It stood at least a foot taller than the rest and twice as large — large enough to someday honor the entire family. Two inscriptions so far … Plenty of polished stone just waiting for more gray lines to be carved out like ditches in the jet-black granite. I’d often wished Grandpa had picked something in green or pink instead of black — you know, to soften the blow. Make Death seem more colorful. Even if it isn’t.
I glanced at the two names on the stone and tried to keep my focus on what was above the ground, instead of below. Suddenly I didn’t feel like standing or thinking anymore, so I took a seat on a cement bench at a nearby grave site. I sat there awhile, watching the trees sway in the breeze. Smelling the dampness of the fresh-cut grass and listening to the hum of the afternoon traffic helped me forget about everything else.