by Gina Ranalli
“Wow,” Saul said, clearly amazed Karen was being permitted to touch the stray. “First time I’ve seen that.” He watched a moment longer before the general oddness of the situation dawned on him. He seemed to realize the state Karen was in and asked, “What happened?”
She was unsure of how to respond, knowing the truth would never be believed. “I got a little lost in the woods,” she said finally.
He frowned. “Why did you go in there?”
Karen nodded at Dusty. “I went after her.”
“And you caught her?” Saul was clearly amazed at this turn of events.
“Not exactly, but she did show me the way out again.”
“Cool,” he nodded. “I told you she was a smart one.”
Smarter than you think, Karen said to herself. Surviving in these possessed woods for so long on her own. She asked, “You guys find an open window?”
“No.” He forgot himself, probably thinking it was awkward to have a conversation with someone who stood about thirty feet away from him, and took a step forward. Immediately, Dusty began barking again and Saul stopped, holding up his hands in surrender. “Sorry,” he said loudly over the din. “I’m not moving.”
Karen smiled a little at this and when Dusty finally stopped barking, said, “We girls have to stick together.”
Chuckling, Saul said, “I guess so. But anyway, no, we didn’t find an open window, which was weird because, according to Rory, nothing was locked.”
She made a face, her hand still moving methodically over the dog. “What does that mean, nothing was locked?”
“Just what I said. Up until a week or so ago, Rory was keeping all the windows open to air out the place. The smell of must and mold in there was nauseating. But when it started getting cold, he just closed the windows without locking them.”
“That seems kind of dangerous,” she said. “Anyone could have come in.” The thought excited her for a moment, thinking they’d discovered how someone could have entered the house and remained hidden, coming out only to toy with them when they were otherwise occupied. Then she remembered the forest, the trees that had moved to block her path and surround her like a pack of predators circling their prey.
“Nah,” Saul said. “No one comes out here, which I guess is why he thought leaving everything open in the first place would be okay.”
“What about animals? He could have come back to find a family of raccoons had taken up residence.”
Saul shrugged. “Either that didn’t enter his mind or he didn’t think it would happen. And it didn’t. The point is, everything was unlocked when we all came out here and then, seconds later, the entire house was locked. From the inside.”
The thought gave Karen a chill. “How could that be?”
“He thinks what you were saying before might be true now. That there really is someone in the house.”
She shivered, despite not quite believing in that theory herself any more. Moving as slowly as she could without alarming the dog, she stood up, brushing herself off. Various parts of her body shrieked their protest but she just couldn’t sit on the ground any more. She could only look at Saul, uncertain of how to respond. “What do you think?” she asked at last.
Running a hand through his thick dark hair, he said, “I don’t know what to think. Maybe he locked everything up and just forgot.”
“And the front door just bolted itself behind us?”
He shook his head, obviously frustrated. “Beats the shit out of me.” He gave the stubble on his cheek a quick rub before adding, “But I can’t think of another explanation.”
“Another explanation besides the one that the door did it itself?”
“Oh, I don’t think the door did it, exactly.”
“No? Then what?”
Saul shuffled his feet like a little boy being forced to confess to having cheated on a math test. “I come from a long line of…uh…I guess you’d say superstitious people.”
Karen nodded encouragingly. “A lot of people do.”
“Yeah, but my family…let’s just say there was a lot of talk about spirits and spells, cursing someone with the evil eye, that kind of thing.”
“Old world stuff, huh?”
“You could say that, yeah.”
“And you believe in that that sort of thing?”
“Well, it’s kinda hard not to when it’s being shoved down your throat from the time you can understand words. I mean, I’ve tried to put it behind me…I know it’s a bunch of superstitious crap…but there’s this little part of me…” He trailed off, sounding a tad guilty to Karen.
“A part of you that can’t escape it?” she volunteered.
“A part of me that wonders. What if it’s not bullshit? What if we really do share the world with things we can’t see?”
“Spirits, you mean?”
He nodded. “Or demons.”
Karen thought this over. “If that were true, then there would have to be angels as well.”
“You don’t believe in angels?”
She looked down at the dog still standing beside her, watching Saul with tense wariness.
“Actually,” she said, “I think I do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rory had regained access to the B&B by breaking a window at the back of the house, unlocking it and crawling in among the broken glass. Somehow he had escaped this feat without sustaining a single scratch.
He sat moodily at the table, watching the dog lying at Karen’s feet. It had taken her nearly a whole hour and an entire package of hotdogs to coax the dog inside the house and even then, only if the men remained what the dog must have considered a safe distance away.
As it was, Karen had had to pull her chair to the other side of the room, sitting in front of the stove while the men remained at the table. It was awkward, but Dusty would not go any closer to them, so Karen made do, holding a bowl of canned chili on her lap.
She had no idea why the dog had chosen to trust her but supposed it might have had something to do with the event in the woods. Perhaps Dusty had sensed Karen’s vulnerability and therefore concluded they were kindred spirits. At least, this is what Karen wanted to believe, as she herself felt as though she and the dog were somehow linked now, after having been chased through the woods by God only knew what. If nothing else, she knew the dog knew the truth. She wasn’t crazy. These things really were happening, as impossible as that seemed. It also helped to know Saul wasn’t above questioning what could or couldn’t be real. Rory, on the other hand, was at a loss. He still didn’t want to quite believe a stranger was hidden away in the house somewhere, nor was he willing to acknowledge anything supernatural was going on.
“Well,” Saul said, licking chili sauce from his lips. “I think maybe we should just go back to town for a while. Settle our nerves a bit.”
“I don’t need to settle my nerves,” Rory said. “What I need is to figure out what the fuck is going on. Who defaced those photographs? They’re antiques, for Christ’s sake! Irreplaceable!”
Dusty growled low in her throat without bothering to lift her head from her paws. Rory scowled at the dog before continuing. “I have to get to the bottom of this.”
“How can you get to the bottom of something when you don’t even know what’s going on?” Karen asked.
“I’m starting to get an idea,” he replied.
Both Karen and Saul looked up from their bowls with surprise. Rory said, “I’ve never felt particularly welcomed in this town. The only reason The Lantern does as well as it does is because they have nowhere else to go. But, with this place…well, let’s just say that the townsfolk don’t really see the point. As far as they’re concerned, it’ll just be a nuisance, bringing strangers into their town. They don’t care very much for strangers. Not to mention, it’s probably crossed their minds that a fag will probably only attract more fags. Before they know it, Fallen Trees will be a great northern gay Mecca, like P-town is on the East Coast.”
Raising
her eyebrows, Karen said, “You think this is about homophobia?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? Most things are.”
“That’s not true at all,” Saul protested. “There are plenty of people in Fallen Trees who like you and aren’t the slightest bit homophobic.”
Rory shook his head, pushing his bowl away from him. “No, they like you, Saul. They don’t like me. They tolerate me, but maybe the idea of this B&B is something they can no longer tolerate.”
“Okay, hold up,” Karen said. “I thought it would be rude to ask before but, Saul, are you gay?”
He playfully wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Why? You want to go on a date?”
“Very funny,” she replied.
“Actually,” he said. “I hate labels, but I suppose in order not to blow minds too much I just say I’m bi.”
She nodded, took another bite of her chili.
“That’s it?” Saul asked. “You’re not gonna say anything about it?”
Karen swallowed. “What’s to say?”
“I figured you might say, ‘I knew it all along’ or ‘I had no idea’. Something along those lines.”
“I didn’t know it all along,” she responded. “How could I have?”
“It’s because you’re so ‘straight-acting’,” Rory told him, actually smiling a little for a change.
“Screw you,” Saul said. To Karen he said, “Rory knows how much I hate that term. ‘Straight-acting.’ If there’s one thing that’ll turn me off about a guy, it’s when he calls another guy ‘straight-acting.’ It irks the shit outta me.”
With no idea how to respond to this, Karen thought it best to say nothing and took another bite of chili. She wondered vaguely if Sean had been ‘straight-acting’.
“Maybe we should get back to the issue at hand,” Rory said. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore.”
“I thought we were talking about your persecution complex,” Saul said.
Rory wasn’t amused. After a long sigh, he said, “Okay. I think I’m just gonna go to bed now. I’m beat and frankly, I need some time away from you two ghost busters.”
Saul and Karen exchanged a glance.
“Who said anything about ghosts?” Saul asked as Rory stood up and brought his bowl to the sink.
“I heard you talking outside,” Rory replied. “Spirits and all that shit. Give me a break.”
The statement seemed to make Saul bristle. “You got another explanation?”
“No,” Rory said. “Not yet. But I will find out what’s going on and I can guarantee that it won’t have anything to do with spookies.”
“Spookies?” Saul asked.
Rory ran water into his bowl, wiped his hands on a dish towel. “Superstitions. Whatever you want to call them. You guys need to think about this. Think about how silly that sounds.”
“Given the things that are happening,” Karen piped in. “I don’t think it’s silly at all.”
“Well,” Rory told her. “That’s where you and I differ. There’s always a rational explanation, even if you don’t know what it is.”
Saul laughed, a jagged sound. “The house locking us out in seconds flat? You have a ‘rational explanation’ for that?”
Rory took several seconds to answer. “No,” he said finally. “I’ll admit that’s weird. And I guess maybe Karen was right all along. Someone was in the house.”
“I think I was wrong, actually,” Karen said, setting her bowl on the stovetop and reaching for her water glass. “I agree with your earlier assessment. No one could be in here without us being aware of their presence. No living person anyway.”
This time, Rory actually laughed and to Karen, it sounded like genuine amusement, which didn’t please her.
“Are you hearing yourself?” Rory asked. “‘No living person.’” He laughed again. “I have to keep reminding myself you’re a writer.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
He shrugged. “You have an over-active imagination? That’s what Sean always said.”
Karen didn’t like where this was going. Not one bit. She rose to her feet and the dog abruptly stood up with her, on alert. “Sean said that? What else did he say?”
Rory shifted his weight uncomfortably, then lifted his chin. “He said that he sometimes worried about your… stability.”
“Is that so?” Karen couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice now. “My stability?”
“He said you’ve always been anti-social and he thought it wasn’t good for you. That you spent way too much time in your head and had forgotten how to be with people. How to relate to other humans.”
“Sounds like he said quite a bit.”
“Not really. That was pretty much the gist of it.”
The two of them stood staring at each other, neither one wanting to be the first to drop their gaze.
Saul watched the exchange nervously and cleared his throat. “I think I need a drink.”
Rory glared at Karen a moment longer, then said, “You know where the whiskey is. Good night to both of you.” Dusty growled again, lowering her head slightly. Grinning sourly down at the dog, Rory said, “And goodnight to you too, Precious.” He flashed a last challenging glance at Karen before turning away and leaving the room. Karen, Saul, and Dusty all listened to his retreat as his footfalls faded away.
“Holy shit,” Saul said a moment later. “That was awkward.”
Karen chuckled. She couldn’t help it. “You think?”
He stood, stretched, brought his bowl to the sink and faced her. “Care to join me in a little libation?”
She smiled at him, couldn’t help but notice just how damned attractive he really was. “Hell, yes, I would. You wouldn’t happen to have a joint to go along with it, would ya?”
Saul laughed. “I’m afraid not.”
“Cigar? Cigarette?”
“Nope. Sorry. I like pretty pink lungs, personally. I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I don’t. But it sure as fuck seems like a good time to start.”
“Yeah,” he said as he reached in a cabinet for a bottle of Jack. “I hear that.” They brought the bottle and two glasses into the living room and settled together on the sofa. Neither one of them scolded the dog when she jumped onto the lounger and curled up, ever watchful and wary.
The silence as they drank was surprisingly comfortable, each lost in their own thoughts for the first several swallows of the burning whiskey.
Karen felt another headache coming on and hoped the booze would stave it off for a while. At least she didn’t feel particularly sleepy at the moment, which, as far as she was concerned, could only be a good thing.
Sitting beside her with his glass held on one knee, Saul used his free hand to rub his nose every fifteen seconds or so until Karen giggled.
“You know what they say about an itchy nose, don’t you?” she asked.
He squinted at her. “No, what?”
“You’re either going to kiss a lover or get into a fight.” She smiled coyly around the rim of her glass as she tipped it to her mouth.
Saul gave this some consideration before saying, “Well, we’re not lovers, so I guess I’d better put on my boxing gloves.”
“Ouch.” She could already feel the alcohol making her bolder than she would have been otherwise. But was she really attracted to Saul? Or was it just the circumstances? True, he was a nice guy, and very good looking, but still. She knew she couldn’t deal with even a hint of romantic entanglement right now. In fact, she didn’t think she’d be equipped to handle romance in her everyday life. Not for quite some time.
Grinning mischievously, Saul said, “You think I’m hot, don’t you?”
“Ha! Don’t flatter yourself, bi-boy.”
He laughed and Dusty’s ears pricked up as she watched them from across the room.
Saul’s laughter was cut short as he rubbed his nose again. “Damn. My nose is so fucking itchy.”
She giggled again. “I have no id
ea why I find that to be so amusing.”
Ignoring her, Saul put his glass on the floor and then rubbed his nose vigorously before moving on to scratch his head, then reaching down to his right shin and rubbing at it through the denim of his jeans.
Karen stopped laughing as he scratched at his neck. “Are you allergic to anything?”
“Not that I know of,” he said, back to using his whole palm to rub his nose. “This is fucked up.”
Dusty lifted her head and whined at them.
Karen looked at the dog, then back to Saul. “You’re not allergic to dogs are you?”
“Hell, no. I’ve had dogs my whole life.”
“Do you have a dog now?” She was fairly certain he didn’t. She’d spent her first night in Washington at his house and had seen no evidence of a dog.
“No.” He was using his right hand to scratch at the inner part of his left wrist. “Fuck. Maybe I should go take a shower.”
“Do you know if there’s any Benadryl in the house?” Karen asked. “That’s usually the best thing if it’s an allergic reaction.”
“I don’t know. Can you scratch my back, please? Left shoulder blade.”
“Sure.” Karen put her glass down as he twisted on the sofa. She pulled up his shirt, exposing a perfectly toned brown back with a dark tribal sun tattoo in the upper center of it.
She scratched his back where he directed, moving from his shoulder blade down to the left side of his ribcage, then up to the other shoulder blade and back again. Saul groaned, she couldn’t tell if it was in frustration or pleasure. He was still busily trying to scratch half a dozen other parts of his body while she worked on his back.
“God dammit,” he cursed. “What the fuck…”
Dusty jumped off the lounger and gave Karen a pleading look, whimpering quietly. Karen said, “I think I’d better take the dog out. You said she’s not housebroken and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Rory wouldn’t appreciate any dog accidents on his antique rugs.”
“Yeah,” Saul nodded, though she didn’t think he was listening to her at all.
She watched him trying to scratch everywhere at once for a few seconds longer before getting to her feet. “If you don’t want to look for the allergy med, I’ll see if I have any in my bag when I get back, okay?”