Hideaway

by Nicole Lundrigan

  “Complaint? Sort out what?”

  “Your ex-husband has some concerns.”

  Gloria did a snort. “I don’t have an ex-husband, Detective. I have a husband. He just don’t live here right now.”

  “Well, your estranged husband.”

  Aunt Erma took some steps closer to Gloria, but Gloria waved her hand and Aunt Erma stopped. “What’s Telly been saying?”

  “That you’re harassing him. And harassing his lady friend.”

  “His laaay-dy friend.” She made a little laugh. “That’s what he’s calling it?”

  The man frowned and he took a notebook from his pocket. He opened it up. “Seems you’ve been calling his work nonstop. Owner had to go through the expense of having his number changed. And frequently trespassing at his place of employment. Leaving threatening notes in and on his truck. Threatening messages under the windshield wipers of his girlfriend’s car, and engaging the dental services of his girlfriend pretending to be a customer in order to make slanderous statements. Making slanderous statements to his friends. Making slanderous statements to customers as they approach the business. Following them while they run errands or have lunch.” He looked up from his notebook. “Do you want me to go on?”

  Gloria shook her head. “I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “None of this sounds familiar?”

  “No, sir. Not one bit. You know what my day is? Worrying to death over my son, spending too much time at my own work, and trying to look after my daughter. If that witch said all that, she needs her head examined. She’s jealous whenever Telly and I have a moment. And believe me, we’ve had plenty. Maybe you should get that Susan lady to talk to her.”

  The man scritched his head with the top of his pen. “Mrs. Janes, I know you’re going through a whole lot right now, and I’m here as a courtesy. But you need to know, if you’re engaged in any of these activities I mentioned, that is harassment. There are laws against it. You need to leave them alone.”

  Gloria looked at him for a long time. Then she said, “I’m not doing nothing, Detective Aiken. I barely got time to get milk.”

  He turned around and opened his car door. Before he got in he said, “I’d suggest you put that fire out. Wind’s picking up.”

  Then they drove away. Darrell let go of my hand. He got the hose and squirted water in the middle of the fire. It made a sissing sound. “Come on, Darrell,” Aunt Erma said. “We best get on home.” Gloria went over to the fire and crouched down. She picked up a handful of wet ashes and squeezed them hard. Drops of dirty water dripped out of her fist.

  MAISY

  On the weekend the man came back. He and the same policeman got out of the car with the star on the side, and Gloria rushed out through our happy, happy yellow door.

  “Not more complaints! I haven’t even left—”

  “No, ma’am,” the man said. Today his tie was just black. “We’ve come to give you an update on the recovery efforts.”

  “Recovery efforts?” Gloria said. “When it should be search efforts. You should be searching instead of splashing around in some lake. You’re not trying to find my son.” She folded her arms over her chest.

  The man looked at the police officer and said, “Our men have been working day and night, but after some consultation, the dive team has suspended the search.”

  “I told you he’s not in there.”

  “Ma’am. The conditions are too difficult. We’re truly sorry. We wanted nothing more than to bring your boy home to you.”

  Gloria sat in her rocking chair. She put her hands on her knees. “Where’s Telly? Is he coming? You need to tell him about this. He needs to know you decided to give up.”

  The man looked at the police officer again. “He’s been informed. We’ve spoken with him already.”

  “Already? So he’s not coming over? I need to talk to him.”

  “I don’t believe so, Mrs. Janes. And I wouldn’t advise you try to get in touch, given our conversation a few nights ago. If he wants to contact you, he knows where you are.”

  “I need to tell Telly it’s all lies. Until someone puts his body right in my arms, I won’t believe it. I’m not giving up hope on my family, even though you police people already have. How can you?”

  “Mrs. Janes—”

  “Go!” she yelled. Tears went down her face, and she pointed her finger. “You’ve done nothing to help. Get off my step.”

  “Of course,” the man said. “We’ll respect your privacy.”

  Gloria pulled me on her lap and squeezed me for a long time. Her back was shaking bad. “What am I going to do now, Bids? What am I going to do?” I leaned on her shoulder and closed my eyes. In my head I could see the men swimming around and around until they climbed out of the water and went home. Rowan always was the best at hide-and-seek. Even when he was dead.

  ROWAN

  I am under the bridge. I float away. I am under the bridge. I float away.

  Let me go home. Please let me go home.

  Footsteps come closer, then stop. A soft snap. Of wood? Of metal? A breeze across my face.

  Carl said it before. Stan is watching you. Stan is watching you now.

  I can feel him standing over me. Staring down at me. I swallow. My mouth is so dry.

  I slide my hand up, cover my head. My hair is crusted. Tin foil hat is gone. Carl made it because Dot insisted. To keep good thoughts in.

  Carl?

  I peer through slit eyes. But there is only darkness. A constant wind drones and clicks.

  I want to keep the good thoughts in. I do.

  And then I can hear Gloria. She is still talking on TV.

  “All we want is to have you home. Back with us.”

  See? Everyone misses me.

  My face rests against the wall of the bridge.

  Gloria looks straight at the camera, then. There is a rectangle of light behind her. “You shouldn’t have run away, Rowan.”

  I know. I know. I’m sorry.

  Carl? You need to let me go home. You need to help me.

  I shift my head. Stabs of pain bring it down. The ground smooth under my hands. Like thick plastic.

  Light flickers. A flashlight in my face? Sunlight?

  Turn it off. Turn it off.

  Foggy blackness again.

  I smell food. My stomach tightens, and I retch.

  Carl?

  Maisy was so afraid of you, but I explained.

  You’re not a bad person, you’re not.

  She thought you were a wolf.

  I swallow again.

  Are you a wolf?

  Echoing layers of laughter.

  Carl is laughing.

  Stan is laughing.

  Dot is laughing.

  Somewhere among this is Gloria’s bubbly laughter. The kind that makes her stomach shake. I can imagine her. Arms open, waiting to hug me.

  “Everything is going to work out. You’ll see. Me and Telly’ll make sure of it.”

  Gloria?

  My mind is going crazy.

  I need to go home.

  Carl? I’m going. I’m leaving.

  “Coming home?”

  Gloria is laughing her happy laugh again. Full of relief.

  I’m going to try.

  I know you miss me, Gloria.

  I sit up again. Too much pressure behind my eyes. I squeeze my head. Pain rocks through me. The plastic covering buckles, cracks open. I reach my hands out, stretch my fingers over, under. Trying to hold on.

  But I fall inside.

  MAISY

  “This is boring,” Shar said. She sat on the counter hitting the cupboard with her heels. “I’m so bored.”

  Gloria was gone to work again, and then Aunt Erma had to leave, so Darrell was watching me and Shar. But he was in his room with the door closed, like always. I pretended I didn’t hear Shar. I lifted up a book and covered my face. Aunt Erma bought it for Shar but Shar didn’t want to read it. She said it was a baby book, but it was
about a boy with freckles who made juice to get them gone.

  “I got an idea,” Shar said.

  “What.”

  She dropped off the counter and came close to me.

  “Let’s go talk to Rowan.”

  When she said his name my lips and fingers got fuzz. “Don’t say that,” I whispered.

  “I’m not joking.” She stuck her finger out and tapped me hard on the forehead. “Darrell’s got this board. You can talk to dead people. You know, ghosts or whatever.”

  Steam was puffing up behind her. Darrell had cooked us hot dogs for supper. He cut them all up on a plate with ketchup, and me and Shar stuck our forks in them. We smeared the ketchup all around and laughed. But the hot dog water was still boiling. He forgot to turn it off. The window behind it was gone foggy.

  “I don’t want to,” I said.

  “What a wimp.”

  “We’re not allowed to touch his stuff.”

  “Darrell says I can.”

  “No he don’t.”

  “You’re scared.” Shar was wearing a pink puppy sweatshirt. Some of the puppy was flaking off, and now it only had three legs.

  “Am not scared.”

  “Don’t you want to talk to Rowan?”

  I shook my head.

  “I mean if it was my brother, I’d want to talk to him. Right, Darrell?”

  Darrell was standing in the doorway.

  “I’m not your brother. And I wouldn’t want to talk to a little shit like you.”

  Shar laughed loud. “Yes, you would. You’d want to know if I was good.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. I dropped the book on the table. “Nothing’ll happen.”

  “You’ll see.” Then she said to Darrell, “Can we go get the board?”

  He picked at his earring. “Uh. Yeah. Sure.” He went over and turned off the hot dog water. “But don’t go poking around in my space.”

  Darrell’s room was dark. Stuff was everywhere. Crumpled-up papers and lumps of clothes and plates with food still on them. Their dog lived out in the yard now in a small gray house so he couldn’t help clean up. There was a red pillowcase stuck onto the wall with thumbtacks. Maybe there was a window behind it. It smelled like old milk in there. Not horrible. A little bit like Rowan’s room. I kept Rowan’s pillow hidden in my closet and sniffed it sometimes. But only when I really needed to though. I didn’t want to use it all up.

  On the night table, Shar found a tiny glass with stripes. Then she put a wooden game on the floor and turned the glass upside down on it.

  “Can we play in here?” I asked.

  “He don’t care,” Shar said. “He’s gone to the toilet. Sometimes he’s in there for an hour.”

  Me and Shar squatted down on the carpet. The board was all scritched up, but I could still see letters and numbers and goodbye on the bottom. Then Shar put two fingers on top of the glass. I reached out my hand but she said, “You don’t got to touch it. Just me.”

  “Anyone there?” Shar asked. The glass didn’t move. “Does anybody want to say something?” Still nothing happened.

  I didn’t like this, but I didn’t want to go. “Maybe there’s no one around,” I said.

  “Don’t be dumb, Maisy. There’s always someone around.” Then she said to me, “Go on. You say something.”

  I swallowed. “Hello?” All I could do was whisper.

  The glass started sliding. Slow. Up to P. Then faster to E. Then real quick to A, and R. It stopped on L.

  “Did you see that?” Shar said. “I wasn’t moving it. I swear I wasn’t.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Pearl.”

  “Like pearls?” I asked. “A necklace?”

  “I think that’s her name. Go on. Ask her a question.”

  I didn’t want to.

  “Do it before she leaves, Maisy.” Shar stuck her elbow in my ribs. “Do you think she got all day?”

  “Hi Pearl,” I said. It was weird talking to nothing. “I’m Maisy Janes.”

  Shar snorted. “You’re such an idiot,” she said. “Pearl don’t care who you are.” Then she put her nose almost on the board. She yelled, “Is Rowan there? We want to talk to Rowan.”

  The glass scraped over the wood. W. All the way over to A. Then back to T. It started going fast all over the place. My eyes couldn’t follow the letters.

  “I think it’s broken,” I said.

  “No it’s not. She said she’s watching him.”

  “What?”

  “Pearl said she’s watching Rowan.”

  Then it was spinning around. E then Y. The glass looked like it was flying away from Shar’s fingers.

  “Eyes,” Shar said. “Do ghosts got eyes?”

  My heart was tak-takking even faster. The glass started moving again, scrape, scrape, scrape. I saw what it spelled that time.

  “Bitch.” Shar slapped her leg with her other hand. “Good thing Aunt Erma’s not here. Pearl’s got a dirty mouth.”

  “You should stop moving it.”

  “Who says I’m moving it?”

  “It can’t move by itself.”

  “It can if there’s ghosts.”

  My hands were wet and my throat hurt. The hot dog chunks were hard in my middle. “I don’t want to play no more.”

  “This is fun, Maisy.” Shar got closer to the board again. “I said we want to talk to Rowan. Pearl. Get Rowan.”

  The glass didn’t move.

  “Now!” screamed Shar.

  Then slowly it scraped over to W.

  Shar called out the letters. “W-A-T-E-R. Oh my god. Water. She’s talking about Rowan. Being in the water. Drowned. Did you hear that, Maisy? Pearl knows how he died. This is real!”

  Shar called out more letters. “C-O-L-D. He’s cold. That means he’s cold.”

  I crunched up my knees. I tried not to listen.

  “Wait, it’s moving again. B-O-X. Did the man put him in a box?”

  “I want to stop,” I said.

  Shar yelled again, “Put Rowan on!” Then she spelled, “N-O-T.” And, “H-E-R-E.”

  “Stop, Shar.”

  “Well, where is he?” More scritching. “H-I-D-I-N-G.” Shar screamed, “Oh my god! Does he have a message for Maisy? His sister’s right here!” Shar scraped the glass all over the board. I watched close and it didn’t stop on any letters. Then it flew off the bottom right through goodbye.

  “You were pushing it, Shar. I saw you.”

  Shar looked at me and her finger made a cross on her chest. “I swear, Maisy. I swear on your life, I wasn’t trying to move it. I was just helping it go where it wanted to go.”

  “Then what did she say?”

  “Help him,” Shar said.

  “What?”

  “She said, Help him!”

  Even though Shar was laughing and said I should see the look on my own face, the hair on my skin went straight up.

  MAISY

  I ran out of Darrell’s bedroom. Shar ran after me.

  “Boo-hoo-hoo.” Shar sang it a bunch of times. “If you think it’s sucky here, then get out. Go home, you crybaby.”

  “I’m not supposed to.” I wasn’t even crying.

  Shar pointed at her plastic watch. “Your mother should’ve been back hours ago. What does she think this is? A motel?”

  I shook my head. Her mother wasn’t there neither. Her mother was far, far away. Her mother yanked her hair and broke her arm and bumped her mouth so two of her teeth went gray. That was why she lived with Erma and only visited her mom in the summer. “But really,” Gloria told me. “She’s just at her grandmother’s. I doubt her mother’s even there.”

  “Maybe she missed the bus,” I said. “Or it was late.”

  “Yeah, right. I saw her drive off in Mrs. Murtry’s car.”

  I looked at the door. I wanted Aunt Erma to walk in and smack Shar. Smack her right in the head. I wished I had a different best friend instead of just Shar.

  “Well? What did I say?” She had her h
ands on her hips. “We don’t got to babysit you forever. We don’t want you here.”

  I grabbed my bag and I grabbed Shar’s book, too. She didn’t want it. Darrell came out of the bathroom then. He kept turning his skull earring around and his whole ear was red and puffed up. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I’m going home.”

  “Your mom’s back?”

  I didn’t answer. I opened the door and went outside on the front porch and looked at the bottom of the circle. Nighttime was all around our house. I wished Gloria would be there, but Mrs. Murtry’s car was still gone. I looked up to the top of the circle. Mrs. Spooner’s car was gone, too. I ran down the stairs.

  “Hey!” Darrell called out. “What happened? Was it Shar? You got to ignore her, Maisy. She’s an asshole.”

  I stomped along the side of the circle near the ditches until I got to our driveway. With the streetlamp gone out, our house looked extra empty. Only some of the moon was shining, and it was hard to see, but I went closer. Beside the house the woods were just a big wall of black, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the wolves living in there. My heart popped up when I saw a man sitting on our porch. He was skinny with a tiny, tiny head and his arms sticking straight out. He rocked back and forth and I was going to run back to Shar’s but I didn’t want to talk to Pearl about Rowan because it was horrible and how can you help someone who was already dead? And then I saw the man was just the shadow of Gloria’s chair.

  Tears came out of my eyes. My cheeks were stinging.

  I checked the front door and the sliding doors. They were locked up tight, but the shed was open. Inside was so dark. None of the moon could get in the dirty window. I felt Rowan’s old bike. I knew it was his because there were plastic things clipped on the rusty spokes. When Rowan rode his bike they made a click-click sound. I pushed down next to the front wheel and bumped my head hard on a block of wood. I cried loud but no one came. Something made a loud clap. I think it was a mousetrap, but it didn’t catch the mouse because I could hear it behind me tearing at paper.

  I waited and waited and Gloria did not come home. It wasn’t cold, but my teeth were chattering. I put my head on my knees and closed my eyes. I didn’t care if a wolf snuck out of the woods and stole me. I hated Shar. She was ugly and mean. Inside and out. Mrs. Spooner said we should ignore people like that, but I couldn’t. Gloria made me go to her house. Aunt Erma said she was like my big sister. She was the worst big sister. Rowan would hate her, too. He’d punch her in the stomach if he knew what she did. He’d kick out her rotten teeth. I missed Rowan. I missed Rowan so much.