Hideaway

by Nicole Lundrigan

  It was summery warm out, but my insides were ice cubes.

  There was screeching. Two fire trucks were coming and lots of red lights were flashing. They drove straight down the driveway. Men in brown overalls leaped off the truck before it stopped. They had helmets on.

  “Whose house?” the man yelled.

  “Mine,” Gloria said. He came right over. Gloria put her hand on her head. She said, “I must look a fright.”

  “You’re alive, ma’am. That’s what matters.” He looked at the house. “Is everyone out? You’re all accounted for?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Everyone’s out.”

  He smiled at me, but the woodpecker was stuck in my neck, tak-tak-takking so hard my head was going up and down. Everyone’s out. Everyone’s out. Gloria said that. That meant everyone was out. You need to trust me. I had to trust her. I had to keep the skipping rope tied tight. I had to keep the lid stuck on the box.

  “Are you absolutely certain?”

  Gloria puffed out air, and when she reached her arm around me she let go of Chicken’s collar. “Yes, I am. It’s just me and my daughter and that dog.” Chicken was racing at the house. Gloria slapped her leg. “Chicken! Get back here!”

  “Ma’am. Nearest hydrant is some distance away. Is there a creek or pond close? Any water source?”

  “There’s nothing. Slowrun Creek is all the way in the woods. And my outside water’s turned off because Maisy was playing with the hose too much.”

  Her words got wavy. I couldn’t remember playing with the hose.

  “Okay, ma’am. Okay. I understand. A tank’s on its way, but it’s a fierce burn. There’s no wind, so at present there’s no danger to surrounding properties.” He pointed his glove at the house. Then he pointed at the trees. To the same spot where they’d swallowed up Rowan. “You’re far enough away from the woods, so that’s not a concern.”

  “Okay.” She patted her hair again.

  “Until the tank gets here, we’re going to try to control it as best we can.”

  Another fireman put a blanket on me and one on Gloria. “Just let it go,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am?”

  “Burn itself out. There’s no point trying to save it. The place is destroyed. Not like there’s anything of value in there.”

  He scritched his head. “We’re going to do everything we can.”

  “Yeah.” Gloria laughed, but it wasn’t a friendly laugh. “I heard that before.” Then she yelled, “Chicken! Get away from there.”

  I watched Chicken. He was glued to the side of the house. He was back at that same spot, digging his claws at the cement. He pawed away the pile of rocks Gloria had put there over the dead bird. Then he scritched off a square piece of plastic on the vent. With his snout pushed in, he pulled stuffing out of the vent with his teeth. It looked like old grocery bags or T-shirts. He was whining and circling like he had a bellyache from the pork chop bones. They were sharp and pointy, but he chewed them down.

  “Chickennnnnn!” Gloria screamed at him.

  He barked and barked.

  My head was full of cotton.

  The blanket fireman said, “He’ll be fine, ma’am. He’ll know when to move. Animals have an instinctual fear of fire.”

  Smacking at her leg, she kept yelling. “Chicken. C’mon. Get over here!”

  But he wouldn’t listen. He must’ve made her disappear. He banged the rocks with his paws. He poked his nose into a hole in the house. I knew what he smelled. I couldn’t pretend. My fingers pinched my leg. My leg hurt. It really hurt. That vent went like a snake into the basement.

  Into the basement bathroom.

  Where the wolf was hiding.

  The lid on my box was rattling and bumping. I couldn’t look at Chicken. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  But I couldn’t keep at it.

  I knew he was down there.

  I knew.

  I knew.

  I knew.

  I knew.

  I knew.

  ROWAN

  I dreamt I was underneath the bridge, the coolness coating my spotted skin, a new island coming out near my left elbow. Carl handed me segment after segment of an orange. Girl trotted over to lick me beneath my lip, and I smelled the sweet smell from Carl’s fire.

  The sweet smell from Carl’s fire.

  My eyes flicked open. In the darkness of that box, I could taste it. Only a faint, sour thread, but there it was on my tongue. I sneezed, sniffed again. It didn’t fade back into my dream.

  Smoke.

  I stood up slowly. My legs were rubber. I felt along the wall, sniffed toward the vent. I sniffed by the toilet and pushed my head into the sink near the drain. Nothing. I stretched up near the fan. I couldn’t catch a clear strand of it. I hunched down on the floor and poked out the T-shirts. The blanket on the other side was missing. Air pulled inward. The biting sting of something burning.

  The hairs on the back of my neck lifted up. My heart thumped and I could feel the pulse in the tips of my fingers. It didn’t make sense. The smoke didn’t smell like Carl’s fire. Or smell like burning wood or dead leaves or even old tires. It stank like the time I put a plastic bowl on the hot stove.

  My chest got tighter and tighter.

  The fan above me stopped whirring. Silence wasn’t hiding underneath it though. Footsteps. Outside. Stomping past. Yelling, maybe. It had to be Gloria. She was running around the house. Or else my brain was creating things.

  Maybe there was no smoke. Maybe I was going crazy.

  I could be going crazy.

  How could I not be going crazy?

  I was going crazy.

  That made sense. Crazy.

  Does crazy ever make sense?

  I told myself there was no smoke. There was only cement and linoleum and blackness and beans and gray-tape shoes and a vent that my fingers couldn’t reach.

  I held the edge of the sink. I climbed up onto the toilet and slowly lifted my hands toward the ceiling. My head wobbled on my neck. I lowered my hands. Waited, then tried again. It was warmer up there. Much warmer.

  Why would the ceiling be warm?

  What would cause the ceiling to get—

  Awareness cut through me like a stick to my back. I tumbled off the toilet. My knees buckled. The house was on fire. That was the smoke. That was the heat. That was the commotion outside.

  I hit the door, but my arms were so tired it was hard to lift them. “I’m in here! I’m in here!” My yell was barely a whisper.

  There was scraping near the vent. I tried to yell again. I heard the faintest clanking, like rocks banging together. “Hey! Hey!” Scratching. Someone was scratching at the vent.

  Then barking. Chicken was barking. I could hear him! Chicken! “Chicken!” I cried as loudly as I could. “It’s me, boy! I’m in here!”

  I screamed, but my voice just dissolved inside my throat. Then the scratching and the barking stopped. Chicken had gone away.

  I sat back against the wall. The burning smell was growing stronger. It stung my nostrils. Clung to my throat. No one was rushing down the stairs. No one was opening the lock and pulling me out. No one was hurrying me to fresh air and safety.

  Where was Maisy? I knew she wasn’t upstairs. I knew she was beside Gloria, wherever they were. Why wasn’t she helping me? How could she leave me here? So many times I’d told her and told her to stick her head out.

  Then I remembered. I’d left her first. I’d run off to be with Carl, and she’d been all alone with Gloria. That was my answer right there. Gloria could say whatever she wanted over and over and over again. To turn Maisy against me. And Maisy was doing the same to me as I’d done. I’d stopped thinking about her, missing her. I stopped caring.

  The smell seeped in. I yanked off the sweater Carl had given me. Soaked it in the sink. Threw it near the bottom of the door. Water sopped everywhere. I sat back near the pipe. I tapped and tapped frantically. I tried to breathe. To calm myself down. But the smoke was getting stronger.
I began to cough.

  And cough.

  And cough.

  Tears poured from my eyes. I curled into a ball, clamped the hem of the sweater over my mouth and nose.

  I wasn’t going to thrash and kick and fight like I did in Ansel’s Lake. I knew what was coming.

  I was trapped.

  Gloria and Telly and Maisy and Mrs. Spooner and Darrell and Erma and Carl and Chicken and Girl were on the outside.

  To them, I no longer existed.

  Maybe I never existed at all.

  MAISY

  Chicken spun in circles.

  “Are you sure everyone’s accounted for, ma’am?” the fireman said. “Do you have another pet?”

  “There’s nothing in there. The place is empty.”

  Then he yelled out, “Can someone grab that dog?”

  Another fireman went to catch him, but Chicken took off. He ran around the house and up onto the front porch and clawed and clawed and clawed at the screen until he made a rip. He jammed his head through. Then his body flip-flopped through the hole. Our happy, happy door was already open and he was gone. He was inside.

  “Hey!” the fireman yelled out again. “Didn’t I tell you to grab it?”

  “Oh god, oh god.” Gloria was making loud noises. She was wobbling back and forth like Shar’s blow-up punch clown. She talked to herself. “What’re you going to do, Gloria. Hey, hey? What are you going to do now?”

  “Don’t worry, ma’am. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I watched the door. I watched the fire. Smoke and curly orange ribbons came out my bedroom window. I watched the men. They kept looking at the circle, but the water truck didn’t come. I looked at the tumbled-down pile of rocks. Then I remembered the little ball of metal Carl nipped in my hair. It was still in there. Inside the pile.

  Terrible, terrible stuff is coming.

  Terrible stuff was here.

  Gloria squeezed my wrist tight. My hand tingled. Dust and smoke stung in my eyes. Chicken was gone. Chicken was gone to get Rowan. Whispers came into my head, Maise, Maise, Maaaiseeeey.

  Then I heard Carl say, “You are not brave. But you will be brave.”

  The skipping rope snapped. The lid burst off the box.

  I breathed fast. He was a wolf. Rowan was a wolf. I looked at the woods. The creek was in there. Carl and the bridge. Fresh air. He ran through the bushes, and he was laughing. Rowan was happy in the woods with Carl. He was happy in the outside.

  Then I understood. A wolf didn’t belong in a box. A wolf was supposed to be free in the forest. A hurt wolf would be angry. A trapped wolf would be sad.

  Then I felt a hot burn right in my middle. There was wolf in me too. It was a tiny wolf. It was a scared wolf. But it was still a wolf.

  I snapped my wrist out of Gloria’s hand and I ran, a skipping stone, over the driveway, fast like a train, and I did not fall, I did not fall, and Darrell didn’t catch me, and I was up those stairs, and I turned, and Gloria was shaking her fists, and her face was mad and full of orange fire shine, and Mrs. Spooner had her hands over her mouth, and Shar was smiling and jumping, and the fireman screamed “Stop that kid!” and I knew I’d never get back in Gloria’s heart, she would slap it closed, and then I’d be gone, taken by those men, no one would want me, no one, no one, no one, sneaky useless spy sneak, and Gloria was growling like crazy and inside Chicken was growling like crazy too, but in a different way, a brave way, and I emptied my head and made a small wolf howl, it felt good to make a howl, and I rushed into the oven of dark clouds, and I closed up my eyes and my mouth and I did not breathe, and I waved my hands and gray still leaked up my nose holes, sunburn on my throat and my skin, coughing, the key in Gloria’s closet, up the stairs and too far away, but maybe it will be open, maybe she forgot, fingers crossed, monster arms out through the cloud, tumbling where I knew, then Chicken against my leg, whining, but my turtle head was out, I felt the flat bits of metal, the screws, burning, Chicken was scritching and scritching, the lock, the lock, be open, be open. I pulled on it, my hand got small around it. Both ends trapped inside, and my fingers screamed.

  I took a breath. My chest squeezed up and I got on my knees. My hand was burning. Chicken pawed my hair. The hot was on top of me. It shoved and shoved. A heavy blanket. Chicken bit at my dress and my lacy sweater and tugged. Something crashed and clanked. Big people yelling. Maybe Gloria.

  Then I felt strange. Nice strange. Like the trick Rowan showed me before he was gone. He made me stand in a doorway and push the backs of my hands into the sides. I did it as hard as I could. Then, after I let my arms down, they went up by themselves. I knew if they weren’t stuck on they would’ve floated away.

  Wind moved around me. I was rushing somewhere. But I couldn’t stay no more. The lid was off. I twirled down inside the box. There we were. Me and Rowan. One big wolf and one tiny wolf. But still two wolves together.

  ROWAN

  He came to see me at Gran’s house. He said his name was Detective Aiken, and we went into the living room and closed the glass doors. The carpet was bouncy under my feet and the cushions were soft. I noticed things like that now. I sat in a rose-colored chair. Gran peered in through the door. The detective saw her and shook his head ever so slightly. Gran stepped back.

  “How are you doing, Rowan?”

  That was a big question. How was I doing? I’d spent six nights in the hospital being treated for a concussion, malnourishment, and smoke inhalation. My grandmother, who had not died after all, visited me every day. When I was released she brought me to her house, back to the same room I’d stayed in when I was a little boy.

  Besides that? I’d been eating tons, watching a lot of television, and sleeping in as long as I wanted. Sometimes when I woke up, though, it took me a while before I realized where I was. Before I recognized the pillow under my cheek or the sun on my skin through the clean window. With my eyes still closed my fingers would reach out to tap the cement wall, and when I found nothing, a hollow threat would arrive in my body. As though, outside of that confined place, the security of limits had vanished. The sensation of being locked in was still locked inside of me. I didn’t know how to find the door that would let me get out. To get past it.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m good.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. And your sister?”

  Maisy had to stay in the hospital longer as she had damage to the tissues in her throat and lungs as well as burns on her hand. I was excited to see her, but when she did come home with Gran she barely looked at me. Wouldn’t say a word. Every time I came into a room she’d slip out. “Remember she’s only little,” Gran told me. “It’s been an ordeal for her too.” She told me Maisy had rushed into our burning house. They found her unconscious by the door to the basement.

  I kept thinking about that. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what it was like. Over and over again. Chicken barking and circling. Maisy’s yanking at the lock. Gloria screaming in the background when she couldn’t stop the firemen from rushing in. Swooping Maisy off the floor. Smashing off the lock and hurrying down the stairs. Breaking down my door. Finding me in the dark bathroom, pressed into the corner, gasping.

  Thank you, Turtle. Thank you for sticking your head out.

  “Rowan?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “She’s good, too.”

  Detective Aiken cleared his throat. “So you’re adjusting all right?”

  “Sure,” I said. I ran my finger over the white island growing on my lower arm. There was a main mass and a northern peninsula. I wanted to show Maisy so we could guess what island was forming.

  “You look healthy.”

  I shrugged.

  “I know you answered many of our questions in the hospital.” He adjusted his tie. It was navy and covered in small red apples. I thought it might be better suited to a teacher than a detective. “But I’d like to confirm some things you said. Get a clear understanding of who was involved.”

  “Who?”

  �
�Yes.”

  “My mother,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I tried to tell him what I remembered. Standing outside in the storm. Lightning zinging just overhead. Running away to the bridge. Girl. The two losers who tumbled down the embankment, and the one who held the knife to my neck. The cottage. The late-night boat ride. Dot’s tinfoil hat to keep good thoughts in and bad thoughts out. Stumbling home through the woods and the pressure building in my skull until I couldn’t stand or see. My confusion in the backyard. How Gloria must have grabbed me and hid me away. How I thought it was— I stopped. “Not Carl, mister. It had nothing to do with Carl. I mean, Howard Gill.”

  “We understand that, Rowan.” He leaned forward, squinted. “Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, the folks who owned the cottage, are not pressing charges for the damage. Mr. Gill has already been released.”

  “Good,” I said. “He didn’t force me. I went with him. I don’t even know if he thought I was real.”

  “If it’s any consolation, he did receive treatment while he was in care.”

  “So he’s better?”

  “I can’t comment on that, but what Mr. Gill has—what Carl has, it’s a complicated illness, Rowan.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I figured.”

  Detective Aiken reached into his pocket and pulled out a notepad. He flipped it open. “Your mother’s not being cooperative with our investigation, but to be frank, we don’t need it. We have enough. We still have questions, though, about the extent of your father’s involvement. Your mother said they were a team, every step of the way, but your father claims to have had zero awareness.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I want to hear from you, Rowan. Did your dad know you were locked in that basement bathroom?”

  My heart sank inside my chest. I stared at the arm of the chair. If I stroked it with my finger, the fabric changed. Recorded my movement. Then I could smooth it over again. Make the mark vanish.

  “Rowan?”

  I swallowed. Gloria’s voice slipped inside my head.