“Ain’t much of a pond,” said Mr. Root. After delivering a stream of tobacco off to one side, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and added, “Ain’t much of a place.”
“I never said it was.” I was secretly offended but didn’t want to show it. “It doesn’t have to be fascinating to have somebody killed near it.”
Mr. Root warmed his hands beneath his armpits and didn’t comment.
“Ar eh aunt’d owz?” Ubub said.
I scratched my elbow, frowning. It was “Where” something.
Scarcely hesitating, Mr. Root repeated, “‘Where’s the house?’ That it, Bub?”
“Aun’d, aun’d!”
I frowned. “Awning?”
“You sayin’ ‘haunted,’ ain’t ya?”
Ubub nodded enthusiastically and it kind of irritated me that Mr. Root could always figure it out. But then I reminded myself I’d never have gotten this far without his ability to do that. “It’s not exactly haunted, Ubub.”
“Uhn abow neh ite?” This was Ulub this time. It was hard to tell between them, although Mr. Root thought Ulub spoke more clearly.
“‘Tonight’?”
“That ain’t it,” Mr. Root said again, with more authority than I liked. “He’s askin’ about the light. You know, you told us some sissy showed a flashlight right in your face.”
“Oh, but that was no ghost, Ulub.”
I stood looking down White’s Bridge Road, looking for something familiar, but there was nothing familiar. With all that had happened that night, with all of the people and commotion, I expected things to be burned into my eyes—the mossy tree, the spot in the road where I’d dropped the rabbits, the oil drum, the bed of black nasturtiums, the ruts the police cars had angled into the dirt—why, this place had been crowded. Tonight it was empty, as if all the life had been sucked out of it.
Mr. Root must have seen me as being uncertain and said, “Maybe we ought to stop and get this Butternut feller to show us—”
“No!” I said. “He was the one reported me missing, don’t you remember? Anyway, Mr. Butternut would only spend all the time talking. Come on, it’s just right down here.” I’d say I led the way except there wasn’t more than one way to lead.
As dusk seemed about to cave into dark, the road and the things along it grew more familiar, as if they would only make themselves known at night, like the stars, one or two of which were showing faintly, near the vague moon. “Some of those stars are a billion—a lot more than a billion—miles away. It would take us thirty years to get to them. Shooting stars are bits and pieces of broken-up planets.” We had stopped while I delivered this information and now we picked up walking (Ulub and Ubub still with their eyes clamped on the sky). Then I told them there were many more universes than just ours, and planets that had more than one moon going around them. “Every planet has moons. Some a few, some many.” I thought a bit. “That’s where that expression ‘many moons’ comes from, from planetary language.” This was most of what I knew of star lore, and some of what I didn’t.
Mr. Root stopped. “Now, that ain’t so. ‘Many moons’—that’s some old Indian sayin’.”
“I know it’s Indian; it’s what the Indians said about moons.”
We walked on.
“Hey!”
We all turned.
“Wait up, now!”
I groaned. It was Mr. Butternut. If he was the spirit of the place, I might as well go home.
Hobbling up to us, he didn’t look in too good shape. “Mr. Butternut!” I tried to make it sound like there was no more pleasant a surprise for me than seeing him.
After I’d introduced him around, he started in asking questions. “Where you been? I had to call the po-lice on you.” I looked really concerned, though puzzled. “Why’s that? Did something happen?”
“Well, a’course, girl! You was missing! You sayin’ you don’t recall?” He took out his tobacco and bit off a plug. Remembering his manners, he offered it around. The Woods shook their heads, but Mr. Root accepted, having run out of his own.
These few seconds gave me time to think, all the while keeping the puzzled expression on my face, which was still there when I answered: “Missing? I was never missing or lost.”
Mr. Butternut heaved a sigh: “Girl, we was both down there”—he pointed with his cane down the road—“near to Brokedown House and you went on that path to it and just disappeared.”
I sighed myself, meaning to register as much impatience as he had. “Well, of course I know that. I dropped my flashlight and couldn’t find my way, so I wound up back on this road and just walked back to the Silver Pear. I never saw you so I figured you’d gone on home to bed.” I smiled more at myself than anyone else for it was really a plausible story. Was my life becoming a pack of lies?
He looked at me in a squinty way and chewed. Mr. Root looked at me squinty-eyed too, as if he knew Mr. Butternut better than he did me. I guess they’d forged a tobacco bond between them. Ulub and Ubub weren’t paying much attention but were looking up at the darker sky and the handfuls of stars now scattered there, probably thinking of the long trip to get to them.
“And I went and called the po-lice. I thought that Deg-un fellow—”
“It’s not ‘Deg-un,’ it’s ‘De-geen.’”
“I thought he was goin’ to throw a fit.”
My eyes widened, really interested, now. “Why? What’d he say?”
“Well, it ain’t so much what he said as the way he looked. I was tryin’ to describe you and I couldn’t recall too much how you looked. I did tell him you was real headstrong. Then he described you. Light-haired, blue-green eyes, freckles across your nose, and real pretty.” Mr. Butternut frowned, looking at me as if testing that description.
My mouth fell open. Pretty. Real pretty! It was worth a trip to White’s Bridge Road to hear that. It was worth a trip to a brokedown planet to hear that. I tucked this away in my mind to look at later. And it made me feel kindly toward Mr. Butternut. I apologized for causing him so much trouble and he said never mind, only he hoped I let it be known to that Sheriff I was okay.
I said I would, and now we were all looking up at a black sky where the stars were a drift of white that made me think of that tulle dress of Ree-Jane’s that hung now over a chair in the Pink Elephant. But it was all so far away it was hard to say which was drifting, the stars or us.
“Ah i’ky ’ay,” Ubub said.
Mr. Root gave him a pretend punch on the shoulder. “Milky Way; you got it, Bub.”
And in the next moment I knew what was meant by night falling. For it did. I think it’s the sort of dark that waits in all our closets, mine being a wardrobe that I hardly ever had to look in any more to see if anything’s there.
We got to the overgrown path that led to the house and Mr. Root stopped us with a fierce whisper: “Lookie there!”
A dim light moved through the trees. It was probably a flashlight or maybe a lantern and reminded me of those lanterns Ulub said the Devereau sisters carried as they made their way through the woods beyond their house. We were all quiet, even me, and watching in a wondering kind of way. I said, “Maybe it’s Dwayne.”
“Dwayne?” said Mr. Root. “What the hell’s—pardon my French—Dwayne doing here?”
“Let’s go see.” I pointed to the path. “You can be first if you want.”
“Me?” Mr. Root clapped his hands to his chest. “It’s your ex-pe-di-tion.”
“I don’t want always to be hogging first place.” I turned to Ulub and Ubub. “You can lead the way.” I smiled brightly.
But Mr. Butternut stuck his cane in the ground. “Don’t you do it, Bub. Nor you neither,” he said to Ulub.
Now, I was getting really irritated with Mr. Root and Mr. Butternut. Mr. Butternut, of course, didn’t want to go anywhere; he just wanted to link up with us so he could talk.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said, and in what I thought was a highborn, queenly manner, lifted my chin and w
alked the path to the cottage. I thought surely they’d be following on my heels, but when I looked back, the four of them just stood there as if struck in stone.
I gestured for them to follow and finally they did, single file, coming up the path. I said, “What we should do is, each one of you should take up different positions around the house in case whoever was here comes back.”
Mr. Butternut didn’t like that, but the other three were perfectly agreeable. Mr. Root asked if I was really going in the house.
I wasn’t. “Yes,” I said. “In a minute. Right now I’m going around back.”
Which I did, and found Dwayne. “Dwayne!” I tried to breathe the name, but in this silence I might just as well have yelled.
He turned, looked first one way then the other, then at the rhododendron bush I was peeking over. “Oh, Christ a’mighty! You near scared me to death.”
I couldn’t make out whether he was glad to see me or wished he never had. “Shush!” I said, coming around the bush. “Keep your voice down. Listen: was that you?”
“Was that me what?” He was lighting a cigarette, hands cupped around a match. It had a good effect on his face, the light and the shadow.
“We saw a light, a flashlight, probably, over there—” I pointed off to the stand of maples.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and and Mr. Root and so forth.”
“Brought your goons this time, did you? So what’d you want with me?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I asked, “Was that your flashlight we saw?” There was a big square one sitting on the ground beside his sack. “Is that rabbits?” Tentatively I touched the sack with my toe. “I didn’t hear any gun go off.”
He didn’t comment. I supposed he didn’t want to bother. I sat down on a nearby stump, regardless of the others who were waiting at their appointed places. Dwayne had opened the bag. There was only one rabbit.
“Defenseless little creature,” I said.
“More’n I can say for you.”
I was impatient. “Well, did you? See it?”
“You mean that light? Well, we’re not the only poachers here. Ever think of that? Easiest answer is the right one, usually.”
No, it isn’t, I thought. Still, I felt deflated, thinking in this case he might be right. But that still didn’t explain whoever had been in the house. I said so.
“Why not? I’ve been inside that place and maybe I‘d’ve shined a light in your face too, stop you jabberin’.”
Here he did just that, and I threw up my arm to shade my eyes. “Stop that! This isn’t funny.”
But the light had also hit something else, judging by Dwayne’s reaction. “What the hell?”
The others had appeared out of the bushes and come around the house, and even though I knew they were around, it seemed creepy even to me, as if the familiar could change in the seconds it took to shine a light in your face.
“Looks like I should’ve brought a keg,” said Dwayne, smiling a little. “ ’Lo, fellas.”
“Dwayne,” said Mr. Root, nodding. The Woods both said hello, too.
“Now, I just got this feelin’,” Dwayne said to me, “that whatever spook you’re after, he or she ain’t about to come out to greet a group of six.”
He was really annoying me. “Who said ‘spook’? It’s not a ghost or the Headless Horseman. It’s not Creepy Hollow.”
“Sleepy Hollow, you mean. Ichabod Crane.”
I ignored this. “It’s a person. Somebody shone that light in my face.” Suddenly, I was near to tears, tired of not being understood.
They were silent and almost respectful, even Dwayne, who I bet was always just one step away from a joke. They looked almost ashamed. Which suited me fine. “You’re supposed to be surrounding the house in case someone comes. They’ll have to pass near enough that one of us sees who it is. And everyone’s talking too loud—”
“And too much,” said Dwayne, going back to his other self.
“So split up and surround the house. Dwayne can stay here.”
Dwayne wasn’t about to move, anyway. He was flicking his flashlight on and off at the ground.
“Du-wayne,” I said, the way Vera liked to say, “Emmm-a,” as if no one could be slower on the uptake than me. “This isn’t a game.”
“It ain’t nothin’, far as I can see, but okay, let’s do it so I can get back to killing rabbits. What about yourself? What are you going to be doing while we’re surrounding?”
Astounding myself, I said, “I’m going to be inside”—I looked over my shoulder at the cottage—“looking around.”
As far as I was concerned, now was the time to argue with me. But no one did. I wasn’t going in that house again, alone. Of course, I wasn’t going to admit this, so what could I say? After some thought, I said, “Well, I like that. Here’s five grown men who’d let a little kid just walk right into danger!” I shook and shook my head in disbelief and only stopped shaking it (my legs were rubbery and hardly good for walking with) when Dwayne heaved a great sigh.
“Come on then,” he said, looking around at the others. “You fellas are safer outside with whatever than inside with you-know-who.”
I told the others as they went to take up places not to make so much noise and watch where they walked. To be truthful, I was probably making more noise than any of them. Yet it was odd how the silence out here could be shattered so easily by a twig’s snap or dead leaves crisping underfoot, or the creak of a high-up branch moving in the slight wind. Each sound was distinct and seemed carved out of the night, like those profiles carved in ivory, raised against a dark setting. It was the way I think I’d feel if I’d never heard these sounds before. Was it like the world waking up and hearing itself for the first time?
“Well, come on,” said Dwayne, as I was bending down to tie my shoelace, which I did so he could get in front of me.
“You don’t have your gun,” I said, following at what looked to be a safe distance.
“What the Sam Hill you think we’re gonna run into?”
“I don’t know. Snakes, maybe?”
He picked up the gun and looked at me, shaking his head. “Snakes. So I just load up my gun and draw a bead on old man milk snake and blast him to kingdom come?” He started walking again, ahead of me. “Girl, that is not how you kill a snake. You wouldn’t last five minutes out in the real world.”
I have lasted, I wanted to say. But I settled for sticking my tongue out at his back.
The back door was off its top hinge and listing to one side. “Doesn’t look like this door’s been used for a long time.” He tried to open it, but it was warped shut.
“There’s a side dour,” I said, pointing. “Go on,” I said, urging him in. He just gave me a look, shook his head, and went in through the door. I had not meant, of course, I would go in right away. Rounding the corner I bumped into Mr. Butternut, standing stock still on the path. “You’re supposed to be off there”—I motioned to an off-there place—“hiding.”
“I done. I hid by that old mulberry bush and didn’t see nor hear a thing.”
I was so exasperated. It was as if “hiding” was an activity you did in a predetermined time period, like school lunch hour. “So go back.”
“Aw right, aw right. Don’t be so damn tetchy.” Grumbling, he went off.
I could see the spread of Dwayne’s light through the side window. Since I was supposed to be inside too, I had the strange feeling I was watching myself. I walked through the door that Dwayne had left open. Inside it was black as sin and I tried to blink up shapes. It was the front room where I’d been before when that light turned on my face.
“Dwayne!” Forget about quiet. I yelled it.
“Yeah?” He yelled back.
Then I heard a tapping on the glass pane behind me, whirled around, and felt my heart fall into my shoes at the sight of a face.
It was only Ulub, but Ulub’s face isn’t the best-looking even at high noon in the Rainbow Café. With that
lantern of his below it making pits of his eyes, well, it’s not the best thing to see when you’re already scared. I was surprised the window opened, but it did. Was this evidence the house was occupied?
“Ulub! You scared me nearly to death!”
“Ah een nun ah nun owin—”
“Uh-huh. Okay,” I said, not understanding a word except “I.” He trotted off. I wanted only to be where the gun was and hurried into the next room.
Dwayne was standing by a chiffonier, inspecting an old tin box on its high top. This room was a bedroom, and it was hard to tell whether someone was using it or not, for the disarray could be new or could be old. I’m sure the Sheriff could have told in ten seconds by observing dents in the cushions, dust on the bedside table, the warmth of the sheets. But these told me nothing. The daybed was roughly covered by a patchwork quilt. I felt to see if the bedclothes were warm, but of course they were neither warm nor cold. In one corner of the room was a chair with stuffed animals and dolls on it. I went over and looked at them: two bisque dolls that appeared to be very old, their dresses stiffened and yellow; a rag doll with one button eye missing; another doll with a pretty white dress. I thought it was peculiar they wouldn’t have been removed in the course of moving. I picked up the rag doll with one eye missing. Was it a child’s room?
Probably not. The room reminded me, when I looked around again, of the one up on the fourth floor, the one kitty-cornered to Aurora’s room. In that room, my mother stored her own things. But it was not nearly so neat as Mrs. Davidow’s storage room. My mother’s jewelry and clothes lay here and there, as if she’d recently been either examining them or wearing them. There were scarves and shoes about, again as if my mother had just thrown them off. The guests’ kids sometimes snuck up there, and if Aurora didn’t kill them first, they crept into this room and played with all the stuff. It was never locked. It upset me, this careless disregard for family treasures and mementos. For if that’s not worth standing watch over, then what is?
Dwayne held up a ring, a deep blue stone, oval and set among tiny diamonds. Or at least the bits looked like diamonds; they were probably rhinestones. “There’s jewelry in here, there’s even money. Other stuff too: pictures and letters.”
Cold Flat Junction Page 19