When he closed the door, the knob clicked softly. He listened to whether he had awakened his son by accident, but heard instead his wife moving through the rooms downstairs, furtive as a mouse. Sneaking around lately, holding secrets, off to church for the first time in years, a signal of her deeper unrest.
“I just miss it,” she said, when the prospect of midnight Mass had been broached. “Not so much for the religion but for the ceremony, the ritual, the order, and certainty of it.”
“Go then,” he had said. “I’ll stay here with Jip. But I hope this doesn’t mean you’ve gone soft in the head and are interested in all that superstition—”
She kissed him, now that he thought about it, to shut him up.
And then after the service itself, she had come home more upset than ever, with stories about voices filtering out of the sea in the middle of the night. She’d gone off her nut with the stress.
A gust of wind hit the house and rattled the windows. The whole wall seemed to shake. From Jip’s room came a scraping sound as if the bed had been pushed across the floor. Downstairs Holly whooped at the noise, an involuntary yell of apprehension. He raced to her quickly and had reached the first floor when the rattling happened again, this time much more violently at the kitchen windows, the wind zeroing in on the spot. Then two thumps, one right after the other, striking against the glass. Holly found him in the dim light, and she latched onto the sleeves of his robe.
“Did you hear that?” she asked. “There’s someone trying to get in.”
“No, it’s the wind.”
As if on cue, the glass rattled till it hummed.
“No, Tim, that’s someone outside the house trying all the windows. Listen.”
The rattling moved, in fact, to the mudroom, the windows shaking one by one, as if the thing outside was testing each as it moved from the back of the house toward the front. The outer door shook briefly, and the doorknob trembled. Tim loosed himself from her grip and went to the front closet and pulled out the brand-new baseball bat he’d bought himself for Christmas for just such emergencies.
“Don’t, Tim.”
“Be quiet. I just want to be protected if there is someone out there, but I tell you it’s the wind.”
They crouched together in the dark. A minute passed in silence, and another, and then they breathed more easily. Another five minutes crawled by, and nothing.
“We could turn on a light,” Tim said.
“Are you kidding? And have whatever’s out there see us in here?”
“There’s nothing out there. Gales. A front moving through.”
“How could it be the wind? Does the wind turn doorknobs? Does the wind knock on the kitchen windows? Something’s trying to get inside, Tim. Inside the house, inside our lives. I hear it all the time.”
“Those back windows are twelve feet off the ground. Just listen, you can still hear the wind in the distance. It’s just moving off. A squall.”
“It’s not the first time,” she said. “It has been going on for weeks. Weird noises around the house, things that go bump in the night.”
He held out his arms and she nestled into him, feeling a light clunk from the baseball bat as he embraced her. “You’re overwrought. It’s about Jip, isn’t it? I know he’s been a handful lately, but I’ve got a plan. A New Year’s resolution to work harder with him.”
She sighed and buried herself deeper in his arms. They stood together in the middle of the room anticipating another sound, but the only noises were the wind whistling and blowing in the distance and the creaks and ticks of the old house.
“You’re tired,” he said. “Been doing too much for the rest of us.”
“I am tired, but my mind won’t shut off.”
He laid the baseball bat on the sofa. “We’ll get you a sleeping pill.”
“Perchance to dream.”
He put his arm around her hips and led her to the bottom of the stairs. Shrouded in darkness at the top of the stairwell, Jip stood looking down upon them.
“Jesus,” she said. “You gave me a fright. How long have you been up there?”
“J.P., what are you doing out of bed?” Tim turned on the light, and the three of them blinked and shielded their eyes from the sudden illumination.
“I had a dream,” he said, rubbing his eye. “There was a monster under my bed.”
They walked up to him, pausing a few steps below, so that they could see him face-to-face.
“Too much turkey and apple pie,” his father said. “Gives you bad dreams. It was just the wind you heard. Shook things up. No monsters, remember?”
“It was a nightmare,” his mother said. “Everything will look better in the morning light.” He stepped toward her and opened his arms. She touched him lightly on the arm and then brushed the hair from his eyes, and he was her little boy again.
vi.
His old-fashioned suitcase looked like a small coffin, or so Nick thought in the midst of his overwhelming anxiety that morning after Christmas. His parents were rushing around the house, preparing to go on their grand holiday cruise without him, leaving him instead with the Keenans for the rest of the week. He dreaded the whole idea the way he dreaded the last day of summer and the prospect of school, or the semiannual torture in the dentist’s chair, the wet kiss from Nana when she came to visit. He dreaded it the way he hated tuna noodle casserole and rope climbing in gym class and cleaning out his room. Dread sat like a troll on his stomach the whole time he had to wait for his parents. They had planned the trip months ago, but even now were wondering where was the hair dryer—no, the travel-size one—and did you remember to pack sandals? He sat on the sofa in his coat and hat, his suitcase at his feet, but he was not surprised to hear his father and his mother ask, independently, if he was all set and ready to go. I’ll never be ready, he thought, but I’ll go.
Strapped in the backseat of the car, Nick the prisoner was being driven to his place of execution. The early hour and overcast skies combined to extend the gloom of the night, and in the windows of the car, he could make out his reflection superimposed over a scattershot of frost. His glum face peppered white. In the front seat, his parents were discussing still what they might have left behind, and he secretly wished they had forgotten about him, like that Home Alone kid, to live by his wits. He could picture himself fighting the bad guys, outsmarting anyone who tried to break in.
The drive to the Keenans was much too short, and when they pulled up to the house, Nick realized that he just could not bear the idea of a week with Jack Peter, that he had changed his mind and would visit his grandparents in Florida after all, or if that was out of the question, would they consider smuggling him aboard the ship? He had always wanted to see the Caribbean and play the pirate, savvy?, but it was all too late. His father had killed the engine. His mother had already left the car and was jabbing the doorbell.
Mrs. Keenan answered the door in her robe, and Nick had the uneasy feeling that they had awakened the whole house with their early arrival. Tangled against one side of her head, her hair was unbrushed, and she still had a line from the pillowcase creasing one cheek. When she bent over to pick up the morning newspaper on the stoop, her robe and nightgown gaped open, exposing her naked breasts, heavy and full, with brown nipples at the curve, and he felt both a surge of strange excitement and awful embarrassment in a single instant. She did not seem to notice either the momentary exposure or his dumb amazement, and she waved them all in and clutched at her collar against the chill. Nick was not sure if his father, trailing behind him, had caught the same peep show, but if he had he kept the matter to himself.
Mr. Keenan was nowhere to be seen, and Nick wondered if he had forgotten and was still asleep. Jack Peter, of course, was up and dressed, a ball of excitement and anticipation. Without being asked, he took Nick’s suitcase and propped it against the banister, and he bounced around aimlessly, waiting for the adults to finish their business so that the fun might begin.
“I hope we d
idn’t wake you,” Nick’s mother said. “It wouldn’t be so early, but it’s all so complicated. We’ve got to be in the airport an hour ahead, just to make it through security, though I don’t expect we’ll see too many people the day after Christmas. And then we have a connecting flight in Atlanta, of all places. You can’t get theah from heah. And we have to make that, or we miss our boarding time. I’ll be glad when it’ll be over.”
“We’ve been up for hours,” Mrs. Keenan said. “Coffee?”
His father winked at her. “Only if it’s already on. We can’t stay too long. Time waits for no man, and neither does our airplane.”
“Won’t be a sec.” She headed off to the kitchen, and Nick was inclined to follow her, but he stayed put. Mr. Keenan came lurching down the stairs, alert to the guests in his house, his hair mussed from bed and a shadow of whiskers on his cheeks. He waved to the Wellers but saved his real greetings for Nick.
“Nicholas, moving in with us, I see.” He bowed formally like a butler in a comedy of manners. Not knowing what was expected, Nick returned with a bow of his own, and not to be left out, Jack Peter bowed as well, as stiff and angular as a T square.
Mr. Keenan asked, “You have come about the bones, Herr Veller?” They played these games all the time with Nick. Mr. Keenan acting like a clown, nearly desperate to make him feel welcome.
“Ja.” Nick answered, taking up his part. “I have come to see about ze skeleton.”
Nick’s father wanted in on the fun. “What’s all this about skeletons and bones?”
Mrs. Weller ignored her husband and said, “Tim, you’re looking better. Your throat.” She raised her fingers to her neck, and Mr. Keenan copied her gesture.
Nick turned to Jack Peter to see if her remark had registered, but the kid had his usual blank expression and he seemed to be caught in a game involving his interlocking fingers.
With her rump, Mrs. Keenan pushed through the door from the kitchen. She carried a tray with a package of store-bought muffins, the coffeepot, cream, sugar, and mugs, and Mr. Keenan sprang to help her. “Oh, you’re up. Give me a hand with these things. Nell and Fred only have time for a quick nip.”
“A nip and a nibble,” Mr. Weller said. “Now what’s all this talk about bones? Got a skeleton in the closet?”
“You’re right, Fred,” said Mr. Keenan. “But not the closet. In a hole on the beach.”
“I don’t know which is worse. A scandal hiding safely away, or a skeleton out in the open for all to see.”
“Didn’t you see the police at our place yesterday afternoon?” Mr. Keenan asked. “Quite a show, and the neighbors must think a crime was committed. Dead body in the attic, or a cat burglar swiped the family jewels, but nothing of the sort.”
Looking up to the ceiling, Nick imagined a corpse moldering in the rafters. Old man dread roiled again in his curdling stomach, warning him of the pending dangers the moment his parents left him alone with these people.
“Well,” Mr. Keenan continued, “we called them out to the house ourselves. There wasn’t any murder that we know of. But something dug a big hole on our property, and in it we found a bone.”
“A real human bone,” Mrs. Keenan said. “Washed up from the sea.”
Mr. Keenan seemed anxious to tell the story. “Actually, the arm bone from a child about Nick’s age or maybe a little younger, although the police seem to think that the bone itself is fairly old, judging from the erosion. But it is the damndest thing. Something must have dug it up during the night before Christmas, ’cause we saw it in the afternoon. Didn’t know what to do.”
Jack Peter bounced on the sofa. “I drew a hole—”
“So we called the police, that’s why you might have noticed the squad car parked—”
“—full of bones.”
“That’s enough, Jack,” Mrs. Keenan said.
With a sharp bang, Mrs. Weller cracked her empty cup on the coffee table, setting it down too hard, causing everyone to jump in their seats. A rill of nervous laughter flowed from person to person. Embarrassed, she lifted it again and set it down softly on the surface. “So, all that trouble about an old bone?”
“And a hole, big as a grave,” Mr. Keenan said. “The police think it might have been dug up by a wild dog running loose. That’s your coyote, Fred, a big white dog. We’re supposed to fill in the hole so nobody will stumble across it and get hurt. That’s what the trooper told us. You should have seen him, Nell. They’re making them younger and younger. A baby.”
Jack Peter piped up from the sofa. “What happened to baby?”
His mother put her finger to her lips just like a kiss. Jack Peter rocked in place, stifling an impulse, rocked so hard he nearly made Nick ill.
“The hole is still out there,” Mr. Keenan said. “C’mon, take a look from the kitchen.”
“Just one quick peek,” said Mrs. Weller. “And then we have to get going or we’ll miss our plane.”
Single file they followed Mr. Keenan into the kitchen and marched straight to the window that faced the sea. With the flair of a game show model, he waved his arm to present the scene below.
His audience leaned forward and strained to see what had been promised. Squinting and searching, the Wellers walked up to the glass, and Mrs. Keenan followed, laying her hands on Nick’s shoulders from behind. The beach was empty, rocks and sand leading to the sea, a stick of driftwood washed ashore, but nothing else. No hole, no grave, not so much as a small dent in the sand. Mr. Keenan had been watching their faces, and when he saw how puzzled they were, he turned to look out.
“I guess someone must have buried your body,” said Mr. Weller.
“Where did it go?” Mrs. Keenan asked. She looked as if she was running through the possibilities in her mind and rejecting every one.
“No,” said Mr. Keenan. “I’m telling you it was right there, six feet deep. Holly, you saw it. Jip, you drew a picture of it. And the policeman saw it, wrote a report. Officer Haddock.”
“Pollock,” said Mrs. Keenan.
But her husband was already halfway out the door. Moments later, he reappeared far below on the shore, a tiny mad toy soldier, coat wrapped over his robe, the cuffs of his pajamas jammed into untied boots. Darting from rock to rock, he searched the beach for the missing hole.
Jack Peter pressed his palms against the windowpanes. “There he goes again.”
“He’ll catch his death,” said Mrs. Keenan, and she peeled off from the group, heading for the mudroom for her coat and boots. Everyone but Jack followed, flying out into the morning wind, shocked by how cold and empty the world was. They blew around in crazy circles, looking for the nonexistent bones and the missing hole, until the whole bunch caught up with Mr. Keenan on top of a wet rock at the tideline. The hem on his robe fluttered like a flag. A fine cold spray coated his hair and clothing, and his eyes were frantic in their sockets.
“It was here just yesterday,” he said. “How could we lose a hole? You must think I’m crazy, but there’s no way it could have just disappeared—”
The others tried to talk Mr. Keenan down from the rock, urging him to come in from the cold, for the Wellers really have a plane to catch, and inventing for him a handful of plausible explanations. Nick had stopped listening to their fairy tales and turned his back on them and raised his gaze to focus on the boy inside the panoramic window, distant and indifferent as a god on high.
Four
Imaginary friends often leave without warning. Lying across from him on the other pillow was the head of Nicholas Weller, and Jack Peter wanted to reach out and poke his friend’s cheek with his finger, but if that was really Nick, he might just get angry. Then again, even imaginary friends can lose their tempers. Take Red, for instance. He could be as mad as a jar of wasps. Good thing he was dead.
His mother first showed Jack Peter when he was five years old how to make a little boy out of red clay. First you get some dough and roll it into a cigar and then you pinch the bottom and separate it in two for t
he legs and two again for the arms and leave a bit at the top for the head. Each morning he would take Red out of the cardboard can and unfold his limbs. He put the clay boy on the shelf like a voodoo doll. As long as it was out of the can, the imaginary boy was alive, not Red at all, but a boy same as him, who was just his size and just his age. He would be there all day, someone to talk to, someone to play with, someone to tell his secrets, and Red would tell him things as well. Stories about what he did when Jack Peter was not around. Stories about his parents, about Nick and the other boys and girls, stories about the world beyond the front door. Jack Peter could make the boy, but once made, Red was beyond his control. Red lived his own life apart from their time together, going places Jack Peter could not go, seeing things Jack Peter never saw, thinking things unimaginable to his creator. Most of the time, Jack Peter was simply glad for the company and the chance to learn the secrets Red would tell. But sometimes Red would get mad at him, call him dummy, and threaten to share Jack Peter’s thoughts with Mommy and Daddy. And then Jack Peter wished he had never made the boy of clay and was so tired of him that he hoped Red would go away and never come back or maybe a giant could come and flatten him like a pancake.
And then one night, he forgot to put away the clay boy, and the next morning, it was all dried out and the boy crumbled to bits, and Red was dead and never came back anymore. Jack Peter thought he might make another boy, someone to be his friend, but he did not. Instead he went to school in the fall, to morning kindergarten, and the other children were there and if you be nice, they will be nice to you, and then Nick would come over to play sometimes after school or especially in the summertime, and then came first grade and a new class with a lot more children, and then summer again, and nearly dead beneath the waves. Better to stay away from the ocean. Best to stay inside.
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