Don't Breathe a Word

by Jennifer McMahon

  Evie dropped the binoculars, looked down at the peaches, and said only, “Weird.”

  “No kidding,” Lisa said, studying Evie’s face, daring her not to admit that she’d given Gerald and Pinkie a bag with a can of identical peaches just a couple of hours ago.

  “I say we bug out before whoever’s been hanging out here comes back,” said Evie.

  Lisa grabbed the bat and her mother’s sewing basket, following Sam and Evie back toward home.

  “Maybe it’s Lisa’s Fairy King,” Sam said as they made their way through Reliance.

  “Maybe,” said Lisa, even though she was thinking there was no way. “We should come back later, find some good hiding spots, hunker down and wait to see just who it is.”

  And catch Gerald and Pinkie doing who knows what. . .

  “I don’t know,” Evie said.

  I bet you don’t.

  “I think I got soaked enough for one day,” Evie said

  It took Lisa the rest of the afternoon to talk Evie and Sam into returning—Sam was genuinely scared of getting caught, Lisa could see. Evie had one lame excuse after another. They only agreed once the rain finally stopped. But when they made their way back to the clearing after supper, the blanket, binoculars, and can of peaches were gone.

  “Weird,” Evie said again, kicking at the crushed ferns with her giant work boot. On the way back, Evie talked a mile a minute, laughed too hard at things that weren’t funny. She seemed strangely giddy.

  Relieved, thought Lisa. She seems relieved.

  Chapter 28

  Phoebe

  June 12, Present Day

  They were back in the cabin, and the old woman was there, doing a strange puppet dance, sticking out her tongue, which turned into a snake.

  Sammy, Sammy, weak little Lamb-y! Hiss, hiss. The wink of a small, reptilian eye.

  Then Phoebe was back in her childhood bed, the wooden frame painted white, the headboard with its carved daisies. She’d decorated it with stickers—scratch-and-sniff ones that the scent had worn off of long ago. Tangerine. Toasted marshmallow. And her favorite, the one with the monkey holding the banana that said, I’m bananas for you.

  She heard the scrabbling and scraping of the door under the bed being opened, hinges letting out an endlessly long, low creak. She tried to sit up, to scream, to stop it somehow, but she was frozen in place. At last a shadowy figure slipped out from under the foot of the bed, slinked along the edge of the room by the baseboard heaters that clicked and groaned all night long.

  “You’re not real,” she managed to whisper. “This is a dream.”

  He started to laugh. It was a wet, choking laugh. His mouth was open, his teeth gleaming like little white daggers.

  Phoebe’s eyes flipped open, heart hammering, the taste of blood in her mouth—she’d bit her cheek. She wasn’t at the cabin or her old bed at all but in her very own house, on the floor of the office, next to Sam. The blanket was pulled up tight around him, even covering his head. She’d never known anyone who slept as deeply, as surely, as Sam did. The air mattress had deflated, leaving them on the floor. A crash came from the bedroom where Lisa was sleeping. The sound of breaking glass. Sam slept on.

  “Sam!” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  But maybe it wasn’t his shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t Sam under there at all.

  The thought came so quickly, with such strength, that she jerked her hand away.

  A chill worked its way through her body, and there was another loud thump from the bedroom.

  “Whatisit?” Sam’s familiar voice mumbled from under the sheet.

  She touched him again, pulling the covers off. Sam. Of course it was Sam. Her imagination was going strange places these last few days.

  “Something’s happening in Lisa’s room.”

  “Lisa?” he said sleepily, then sat up, listening. Phoebe opened the door of the office, walking on shaky legs, turning left down the hall, through the living room. She glanced over at the row of aquariums where the animals were going on with their evening routines: the snake was digesting the frozen mouse she’d given him earlier; the hedgehog was dozing; the rats were chewing on toilet paper rolls in their cage, building a new nest. Evie groaned and shifted on the couch, buried in covers despite the warm night (Christ, maybe this was some inherited thing). She looked like a sleeping ghost.

  Phoebe paused in the kitchen long enough to grab the large maple rolling pin Sam’s mom had given them for Christmas last year—a sad attempt to bring out some hint of domesticity in Phoebe, some underlying need to make a good piecrust that Sam’s mother was sure was just buried deep inside her somewhere. Phoebe had never made a piecrust in her life, and the only pie she made involved a premade graham cracker crust, a box of chocolate pudding, and a tub of Cool Whip. No baking necessary.

  Rounding the corner into the dark bedroom, she brandished the rolling pin in both hands, like a stumpy baseball bat held high.

  “Lisa?” She squinted into the darkness, struggled to make sense of the shadowy scene before her.

  There were signs of a struggle. The covers had been thrown off the bed. The ceramic lamp from the bedside table lay in ruined pieces on the hardwood floor. The window was open, and Lisa was in the process of crawling through it, but because of the bookshelves in front of it, she was having trouble. She seemed stuck on her belly, kicking her legs in Phoebe’s borrowed sweatpants like a swimmer.

  Sam came in, flipping on the overhead light. Lisa continued to flail her legs, trying to wriggle the rest of the way through.

  “Come back in, honey,” Phoebe said, setting the rolling pin down on the bed, leaning to lay a hand on Lisa’s back. Then Sam was there, grabbing hold of Lisa’s waist, hoisting her from the window and back into the room. She didn’t seem to fight him; her body went limp in his arms as if she were a giant doll.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, once he’d set her down on the bed, closed and locked the window.

  Lisa was out of breath, eyes darting from the window to the open door like a trapped animal searching for the easiest route of escape.

  “Teilo,” Lisa said, lips trembling.

  “What about him?” Phoebe asked, placing a reassuring hand on Lisa’s shoulder.

  Lisa pointed at the closet door opposite the bed.

  There in black paint was Teilo’s mark, still wet and dripping.

  “He was here? In the room?” Sam asked, opening the closet door, peering under the bed.

  Under the bed. He came from under the bed.

  Shut up, Phoebe told herself. Enough.

  Lisa nodded. “We’re all in terrible danger,” she said. It was not the voice of a woman but that of a frightened little girl. The same voice Phoebe had heard on the phone telling them where to find the fairy book. There was no doubt in her mind.

  Phoebe pulled Lisa close and embraced her. “It’s okay,” she said, sure that if she pulled too tight, she’d easily crush the life out of this poor, skinny girl.

  “What’s going on?” Evie stood in the doorway, cocooned in her blanket, blinking in at them like a worried owl.

  “Teilo was here,” Phoebe said, releasing the girl but continuing to stroke her hair. “He was after Lisa.” She looked at Sam, asked, “What are we going to do?”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure—they know she’s here now. She’s not safe with us. We’ll have to find another place for her.”

  Phoebe nodded, looked at her watch. It was a little after four. “I’ll put on some coffee. In a while, I’ll make a call. I know a place where she’ll be safe.”

  Sam drove with both hands gripping the wheel. They were on a seldom-used dirt road near the state forest. It was a bright, clear morning, and they had the windows open, letting in damp woodsy smells. Sam’s pickup was bouncing along, Lisa between Sam and Phoebe, straddling the gearshift. The radio was on a talk show, but it was turned so low that all Phoebe could hear was the dull hum of voices like far-off ins
ects. Sam often kept the radio on low, afraid that if he turned it off entirely, he might miss something.

  They passed a run-down trailer with a rusted swing set out front. A little girl wearing only a pull-up diaper and an Elmo T-shirt was passing trash to her daddy, who was burning it in an old oil drum. The little girl waved at them through a cloud of noxious smoke. Phoebe waved back, thinking, If these people can be parents, we sure as shit can, then feeling guilty for it.

  Phoebe had her memo pad out and had written:

  How did Teilo get in? The window? How did he know where she was? Are we being watched?

  “So,” Sam said, looking over at Lisa, “are you ready to tell us who you really are?”

  “Sam!” Phoebe scolded. When was he going to learn that the cut-to-the-chase approach was going to get him nowhere with this girl?

  “I’m Lisa,” the girl between them said, looking up at him. Her eyes were brown, the pupils huge, making her whole eyes seem cartoonish and black. In spite of the long bath in lavender the night before, she gave off the heavy scent of damp earth. She raised her head high and spoke. “I am Lisa, Queen of the Fairies.”

  “Where have you been all these years?” he asked.

  “The land of the fairies.”

  Phoebe scribbled Land of Fairies? and circled it.

  Lisa looked at her notebook, at the tiny rune-like scribblings. “Did they teach you to write like that?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The fairies?” Lisa said.

  Phoebe shook her head. “I taught myself. What are they like?” Phoebe asked. “The fairies.”

  Lisa smiled. “You know how sometimes, you catch the faintest hint of movement in the corner of your eye, then you blink and it’s gone? That’s them.”

  Lisa let out a raspy cackle that turned into a hacking cough.

  “Sometimes,” Lisa continued, coughing fit over, “they come to you in dreams.”

  Sam gripped the wheel so tight Phoebe was sure it would crack.

  “Sam?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her off. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Ain’t got no rain barrel, ain’t got no cellar door, but we’ll be jolly friends, forever more,” Lisa sang softly. Phoebe thought of the old woman in the woods, shedding her clothes, her hair.

  She touched the bag of teeth in her pocket. Wondered if she should show them to Lisa, see if she recognized them.

  Horse teeth.

  Bad magic, Evie had warned.

  “Their driveway is the next left,” Phoebe said, closing her notebook. “Where all the NO TRESPASSING signs are.” Sam took the corner too fast, sending Phoebe slamming into Lisa. “Sorry,” Phoebe said. Lisa smiled.

  The driveway was bordered with trees—a rough, narrow trail that just seemed to get narrower as they crept along. The trees were so close together that nothing green grew on them except up top, the canopy so thick that no light came through. NO TRESPASSING, warned the signs. BEWARE OF DOGS. As they got closer to the house, the signs, now hand-painted, grew more menacing: TURN BACK NOW; USA OUT OF VERMONT; OWNER ARMED; ATTACK DOGS ON PREMISES.

  Ahead, they saw the buildings: house, barn, and workshop. A metal windmill turned in the air above the house, reminding Phoebe of something a child would build from a giant Erector set. At the south side of the house were a forest of solar panels, a satellite dish, and a radio tower.

  “Pretty bird,” Lisa said.

  “What bird?” Sam asked, looking up at the sky. “I don’t see any bird.” His voice was crackling with frustration.

  “I think she means the chickens,” Phoebe said. A small flock of colorful speckled hens pecked at the dirt in front of the house. Sam grumbled something Phoebe didn’t catch, stopped the truck behind Franny’s Subaru wagon, and cut the engine. As he and Phoebe put their hands on the handles to open the doors, the dogs were on them. It was impossible to tell how many at first: a pack of enormous beasts, shiny black and brown, hackles raised, teeth bared, drool flying as they ran circles around the truck.

  Franny and Jim bred Rottweilers, and Phoebe could never keep track of the latest updates: who’d had puppies, how many were sold, how many were kept. Most of the barn was taken up by kennels, whelping pens, an indoor agility course.

  The front door of the house opened and Franny stepped out. Her straw-colored hair was pulled back in a braid, and she had a morning glory print apron on. Jim sauntered out of the open workshop door in coveralls, wiping greasy hands on a rag. He was a gangly man with a large Adam’s apple and constant five o’clock shadow.

  Franny whistled, and all the dogs froze, turned their great, blockish heads her way. She did a hand signal that looked like she was writing the letter Z, then closed her fist. The dogs took new positions—one posted by the driver’s door, one by the passenger’s, one at the front of the truck, and one at the rear—and sat quietly. Three more formed a rough semicircle between the truck and house.

  “I think we can get out now,” Phoebe said.

  “Are you sure?” Sam asked. Phoebe opened her door and stepped out, giving Franny a quick hello hug.

  “Thanks so much for agreeing to this,” Phoebe said.

  “No problem at all,” Franny told her. Jim appeared by her side, grinning, disheveled, looking like a mad scientist. The left arm of his glasses was being held on with a safety pin. His eyes were bloodshot and his teeth yellow. “I’m converting the old Mercedes diesel so that it’ll run on vegetable oil,” he told Sam, who had stepped tentatively out of the truck but still held on to the door, as if he might decide to jump right back up in the cab. “French fry fuel. I’ve got gallons of the stuff from a couple of local restaurants.” Jim had a funny habit of sticking his head forward when he spoke, which made his neck seem very long and turtlelike.

  “Very cool,” Sam said, eyes nervously watching the dog that was just two feet to his left, holding statue still.

  “This is Lisa,” Phoebe said, holding the door open, waiting for Lisa to join them. Lisa didn’t move. Franny walked around, stuck her head in, and whispered something to Lisa that made her smile and nod, then held out her hand. Lisa took it, and Franny helped her from the truck.

  Phoebe knew she’d done the right thing. Lisa would be safe here.

  “If anyone shows up out here, we’ll know it,” Jim told Sam. “I’ve got cameras and infrared sensors all around the perimeter. At the first sign of any trouble, we’ll take her into the bunker. It’s underground. Completely out of sight and pretty much impenetrable. We’ve got supplies in there to last a year—food, water, weapons, a toilet, and shower.” There was a glint in his eyes that gave away how much he was loving this.

  The cameras and infrared sensors were a surprise to Phoebe, though not a complete shock. Who the hell were they expecting?

  “Come on,” Jim said, giving Sam a hearty pat on the back. “I’ll show you the work I’m doing on the diesel.” Jim led Sam toward the workshop, one of the dogs staying right at Jim’s side.

  Phoebe followed Franny and Lisa into the house, through the mudroom, and into the kitchen, which was hot, steamy, and sweet smelling.

  “I’m making strawberry jam,” Franny said, moving to the stove to stir a large, steaming pot. The counter was covered in canning jars of various sizes, rubber seals, and lids. Franny’s kitchen was enormous and old-fashioned: there was a wood cookstove and a heavy maple table that did double duty as workstation and gathering place. Cast-iron pans hung from hooks on the rough-hewn beams that ran the length of the ceiling. Simple open shelves lined each wall and were full of jars of dried beans, rice, canned tomatoes, herbs, and spices. To get water at the sink, you had to use a red-handled pump.

  Franny scooped a small amount of the hot strawberry goo into a ceramic bowl, sliced off a thick piece of homemade bread, and spread the jam on top, passing it to Lisa.

  “It’s still a little runny,” she said, “but I sort of think it’s best when it’s warm and runny, don’t
you?”

  Lisa nodded, diving in like she was starving. She smiled while she ate, jam leaving sticky stains around her mouth.

  They visited a few minutes, making small talk about the office and the weather. Then Franny walked Phoebe to the door while Lisa spooned jam onto her third piece of bread and gulped strong tea with hot milk and honey.

  “She’ll be fine here, Bee,” Franny promised. “I won’t let her out of my sight.”

  Phoebe knew it was true. There was no safer place for Lisa than right here. But still, she hated to leave her.

  “If she says anything . . . anything at all about where she’s been, or her past—”

  “I know. I’ll pay close attention. You know me, I’ve got a mind like a steel trap. I’ll remember any detail she tells me and report straight back to you. If it seems important, I’ll call you right away. Promise.”

  Phoebe thanked her and turned to go, but Franny grabbed her arm, drawing her back. “Did you tell him yet?” she asked, her voice low.

  Phoebe shook her head. “Today,” she said. Franny scowled. “I promise.”

  Phoebe left, casting one quick glance back at Lisa, who sat hunched over the kitchen table, mouth and face grotesquely red, reminding Phoebe a little too much of coagulated blood.

  Chapter 29

  Lisa

  June 13, Fifteen Years Ago

  “Dave, you’re being unreasonable,” Hazel was saying. Da was lying on the couch, mouth firmly closed. Hazel was holding out a glass of water and two pills. “The medicine’s helping, Dave. Call it a blessing, call it a curse, but it’s doing its job. Do you want to end up back in the hospital?” Hazel asked. “Is that what you want?”

  Lisa had just come in from the yard where she’d been drying out the sewing basket as best she could, thinking things over and coming up with a plan. The first thing she was sure of was that bringing her mom the still-damp basket and explaining where she’d found it would send the household into a tizzy, which was the last thing she wanted. So she snuck upstairs and stuck the sewing basket on the bottom shelf of the hall closet, behind a pile of towels, then headed back down to the kitchen.