“Stop it, Mom! This isn’t about Dad. You always blame Dad. Always. For everything. It’s not his fault!”
“Enough!”
“No! It’s not enough. It’s never enough. No matter what I do, you think I’m crazy. You always have. Well, I’m not! If anyone’s crazy, it’s you!” I drop to my knees and bang my fists on the floor, then my head. Ken pulls me back. I fight him off.
The heavy cop locks me in a choke hold. I black out.
32
When I come to, Ken and Mr. Sinclair are gone. I don’t ask where or why. I don’t say “sorry” either. I don’t say anything. Why am I here? Why am I anywhere? I wish I could disappear forever.
The cops get me down the ladder and onto the couch in the living room. I stare at the baseboard across from me. Mom’s been crying; she goes to the kitchen with the thin cop. They talk quietly, while the other one stands in the archway, arms crossed, in case I do anything. Eventually Ken returns with an overnight bag and the cops leave.
“I’m going to set up a cot for Ken in the big room upstairs,” Mom says. “He’ll be staying here tonight.”
“What? You’re scared of me?”
“No, Cameron, I’m scared for you.” She sits beside me and puts her hand on mine. I don’t stop her, but I don’t look at her either, just keep staring at the baseboard. “If you have another outburst like what happened upstairs, I’m not strong enough to stop you.”
“So, like, do I call you Ken or Mr. Security Guard or what?” I say to Ken without looking up.
“I’m here to help,” Ken says. “That’s all. I care about you. We all do.”
“Right.”
“Ken’s going to arrange an appointment for you with his family doctor,” Mom says. “The doctor should be able to give you medication for your nerves until we can set you up with someone to talk to.”
“You mean a shrink.”
Mom pauses. “This is my fault, Cameron, not yours. I should have seen this coming long ago. These past few years have been so hard on you. I thought I was all you needed, but I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
I hear what she’s saying, but it’s just words.
“The officers say there won’t be any charges as long as nothing else happens. They think it would be a good idea for you to stay home for a few days. Do you have any classes with Cody? Are your lockers near each other?”
I shake my head.
“Good. They say it’s best if you see him as little as possible.”
Yeah. After all, I’m a freak, right? Like I could beat up a guy like Cody. As if.
“Ken’s canceling his appointments for tomorrow. He’ll be here with you while I figure out things with the school. I’ll see your teachers and get work for you to do so you don’t fall behind. I’ll also speak to your history teacher and have him cancel that essay about the farm.”
“There is no essay,” I say quietly.
Mom catches her breath. She’s about to say something, but Ken must’ve caught her eye because she doesn’t. “We’ll get through this,” is all she says.
I get ready for bed, and Mom comes in to say good night. She turns on a night light, reminds me Ken’s down the hall if I need anything, and gives me a kiss on the forehead. “I love you.”
I stare at the ceiling. “Mm-hmm.”
She leaves. I hear Ken and her setting up the cot. It’s not very comfortable; he must really like her. I hear the stairs creak as she goes downstairs to her room, and then I hear Ken settling in. Everything goes quiet. I lie still for a very long time.
Jacky, why weren’t you there? Where are you?
Silence.
Maybe Mom’s right. Maybe I am crazy.
Mom checks on me in the morning; I pretend to be sleeping. I ache all over. There’s a nasty bump on my forehead and my arms are bruised. I really banged myself up last night.
I hear Mom and Ken talking in the kitchen, and I’m pretty sure it’s about me. Mom leaves before eight. She probably wants to see the principal first thing. When I finally come down, Ken gets me corn flakes and grapefruit, the whole time talking about the weather like nothing happened last night and it’s not totally weird he’s here.
“You like coffee with milk, right? And lots and lots of sugar?” He winks.
Me and that cappuccino machine. I don’t feel like smiling, but I do. “Not really.”
He watches me eat. “Want anything else? Living on my own, I know how to make bacon and eggs. I’m also pretty good at takeout.”
I shake my head. It’s hard, but I have to say it: “I’m sorry about the attic.”
“That’s okay.”
“I hope Mom knows.”
“Absolutely. She loves you.”
I have to focus on my toast or I’ll lose it. “I was so sure.”
“I’ve been sure about lots of things that didn’t turn out the way I expected. Nothing wrong with that.”
I think for a long time. “There’s a reason I thought what I thought.”
Ken smiles. “There’s always a reason why we think things.” He’s not going to ask. He’s going to make me say it.
“Promise you won’t tell Mom?”
“I can’t promise that. But whatever it is, she’ll understand.”
“She won’t.”
“Well, I will.”
I look in his eyes, and he looks right back. Okay, here goes. “A few nights after we got here, I thought I saw a kid looking out from the hole in the hayloft. I knew there’d been a boy who lived here years ago because of the stuff in the basement. I found his drawings in the coal room. His name was Jacky. Want to see them?”
“Sure.”
I take Ken up to my room and show him the pictures.
Ken frowns. “I’m no expert, but this boy sure doesn’t seem like a happy camper.”
“No kidding. I knew the story about Mr. McTavish and the dogs from school. And see how his mom disappears from his drawings? And the dogs and the pitchfork and the blood and all?”
I pause. Ken nods, not like he’s judging, just listening, waiting for me to go on. So I do. “Anyway, what with all of that, I started to wonder if Mr. McTavish had killed her, and if maybe the kid I thought I’d seen was Jacky’s ghost or something. Especially after I heard how Cody’s great-grandmother thought Mr. McTavish killed not just Jacky’s mother, but Jacky and her cousin too. So I started to research. And I got that stuff from you and the Bugle.”
“And things got bigger and bigger in your head until last night.”
“Yeah. But even before that. Way before. I mean, I’ve been hearing his voice, sometimes just in my head, other times like he’s beside me.”
Did I actually say that? Ken keeps on nodding, like what I’ve said makes total sense. “I can understand why you were so upset.”
“You can?”
“One of the many things I like about you, Cameron, is that you care about people. You try and imagine yourself in their shoes. So I’m not surprised you’d feel for the boy who made these drawings, imagine how he’d look and sound.”
“But I do more than that. I talk to him, Ken. All the time. Mom says my lips move. She’s right. Sometimes I catch myself.”
That part’s harder for Ken, but he doesn’t laugh. “I think we all talk to ourselves. Maybe we don’t talk out loud or move our lips, but when things are important, we imagine what we’re going to say or what we should have said.”
“Not to a ghost.”
“No, maybe not. But I’m not God. There are lots of things I don’t know or don’t understand. Maybe it’s only because I’ve never been through them.” He gives me a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid.”
“Thanks.” Before we get up, there’s something I have to say. “I’m glad you and Mom are friends.”
I’m playing video games upstairs
when Mom gets back. She has a word with Ken, then calls me to the living room. She looks like hell.
“For the rest of this week you’ll be coming to town and doing your schoolwork at the realty office. I can’t have you here alone. Ken’s agreed to stay overnight till we know things have settled down. Next week you’ll be at school on probation. The Murphys are very upset, but they’ve agreed with the principal that you can attend class if you don’t speak to Cody; you have your lunches in the guidance office, not the cafeteria; and you don’t take the school bus. I’ll drop you off in the morning, and you’ll report to the office at the end of each day, where you’ll wait till I pick you up after work. Finally, there are to be no more video games.”
“What?”
“Cameron, this isn’t a conversation. It’s what’s happening. You’ll be seeing Ken’s doctor this afternoon. I’ll be asking him to refer you to a therapist, for reasons that should be obvious. Cameron, talking to imaginary friends. To ghosts.”
I whirl on Ken. “You told her!”
“I had to.”
33
The rest of the week is the loneliest time of my life. I see Ken’s doctor, who gives me prescriptions for sleeping pills that he calls muscle relaxants and for an antidepressant that he says should kick in after about ten days. Wolf Hollow is too small to have a shrink—or for anyone to want to be seen going to one—but he sets me up with one in Ramsay. She’s too busy to see me right away, but she’ll squeeze me in if there’s “another episode.”
Aside from seeing Ken’s doctor, I’m stuck at the real estate office doing homework in a storage room. There aren’t any windows, so it’s like being in solitary. Mom said I could work up front near her, but that would be worse. Everyone coming in would wonder why I wasn’t at school. At least if I’m hidden, we can pretend I’ve been sick. Which is actually what Mom thinks, only she means it like sick in the head.
That’s the other reason I chose the storage room and to stay in my bedroom when we’re home. Every time Mom looks at me, it’s like she wants to cry. “I’m so afraid he’s turning into his father,” she said to Ken two nights back. She thought I was upstairs, but I was listening from the back stairwell. If she’d found out, she’d have said that proved it, that I was turning into a stalker like him.
Mostly I lie in bed and stare at the framed photo on my night table of Mom and my grandparents. I imagine the snapshot of Dad hidden underneath. Does he look like I remember? I want to know so bad, but what if, when I see his face, I get this overwhelming need to call him? A need where I can’t stop myself? I mean, his number’s on the back. It’s right there.
I think about Dad a lot. There’s not much else to think about, besides how I don’t have any friends or anyone to trust, or how maybe I’m crazy like Mom thinks.
I mean, Jacky. What was that about? A few days ago I gave up asking him why he’d lied to me and gotten me in trouble. I gave up because, well, I was just talking to myself. He never said anything. I mean, it was like he wasn’t there. And maybe he wasn’t. Ever. After all, what did I know about him that I couldn’t have guessed from seeing the stuff in the basement, his drawings, Mr. Sinclair’s photographs, or the articles in the Bugle? Or that I might have made up because of stuff that happened with Mom and Dad or dreams that felt real?
If I made up Jacky, what else did I make up? That’s what I wonder when I think about Dad. Like, what if the Dad in my head—the one my mom warns me about—isn’t anything like my real dad at all? What if the fears Mom has about him are things she’s blown up, like I blew up things I heard about Mr. McTavish?
Like that time he abandoned me in the middle of nowhere. What if it just seemed like the middle of nowhere because I was little, but it was really a park, and for him we were just playing hide-and-seek? Or that time he held me underwater. Maybe it was training. After all, I can hold my breath the length of a pool now, can’t I? Or that Facebook thing. What if he just missed me and it was his only way to find me? Mom’s kept him away for years. What other choice did he have? Maybe she made him do it. Maybe it’s her fault. And about that time on the balcony—he would never have dropped me. He was just playing airplane. Lots of dads do. Maybe I’ve remembered things all wrong.
When I think that, I hate myself for blaming him about things that aren’t his fault. Then I hate myself for doubting Mom. I’m a bad son to Dad, to Mom—what’s wrong with me?
34
What’s wrong with me? That’s what I’m thinking again tonight, Sunday night. Tomorrow it’s back to school—to Cody who wants me dead and Benjie who ratted me out and a world of everyone staring at me and whispering about me. Tweeting about me too, I’ll bet.
Anyway, it’s late. I’m supposed to be sleeping, but I can’t. I’m at my desk, looking out my bedroom window. It’s pretty bleak. The fields are chopped, the leaves are down, and the sky is nothing but clouds. After dark, all you can see is a gray spill of light from the barn that catches the edges of the fields. Tonight’s worse. The air is freezing into snow sand. When the wind whips it against the windowpanes, the sound makes me tighten the blanket around my shoulders.
Dad. Mr. McTavish. The dogs. If I let myself, I could picture the dogs looking up at me from the field. I close the curtains and hear a little voice behind me. “Cameron?” I’ll bet Jacky’s sitting on the edge of my bed, but I don’t turn around. I’m afraid I’ll see him.
“Cameron? Are you mad at me? Why won’t you look at me?”
What do I tell him? That I’m afraid he isn’t there?
“I know I haven’t been around. I’m sorry, but I’ve been hurting. You said things about me.”
I bite my lip and close my eyes. I see Jacky on the inside of my eyelids. “Before I talk to you again,” I whisper, “you have to answer some questions.”
“Okay.” He looks nervous.
“Where are you when you’re not with me?”
Jacky pauses. “I don’t know.”
“What did you do before I came?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because people think I’m crazy. Sometimes I think I’m crazy.”
“You’re not,” Jacky says. “I’d tell you if you were.”
“But what if I am and you’re just…”
“I’m me, Cameron. I’m just me. Jacky.”
“No, you’re something else,” I say. “You pretend to be my friend, but you tell me things that aren’t true, things that get me in trouble.”
“Like what?”
“You know what—that your father killed your mother and her friend and hung their bodies in the attic; and that he called you up there and killed you too; and it’s been your dark, secret hiding place ever since.”
“I never said that. See, that’s why I stayed away. You told everyone lies about Father and me. I didn’t see any dead bodies. Not anywhere, ever. I never said I did either. That was plain horrible.”
“Come on, Jacky. Those things were all in that dream you sent me.”
“There you go, lying again. I never sent you a dream.”
“What?” It’s like I’ve been kicked in the gut. But it’s true. I guessed he sent that dream, but it’s not like I knew.
Hold up. Have I been talking loud? I get up from my chair and check the hall in case Mom or Ken is listening in, but the hall’s empty. Ken’s snoring lightly from his room. I close the door, prop myself up against my pillows, and shut my eyes. Jacky’s cross-legged at the foot of the bed, winding the tail of his cap around his fingers.
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “So what did happen when your mother left?”
His face crinkles up. “I don’t want to say. It’s hard.”
“Please? I’m your friend.”
“Okay, but don’t tell.” He looks down. “Father wanted Mother and me to be good. I didn’t always listen though, so sometimes after I got t
he belt, he’d have to put me in the coal room for a day or so until I’d learned my lesson.”
“You made the lines I saw on the wall?”
Jacky nods. “One for each time I was in there.”
“That’s awful.”
“That’s what Mother said, but she was wrong. It served me right. Mother gave me a flashlight and paper and crayons for if I got bored. I liked drawing there, seeing the colors in the dark. It’s where I kept my drawings, even when I didn’t have to.”
“And your father called that teaching you a lesson?” I’m still unable to believe my ears.
“Uh-huh.” Jacky nods. “Mother had to have lessons too. Only she never learned. One Saturday Father went to an auction. I saw Mother packing a suitcase. I asked her what she was doing. She said I’d find out soon enough.”
I remember the times Mom’s packed our bags.
“Father came back early. He said he knew what she was up to and told me to go to the attic and not come down till he said. I liked the attic. It was far away from downstairs, and when I was there, I couldn’t hear them fight so much.”
“When Mom and Dad fought, I used to stick my fingers in my ears and hum,” I say.
“That works pretty good, huh?” Jacky gives me a shy smile, then gets all serious again. “After a while I didn’t hear Mother yelling anymore and I thought maybe I could come down. Only a car drove up and there was a knock at the door. Then I heard a man yelling at Father.”
Matthew Fraser, I think, come to take Mrs. McTavish and Jacky away.
“Mother’s old hope chest was in the attic,” Jacky continues. “I crawled inside and closed the lid and covered my ears and everything went away.”
“Forever?”
“No. Until Father came and brought me downstairs. He sat me on his lap and stroked my hair and told me he had some bad news. Mother didn’t want us. He said he’d tried to convince her to stay, but she’d left with her friend and wouldn’t be coming back. He said for me not to worry. He loved me and we’d be happy, just the two of us, only I’d have to be extra good and stay inside from now on. He said if people knew I was on the farm without a mother, they’d take me away and lock me up in an orphanage.”
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