“What’ll you be having?” the bartender asked.
“Steaks all around,” Govie said.
“We’re out of steaks.”
She saw a man chewing on one glaring at them. Two men rested their hands on the hilts of their hunting knives. A hard-faced man with a weather-faded shirt slid over to the saloon door. Another moved to the end of the bar, close to their table.
Bose hummed to himself.
“I see how it is,” Govie said.
“Why don’t you just empty out your pockets?” The bartender rubbed his hands on a towel.
“We don’t want any fuss. Let me tell you what. We ain’t been paid yet, to haul our load up to Fort Laramie. Why don’t I unhitch my horses, leave you my cargo and head out of town?”
The bartender looked over his shoulders. The hard-faced man shrugged. “Fair enough.”
“This seem like the right place to you?” Bose asked, helping her unhitch their horses.
The young girl proved quite pliable by the light of the morning. Then Govie thought back to the face she saw under the moon’s wan light.
“Always did hate these Boomer bastards. Heard some Exodusters settled in Boley, not too far from here.”
So they rode.
Upstairs
Tananarive Due
Noelle Imani Bonner was not easily frightened. Her fearlessness was part of her family’s folklore, the cause of more than one frantic trip to the emergency room. Last summer, at four, she’d knocked out two baby teeth riding on her brother’s bicycle handlebars at the instant a fence greeted them at the bottom of the hill on Potter’s Road. Noelle had also suffered stitches on her forehead and a tetanus shot, which, all told, were still mild compared to the consequences to her brother, though the crash itself had left him unmarred.
Noelle also had an affinity for insects that went counter to all myths about what little girls and boys are made of. With quick, unflinching fingers, Noelle could catch moths, caterpillars and a spindly-legged species of spider as big as her hand that her father called a daddy longlegs; the elegant spiders were her favorite plaything since her father had quashed her sister’s claims that they were poisonous. Her bigmouthed brother gagged and swatted her away when she dangled a spider in front of him and dared him to touch it. Even as the youngest—a full three years behind Sierra and four years behind Victor—Noelle had no equal in boldness.
For all her parents’ worry, neither of them took any joy from the thought of trying to teach Noelle fear. They remembered life at five—how much happiness came from small discoveries, and how foreign the concept of danger was—so they weren’t in a hurry for their last child to grow up. She was old enough to keep her fingers away from light sockets, and she no longer tried to pour strange powders from the kitchen cabinet into her mouth, so the consensus was to let Noelle be Noelle, which was fine, of course, with Noelle.
Noelle’s favorite spot in her family’s two-story, wood-frame house was the attic. All the other rooms, to Noelle, were lifeless. But the attic! There were secret lives in the attic, things that scurried and rustled whenever she opened the door. Noelle made it her business to try to discover what those things were—and, in fact, she’d once chased a small black mouse until it vanished behind the box of Christmas-tree decorations. A few of her long-legged spiders lived in the attic, too; in the main part of the house, they would be attacked with a slipper or a newspaper, but no one bothered the spiders in the attic. Noelle saw to this. She wasn’t permitted to supervise any other part of the house, even the bedroom she shared with Sierra, but the attic and its inhabitants were hers.
The attic was just beyond the whitewashed door at the end of the upstairs hallway, a door that was kept closed, but never locked. Victor had accidentally locked himself in the attic when he was six, screaming himself hoarse to be let out, so that was the end of the lock’s tenure on the attic door, as well as the end of any inclination of Victor to spend time there.
Noelle, on the other hand, could spend hours in the attic. She’d already decided that when she grew up, she was going to live there, and she wouldn’t have to come down even if it was time for dinner, or church, and especially not bed.
She visited as often as she could.
The dull, wooden stairs leading to the attic, which were much steeper than the carpeted steps to the first floor, required special attention and a tight grip on the handrail. The light bulb had burned out long ago, so the only light in the attic was natural, from windows facing four directions; three of the windows were swathed by tree branches, which Noelle liked, because it made her feel like she’d been swallowed inside a giant tree house.
And the space! Maybe that was the most important thing of all. The attic was cluttered, yes—in the middle of the floor, there were heaps of camping equipment, most of it still in boxes, and every discarded piece of furniture from the house—but the attic was the only room that wasn’t interrupted by walls, stretching endlessly from one end of the house to the other. To Noelle, it was luxurious, mysterious, wonderful. An empire.
So, frankly, Noelle was not terribly surprised when she made her way up there one Sunday afternoon and happened to find a man lying asleep under the old dining room table. He was sleeping on a pile of blankets, and she could see newspapers peeking underneath that he’d spread for extra cushioning. The man was snoring very softly, not nearly as loudly as her father would. He was growing a beard that wasn’t coming in right, so some parts of his face—which was very skinny, almost pointy—still looked pink and bare.
The man was sleeping here exactly the way Noelle had imagined she would one day, and she crouched down near the table to get a better look. Her heart flew with excitement. This was her finest discovery in the attic yet!
As if he could hear the cries of delight in her mind, the man opened his eyes wide. His eyes were blue, a clear kind of eye Noelle had never seen before. The eyes looking at her did not blink even once. In a hurry, the man scooted himself from underneath the table so he could sit up straight and give his broad shoulders more room. He was bigger than he’d seemed when he was curled up in a ball. His strange eyes squinted down at her.
“Hello,” Noelle said. “Are you the man in the house?” The eyes narrowed more, and the man’s head angled toward her, the way their neighbor’s dog did when Victor opened his mouth wide and made his invisible dog sound, the kind only dogs could hear. “Mommy said yesterday she wishes there were a man in the house, because a bad thing happened, and I told her to throw a penny in the birdbath and it would come true. Are you the man?”
“Where’s your daddy?” the man said. His voice was rumbly, like the sound a bicycle makes riding over rocks.
“He’s on a trip. For his job.”
“Oh, okay,” the man said. He smiled at her for the first time. His teeth weren’t white like Noelle’s; they were the color of mustard. But, then, she remembered, he couldn’t brush his teeth up here because there was no sink. “What bad thing was your mama talking about?”
Noelle shrugged. Something in the newspaper. Something on the television. Something her mother and the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Rigby, talked about in the kitchen that morning in their grown-up voices, the kind Noelle wasn’t meant to hear. Besides, her mother’s name was Mommy, not Mama. Strangers always got that wrong.
“I dunno,” she said.
“Did somebody get hurt?” the man said. “Somebody right here in this neighborhood, about two blocks over?”
“Maybe,” Noelle said.
“And did somebody do bad things to them? Ugly things?”
“I dunno,” Noelle said again. Unlike Sierra, who thought she was so mature, Noelle wasn’t interested in grown-up conversations.
“Well, since your daddy’s not home and I’m the only man here, then I guess that makes me the man in the house,” he said. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lit it with a red Bic lighter. The flame almost jumped up to his nose.
“No smoking in the house,” Noelle
said.
“Ain’t in the house. We’re in the attic. Besides, the window’s open,” the man said, pointing over his shoulder.
The window was not only open, it was broken, Noelle noticed. The tree branch from outside had stuck its way in and was rubbing against the window frame in a breeze with sad-sounding squeaks. There were big pieces of glass on the floorboards.
“Did you do that?” Noelle asked.
“By accident, I guess I did. I knew this was the house where the wish came from, and I climbed up the tree to get in, but then the window was locked. Hell of a thing. Guess I’ll have to fix it when I leave.”
“When are you leaving?”
The man touched the hair on top of his head, then ran his palm down until it reached his neck and then his shoulder. He had very long hair, almost like an Indian’s, except it was light brown and curly. He blew smoke into the air. “When’s your daddy coming home?”
“In three days,” Noelle said. “On Wednesday.”
“That’s a long time to be gone. Your daddy always traveling like that, leaving you and your mama with no man in the house?”
“No. He had another job before,” she said.
“Oh, yeah. It’s hard getting work. People don’t make wishes like they used to. I’m glad your mama did, because here I am. Just like that.” He winked. “That bad thing had to happen first, but that’s the way it goes.”
“That’s the way it goes,” Noelle repeated. She liked the way the man had said that, with his voice flying up into singsong.
The man looked at Noelle very closely, as though he hadn’t really noticed her before. “How old are you?” he asked.
Noelle held up five fingers. Victor told her she was too old to keep doing that, that she should just say it aloud, but she’d decided to wait until she was six for that. Fingers were easier.
“You ain’t scared of me, huh?” the man asked.
Noelle shook her head.
He grinned. He put his cigarette back in his mouth, and the end of it glowed bright orange. “Imagine that,” the man said, blowing smoke out of his nose. Noelle wondered if the smoke tickled his nose hairs. “Know what? That’s the whole difference between devils and angels—not being afraid. Did you know that?”
Noelle shook her head again.
“What’s your name?”
“Noelle Imani Bonner.”
“Noel. Like Christmas?”
Noelle nodded. “Yep. What’s your name?”
“Kris Kringle,” the man said.
“Not-uh,” Noelle said, giggling.
“Peter Pan.”
“That’s not a name for somebody in real life.”
“Did you forget already? I’m not from real life.”
“Your real name is Peter Pan?”
“No. Just Peter,” the man said, and he reached out his hand for Noelle to shake it, the way grown-ups did. Noelle felt his big hand wrap around hers, with his skin that felt rough and scratchy. He held her tight. “Pleasure, little lady.”
“Will you stay until my daddy comes back?”
Peter didn’t let go of Noelle’s hand, even though he wasn’t shaking it up and down anymore. He looked straight into her eyes, and she knew he was about to say something important.
“I want you to pay real close attention, Noelle,” he said. She could smell the smoke on his breath. “I’ma stay here as long as I can. But you can’t tell anybody, and I mean anybody, I’m up here. If you do, the wish goes away; you won’t have a man in the house anymore, and something bad will definitely happen here, too. I’ve got a very strong feeling about that. Ever get hunches?”
Noelle shook her head. She didn’t. Or maybe she did, but she didn’t know what they were.
“Well, we don’t want that to happen. We want only angels in that attic, Noelle. Will you help me do that?”
Noelle said she would. She promised she wouldn’t say anything about the smoking or the broken window, and she’d try to make sure nobody came to the attic but her. She was proud of herself because she’d thought of everything to keep the secret.
“I want you to do something for me, too,” he said, finally letting go of her hand after she’d made her promises. “I want you to go downstairs right now and grab me a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Don’t forget a knife.”
“I’m not allowed to touch knifes,” Noelle said.
“Not the sharp kind. The other kind. Don’t let nobody see you. I want you to go down and do that right now. As you can see, there ain’t no food up here. None at all.”
Noelle didn’t have a chance to tell him that she was going to move into this attic when she grew up, and when she did she would have a refrigerator full of food. She would tell him that later, she decided. For now, she wanted to turn around and go really fast to do what Peter said.
“Thank you very much, little lady,” Peter said. “We’re going to be good friends, you and me. You’ll see.”
“Okay,” Noelle said, and she laid her index finger across her lips so he would be quiet before she got to the stairs.
Noelle had never kept a secret before, not a big secret, and she discovered it was hard work. At dinner, sitting at the table with Victor and Sierra and her mother, she couldn’t stop thinking about how there was a man in the house right above their heads, eating peanut butter sandwiches, smoking cigarettes and sleeping under the old dining room table. Noelle’s brain wanted to say it every time she opened her mouth, just to see how surprised they would be. Just to prove to her mother that wishes could work. To prove to Victor that the attic was special, like she said. And to prove to Sierra that she wasn’t a baby, because how could she be a baby if she alone was in charge of the man in the house? The secret was making her bounce up and down in her chair until it squeaked.
“Stop that, Noelle,” her mother said, and Noelle stopped bouncing because she didn’t want to give the secret away.
Noelle planned to climb up and say good night to Peter before it was completely dark and she would have to go to bed, but her mother stuck her head out of her bedroom doorway just as Noelle was making a dash for the attic door.
“No, Noelle, it’s too late to go up there with no lights,” her mother said, and Sierra gave Noelle a look as she padded out of the bathroom in her Snoopy slippers. Sierra smelled like Crest. “You are too weird for words,” Sierra said to her.
Victor leaped out of his room, across the hall from theirs, blocking Noelle’s path in the hall. He was making an ugly face. “I’m gonna cut off both your arms! I’m the Mangler!” he said. He was curving his fingers like claws, slashing them near her eyes.
“What’s a mangler?” Noelle asked him, not scared at all.
“Hush, Victor,” their mother said, in a voice that meant business. When Noelle looked at her mother’s face, she could see how worried she was—the same way she’d looked when she’d tossed a penny in the birdbath in the backyard, beneath the tree whose highest branches were now poking through the broken attic window.
“Mom, that freak’s in Mexico by now, I bet,” Victor said.
“I told you to hush. Go downstairs and double-check the doors, smart mouth. Don’t forget the kitchen.”
“Don’t worry, Mommy,” Noelle said before she kissed her mother’s cheek. “Nothing bad will happen here.”
When Noelle got home from school on Monday, the toilet seat was up in their hallway bathroom and there were little brown hairs in the sink. Noelle closed the toilet all the way and turned on the water in the sink to wash the hairs away. She sniffed the air to see if she could smell smoke, but she couldn’t.
“Victor!” Sierra screamed from downstairs like bloody murder.
“What?” Victor was already up in his room.
“Where’s my chicken? I told you I was saving it!” When Sierra yelled, her voice carried through the house. She’d had two wings left over from Popeyes yesterday, when their mother bought them lunch after taking Daddy to the airport. Sierra never ate all of her food
.
“I didn’t take your stank chick—” Victor started to shout back, but then Mommy’s voice came loudest of all from downstairs, telling them to stop all that yelling in the house. Mommy was always in a bad mood on Mondays, especially the Mondays when Daddy was gone.
All day at school, Noelle had been afraid the man in the house would be gone when she came home, a make-believe dream. She didn’t get up early enough in the morning to go say hello to him, so she’d had to wait all day long. Now, Victor was in his room, and Mommy and Sierra were downstairs. This was her chance! Noelle opened the attic door, closed it behind her and ran up the stairs so fast she nearly lost her balance.
Peter wasn’t in his bed under the table, but Noelle saw the Popeyes box full of bones on the floor. She looked toward the window, to see if he’d fixed it, like he said he would when he left. It was still broken, but the tree branch had been pushed back outside. There were dry, dying leaves on the floor now, on top of the broken glass.
“That you, little lady?” the voice said from behind her.
He looked so different! His beard was gone, and he’d cut his hair much shorter than before. He looked like an angel for real. He was standing flat against the wall near the stairs, where he’d been hiding from her. Peter was taller than Daddy, taller than any man she’d known.
“I thought you left,” she said, relieved.
“Wouldn’t do that without saying a proper good-bye.” He was holding something behind his back, but Noelle couldn’t see what, since it was pressed between his back and the wall.
“You came downstairs,” Noelle said, grinning.
“Sure did. Had to check the place over, get a bite.”
“My sister’s mad.”
“About what?”
“You ate her chicken.”
Peter made a sad face and sighed. “Damn. I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know it was hers. I thought it was for me.”
“It’s okay,” Noelle said, so he wouldn’t feel bad. Peter didn’t move away from the wall. She wondered why he was standing up instead of sitting down, like before. “You can’t come out now. We’re home,” she told him.
Voices From The Other Side Page 30