by Jodi Picoult
"Fireflies?" Shelby said.
"When was the last time you saw so many fireflies moving around it looked like a snowstorm?" He rewound the tape and pumped up the volume, so that his voice and Ethan's could be heard again. "This is where I leave," Ross narrated. His footsteps, on tape, thudded lighter and lighter as he made his way downstairs. "See? Those lights show up just after I go."
Then the camera went black.
Ross rolled his shoulders until the bones popped. "I think whatever it is came into the room with Ethan when I was outside. Those sparks on the tape--that was energy changing form. And that would explain why the flashlight went out. Ghosts need energy to materialize and move around; this one was using the double A's in the Maglite." He watched Ethan stifle another yawn. "And, apparently, whatever force keeps Ethan going."
But Ethan had been alone in that room, and he hadn't seen anything. Or had he?
A bathtub. A foot, rising from the bubbles.
The picture rose from the still blue of his mind, then sank to the bottom before he could grab hold. Each of Ethan's eyelids, by now, easily weighed ten pounds. He heard his mother's voice, an underwater current. "What are you going to tell the development company?"
But Ethan did not hear his uncle's answer. He was already dreaming of a beach, of sand so hot it felt sharp as a knife beneath his jitter-bug feet.
Shelby knew that some librarians felt the human brain was like a microfiche file, impossibly tiny images and words on transparent leaves, arranged page by page for a person's viewing pleasure. But every time she saw those miniature dossiers, she thought that if any part of the body were similarly cataloged, it would be the heart. She imagined autopsies, the organ sliced thin. One sliver would chronicle the way you had cherished a child; one would record the feelings you had for parents and siblings. Another, scarlet, might be etched with moments of passion; angels embracing on the head of a pin. And for those who were lucky, the thinnest slice would be teeming with memories of a love so strong it turned you inside out and left you gasping, and would be an identical match to a slice stored in the heart of a soul mate.
Desiderate: to long for.
"Do you need any help?"
Shelby pushed her reading glasses up her nose and turned to the pockmarked clerk of the probate court. "No, thanks. I can do this in my sleep." To illustrate, she pulled out the base of the microfiche machine and deftly switched transparencies, so that she could view the next page of the will.
It was Ross who'd made the request for her investigative services--and because he so infrequently asked for help, she agreed. He had wanted her to find out how long the land had been in the Pike family, if there was any record of a Native American settlement on it. Shelby had driven to the municipal building, which housed the police station and the district court, as well as the probate department and the town offices. What she learned was that the property had only belonged to Pike since the 1930s.
There was no record of any Native American ever living there.
Shelby had taken it upon herself to discover how Spencer Pike got the deed to the land. It had not been a real-estate transaction, to her surprise, but rather an inheritance. From his deceased wife.
Shelby hadn't made a will of her own. It wasn't like she had all that much, actually--not that Ethan would be left as a tatterdemalian if she was hit by a car on her way out of the court building, but then again, she wasn't Ivana Trump either. However, the reason she hadn't bothered to go to a lawyer to have one drawn up had less to do with her assets than her benefactors. Every other parent in the universe left their worldly goods to their children. But what if you knew for a fact that you were going to outlive your son?
I, Mrs. Spencer T. Pike of Comtosook, Vermont, make this my last will, hereby revoking all previous wills and codicils made by me.
Shelby frowned at the date--it had been signed in 1931. The lettering of her signature was delicate and spiderlike. She had signed the will that way too--Mrs. Spencer T. Pike--as if before her marriage she had not existed at all. Shelby had to wade through the legalese, but the intent was fairly straightforward: Mrs. Spencer T. Pike had left everything to her husband. Almost.
I give and devise all of my tangible personal property, including but not limited to my furniture, furnishing, jewelry and automobiles, to my husband, Spencer Pike. I give and devise the real property owned by me located at the crossing of Otter Creek Pass and Montgomery Road, in Comtosook, Chittenden County, State of Vermont, to my issue resulting to my marriage from Spencer Pike, to be held in trust by my executor for those issue until they each reach the age of 21. Such real property shall be held by those issue as joint tenants. If Spencer Pike and I shall have produced no living issue at the time of my death, I give and devise the aforesaid real property to my husband, Spencer Pike.
There was nothing in the will about how a woman with so little sense of self had wound up owning the property in the first place. Nothing about how her husband had been affected by her untimely death; whether he had ever looked at the property that was now his and thought that he would trade every square inch if it brought her back.
Shelby loved words, but she would be the first to tell you they had a habit of letting you down. Most of the time, the words that were not written were the ones you needed most.
She slipped the microfiche out of the machine, slid it into its protective dust jacket, handed it to the clerk, and left the probate office. But she had no sooner stepped off the curb outside than a police cruiser screamed into the circular driveway of the municipal building; coming to a stop so close that Shelby found her hand outstretched, as if that might keep the car from striking her. The cop who got out muttered an apology, but he wasn't even looking at her as he hurried into the police station.
Shelby shook the whole way to her own car. Promised herself that she would have a will drawn up by the end of the week.
Eli was late. He rushed into the lobby of the station and stuck his head into the dispatch cubicle. "They're looking for you," the sergeant said.
"Tell me something I don't know. Where are they?"
"In the conference room. With the chief."
Groaning, Eli walked down the hall to find Chief Follensbee sitting with two teenage boys. "Ah, Detective Rochert. Mr. Madigan and Mr. Quinn, here, said that you specifically told them to meet you here at ten-thirty to take down their statements. And yet here it is, past eleven."
"I'm sorry, Chief," Eli said, hanging his head. "I got, uh, hung up." Actually, he'd overslept. After spending most of last night awake, he'd drifted off shortly before dawn. He had been dreaming of the woman who smelled of apples, the same one he'd dreamed of before. Was it any wonder he'd ignored his alarm?
Then, he'd been driving past the Pike property and was stopped by two girls riding their bikes. There was a lady wandering around Montgomery Road, they had said, looking lost. Last year, an elderly woman with Alzheimer's had driven off in her car and had been found dead of hypothermia two days later in a supermarket parking lot--for that reason alone, Eli had backtracked to the spot the kids had indicated. But whoever they had seen was gone by then, and Eli was more than twenty minutes late.
He sat down across from Jimmy Madigan and Knott Quinn. They lolled in their chairs in their metalhead Tshirts, torn jeans, black boots. High school dropouts, they were kids who floated on the fringe of society. For them to have willingly walked into a police station, they must have had quite a scare. "So you boys say you saw something on the Pike property?"
"Yeah," Jimmy said. "Three nights ago. We went for a dare, you know, because of what people say is going on there. And that's when we saw the thing."
"The thing?"
Jimmy looked at his friend. "We both saw it. It was, like, taller than both of us together. And it had these fangs . . ."
"Teeth," Knott agreed. "All jaggedy, like a hunting knife."
"And did this creature speak to you?"
The boys glanced at each other. "See, that's the weird
thing. It looked like it was gonna kill us, you know, but when it opened that mouth it cried like a baby."
"Cried? Like, tears?"
Knott shook his head. "No, it wailed. Waa, waa."
"And then it just disappeared," Jimmy added. "Like smoke."
"Smoke," Eli repeated. "Smoke. Interesting."
"Dude, I know you think we're making this up, but we're not. Knott and I both saw it. I mean, that's gotta count for something."
"Oh, I believe you saw it. Speaking of seeing things, you guys ever see these?" Eli pulled a small Ziploc bag filled with shriveled mushrooms from his breast pocket.
Knott's face went white. "Um, truffles?"
"Yeah, truffles," Eli said. "Is that what you're growing at home, Knott? Because that's not what one of Jimmy's customers told me."
"What the fuck, man? I don't know what you're talking about," Jimmy said.
"Great." Eli slid two pieces of paper onto the table. "Then you won't mind when we search your rooms. Because when we find nothing, I won't be able to charge you with possession with intent to distribute." He leaned forward, arms folded. "Maybe there is a ghost at the Pike property, and maybe there isn't. But getting high before you go looking just might stack the odds."
Tonight, Ross had brought equipment--not only the video camera but also one that took digital stills, as well as a thermal scanner--all ordered over the Internet on Shelby's credit card, a fact he hadn't yet broken to his sister. Ethan would have gotten a kick out of the gadgets, but he was home--Shelby's permissiveness apparently had reached its limit. It was shortly after eleven, about a half-hour before the ghost had appeared to Ethan last time. Ross hunkered down to wait. What he wanted, pure and simple, was to be as fortunate as his nephew had been.
He had set up his tools in a clearing behind the house, one that afforded him a good view of the backyard. Rod van Vleet had succeeded in razing half the house. That meant a spirit would move elsewhere--and there were nineteen acres of land to cover. The fact that Ross happened to start at the same spot where he'd met Lia Beaumont nights ago was, he told himself, just a coincidence.
For a while Ross listened to cricket sonatas and the courting of frogs. There were stars at his neck, tiny bites, and the moon pressed into the small of his back. He had no idea what time it was when he heard footsteps near the house. He glanced at his thermal scanner, but the temperature hadn't dropped enough to warrant the arrival of a spirit. Yet a moment later, as a figure stepped into his line of vision, his heart began to race.
The security guard from the quarry was not wearing his uniform, but Ross recognized him immediately; there just were not that many centegenarian Native Americans wandering around Comtosook. He was holding what seemed to be a white rose. "You?" Az said, frowning.
Ross shrugged. "I tend to go where the spirit takes me."
The Indian snorted. "So this time it took you right to working for those leeches."
"I'm in business for myself," Ross corrected. "They aren't paying me a dime."
The old man seemed to find this admirable, although he continued to scowl. "You're looking for ghosts again?"
"Yes."
"What would you do if you came across one?"
"A ghost? I don't know. I've never found one."
"You think these developers have a plan?"
Ross pictured van Vleet. "I imagine they'll want me to try to get rid of it."
Az's mouth tightened. "Yeah, round them all up and stick them on the Rez. You move them far enough, it's easy to believe they never existed here at all. Squatters' rights, they don't mean a damn, do they?"
Ross didn't answer. He didn't know if the old man was expecting one, and he was afraid that whatever he said, it would be the wrong response. "You live around here?" he asked, changing the subject.
Az pointed to a campsite, barely visible across the road. "I come here, sometimes, at night. Senior citizens don't sleep much," he said dryly. "Why waste time doing something I'm going to be doing forever, soon enough?" Az started to move away, then turned back at the edge of the clearing. "If you find a ghost, you know, you won't get rid of it. No matter what Rod van Vleet wants."
Ross lifted a shoulder. "That's a pretty big if."
"Not really. You've been surrounded by ghosts your whole life. You just don't know that's what you're seeing," Az said. "Adio, Mr. Wakeman."
He disappeared around the front of the house as the wind picked up. Ross shrugged into his jacket. He swallowed repeatedly, but could not get the taste of disappointment off his tongue. He told himself it was because Az had come, when Ross was hoping for a ghost. That it had nothing to do with the fact that Az had come, when Ross was hoping for Lia.
"I've had it!" the nurse cried, dropping the tray of pills. "I do not have to take this kind of treatment from a patient!"
Spencer Pike watched from his wheelchair, his hands folded in his lap. When he needed to, he could play the doddering fool well. He stared at a soap opera on the television set, feigning interest, as the supervisor approached.
She was a large woman with hair dyed the color of apricots. In his mind, Spencer called her Nurse Ratchet. "Is there a problem, Millicent?"
"Yes, there's a problem," the younger nurse fumed. "Mr. Pike's verbal abuse."
Ratchet sighed. "What did he say this time?"
Millicent's lower lip trembled. "He said . . . he said I'm an idiot."
"If I might interrupt, that's not what I said." Spencer turned to Ratchet. "I told her she came from a family of imbeciles. Not idiots. There is a difference, however subtle."
"You see?" Millicent huffed.
"I only asked if she was related to the Cartwrights of Swanton. It's a known fact that nearly half of that family tree grew up in state homes for the feebleminded." He did not say what he had so politely refrained from telling even Millicent Cartwright--that given the number of times she'd mistaken him for one of the other rest-home patrons, she seemed genetically wired to follow in the footsteps of her kin.
Millicent shrugged out of the cotton vest she wore as an employee of the nursing home. "I quit," she announced, and she walked out of the rec room, the heels of her white clogs crushing a rainbow of pills in her wake.
"Mr. Pike," Ratchet said, "that was uncalled for."
Spencer shrugged. People never wanted to face up to their own flaws. He ought to know.
In Dr. Calloway's office, Meredith felt like a giant--too big for the tiny chairs and table, too oversized to fit in the gingerbread playhouse with the wooden slide, too awkward to fit small stubs of crayons between her fingers to color. Lucy, though, fit perfectly. Across the room and out of earshot, she lay facedown on an enormous stuffed frog, dressing one of Barbie's anorexic friends.
"An isolated visual hallucination is rare," the psychiatrist said. "More often, psychotic symptoms present as auditory hallucinations, or agitated behavior." Dr. Calloway glanced at Lucy, quietly playing. "Have you seen any abrupt changes in her attitude?"
"No."
"Violence? Acting out?" Meredith shook her head. "What about changes in her eating or sleeping patterns?"
Lucy hardly ever ate--skinny as she was, Meredith used to joke that her daughter photosynthesized instead--and as for sleeping, well, she hadn't gone straight through a night in ages. "Sleeping's a problem," she admitted. "Lucy's imagination runs away with her. She usually leaves the light on, and she gets herself so worked up about what's in her closet or under her bed that the only reason she even gets to sleep at all is because she passes out from sheer exhaustion."
"It's possible that Lucy's suffering from the same anxieties any eight-year-old might have at bedtime." Dr. Calloway said. "And then again, it's possible that she is seeing something in her closet and under her bed."
Meredith swallowed hard. Her child couldn't be psychotic, couldn't be. Not Lucy, who would rather hop than walk; who read picture books to her stuffed animals; who had just mastered all the words to "Miss Mary Mack." There was a truth in the back of Mered
ith's head, as sharp and blue as a flame: You didn't want her, once, and this is your punishment.
"What do I do?" she asked.
"Just remember that eight is the age of Santa Claus and imaginary friends and make-believe. Children Lucy's age are just beginning to separate fantasy from reality--and there's a very good chance that whatever she's envisioning is part of that process."
"But if it keeps up?"
"Then I'd recommend starting Lucy on a low dose of Risperdal, to see if it makes a difference. Let's just wait and see."
"Okay." Meredith watched Lucy begin to braid the doll's hair. "Okay."
Ross wasn't hungry, so he didn't quite understand why he'd come to the town diner--an establishment that had been around as long as Comtosook, passing like a plague through a chain of overweight, crochety owners who all believed that grease was a gourmet seasoning. Not that this seemed to affect business: when Ross arrived, every table and counter stool was taken. Settling against a mirrored wall to wait, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes. "Sorry," the waitress said, turning the moment he flicked on his lighter. "We're smoke-free."
It seemed ridiculous that an establishment whose menu catered to early heart attacks would be so hypocritical, but Ross just tucked his Merits back into his jacket. "I'll be around back," he told the waitress. "Can you save me a table?"
"That depends." She smiled. "Will you save me a cigarette?"
Now, five minutes later, he leaned against the Dumpster behind the diner and lit up, letting the smoke curl down his throat like a question mark. He crossed his eyes a little and watched the tip glow.
He should have brought a jacket--it was easily ten degrees colder back here. Temperature fluctuations like this were becoming customary in town, and its residents seemed to have turned a corner--instead of fearing these anomalies, they unpacked their winter boots and mittens, and left them beside their beach towels and suntan lotion, because either one might be called for. The best thing about New Englanders, Ross thought, was that when they finished complaining they swallowed fate like a dose of medicine--unpleasant in taste, but ultimately, something you'd get through all the same and be better for it. Ross pressed his shoulders against the dark metal wall of the Dumpster, stealing the heat it had trapped. Head bent, he tossed the rest of the cigarette away.