Dad examined it, holding it up between his fingers under the glare of the hideous daisy light fixture. “It’s a bone.”
A wave of nausea hit me. I ran for the sink and prepared, but nothing came.
From behind me at the table, there was only the sound of Kimmie’s fork on her plate, the glug-glug of my mother pouring more bourbon.
“Look at me, Denise,” Mom said.
I turned, but still braced myself against the sink in case I needed it. “To make these turkey loafs, you know, Land o’ Lakes puts them in a big grinder. Sometimes pieces of the bone get missed.” She took a sip of her bourbon. “It’s just like eating around the buckshot in the pheasant. Remember when your cousin Anton brought us that pheasant?”
My stomach heaved at the mere mention of it, but I did remember. I couldn’t eat that either.
“It can be a sandbox treasure, that’s all.” Dad set the bone on a napkin next to his beer.
We played with bones all the time, but for some reason, the thought of that one in the sandbox made me lose it altogether. I threw up in the sink.
Immediately after Christmas, Dad found a job, and all was right with the world again. Mom abandoned the Crock Pot in favor of steaks and Welsh rarebit and even fondue.
Still, Mom and Dad never truly seemed happy after that.
~~**~~
Mom died ten years ago. Dad died last month. I stand on the house’s collapsing, moss-encrusted back porch and can hardly believe four decades have passed since that year the boys disappeared.
I can barely see the sandbox beyond out-of-control grasses and sumacs. I can, however, make out an impression in the ground, a square where the trees part. Dad didn’t take care of anything toward the end—understandably so, he was an old, ill, curmudgeon—but I can guarantee you he never had to yell at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn; no kid in his right mind would go near this house the way it’s fallen into disrepair. I’m even willing to bet the only kids who ever visit are on Halloween dares: go touch the door and see if a ghost grabs you! I’m sure our house is now the local haunted one, the house with the eyes that watch you.
My first reaction is to burn it down and grab the insurance money; I’d be better off. Not that it wouldn’t sell if it were cleaned up—it has beach rights—but there are things about it that are weird and will probably cost more to fix, things beyond a new roof and an update to the avocado kitchen. Dad built the place himself, but really hadn’t the carpentry skills for anything much beyond stage sets. The electrical has never been wired right. There’s the matter of the wood stove he put in himself that he never got a permit for, the makeshift Formica shower in the downstairs bathroom, the backward plumbing, and the colony of bats living in the attic.
I understand why Kimmie wants nothing to do with it.
The side door’s lock is so rotted the door whines open with just a push. I stand in the foyer, wondering what disasters I might find on either floor.
I head down the stairs, past my old bedroom. The brown plaid wallpaper peels off the walls, and the metal bed frame has started to rust. The bathroom is in no better shape—there’s a clot of mold on the shower ceiling as well as a gaping hole in the buttercup Formica, and the spigot is coming out of the wall.
Dad’s den looms ahead.
The closet’s padlock is broken.
I grip the edge of the knotty pine door and it comes off in my hand, nearly flattening me onto copies of Sargasso and Ghost Boat and Jaws—their bright covers speckled in mildew—and the Robert Frost poster, which long ago abandoned its post on the wall.
When my head clears, I peer into the closet. There aren’t typical horizontal shelves or even a hanging bar for clothes. Instead, the shelves are tucked into the side walls, like wide ladders.
At the back of the closet is a door. It’s typical of a crawl space door—if it even opened, I’d have to bend over to get through it.
I step into the closet, set my hand on the tiny door’s knob, and turn.
I’m hit with a blast of cold air reeking of earthworms and mushrooms. Whatever this is—a room, root cellar or cold storage—it’s pitch. I reach into my pocket for my cell phone and turn on the flashlight app.
It’s a tunnel.
What the hell? How could this have been here and I never knew about it?
I step inside, feeling the squelch of the claylike mud beneath my feet. It appears it was used for some storage; to the right is a wall of shelves, obviously my father’s handiwork, as they aren’t evenly spaced and a few of them slant. On them are a couple of aging bottles of Seagram’s 100 Pipers. A few rusted Budweiser cans litter the floor.
The tunnel extends a few feet and bangs a sharp left, and that’s when it comes into view:
A mound of sand, as high as my neck.
I look up. There is a sliver of the gray sky above. A sheaf of sand falls into my eyes and some in my mouth. I gasp and spit it out.
The sandbox.
I’m under the sandbox.
~~**~~
When I’m coughed out and clear, I look again.
Above me are doors. They’re metal doors that meet together in the middle, but over time, they’ve warped and separated.
I take a step forward and trip on something, falling on my chest in the dirt. More clouds of sand. More coughing.
Rolling over, I sit up, brush caches of sand out of the pockets and wrinkles in my red barn jacket. There’s another smell in my nostrils, like mildew and rotted plywood, and a void of sound, as though I’m in a snow-covered field.
As my eyes better adjust to the dark, I see the tunnel extends several more feet toward a hulking form; emerging from the gloom, half buried like a wrecked ocean liner in the depths, is something large and square.
I take a deep breath, then hate myself when a lungful of fine dust makes me choke. I feel around for my cell phone, sift through the sand, grimace at the familiar coating on my hands.
Reengaging the flashlight app, I’m relieved to see it seems fine, save for some grains wedged between the phone and its Otterbox, but the light isn’t far-reaching enough to distinguish what’s out there. I struggle to my feet. I edge closer.
It’s Bessie, Mom’s big orange freezer. As I approach, so does the past: the Bantam Market and its refrigerator cases brimming with veal and beef, Kimmie banging her spoon on the table, the horrific thunderstorms and yellowing books, the lean times and Mom’s inedible Crock Pot meals, the endless games of Bury the Dead that stretched across summers and falls until Myron was gone.
Myron—Myron and his maroon puffy coat. I suddenly miss him terribly. If we’d have parted ways, would he have gone into the world or stayed next door, so that today I could knock and find him there, the same old Myron, just older, less the caterpillar of snot and in a coat of a larger size?
Bessie, the one I remember, never had a lock; here, there’s clear evidence that one existed—a hasp and staple, rusty but still viable, sit waiting for their padlock.
I shiver as though startled, feeling watched, and could swear I hear someone urging me to look inside. When I turn, there’s no one there.
The last thing I want to do is let go of the flashlight app, so instead, I try to prop the phone on a nearby rock outcropping. It does little to dispel the stygian murk.
I pry open the freezer. It sticks at first, and when it pops open, out wafts the most ungodly smell, like mold and dirty sweat socks.
The lid rests against the back wall, and I grab the cell phone and peer inside.
It’s a black hole, but, surprisingly, there are items inside—a disintegrating magazine, on the cover of which I can only make out a P and a y, what looks to be tinfoil, and some old clear plastic bags with marker hastily scrawled on them. I reach down and pick one up. It’s filthy, and it sticks to my hands, but the marker is still visible:
M, Rump . . .
. . . and the date Myron disappeared. A sharp pain stabs my jaw—I get one there every once in a while, ever since the bone f
rom the turkey loaf got wedged in my teeth.
I feel slightly nauseated, and reach for another bag.
M, Shoulder.
Rump. Shoulder.
The tickle of an unpleasant thought worms into my mind, creeps into my soul. I push it away. These are cuts of beef.
I dig a little deeper. There’s a western belt buckle, there’s another bag in Mom’s handwriting, V, Thigh . . .
M is for Myron.
V is for Vinny.
The handwriting is Mom’s.
A cold hand enwraps my heart.
I think of Kimmie’s bright eyes. I can’t breathe. I think of the bacon in the pepper pot soup. My mouth fills with the horrid taste of pennies. I think of the vomit in the sink. I sweat. I hyperventilate.
I retreat from the chest, stumble in the sand piles, end up on my back, beneath the sandbox. Trap doors. They were trap doors. The kids fell down here, and then Mom and Dad . . .
. . . then Mom and Dad . . .
I see Mom at the Crock Pot, telling us not to worry about the neighborhood kids. I know this is, like, scary city for you kids, but you just need to be cool. Those boys were always in a tango with trouble.
I struggle to my feet, plunging my hands deep into the pile for balance. My fingers tease a trove of thin, hard items—sticks? No, bones. The bones we used as pawns in Bury the Dead.
I pluck one from its grave, and see it’s not a chicken bone at all, but a piece of human rib.
I kick myself clear of the pile and watch as the sand silts away, slowly uncovering a maroon puffy coat.
JARRING LUCAS
S ometimes all it takes is a push. To be born. To kill your asshole father. To convince the parole board that you are, to your very core, remorseful for what you did. To assure the astonished realtor you’re so desperate to put the past where it belongs that yes, really, this broken hulk of a mansion in Murrells Inlet lying just beyond a state preserve is perfect.
My childhood friend Leza’s excitement that I’m back makes her even more beautiful than I remember, and I wish I’d taken the time to shave and look decent, although it seems she doesn’t notice. She wrinkles up that cute little nose of hers, folds her arms across her form-fitting yellow sweater and says, “Really, Lucas? Why didn’t you pick something in better shape?”
I’d hoped she’d instantly fall in love with it. “This was the most out-of-the-way place I could find.” A ghost crab scuttles across a patch of sand in front of my car; they’re nocturnal and beach-dwellers, so I take this as proof of its isolation. I survey the weather-beaten stones, the rotting door, the broken stained glass window overlooking the foyer. “Plus, the owner died, the family wanted nothing to do with it, and it’s been sitting here like this for years. So I got it for practically jack. I can fix it up.” I’d always worked construction and had returned to the job I’d left, thanks to the company’s being owned by a family friend. I have income and inexpensive access to materials. “Wait ’til you see the inside.”
She moves next to me; I can smell her, a faint hint of cucumber and melon. That’s when I see the scratches on her neck: five neat lines, like a claw mark. I reach out and brush back her hair to get a better look. “What’s that?”
She shifts the collar of her sweater to obscure it. “You know me. Always getting into things.”
Although I sense something’s off, it’s true. When I was in prison, she sent me a letter just about every week, chronicling her volunteer activities at Huntington Beach State Park, sharing hijinks at her for-fun job at Whales pushing $3 towels and sand art, and familiarizing me with the strays she feeds after her daily runs.
“It was just one of the cats.” She moves across the arid, sea-grass-choked lawn and hesitates on the stone steps. The cicadas are so loud she almost has to shout: “Come on, I haven’t got all day. My husband’s done at five.”
Kent is a pilot and inherited his dad’s tourist-shuttling scenic flight business. He’s always been possessive of her, and I notice she’s nestled her red Miata beneath a cluster of palmettos, up against the untamed tangle of woods that separates us from a cliff overlooking a beach.
She’s right. We don’t have much time.
The massive door is padlocked. I fish the ancient, scroll-worked key from my pocket and work inside the rusty hole; when at last it pops open and the door gives way, it creaks like the grinding of worn brake pads.
There is the smell of camphor, mildew and wet stone, and the sound of the ocean echoes in the cathedral-ceilinged main hall.
“Jesus,” she says. “How are you going to sleep? It’s like being inside a conch shell.”
“That’s part of the charm.” I reach for the light switch; the wrought-iron chandelier spits to life, shedding orange-gold shafts on a paling mural of a river and desert beyond gold columns and palm fronds; in front of that is a dusty—but solid—intricately carved Cleopatra-style sofa. The teak bannister along the stone stairs to the second floor is still in good shape, just gossamered with cobwebs. “See? Not too bad. A couple things, but, really, it’s mostly cleanup and updating. She’s structurally sound.”
She frowns.
“Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”
We begin in the sitting room to our left, which, like most of the rooms, is full of ancient rattan and mahogany furniture, curiously none of it covered by sheets.
She points to the stenciling on the wall: a repeating rose-navy-amber series of large symbols. “What’s with that? It looks Egyptian.”
I regret not having made more accurate mental notes when I was with the realtor, but I remember a few things. “This place was built in the twenties, when the whole Egyptian revival was going on.”
She steps forward, looks more closely. “I get the pyramid and the sphinx and all that, but what’s with the vases with the heads on top?”
Every fourth symbol is crowned with a head wearing a smug countenance: a man. A monkey. A dog. A bird of prey . . . no, the monkey is a baboon, the dog is a jackal, and the bird of prey is a falcon. That’s right. The realtor had explained it when she’d noted if I didn’t like them I could remove them. “Those aren’t vases. I think those are . . .” I dip into my memory, but can’t pull up what they’re called—only what they’re used for. Embarrassed, I just say, “funeral jars.”
“What?”
“When Egyptians made mummies, they took the innards out and put them in those.”
“Why?”
“So the person could use them in the afterlife.”
“Ew.” She pauses. “They couldn’t pick staffs or suns or something like that?”
“I think the last owner was like . . . he’d been to Egypt a bunch of times, studying burials or something. The same thing’s in every room in the house.”
“They’re looking at me.”
Actually, they hadn’t bothered me when I looked at the place. “There’s a way to get rid of them.”
She considers me for a long moment, steps forward, and sets a hand on my arm. “I know you wanted to start over, but . . . at least consider staying at Pop’s hotel until it’s . . . restored to its former grandeur.”
I flush at the feel of her hand, so I look at my feet. “Nah. I’ll be fine.”
She looks disappointed.
A furious beating noise surrounds us, drowning all else. Leza crouches, thrusting her hands over her ears, and out of instinct I pull her against me. Huddled together, I’m less focused on the ungodly pounding than on the thrill coursing through me.
The sound recedes, and I realize it was a helicopter passing overhead.
We don’t move for what seems like several minutes. At last, she looks up at me. Something hangs between us.
“I . . . I have to go.” She breaks our embrace, stands up. “It’s late.” She retreats to the rectangle of gray and palm trees that is the front doorway, and I follow. “You’re sure you don’t want me to get you a room.”
I know I should say yes, but something tugs at me: this is where I belong. I
shake my head.
“Well,” she says. “I’m not crazy about it, but I guess I’ll just have to visit you out here then.”
She turns to go, and I watch as she fights the dense growth around where she’s parked, gets into her convertible, and drives away.
In her absence, I am drawn once again to the wall stencils.
My mind gropes for the jars’ proper name; I’m gravitating toward words that start with C, words I realize I’m making up: Canic? Conundric? No. Something like that, though. I stare at the falcon-shaped one a bit longer. Its eyes seem to pierce through me.
Canopic. That’s what they’re called. Canopic jars.
I wonder what Mom—the queen of jars—would have thought.
~~**~~
I grew up in a one-thousand square foot trailer on a permanent site in the KOA Campground in Myrtle Beach, and it was crammed with jars: buttons, change, safety pins, everything you could think of was stored in blue glass, pink marble, stoneware, metal; some shaped like chickens, fish, cottages. Mom combed estate sales and thrift shops on a regular basis to find more, and when she wasn’t doing that, she was pickling, jamming, canning: Lemony Cauliflower, Spiced Plum Jam, Roasted Corn Salsa. She’d put everything in Ball jars, fleece them with gingham, and sell them anywhere she could, sometimes even at the state fair all the way in Columbia.
When I was in elementary school, my birthdays always fell during a themed week—Fire Prevention Week, Ecology Week, Dental Hygiene Week. In second grade, my day landed in the middle of Personal Safety Week, and it was so hot it felt like even our vinyl siding would melt. I was supposed to go to Leza’s pool—her parents owned the Polynesian Golf and Beach Resort—but Mom wanted me home right away. Although we didn’t have air conditioning, and the simmering menagerie of fruits on the stove made the kitchen a sticky, mango miasma, I was more disappointed I wasn’t going to see Leza.
Mom sat me down at the table. “Now, honey, I know you’ve been learning at school about when to tell adults certain things that you see or hear.” She slid me a honey-colored ceramic castle jar; the bottom was the building, the top a pagoda-like spire. Needless to say, I was a kid and would have rather been given a toy, so I just sat there, and saw what I swear was the slight sag of disappointment in her deep blue eyes. Still, she smiled. “Go ahead, now! Open it.”
The Shadows Behind Page 5