I wrapped my chubby hand around the spire and lifted the top. It was empty.
“Do you know why it’s empty?”
I shook my head.
“Because it’s meant to keep your secrets. See, we don’t tell other people outside this house what goes on here. It’s . . . private. So instead of telling someone at school, you come home, and you whisper into the jar, and then you put the lid back on, and no one will ever know. And if you want, you can keep your secrets about other things in there, too. Okay?”
There was the bang of the sunroom door, and I knew what that meant.
My father was home.
“Go, go.” Mom shooed me to my room.
Jar against my chest, I was ear to wall for the usual: the insult (“Love those flowers you put out there. If only you were that pretty”), the reprimand (“It stinks like a whore’s cheap perfume in here!”), the slap, the slam (“Jesus. I’m going out!”), the tears, and later, when I would alight the rickety spiral staircase leading to our sundeck atop the kitchen to find her, the excuse: I fell, I cut myself on a broken jar, clumsy me, I burned my arm on a hot pan.
That night, before bed, I whispered a secret into my jar. But I’m sure it wasn’t the secret Mom’d had in mind.
~~**~~
The house is like a conch shell—the hish-roar of the sea permeates every nook, overwhelms every space. I’m successful in drowning it out only when I’m immersed in various renovating tasks: for now, covering the damaged stained glass window with thick plastic; ripping out the ancient cabinets in the kitchen; removing the stencils: pressure washing and using a solvent.
The rooms in the house are also oddly shaped. Most are hexagonal or octagonal, but in each there’s one wall that has a closet-sized protrusion ruining the flow, like a buck tooth in an otherwise perfect smile. Since it’s not stone—it’s fake brickwork, in some places deteriorated enough I can see there’s horsehair plaster underneath—I’ve assumed there are probably pipes and electric inside, but today, I feel like someone is standing in there, watching me.
Don’t be a jackass, I tell myself. I rev up the pressure washer and move for a hose-down on one of the jackal-headed jars.
I swear he’s leering at me.
~~**~~
My father rarely deigned to acknowledge my existence, so I wasn’t afraid; I was, instead, angry. Which wasn’t an issue when I was eight, but became one as I grew. Thanks to Mom’s Hungarian heritage, I towered over that squat pepper-shaped Italian; the image of us abreast was a Sasquatch vs. Man illustration. By the time I was seventeen, my physical presence in the house was enough to keep things from being incendiary.
Until the night I came home to the violent sounds of shattering glass.
I rushed into the house and found Mom cowering in the corner on a bed of what amounted to her entire jar collection and its contents; my father was hurling them at her, and blood covered the refrigerator, the stove, the cabinets. She could do little more than duck and scream for him to stop.
Everything inside me boiled over. I clocked him, picked him up by his belt and his thick little arm that had swung at Mom for the final time, and made for the spiral staircase to the sundeck.
“Lucas, don’t!” Mom yelled after me, but I was deaf to everything but the sound of his body landing on the crack-riddled shell-stone of our parking area; I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt her.
As it turned out, I killed him.
As a minor with no priors and the mitigating factor that I was under duress, I was given half the normal sentence and released early for good behavior. But every night I spent in J. Reuben, I thought of Mom, and her last words to me before she died of her injuries: “We could’ve kept it a secret.”
~~**~~
Sweat pours into my eyes as I chip away at the stencils; the sitting room is almost completely clear of them, and although the pressure washer stage drowns the noise of the ocean, the solvent-and-brush stage doesn’t, so I buy a cheap radio and work to whatever’s spinning on 94.9 The Surf. When I was a kid it played beachside oldies most of the time, but now it’s a mix of everything, not all of it worth hearing.
As far as stencil removal’s concerned, it’s the falcon-headed jar’s eyes that are particularly difficult; it’s like someone used tar. After I’ve wiped out the jar, the beak, and the feathers on the head, I’m always left with the eyes. I’m about to tackle a pair when the radio turns to static.
Dammit, that’s what I get for buying a five-dollar special. I put down my brush and crouch to play with the antennae. I bend it left and there’s a high-pitched sound; I bend it right, and hear something that curdles my blood.
Voices. Gutteral, sinister, low.
Who would listen to this crap? I think, but I can’t help feeling there’s something not right about this. There’s no melody. It’s spooky. Frantically, I spin the dial both ways, trying to get another station to come in. Nothing. I try to turn the volume down. Nothing.
There’s a loud knock at the door, and I jump.
The radio pops to the 4 Jacks’s “Bobcat Woman.”
More knocking. “Coming!” I switch the radio off, wipe my hands, and tuck the rag into the back pocket of my shorts.
Leza stands on the front steps, haloed by the afternoon sun and in a peony-patterned dress—appropriate for the heat, although she’s wearing an olive-colored sweater that completely covers her arms.
She holds up a reedy basket laced with green gingham. “My husband’s at work, I have the day off, and I thought we might . . . celebrate? Champagne? I brought your favorite. Or at least it used to be. Cold lime chicken?”
As glad as I am to see her, I wish I’d had warning so I wouldn’t have been a sweaty mess.
She blinks expectantly. “Well?”
I open the door wider. “Come in.”
She does, peers into the sitting room, and I note she looks tired. Not sleep-tired. Done-with-life tired.
“Lucas? Did you hear what I said?”
“Oh . . . sorry. What?”
“I said, ‘You’ve done a beautiful job erasing the stencils, but how come you left the jars?’”
I’m confused and follow her gaze. It’s true. The other symbols—the pyramids, sphinxes, and scarab beetles—are gone. But the jars are back. It’s as though I never touched them at all.
At first my stomach wrenches. Then I remember the nature of things like paint coverage jobs. Why would this be different? “They’re . . . probably ghosting. They look like they’re not there when they’re still wet, but when they’re dry . . . ”
“Like a stain on a carpet?”
“Yes, that’s it.” They probably need a few more applications, I figure.
Another helicopter passes over the house, and although Leza reacts, I’ve gotten used to it. Still, I say, “Let’s go eat in the courtyard.”
~~**~~
The jar Mom had given me held my secrets—most about Leza. Somehow, I’d always understood, from a first glimpse of her in kindergarten, that I wasn’t just friends with her. That there was more than that.
But I also knew I wasn’t good enough for her—not like that, anyway. My family didn’t own a motel, restaurant, bar, or attraction. I was the son of a trucker who drank away his paycheck. She could never feel that way about me. And I remember the day Kent became all she talked about.
We were at our favorite spot on the beach, the sun a glowing red orb sinking into a swatch of fuchsia, violet, and tangerine.
“So what would you like, Lucas?” Leza dug her toes in the sand. I’d brought her an ice-cold Bud, and she sipped it even though I could tell she didn’t savor the taste.
I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “What do you mean?”
She rooted her beer in the sand and leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows. “I mean, what do you want?”
I knew what I really wanted, but my jar carried that secret, so I just said, “Someday I’d like to live in an out-of-the-way place. Somewhere private wher
e I don’t have to deal with any arguments.”
She laughed. “No, I mean, like, now. Like . . . something more.”
I was confused, so I just shrugged. There was only the crashing of surf; in the blue-gray water, a dolphin leapt not far from a phosphorescent patch of plankton.
She shifted, looking away. “Well, Kent really loves me, you know. I’ve never had anyone care so much about where I’m going and who I’m with—I mean, not even my parents ever did!—and he even lets me take his dogs for walks. He’s teaching me how to be more affectionate.” She drained her beer. “He’s really good for me.”
“Leza.”
“What?”
“Are you happy?”
A long silence. “Sure.”
We stayed until the dark descended and the ghost crabs emerged. Then I went home and threw my father off the sundeck.
The day before I was carted off to prison, she came to say goodbye. I remember her sad expression as Kent, copping a satisfied look, stood behind her.
~~**~~
We’re halfway through our meal in the weed-choked courtyard when a violent afternoon downpour moves in from the sea. Squealing like we used to when we were kids in her beachside pool, we toss everything into the basket and bolt for shelter.
“Come on!” She tugs me along. Her hand feels small and fragile.
In my back hall, she stands, staring at me, seeming expectant.
I let go of her hand and move toward the kitchen. “We can finish in here. It’s dusty still, but doable.”
She patters behind me. “Actually . . . I should go. With these storms I’m sure Kent’ll be checking in.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t want to, but.” She sighs. “Yes. I should. You know, I’m soaked, anyway. Don’t want to catch a cold.”
“Why don’t you just take the sweater off? Let it dry?”
She rubs her arms. “No . . . I’ll be fine.”
I notice her shoulders seem a bit slumped as I show her out. Just before she steps across the threshold, she hugs me. And she holds on.
I let her, feeling things I know I shouldn’t, a warmth in my extremities, an incredible calm.
At last she pulls away and looks up at me.
“You.” My voice cracks. “You need to go.”
Her lips part like she’s about to say something; then, she nods.
After I secure the massive door behind her, I’m unsettled, but not sure why. I’m overwhelmed by the sounds of the crashing ocean waves, the thrum of the deluge, the rumble of thunder.
And something else.
The voices I heard before, like a group of old men having a conversation. But this time, the radio isn’t on.
Is it possible there’s someone in the house? “Hello?”
No response. Champagne wells up my throat, and I force it back down as I clamber for something to carry as a weapon. I settle for the broken base of a lamp in the shape of an Egyptian goddess.
I make my way from room to room. Through the kitchen with its water-damaged outer wall, the dining hall with its broken mahogany table, the sitting room with its web-canopied chandelier. I ascend the staircase, but there’s nothing in any of the rooms, not the strangely painted nursery, the two guest chambers, my bedroom with its unusual brick floor. No matter which room I’m in, I’m goaded to the next.
A crack of thunder and a smack-crash makes the second floor buck beneath my feet. I fall backward, wrenching my knee.
What the hell was that?
I recover from the shock to find the voices have stopped. But it sounds as though it’s pouring inside the house.
I limp downstairs and a moist breeze blows from behind the stairwell: the library. When I get there, I see that it is raining in the house. A palmetto has plunged through the glass ceiling.
The voices begin again. This time, though, they’ve melded into a single voice, and it’s somewhere in this room.
Everything inside me screams run, but I’m strangely compelled to go inside. The rain pelting my eyes makes navigation over the broken glass and around the metal girders sticking up at precarious angles difficult.
I’m lured to the tree’s fronds, and then I see it: the tooth wall, that odd chunk that juts into every room, has been compromised. Pieces of brick façade and plaster litter the area around the tree.
The voice is definitely inside that wall. Some kind of speaker, maybe? That doesn’t seem likely, but I need to find out.
Ax. Get the ax.
The air is heavy with the smell of mud and palm as I work, and the voice continues. I hack off frond after frond, throw it aside. When I’ve got most of them gone, I’m still blocked by part of the trunk. Undaunted, I get my chainsaw.
Halfway through, the blade hits the tree’s core and gets stuck. I try to force it, but the machine squeals and grinds, the smell of scorching metal and gas getting stronger. I stop and try to shift the tree. My arms burn, but I manage to make a wide enough gap to get close to the wall.
The storm is moving away; the thunder is trundling off in the distance. But in the voice, I can almost identify words now—almost. I wedge myself between the tree and the wall and press my ear against it.
Pain shoots through my right ear. I scream and cup my hand to it, feel a warm trickle, but glance in time to see the bas-relief of . . . a bird, that’s a beak, fade back into the wall. My ear stings like someone has poured alcohol on the open wound.
What the hell is that?
Enraged, I throw everything I’ve got into rolling the tree away, and succeed. It feels like I can’t get enough air, my arms throb and my ear pulses, but I’m too pissed off now to stop. I seize the ax and hack at the plaster. Eventually, I see the sand-colored curve of an object, a glint of gold, a hint of navy. I fling the ax aside and reach into the hole, dismantling carefully, not unaware of the scrapes and cuts I’m putting on my fingers. Piece after piece snaps off; white powder puffs into the air, sifting onto my boots, skinning the puddles. When I’m done, I take an abashed stumble back.
Leering from the gloom is a three-foot falcon-headed canopic jar. It stares right through me.
Not one of these weird spurs in the house is for pipes. These were put here to conceal the jars. And God knows what’s in them.
No wonder the family wanted nothing to do with this place. “What do you want?” I ask.
Behind me, something skitters. Ghost crabs. Scurrying for cover.
A deep male voice says, “Open me.”
It laughs.
“Open me.”
I knot in fear, but I’ve come this far. I close my eyes to summon my strength, step forward, and reach.
“Oh my God, Lucas, what happened? Are you okay?”
It’s Leza. Still soaked, still in her olive sweater.
“Jesus, your ear!” She takes a step forward, touching my cheek.
The deep male voice: Open me open me open me open me.
She has no reaction.
My God, she didn’t hear that, I think. I pull away from her.
“What? What is it?”
“Leza, I have to tell you—”
She sets her hands on my shoulders. “I have to tell you something too.”
“Something isn’t right and—”
“Listen. When we were kids, did you think I didn’t know what was going on in your house? Did you think I was blind? Our moms shopped at the same Piggly Wiggly. I know you did what you had to do. You were protecting your mother.” She puts her arms down, steps back, and unbuttons her sweater.
“Leez, please, just listen to me for a second—”
“And now you need to protect me.” With one deep breath and a look of determination, she pulls back the cardigan.
I gasp. Both her upper arms are mottled with bright purple and blood red bruises ringed in sickly yellow, and now it all makes sense—scratches on her neck, sweaters in the heat, cloaking the car and how, how did I not see this? If there’s anyone who should’ve known it was me. “He di
d that to you.”
She is so quiet and tearful I almost don’t hear her. “He has been. Since after you left.”
Instant anger. “Why did you stay?”
She doesn’t respond. Instead, her mouth, warm and tasting like champagne, is on mine. A surge courses through me. She pulls back, breathing the words. “I was just waiting for you to come home. I’ve always been waiting for you.”
The voice: Open me open me open me open me . . .
The front door bangs open. “Leza? I know you’re in here!”
Kent.
“Answer me!”
We separate. I help her back into her sweater even as she winces.
“I’m here!”
I feel ill. I follow her out to the hall. Kent was always a big man, built like a string bass. But who he is has, over the years, taken a toll on his body; he is lean, corded, wolf-like.
And he’s brandishing a crowbar.
“I’m here, Kent,” Leza says. “I was just . . . stopping by to see how—”
“My ass. You been here a couple of times—I seen it from the air.”
Jesus, I think. The helicopters.
“Get over here.”
“Honey,” she says.
“Get. Over. Here.”
It breaks my heart to see her head bow in obedience. She folds her hands in front of her and walks dutifully behind him.
“Go home, baby.” Kent taps the crowbar against his palm. “Now.”
She doesn’t move.
“Do what I tell you!”
Her lower lip trembles. She looks like she’s about to cry.
I’m having visions of what he’s going to do to her later. “This isn’t what it looks like—”
“Shut up.”
I glance back into the library.
I could swear the falcon’s expression is different: pleased.
“Look at me, coward!” Kent screams.
I look at Leza. She looks small. “It’s okay, Leez. Go on home.”
She hesitates, then pivots and flees.
Kent and I remain locked in quiet, seething opposition until the car engine fades.
The Shadows Behind Page 6