by Russell Moon
“I can’t, Eleanor,” I say.
“I guess,” she says, shrinking back a little. “I guess I kind of figured. But I wanted to—”
“I appreciate it,” I say.
I take my plate and set it on the floor in front of Chuck. He starts on the bacon and works quickly over the whole dish. Snuffling and slobbering, like a dog.
“I kind of wish your father were here right now,” Eleanor says, as she starts cleaning off the table. Chuck and I both snap to attention. Eleanor does not bring up my father lightly, and never in any detail. “Well,” she amends, “maybe not your father. But a father…”
It is an eerie, quiet morning as we load up to evacuate this life. I keep expecting the phone to ring, but it doesn’t. I keep expecting something—I don’t know, police, somebody, to come crashing through the door and give me what I deserve. To let me know what I deserve, at any rate. To put me out of my misery.
I would welcome that.
But it doesn’t come. Nobody comes.
Maybe this is it. If I get out, if the hammer doesn’t fall…then that means it never happened. Whatever it was. Maybe, if I make it over that bridge and out of this town, then that means it was after all, in a way, a dream. And Jules is all right.
“Jules,” I say into my closet as I remove the last box.
She is all right. Somewhere.
All my stuff is in the truck.
“Now, Eleanor,” I say forcefully, shocking her into submission. She backs away from the computer and watches as I disconnect everything and pack it up.
We’re out of here. I don’t even look out the window as Eleanor puts the truck in gear. I look down at my feet and pat my dog. Frantically, obsessively, beseechingly, I stroke his velvety self, over, over, over.
My leaving makes it all right. I should have left her alone in the first place. Should have left things alone.
She will be all right now.
I believe it. I have to believe it.
The other is unthinkable.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 4
“God, you must have been tired,” Eleanor says, speaking to me through the truck window. I stare at her, look down at my feet where Chuck was but is no longer.
I remember nothing of the trip from Port Caledonia to Blackwater, because I saw nothing of the trip. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as we approached the bridge out of town—squeezed out the sights, the thoughts, the world—and never managed to get them back open.
“Uh, yes, I guess I was tired.”
“What do you think?” she asks, stepping back and making a broad gesture, like a game show babe revealing my prize.
Our new address. Eleanor saw the place once, when she came to finalize the job offer, but this is my first look. It is almost nightfall, so I have to focus to get it all in, but it is, in fact, a fairly fine house. The first thing I notice is that there are no other houses around it, which is a plus. Then there is a stream running loudly behind it, which is deadly cool. There is a large, bowing wraparound porch that from the front appears to have no beginning or end, and only the one six-step flight of stairs to get to it. It is a smallish, two-story, light-shingled house with a gabled attic, and has to be at least eighty years old.
It seems utterly unimportant to me right now that the place seems to have all the structural integrity of a wet gingerbread house.
“Eleanor,” I say, awestruck, “it’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah,” she says breathlessly, “and surprisingly cheap. A previous fellow just gave it up.”
“A previous fellow,” I say, stepping down from the cab of the pickup. “Is that another way of saying a dead guy?”
“I suppose it could be. But in this case it just means the person who held the fellowship before me.”
Eleanor and I are laughing, arm in arm up the overgrown stone path. It is as if the newness of it all, the rush of the water, the peace and clarity of the surroundings, have temporarily lifted from me the hanging gloom of what I did or did not do. But temporary all the same, I well know.
Then we hear the whimpering. We stop and turn to find that Chuck does not share our enthusiasm for the place. He is following, but at a crawl, and with his head hung low like a vulture’s.
“Come on, you big baby,” Eleanor says to him.
“Yeah, Chuck, what’s up? Come on now.”
He stops whimpering, walks marginally more enthusiastically. He has taken a bit of the fizz off the house-warming, because something’s not right. I pause, I look, I feel for it, but I don’t get it. “It’s just a house, Chuck,” I say. I hope I’m right, but he doesn’t act up for nothing. He’s Chuck.
The key is above the door frame where it is supposed to be, and in seconds we are inside.
The inside of the place revives my enthusiasm. We have always lived in decent enough places, but this house is wow, in an old Victorian, drippy magnolia, arches-and-groaning-floorboards kind of way. Decrepit magnificence.
We are immediately drawn to the French doors that open out onto the screened section of the back porch. I throw open the doors, and the flowing water announces itself as if it is going to come rushing right into the house. I cannot contain myself as I go out through the screened section and onto the open part. I lean right over, spying the cool rapids so close below you could drop a fishing line right from the porch.
“Oh,” I say as the spongy, dead-wood railing caves with my weight and Eleanor has to grab me by the back of the shirt.
“We might be wise to proceed with a little bit of caution here,” she says.
I nod but barely heed her. “Let’s unpack,” I say, and head right back out to the truck to begin unpacking.
I grab one of my closet boxes and march on, passing Eleanor on the way.
“Where’s my room?” I say.
She is buoyant, the newness doing almost as much for her as for me. “Whatever room is yours, is yours,” she says, laughing.
It makes sense to me. I will know when I get there.
I pass my scaredy dog lying on the porch, tell him to come, then go on without him when he won’t.
Not now, Chuck, I’m thinking. Can’t we even have a chance here? Not now. Right now it’s all newness, right now.
I take the stairs two at a time, listen to the distinct croak of each one, then take in the hall view as I switch on the light. There are five doors. I walk slowly. Bedroom on right. Bathroom on left, bedroom on right. I stop, drop my box at my feet. I open the door straight ahead, pull the light string in front of me. Stairs. Steep stairs, and at the top, dark rafters under a hard-pitched roof. That, I think, could be very cool.
But not for my bedroom. I shut the door again. I select the last door on the left, and am instantly at home in the gold-painted, white-trimmed antique of a boxy room with two big windows, one closet, and one tall dark-oak dresser with oval mirror. I test out the bed, sitting down heavily, and find it gives way even more easily than the porch railing. It is so soft, it could be made of meringue.
The room smells musty, so I go to one of the windows and work hard to pry one old sash up from the heavily painted frame. The water splashes past right beneath my bedroom, and the sweet end-of-summer vapor swims up into my sinuses.
I lean on the window frame, close my eyes and breathe it all in.
“It is going to be fine,” I say to myself. “It is all going to work out. Everyone will be okay.”
I believe I believe it.
I turn and take the box to the closet. I pull open the sticky, swollen door.
And find the sleeping bag.
“Christ!” I snap and stumble backward from the closet, banging into the bed.
But there it is, bunched up in a mess of a ball.
I have become my own worst enemy, my own tormentor, haunting myself, jolting myself. That is a sleeping bag, like any sleeping bag, and I have to stop playing freak spook tricks on myself or I am going to wind up in an institution.
I go, slowly but surely, to the c
loset, to the bottom of the closet, to the bag. I hesitate, but just momentarily, then pick it up.
The head end is bloodied. Some of it is caked, some not yet dried.
I am too scared to even freak. I hold the thing in my hand, staring at it for a few seconds. Then I throw it across the room, smacking it against the wall.
Which is when the thick black snake slithers out, up the wall, and out the window.
Then I freak.
What the hell is happening? I think, as I run down the stairs. Who is doing this to me? How is it even possible? More and more, it seems this all has to be tied up together, in this one gigantic, grotesque joke. Nobody died, nobody’s dead or lost or in a coma. They are all just laughing at me. One great, grand, final farewell present to me from Port Caledonia.
“What are you running for?” Eleanor asks, as she attempts to wrestle her unwieldy computer box in all by herself. She simply cannot wait for Big Ben. I take one side of the box as we head up the stairs. I am walking backward, but I can’t help looking all over the place, like an antelope at a lion’s watering hole.
We deposit the box in the first bedroom, which is as of this moment the office.
“You are a mess,” Eleanor says, hands on hips as she looks me over. “You need a meal, and you need some rest.”
“Not hungry,” I say, looking all over the office for creepiness. I find none and head right back down the hall into “my” room.
I do not even look into the closet as I take the box I left there, and carry it across to my new, new bedroom.
It is nearly the same, only the windows—which I leave closed—look out over the expansive front yard rather than the stream; the bed is a single rather than a full; and the oak-framed mirror is rectangular. I catch a glimpse of myself as I head to the closet, then I back up. Eleanor is right: I do not look good. Even in the generously cloudy gray old mirror glass, I am pale and shattered-looking. Maybe it is lack of rest and food, and only lack of rest and food, that is troubling me. That stuff can make you crazy.
But those things can be remedied. And after that, everything else should follow.
I go about my task with renewed vigor. I grab the crystal doorknob of my new closet door.
And open it to find the sleeping bag.
A nap and a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese are not going to fix this.
There is nowhere to hide. I move my stuff back to the room I wanted, the original room over the water. I continue with the motions of unpacking the stuff, because bombed-out mechanical motion is all I can manage. But I can’t manage it for long.
I make it to the bottom of the stairs before slumping into a heap on the last step. I put my head in my hands and cower. The little boy who thinks the world is gone, just because he can’t see it.
“Marcus, what’s wrong with you?”
It is Jules’s voice.
I look up, trembling so that everything I see before me is swimming. But of course, Jules is not there.
I cower.
“Marcus, what is wrong with you?”
I don’t look up this time. I uncover my eyes, but stare straight down at the knotty pine floor between my feet.
“I don’t know,” I say. My voice cracks. “But I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t get so upset, sweetie. It’s okay.” Her voice is sweetness itself. It is pure understanding, more than I deserve. But I must deserve it, because she is always right. I must be okay.
Her hands are on my shoulders. It’s Eleanor.
She moves a hand to my forehead. “Are you sick, Marcus?”
I get right to my feet. Eleanor, I’m thinking, I don’t know what I am. But I have to find out.
What I say is, “Is there a store nearby? I really need a Coke.”
It is about two miles up the road. Chuck comes along without being asked, happy to get away from the house. When I hop out of the truck at the White Hen, he is right at my heels. When I get to the outside pay phone and start dialing with one very shaky finger, he lies across my feet to steady me.
I get through to the police in Port Caledonia.
I get through to the officer in charge.
“Evans here.”
I freeze. It is all real now. It is so real.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
“Yes,” I say tentatively.
“Yes?”
“I’m calling about an accident. A possible accident. That maybe might have happened last night. A car—”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“Was there a car acci—?”
“Sir, who is this? Do you have some information for me about the accident?”
“So there was an accident.”
“I can confirm there was an automobile accident last night, yes. Who are you?”
“Do I have to tell you that?”
He sighs an intimidating policeman’s sigh down the phone. “No, you are not required to give me your name. Are you calling with information for us?”
I pause, a long pause. “I might be. I’m not sure.”
“This is serious business. If there is anything you need to tell me—”
“I will. But can I ask…” I am nearly choking, asking the question, pulling the words, that I don’t want but can no longer avoid. “Can I ask about the people in the car? Can I ask if—”
He is growing impatient with me, but he is keeping me on the line just the same. “I can confirm that there were two people in the car at the time of the accident. I can confirm that the driver is hospitalized, in critical condition. I can confirm that the passenger is missing, and that a search for that person is ongoing in and around the waters of Port Caledonia, but that the search has been officially downgraded from a rescue to a recovery. If you want any further details I am afraid you are going to have to provide—”
I hang up the phone, missing the hook twice before getting it right. I look down at Chuck, who certainly already knows. He is standing up now and leaning hard into my leg, and he leans harder when I tell him, “I did it, Chuck. Jules is gone, Chuck. I did it.”
All the way back to the house, I can’t decide. I can’t decide whether to go back to Port Caledonia and attempt to confess the unconfessable, or to just snuff myself right here. I am deadly serious, thinking that these are the sum total of choices, as I pilot the truck down the road at fifteen miles per hour.
Chuck starts barking like a mad thing when we pull up to the house. Being trapped in the cab with the sound is overwhelming, ripping into my busy, cacophonous skull, but he won’t stop, even when I shove him.
I kill the engine and tumble out of the truck, Chuck following close.
“Hello,” a high, sweet voice calls to us from the porch.
It is too dark to make out details until I’m up close, so I push on, telling Chuck to shut up as I do.
“Oh, he’s all right,” she says brightly. “Welcome to Blackwater.”
First I can’t speak, then I can’t breathe.
I fall to my knees, grab her around the legs, and hug as hard as I can.
“Jules,” I say, moaning with joy and gratitude, “Jesus Christ, Jules…”
I notice that she is not responding. Not responding the way she should be responding, anyway. I look up. She smiles sweetly.
“Um, hello. My name is Eartha. You certainly are a friendly one.”
“Marcus!” Eleanor gasps as she comes through the door. Next thing I know, her hands are on me, lifting me up off the ground. But I pay her very little attention.
Because that is my Jules. That is her long, thick, chocolate-brown hair. Those are her wide-set hazel eyes staring right through me now. Those are even Jules’s clothes, even though I have never seen that particular seafoam-green cotton skirt or the yellow fuzzy top before. More important, they are her. Her handiwork, her style, her signature essential Julesiness.
I stare and stare and stare to make sure I am not crazy, and I am not crazy. That is Jules.
My voice is cracking. “I�
�m so glad to see you—”
“Very nice to meet you, too,” she says, and extends a hand for me to shake.
I stare at it as if it were a lobster claw. What is she doing? If she is Jules—and she is, goddamnit—then she should be hugging me and talking to me and explaining what the hell happened back in Port Caledonia. If it is not Jules—in which case I am finally all the way out of my mind—she should be shrinking with fear over how I’m acting. She is doing neither.
“What are you playing at, Jules? Nice to meet me. This is enough now. I’ve been out of my wits, okay, with this. Whatever has been going on, it’s over now, and I’m willing to get past it, but it’s got to stop right now. Tell me about everything right now. Tell me what happened. Tell me, how’s Doone?”
“What’s a Doone?” she says evenly.
Too cool. Too cool. She knows what I’m talking about. Even if I’m insane, she knows what I’m talking about, I can tell.
“Doone Howe,” I snap.
“Oh,” she says, “it’s like a knock-knock joke, right?”
I punch the air in frustration.
“Stop that,” Eleanor growls in my ear. A man is walking up the path. “Stop acting crazy right this minute.” Then she reaches out her hand to the girl. “Hello, I’m Eleanor.”
“I’m Eartha,” the girl says.
Bloody hell. Eleanor doesn’t see Jules. Is she crazy, or am I?
“Please forgive Marcus. He’s had a very strenuous couple of days. I’m afraid I’ve left too much of the moving work for him. He needs a rest.”
“I need Jules,” I say to myself. At least I thought it was to myself.
Eleanor pinches me in the middle of my back. Chuck cannot stop sniffing the girl.
“Hello, hello,” the man says robustly as he hits the porch.