The Vanishing Stair

by Maureen Johnson

  “My own son—he’s going to be eighteen in December, on the seventh. I can hardly believe that myself. But that’s an adult. This wasn’t the school being careless. If it had been him—and God forbid, of course—God forbid my son or Stevie, but . . . if it had been him? I’d say the same.”

  The words came out of him like poisoned honey—so sweet, so perfect, and all wrong. Everything was wrong and scrambled. Reality needed to be rebooted.

  He let the matter settle on the room, and Stevie saw it working. She saw the possibility opening in front of her.

  “I’ve come to offer Stevie a ride,” Edward King went on after a moment. “That’s how strongly I feel about this. I have my SUV outside that can handle lots of bags, and I have a plane at the airport. A private flight. It doesn’t get better than that.”

  What do you do when the devil turns up in your living room and offers you everything you want?

  “Why?” Stevie said, her voice dry. It was the first word she’d said.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Edward King replied.

  That was the first direct lie he’d probably told in this room, and the most telling. It was also a lie that rang clear and bright with her parents, who believed, who really believed that Edward King was the standard-bearer for some kind of glorious, real American truth that you could buy and hold in your hands and own. Edward King had come here to do the Right Thing and was going to make it all happen in his God-given jet.

  “And it’s of course a thank-you to two people who do so much work for me,” he said, indicating her parents. “You run an office for me here. I owe you. So . . .”

  He turned to Stevie.

  “What do you say?” he asked.

  April 14, 1936, 2:00 a.m.

  WHEN SHE WAS EIGHT, FRANCIS CRANE’S FATHER TOOK HER ON A tour of one of their flour mills that had been destroyed by an explosion. They walked around the remaining shell of the building, with the ceiling blown out and the sky revealed above. The walls were covered in scorch marks. Many of the machines were burned, partly melted, pieces hanging from cables. The words CRANE FLOUR were barely visible on the wall.

  “All of this,” her father said, “from flour, Francis. Simple flour.”

  This was when Frankie learned of flour’s combustible properties. The most domestic, most harmless-looking substance could blow a hole through a wall. So much energy from something so benign.

  For Francis, this experience was life-changing. It was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen. She fell in love with explosions, with fire, with the burn and the boom. There was the taste of danger on the tip of her tongue. This was when Francis began her journey to the other side of life—the broken remains, the smoldering scenes, the back doors, the servants’ quarters. Down, down, down to wherever she needed to go to feel that spark. She had her harmless pleasures—little fires in the wastepaper basket, stealing Edie Anderson’s hat and sending it to Valhalla with a match on the lake in Central Park, going perhaps a bit too far once with a box of firecrackers. She was known to leave a party or slip out of the house and take a taxi whenever she heard the fire engines going. She would sit outside all night, watching the flames lick the sky. And now she was creeping under the ground beneath Ellingham Academy and counting her steps.

  One hundred, one hundred and one, one hundred and two . . .

  She kept her right hand in front of her, holding her candle. It was burning down fast, sending trails of hot wax over her fist and taking the flame closer and closer to her flesh. Her left hand trailed behind her like a rudder, running carefully along the wall to help orient herself in space. The tunnel was so tight that if she stepped only an inch or two in either direction her arms would scrape along the walls. That wasn’t such an issue in the early part of the tunnel, which was made of smooth brick. As she went on into the depths, the builders had given up and used bits of stone to make the walls—rough, occasionally jagged bits that were likely the product of demolition of the rock.

  A person could get stuck down here.

  One hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty-one . . .

  If anything went wrong down here—if she got stuck, if the tunnel came down, burying her in rock—this kind of risk thrilled her.

  One hundred and sixty.

  She stopped and pulled her left hand in front of her to reach around until she found the empty space she was looking for—this was where the tunnel bifurcated. She took the left tunnel and kept going, restarting her footstep count at one. This path went on farther than the last. Finally, she felt the space widen. She puffed out the candle and moved forward blindly in half steps until her hands felt the rungs of a ladder. A moment later, she pushed open a hatch and climbed out of the base of a statue, deep in a copse of trees on the far side of the campus. She took a deep breath of the cold, foggy air.

  This was the best part—physically crawling out onto the grass in the dark, like some newly born creature of the night. Her eyesight had grown used to the void, and now the night seemed brilliant and alive. She didn’t need a candle to find her way through the trees to the path to Apollo. She picked up a small stone from the ground and took careful aim at an upstairs window.

  A moment later, she heard the slide of the window open. A knotted rope slithered down. She saw Eddie’s feet first. He had tattooed stars on the soles of both his feet in black ink. He wore nothing but a pair of blue silk pajama bottoms; he made no concessions to the cold. He dropped the last few feet elegantly and shook back his blond hair. Apollo was a big building, intended for classrooms, but it currently housed four male students on the second floor. Eddie shared this side of the building with only one other person and could have walked right out the front door, but where was the fun in that?

  He followed her into the grove of trees, and once there, he pressed her back into a tree. She took his face in both hands and kissed him roughly, running her hands down his bare back.

  Edward Pierce Davenport was the first and only person Francis had any respect for. He came from the same kind of wealthy background as she did; he was from Boston and his family was in shipping. Eddie had made it his life’s mission to disappoint his family, and he had been doing exceptionally well at this. There were tales of seducing maids, wandering naked through formal dinners, filling an entire bathtub with champagne. He had been expelled from four of the best schools in the country before his parents got on their knees and begged their friend Albert to take Eddie to the mountains where he might stay out of trouble for a few minutes. Or, at least, make trouble in a remote setting. That was enough.

  Eddie and Francis met the first day, at the picnic on the lawn, making eyes over the cold fried chicken and lemonade. He saw the copy of True Detective she had in her bag. He quoted some obscene French poetry. And that was that. Eddie was suddenly tame, or so he seemed. Francis, it was said, had been a very good influence.

  Eddie introduced Francis to poetry—the swirling, wild storms of the romantics, the jigsaw realities of the modernists and surrealists. He conveyed his dream—to live a life in which every impulse was to be followed. He showed Francis the various things he had learned in his romantic life, and Francis was an apt pupil.

  Francis told Eddie about bomb-making and read him stories of Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger and Ma Barker. Eddie embraced them at once. They were poets—machine-gun poets who brooked no compromise, who rode any road they wished, who drove laughing into the sun. And so, on the lawns, in the library, in corners and basements, Francis and Eddie formed an inseparable bond.

  Over that fall and that cold winter, they began their study into the art of crime. At the right time, they would take one of Ellingham’s cars, fill it with dynamite, and leave. The time would be soon, when the ice melted off the mountain. On a clear day, when no one was looking, they would go drive west and rob banks. Francis would blow out the vaults. Eddie would write their story. They would make love on the floors of safe houses, on the road itself until the road ran out.

&nbs
p; She pulled back from the embrace to tell him what was going on—Dottie missing, the police coming—but he eased down to the ground, taking her with him. Her desire to tell him this interesting news was overridden by a different sort of desire. There was nothing in this world as beautiful as Eddie lying there on the ground, his chest bare. He was not a nice boy; he was a dirty, wild boy, almost as dirty and wild as Francis herself. She had been with other boys before, but they fumbled. Eddie knew precisely what he was doing. He played with his speed. He could move slowly—achingly slowly. He drew her down now and ran his hand along her side inch by inch until she hardly felt like she could bear it.

  “I have something to tell you,” she said, breathless. “You’ll like it.”

  “I like everything you tell me.”

  There was a sound nearby and the two of them froze in place. Albert Ellingham walked past, his pace quick. Francis pointed at him silently and indicated they should follow. They kept their distance, trailing along toward the still-under-construction gymnasium building.

  The room Albert Ellingham had entered was for the new indoor swimming pool. It was a large, vaulted space, cold and open, with white and aqua-blue tiled walls. The pool had no water yet—it was just a smooth concrete opening. There was no heat, so the room felt like an icehouse. Francis was cold in her coat; she could only imagine what Eddie was feeling. But that was the thing about Eddie—he never registered pain.

  Inside the doorway, there was a large cart full of building supplies. As the only light in the space came from a single lantern on the far side of the room, Eddie and Francis were able to secrete themselves behind this with no difficulty. The high ceiling, empty pool, and tiled walls provided perfect acoustics; they could hear every word even if they couldn’t see much from where they were crouched.

  “Albert!” Miss Nelson said. Francis heard quick steps and looked over the cart to see two figures embracing. Francis slapped herself mentally. Of course. This is why Miss Nelson’s hair was so carefully done. This is why she wore small diamond earrings that were unobtrusive and yet far beyond her means.

  “Marion,” Albert Ellingham said, his voice husky. “Something has happened. Someone has kidnapped Alice and Iris.”

  Now the cold on the outside was matched by a cold within—but cold with a spark, like the light madness of the sky before one of the wild Vermont snowstorms.

  Kidnapped.

  “That letter,” he said. “Truly Devious . . .”

  Francis had the urge to vomit. Beside her, Eddie hissed excitedly through his teeth.

  “You need to take this,” Albert Ellingham said.

  “My God, Albert, I don’t know how to fire one of these things.”

  Had Miss Nelson been given a gun?

  “Cock the hammer, pull the trigger. Now, listen to me. I have coaches coming at daybreak. The students must be on them, and so must you be. Wake them before sunrise. Have them take only what they need. I’ll have everything else sent.”

  “Albert, one of the children is—”

  “There’s no time. Take the train to New York and go directly to the apartment. I’ll contact you there as soon as I can. Go. You need to go now.”

  “Albert, I’m sorry. I’ll—”

  “Now, Marion.” Albert Ellingham—America’s king of newspapers, of radio—sounded on the verge of tears. Francis and Eddie hunkered down as Miss Nelson hurried back out the door. They heard Albert Ellingham convulsively sobbing for several minutes before he did the same.

  3

  ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER STEVIE FOUND EDWARD KING IN HER HOUSE, she was in the back of an SUV, making its way toward the airport. The sun had long set, but there was an extra darkness in this car from the tinted windows. There was an additional shadow in the form of the person sitting next to her, on the massive leather seats, sipping a bottle of sparkling water and consulting his phone. Edward King had said very little on this ride. His security agent sat in front of them, staring straight ahead. There was nothing but the muted lights outside and the various little controls within.

  As promised, the back of the SUV had enough room for Stevie’s boxes and bags. Some had never been unpacked and were simply ready to go. Her clothes had to be gathered up from hampers (some still dirty) and the dryer and the closet and drawers. All her little possessions, her banged-up books and overwashed black clothes, and sheets with bright stains on them where a laundry pod had exploded . . . a bag of hastily collected cords . . . all of these things were lifted and stuck into the back of the SUV with a clinical competence by the driver and the bodyguard, like law enforcement taking the evidence away from the scene. Bag it. Stick it in the car. No matter how shabby, no matter how small.

  Stevie kept her backpack with her, clinging to it. This was all she really needed, should she decide to open the door at a light and spring out. Her computer. Her wallet. Her meds. Her notes. Her phone. The tin.

  “So,” Edward King said, tucking his phone into his pocket. “You excited to go back to school?”

  Excited was not the right word. Stevie needed to go back and she wanted to go back, but the accompanying emotion was anxiety. Anxiety and excitement are cousins; they can be mistaken for each other at points. They have many features in common—the bubbling, carbonated feel of the emotion, the speed, the wide eyes and racing heart. But where excitement tends to take you up, into the higher, brighter levels of feeling, anxiety pulls you down, making you feel like you have to grip the earth to keep from sliding off as it turns.

  This was the sympathetic nervous system at work, her therapist had told her. To work with anxiety, you had to let it complete its cycle. Stevie tapped her foot against the SUV floor, telling the cycle to get a move on. What was she anxious about? Going back to the case, going back to her friends, going back to her classes, going back . . .

  To see Edward King’s son. And he was a complicated person to go back to.

  The last time she had really had contact with David was the morning after she had confronted Ellie, and Ellie had run. She and David had returned to Minerva together. They went into Ellie’s room and sat on her bed. David had looked so beautiful that morning. The light came down on one side of his face and he seemed to glow. His dark hair fell in finger-length curls that flopped rakishly across his forehead. He had eyebrows that had natural peaks, raised in constant amusement. His nose was long and fine. His worn T-shirts pulled against his frame, revealing muscled arms. . . .

  She wanted to kiss him, but there was a noise outside, something overhead. He got up to see what it was, and she leaned back and put her hand on the tin. It was tucked in Ellie’s bed.

  The noise was a helicopter landing on the lawn. David ran outside. Stevie assumed the helicopter was part of the search effort, but when she reached David and saw what he was looking at, everything changed. That was when she saw the word KING on the side. That was when she looked between Edward King and David and saw the resemblance for the first time. David said to her, “Meet my dead dad.”

  What happened next was very strange. Edward King stopped halfway when he saw David and Stevie. He nodded, then turned toward the Great House. The helicopter left. There was no one around at that moment who read the side or saw Edward King, at least that Stevie could tell.

  David turned to Stevie and said, “And now you know.”

  He waited for her reaction, but none came. Her brain could not process this—that the only guy she had ever felt like this about, had so much contact with, that David was the son of . . .

  With every passing second of her silence, David’s smirk grew wider.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”

  He turned and walked away. Those were the last words they exchanged. David avoided her for the rest of the day, and she avoided him the day after that. And then she was gone. They had not communicated since. She had thought about reaching out to him a few times, but too many emotions jumped in the way—revulsion, fear, sadness.

  It made sense, sort of, that E
dward King was bringing her back. The cycle was now complete.

  The SUV drove around to some back area of the airport, to a chain-link fence with a glowing red gate and a security guard. The driver held up something, and the glowing red bar rose, admitting them to the space beyond to a small freestanding building. Inside the building there was no security line, no gate, no jetway. They walked into an empty room that sort of looked like the lobby of a bank, threw their things onto an X-ray machine that was waiting there for their use with an operator who seemed to have no interest in the contents that were revealed. They were waved on, past a few comfortable chairs and a display of glossy magazines and newspapers, all free to take. They went out a set of automatic doors and were right back outside, walking toward a plane.

  Stevie had only been on a few planes in her life to see her grandparents in Florida. This plane was not like those. It was extremely small. A man in a white shirt and a captain’s hat waved to them and ushered them up four narrow steps that were part of an opened hatch. The door, if you could call it that, was a little hobbit opening. Stevie had to tuck her head in and pull her bag to her chest to squeeze through. Inside, the world of the plane was a calming creamy white. There were six seats—two facing forward and four in a little grouping, two and two facing each other. Edward King took one of these and waved Stevie to the one opposite. Stevie took the one on the other side of the small aisle.

  “You’ll like this,” he said to her. “Once you fly private, you’ll never want to go back. Enjoy this. It’s fun.”

  The bodyguard came in and took one of the forward-facing seats, then pulled out a book and started reading. The captain and the copilot followed up, one of them pulling the door shut behind them. It was far too . . . simple, for Stevie’s taste. Just a little hatch pulled closed by some guy. He turned a lever, and that was that. They ducked into the little cockpit, which was entirely open and exposed. The bank of lights and controls stood out in contrast to the dark sky in the windscreen. You weren’t supposed to be able to see the cockpit, and you definitely weren’t supposed to be able to go right up to it.