by Mark Souza
anything.” She extended her hand, “Sadie McFadden.”
Mary shook her hand gingerly. “I'm Mary Givens.” Sadie's spotted skin looked paper thin with a web of brittle blue veins visible beneath. Sadie's grip was surprisingly strong.
“Are you the new people in the loony bin?” Sadie asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
Sadie pointed across the street. “Do you live there?”
“Yes.”
Sadie's forehead wrinkled and her face took on an expression of concern, “What did they tell you about the place?”
“They told us it was built in the 1800s, then gutted and turned into a home about a decade ago.”
“Didn't they tell you it used to be a sanitarium?” Sadie studied Mary’s face and wagged her head. “I didn’t think so. Why would they? Your house has quite a history, not all of it appetizing. Do you want to hear it?"
Mary glanced down to check her watch and then looked at the posters in her hand. When she looked up, Sadie’s eyes were focused on the posters too. “I can help you put those up,” Sadie offered. “We can talk along the way.”
The motor of Sadie’s scooter whined as she kept pace with Mary. Sadie didn’t actually hang any posters, offering advice instead about which posters could be covered. “I’ve lived here my whole life,” she said pointing to a row of buildings behind her. “Your place became a sanitarium during the depression. I think it was a laundry before that. The laundry went belly up and the building stood vacant for about five years. The Ricci brothers bought it cheap and opened a sanitarium. At first, people got up in arms about having a crazy house in the neighborhood, but it was quiet and there was never a lick of trouble until the police shut it down in the fifties.
“It seems the Riccis were collecting social security checks for more patients than the place would hold. Whenever someone died, they wouldn’t report the death and just kept collecting checks. And, of course, a death opened up a bed for someone new. But they got greedy. The Inquirer got wind of someone about to reach their 108th birthday and sent a reporter out to do an Oldest Living Person in Philadelphia human interest story. That blew the lid off everything.
Sadie stopped at a lamp post and wagged her finger. “You can cover the ‘Classic VW Bug for sale’ poster. It didn’t run and the cops towed it last month.” As they started up the block, Sadie resumed her story. “The strange part was, after the investigation, the cops never found a single body. Where did they all go? The police questioned the Ricci brothers and they claimed the missing patients didn't die, they just disappeared. The Riccis said they didn’t know what happened to them. Of course no one believed them, including the jury.
“After that, the building sat vacant for forty years. Kids would break in, mostly teenagers doing what teenagers do. Every now and again one or two of them would go missing. Then in ninety-five, or maybe it was ninety-six, a nice gay couple bought the building for a song and started renovations. After they moved in, they began hearing noises during the night - voices. Geoff, one of the boys – listen to me, boys, they were in their fifties at the time.
“Anyway, Geoff liked to talk to me because he said I reminded him of his dead mother.” Sadie took a drag from her cigarette and flicked off the ash. “They say gays are supposed to be so damn sensitive, but I didn’t see it. His dead mother for Christ sake, who wants to be compared to that? Oh well. Geoff said the voices came from the laundry room. One night, his roommate - is that the right term, went downstairs to check on it and just disappeared. The police never did find him.
“Geoff was despondent and scared. He moved away, New York I think, and let the bank foreclose. Since then, no one has managed to live there more than a year. New couples come and go. Only not all of them go. Usually someone winds up missing. Sometimes only a pet. The only ones making out on the place are the damned realtors every time it sells. Commish, commish, commish.”
Mary realized she had stopped walking and was frozen in place. She looked down at the posters in her hand. They didn’t seem important anymore. Sadie’s eyes were locked on her and from Sadie’s expression, Mary knew her anxiety must be apparent on her face.
Sadie frowned. “I’ve said too much, haven’t I?”
Mary forced a smile and extended her arm to shake hands. “No, no, it was so nice to meet you, Sadie, but I have errands to get to. Maybe we can talk again, soon.” Mary walked home and resisted the urge to run. Why was she so upset? The old woman was clearly wrong, putting her own spin on every odd little thing that had happened over the years.
Inside the house, Mary dropped the posters on the entry table and peered out the window. Sadie was nowhere to be seen. She considered calling Lou and thought better of it. No need to disturb him at work over an old ladies crazy stories.
Hank saw the posters on the entry table when Mary brought him home from preschool. Her son snuffled and began to wail for his lost cat again.
“See this?” Mary said, holding up a poster. Hank gazed at Taffy’s picture and nodded. “We’re offering people money to help find Taffy. It won’t take long now.” That seemed to satisfy him. He spotted a bucket of Legos Mary had unpacked. He plopped on the floor and started building.
“Any luck,” Lou asked when he returned from work.
Mary wagged her head. “I did meet an interesting lady who seemed to know a lot about our house.” Mary gave a summary of what Sadie said and Lou looked skeptical.
“Who knows how much of what she said is true,” Lou said. “There’s probably a kernel of truth there, but maybe a smidge of elaboration, and a dash of delusion too. I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s just old lady talk.”
The gerbil in Mary’s head hit full stride while she did the dinner dishes, and popped a little crystal meth later as she tried to settle in for sleep. Its wheel squeaked with every revolution pounding out a monotonous mazurka like rhythm as thoughts turned over and over in her mind. She stared at the dark ceiling and tried meditation; however, the racing rodent at the wheel wasn't a practitioner.
She couldn’t help but dwell on her conversation with Sadie McFadden. Maybe Lou was right and it was all crazy lady talk, but Sadie seemed perfectly lucid and plugged in. The conversation with Sadie replayed inside Mary’s head. It probably meant nothing, but what if Sadie really knew something?
Her husband snored away beside her, at peace. He’d assessed the Taffy situation, made alternate plans – a new kitten in case Taffy couldn’t be found, and had moved on. By his reckoning, Sadie was a kook, Taffy was lost, and the two occurrences unrelated. He’d dismissed everything Sadie had said. Mary looked at him a little envious. It must be nice to have such a well trained gerbil.
Hank awoke to his father’s snoring, but that wasn’t what urged him from his sleep. He scrambled out of bed and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom, with barely enough time to unzip his one-piece-footy PJs and tugged them below his knees. As he stood before the toilet, he heard a cat mewing. The sound drew him down the hall past his room and through the laundry room doorway. He stood in front of the dryer. The circular door swung open and revealed Taffy perched at the back of the drum cleaning her paws.
Hank held out his arms for the cat but she didn't come like she usually did. He reached for her and stepped closer. Taffy moved deeper into the dryer. Hank leaned in and stretched and the cat edged away just beyond his reach. Hank crawled in after her. The back of the drum shimmered and fell away leaving a dark hole. The void started to swirl and draw air inside. The power of the vortex sucked Hank toward the dryer. Taffy smiled and disappeared through the opening. Hands reached out from the blackness, grabbed Hank by the arms, and pulled him in. The dryer door slammed shut.
The smell of brewing coffee filled the kitchen as Mary worked over the sink trimming the rind from a cantaloupe and cutting the flesh into cubes. Lou walked in scanning the headlines in the morning paper. He leaned down and kissed her cheek.
“Smells great. What are we having?”
“Toast, fruit,
and coffee. Is Hank up yet? He’s going to be late for preschool.”
Lou sat and dropped the paper on the table. “I haven’t seen him.”
Mary poked her head out of the kitchen and yelled down the hall, “Hank Givens, get a move on. You’re going to be late.”
She set a plate of buttered toast and a bowl of cantaloupe in front of Lou and poured him some coffee. “What’s keeping him?” she asked. The question was rhetorical and Lou didn’t bother to look up. Mary’s temper began to rise. She charged out of the kitchen and down the hall with her lips pursed.
Hank’s bedroom door stood open. Inside, his bed was unmade. “Hank! Where are you? You’re making me very angry, little man.” She listened. There was no reply. Mary went room to room checking for him. By the time she reached the laundry room, the warm flush of anger had melted into a queasy flutter in her stomach. Maybe he was hiding. Maybe the explanation was innocent. Despite trying to remain positive, she couldn’t push back her growing sense of dread. In the living room she stared at the child gate at the base of the stairs. It was closed.
“I can’t find Hank,” she told her husband. Lou looked up and set the paper down.“Do you think he could get past the gate?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll check upstairs. You recheck the