The Ghosts of Now Page 7

  I grab at stars,

  sweeping my hand across the heavens,

  hanging onto sharp chunks of hope

  that cut my palm.

  Carefully, eagerly I pry open

  my fingers

  and find I have captured

  only slivers of darkness.

  Some of the pages in the book have been torn out. I read through a couple more poems before I come to the last one. Beyond this page lie clean, blank pages that are ready for his thoughts to come.

  As I read this poem I begin to tremble. The handwriting is a hasty scrawl of black ink, and the first line has been scratched out and written over. It’s a strange poem, different from the others, but it’s here for a reason, and I feel it tugging at me:

  The house is haunted

  by the Ghosts of Now

  whose shadows no one wants to see,

  whose screams no one wants to hear,

  until tomorrow.

  What are you saying, Jeremy? I don’t understand.

  I’m staring at the page, but it’s as though I’ve closed my eyes and have dreamed up a picture. In front of me is the haunted house that Del pointed out. It’s rotting under those twisting, unkempt vines, its windows blank eyes that shut off the ghostly world inside its walls. It’s a real house, not an allegory. Jeremy told me to stay away from that house. Why?

  I close the book, replacing it in the drawer, shutting it carefully away. Now I know what my next step is. I’ve got to find those “ghosts of now” and discover what they know about my brother.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Andrews place squats alone at the end of an empty, quiet street. Maybe it’s because of the overlarge lot that surrounds it; maybe it’s because the house looks like an unkempt, yellowed old man who badly needs a barber, but I feel that the other houses on the block have cringed away from this place, tucking in their tidy porches and neat walkways and dropping filmy curtains over blank eyes.

  I park in front of the house and pick my way up the cracked cement walk. The air glitters with sunlit dust that stirs from gray-coated leaves and grass and sifts back into place as I pass. A large oak near the front porch has died, its withered branches wound mummylike by a strangling vine that creeps from the tree to the dry, curling shingles on the roof of the house. One of the wooden pillars on the front porch has cracked and bent, allowing the roof to sag over the entrance way, but the dark front door stands strong and forbidding.

  Someone once lived in this house and loved it, and for a few moments I feel sad that it should be so neglected, left alone to die.

  But the house is not dead.

  There are small rustlings, creakings, and sounds barely loud enough to be heard as the house moves and breathes with the midday heat. I feel that it’s watching me, waiting to see what I’ll do. Or could someone be watching? Someone be listening, just as I listen?

  Quickly I shake my head, trying to toss away scraps of fear, and climb the shaky steps to the front porch.

  The windows are draped with some fabric that closes off the view inside. There are cracks here and there where the drapes don’t quite meet or the fabric has split, but the places are narrow and too high up for me to see through. I move from one end of the porch to the other, trying to peer inside. I shove at the front door, which grunts and holds fast. My scruffy footprints have disturbed the dust of the porch, and I feel uncomfortable, almost as though I should apologize.

  Maybe around the back I’ll have better luck. The yard is full of uneven holes and mounds, with scraggly branches of untended bushes laid out like traps to catch ankles. Now and then I look up at the house, and each time I have the clammy feeling that I’m being watched. Not by one of the neighbors. I glance over my shoulder and up and down the street to make sure. No one is outside. There are no movements of curtains at neighbors’ windows. The watcher is in this house. I feel it.

  It’s a big house, with rooms jutting out at the side like afterthoughts; it takes more than a few minutes to walk around to the back. The yard here is only a dried tangle, a graveyard of what was once someone’s garden. In back there is a garage that opens onto an alley. Between the side door of the garage and the back entrance of the house is a cracked, buckling cement walk. A narrow stoop of three cement steps leads up to a torn screen door that is hanging crookedly by its bottom hinge. I climb the steps, edge past the door, and find myself in a small service porch where the faded green linoleum on the floor curls away from the walls. There is something wrong about that linoleum. It should have a heavy layer of dust, as the front porch had, and it doesn’t. People have walked across this floor—and more than once.

  I can hear my own heart pounding. My breathing is loud, and I wonder if the house is listening to me. Why am I so afraid?

  Before I can reason with myself I grab for the doorknob, but it refuses to turn. Even the knob of a locked door would turn, wouldn’t it? Or is someone on the other side of the door, clutching the knob to keep me from turning it?

  Suddenly I let go, and I see the knob jiggle before it settles into place. Yes. Someone is there. Who is it? One of those ghosts whose screams no one wants to hear?

  “Angie?”

  The voice hits me in the back like a sudden blow. I shriek and whirl toward the voice, grabbing at the air, trying to find something to hang onto.

  “Hey!” Del says. He’s standing below the cement steps, and he holds up both hands, palms toward me.

  “I thought you heard me coming. I didn’t mean to scare you, Angie. I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  My words straggle through gulps of air. “I didn’t hear you. I was listening to— I didn’t know you were— What are you doing here, Del?”

  “Looking for you,” he says. “I saw your car parked on the street.”

  “But how did you know I’d be here, at this house?”

  “I didn’t. I thought you might be—” He stops and looks in the direction of the intersection. “You weren’t at home. You weren’t at the hospital. When I got to the end of the street I saw your car parked down here.”

  I’m surprised how glad I am to see Del. But the gladness is mixed with anger as I remember the way Debbie looked when she told me they’d been together Friday evening. Del hadn’t told me about being with Debbie. I had begun to trust him, but he hadn’t been honest with me.

  Del cocks his head and stares at me. “Did you just say you were listening to something? What?”

  Whatever is on the other side of that door might be waiting for my answer too. Stiffly I walk across the porch and down the steps and face Del. “Why were you looking for me?”

  Del shoves his hat to the back of his head and scratches his forehead. “Seems like we’ve got a lot of questions without answers.” When I don’t say anything he adds, “Okay. Me first. I wanted to tell you something.”

  “About Debbie?”

  He looks puzzled. “Nope. Not exactly. I got word about your being stopped by one of the cops. I wanted to tell you that things don’t work here the way they probably did in the city where you came from. Don’t try to push this, Angie. You’ll be the one who gets hurt.”

  For an instant I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I am the one who was hurt. “Then you know I went to see Debbie.”

  He nods.

  “Do you know everything? Do you know what she told me?”

  “Don’t get so riled.” His hands rest on my shoulders. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, so why don’t you just tell me instead of yelling at me?”

  “I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just that— Why didn’t you tell me that you were with Debbie Friday night?”

  “With Debbie? I’d hardly call it that.”

  “That’s what Debbie said.”

  He chuckles, low in his throat. “Did she tell you about the others on the senior party committee who were there too? We had a meeting to work out stuff for the graduation dance that will come up next semester.”

  “A meeting? But then afterward�
��?”

  The question hangs there, unfinished. Del shakes his head. “Afterward I went to my aunt’s house. Angie, I don’t know what Debbie told you, but that’s the way it was.”

  I’m surprised at the relief that rushes through my whole body with a happy, zingy sensation, like bubbles in my bloodstream. “Del, I’m sorry. She was just so convincing, and I was upset. I don’t know why she lied to me. She made it sound as though you dated each other.”

  “We did,” he says, “but not Friday night.”

  All I can think of to say is, “Oh.” I hope the jealousy doesn’t show.

  “Don’t press Debbie too hard,” Del says. “The most important thing you’ve got to worry about is your brother gettin’ better. Finding out what happened to him doesn’t matter that much right now.”

  “No one can stop me from getting to the truth.” I take a long look at Del. “Like that person who did the body work on Debbie’s car. I thought maybe you’d help me find him.”

  Del scuffs the toe of one of his well-worn boots against the bottom step and says, “I’m one ahead of you there, but I found out something you won’t like. He left town on what I guess you could call a paid vacation, according to what my cousin said.”

  “Surely the police could find him.”

  “Yeah, but I doubt if they’ll look for him. There’s still no proof that Debbie’s car hit your brother.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Lots of things aren’t fair, Angie. But you’ve got to be realistic. Without real evidence they can’t make a case.”

  I sag against him, and he puts his arms around me. “There’s so much I need to find out—so much about Jeremy too.”

  “You didn’t answer the question I asked you,” Del says. “You told me you were listening to something. Listening to what?”

  “I don’t know. I walked around this house and felt as though I were being watched. And when I tried the back door I got the feeling that someone was on the other side, holding it shut.”

  “It’s probably locked tight.”

  “Maybe. But I want to go in this house. I can’t get it out of my mind. This house might be able to tell me something.”

  “You playing hunches or getting into ESP? I don’t understand what this house has got to do with Jeremy.”

  “Because Jeremy—” I begin to tell Del about Jeremy’s poem, but something holds me back, so I say, “I think that Jeremy knew something about this house. He warned me not to come here. I have to know why.”

  For a few moments Del looks at me. Then his fingers twine through mine, and he leads me up the steps and into the back porch. “We’ll go through this old place together. And if we get picked up for breaking and entering it will be your job to post bail, because I’m down to my last ten bucks.”

  The doorknob turns easily under Del’s grip, and I shiver.

  “Nothin’ to be scared about,” Del says. “You were probably tugging it the wrong way.”

  But I wasn’t.

  The kitchen’s high wooden cabinets and huge gas stove are out of a museum catalogue. A pair of grimy aluminum salt and pepper shakers sits on the shelf above the burners, and a tea kettle rests on the stove’s metal wings. A ragged straw broom leans against the far wall. Even the sunlight coming in the bare window over the large, chipped sink doesn’t improve this room.

  “This poor old house,” I whisper, as though the house can hear us. I stick close to Del.

  There’s an open door, leading to a dim room that looks like a dining room. But there are two closed doors to our right. I simply point toward them, and Del seems to read my mind.

  “Probably open to a broom closet and a storm cellar.” He looks down at me. “The early houses around here had cellars where people could go in case of tornadoes.”

  “Should we go down there?”

  “I doubt if we’d find anything more than a stray rattler.”

  I shudder. “Let’s check the other rooms instead.”

  The fear remains, even with Del at my side. We’re picking our way through a skeleton, with someone’s memories blowing aside like dust under our footsteps. The cobwebs and faded carpets, the old plush-covered chairs and the photographs on the wall accent the gaps where a few valuable pieces of furniture must have been. The remains of the deceased.

  But where are the ghosts?

  We have moved through the rooms on the first floor, passing the heavy staircase that leads upward to a landing, then turns.

  Del stops and looks at me. “Well?” he asks. “Do you still think someone is here?”

  “No.” I try a smile. “I guess that ghosts must stay out of sight until after dark.” The rooms are chill, even in the midday heat, but whoever had been here has gone.

  “Then let’s forget about looking upstairs and get out of this place,” Del says. “I’ll follow you home, and if you haven’t got anything better to do, we can get hamburgers.”

  We leave the house by the front door. It’s got one of those locks that automatically fastens without a key.

  “Ghosts don’t leave footprints,” Del says, staring at the front porch.

  “Those are my footprints. I was on the porch, trying to look in the windows.” I stoop, leaning down to stare at the boards. “I know I wasn’t wearing one shoe and one tennis shoe.”

  “Which means?”

  “Look,” I say, pointing at a partial ridged footprint in the dust. I stand, and we stare at each other for just a moment. “Someone was in the house. He left by the front door.”

  “He or she. There’s only part of a print. The rest must have been scuffed.”

  “On purpose.”

  “We don’t know that.” Del looks down the street. “Why would anyone be in this house?”

  I can’t help glancing at the shut-in face of the house. “Maybe it’s something we wouldn’t notice, something that can’t be seen.”

  “Forget it for now,” Del says. “It could also have been some kid in the neighborhood who hides out here for kicks.”

  We leave it like that.

  It’s good to forget for a little while. I drop our car at the house, climb into Del’s pickup, and spend a couple of hours munching through fat hamburgers and skinny fries and talking about nothing important because just being together is important enough. I memorize the crinkle laugh lines around the outer corners of Del’s eyes and the firmness of his lips and the way one corner of his mouth turns up more than the other when he smiles. So he cares for me, does he? Well, maybe I’m beginning to care for him.

  Finally he squeezes out of his side of the booth and holds out a hand to me. “Time for me to tend to my chores. Got some horses to get in.”

  “I’d like to see your horses some time,” I say.

  “Want to ride?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I’m a good teacher.”

  “Then I’d love to—after Jeremy’s better.” As we walk to the truck I cling to Del’s hand and say, “He will get better. I’ve got to help him get better.”

  “I know,” Del murmurs.

  As Del parks in front of our walkway, Mom comes around the corner of the house carrying a small birdhouse that’s painted yellow with a green roof. She holds it up as we climb out of the pickup and walk toward her. “Hello, Del,” she says. “I’m looking for a good place to put Jeremy’s birdhouse.” She stares at the birdhouse as though she’s never seen it before and adds, “Jeremy made this for me when he was a cub scout, years ago. We moved so often, it just didn’t seem worthwhile to put it up, and I packed it away.”

  “How is Jeremy?” Del asks.

  “The same. The doctor says that all Jeremy’s vital signs are good.” She takes a long breath that comes out in a shudder. “But he doesn’t wake up. He just keeps sleeping.”

  “Maybe that’s good for him,” Del says. “While he’s sleeping his body is working to heal itself.”

  “Yes,” Mom says.

  Del takes the birdhouse out of her ha
nds. “Y’all tell me where you want this, and I’ll hang it for you.”

  “Where?” Mom repeats. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “How about that mulberry between your house and garage? It’s a sheltered place, and Jeremy could see his birdhouse hanging there when you bring him home.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I answer, and Mom’s head bobs in agreement.

  It takes Del just a few minutes. He returns, accepts Mom’s thanks, and we all just stand there. I’m desperately trying to think of something light and conversational to say when Del says, “Is it okay if I get a drink of water?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I’ll get it for you.”

  “I don’t want to bother you,” he says. “I know where your kitchen is. You and your mother go take a look at the birdhouse. See if I put it in the right place.”

  Mom and I walk around the side of the house and stare up at the birdhouse.

  “Very nice,” Mom says.

  “It looks good there,” I tell her.

  This is dumb, I think. Why are we here, staring up at a birdhouse?

  Del strides across the lawn, a smile on his face. “Everything okay?”

  “Lovely,” Mom says, and she thanks him again.

  He grins at me. “See you, Angie,” he says, and leaves.

  As we watch his pickup move down the street Mom says, almost grudgingly, “He does seem like a nice, friendly boy, Angie.”

  I put an arm around her shoulders and lead her into the house, through the back door into the kitchen. “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s at the hospital.”

  “Have you had anything to eat?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  I pull out a kitchen chair and guide her into it. “Mom, I’ll make you a sandwich. Okay?”

  “That’s too much.”

  “All right. I know we’ve got crackers and cheese. I’ll put them on the table, and you can eat as much as you like.” While I’m talking I’m moving, and before she can object the food is in front of her along with a plate and a knife.