Harmony House (14 page)

W
hen I pull up to the Staffordshire Township Hospital, a shiver runs through me—I remember now that this is where they brought Alex that night. My stomach tightens a little, wondering if he's still here.

Regardless, I need to see Christy and make sure she's okay. Of course, it wasn't my fault that she fell—or jumped. But I can't help but feel guilty somehow. It was my fault she was at Harmony House, after all.

So I get out of the car, hurrying because of the rain starting to fall. I enter through the automatic sliding
glass door and cross to the reception desk. The woman behind the counter, rail thin, with big bug eyes and dark hair parted in the middle, directs me to the third floor.

The elevator is a long time coming and I look absently around at the doctors and nurses and orderlies walking purposefully up and down the hallway.

On the third floor, I hear the rain spattering the windows and smell that noxious hospital smell of disinfectants and cleaning products. The rubber soles of my boots squeak-squeak on the polished linoleum.

Christy's room is all the way down at the end of the hall. I knock twice quickly on the door and take a deep breath before going in.

It's a shock seeing Christy. Her entire body is wrapped tightly in different casts and bandages. Her left leg is elevated and her neck is in a brace. Both her eyes are swollen, bordered by black-and-blue marks like she's been punched in the face.

The breath I took in, I let out all at once.

“Jen,” a voice says, scaring me so I jump back.

But, turning, I see it's only Rose. She's wearing a heavy barn coat and dirty jeans and she stands and comes over to hug me for a long time.

“Jen,” she says again. “I'm so happy you're here. I
need to talk to you.”

“I'm sorry,” I tell her. “I feel so bad about Christy.”

“There was nothing you could do,” she says—holding me at arm's length now. “It's not your fault.”

“I don't know how it happened,” I say, feeling tears well in my eyes now.

“It's okay,” she says again. “But I do want to talk to you. Do you mind coming out in the hall with me?”

I look over at Christy lying there.

“Of course,” I say.

She smiles more and puts a hand on my shoulder.

I follow her out into the hall.

I lean back against the white-painted drywall, banging my head and then banging it again rhythmically—not too hard, but not too soft either.

“The storm's looking pretty bad,” I say, just to say something.

She nods.

“It is going to be bad,” she says. “That's something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“About the storm?” I ask, making a face.

“Jen,” she says. “I know this is going to sound a little . . . forward . . . but I'm very worried about you.”

“I'm worried about myself,” I tell her.

“With everything that's been happening at the house,” she says, “I think it might be best for you to leave as soon as possible.”

She's staring hard at me and I shiver.

“You mean because of Christy?” I ask.

“Because of that, yes. And Alex Winter. And the storm and, honestly, sweetie, you look sick—you're covered in bruises, you have dark circles under your eyes, you're thin and pale.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say. I actually laugh a little at that.

“You're a strong girl,” she tells me, again putting her hand on my shoulder. “But you're not strong enough—not yet. And now this storm is coming. If I had some time with you, maybe I could teach you how to control the power you have, but as it is, I'm afraid you're in a lot of danger.”

I laugh again, but there are still tears in my eyes.

“Power?” I say, incredulously. “I don't have any power. I'm totally powerless.”

“No, you're not.”

I move away from her then—not abruptly, but just to keep her from touching me.

“Look,” I say. “I appreciate you trying to help. And I am sorry about what happened. But you don't know me.
I'm sorry, but you don't. You don't have any idea what's going on in my life.”

She nods, smiling.

“I do know,” she says. “I know because we're alike—because we're not like other people.”

I breathe in and out.

“What?” I say, getting annoyed now. “Because you're a medium or something? Because you can read people?”

Again she nods. “Yes, I can read people. And yes, I'm a medium. But that's not what you are. You are something much, much more—”

I don't let her finish.

“Sorry,” I say, the heat searing through me again. “I've got enough crazy shit to deal with in my life right now. I've got enough crazy fucking people.”

I start to walk away from her. I press the palms of my hands into either side of my head and the heat is burning me alive.

“I know about the dreams,” she says, calling after me. “I know about the visions. And I know about your father, too. You have to get out of that house. You have to leave tonight. If your father will come with you, then fine, but even if he refuses, you must get out tonight.”

I turn back to face her, my vision blurred from the
heat consuming me. I feel like if I open my mouth I will spit fire. But only words come out.

“Where the hell am I supposed to go?” I yell, not caring who in the hospital hears me now.

She answers calmly.

“Go anywhere,” she says. “Come to the diner. You can stay with me. You can stay with me right now, if you want.”

She takes a step toward me, reaching out a hand.

“Stop it!” I yell even louder. “I can't stand it!”

And then there is a piteous groan from the building's foundation. The linoleum floor ripples like a swell coming in off the ocean. The whole building seems to jerk and shake. The walls rattle. One of the nurses from down the hall shouts, “Earthquake.”

I go on and run to the stairs with the red glowing EXIT sign and start down them, even as the loud rumbling and shaking go on and on. As I reach the bottom floor, the building goes still again and the change of movement makes me almost trip over my own feet, but I catch myself on the landing and start out through the main lobby, where everyone is scrambling in a million directions at once. I step through the automatic sliding glass doors. The rain is falling steadily now. The sky is all black.

I drive slowly, trying not to think about Rose and everything she said—though, I guess, I can't help it.

Branches bend and break and the gutters overflow with leaves on either side of the road.

The sound of the windshield wipers is like my heart beating.

Rose's words keep repeating over and over in my mind.

She knew about the visions. She knew about the dreams. She said she knew about my father.

And she's right, of course—I have to get out of the house. I have to get out as soon as possible. And if my dad won't come with me . . . I guess I'll have to go without him. Not to Rose's. That's crazy. Maybe to Stephanie's.

Jesus Christ.

I really don't have anywhere to go.

But I have to go. I have to go somewhere.

As I pass through town I can just make out the boarded-up doors and taped shop windows and a few cars parked at the curb. The lights from the diner are still on—the neon sign a blur through the falling rain.

I make a decision then.

I'm going to ask my dad, once, to leave with me. I'm
going to give him a chance. If he says no, I'm going to get my stuff, get in the car, and go. If he tries to stop me, I'll call that sheriff. He'll help me. I know he will.

I pass through the gates leading up to the house. The rain beats mercilessly against the car roof and windshield. The sound is like perpetual thunder. The sound is like the earthquake. I round the corner so the dimmest outline of light from the monstrous house comes into view. A chill runs through me. Then I see that one of the big oak trees has fallen halfway across the road. I swerve and the car accelerates as if on its own, back tires spinning so I careen off the embankment—hitting the front end hard so my neck snaps back and I slam sideways into the steering wheel. I taste blood in my mouth and my eyes start to close.

S
omeone is there banging against the passenger window—banging louder even than the rain. My eyes adjust to the light—or absence of light. The door opens and the water washes in and the sound of the wind is like a river. But then I hear a voice and there are hands grabbing hold of my wet clothes and pulling me free.

It's Colin.

I wrap my arms around him and he says, “Okay, I got you.” And he lifts me out onto the road. My legs feel weak beneath me and I'm dizzy and trembling.

“Come on, this way,” he says.

He leads me stumbling through the forest—the trees all creaking and splitting and sounding like they're about to come down all around us.

“Hurry,” he says.

And so we start to run now—coming out onto the driveway.

“I can't go home,” I tell him.

He nods.

“It's okay,” he says.

We go back to the stone garage and he opens a side door and we both run inside.

Thank God, it's at least pretty dry in here, though we're both still totally soaking wet. The garage seems like it must've been a converted barn, because there's an upper hayloft with horse blankets and wooden crates full of equipment. Colin finds an old oil lamp with a blown colored-glass chimney and a brass burner. He takes a silver-plated Zippo from his coat pocket and lights the wick. It catches immediately and he adjusts the flame and then I can see his features more defined again. He sets the lamp down on a wooden crate and shakes his head at me.

“You're a real mess, you know that?” he says.

In spite of everything, I laugh.

“Tell me about it.”

I unfold one of the heavy wool blankets and wrap it around myself, then climb up the broken and splintered-in-places ladder to the sweet-smelling hayloft. Around us the storm rages. Inside we are warm and safe-feeling, and I breathe out.

Colin climbs up next to me, carrying more of the heavy blankets.

“You think your dad's gonna come looking for you?” he asks.

I shrug and pull the blanket tighter around me.

“At this point,” I say, “I don't even care.”

I start unlacing my boots.

“Hey,” I say. “What were you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be home with your family?”

He shakes his head.

“They're fine. You're the one I was worried about. I wanted to come check up on you.”

“I'm glad you did,” I say. “Jesus Christ, I'm glad you did.”

I get my boots and socks off and bury my bare feet in the straw.

“How long's this storm supposed to last?” I ask him.

He runs a hand across his head.

“How long do you want it to be?”

I manage to laugh a little.

“As long as we're in here and not the house and I don't have to deal with my dad, it can last forever, as far as I care.”

“Did you go see Christy?” he asks, leaning back against the moss-covered wall. He has one blanket over his shoulders and another is laid out covering the both of us.

“I tried,” I say. “She was unconscious. She looked terrible.”

Colin shakes his head.

“I'm sorry,” he says.

“I did get to talk to Rose, though,” I tell him. “That was a lot of fun.”

He laughs a little. “Do I sense a little sarcasm there?”

“Very perceptive, yeah. She's kind of a whack job, isn't she?”

He shrugs. “Well, like I said, she's known around town for being able to talk to dead people, so . . .”

He pauses then before continuing on, asking, “Is that what you mean?”

I laugh a little more.

“I guess so. I don't know. I kind of lost it on her, to tell you the truth.”

He laughs, too.

“Lost it how?”

“I think I was just sick of everything being so crazy, I kind of took it out on her.”

“What did she say to you?”

I let my shoulders rise and fall.

“Just that I wasn't safe in the house. That I had to get out. Which is kind of like, duh, I guess. But she also said she knew about the dreams, or the visions, or whatever. Oh, and that she knew about my dad, whatever that means.”

“What about him?”

“She didn't say. Or . . . well . . . I didn't give her time to, maybe. She said I was, like, powerful, or something. That I had some power in me, or . . . I don't know. I guess that's what pissed me off so much.”

He smiles and shakes his head.

“You got pissed off 'cause she said you're powerful?”

I smile along with him.

“Pretty dumb, huh?”

I bite my thumbnail. “It was more than that, though. It was like she was saying I'm some kind of . . . freak. Or . . . like . . . it was my fault, 'cause I could control it.”

“Control what?”

“I don't know. Maybe that's not what she said. But it was something like that.”

He reaches his hand out from under the blanket then and takes hold of mine. The warmth of him makes my heart beat fast again.

“Sounds to me,” he says, “like she sees something pretty great in you.”

He squeezes my hand and I smile.

“Then her skills as a psychic,” I say, “are definitely lacking.”

“I think you're pretty great,” he says.

I blush at that.

“You don't know me,” I tell him.

His body moves down closer to mine and I hold my breath. I realize I'm praying over and over again that he doesn't ruin this by trying to kiss me. But, for now, at least, he doesn't. He lies down on his back next to me staring up at the crossbeams in the ceiling.

“I'm sorry things have been so hard,” he tells me.

It surprises me.

And I actually almost start to cry.

“It's really been one fucked-up thing after another,” I tell him.

“I know,” he says.

“Jesus, I mean, if I had any power, I sure as hell wouldn't be in this fucked-up situation now, would I?”

His hand finds mine again and again he squeezes it, but gently.

“Maybe you haven't found it yet.”

I make a face.

“Found what?”

“Your power.”

“Yeah,” I say. “And maybe it isn't there.”

He turns on his side, facing me.

“Maybe you keep running away from it.”

A flash of memory makes me stumble over the words as I try to answer him.

My mom and dad had gotten into a fight, I guess—I don't know what about. I just remember sitting in front of the TV, watching a movie, and the more they fought, the more they screamed and screamed at each other—more and more high-pitched and piercing—the louder I turned the volume on the TV.

And then my mom came into the room and her face was red and streaked with makeup and her eyes were swollen and her hair a mess. I turned to look and her and then looked back at the TV with the volume loud so I didn't have to know or see—so I could be left alone—so
I could run away—escape into the movie—Clint Eastwood throwing back his tattered poncho, revealing, as if by magic, the gun in his hand—fanning the hammer.

My mom came and grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet.

“I'm watching this,” I said.

And she told me, “Come on, we're leaving.”

And I wanted to stay—or I thought if I did leave that my dad would think I was choosing her over him, that I was betraying him somehow.

“Mom, no!” I said. “No!”

“You're coming with me!” she said.

She dragged me, still by the arm, out of the house and put me in the passenger seat and buckled me in and fired the engine, and we started off down the driveway. It was night and the only lights were from the windows of the surrounding houses.

My dad came out of the darkness, throwing himself at the car and yelling, “Stop! Stop!”

But my mom kept on driving and he was thrown back against the white picket fence surrounding the dead-grass front yard.

“Mom!” I shouted, covering my face with my hands.

But I did not cry.

We drove fast down the block—tires screeching loud as we took the corner and fishtailed across the center divide. My mom had her foot pressed all the way to the floor and it sounded like the engine was going to break apart into a thousand pieces at any second.

But then we were pulling into a parking lot and my mom had the car in park, but still running, and she grabbed her purse and walked quickly toward the blinking-on-and-off neon sign of the liquor store—leaving the driver's-side door open.

She returned in what seemed like an instant—like I'd closed my eyes and opened them and then she was back, the outline of a bottle clearly visible beneath the brown paper bag clutched tightly in her hand. She unscrewed the cap.

“Mom!” I said. “Mom, no!”

Her eyes fixed on mine and for some reason, in that moment, I didn't look away. I stared back and I could see the pupils huge and darting in the darkness and the swallowing black inside her—like a dark star pulling everything into it, but never being filled.

“Mom, stop!” I yelled, not even knowing exactly why. Seeing the sickness so defined in her—seeing the coiled parasite like a tapeworm in the loops of her intestines,
digesting and stealing and growing ever more powerful while she grew ever weaker.

She brought the bottle to her lips.

She tilted her head back.

“Mom! No!” I yelled—my eyes fixed on her—my eyes unable to turn away.

“Mom!” I screamed.

And in an intake of breath the bottle in the brown paper bag shattered in her hand. The glass turned to tiny sparkling glittering shards and liquid exploded out, tearing the bag and showering down with the glass onto the cracked and uneven asphalt. My mother's hand was cut and bleeding. Tears ran down her cheeks. She looked up at me. She held her bleeding palm up for me to see.

“You did this!” she said. “You did!”

I opened the car door then and got down onto the ground, but not feeling my legs beneath me as I started to run and run and run—back to the house—away from her—away from what happened—whatever it was. Only I knew one thing—I knew that it wasn't me, that I hadn't done it, that it wasn't my fault.

Except that it happened. It wasn't a dream. It was a memory.

And I remember it.

For the first time.

I blink my eyes back to the present—back here with Colin.

“I don't have any power,” I say, telling him the truth. “Please, let's just drop this stupid conversation.”

He leans forward, too quick for me to stop him, and kisses me on the temple. Then he lies back.

“You're right,” he says. “I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry,” I say. “You've been nothing but good to me. I guess I have a hard time with that sometimes.”

He nods.

He doesn't say anything.

He pushes my hair back out of my eyes, gently still.

“I'm not a good person,” I say.

“Shh,” he tells me. “That's not true. I see who you are.”

“No,” I say. “You don't. No one does.”

He smiles.

“Maybe that's the problem.”

“Believe me,” I say. “If you could see inside me, you'd run as far away from me as you possibly could.”

“That's a lie you tell yourself,” he says. “You're beautiful.”

“I'm disgusting,” I say.

He says, “Shh, shh.”

He runs his hand through my hair.

He kisses my forehead.

“What happened to you?” he asks, whispering. “To make you hate yourself so much, when you are such an extraordinary person?”

My eyes spill over with tears again.

“I don't want to be extraordinary,” I tell him. “I just want to be ordinary. I just want to be like everybody else.”

He wipes my tears away.

“You never will be,” he says. “I wouldn't be here, if you were.”

I laugh then through my crying.

“You're trapped here because of the storm.”

He kisses my tears now.

“I wouldn't want to be anywhere else,” he says.

I feel myself becoming weightless from his kisses.

But I try to bring myself back down, saying, “Well, that's just stupid. We could still be together. But how about on a beach in Tahiti instead of the leaking garage?”

“No,” he says. “I only want to be right here, with you, right now.”

He kisses me again.

I kiss back.

We lie together like that.

We lie together 'til the lamplight burns down to black.

Until the walls come crashing down around us.

And the ocean rushes in.

And we hold the sun frozen in our bellies.

And in our happiness, we sleep.

And in our sleep, we dream.

We dream of each other.

Or, at least, I dream of him.

And in the dream I see the house.

But run-down-looking.

With boarded up windows and paint peeling off the sides and the roof caved in. The sun is setting low over the distant treetops.

Crickets chirp loudly in the tall grass. Clouds of mosquitos swarm the two boys walking around the perimeter. Colin wears the same rugby shirt and work pants. He's walking crouched down, creeping, along the side of the house. The boy with him is . . . Alex . . . that same Alex. Only he looks younger, somehow. His hair is shorter, sticking up in front.

The two boys find a broken window on the first floor. They look back and forth at each other. Then, cautiously, they
climb inside—one after the other.

The room they enter is dark and dusty and smells like mold and some kind of dead animal rotting under the house. Furniture is piled haphazardly, covered in white sheets. Cobwebs hang from the corners of the ceilings. Desks and tables and dressers are piled on top of one another.

Walking with purpose, as though knowing exactly where they're going, the boys cross through the room and go out into the long hallway.