Lineage (29 page)

“You don’t by any chance know anything about the names she wrote on the crossword in her room, do you?”

The nurse sighed through her nostrils. “I don’t know anything about
Wulf
.
Sounds German to me.
But Rhinelander rings a bell. He might have been a missing person quite a few years ago. Something
like
that, but I could be wrong.” Her shoulders rose in a dismissive shrug.

“Why a crossword?”
Lance asked.

The nurse shrugged again. “She always gets one, has ever since I started here.
Never seen her write on it, though.
We bring her a fresh stub of pencil every now and then, and those words are just there, over and over. Heard the scratching coming from her room late one night when I was doing the rounds. It stopped when I got within a few feet of the door, though, and when I peeked in she was just staring at the wall, not moving.”

The image nearly coaxed a shudder from Lance, but he fought it back and followed the nurse out of the elevator as the doors opened onto the first floor.

“If she says anything, please let me know,” Lance said, handing the nurse a slip of paper with his name and number on it.

She took it and chuckled as she neared the office that she had emerged from earlier. “Oh, we will, don’t worry about that. That woman’s almost ninety years old, and the last thirty of it she’s spent writing those two names down. If she communicates anything other than that, we’ll give you a call.” Her laughter followed her into the office and died as the door swung shut behind her.

Lance frowned and walked out into the waiting area and through the exterior doors. The trees were beginning to bend more with the storm’s pressure, and he could almost taste rain in the air. He slid in behind the wheel of the Land Rover, and stared at the dark windows of the building. He wondered which one was his grandmother’s, and as he drove out of the parking lot, he imagined he could hear the sound of a pencil scratching on paper.

The grave sat just where John said it would. After walking to it, Lance wondered how he’d missed it before on his nightly treks through the property. The path that led off the main trail twisted only once, before rising onto a small bluff and opening into a clearing roughly the size of a car.

Lance stood at the opening’s mouth, looking at the short granite headstone. The words were barely visible in the gloom of the day, but he could still read them clearly enough.

“Erwin Metzger, 1920 to 1980.
Father and husband.
Rest in peace.”
Lance’s voice sounded weak in the clearing amidst the rising wind and the constant beating of the waves on the shore behind him. When he turned his head to the left, he could actually see the house, which did nothing to comfort him.

He didn’t know why he had come here. Perhaps he hadn’t really believed John, and if the grave wasn’t here, he could refute everything the old man had said. He could wake up in the morning, refreshed and relieved by the fact that it had all been a joke.

He walked closer to the headstone. The ground had recently been cleared of sticks and leaves, the grass still very green over the plot. He realized then that John had been caretaking here also. Every time he came to tidy up the lawn and shrubbery he must have come to rake and prune this area also, each visit a reminder to the old man of his guilt and secrets. For some reason the thought seemed macabre to Lance, like Erwin had never truly released his hold on his employee. Lance supposed he hadn’t.

Lance felt his foot sink into the grass and stepped back onto the path. Images of a sinkhole opening up and him sliding down until he rested within a few inches of Erwin’s skeleton bloomed before him. He swallowed as a raindrop struck his nose, a cold tap of the storm’s fingertip. The sky had darkened further, and when he looked out across the lake, he saw angry waves rolling white peaks over and over as far as he could see.

As he made his way back to the house, more drops began to fall on him, which hurried his pace further, and he told himself it was the weather and not the lonely little clearing so close behind him that finally made him break into a run.

The house’s warmth did nothing to dispel the chill he felt as he shut the door and listened to its resounding echo.
Just a tomb door closing, that’s all,
the voice said, and Lance shook his head and went to the kitchen to find something for lunch.

Movement near the stairway caught his eye just as he turned the corner into the kitchen. He
spun,
his stomach dropping as he saw the bathroom door swing close above him on the landing. He sucked a breath in, wondering if he’d seen what he thought he saw: fingers.
Four of them, as white as a fish’s belly, sliding away into the darkness of the bathroom.

He waited, trying to hear any sounds above the throbbing in his eardrums. Did the door just click shut?
Had he heard it or not?
Had he really seen a hand shutting the door? The urge to leave became almost overwhelming. All he would have to do is walk back over to the entry, grab his keys from the shelf by the door, and leave this cursed place behind him. He could do it fast, so if something came out of the bathroom and ran down the stairs behind him, he would already be gone.

No.
The word cleared all other panicked thoughts from his mind. He’d be running again. He’d always run, he realized.
Ever since his father hit him the first time.
He’d run from the pain, from his mother’s lack of protection, from the rage, from the fear of becoming something terrible, even from people who cared. Whatever was up there now would just be something new to run from, and he finally knew that no matter how fast he went, there would always be another reason to keep going.

By the time he came to himself, his foot had already found the first stair. Before his mind had time to protest, he lunged upward with a burst of speed. The familiar anger came back to him, but now it felt like an ally, not a conspirator, and he used it as he rounded the top railing and flung a well-placed kick at the bathroom door.

The door banged loudly off of the edge of the tub and rebounded, almost closing again. Lance blocked it open with a closed fist and flipped on the light with his other hand.

The room was empty.

He stepped farther in, pulling the door nearly closed and looking behind it. His eyes slid to the drawn shower curtain. Without hesitating, he ripped it open, revealing nothing but empty air and a solitary spider scurrying along the rim of the shower. His breath hissed out from between his teeth. He turned and looked at his reflection. His hair stuck up at odd angles from the wind outside and his fists were still clenched at his sides. He looked crazed.

“You’re a lunatic, you know that?” he said to the mirror as he closed his eyes in exasperation.
“Seeing shit.
Should call up the doc right now and get something—”

A sharp rapping from downstairs jerked his eyelids open, and he saw that his father stood behind him in the tub.

Lance cried out and turned, throwing a fist that connected with thin air. Nothing was there. No grinning face greeted him as he sunk back onto the counter and stared at the space where moments before something had been.

The knocking came again from below, and Lance forced himself out of the bathroom like a man on a narrow ledge, never turning his back on the tub. His breath stuttered as he made his way down the stairs on legs that felt like taffy. He could see a figure in the window of the front door as he entered the foyer, and tried to compose himself the best he could as his heart beat against his ribs.

Mary smiled at him as he opened the door. The rain poured from the sky behind her, and her hair hung limp about her pretty face.

“Hi. What’s wrong?” she said, as she took in his pallid features and shaking hands.

Lance tried to breathe normally and felt a grimace pull at his mouth, as panic clung to his back and sunk its talons into his lungs.

Mary blinked a few times, and then motioned him inside. “Let’s sit down.”

She led him to the kitchen and sat him in a chair near the counter. He fell into it, no longer able to stand, as she found a glass in the cupboard nearby and began to fill it with cold water. She handed it to him, and sat down across from him, worry etching lines in her brow. He drank and finished the water off in a few gulps. The rain drummed on the roof and distant thunder reverberated somewhere to the west.

“Tell me,” she said. The tone of her voice left no room for argument.

He slowly told her of his visit to John’s the night before after bolting in the middle of their date. The details came out in rough fashion, some of them getting jumbled along the way as he tried to recall everything the caretaker had told him about his grandparents and the subsequent guilt that the old man carried each day. He spoke of his visit to
Riverside
and the hollow woman who sat like a statue in her chair, only to move when she seemed sure that no one could hear her writing. He watched Mary’s eyes as he spoke the names. The wrinkling of her forehead told him all he needed to know. He ended with what he had seen in the upstairs bathroom, feeling with all his instincts that now she would leave. Any minute she would stand from her chair and tell him to stay away from her. But instead, she merely leaned back and threw a glance at the upstairs, as if trying to catch a glimpse of something that might have been eavesdropping. When she looked back at him, her eyes appraised him.

“You think I’m nuts,” he said, trying to read her expression.

A smile broke at the corners of her mouth.
“Most definitely.
We all are to some extent. I don’t think you’re any worse off than the rest of us.”

Lance frowned. “I see my dead father—twice, mind you—proceed to tell you about my screwed-up childhood, and then reveal the fact that I’m living, without knowing it, in the house my grandfather built, and you don’t think I’m crazier than a shithouse mouse?”

Mary just shook her head, looking at him. Lance leaned back in his chair.

“Maybe you’re the crazy one,” he said. Mary burst out laughing and playfully swatted at him from across the counter. Lance just rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

Mary reached across the distance between them and put a warm hand on his forearm. “Look, there’s obviously something going on here. You were just drawn to this place by chance? I don’t think so.” He remained silent, weighing whether he should tell her about his writer’s block or not. “Furthermore,” she continued, “you’re too logical and even-keeled to be crazy. I’ve seen insanity before, and you aren’t it.”

“You don’t know me.” The words came out harder than he had meant them to. He blinked and pursed his lips together, about to apologize.

“You’re right, I don’t. But last night on the beach you said things that made more sense to me than anything I’ve heard in a long time.”

He looked at her luminous green eyes in the gray light of the kitchen, as thunder rolled over their heads again. She held his gaze, searching his face and daring him to look away first. After a moment he did, feeling more of the wall inside him crumble.

“Then what do you think is happening to me?” he finally said.

“I don’t know.”

Lance shifted in his seat. “You know that name, though, don’t you?
Rhinelander?”
He watched her expression, and the same furrows again appeared on her forehead.

“Yes,” she said after a moment. “I do. But there’s someone else who knows a whole lot more.”

The historical society building could have been a lawyer’s office or even a trinket shop, as nondescript as it appeared. Its squat two-story shape blended in well with the rest of the block. A small sign over the single door gave away its identity, and Lance read it out loud as he pulled to a stop in an empty parking space.

“
Lake
County
Historical Society.”

Mary unbuckled her seatbelt and grasped the door handle. “Harold’s been running it forever.”

“Forever’s a long time,” Lance said, half grinning at her.

Mary just rolled her eyes and stepped onto the street. The storm still hovered over them and the rain hadn’t let up. They ran to the doorway of the building and pushed their way inside.

The interior opened to the second floor in an airy manner that surprised Lance; the ceilings hanging above them were adorned with all manner of artifacts from the local area. Lance spied a model airplane almost three feet long, a large bone that could’ve only come from a dinosaur’s leg, and a mannequin floating like a specter wearing a hand-sewn dress, but missing its head, arms, and legs. The rest of the building held table upon table of photo albums, bookshelves pressed against the walls, and a few locked glass cases holding treasures too small for Lance to see clearly.

They had just begun to make their way between two tables when they heard a door close off to their left, and Harold’s small form wound its way toward them. Mary had called him as they drove into town and explained why they needed to meet him here. She left out the portions of the story that painted Lance in a portrait of insanity, and he had thanked her with his eyes as she spoke.

“Good to see you, Lance!” Harold exclaimed as he stepped up to them and grasped Lance’s hand in his own.
“So sorry for last night.
Not the best way to find out about your family
tree,
and to think you found the place without knowing. It’s just amazing.” The older man shook his head in disbelief and shrugged his thin shoulders in his large buttoned sweater.