The Singing Bone (39 page)

“No.”

“All right. I thought it would be worse.”

“Worse than that?”

“You were a
child
, Stuart.”

  •  •  •  

You were a child
, he reminds himself.

When Stuart gets home that night, Kate is standing in the kitchen, waiting for him. Her mouth is open. “Did you hear?”

“What?”

She goes into the den and switches on the TV, pointing with the remote.

“Oh shit,” he says when he sees Jack Wyck's lawyer standing on the steps of the courthouse, proclaiming his client's innocence.

“The DNA evidence, or lack of it, proves that my client had nothing to do with any of the murders. He did not kill Molly Malloy, and when we try our case again, I believe my client will be fully exonerated.”

“No wonder,” Stuart says.

“What?”

“Alice called me today.”

“Do you think the police are going to want to talk to you?”

“I won't talk to them,” he says. “Let's call our lawyer. I'm not going through this again.”

“We
can't
go through it.”

They look at each other and then finish watching the segment. Molly's face is on the screen. Stuart looks away. “If they let that man out,” he says. “I'll kill him myself.”

Hans stands in the brown yard in front of Jack Wyck's house, looking up at the windows. Twice a year, the Wyckian Society arrives. They meet on Halloween night for a party and then in the dead of winter on the anniversary of the killings. They wear the clothes they imagine Mr. Wyck and his women would have worn. They wear furs and hand-embroidered shirts. They tie their hair back with silk bands and draw circles around their eyes. They paint their mouths in lurid reds.

The head of the Wyckian Society waits inside the house, where he's built a fire and pours red wine for everyone. Every year, they draw straws for this part, each hoping to play Mr. Wyck's Faustian lead. This year, it's Doug Ramsey wearing Mr. Wyck's white fur vest. When Wyck's followers reach the house, Doug will open the door for them and invite them in. He'll give them ecstasy, LSD. Hans can see the Wyckians coming over the hill. Ariel is in the house getting some footage, but she comes out when she hears them. She walks towards them, her camera on her shoulder.

The Wyckians come like mummers, singing, banging on pots and pans, drums. They carry rattles and tambourines. A few have guitars. There is someone playing an accordion and a man with a slide trombone. Hans likes the ragged discord, the lazy trombone of a New Orleans funeral march.

At the end of the night, the Wyckian Society will depart like ghosts, singly disappearing into the forest—their clothes duller in the light of dawn, their makeup smeared and faded. They leave trash in the house. They defecate in the woods. They fuck in the basement.

After everyone's gone, Hans walks through the house, taking photos. Upstairs, in the attic, he finds Doug, staring out the small window that looks towards the woods. The house is cold and Doug wears a black jacket, his hood pulled up. “Hello again,” Hans says.

Doug turns only briefly, looking him up and down, and then looks out the window again. “Did you have a good time?” he asks.
“We've been filming all night,” Hans says. Hans studies the boy's back, the slight forward roll of his shoulders, the inward bow of his legs.

“Did you know this is where he first saw Alice?”

Hans walks to where Doug is standing and looks out the attic window. It's dark, so he can't see anything, but he knows, from Jack Wyck's own description, what he saw that day. “Yes,” Hans says. “He told me.” He thinks of his final interview with Jack.
Turn the camera off
, he had said.
I want to tell you a secret
. But Ariel hadn't turned the camera off. She had pretended to, but Hans guessed, looking at her, that all she'd done was set it down and pretend to turn something off. They listened together, later in Hans's hotel room, to the final piece of recording with Jack Wyck. The video caught the pale wall of the prison, but Jack's voice, deep and splintered by cigarettes, was clear, and he told them the story of seeing Alice.

“Winter of '78,” he said. “Started snowing. Lee and Allegra were on some job. I was working on some designs, but I'd been sitting all day and I got up to stretch, going to the window.” It was late afternoon and it had started to snow. The wind picked up outside. He watched the bare trees move in the wind.

There were some kids coming down the road: three girls and a boy. Jack Wyck put his finger on the windowpane and traced their path with his finger. He thought one of the girls looked up at him. She turned her face towards him, a pale little oval under a red knit cap, but there was no way she could see him, he reasoned. He was too far away and he had yet to turn a light on. “Who are you, little bird?” he said, and watched the four of them disappear into the woods.

He went downstairs and put on his boots and coat and stepped outside. The snow crunched under his feet, but it would not give him away. He could still hear their voices—they were laughing about something and Jack stepped lightly into the trees behind them. It was after three and the woods were nearly dark. He could see the girl's red knit cap moving through the trees ahead. Soon he was near them, swift and unseen.

The girl slowed and turned in the dim light, gazing around her in a way that reminded him of a deer—that cautious curiosity, a wide and searching gaze. For a moment, it felt as if they were alone together in the forest. “I could touch her,” Jack said. “It was like she was waiting for it, but then she turned and ran to catch up with her friends. There was something in her expression I admired—some determination to see what she couldn't. It was as if she'd sensed me. I followed them around the reservoir, keeping well behind.” Between the branches that cracked beneath their feet and the echo of laughter, he caught strands of conversation:
Whose house did you say? Oh, no, you wouldn't, Alice. Give it back!

He followed them to the edge of the forest and then farther, into the neighborhood where they lived, walking slowly behind them like a man out on an evening stroll, hands behind his back, face lifted to the sky. Just a man walking a dog without a dog. He saw where each of them lived, watched the lights go on in their houses, counted the cars in the driveways, looked at the windows, figured out how someone could get in—if they wanted. An old but useful habit. After standing there for a while and feeling the night settle in around him, he turned and walked back into the woods. The snow had stopped falling and the light of the moon made the trees bright.

“When I got back to the house, I took Allegra's hand, I took Lee's hand. ‘Close your eyes,' I told them, ‘and listen to what I'm going to tell you.' ” And he told them about Alice, Trina, Molly, and Stover as he saw them on that day. He described every last detail. He asked Lee and Allegra to imagine these people coming into their lives, into the house. “Watch them as they open the front door. One by one, they cross the threshold. See them eat our food, drink our wine, make love to them, watch them sleep. Make them your own. Walk around in their skin. Invite them and they will come.”

  •  •  •  

“He's like a father to me.” Doug says it quietly, like a confession, and then, “You should go before the cops come. They do a drive-by every morning.”

“What will you do?”

“I'll be all right.”

Hans wants to say something to him. He wants to tell him that he should go, that he should leave before Jack Wyck comes back to the house, but then he remembers the boy has had the same warning as everyone else. It's the one thing that Alice and her friends didn't get.
These people are foolish
, Hans thinks. “Goodbye, then,” Hans says, turning. He pauses. “Take care of yourself, Doug. Remember that you are an independent force in the world.”

“You sound like Mr. Wyck.” Doug stays planted by the window, the hood up, the face obscured. Hans makes his way downstairs, thinking of Alice. He stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks back up. Jack Wyck told him about the house—about the winding staircase. Hans thinks of a folklore term that Alice mentioned: legend trip. With their pilgrimages and cemetery visits, the Wyckians are big legend trippers. He takes another photo of the trash-strewn living room and leaves through the front door, left open, and walks to his car. He knows that Doug is watching him go. Ariel is waiting for him. She looks tired, her red curls a bright spot against the dim February morning. “It looks like snow,” she says, and Hans looks up at the sky and nods.

Ariel drives. Hans closes his eyes and begins to drift off to sleep. He imagines Doug Ramsey—he watches him leave the house, abandon Jack Wyck, return to his own life—but he knows that magic doesn't exist. The images of freedom won't save the boy.

Stover had to go into the store to buy food. He had to get them clothes and toothpaste and shampoo. “I can't make these decisions alone,” he said.

“You have to,” Mr. Wyck said. “Just get what you'd get and don't think about it.” They were in a grocery store parking lot. Stover got out and found a cart and disappeared into the store.

“Where are we?” Trina said. Mr. Wyck had a map.

“West Virginia,” he said.

“Where are we going?” she wanted to know.

No one answered her. In a little while, Stover came out with bags. Alice had asked for Ho-Ho's. “Did you get my cupcakes?” she asked, and Stover passed her the box. He handed Lee the newspaper he'd asked for.

“Is our movie out already?” Alice asked when she saw their pictures on the front page of the newspaper. “We just finished shooting.”

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” Mr. Wyck said. “It's disgusting.”

Alice opened her mouth wide. “All right,” she said, chewing. No one told her anything. She was just supposed to sit in the van and keep quiet. “I have to pee,” she said. She didn't, but that was the only way she could get any attention.

“Wait until the motel,” Mr. Wyck said.

After they got to the motel, Mr. Wyck said they all had to go out again. He said it was time for them to meet up with a friend who had a car for them, but that Mr. Wyck wasn't going to come because he needed to meditate. Lee would get the new car. He knew where to go.

So Alice, Trina, and Stover got back into the van with Lee. They drove for a while, sometimes turning back, looping, and Alice thought Lee might be lost. Then Lee found the guy at the gas station. He drove along behind him for a while. He said, “That's the guy we're meeting.” No one asked any questions. He said the guy was going to give him his station wagon. They hit the guy with the van, lightly, to get his attention. “Just use the horn, asshole,” Alice said to Lee. Then Lee and the guy pulled over on the side of the road, and Lee got out and the guy got out and the two of them walked into the field.

When Lee came back, he was alone, and they all got in the station wagon.

“How is the guy who's loaning us his car going to get home?” Alice asked when they got into the stranger's car.

Lee turned and looked at Alice, studying her face before he spoke. “He's taking the van.” Alice didn't know that sometimes people just
gave
you their cars. Holy fucking shit, people could be kind. “Jesus,” she said, her eyes wide. “That was sweet of him to trade.”

“Yep,” Lee said, starting the car.

At the motel, Alice took off her dresses and got in the shower. Lee and Stover went out to get them new clothes. Trina had refused to take a shower, so her skin and clothes were still flaky with dried blood. “Come on,” Alice said. “The water's nice.” Trina was staring at the television. A cartoon was on. Mr. Wyck picked Trina up and carried her into the bathroom. Alice could hear her crying when the door closed. The water went on. Alice watched the cartoon. She laughed when the mallet came down on the mouse's head. The mouse flattened out and then sprung up again so it was twice as big as the cat who'd hit him. You never saw a cat so scared!

By the time Lee and Stover got back, Trina was sitting beside her on the bed in a towel. She was still staring. Alice waved her hand in front of Trina's eyes. “Knock, knock,” she said, and when Trina didn't answer her she said, “Knock, knock,” again.

“Who's there?” Lee said.

“I see you,” Alice said.

“I see you, who?” Stover said.

“I see you killed a man, a lady, and two babies.” Mr. Wyck laughed and Lee grimaced, but Stover turned and left the motel room. Alice could see him through the window. He stood on the balcony that overlooked the parking lot, smoking. Alice turned to Lee. “What did you buy for me?”

Lee threw a bag at her. Inside she found a white oxford-cloth shirt, a pair of jeans, underwear, an undershirt. “Thanks,” she said. When she got dressed, everything was too big for her. She sat back down on the bed to watch the cartoons. Trina had on an almost identical outfit, but her shirt was black. “Do you want to switch shirts?” Alice asked, but Trina didn't answer her. Alice tried to unbutton Trina's shirt to take it.

“Leave her alone, Genie,” Mr. Wyck said. “Just sit back and watch the TV and leave everyone alone.”

“Leave
me
alone,” Alice said, doing what he said.

“Now listen up.” Mr. Wyck stood in front of the TV, his arms folded. “Genie, are you listening?”

“I was
trying
to watch TV.”

“Shut that shit off, Lee,” he said, and Lee rose quickly from the single chair in the room and turned the television off. Mr. Wyck walked to the window and rapped on the glass to get Stover's attention, and when Stover turned, Mr. Wyck waved him in. “Sit down,” he said.