“I see ambulances and people come and go.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that other than to nod his head.
It was a long while before she spoke again. Brian turned to go, uncomfortable and assuming she was finished with him, but she raised a finger, keeping his feet planted on the steps.
She said, “Why don’t you make yourself useful and help me out of this chair. My knees have a tendency to lock.”
He reached out to hold her leathery hands and she pulled them back. “What do you want to do, pull my arms out of their sockets? If you’re going to help, you have to lift me.”
This close, he could smell the sharp tang of her body odor, as well as the overpowering scent of, for lack of a better word,
old
. If sepia had a smell, this would be it. It was the odor of a life coming full circle, of memories and regrets, of a body preparing to go home. Placing his arms around her waist, he locked his hands together behind her back and lifted. She felt light as a puppy in his arms. Edith in turn placed her arms around him and grunted as he got her to her feet. He handed the cane by the chair to her.
“All set?” he asked.
Her heavy lids drooped over her wet, rheumy eyes, and she turned to shuffle into the house.
I’ll take that as a ‘yes, and thanks for the help, young man’
, Brian thought.
When Brian came back inside, Alice was sitting on the couch doing her crossword. Like him, she looked tired, but also like him, she needed to keep her hands and mind busy, lest she let the dark tendrils of fear and doubt overtake her. Brian thought of the way they felt in terms of a line from an old Aerosmith song:
“Tap dancing on a land mine.”
They went through their daily motions: getting ready, going to work, caring for Cass, cleaning the house, shopping, and on and on. Each moment was pregnant with expectation.
Is the boy just around the corner?
Is he behind me?
What was that sound? Was it a whisper? Did something move?
What’s that thing that just moved out of the corner of my eye? A trick of light? My eyes are tired?
Or worse.
Throughout each day, little things happened in every corner of the house. Brian and Alice had been on high alert, hearts jumping into their throats at the slightest sound.
It’s playing with us
, Brian said to himself one night when three footsteps tapped outside the closed bedroom door.
It knows it has us right on the edge.
Alice looked up from her puzzle and said, “I just checked on Cassie and lasagna’s in the oven.”
Brian hung his coat on the hook by the door. “Thanks. I just spoke to our neighbor.” He pointed with his thumb over his right shoulder.
“The old lady?”
“The one and only Edith. She heard me shouting at you-know-what the other night. Apparently, she doesn’t like loud noises.”
“Well, maybe that broke the ice.”
“I doubt it. She asked me a couple of questions, then clammed up. I think she exhausted her word count for the year.”
Brian headed upstairs but stopped when he saw Alice’s stunned expression. He turned to see what she was looking at.
Beside the front door was a window looking out onto the porch. Cassandra had said she was going to buy a small table to put by the window so she could display fresh flowers every day. The lone thing under the window now was a pile of unpacked cardboard boxes, filled with books and summer clothes.
The narrow, plastic knob that controlled the blinds moved counterclockwise. The blinds slowly closed, shutting out the dying light of the day.
“That’s a new one,” Brian said. “Saved me from having to do it myself.” He was too tired to be scared. He hoped mocking the ghost’s actions would piss it off. Maybe if they showed it they weren’t afraid, it would move on.
A steady murmur caught his attention, but it was only Alice. Her hands were clasped together on her lap. A succession of Hail Marys tumbled from her lips.
The house groaned like an old, ocean-battered schooner.
It’s pulling everything out of its bag of tricks.
He said, “MIL, why don’t you come upstairs with me?”
She stopped her prayers and nearly leapt off the couch.
He caught her frightened eyes and said, “Look, you don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. I understand. If you want to take Cassandra to your house, I’m fine with that. Maybe that would be best, so we know she’s safe.”
Alice clutched the newel post and scanned the room. “No matter where we take Cassie, it’ll follow her.”
He knew she was right. He’d been mulling the truth over the past several weeks, but it didn’t hit home until Alice said it aloud. It wasn’t the house that was haunted. It was Cassandra. All the other theatrics were meant to chase him and Alice away, so the
bhoot
could have her to itself.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The weather report on 1010WINS was dire. What was at first a nor’easter heading their way had picked up strength from another storm off the coast of North Carolina and turned into a sizeable hurricane.
Every borough of the city was on alert. It would make landfall late the next day.
“It’s kind of late in the season to have a hurricane,” Alice said over toast and coffee.
Brian had been kind enough to move her mattress into his and Cassie’s bedroom after the incident with the blinds. It gave her some level of comfort, not being upstairs, alone, but she still got very little sleep.
“I can’t remember the last time we had a hurricane warning in the Bronx,” Brian said. “Strange weather. I’m going to head over to Home Depot after work to pick up a generator. If it hits, I don’t want to be without power for longer than the battery life in the infusion pump.”
“I’ll call Louisa and make sure she stops by to check on Cassie.”
Brian put his dish and coffee mug in the sink. “I don’t even know what the hell I’m supposed to do to prepare for a hurricane. I live in the Bronx so I don’t have to worry about this kind of stuff.”
“I doubt it’ll be that strong but you should get duct tape, batteries and candles to be safe.”
“What’s the duct tape for?”
“To tape the windows so they don’t shatter. I used to summer in the Keys when I was a kid. We were always getting ready for storms.”
“Got it. Call me if you need me.”
The moment he left, Alice went back to the bedroom. She didn’t want to leave her daughter’s side. She opened the Harlan Coben book and picked up where she’d left off.
Cassandra heard her mother’s voice, but it was so far off. It reminded her of the time she’d taken the pedal boat out too far on the lake when they went to Maine on vacation. She hadn’t realized just how far she’d gone until she detected her mother’s faint voice carried on the gentle wind. She’d been able to see her, a small speck on the sand, but she couldn’t make out the words.
Just like now.
Why can’t I open my eyes?
She felt like she should be awake. Was she dreaming? The terrible pain wasn’t stabbing her stomach, so maybe she was asleep.
But the pain is only gone when I’m in the dark place.
Mom, can you hear me?
I want to wake up. I can hear you, Mom.
I can hear you.
Something else was holding her prisoner. Something greater and more powerful than the pain.
Let me go. Please, let me go. I want to wake up. I want to hold my mother. Where’s Brian?
I remember!
We’re married. Oh, I was so sick, all through the ceremony and the reception. We had our first dance. I couldn’t touch my dinner. Couldn’t think of putting anything in my stomach.
They wheeled the cake over.
“Promise you won’t smash it all over my face.”
He smiled and there was mischief in those eyes, the eyes she wanted to stare into forever.
And then the agony.
Then nothing.
Fragments of sounds, scraps of memories, and always, the torment.
I want to wake up!
It took a lot of cursing and knuckle scraping to get the generator in place. Brian hoped he didn’t have to use it, but he was damned sure to put it together the right way just in case.
It had set him back five-hundred dollars. It was money he didn’t have to spare, so he put it on the last credit card that had money left on it.
When he was done, he checked on Cassandra. Her face was covered in sweat and her skin looked so pale. She didn’t have a fever. It almost looked like the kind of sweat you’d work up on a long run. But Cass wasn’t running anywhere.
He used a damp washcloth to wash her face and changed her sheets to get her more comfortable.
Alice was working like a line chef in the kitchen.
“If we lose power, I don’t want this food to go to waste. We’ll eat up tonight and tomorrow.”
“I’ll do what I can.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her he wasn’t the least bit hungry.
The weather outside was calm. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature had gone up ten degrees from the day before. All signs that the worst was coming.
Tomorrow was a Saturday. At least he’d be home when it hit. His school was built to be a bomb shelter, so he doubted they’d close it if it came today. The kids were safer in the gym than their houses.
“Oh, I picked up the nutmeg you asked for,” he said.
He grabbed his coat off the wall peg and rooted around his pocket for the bottle.
His fingers closed around a square of paper. When he pulled his hand out, he saw that it was actually two pieces of yellowed newspaper, folded over many times.
Carefully unfolding the papers, he watched the smaller one fall to the floor. A
NY Daily News
headline, dated November 12, 1958, read:
MERCY KILLING LEAVES POLICE DUMBFOUNDED
In a bizarre act of love, a nine-year-old Bronx boy turned off his mother’s iron lung. She died shortly thereafter. Mrs. Margaret Thomas had been suffering from polio for the past several years. In the final stages of the disease, she was placed in an iron lung earlier this year. Her son, James Thomas, was overheard by reporters saying, “I didn’t want her to hurt anymore. Can I see her now?” Family members were too distraught for comment, and police have taken young James into custody. A judge will have to decide his fate in what can only be described as an act of mercy gone terribly wrong.
Brian’s hands trembled as he read the rest of the article. Most of it was speculation on what would happen to the boy. He laid it on the arm of the couch and stooped to pick up the smaller article. It was dated January 5, 1959.
MORE TRAGEDY FOR BRONX FAMILY
Nine-year old James Thomas, who came to our attention last November when he disabled his mother’s life support machine, accidentally killing her, has also died at a tragically young age of complications from pneumonia. He had been allowed back in his home after his headline making arrest and subsequent release. The courts deemed him too young to be charged as an adult. The young boy, who only wanted to ease his mother’s suffering, didn’t realize the fatal consequences of his actions. “I hope he’s at peace now, with his mother,” said his father, Daniel Thomas, in a brief and teary statement. James was his only child.
Brian felt the world slip out from under him. He collapsed onto the couch, holding an article in each hand.
Where the hell did these come from?
He looked at Alice in the kitchen, browning sausages in a pan. No, it couldn’t have been her.
Who else had access to his coat? Was it a teacher in school? But why?
He was finding it hard to take a breath. He looked back down at the article on James Thomas’s death.
Oh my God.