His voice shook when he said, “Only because I dug one up.”
She flung a capelet into the box and yanked out another dress, this one the color of ferns. She mostly left it folded, and hurled that in there, too. She collected everything she’d chosen so far and rose to her feet, wiping her hands on the seat of her jeans. “Goddammit, just go, if this is too much for you.”
But he rose to his feet, too—and dug in his heels. “I only have to make it until dark, right?”
Exhausted by this entire line of conversation, she sighed. “Yes.”
“Then how long is it, ’til dark?” He clutched at the shirt pocket with the camera phone, reassuring himself that it was still running.
“Another six or seven hours, so you might want to put the phone away for a while. It’ll start feeling dark before that—when the sun falls behind the mountain, but the sun won’t really set until eightish.”
“And come eight, we’re out of here?”
“More like seven thirty,” she vowed. “Can you stick it out that long?”
“Without having a nervous breakdown? I make no promises.” The quiver in his eyes said he was halfway there already, so a promise wouldn’t mean much anyway.
“Let’s hold off on the nervous breakdowns. If you have a nervous breakdown, you might drop this vanity when we walk it down the stairs, and then I’d have to kill you, and then I’d go to jail, and no one would be very happy. I’d rather just get Bobby or Gabe to help me, if you’re going to run around squeaking like a girl every time you hear a footstep you can’t explain.”
“Footsteps, I can ignore. Dead soldiers who stand there and look sad … fine, that guy wasn’t bothering anybody.”
“How about apparitions in mirrors?”
He thought about it. “You said Hazel was a nice lady.”
“She seems to be. I think she wants to help. Now, do me a favor, dear—put the last box together, and start going through the bureau drawers. Anything that’s in one piece, add it to the stash.”
Downstairs, the sound of chisels and pry bars gave way to power tools and high fives, as the first fireplace was pulled free of the wall, and then packed up for shipping. Gabe and Bobby relocated the sleeping bags and duffel bags and messenger bags and the last of the personal items to the far side of the room in the main living area, up against the staircase, and got to work on the larger fireplace, a delicate mission in marble.
Meanwhile, Dahlia and Brad finished up the last of the upstairs furniture—grunting and swearing the big pieces down the stairs and stashing them in the parlor, which was filling up fast.
Then, on to the top-floor windows. Not everything was coming with them, but in Brad and Bobby’s former rooms there were matching frames with leaded glass in traditional patterns, with a sprinkle of green and yellow squares for pop. They came out easy, in one piece. Only one crack, and that little part could be replaced.
Fuck the tragic pink bathroom tiles. Even Bobby had come to agree. The bathrooms were a waste.
Dahlia and Brad took the hardware off the doors next, wrapping each set in newspaper to keep it all together, then boxing it all up. Next came the doors themselves, along with what decorative hinges remained. Anything modern went into the scrap pile.
Pry bars and saws came out, and the heart-of-pine upstairs was extracted one plank at a time. What couldn’t be saved was left behind, leaving islands of wood surrounded by subflooring and joists. The second floor was as stripped as it was going to get, right around the time Bobby and Gabe announced that they needed a hand with the big marble surround. There was one big crack, and a couple of small ones—no big deal, but it took a lot of love and duct tape and padding to get the massive thing ready for the truck and out into the parlor.
On to the rest of the first floor. Two more stained-glass panels, one in amazing shape, one in iffy condition. Bubble wrapped and set aside, with plastic tarp over the holes left behind, since the rain was still drumming, and they were still planning to take the floors. More gorgeous trim, with carved blocks and filigree. All of it oak. The pry bars picked it all down, and Dahlia stacked it all up.
The afternoon wore on, and the rain kept coming.
The thunder and lightning quit, and it wasn’t yet freezing, but she thought she heard the intermittent patter of ice mixed in with the droplets. She wouldn’t swear to it, but she wouldn’t doubt it, either. Everyone ditched their hoodies and jackets, but kept the flannels and long sleeves. Even manual labor couldn’t keep them perfectly warm.
Around five thirty, Gabe and Bobby successfully removed the ornate built-in cabinet in the dining area, and, with Dahlia and Brad’s help, got it wrapped in moving blankets and duct tape. With all hands on deck and the help of a pair of dollies, they relocated it to the sitting room in two pieces. They had to leave it lying by the entrance, for there was nowhere else to put it. The sitting room was stuffed to the gills, and there wasn’t any space left in the parlor, either.
“But we still have the big stained-glass window in the dining room—that’s easily worth a couple grand, so we have to take extra care. And then there’s the room dividers, the parlor built-ins, and the stair rails,” Dahlia noted, mentally trying to imagine the jigsaw puzzle of overnight storage.
“Nah, we can skip the parlor built-ins.” Brad took off his gloves and emptied them one at a time, spilling dust, splinters, and plaster bits onto the floor. “The screws were wrong. Phillips, from top to bottom.”
“Right. Thank you for remembering.” She frowned in that direction anyway, spying the shelving through the stacks of loot, waiting to be loaded up. “Someone did a real nice job of making it look original, damn him. But it’s just as well, because we’re running out of time for today. I am happy to scratch something off the list guilt-free. We do have to grab those room dividers, though. I already checked them, and they’re in real good shape. You’ll have to cut them out from the wall, but they’ll make great bookcases or cabinets.”
Gabe cleared his throat. “Um … room dividers?”
“Those things that look like waist-high, built-in bookcases on either side of the wall between the parlor and the foyer. There used to be another set in front of the sitting room, but someone pulled them out years ago. There’s nothing left but a couple of shadows on the floor.”
“So now we’re down to the big window and the room dividers…,” Bobby counted off.
“And the transom with the roses. Can’t leave without that, but it ought to be an easy grab, even if it’s painted shut—and I think it might be. So. Big window first, then I’ll get the transom. You boys get the last two mantels removed and secured, then move on to the stairs if you have time.”
“What about the rest of these floors?” Gabe asked, tapping one foot on the wood for emphasis.
“Fuck ’em,” she said. “They’ll wait for Daddy tomorrow. We’ve got about ninety minutes before we pack ourselves up and head out for the nearest Motel 6. If we finish up sooner, we leave sooner. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m done with this place for today.”
“I’m done with it forever,” Brad concluded.
“Forever it is,” she agreed. “Or until tomorrow, whichever comes first. So let’s go, final push. We can do this, but we’ll have to hurry.”
In thirty minutes, she had the rose glass transom removed and wrapped, and the ladder moved to the dining room to help address the oversized window with its lovely stained scenery.
In another fifteen minutes, the boys had finished with the room dividers, and they’d been moved to the foyer. Not even Dahlia’s Tetris powers could fit them anywhere else.
Five minutes more, and they’d positioned the other two ladders beneath the window, and formulated a plan—who would stand where, who would use which tools, and who would stand beneath.
Twenty minutes more, and the marvelously solid window was loose, and ready to come out. Bobby was outside on the porch, bracing the window from that side. Dahlia was on one ladder, and Brad was on the
other. Gabe stood below, working the straps and pulley that would support the heavy old piece as it descended.
One, two, three, and the great window came down intact, thank God. They taped it and wrapped it, and wrapped it again—then let it join the room dividers in the foyer.
“We’ve got…” Brad checked his phone, then slipped it back into his front pocket with the camera lens peeking out. “Another hour before seven thirty. You said we could hit the road at seven thirty, right?”
“Right,” Dahlia confirmed.
Gabe looked pained by the whole thing. “But there’s still so much to do.”
He wasn’t wrong, but the itch to go and the need to stay went to war, and the staircase was right there in the middle. It wouldn’t be a big deal. If the rails came apart easy enough, they could pop the whole thing into pieces in … oh, half an hour between them.
Bobby saw her critically appraising the stairs, and didn’t wait for the order. “Okay, fine—one last thing. But only if it comes out easy. If it don’t come apart like LEGOs, we can skip it, and leave it for tomorrow.”
Dahlia was either relieved to see him take the initiative, or annoyed that he was right—she couldn’t tell which. As it was, her dad was going to give her an earful when he arrived and saw how much work was left to be done. But he wasn’t here, was he? He hadn’t seen the yellow dress, the dead boy, the shadow with knives in its hands and blackness in whatever was left of its heart.
However, the stair rail was big, and obvious, and chestnut, and relatively easy to break down. It’d be stupid to walk away from it when the sun was still technically up. “Okay, the stair rail and spindles,” she relented. “And then we’re out of here, because we can pull up the steps tomorrow—after Dad takes a look around upstairs. Hey, could someone turn on the rest of the lights? It’s getting dark in here.”
Brad flinched. “You’re sure it’s not dark dark until eight-something?”
“Yes, I’m sure. It’s the clouds and the mountain’s shadow, just like it’s been all day. Flip every last switch, get yourself a Sawzall, and let’s see if we can pull this thing apart on the fly.”
But goddamn, it was gloomy in there—even with the oversized pendant light hissing and popping above, brightening the room with the smell of burning dust and old bulbs. And even when the rails lifted up and off as easy as pie, hardly any sawing required, it was so very dark, for what ought to be late afternoon. Everything was the color of not-quite-dawn, or just-past-dusk, blue-gray and orange from the incandescent lights.
The crew worked fast, pausing now and again to flip another switch. Turn on the hall light. Turn on the foyer light. Turn on the light in the dining room—yes, it’s far away, but it felt like nothing could cut through this grim and dismal atmosphere. If they didn’t press every button and spark every lamp, it was like they weren’t even trying.
So they tried, and they cut, and they popped out the spindles one by one, stacking them like cordwood by the faceless fireplace in the living area, until the stairs were open and naked with nothing to hold on to, should anybody go up or down them.
“Talk about your open concept,” Dahlia observed. The ceilings were so high and the stairs so tall, it was almost enough to give her vertigo. But it was only a little trick of the mind, now that the bannister was gone. Rationally, she knew this. Regardless, she surreptitiously hugged the wall near where she was standing at the top.
Gabe stood beside her, his hands on his hips. “Damn,” he said. “We should’ve done that sooner. It would’ve made moving the big stuff down a lot easier.”
“I know.” Dahlia sighed. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You were thinking about other things,” Brad said.
“Or that. So, is this everything? Do we have it all out of the way? Are we ready to run?”
She was answered by a whistling rumble from outside, as the storm coiled tight around the mountain. The wind shrieked through the chimneys and screeched around the house’s corners, pulling at the slices of plastic tarp she’d used to patch the broken glass and other empty places. It was cold, and it was wet, and the air tasted like a tomb.
“Fuck this,” Gabe declared. “Let’s pack it up, and move it out.”
As if in response, the tarp at the end of the hall—the one covering the window there, and strapped into place with duct tape, so it shouldn’t have moved at all—ripped free.
It wasn’t possible, Dahlia didn’t think. She’d used enough tape to silence a choir. All this time, it’d kept out the water, and the wind, too, but now it was flapping toward them, animated by the storm and by something else. Not just the blustery air, not just the swirling rain pushing inside the house.
There was something beneath it, swelling and flailing—the ragged edges of plastic and tape rising and falling, sticking temporarily to the walls and ripping free again.
The sheet whipped about, up and down, left and right, bouncing around in the hallway, but there was more beneath it than the frothy air. A face pressed against it, and a hand. A mouth. A scream.
Gabe froze, his mouth open—sucking on a gasp that wouldn’t come out.
Dahlia grabbed his arm. “Down—get down. Now!”
But he was big and heavy and rooted to the spot. “You first!” he squeaked, pushing her past him, setting her on the steps and almost shoving her along them. The helpful motion broke whatever spell held him trapped in place, but not fast enough.
Not before the plastic, moving like a child in a bedsheet at Halloween … no, not a child, but something bigger; something that moved as if it was all limbs, and no body … not before that plastic swept down upon the spot where Dahlia had stood, and where Gabe was standing now, on top of the stairs where there were no more rails.
Then the sheet hit him, and for a split second Dahlia saw arms pushing through it, reaching for him, hands grasping at him. No, they were trying to push past him. The hands were reaching for her, but she was long gone. Halfway to the bottom, by then.
The thing from the window hit him harder than a flap of wet plastic and stringy tape ever could. It pushed him, and he stumbled.
Dahlia had time to climb back up one step—almost two steps. She had time to graze his hand as he tripped, tangled and confused. He could feel those other hands, the hands that weren’t human. She could see it on his face. He could see that gaping, shrieking mouth that spoke with the sound of a storm on a mountain.
He saw it as he reached out and almost touched the pendant lamp—not that it would have held him more than a moment, even if he’d caught it. He watched as the thing charged him, his eyes fixed upon it, all the way to the oak floor a story and a half below.
The plastic fluttered and sank, light as a garbage bag, empty as the house itself.
But not Gabe. Gabe crashed.
14
IT COULD HAVE been worse, or so Dahlia told herself as she staggered down the steps to join Bobby and Brad, who were already circling Gabe. It could’ve been worse, because Gabe was yelling his head off and writhing, even as his father tried to tell him to “Be still! Hold still, goddammit!” That meant he was alive, and his neck wasn’t broken, and he was mostly just pissed off and righteously scared and probably hurt, but not in a life-threatening fashion—or so she hoped and prayed with every rushed, tumbled, stumbled step.
She tripped at the bottom, and caught herself on her hands. She got up fast and scrambled toward Gabe, who had finished hollering and moved on to shrieking in a pitch high enough to scare off rodents.
“My legs!”
“Your ankles!” Brad corrected him. She guessed it sounded like the thing to do, like maybe an ankle didn’t seem as big as a leg; maybe this was his dumb-ass way of trying to help, to offer a little perspective, convince him that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.
But things sure as shit weren’t good.
Dahlia flung herself into the living area, falling to her knees. “Gabe, baby … you landed on your feet.”
“Like a motherfuc
king cat I did! Oh God, oh God, oh God…”
Yes, but he’d landed heavy, on his feet or his ankles or legs or whatever. One was definitely broken, and one might or might not be, but it’d seen better days. His right hand was turning purple too, where he’d caught himself upon the landing. Apparently his legs hurt so bad that he hadn’t noticed the problem with his hand yet. Dahlia wasn’t about to point it out, not while one of his feet was aiming in the wrong direction entirely. If he wanted to dedicate all his pain attention to his feet, that was fine. Keep it localized. Give him something to focus on.
“What happened?” Brad asked, his own voice an octave higher than usual. “What the hell was that? Something came right at him. You saw it—you all saw it!”
“The plastic, it was just the plastic from the window…,” Gabe gasped. He alternated between wanting to clutch and hold his ankles and not wanting to touch them—or let anyone else touch them, either. “Oh God, what did I do?”
“You fell, that’s all. It’s like you said,” Dahlia rambled as she pulled out her cell phone. “The plastic came off the window, that’s all it was, and I’m going to … hang on. I’m calling 911. You’ve broken at least one thing, baby. I’m going to get some help.”
The bit about 911 was meant to help, but it sent him into a panic. “No, don’t do that—it’s not that bad,” Gabe screeched.
Dahlia had known the boy all his life, and she knew he was panicking because 911 meant this was a real emergency, not just a piece of plastic or a shadow or a cold spot in a house where the ghosts play games with the doors. 911 meant the kind of danger nobody can ignore, or make excuses for, or pretend isn’t happening. It didn’t matter. They needed help, and she was going to get it.
“It is that bad. It’s at least that bad,” Brad said, helping absolutely no one’s level of alarm.
Bobby had gotten Gabe sitting up. Gabe leaned against him, alternately moaning and complaining to high heaven, and squealing when the pain spikes drove down deep. His dad clutched him around the chest. “Hang on, bud. Dolly’s going to get you an ambulance.”