Second Glance Part 6

"What if-"

"Ethan," Ross interrupted. "Shh." He turned in a circle, trying to catch onto the minnow of a thought that swam through his mind, too quicksilver to show itself clearly. Trying to focus, he leaned over the railing to frown at the filth littering the base of the stairs, at the quiet twitching of rodents. He glanced at a hornet's nest in the corner.

Other organic detritus netted the hall-spider filaments and dust mites, moss and mold-the thriving scars of negligence and damp weather. Ross walked into the bedroom that looked out onto the rear of the property. There, the wooden planking was black with dirt, and strewn with broken pottery and candy bar wrappers. But the ceiling was as bare as if it had been swept clean that morning. Not a single cobweb, no fungus, no insects. In spite of the condition of the rest of the residence, no living organism had taken root in this room for some time.

Ross turned to his nephew. "This," he said, "is where we'll set up."

"I don't know what happened," said Lucy's camp counselor, a girl so young she might have pa.s.sed for a child herself. She hurried Meredith down a path toward the supply shed, inside which Lucy had locked herself forty-five minutes ago. "One minute she was playing dodgeball, and the next minute she ran away screaming."

One of Meredith's heels caught on a rock and nearly sent her pitching forward. Did she have Lucy's medicine? If she was scared, so scared she couldn't be coaxed out of the dark dark, she was probably having an asthma attack. "We called home right away," the counselor said. "Your mother said she can't drive."

"My grandmother," Meredith corrected absently. In her late seventies, Ruby was smart as a tack, but she no longer felt comfortable behind a wheel. She'd called Meredith at the lab. An emergency An emergency, she'd said.

They had reached a small wooden building at the edge of the woods. "Lucy?" Meredith rattled the handle. "Lucy, you open this door right now!" She banged against it with her fist, twice. On the third strike it swung forward on its hinges, and Meredith crawled inside.

The stale heat hit first. A net bag filled with rubber kick-b.a.l.l.s to form an oversized molecule blocked her from getting to Lucy, who was wheezing hard behind a tower of orange safety cones and badminton racquets. Her daughter clutched a train of purple satin to her chest, the remnant of a costume from an old summer musical. She was crying.

"Here," Meredith said, handing over the Albuterol, which Lucy dutifully corked into her mouth and sucked in. She had learned long ago that no matter how difficult it was to see your child struggling for air, you could not breathe for her. Her first instinct was to drag Lucy out of this musty closet, for the sake of her asthma; but something told Meredith that not attending to Lucy's fears first might be equally as damaging. So she slid an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "How come it's even called Dodge Dodge ball?" she mused, as if it were perfectly normal to be holding a conversation here. "I mean, why not Jeep ball or Lexus ball or even Chevrolet ball?" ball?" she mused, as if it were perfectly normal to be holding a conversation here. "I mean, why not Jeep ball or Lexus ball or even Chevrolet ball?"

"You're supposed to move out of the way." This, from the side of Meredith's shoulder, where Lucy had buried herself. "That's what the dodge dodge is for." is for."

"Ah." She nodded slowly. "I probably knew that, once."

Lucy's chest was still swelling like a bellows. "It wasn't the game," she confessed. "I saw something."

"Something?"

"Something . . . hanging. In the tree. From a rope."

"Like a tire swing?"

Lucy shook her head. "Like a lady."

Meredith forced herself to stay calm. "Will you show me?"

They stumbled outside past Lucy's counselor, past the arts-and-crafts pavilion, over the narrow bridge at the mouth of the stream to the athletic fields. A new group of campers, all older than Lucy, was playing dodgeball.

"Where?" Meredith asked. Lucy pointed to a grove of trees on her left. Firmly grasping her daughter's hand, Meredith marched to the base of the tree and glanced up. "No rope," she said quietly. "Nothing."

"It was there." Frustration roughened Lucy's voice. "It was was."

"Luce. I believe you saw something. I just think that somewhere between your retina and your cerebrum, things got a little screwed up. There's a perfectly good explanation, one that has nothing to do with a woman hanging from a tree. For example, maybe the sun got in your eyes."

"Maybe," Lucy repeated, without a shred of conviction.

"Maybe it was a branch that the wind moved for a second."

Lucy shrugged.

Suddenly Meredith toed off her heels and handed her lab coat to Lucy. "Hold this," she said, and she started to climb the tree.

She didn't get that far-she was wearing a skirt, after all, and was in her stocking feet-but managed to reach an overhead branch, where she perched like an outsized squirrel. By now, all the campers in the field were watching, and even Lucy had a tiny smile on her face. "Nope," Meredith said loudly, willing to play the fool so that at lunchtime and during swimming and on the bus ride home, campers would be talking about the crazy woman in the oak tree instead of the frightened kid who'd run away screaming. "Luce, the coast is perfectly clear . . . oh . . . oh!" With a calculated tumble that would have done Ringling Brothers proud, Meredith fell out of the tree, landing in a squat, and then rolling to the side until she came to rest a few yards away.

She was filthy and sc.r.a.ped and her hair had fallen out of its barrette, but Lucy put her hands on either side of Meredith's face. "It might have been the sun in my eyes," Lucy whispered.

Meredith folded her daughter into her arms. "That's my brave girl," she said, fully aware that neither of them believed a single word they'd said.

Eli Rochert did not want to wake up. He knew this as well as he knew the perfume that seemed to surround him in his dreams, a curious blend of apples and rainwater; as well as he recognized the pitch of a woman's voice, floating like a note that had never existed on any musical scale. He had only gone to bed two hours ago, having pulled a double shift to keep the Indians and the developers from coming to blows. But the telephone would not stop ringing, and finally he reached out from the coc.o.o.n of his bedclothes and s.n.a.t.c.hed the receiver. "What?" he growled.

"I'm looking for Mrs. Rochert. Is she available?"

"No."

"Can you tell me when she might return?"

Never, thought Eli, with a pang beneath his ribs that, even after all this time, surprised him. He hung up the phone without answering, then rolled onto his belly, only to find Watson hogging the pillow. "Oh, for Christ's sake," Eli muttered, shoving the dog's muzzle away. From within the folds of his face, Watson blinked, then snuffled right back down where he'd been. thought Eli, with a pang beneath his ribs that, even after all this time, surprised him. He hung up the phone without answering, then rolled onto his belly, only to find Watson hogging the pillow. "Oh, for Christ's sake," Eli muttered, shoving the dog's muzzle away. From within the folds of his face, Watson blinked, then snuffled right back down where he'd been.

"I should have never let you sleep on the bed," Eli said aloud, his back pressed along the broad spine of his hound. He heard Watson begin to snore, and that was when he knew he wasn't going to be able to will himself back into his dreams. Throwing back the covers, Eli got out of bed and padded into the kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents.

His doctor had told him that he should give up eating red meat, which would have been fine for most people, but devastating to Eli, who considered it one of two food groups (the other being potatoes). To this end, the insides of his refrigerator were as uninspiring as some of the vegetarian recipes he'd downloaded off the Internet-two jars of mustard, milk that smelled suspicious, a six-pack-hallelujah, a lunch meat that might have been turkey a week or three ago, and tofu-a food he positively did not trust, because it slid down one's throat like a rumor.

Cool air spilled over his boxers and pooled at his feet. Eli closed the refrigerator door as the telephone began to ring again. He reached for the kitchen extension. "h.e.l.lo?"

"I was hoping to speak to Mrs. Rochert?"

Eli counted to ten. "Mrs. Rochert is not here. Mrs. Rochert left approximately seven years and six months ago, in the company of the guy who happened to be f.u.c.king her at the time. She took all the money in our savings account, our cat, and my favorite sweatshirt. She explained to me just before she walked out the door that it wasn't about me me, because I hadn't been around enough for her to make that sort of a.s.sessment, although in my defense all I'd been doing was working my a.s.s off to get money to put into the bank account that she liquidated. The last I heard, she was living in New Mexico, but I'm going strictly on the grapevine here. So, no, you cannot speak to Mrs. Rochert, no matter how much you're hoping to. And in fact, should should you get the opportunity to speak to her, you might want to let her know that you're only the first in line." you get the opportunity to speak to her, you might want to let her know that you're only the first in line."

By the time Eli finished, he was breathing hard. It made up for the silence on the other end of the receiver.

"Oh," he heard, finally, faintly.

"Maybe you could take this number off your call list," Eli suggested, and he threw the portable phone across the room to smash against the wall.

He was sitting on the floor with his hands splayed through his hair when Watson found him. The dog dropped the telephone's battery into Eli's lap and then stood over him. Eli rubbed his hand over his face. "If you're hoping for a snack, Watson, you're out of luck. Unless maybe bean curd tastes good with a Coors chaser."

Eli wrapped his arm around the dog's thick neck and stared into his mournful brown eyes. It was one of the reasons Eli had picked him from the Humane Society-one look, and you knew that hound would never be happy. Which meant that Eli could not fail again.

Working for the Warburtons, Ross had learned that the witching hour was between 10 at night and 3 A.M A.M. Most of the thumps and b.u.mps and visions that Curtis had seen-or pretended to have seen-occurred during that time. By 10:30, Ross and Ethan had set up the bedroom in the abandoned house to his satisfaction, if not his nephew's.

"Where's all the stuff?" Ethan asked. "You know, the cool cool equipment. Like they have on equipment. Like they have on Real Scary Stories Real Scary Stories." He eyed the video camera dubiously.

"Curtis says you don't want too many bells and whistles the first time you go out to investigate," Ross answered. "You'll wind up getting distracted by the tools, and relying on them instead of yourself. Plus, ent.i.ties disturb the magnetic field. They're just as likely to make the equipment short out as they are to leave a trace."

"Still," Ethan muttered. "Without tools and stuff we're as lame as s.h.a.ggy and s...o...b..."

Ross laughed. "Zoinks," he said, then glanced at his nephew's crestfallen face. "Look. Whenever Curtis got the feeling that something was there, he'd come back with the cool equipment to back up his senses. We can do that too. Of course, first we'll have to buy buy the cool equipment." the cool equipment."

The camera was pointed toward one of the bedroom walls, the junk food was within arm's distance, the sleeping bags were unrolled to form a synthetic island on the filthy floorboards. The only source of light in the room was a small Maglite set between Ross and Ethan to form a bright puddle. Ross placed a small deck of cards in the spotlight and began to shuffle.

Ethan spoke around an enormous Bazooka bubble he'd just blown. "Considering that you think Warburton's an a.s.shole, you sure quote him a lot."

"Watch your mouth. He's not an a.s.shole, he's a liar. And even though I think he makes up half the stuff he sees, he knows his s.h.i.t."

"Watch your mouth," Ethan parroted, then grabbed the deck. "Uncle Ross? You think the ghost here died some horrible way?"

"I don't even know there's a ghost here yet. Are you going to deal?"

"Yeah." The boy started to divide the cards. "I wonder if it'll be all mad at us. If it might confuse us for whoever chopped off its head with an ax."

"What ax?" Ross tipped his hand into the single beam of the flashlight."Okay, so having any member of the royal family is a good thing?"

"I can't believe you never played this. Yeah, you want to get kings and queens. And aces. But more than that you want to get cards of the same suit in a row, like two-three-four-five-six. First you have to bet something . . . you have any cash?"

"Reese's Pieces."

"Well, whatever. A straight flush beats four of a kind, and four of a kind beats a full house. That's good enough to start, so I'm going to draw." He looked up. "That means pick a card."

"Thanks," Ross said dryly. "I'll raise you two Reese's."

"I won't be scared, you know, even if it comes after me."

If put on the spot-something he had not allowed van Vleet to do-Ross would have had to say that he did not believe any ent.i.ty was haunting the Pike property. In the first place, Ross had seen nothing in all his months of ghost hunting. In the second, even going on theory theory, it was crazy to think of a human spirit gathering enough energy to cause the events that had been attributed to it-from the ground freezing to rose petals raining from the clouds. Though unlikely, each of those circ.u.mstances could be explained by something natural-a latent ice floe running beneath the soil, a strange evaporation.

Then again, Ross had been wrong about things before.

At the very least, this night was good for Ethan. Ross stretched back on his elbows and watched his nephew lay out his poker hand. "I've got a straight."

"Three of a kind. Jacks."

"Maybe you should play with a handicap," Ethan suggested. He dealt a second round. "I think I'll come back."

"Here?"

"No, not here here . . . just here. After I die." He looked around the room, then at his uncle, a dare. "I mean, I won't be done yet. You know?" . . . just here. After I die." He looked around the room, then at his uncle, a dare. "I mean, I won't be done yet. You know?"

Ross had gone to homes with the Warburtons where children had died of disease, or by accident. The mothers wore hope like mantillas, framing their faces as they waited for Curtis to give them back what they'd lost. In those cases, it was not moans and thumps and strange occurrences that had led to the call, it was the lack of them.

He thought of his sister, and folded his cards.

"I'm hungry," Ethan said. He slipped away in shadow, fumbling around and causing a loud crash.

"You all right?" Ross swung the beam of the flashlight toward the pack of junk food they'd brought, but that entire corner of the room was empty.

Ethan spoke from behind him. "I'm here," he said, his voice shaking. "That, uh, that wasn't me."

He plastered himself up against his uncle's back. "Let's just take a look," Ross murmured. Everything was quiet, now, and there was no evidence that anything had fallen. "It could have been a brick outside, or a rat." He slipped an arm around Ethan's shoulders. "It could have been anything, Ethan."

"Right."

"Why don't we sit down so that I can whip your b.u.t.t this time around?"

Ethan relaxed a little. "As if," he said, dredging up the courage to peel himself away and take a seat again.

Ross dealt the cards, but his eyes kept scanning the dark. Nothing unusual, nothing that captured his attention. Except the lens cap of the video camera, hanging down on a black cord from the side of the apparatus, which had begun to swing back and forth.

Although there was no breeze in the room.

From outside came the sound of a hollow thud-a tree falling, or a person landing on all fours. "Did you hear that?" Ethan whispered shakily.

"Yeah." Ross walked toward the broken window and peered out into the woods that edged the back of the property. A flash of white caught his eye-the tail of a deer, a shooting star, the eyes of a barn owl.

There was a rustle of leaves, and two distinct footfalls. A hitched wail, like the cry of an infant.

"We may just take a walk down there," Ross murmured.

Ethan shook his head hard. "No way. I'm staying here."

"It's probably just a racc.o.o.n."

"And what if it's not not?"

Ross smiled slowly. "What if," he said.

Shelby was not in the habit of allowing her son to do dangerous things; it was hazard enough for him to live in this world. But Ethan had a nine-year-old's sense of adventure and wanderl.u.s.t. Believing he was part of Ross's mission-well, maybe it would be good for both of them.

She walked into his room, picking up his Game Boy from the floor, as well as a few cartridges that had fallen beneath the bed. A Red Sox game schedule was on the wall, along with the textbooks Shelby used to home-school Ethan, and a haiku he'd written last year as part of a unit on j.a.pan.

Deep in the darkness I wake to make the night day.

How does the sun feel?

Shelby sank onto his bed. She wondered if Ross was keeping Ethan safe. She wondered if Ethan missed her, just a little.

She stared uneasily at the computer. The last time she'd decided to check up on her son, she'd hacked into his e-mail account to discover that he'd acquired six pen pals-all kids around his own age, all from different parts of the world. At first, Shelby had found this encouraging. For Ethan to have found a way to make a connection to other children seemed healthy, if not downright inspiring. But then Shelby had started to read some of the mail, and realized that Ethan had not represented himself quite accurately. To Sonya in Denmark, he was a sixth-grade preppie on the math squad. To Tony in Indianapolis, he was a star batter for a little-league farm team. To Marco in Colorado, he was an avid mountain climber who trekked every weekend with his dad.

In none of these letters did he mention his XP condition. In none of these letters did he seem any less than an average, athletic, normal American boy from a happy two-parent family.

In short, Ethan had turned himself into everything he was not.

With a sigh Shelby left Ethan's room and started down the hall. Pa.s.sing Ross's door, she hesitated. She was eight years older than Ross; it seemed she had been taking care of him all her life-from diapering him as an infant to sitting by his side after his suicide attempt to worrying for his safety when he did not call her for months. Mothering had always come easily to her; when their parents had died years ago, she simply stepped into their shoes and took over.

She believed that unadulterated devotion had its share of protective power, as if love were a steel girder the Fates could not snip through. She also believed that the moment you relaxed your guard, the moment you were anything less than ferocious in your keeping, that was the moment it all could be s.n.a.t.c.hed away.

Which brought her right back to wondering when Ross would bring Ethan home.

She pushed open the door and began to clean in there, too. She made Ross's bed. She lined up his toothbrush and his hairbrush on the dresser. She put his shampoo, nail clippers, and toothpaste into his toiletry kit and zipped it shut.