Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Henry walked into his bedroom and closed the door behind him.

When he had arrived four years ago, Mrs Cameron had shown him around the house and let him pick which bedroom he wanted for his own. There were plenty to choose from but he had chosen the last room at the end of the hall. It was the perfect size. Not too big. And it had a twin-sized bed like the one at his Gramma Rachael's house, and a dresser just like the one he used to have there.

He got down on his hands and knees and reached under the bed. From the space between the top of the box spring and the wooden slats that formed the bottom, above the old fabric which used to seal it in, he pulled out an old cigar box. He gently placed it on the bed.

Henry carefully opened it up and, one by one, removed the items from inside. There was a small ceramic bird that Gramma Rachael had given him. There was a puzzle that Gramma Carol had made for him as a part of a math test. She was really smart when it came to things like puzzles. He had wanted to keep this one because it was particularly tricky and he had solved it by himself. At the bottom of the shallow box, protected in a brown paper envelope, was an old photograph. It was a picture of a young woman. It was all that he had to remind him of his mother.

Each night he would take it out of the box and he'd tell his mother what had happened that day. He knew it was probably silly, but he'd hoped that somehow she would hear what he said and she wouldn't worry about him.

"Mom, you'll never believe it—I met a real detective this morning. Just like in my comic books. And I led him to a key piece of information that might help him solve the case he's working on. I know you would be proud of me.

"Anyway, I'm going to brush my teeth now and get ready for bed. I love you, Mom. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

He then kissed the photo, put it back into the envelope and stowed it away in the old cigar box which he tucked back under the bed. While he was down there, he knelt by the side of the bed, clasped his hands together and prayed.

"God bless Mom—please don't let her worry about me, and bless Gramma Carol for taking good care of me, and to Miss Ellis for making all things possible. And God, if you can, take care of Mr Tull, wherever he is. Oh yeah, and God, please forgive me for any stupid things I did."

* * * *

Malcolm Tull stood at the foot of her bed, dressed like a ghost from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. He pointed a finger at her and said through clenched teeth, "This is all your fault. I will make you pay…"

Mrs Cameron woke with a start then made her second trip to the bathroom that night. It wasn't unusual, but that didn't make it any less annoying. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept through the night. Mrs Cameron threw on the robe which was draped over her bedside chair, slid on her bedroom slippers and made her way to her bathroom across the hall.

The facilities hadn't been there originally. Thomas Pritchard had made the case to the Heart's Shadow Foundation board when she came to work for him after he started his residency. She remembered him exclaiming over the phone, "It is wrong for a woman of her status to find herself in the position of climbing that Himalayan flight of stairs in the dark of night. Surely she deserves the dignity of more than a pail to piss in? Where is your humanity?" The two had had a great chuckle about that over a few glasses of sherry. His reminder to the foundation later that it could be deemed a workplace safety issue that could cost them a bundle if she were to trip and fall had put the nail in the coffin of her nightly sojourns up the stairs. The renovations were made, providing her with her own main-floor washroom transformed out of an unused storage room.

As Mrs Cameron made her way back to her room, she felt a slight breeze coming from the direction of the front door.

Henry!

It was one of the boy's chores to check that all of the doors and windows were firmly secured before he went to bed. Two years ago, a rabid fan of Marjorie Ellis had snuck in through an open window and was discovered early in the morning sitting at the desk in the writer's room.

Mrs Cameron made her way to the end of the hall and secured the latch. It was a tricky door to lock as it had warped over the years and she had to throw her full weight behind it to allow the latch to catch. She had to give the boy a little leeway. He weighed almost nothing.

As she turned back towards her room, she noticed the writing room door was slightly ajar. She thought it had been closed before she had retired for the evening but maybe she was misremembering.

Mrs Cameron wasn't easily spooked, but after her dream, she wasn't taking any chances. She hurried back to her room and locked the door. She'd been facing up to too many ghosts lately and wasn't about to go hunting for another.

* * * *

Henry hadn't slept well, which was odd. He usually slept through the night. He kept waking up, thinking he was hearing sounds. He looked at his clock. It was 5:47 in the morning.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and slipped on his bedroom slippers, then shuffled over to the door where his robe hung on a hook. He managed to get it on after a few tries, finally getting the left arm into the left sleeve and the inside of the robe on the inside. He scuffed his way across the hall to the bathroom. As he stood there peeing he thought, now that Mr Tull was gone, this was Henry's bathroom and Henry was peeing in his toilet. And there would be no threat of being yelled at for leaving splatter marks on the rim or for not sitting down to pee. He wiped the rim of the bowl down with a piece of toilet paper and flushed. Just because it was now his toilet, didn't mean he had to turn into a pig.

He slowly made his way downstairs and into the kitchen, making as little noise as possible. Gramma Carol rose early enough as it was without making it worse by getting her up any earlier. He took down the old percolator from the shelf, measured in the water and coffee and got it burbling away on the stove. He sat down and stared out through the window.

Is this what being old feels like?

He pictured himself in the future. Not thirteen, like he was, but old—like forty—living alone, not sleeping, sitting at his kitchen table waiting for his coffee to perk. He would be thinking about something adult, like…life insurance. Maybe Mr Tull was lucky to be dead. People should have best-before dates, like yoghurt.

What would mine be?he wondered.

"What are you doing up so early?"

He turned. Gramma Carol was at the door.

"Couldn't sleep," he said.

"Thinking about the problems of the world?" she asked.

"Pretty much."

He watched her as she glanced towards the percolator bubbling away.

"Coffee?"

"I thought it was time," he answered as he got up and took it off the heat and went to get a mug.

"How did you learn to make coffee?"

"I watched you," he replied.

"Hmm. Did you put a pinch of salt into it?"

"Yup."

"Hmm," she said as she settled into a chair at the table, the one facing the hallway. "Did you make enough for me as well."

"Of course," he said, putting down the mug in front of her. "I made a full pot. Here you go. Milk, one sugar, isn't it?"

"You do pay attention."

Henry returned with a mug for himself, half coffee, half milk.

"You know, at your age you shouldn't drink too much of that," she gently admonished.

He nodded and took a sip from his mug.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Henry stared out through the window, and Gramma Carol stared down the hall towards the front door.

"You look tired. Up reading late last night?" she asked.

He nodded. "I noticed something funny in the last issue of my comic book. Something wasn't right, so I went back to the start and read all of them again."

"All of them?" she asked.

He drained the rest of his mug in a single go.

"In the latest issue, the writers said that Marty Finn's mother was a secretary. I was sure that she was a cleaning lady. I checked and I was right. As usual."

Gramma Carol raised her eyebrows.

"Well then, Mister Right. Maybe you have an answer to this question. Did you lock the front door last night?"

"Yup."

"Are you sure? I know it can be a bit tricky."

Henry looked at her. "I find that if you put your left hand on that gouge in the door beside the window and put your weight behind it, you can close it enough that the lock'll catch."

"On the gouge beside the window…"

"Yup. That's the sweet spot," he said, smiling, getting up and moving towards the coffee pot.

"You go easy on that stuff. I don't want you getting all wound up."

Henry smiled softly. "I can handle it. Now why were you worried about the door?"

"Because I got up last night and it was open."

Henry frowned. "But I know I locked it."

"Maybe," she said, "your ‘spot' isn't as sweet as you think. Hopefully nothing got in. If I find a prairie dog running loose in the house, you're going to be the one to deal with it."

"If I catch it, can I keep it?"

"No!"

"Aww," he said, pouring himself a second cup of coffee.

"And speaking of doors, the one to the writing room was also open. Were you in there last night?"

"No."

Gramma Carol wiped her hands on her apron, and headed down the hall. Henry followed close behind. She stood in front of the door to the writing room and opened it wide. Henry didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and clearly neither did Gramma Carol who breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Everything seems to be in order," then headed back to the kitchen.

Henry remained in the room. Something wasn't quite right. Henry focused. The bookshelves. Everything was neat and tidy but it looked somehow…different. He closed his eyes and pictured the room the way he last remembered it, then opened his eyes and compared what he saw. There was definitely something different about the books behind the writing desk, but what was it exactly that was bothering him? He shook his head in frustration, then he had an idea. He needed to call Charlie.