Chapter 6

June 23, 1997

WHEN LUCE ARRIVED HOMEa few hours later, she climbed the long, rickety steps—mold swirled like storm clouds on the old wood—crossed the deck, and reached for the front door, but it didn't open.

She tried again. No. It was locked. Warm pulse of blood in her neck. Their houses weren't even supposed to have locks, but Gloria had insisted on one, just in case, she said. They'd never used it before. Luce was silent, listening. There was a creak from inside, somewhere close, wasn't there? Like a foot shifting weight on an old wooden floor.

She remembered that a key was hidden beneath a planter on the deck, an emergency key Gloria had called it, reminding them of the location from time to time—it fit into the dead-bolt lock, though she had to jam it to make it turn. She was quiet. Listening. Unlocked the door, turned the handle. The trees swayed behind her, the old dry deck sprung a splinter, thin and sharp. Her palms were cold but sweating. Slowly, slowly, the door opened.

Her eyes were as wide as she could hold them, forcing her pupils to expand and see more in the dim interior. She recognized something happening, something strange, as she took one more step inside—she felt fearful. Well, no. Enough of that. There was nothing to be afraid of, there was nothing that could happen, and where the hell was Moose, not running up to greet her, not barking, but then Luce heard a loud snap and there was something flying at her face. She shrieked, bringing an arm up to block her head. The thing hit her forearm and fell to the ground. She looked down, and lying by her feet was a stuffed dog.

On all fours, his head sticking out from behind the couch, was Roo, laughing hysterically. He fell flat on the ground on his back, clutching his stomach.

"You shit," Luce said, slamming the door behind her.

"Your. Face," Roo managed to say between bouts of laughter. Luce lunged toward him, all that blood still pumping, but Roo, quick-legged, practiced in fleeing, was scrambling up and back in one motion, dashing around the far side of the living room, laugh-screaming, glancing back over his shoulder as Luce followed.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay. Sorry!" Roo yelled, still laughing as he reached the bathroom and slammed the door.

"Open," Luce called to the closed door.

"You're lucky," Roo said. "If I'd had more time, I was gonna hitch a bucket of flour up over the bathroom door."

"Roo." She pounded on the door.

"Imagine you all covered in white. Like a ghost!"

"You've got to cut this shit out," Luce said. It was then that her mother walked into the hallway and locked the dead bolt on the front door. "Wait, you locked the door? Not Roo?" This was an alarming detail.

"He was making it into a bit of fun," Gloria said. She was scrunching her wet hair in her palms.

"We never lock the door."

"Well," Gloria said, and Luce watched the beautiful, controlled mask rise over her face. She smiled. "We're locking it. Starting immediately."

"A mad guy keeps calling," Roo hollered from behind the bathroom door.

"He was aggravated, yes. It happens from time to time, you know that."

"And you're locking the door because you think he's coming here?" Luce asked. She thought about what Boog told her at the reenactments, a man asking about where they lived. Gloria continued scrunching her hair, as if they were talking about any old thing.

"He's been calling," Roo yelled. "He won't stop calling."

"Why? What does he want?"

"What does anyone want?" Gloria asked, moving to a new task. She began rearranging candles on the hallway table. "Peace. Love. Forgiveness."

"He said we killed his daddy," Roo called, and Gloria spun toward the bathroom door.

"Enough, Roo. Get out of there," she said. And then, as if on cue, the phone rang. "Don't answer it," Gloria said quickly. She ran her fingertips over Luce's hair, brushing it back, and then hustled to the kitchen. The fridge door banged open. Roo followed the sounds, and so did Luce. There was more to what was going on.

Gloria was standing over a bowl of green beans picked that morning from the garden, snapping off stem and tail. Roo climbed onto a chair, and Luce pulled the bowl to the center of the table so they could reach. She pulled one out and pinched off its head. For a moment, the only sounds were the snapping and plopping, their hands reaching in from different sides of their small round table. Luce knew this game well. She could always wait out her mother's silence.

"It doesn't make any sense," Gloria said, biting into a bean she'd just cleaned. "He thinks his father dying here means it was our fault. He's invented something about a note that he claims proves him right."

The note. That's not what it said. Luce kept her eyes on the bean in her hand, hoped her mother would not notice the redness spreading across her neck, her chest.

"What if he never stops calling?" Roo asked. He was arranging the nipped ends into a circle.

"He will," Gloria said.

"But what if he doesn't?"

"Well, my kangaroo, here's the deal. We don't have to keep the Red Grove so wrapped up in magic and secrecy," Gloria said. She stopped her busywork and sat down so she was closer to eye level with Roo.

"Mom—" Luce started, but her mother carried on.

"The man is mad because he thinks we willed his father's death somehow, like we are enacting revenge on men or something. He was prowling around town, asking questions about us, and about the Red Grove. And then he claims he found a note I wrote that proves we knew his dad was going to die. So he's clearly delusional. There was no note, of course—"

"Mom," Luce said, louder this time, but Gloria was in her rhythm, grabbing and snapping and tossing, and she kept on.

"If he believed that this is just a place like any other place and we are normal people like any other people, I don't think we'd have this problem."

"But it isn't a place like any other place, is it, Goose?" Roo said, looking over at Luce.

"I wrote the note," Luce blurted. Gloria stilled her frantic motion, looked up at Luce as if she had spotted a lion on the trail. "I meant it to be helpful," she said, quieter.

Gloria set the half-cleaned green bean down on the table and, keeping her voice eerily calm, asked Luce what exactly the note had said.

"Nothing bad," Luce said quickly, feeling the ache in her stomach that came when she knew she'd done something wrong. "It was the same kind of thing you would have said."

"Tell me what you wrote," Gloria said. Luce could see her mother taking controlled breaths, nostrils flaring. She remembered exactly what she'd written. It was part of her responsibility to the business to keep things running smoothly, and she'd done that, reaching out to the family of this seeker, following Una's cues and doing what she could to make sure no blame or attention was put onto the Red Grove.

"It said that we were sorry for their loss." Luce picked up another green bean, hoping the task would keep her hands from trembling. "That's a thoughtful and normal thing to say," she clarified.

"What else, Luce?" Gloria said, her voice losing its patience.

"I told them that if someone wanted to come use our services to communicate with him later, you know, if he died, their first session would be free. That's, like, customer service," Luce said, and Gloria's head swiveled up so she was looking at the ceiling, her eyelids fluttering.

"And I wanted them to know that his sickness didn't come out of the blue. He already looked kind of sick when he got here, he was out of breath and sweating a lot, so I think something had been going on for a while."

"Why didn't you tell me that? Oh my god, maybe we could have gotten him help earlier—"

"I mean not sick sick, just—"

"Okay, okay, okay, give me a second." Gloria rubbed her temples, eyes closed. Luce and Roo watched her closely, not moving. Anything could happen next—Gloria storming from the room, remaining silent, yelling at Luce for her thoughtlessness—and, Luce, muscles tensed, tried to run through every option.

Gloria opened her eyes, reached into the bowl, and pulled out another green bean. She clicked the ends off, set it into the cleaned pile, and started on another. Not knowing what else to do, Luce followed suit. Roo did too. Then Gloria said, with a cool, clear voice, that it was okay. Luce had been trying to help, she understood that. Gloria would sort it out with the man himself. She finished the last green bean, wiped her hands on a towel, and kissed Luce and Roo on the tops of their heads. "I'm turning off the phone's ringer so I can hear myself think. Don't pick up the phone. Don't open the door to anyone you don't know. Okay, kids?" They nodded, listening to the clack of her heels retreating down the hall.

Roo was rolling a bean between his fingers, his chin resting on the table, eyebrows heavy.

"Hey, it's okay. He can't hurt us," Luce said.

"He can't hurt you. Or Mom," Roo said. It wasn't something any of them had said out loud before, although of course, he was right. Luce and Gloria could not be hurt. But Roo—

"He's confused," Luce said, "but he's not mad at you."

"You think he's going to hurt me," Roo said. "Because he hates us for living here." Not a question. Luce put a hand on his skinny little shoulder blades, but he shrugged it off.

"Nobody is going to hurt you," she said, putting her hand on his back again. He allowed it this time, and she could feel his little-boy body shivering. His blond bowl cut swung with each jerk of his head. She crouched down so her face was directly in front of his. "I will not allow it."