Chapter Twenty-Three

TWENTY-THREE

After Katherine finished with her phone call and had what sounded like a nice long cry followed by some nice long deep breaths, she came downstairs with a renewed sense of purpose and a notebook full of scribbled-on pages. I was still sitting in front of the basement door with Fredricka, although I had stopped holding her hand. There were only so many times you could feel an axe sink into your head before the whole process grew tiresome.

Katherine stood in front of me, not seeing Fredricka or the pranksters who had resumed milling about the hallway, periodically reminding me about the basement. “Your nose is bleeding,” she said.

“I suppose it is,” I said. From what I could tell, it had bled down my face and onto my shirt. No matter. I was an expert at cleaning blood out of fabric.

Katherine reached a hand out to me. “Get up, Mom,” she said. “I’ve got some questions for you.”

I grabbed her hand and she hoisted me to my feet. She accidentally pulled me through Julian, and I felt a knife slice through my gut, invisible intestines spilling out onto the ground. I clutched at my stomach, wincing.

“What’s wrong?” Katherine asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

Julian seemed unfazed. He looked back at me, pointing at the basement door. He’s down there.

“Wash your face off,” Katherine said, gesturing at the sink. “Then sit down at the table with me.”

I stumbled over to the sink. The spot where my stomach wasn’t being disemboweled emanated a dull throb. I picked up a dishrag and turned on the faucet.

Blood again, thick and dark.

I looked at the blood, then over at Katherine. She had already taken a seat at the kitchen table and was reviewing her notes, moving her mouth as she read.

“Can you see this?” I asked, pointing at the sink. I didn’t want to alarm her, but if there was any chance I could avoid washing my face with blood, I was willing to risk a little alarm.

Katherine looked up at me, barely paying attention. “What?” she asked.

I looked back at the blood pouring out of the faucet. “Never mind,” I said. I turned the faucet off and rubbed at my nose with the dry rag. Better safe than sorry. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any flesh stuck in the drain this time.

I sat down opposite Katherine. Her expression told me I hadn’t gotten all the blood off my face, but neither of us could be bothered to do anything about it.

“This is going to seem weird,” Katherine said, “but I have some questions for you. Just answer as honestly as possible, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. My guts still hurt.

“There are no wrong answers,” Katherine said. “And nothing bad is going to happen.” She was reading from her notes. She had been told to say this.

“Sure,” I said again. I had a sinking feeling that something bad was going to happen.

“Okay,” she said, grabbing a pen and settling in. “First question. What day is it?”

This seemed like a question that had a wrong answer. “Tuesday,” I said.

Katherine’s brow furrowed. “It’s Friday,” she said. She made a note in her book. “Next question. What is today’s date?”

If I had gotten the day question wrong, there was a good chance I would get this question wrong too. I did some math. Katherine had gotten in on the eleventh. She had been here for?.?.?. six days? “The seventeenth?”

Katherine blinked at me. “Mom,” she said, “it’s the twenty-fifth.”

The twenty-fifth?It didn’t seem like that much time had passed since Katherine arrived. I tried my best to remember what had filled all those days, but parts were missing—jigsaw pieces that had gotten lost underneath the couch, waiting to be discovered years later, when they no longer mattered.

“Mom.”

I looked at Katherine. “Yes?”

“Did you hear my question?”

Apparently not.

Katherine exhaled. “Where are you right now? Like, the address.”

“Three thirty Hawthorn Street,” I said. “The old Vale house.” This last part came out of my mouth without permission. Interesting, I thought. I had never referred to the house as such before.

“The old what?” Katherine asked, eyebrows raised.

“No,”I said pointedly, more to the house than to Katherine. “Not the old Vale house anymore. My house.”

“Okay,” Katherine said, not looking any less worried. I was mostly just proud of myself for getting the question right. Small victories, really.

He’s down there.Julian was suddenly at my immediate right. I hadn’t even seen him appear. I jumped, clutching my chest. Jesus Christ, Julian, I thought.

Katherine didn’t see Julian, but she saw me flinch. “You okay?”

“Perfectly fine, dear,” I said, perhaps a little too breathlessly.

He’s down there.Angelica was at my immediate left. These pranksters were going to give me a heart attack.

Katherine was saying something.

“What?” I asked.

Katherine’s eyebrows lifted. Asking her to repeat herself twice was not the best of moves, but I had little choice here. “Count backwards from fifty by fives,” she said.

The boy with no legs dragged himself into the room, a trail of blood following behind him. This close, you could tell that he still had bits and pieces of his legs, but not enough for it to really matter.

Katherine was watching me expectantly. That’s right. I was supposed to do something. Something involving the number five.

“Five,” I said. I wondered if Katherine could see the stains the boy with no legs was leaving behind him.

“No,”Katherine said. “Count backwards from fifty by fives.”

“Oh,” I said. The boy with no legs shifted his weight onto his side and raised his arm, pointing. He’s down there.

When I looked away from the boy, Katherine was still staring at me. She waved a hand at me. Whenever you’re ready?.?.?.

“Fifty-five,” I said. On my right, Julian was standing so close to me, I could see his face in the corner of my eye, inches from mine. He’s down there.

“Backwards,”Katherine interjected, trying hard to keep her voice quiet. “Backwards from fifty.”

Charles and Constance walked from where they had, apparently, been standing behind me and crossed through the kitchen, holding hands. They looked back at me. He’s down there.

“Forty?.?.?. ,” I started. Whatever part of my brain was usually responsible for math was finding it a little challenging to properly function with so many dead children demanding my attention.

“By fives.” Katherine was really struggling to keep her voice down now. Her words wavered a bit, although it was difficult to tell if that was from anger or something else altogether.

Julian had crawled up onto the kitchen table and squatted on all fours nearly directly in front of me, his intestines drooping inches from my hand. I scooted my hand away from his dangling bowels.

“Forty?.?.?. ,” I tried again. I was having a little trouble remembering the number I was supposed to subtract by, as well as how to subtract.

“Jesus Christ,” Katherine said, scribbling in her notebook. “Never mind. Let’s try this one. I’m going to name three things. After I’m done, just repeat what I said. Okay?”

I had to lean around Julian to see her. I wanted to swat at him, but I didn’t care to experience the sensation of being disemboweled again so soon. I also had a feeling that swatting at nothing wouldn’t help Katherine’s perceptions of my mental stability. “Okay,” I said.

Katherine set her notebook on the table. She looked me straight in the eyes. “He’s. Down. There.”

“What?” I said.

Katherine looked distressed. She flipped through her notes. “Shit. I don’t know if I can repeat it. Can you just?.?.?. just tell me what you remember?”

He’s down there,Julian said.

Standing on the back of my chair, leaning over me so her dirty hair dangled in my face, was Angelica. He’s down there, she said.

Thomas or Tobias or whoever drifted into the room. He’s down there, he said.

“He’s down there,” I said. That was wrong. That was definitely wrong. But what else could I say? What else could anybody say in this house, apparently?

Katherine looked up from her notebook, brow furrowed but eyes wide. “No,” she said. “What? No. I said: clock, wheel, tulip. Mom, did you hear any of those words?”

“Clock?.?.?. wheel?.?.?. something.” It was devilishly hard to concentrate with Angelica dangling over me like this. Part of her head was swinging loose and I really didn’t want it to touch me. I tried to duck lower, avoiding both her and Julian at the same time. I could only imagine what I looked like.

Katherine flipped to a blank page in her notebook, scribbled something, then tore the page out. She handed it to me. “Read this and do what it says.”

I read the page. Written on the paper, in Katherine’s scrawling handwriting, was: He’s down there. I looked back up at her. This seemed like a trick.

Katherine was staring at me with urgency. “Well?”

“It doesn’t?.?.?.” I looked back down at the paper. “It’s not telling me to do anything.”

“Jesus Christ.” Katherine grabbed the paper from me and held it up in front of my face, pointing at it with a finger gone unsteady. “Can’t you read this?”

He’s down there.The pranksters helped me read by reciting the words in unison.

“I?.?.?.”

Katherine looked at it. “It says, Lift your hand.”

“Oh.” I squinted at the paper. It still read, He’s down there. “I see,” I said, although I certainly didn’t. I lifted my hand, albeit not very high, what with all the various body parts around me I didn’t want to touch. In any case, I had a feeling this would be considered cheating and wouldn’t count.

The boy with no legs crawled underneath my seat. I moved my feet away from him, not interested in feeling what it was like to have my legs removed so carelessly. Somehow, Angelica had both her hands and feet balanced on the top of the chair, and she was leaning over my shoulder.

“Fuck.” Katherine scribbled in her notebook. “Do you remember the three words I asked you to remember earlier?” She tried to ask this with hope.

“Um?.?.?.” My eyes were stuck on the boy underneath the chair, and I tried to be sure we both stayed as far away from each other as possible. I definitely remembered Katherine saying some words earlier—one of them had to do with something round, perhaps—and I remembered what I thought I’d heard Katherine say, but there didn’t seem to be much chance of me remembering what she’d actually said.

“Ring?” I tried, leaning over a little more because Julian was directly in front of my face now. “And?.?.?.” There was little doubt in my mind that, whatever test this was, I was failing it spectacularly. I wasn’t sure what the consequences of failing would be, but I didn’t think I would like them.

Katherine cursed. She tapped at her paper with her pen, moving her lips as she did something that seemed like counting. She paused, then recounted. Her breath was starting to come in a touch fast. “This is not good, Mom,” she said.

“Will that be it, dear?” I asked, eager to gain a little distance from the pranksters crowding around me. We had, apparently, reached the part of September when everybody forgot the importance of personal space. The pranksters were reminding me a bit of Hal, who—right after we first got married—liked to make a game out of distracting me while I was on the phone by poking me and tickling me and blowing in my ear. He considered it a victory if he got me to giggle or squirm or in any other way draw a confused What’s going on, Margaret? from the person on the other end. I had to say, it was much cuter when Hal did it.

“No. Mom. Fuck.” Katherine rubbed at her temples. “Have you been forgetting things lately?”

“I don’t think so,” I said to her through Julian’s head.

“You know, like forgetting you had the kettle boiling?”

Oh, right. Katherine still thought that was me. “That was one time,” I said.

“Five times,” Katherine said. “That I’ve counted. I feel like every time I walk into this room there’s water boiling on the stove and you’re nowhere to be found.”

Goddamnit, Fredricka.

“I don’t know how to ask this,” Katherine said. From the side of Julian’s face and through Angelica’s hair, I could just make out that Katherine’s head was in her hands. “Are you?.?.?. like?.?.?. seeing things?”

Julian’s intestines were leaving a puddle of something brownish red on the kitchen table. The twins moved in on my right and Thomas or Tobias or whoever moved in on my left.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I said. I wished I could swing my arms at the pranksters, run at them until they scattered and left me to concentrate on this conversation with Katherine, which seemed like it was gearing up to be an important one. However, I had a feeling that Katherine would take that sort of thing as evidence that her theories about me were correct.

“You know what I mean,” Katherine said, waving a hand in the air. “Seeing things. Things that aren’t really there.”

“No,” I said, and it somehow felt like both the right and the wrong answer.

“Mom, that’s bullshit,” Katherine said. Her voice was growing wet. “Earlier today, when you hurt your arm, you asked me if I could see him. Who were you talking about? Were you seeing something that wasn’t really there?”

Who could argue that Elias hadn’t really been there? I had the marks on my arm to prove he had been, after all.

“All the things I see are really there,” I clarified.

Katherine swallowed. “So you do see things.”

“I see you,” I said, which was actually a lie because all I could see was Julian’s face inches from mine and Angelica’s one remaining eye hovering just above my head. If Thomas or Tobias or whoever had an arm, it would have been pressed against me right now—that was how close he was standing. But if I scooted to my right, I would bump into Charles, and Julian’s head would obscure my view of Katherine entirely, and I would have Angelica’s hair in my face. And if I looked any odder, Katherine was definitely going to think I was crazy. More crazy than she already thought I was.

“That’s not what I mean,” Katherine said. “It’s just?.?.?. you’ve been acting so goddamn strange ever since I got here. You say things that make no sense, you’re moving stuff around the house with no rhyme or reason, and you’re always looking around, like you’re watching something out of the corners of your eyes. You never seem like you’re fully paying attention, like you hear someone else talking and you’re listening to them, not me.”

He’s down there,the pranksters chanted.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Mom, these questions I’ve been asking you—they’re to see if you’re, like, all there,” Katherine said. I could just make out her finger tapping at her own head. “Like, that you know where you are and can do simple stuff like remember things and follow directions. It gives you a total score that’s supposed to tell you how you’re doing. Your score is?.?.?. not good.”

Angelica’s hair brushed against my nose, giving me little tickles of hammer and laughter and that thing that happened to her head. “I’m sure it’s no big deal,” I said.

“I’m not trying to be an asshole here,” Katherine said. If I could see her properly, it seemed as if her eyes would be red, wet. “And I know you and I haven’t always?.?.?. Our relationship hasn’t been the best.?.?.?.” She took a breath, deep and shaking. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Mom, and I’m?.?.?. I’m really worried, okay? I think I need to get you some help.”

I tried to blow Angelica’s hair off me, but it bounced right back. Hammer. Laughter. Pain. Eye or lack thereof. The sensations were just enough to drown out my heartbeat, the rate of which was starting to pick up. “Don’t be silly, dear,” I said.

“I’m serious,” Katherine said, and she certainly sounded it. “I think?.?.?. I think I have to take you to a hospital.”

“I’m not sick,” I said. And I’m not leaving this house.

“I think you are,” Katherine said. “At least, I think you might be. I don’t know. This is all way the fuck out of my knowledge base. But that therapist Claire is dating said?.?.?. Well, it doesn’t matter. But considering your family history, your dad?.?.?. well, I think it’s time to go to the hospital.”

Katherine and I had never talked about my father before. She had never even met him, as he had moved himself on long before she was born. Noelle must have told her about him while Katherine was staying with her all those years ago. Katherine must have been under the assumption that because my father had spent some time in hospitals, I must need to spend some time in a hospital too. That was all a silly misunderstanding, though, because the things I was seeing were real.

Meanwhile, the boy with no legs was trying to pull himself into a chair, and let me tell you, that was a sad sight. Angelica had taken up a nonstop whisper into my forehead. He’s down there he’s down there he’s down there he’s down there.

“You’re making a big stink about nothing,” I said. I might have been talking loudly—it was hard to tell with all the ruckus. My voice was certainly unsteady and coming out much faster than was strictly necessary. “I’m fine, Katherine, really. Your grandfather’s problems have nothing to do with me.” Julian bounced closer and his intestines plopped onto my hand and my stomach lurched and I jolted away from him, all of which was incredibly bad timing.

“Okay,” Katherine said, wiping at her eyes once more before slapping her hands on the table with finality. “Maybe I’m not being clear. We’re going to the hospital. Now.”

“Katherine?.?.?.” My stomach hurt.

She was on her feet, gesturing at me. “Up.”

“Katherine, I am not going to the hospital.” Lord knows what kind of ruin this place would fall into with me gone, and this trip to the hospital did not sound like a quick there-and-back. A sick panic snuck its way into what felt like my still–partially disemboweled stomach. “It’s almost October,” I said.

Katherine waved her arms in the air. “That nonsensical bullshit is exactly what I’m talking about. Get up. We’re leaving.”

I certainly didn’t mean to stand up but I felt something wet land on my head and realized it was Angelica’s eye dripping on me, and one can be expected to take only so much at a time. I burst from my chair, arms out, and drove my body straight through Angelica and Julian and the boy with no legs and Thomas or Tobias or whoever and, believe it or not, even managed to flail an arm through Charles. And all at once I felt the hammer and the disembowelment and the knives and the arm wrenched from its socket and the legs crudely taken elsewhere, and I tumbled to the ground—no legs, after all—and vomited. Talk about bad timing.

Well, I’m not sure if you would call what I did vomiting in the traditional sense, because I didn’t have much food in my stomach. Instead, I coughed up quite a large quantity of swollen, dead black flies.

“What the fuck, Mom?” Katherine gaped at me, eyes bulging. For a moment, it looked like she might join me in this vomit party. She swallowed. “Are those flies?”

I examined my vomit. “It would appear so,” I said, wiping my mouth. My whole body hurt. I wasn’t entirely convinced that I still had both legs and all of my arms.

“Have you been”—Katherine’s voice was thick, nauseated—“eating flies?”

Trust me, I was just as surprised as Katherine to see those flies. “I can understand how you might think that,” I said. I felt something on my tongue and pulled it off with a finger. It was a wing.

“Hospital.”Katherine was screaming now. “We are going to the fucking hospital. Now.”

I remained on the kitchen floor, leaning on the one arm I was sure I still had. “I understand why you’re upset,” I said, doing my best to cling to the single shred of control I had over the situation. “But really—”

“How do you think you still have a choice in this?”Katherine yelled. “This is not your fucking decision.”

“Language,” I said. I had very little else to say anymore.

“Get off the goddamn floor and get in the car, or so help me God, I will DRAG you out of this house.”Katherine’s chest was puffed out, her shoulders squared. She was glowering. “Do not fucking test me on this.”

I raised a hand, palm open, a white flag. “Hal?.?.?. ,” I said before I realized it.

Katherine’s eyes widened. Her mouth fell open. She looked as if she’d accidentally staggered into Julian—an inadvertent disemboweling. “What did you just—” She was interrupted by a ringing sound. Her phone cheerily chimed away in her pocket, unaware of the scene it was interrupting. Katherine lifted her phone, blinking at it as if not quite sure what it was. When she saw who was calling, she snapped to attention. She looked at me, her expression telling me that this conversation was on a time-out, not over.

She answered the phone. “This is Katherine Hartman,” she said, her voice odd. She paused as the caller spoke. “Listen,” she said. “Is this urgent? I’m kind of in the middle of an important—” She went silent. Her eyebrows rose.

“Oh.” She blinked. “You do?”

She looked down at me, her brain whirring with decisions.

“Do I have to come down right now?” she asked. “It’s just?.?.?. Fuck. Okay.”

Silence. She closed her eyes, pursed her lips together.

“Okay,” she said. “No, I get it. Okay. Okay. Fuck.”

Silence. Katherine opened her eyes and exhaled, then stared at the ceiling.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be at the station in twenty minutes.” She turned back to her notebook, still on the table. She grabbed her pen and scratched something on the paper, underlined it twice.

“Right,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.” She pressed end on her phone. She looked over at me, then picked up her notebook and moved towards her purse.

“I have to go,” she said. “The officers— Well, they say they’ve found something. I don’t know what it means. They wouldn’t tell me.” She gathered her purse and dug out her car keys as she looked back at me. I was increasingly remembering that I had legs and two arms, and I shifted my weight so I was sitting up, balancing myself on both of the hands I luckily still had. “I’ll be back soon,” Katherine said, her tone indicating that this was not meant to be a comforting statement so much as it was a warning. Don’t try to burn the house down—I’ll be here with a hose before you can even smell smoke. Katherine gestured at me with an index finger. “This isn’t over,” she said.

Nothing is ever over. We get only a respite. But respites aren’t nothing, and I was getting one right now—however brief—as Katherine darted out of the house. The tires of her car squealed as she pulled out of the driveway. Small favors all around.