Chapter Twenty-Four

TWENTY-FOUR

Katherine likely wouldn’t be gone for long and I had plenty to do in the meantime. I made quick work of cleaning up my fly-filled vomit, then grabbed a shovel and a trash bag. It was long past time to dig up Elias’ mother again.

I ran through the backyard and into the woods, ignoring the dozen or so dead birds that had accumulated since the last time I cleared out the bodies. I would handle the birds later. My top priority right now was calming Elias the hell down. I needed to calm everybody the hell down, every prankster in the house. Katherine couldn’t see them, but she could certainly see me, and what she was seeing made her think I needed to be hospitalized. I needed to start looking sane, and fast.

I found the tree marked with the fuchsia M and started digging with an urgency I didn’t think my tired body could muster. The clock was ticking.

The weather was cool this afternoon, a breeze dusting through the trees, but I soon worked up a sweat as I shoveled mound after mound of dirt away from what was now a well-trodden grave. My clothes were nearly black with dirt and my skin was caked in muddy sweat. I wiped the moisture off my forehead with a dirty hand. I would need to take a shower before Katherine arrived home so she wouldn’t start asking difficult but valid questions about my appearance. When the shovel finally struck the plastic of the bins, I dove into the hole and started digging with my hands, scraping at dirt with my fingernails and yanking the lids off the bins while they were still in the ground. I tossed pieces of Elias’ mother into the garbage bag as I found them—femur, rib, spine, skull. When I was fairly certain I had gotten most of her—surely the ritual would still work even if I was missing a piece or two—I twisted the top of the garbage bag closed and headed back for the house. I left the shovel in her grave. I would be back later to bury her, possibly after Katherine went to sleep, but probably in October.

I considered just keeping the bones in the house from this point forward—digging the bins out of the ground and storing them in some closet somewhere. Maybe Jasper could share his space. I always reburied Elias’ mother after the reunion ritual because I wanted to be respectful, but I couldn’t imagine that storing her in the house somewhere was any more disrespectful than what I was doing. Besides, I had already progressed from transporting her bones in a nice urnlike vase to a garbage bag. Did any of it really matter at this point?

This is how these changes start,I thought. They happen slowly.

My thoughts regarding how best to respect the bones of Elias’ mother flew from my mind as I entered the house. All six pranksters stood in the hallway, sullen faces and empty eyes fixed directly on me. Together, they raised what arms they had and pointed at the basement door.

The door flew open.

The bag of bones clattered to the floor as I rushed to the door and slammed it shut so hard I felt the house shake. I turned back to the pranksters, my breath coming in a bit more ragged than I’d have preferred. They stayed statue-still in their little line, their faces placid. They were still pointing, all six of them.

The door started to fly open again.

I caught it, slamming the thing shut and shoving my shoulder against the wood before the door made it open even a foot. The door lurched against me, hurling itself open, and my muddy feet slipped on the floor. I caught the doorknob and regained my balance. I threw myself at the door, pushing the whole of my body weight against the thing. I barely got the door settled back against the doorframe before it screamed open, shoving me aside with a strength one rarely sees in doors. I pushed back, my mud-slick hands slipping against the wood.

A smell wafted up from below, something thick and sour and wrong. I caught a flicker of light, and the faint sound of a scream-laugh, before I heaved the door shut again.

The door lurched and jolted. The wood slammed into my cheek, and for a moment, I saw stars. I turned myself, digging my heels into the floor and pressing my back against the door with all the strength I had in me, which admittedly was not a lot at this point.

The pranksters still stood in a line, now in front of me. Pointing. They were absolutely no help.

Just behind the door, the scream-laughing started up again. It seemed to be getting louder.

The doorknob dug into my back. My shoes squeaked along the floor. I dug my fingernails into the doorframe, anything to hold myself in place. The door pushed and pushed. The pranksters pointed and pointed. It seemed I was fighting a losing battle, which was on par with most of the battles I was fighting these days.

Fredricka drifted past the pranksters, seemingly oblivious to my struggle. She was carrying an armful of family photos that had been hanging in the living room and went to hang them in the middle of the hallway. The spot she chose did not actually contain a wall, so each frame fell to the ground with a crash. I flinched at the sound of shattering glass.

My shoes skittered on the floor. I regained my balance, shoving myself against the door so hard my teeth rattled. “Can you do something?” I asked Fredricka. “Please?” My voice shook with the effort.

Fredricka nodded and drifted over to the back door. She lifted the garbage bag that contained the bones of Elias’ mother.

Shit.“No,” I said. “Something to help.”

Fredricka nodded again. “Of course, ma’am.” Then she drifted down the hallway with the bones, disappearing around the corner to put them God knew where.

“Goddamnit, Fredricka,”I shouted. The door shoved itself against me. I shoved myself back. Behind me, the scream-laughing was definitely louder. There were footsteps, soft but sure, coming up the stairs.

He’s coming,the pranksters told me in unison.

“I know,” I snapped. I turned again, pressing both hands to the door. The smell was so bad it was practically a taste. The footsteps were midway up the stairs. The scream-laughs were somehow even closer.

“Stop it,”I shouted. “Stay down there.”

Footsteps. Closer.

I dug my feet into the ground. I pressed myself so hard against the door that I thought my wrists might break. “Stay away,” I shouted.

The footsteps were at the top of the stairs now. He was close enough to reach out knobby fingers and turn the doorknob. I pressed my eyes closed.

“STAY AWAY,”I screamed.

The doorknob started to turn.

“No,”I shouted, and sprinted into the kitchen, barely even noticing as I ran partially through Julian in the process. I yanked one of the chairs from the center of the room, where Fredricka had inexplicably lined them up, and raced back into the hallway. I shoved the chair underneath the doorknob, wedging the legs of the chair against the floor just as the door started creaking open once more.

The knob rattled. The chair squeaked against the floor. Then all went still and silent. The pranksters milled about the hallway, looking bored.

I collapsed against the wall, panting. I was drenched in sweat, and the dirt caked across my body had turned to mud. My stomach still felt sliced open from running through Julian.

Fredricka drifted back down the hallway. She held, for some reason, a single tea bag.

“Where,” I panted, “did you put the bones?”

Fredricka studied me with curiosity.

“Elias’ mother’s bones,” I said, and swallowed through the air I could barely breathe. “I still need them.”

“What bones?” Fredricka asked. She dipped the single tea bag into empty air.

“Never mind,” I said, heaving myself off the wall. My legs seemed to be made of water.

Fredricka pointed at the door. “It’s not over,” she said.

But I already knew that. I knew that Master Vale wasn’t going to stay still forever—nobody ever did, especially in this house.

I needed to act fast, put some water on these embers before they flared up again. The boards needed to go back on the basement door; that much was clear. I should look over the Bible pages on the back of the door before I put the boards up, make sure none of them needed to be replaced. Perhaps I should also consider putting some on the front of the door. The walls too. To hell with looking sane.

Most important, it was time to call Father Cyrus, and I was more than willing to beg. I was sure that not even Father Cyrus could deny that Master Vale trying to shove his way out of the basement was a glaring sign that priestly intervention was overdue. I could refresh the Bible pages on the door and put the boards back up before he arrived, which would, I hoped, ease his mind a bit, because I needed him to come today, in the next hour if possible, in the next five minutes if miracles were real.

I grabbed my phone from the kitchen counter with shaking hands, and was barely able to hold it steady as I dialed.

“Saint Dymphna Catholic Church,” said the voice on the other end. Young, cheerful—a receptionist.

“Father Cyrus, please.” My voice wavered.

There was a pause. “Um?.?.?.” I could hear the receptionist thinking, weighing options. “One moment, please.”

The phone clicked to hold, and I heard music, soothing synthesizer tones of a nondescript song. I took several deep breaths and waited as patiently as I could for the receptionist to put Father Cyrus on the line. The calming music played on. I had just identified the words to the little tune (It all comes around with the moon and the sun.?.?.?. ) when a voice clicked back onto the line. Not Father Cyrus—a much younger person, polite yet worried.

“Hello?” the voice said.

“I’d like to speak to Father Cyrus,” I said.

The man on the other end paused, taking in a breath. “I’m afraid Father Cyrus passed away,” he said.

My legs were water again. “What?” I said.

“He’s no longer with us,” the man said as if his phrasing were the part that I had trouble comprehending. Little did this man know, I was very familiar with death these days.

“When?” I asked, bracing myself for the more pressing question on my mind. “How?”

“Just a week ago,” the man said, his tone calm, almost mesmerizing. It was the voice with which he delivered condolences, and it was practiced to near perfection. “The services were on Sunday. I’m sorry you missed them. If it helps, it was a beautiful—”

“How did he die?” I asked. Did it have anything to do with flies? Did I somehow kill this man with my prankster house and my tricky basement?

“It was his time,” the man said. “I’m sure you know, Father Cyrus was with us on this earth a good many years. He lived a long life, full of service to—”

“Was he sick?” I asked. “Did something happen?” Were there flies?

“I’m afraid I must respect Father Cyrus’ privacy,” the man said. “But I can tell you that it was very peaceful when he went.”

There might have been flies,I thought.

I was at a loss as to what to say next. What would I do now? The only person at that goddamn church who was willing to believe me and help me with my prankster problem was now on the side of the pranksters.

“So,” I said, unsure exactly how to phrase my question, “Father Cyrus had been?.?.?. helping me. Helping my husband and me. With our house. He came over just a few weeks ago, and?.?.?.”

“Ah.” The man’s voice was tight.

“We need him to come over again,” I said. “We need his help. Someone’s help. I don’t suppose you have anyone else—”

“Were you one of the ones Father would visit to”—the man seemed to be searching for the phrasing least likely to end in a lawsuit—“say a prayer for the house?”

One of the ones? “Yes,” I said.

“And did he tell you there was?.?.?. something wrong with your house?”

He hadn’t had to tell us that. We’d already known. “Well,” I said, “not in so many words?.?.?.”

“Ma’am,” the man said, his voice smooth as a lawyer’s, “the church wishes to offer you its deepest apologies. You see, Father Cyrus, he wasn’t well. He hadn’t been well for many years.”

“What do you mean?” He seemed well enough to me, minus the flies.

“I’m afraid he had become senile,” the man said. “It happened slowly, over the course of several years. But it was really quite pronounced by the end. He had been such a fixture in our church family for so many years that we kept him here.”

My mouth hung open. Sure, Father Cyrus was old, but he had seemed sharp as a tack every time I saw him. And he sure had hustled out of the house the last time he was here.

“We didn’t want him performing any of his duties in an official capacity anymore,” the man explained. “He was really quite ill towards the end. It wouldn’t have been right. But he kept finding little ways of eluding us. He paid one of the youths in our church, Julio, to take him on his little?.?.?. errands?.?.?. from time to time.”

Perhaps this was why Fredricka had never warmed to Father Cyrus. Perhaps she knew that something was off about him, that he was fraying at the edges.

“He became fixated on the paranormal,” the man said. “He thought he could perform?.?.?. exorcisms”—the man whispered this word—“on places. Of course, the church rarely performs exorcisms at all anymore. It is quite an archaic ritual, and we know so much now about psychiatry. Really, ma’am, the church was very displeased when they learned of Father Cyrus’ practices.”

But he was helping,I wanted to say. And now there’s nobody to help.

“Honestly,” the man said, “we at the church didn’t even know what Father Cyrus had been up to until a few weeks before his death. Julio came to us after the last little errand Father tried to conduct. He suffered quite a bad fall there, and Julio’s conscience finally got the better of him. He told us everything. Let me tell you, we were shocked.”

You should have been here,I thought. Then you would have really been shocked.

“I can assure you,” the man said, “that we put a stop to it right then and there. We told him—although I’m not sure he understood; he was quite disoriented there at the end—that he was not to leave church grounds without one of us again, and he was not to perform any more of his little errands. Perhaps his behavior was a sign of how far gone he was, because he died just a week later.”

And there were flies,I thought.

“You have my vow,” the man said, “that Father Cyrus was the only member of this church who behaved in such a way. His behavior does not reflect the views or practices of Saint Dymphna Catholic Church. I might even say that it did not reflect his merit as a man of the cloth, given the advanced nature of his dementia. We hope you will not think ill of us, and we hope you are still willing to be a member of our congregation.”

This man seemed to be working hard to keep my five dollars in the collection plate. Little did he know I hadn’t set foot in a church since Hal and I had begged them for help, and before that, I couldn’t remember the last time I could have been considered a member of anyone’s congregation.

“So what you’re saying,” I said, “is that you can’t help me.”

It didn’t really matter what variant of No, I can’t he said to me. I hung up the phone and leaned against the kitchen counter, stunned. With Father Cyrus gone, my options for damage control were limited. It had taken Hal and me so long to find anyone in the church who believed us, and now, apparently, our only advocate had been suffering from advanced dementia and was dead. What were the odds of my being able to find another priest, perhaps one less senile, willing to help me?

Fredricka drifted back into the room and began turning the remaining kitchen chairs upside down, one by one.

“He’s dead,” I told her.

“So are many things,” she said, not looking up from her task. She had a point. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected any sort of sympathy from her.

“What do I do now?” I asked, slumping back against the counter.

Fredricka paused briefly at the kitchen table. She looked up at me, her face stoic as always. “What you must,” she said.

The silence was broken by the squeal of tires in the driveway. Katherine was home, and all problem-solving must be put on hold. I set my phone on the counter and pushed myself towards the kitchen table. I had to right each chair that Fredricka had turned upside down, and I needed to do so before Katherine came into the room and started asking more questions. I left the chair in front of the basement door where it was, though. That one wasn’t going anywhere. Katherine could just go on thinking I was crazy. I heard the slam of the car door and Katherine’s rapid footsteps up the front porch. She was in a hurry. I wouldn’t have time to clean the broken picture frames off the floor.

The front door flew open. I heard the doorknob bang into the wall behind it, sure to leave a dent. Katherine sprinted down the hallway and into the kitchen. When she found me, righting the last chair, she was short of breath.

“Mom,” she said. Her eyes were wide and wild, her expression slack, shocked. She took me in, looked me up and down. “Why the fuck are you covered in mud?” She looked at the floor. “And why is there glass everywhere?” She looked behind her. “And why is there a chair in front of the door?”

I chose to ignore these questions for the time being. “What is it, dear?” I said, standing tall next to the table and crossing my arms over my chest. I couldn’t quite tell what her face was expressing, but I had a feeling that we had moved past taking me to the hospital for the moment.

She shook her head, then moved on. Apparently, there were more pressing issues at hand. “The police,” she said, catching her breath, “they found something.”

“About Hal?” I asked. “That’s good, right?” Of course, this depended on one’s definition of “good.” Katherine and I seemed to have different definitions of “good” these days. Katherine tended to consider the learning of new information, particularly information related to myself and Hal, to be good, although she didn’t seem to regard the information itself as good once she had learned it.

“They went down to the Value Lodge,” she said. “They talked to some of the employees. They found the guy who was working the night shift when Dad was there. Dave?.?.?. something.”

“Oh?” I said.

“That last night Dad stayed at a motel,” Katherine said, clutching her purse in a white-knuckled grip, “the one before he stopped paying, abandoned his things. Dave said he saw Dad leave. He said he saw Dad get into a cab.”

“So he left,” I said. “We knew that already.” Katherine had a box of his abandoned things in the trunk of her car to prove it.

“The police found the cab driver,” Katherine continued. Her voice was a thin thread, ready to break at any moment. “They talked to him. They said he remembered Dad.”

“He did?” I asked.

“They found out where he went.”

“And?” Based on Katherine’s expression, I had a feeling I ought to be panicking, filling up with fear like a boat taking on water. Katherine certainly looked like she was drowning, gasping for air as the bow of her ship sank underneath dark waves.

“The cab took him back here,” she said, her voice murky, underwater. “That last night—the last night anyone saw him—he came back to this house.” She was staring at me, her eyes unblinking, rimmed with terror.

I looked out the kitchen door, down the hallway. From the front windows, I could see the bright strobe of red and blue lights illuminating the driveway.