The Last House on Needless Street Page 13

  Well, if the lord always made everything perfectly clear, there would be no point in faith, would there? The whining goes on and on. It almost sounds like a little bee, crying for help. The house feels wrong today, as if in the night someone moved everything an inch to the left for a prank.

  Someone starts talking in the living room so I guess Ted left the TV on for me.

  ‘We should revisit trauma,’ the voice is saying. ‘You know what they say. The only way out is through. Childhood abuse must be excavated and brought into the light.’

  Maybe the whining sound is coming from the TV. I have checked the TV before, oh, hundreds of times. But I have to do something. The big Russian doll stares at me from the mantelpiece with its blank face, its round body. It looks happier than ever to have prisoned its little friends inside it. The Parents stare down from their horrible frame above the fireplace. Go away, I whisper at them, but they never do.

  When I see who’s on screen, I stop, ears flat. Him again. The round blue eyes stare out. He nods earnestly at some unheard question. The room is filled with that scent – spoiled milk and dust. I know he’s only a picture on a screen but it feels like he’s here, somehow. I sit down neatly and lick a paw. That always makes me feel better. I could do this show so much better than you, I tell him. You have no charisma.

  He smiles as if in answer. I don’t feel like talking to him any more after that. I don’t know why – it’s not like the TV can hear me. Can it? The smell is so strong, though. It’s not like a ted smell, but like something left out of the refrigerator for too long.

  And then, from the hall, I hear it. The tiny faint sounds of someone standing outside the front door. I pad over to it silently. I can sense someone behind. A male ted. He’s not knocking, he’s not ringing the doorbell. So what is he doing? And the reek is everywhere, seeping in around the door, invading my sensitive nose. It’s the same smell that came off the TV. Somehow, the ted from the TV is also outside my house. The show must be pre-recorded.

  The ted breathes into the place between the door and the jamb. Long, delicate inhalations. He must have his face pushed right into the crack. It’s like he’s smelling the front door. Can he smell me? Ted has warned me over and over about how dangerous outside is. I think this is what he meant. This feels dangerous. From the living room, from the TV, the ted’s little blue coin eyes stare. ‘Everyone has a monster inside them,’ he says.

  I need to be hidden. Somewhere dark. I creep up the stairs and along the landing. Overhead, one of the attic ghosts drags a long fingernail all along the length of the floor and now I run.

  I gallop into Ted’s room and shoot under the bed. I can still hear the celebrity ted downstairs on the TV, droning, talking about the bad things that people do to little teds, lecturing the empty room. Or is he talking through the door?

  When I feel worried, I do one of two things. I consult the Bible, I break something of Ted’s, or I go to sleep. Fine, three things. Well, I’m not going near that Bible again. It was scary. And I have already broken the Russian doll once this week and the music box twice. I feel kind of bad about it.

  So I am going to need a long, long nap. I think I have to forgive Ted, too. I haven’t really been speaking to him for the last couple days. But this has been a scary day and my tail’s gone weird. I need to be stroked.

  I can’t sleep. I turn around and around and purr and close my eyes. But it all feels too wrong and my buzzing tail won’t let me rest.

  Ted

  Olivia and I are sitting on the couch watching monster trucks when they come. I am a little worried about Olivia. She seems nervous, unlike herself. It makes me uneasy. Olivia is always OK. That’s the thing about cats, isn’t it? They don’t hold on to things.

  Maybe I’m imagining stuff because I miss Lauren so much today. I know she’s better where she is, but it is very hard for a parent to be separated from their child. I call her but she’s punishing me and doesn’t answer. It’s hurtful. It’s worse than hurtful, it’s a vice prying open my heart.

  I am still very upset with that neighbour lady. It’s not like I thought we would be friends right away. But I thought we could at least try. I wondered what she would look like in a dress. Something gauzy that floats around her ankles as she walks. Maybe blue. But I sat there at the bar and waited and she didn’t come. I looked dumb. The search for a friend is not going too well in general.

  Olivia hears it first. She vanishes under the couch. It takes me a moment longer to understand. The sound is not coming from the TV – it fills the air. Big engines are coming. Diggers, maybe, or tractors? Too loud, too close. What are they doing here? At this end of the street there are only two houses and then the forest. But they come on, closer and closer. I go to a peephole to watch them roaring by, yellow as death, great jaws crusted with earth. They don’t stop. They go past the house, towards the woods. A man hops down out of the cab and takes the chains off the gates. There is something bad, something official about that action. He swings the gates open for the machines to pass through. Then the digger and the bulldozer roar and wheeze their way up the forest path.

  I run out of the front door, and I am so upset I almost forget to triple-lock it behind me (but I do remember). The neighbour lady and some other neighbours are standing on the sidewalk, watching the two diggers fade into the trees with their terrible sound.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask her. I am so worried I forget for a moment about how rude she is. ‘They can’t go up there. It’s a wildlife reserve. It’s protected.’

  ‘They’re making new rest stops off the trail,’ she says. ‘A picnic area. You know, so more hikers, more tourists will come. Hey, I got some more of your mail by mistake this morning. You want me to bring it round later?’

  I ignore her. I run into the woods, following the grind of the engines. When I glimpse them, I follow at a distance. After a mile or so they turn off the path and start smashing into the undergrowth. Saplings crack and give. It’s like listening to children screaming. They are tearing up the earth less than three hundred feet from the clearing. They won’t reach it today, but tomorrow they might. A man in a bright orange jacket turns and looks at me. I lift a friendly hand, then turn and walk away, trying to look like a normal person. The sound follows me down the path long after I am out of sight. Jaws, eating the forest.

  I could kick myself. I knew it – I left the gods buried in the glade for too long. People sense them there, whether they know it or not. They are drawn to them as if on a string. I can’t tell if my arm is all better yet. Some, I think. The bruising has gone down. Anyway there’s no more time. I’ve got to move them tonight.

  The afternoon is so long, it feels like years before the sun goes down. But at last it does, leaving crimson cuts across the sky.

  Even in the kind darkness the woods don’t feel like mine any more. I smell the diggers and the work site long before I see them – the black turned earth, the sap of murdered trees. The engines stand quiet among the ruins like big yellow grubs. I want to hurt them. I considered it. Hydrogen peroxide in the gas tank would do a good job. But that would hurt the forest too, and I don’t want that.

  In the glade I look around at the white trees. I feel so sad. This has been a good home for the gods. But if they stay, sooner or later they will be found. I might not be smart about some things, but I know this – no one would understand about the gods.

  I take the shovel off my shoulder, unroll the pouch containing the tools, and dig. I buried them in a sacred formation, in fifteen different places. The location of each one burns in my mind like the pattern of the stars. I could never forget it.

  I brush dirt gently from the rounded surface of the first god. The soil I lift it from is black and rich. The gods feed the earth. I put my ear close and listen. The god whispers secrets in a voice like rain. ‘I hold you in my heart,’ I whisper.

  I put it gently into a trash bag and then into the backpack. I go to the next station. It is to the east, near the rock li
ke a finger. This one is fragile. I put the shovel to one side and dig carefully with my hands. It’s not buried deep. I like to dig this one up every now and again to look. I unwrap the plastic. The dress lies in my arms, a dark grey in the faint moonlight. I wish I could see it in the sunlight again, its true colour, the deep navy blue of the ocean in pictures. But of course I could never do this during the day. I wipe my hands on my jeans and stroke the fabric. The dress tells me things through the tips of my fingers. Each god holds different memories and brings its own feeling. My eyes feel tight and shining. This one always makes me sad. But also itchy, like a kind of excitement. ‘I hold you in my heart,’ I whisper, but it sounds so loud.

  Next comes the vanity case, near the middle of the glade, to the left. I do this one as quickly as possible. It has sharp shining things in it and a voice like nettle or vinegar.

  On and on I dig, and one by one each god fills the air with its voice. ‘I hold you in my heart,’ I whisper over and over. Each time, it is like going through it all again: the moment of the god-making, the sorrow.

  At last the glade is empty. I am trembling. They are all in my heart now, and the sack is heavy. This part always makes me feel like I might explode. I fill in the holes and scatter debris over the soil until it looks like marmots have been here, or rabbits maybe. Nothing but nature taking its course. I pick up the sack gently.

  We go deeper into the woods. The trees end at the lake to the west so I take a different direction. Even now, all these years later, I don’t want to go near the lake.

  I must find the right place. The gods can’t live just anywhere. The beam of my flashlight dances over the ivy and dry brush. It’s so warm tonight, the forest seems to be giving out heat. It spirals out from the trunks of the cedars, rises from the leaf litter. I take my sweater off. Midges and mosquitoes hover over my exposed arms and neck in grey clouds, but do not settle. Bats circle us, swooping so close their soft bodies graze my cheek. Tree branches spring away at my touch, clearing a passage before us. When I stop for a moment to catch my breath, a brown snake slides affectionately over the toe of my boot. I am part of the forest, tonight. It holds me in its heart.

  I hear the spring long before I see it, the glassy trickle of water on stone. I can’t tell its direction; the sound seems to come from all around, as it often does, deep in the forest. I turn off the flashlight and stand in the dark. The sack shifts, uncomfortable against my back. Something sharp nudges me in the spine. The gods are eager. They want a home. I go where they tell me, through the catching bramble and bush. The half-moon is bright now; the clouds have cleared overhead. Without the flashlight I can see the forest in its night colours, silver-etched in delicate lines.

  There is the gleam of pale bark ahead. White birches grow here, the bone trees. This is the sign I have been waiting for; I’ve found the place.

  The spring leaps out of black wet stone, runs shrill and fast in its narrow channel, overhung by long fern fronds. Above, in the rock wall, there are dark crevices. Each hole is just the right size and shape to hold a god. One by one I slide them into their new homes. I shake a little as I do it – it’s hard to hold so much power in my hands.

  Dawn touches the sky with pink in the east by the time I’m done. I stand back and look at my work. Behind the rock wall I feel the gods hum, spreading their tendrils of power. The white birches stand tall in their clusters, watching. I’m so weary. Each time I do this I am destroyed. But it’s my duty. I have to take care of them. Mommy has made that clear.

  The woods are waking up. It is a long walk back in the new day, back to home and everyday things. I am carried on the furious joy of birdsong. ‘I miss you,’ I tell the birds. But at least they are safe from the Murderer here. I pass the yellow machines without a thought. Let them tear up the earth. The gods are safe in their new home.

  Found the tape recorder in the refrigerator. I don’t … nope, not even going to try to figure that one out.

  No recipe. I thought maybe I should say, in case I forget – I moved them.

  Maybe I’m just doing this because I want to talk to someone. Being with the gods makes me feel more alone than being alone. With Lauren gone, I need things that remind me who I am. I am so afraid that I’ll just disappear and never come back.

  This isn’t making me feel any better. I feel stupid so I’ll stop.

  Dee

  Everyone on Needless Street had a flyer through the door. Still, when yellow diggers come down the road like lions, she catches her breath. Their great metal mouths are still crusted with the dirt of old kills.

  Dee comes out of her house to watch. It seems safer, somehow, than staying inside. A couple of the other neighbours are standing around, mouths and eyes wide.

  A man with orange hair steps out in front of one of the diggers. He shouts to the driver. His big dog strains and whines so he takes it by the collar. ‘I hope you’re not going to use that neon paint to mark the trees,’ he yells up at the driver. He is pointing at some canisters that sit in the truck. ‘It’s toxic.’

  The driver shrugs and adjusts his hard hat.

  ‘I’m a ranger,’ the man says. In his hands the dog trembles with eagerness. ‘It’s terrible for the ecosystem.’

  ‘Got to mark it somehow,’ the man says comfortably. ‘Neon stands out day and night.’ He nods and the engine roars. The digger moves off like a dinosaur.

  Breath tickles Dee’s neck, lifts the hair on her nape. He is so close to her that when she turns, thrilling, his beard almost grazes her cheek. She can smell his distress, like crushed nettles on his skin. Ted sways. She realises that he is very drunk.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘They can’t, they can’t do this.’

  He says some other things and Dee replies, she couldn’t say what. She can’t hear through the buzzing in her head. She knows that look, of a secret nearly revealed. Ted has it in his eyes.

  When he runs up the trail after the diggers, she catches her breath. He’s running towards something, she’s sure of it. Something hidden in the forest. Dee knows she can’t follow Ted. He’d see and then it would all be over. She must desperately hope that whatever is hidden cannot be accessed in daylight.

  She goes indoors and sits at her post, biting her lower lip to shreds. Maybe she was wrong not to follow. Maybe she missed her chance and he’s moving Lulu right now, taking her into the wild … Dee watches the forest with burning eyes.

  Half an hour later, Ted comes back into view on the shadowed trail. Dee’s heart burns and leaps. There is distress in his every movement. He shakes his head from side to side as if in passionate argument with himself. Whatever needs doing is still yet to be done. She hasn’t missed it. There will be action, tonight.

  Dee puts on hiking boots and lays out sweaters and a dark jacket, puts water and nuts in her pocket. Then she sits like a stone and watches Ted’s house. Clouds pass and the sun sinks lower over the treeline. Dusk covers everything.

  When she hears the distinctive triple thunk of the locks, the creak of the back door, she is ready. She feels, rather than sees him leave the house in the black. As he passes under the streetlight she sees the backpack. It is full of something that bulges in odd angles and curves. Tools, a pick, a shovel? He moves along the road into shadow. Now there are no more lights, just soft night and the moon overhead, shining like half a dime.

  She follows at a distance; his flashlight guides her like a star. When he stops at the entrance to the woods and looks around, she stops too, sheltering behind a tree trunk. He waits for a long time, but she lets the night speak, lets it tell him that he is alone. When he goes on into the forest, she follows.

  As they pass the work site, Dee hears Ted come to a halt ahead. The trees are thinning, perhaps into a clearing. She crouches among the bulldozers. Ahead, to the east, she hears the sound of a shovel cutting the earth. She hears whispering. She shivers. It must be Ted, but his voice sounds strange, like leaves rustling or the creak of living wood. Her calves and thighs cramp but she d
oesn’t dare move. If she can hear Ted, he can hear her. The moon climbs and the night seems to grow warmer. Perfect weather for snakes. Shut up, brain, Dee thinks grimly. What can Ted be doing? She thinks about trying to edge closer but her every movement sounds loud as a gunshot. She sits and listens. Time passes, she doesn’t know how much, it might be an hour or longer. His whispering and the rhythmic cut of the shovel mingle with the night sounds of the forest.

  At last there comes the sound of boots approaching and Dee starts. She has been teetering on the edge of sleep. She crawls quickly on numb legs under a digger. The moon is behind a gauzy screen of cloud but she can see enough. Ted carries something heavy on his back. The shovel in his hand is crusted with earth. He has dug something up. She struggles to her feet as silently as she can.

  At the top of the rise to the west the moon gleams on still water. The lake, no more than a mile distant. An hour’s hike between Ted’s house and the place where Lulu went missing, Dee thinks, burning inwardly. Tonight Ted has proved that he can cover ground quickly with a heavy load. Yet the police just let him go. No matter what she tells them, they’ll probably just let him go again. They don’t care. Lazy, burnt out, incompetent … Dee realises that she is trembling. She reaches out blindly, and grasps a slender branch for support. The forest seems full of sibilant whispers. The dry scratching of a long belly sliding over leaves. Ophidiophobia, she tells herself. That’s all it is, Dee Dee. But now even the word is like a snake. It makes coils in her mouth.

  She tries to take the next step. Tries not to think of what might be lying in wait on the ground in front of her. There are no snakes here, she repeats firmly to herself. All the snakes are asleep underground. They are more afraid of you than you are of them. But her breath comes fast. Her feet are welded to the ground. She is scared of the forest, of being lost in the trees, of being alone in the dark with a murderer. Most of all she is scared of the tree roots, which seem to twitch, looking at her with vertical pupils in the moonlight.