“When I reached puberty,” he said, “I began seeing the staircase again, and I knew I was doing it myself. Dad knew it was happening almost as soon as I did. He . . . he educated me. I had to learn how to use the stairs.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean, learn how to use the stairs?”
“They’re real, April,” he said.
He talked until Jason woke up and went crazy excited when he saw the dog. It was love at first sight, both ways. After he was dressed, he and Spotty went to play ball in the back yard, and Vernon and I sat on the patio where he finished telling me.
The stairs are real and Jason has no idea where they lead or that he’s responsible for them. He can’t be allowed to go up them or even suspect how real they are. He’ll have to be taught how to use them when he reaches puberty, and Vernon and Dad will be his teachers. The stairs will end up wherever he decides he wants to be, but first he has to know exactly where that is. After he has learned his lessons thoroughly he will no longer need the stairs to go wherever he wants to be.
At about that point I suddenly craved a long tall gin and anything. Or perhaps straight gin. And I seldom drink anything alcoholic.
“Vernon,” I said, sitting on a sunny patio in a subdivision near Roanoke, Virginia, watching my child play with his dog, so typically midAmerican, it was right out of Norman Rockwell, “you’re telling me that both you and your father can teleport. And that my son will be able to do it too as soon as he’s old enough.” My words were spaced as if I had already had that long tall glass of straight gin.
Vernon nodded.
His biographical sketches always make a big deal of the fact that he was graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and that for the next six years his father took him traveling. Exotic places, cities in just about every country anyone ever heard of, villages that no one ever heard of, places so remote they had never been mentioned in any tourist guide.
I thought of the articles he had written, the places he had been, and I said, “Those years, you didn’t bother with airplanes? Is that right? You just went there?”
He nodded again.
I thought of all the photographs he had accumulated during those years, he had always said. Most of those pictures were digitized, and few of them had negatives, which some publishers wanted more than the prints. “You’re still going to those places, aren’t you? To take pictures with your digital camera.”
He nodded.
I began to think about Dad’s stash of wine, which he likes with his dinner every day. I stood up and said, “I’m going to get drunk now.” I went inside to start, and he remained on the patio looking miserable, watching our son play with his new dog.
I didn’t believe him, I decided, but that was a lie. I hadn’t believed it about Jason, either, until proven. Dad had a big assortment of wine, completely unfamiliar to me, but a five dollar bottle or fifty dollar bottle meant nothing. I opened a red wine and poured a lot into a water glass and took a drink, and then I sat down in the kitchen and the questions began piling up. Where was Dad? Why the dog all at once? Who were those men and what were they after? The list got longer and I began to make notes. In a little while Vernon came in and sat at the table, and I started down the list.
“He’s in Tennessee,” Vernon said. “He’ll be back soon. We’re going to give the dog the pill. We think it’s a tracking device or something like it, that it embeds itself, the covering dissolves, and it lets them keep track of a person’s whereabouts. About a month ago Dad attended a horse auction that turned out to be by invitation only, with tight security. The owner of the horses is a competitor and he spotted Dad and called security. Of course, Dad got the hell out of there, but the security firm was alarmed. Apparently it happened at least one other time. Anyway, we suspect that they are trying to find out how he shows up in places where they are responsible for security. Their reputation is at stake. They want to keep track of him and his possible contacts if we’re right about the pill.”
He said that some of his ancestors had been tried as witches, that one had been burned at the stake, and another one imprisoned. Since no prison could hold any of them, he had left and headed west where he vanished. They, the family, had kept as much of the past a secret as possible, one reason for the big farm in Tennessee, where they had isolation to a point and felt safe. But, he added a bit lamely, a really good investigation might uncover some other events that were not easily explained. I assumed he referred to some of his own travels.
“Why did Dad go to Tennessee now? What’s he up to?”
“He wants to make sure the house is ready for all of us if we decide it’s time to go there,” he said reluctantly. “Only if we think it’s necessary,” he added, when I shook my head.
“Why would it be necessary?” I demanded. “What else are you leaving out?”
He got up and poured himself a glass of wine, returned and we both took long drinks. “Dad’s afraid he might have to take off for a while,” he said. “He doesn’t want to leave you and Jason with just me. It’s too hard for you. The farm is safe, a one story house, big and comfortable, with some very loyal employees who accept that the family is a little peculiar. He can come and go there easily. No one can sneak up on him, or slip something into his pocket, keep him under surveillance all the time.”
“So the dog will have the embedded tracking thing,” I said after another drink of wine. It was getting better. I might take it up with dinner, too. “They’ll think Dad is at home most of the time while he’s free to go wherever he wants to. And so are you.”
Vernon nodded. He was turning into a regular bobble head, I thought and giggled.
“I need a little time,” I said then. “This is all too much for one sitting. I’m going to take a walk.”
He nodded.
I walked through the empty subdivision, and even got a little lost a time or two. The streets all wind about, change their names in a capricious manner, and there are few landmarks. But I did need to walk and think. It was crazy, but that didn’t mean it was untrue. I could well understand why it had to be kept a closely guarded secret. What a prize they would be to a research neurologist. Not just a scientific goldmine, but for corporations, the military . . . Geneticists would go crazy over them. Isolate the gene or genes responsible, and go on from there. To what end? Too many possibilities to contemplate.
One thought persisted regardless of how many others swam to the surface. I had to protect Jason. Little else mattered. If the farm was the best place to do that, we’d move to the farm. Vernon had grown up there, and he had been safe there. I suspected that we lived in the leased house instead of the farm because that’s where Vernon lived when his mother took off. He was afraid I’d get lonely or something. But I had already decided she was a twit. That was not a consideration. Jason’s safety was.
Our house unexpectedly came into sight and I went home.
Vernon and Dad were both vastly relieved when I told them I agreed that we should move to the farm as soon as possible. Dad had been moving his belongings most of the day, and they both worked well into the night taking things they didn’t want movers to handle. We should keep everything as normal appearing as we could, Vernon said that night, not raise any suspicions, and that meant that I should follow my usual routine, keep going to the park and playground and so on. He would arrange for a moving company to come and pack up whatever was left, and ship it. The brain drain dudes would be back the day after tomorrow in the afternoon between two and three, and Dad would handle them. He would make sure that Spotty was nearby when they arrived, he said. He suspected they wanted to test the tracking device.
We followed that scenario, and the next day was ordinary. The staircase appeared several times and I sent it away. Jason played with his new dog, and things kept disappearing. Dad’s wine collection vanished. Most of Vernon’s records, his CDs and DVDs, files, magazines that featured his articles . . .
On the next day when we got home from the park, it was in time to see a car stop at the curb in front of our house, and the two men in suits get out and start up our sidewalk. They paused when I crossed the street holding Jason’s hand.
“We’re a little early,” one of them said, “but we’d like to see the senior Mr. Branleigh.” He smiled an insurance salesman smile.
“I’ll see if he’s home,” I said, unlocking the door, keeping a good grip on Jason’s hand. I realized that if the tracking device worked, they believed Dad was there. A spasm of fear tightened my insides. They followed me into the foyer. “Please wait here a minute. Jason, why don’t you go play with Spotty while I fix lunch.”
He was interested in the two men in suits, looking them over soberly, and I had to pull him along with me to the kitchen. Spotty started to bark and Jason ran out to roll on the ground with him.
I glanced inside Vernon’s study, and went on to Dad’s room, where I knocked on the door although I knew he wasn’t there. Those men weren’t expected until later and he was busy. But I went through the motions.
When I returned to the foyer, I gasped. The staircase was there and the men in suits were gone. I said the magic words, but they had lost their magic. Jason had to hear it, I remembered, and ran to the back door and out. Jason was sitting on his swing, talking to Spotty, who was watching him. I said the words again, loud enough for him to hear me. He didn’t look up or indicate that he had heard, but he seldom did. I ran back to the foyer. The staircase was gone. And the men in suits? Where had they gone?
I was getting more and more nervous. When Jason was finally in bed for his nap, I had to make myself stop going to the foyer to make sure the staircase was gone, that the men in suits were really gone. The car remained at the curb. At last Dad appeared. I almost knocked him down in my rush to get to him before he left again and I was nearly incoherent when I told him what happened.
“Calm down,” he kept saying, as he patted my arm. “We’ll figure out what to do.”
Vernon came soon after that and I let Dad tell him. He turned pale. “Does Jason know? Did he see it happen?”
“No! He ran out to play with Spotty. What difference-” I stopped myself. “Oh, my God! Your mother! Is that what happened to your mother?”
Dad answered. “He didn’t see it, either. He didn’t know. And we don’t know for sure, but it’s the most likely thing.”
Vernon rubbed his eyes and went to the sink where he stood with his back to us. Dad looked deeply troubled as he said, “I told her they were real, what you could do with the. I warned her not to go near, but . . .”
The forbidden door in Bluebeard’s castle came to mind, and I understood why Vernon had not told me until the issue was forced.
No one spoke for a minute or two, until Vernon swung around from the sink and said, “Dad, you have to go to the mall and buy something, anything, and then come home on the bus, and get here before two thirty. I’ll go to the library, and get home by four, also by bus. April, it’s going to be up to you to carry this off. Can you do it?”
I nodded. Anything, I would do anything to get us out of this. How to explain two agents of some kind vanishing in our house?
They both left soon after that, and after half an hour I called the police. “Please send someone,” I pleaded, all raw nerves again. “I’m alone with a small child, and I’m afraid. Please.”
It took about ten minutes for two uniformed officers to get there. I met them at the door and was talking before they got all the way inside.
“We were at the park, my little boy and I were. That car was there when we got home, and it’s still there. Where is the driver? Why is it there? I keep thinking I hear someone at a window or something.”
“Now, Mrs. Branleigh, take it easy. We’ll have a look around. Why don’t you have a cup of coffee or tea or something,” the older one said with a comforting smile. “I’m sure there’s nothing to be alarmed about.”
I didn’t have to fake a thing. I was shaking and ready to fly apart. I sat at the kitchen table while they had their look around. They asked if they could have a look around inside and I nodded. “Don’t wake up Jason.”
When they came back the older one took out a notebook and asked a few questions. My husband, I said, was at the library in Roanoke doing some research. And my father-in-law had gone to the mall, and would be back any minute. Some people were supposed to meet with him between two and three.
“I thought it was those men when I saw the car, but they were too early, and no one came to the door. Jason will be up any minute now and I’m afraid.”
“Well, no one’s around, so you can relax. No basement here?” he asked and I shook my head. And no upstairs, either, I nearly added.
He turned to his companion who had not said a word. “Call in the license number, see if we have anything on it.” The other one nodded and left, passing Dad at the door. Dad hurried into the kitchen. He was carrying a bag from Penney’s.
“What’s going on? Why are you here?” he asked the officer.
“Is there someplace where we can talk?” the officer asked. Dad took him to the living room.
As soon as Jason was up and dressed we went outside. I sat on the patio with a cup of coffee and he played ball with Spotty. I did not want Jason to see the uniformed police officers and I most certainly did not want him to blurt out that the brain drain dudes had been there.
The police left, but we knew it wasn’t over yet. Others would come and ask questions. The best we could hope for was that the men in suits were from the private security company, and Dad would simply deny that he had been in California that year. His word against Styvesant’s, he said. “And,” he added, “Styvesant is no better than a horse thief. He puts nags up for auction. Let them prove it.”
A tow truck came and removed the car and two private detectives came. Vernon let them search the house and yard. They even looked on the roof. And they searched the park and the clubhouse, and no doubt talked to residents of the other section of the subdivision, including a couple who had seen Dad and Vernon on the bus that day. No government official came to ask questions to our great relief.