Solitary: A Novel (10 page)

"Seriously?"

Mom looks at me with a glance that says so much.

Be quiet, for one thing.

Get out, for another.

Mind your manners is surely in there.

And last but not least, This is freaking crazy.

Her sigh gives it away.

After several knocks on the crusted-over door with its welcome mat of dried paint chips, we hear a voice inside. We'd maybe look in the window, but it's dirty, dark like the clouds around us, unwashed for a century.

"Hello?" my mother says in a friendly tone.

"Inside," someone hollers in a not-so-friendly tone.

Mom turns the door handle, glances at me, walks in.

I start to get claustrophobic even before stepping foot inside.

If I thought that cabin I found in the woods was gross, this is something else. The smell of something rotten fills my nostrils, burning them. I don't know what death smells like, but this reeks of it. Mom turns just as I'm about to say something.

"Hello?" she calls out again.

We hear something crash in a room in the back. We're in the muted light of a living room, though it doesn't look like any kind of living to me. The glow of two windows creates shadows in the otherwise dark room. There's no light bulb lit. I half wonder if there's any power to light one.

"Aunt Alice?"

A round goblin comes out of the darkness of the hallway. At least that's what I see in my mind first, a round-faced figure hunched over, leaning on something.

As my eyes adjust, I see the woman. She's both overweight and tiny, if that makes any sense. It makes about as much sense as anything around her. She's short but round, with chunky arms and a couple of necks. By the way she moves, Alice hides half of her body.

"Aunt Alice, it's me. It's Tara."

The eyes widen. She stops, leaning on what appears to be some kind of walking stick.

"Tara?"

"It's Tara. Tara Kinner."

My mother's maiden name obviously rings a bell. I'm expecting the good ole "let me make you some biscuits and gravy" routine.

But Aunt Alice just stands there, leaning over, a scowl coming over her face. "What are you doing here?"

"Alice, I came by to see you. I want you to meet someone."

"Why did you come back?"

"Alice, this is Chris, my son."

Thanks, Mom. Great time to be introduced.

I stand like a complete lump and long for the days of simply being neglected in a classroom.

"You shouldna come back here."

Her voice is grainy, Southern to the core, almost hard to understand.

Mom looks at me.

"Hi," I say weakly.

"What do you want?" Aunt Alice asks.

I see the black outline of a crow in the corner, either a stuffed one or a carving. I swear I see its eyes blink.

Then the bird moves.

My skin and my heart move with it.

It flutters for a few minutes, then settles, having announced its presence.

If my mom is surprised or scared, she doesn't show it. "Do you mind if we stay for a few minutes?"

"This place isn't for you," Aunt Alice says, shuffling on toward the kitchen, which is separated from the living room by a half wall.

Mom points at me to sit down. I half expect to find bird poop on the chair or maybe a snake coiled up. I smile and stay standing.

Aunt Alice lights a couple of candles that make the place even creepier than before.

There's nothing in here that's pleasant.

A big frame shows a man who is as pale as a ghost with a bald head and an expression that makes me think he wants to kill the photographer. Then I notice that it's a painting.

"That's my grandfather," Mom tells me.

"Nice."

"Shhh."

Mom goes toward the kitchen. I can't help keeping my eyes on the crow that's resting on the back of a chair. It seems to be watching me.

"Don't have much around here," Aunt Alice says. "Don't get many stoppin' by."

"That's okay. We're fine. I just wanted to come by and let you know we're here."

Aunt Alice opens what appears to be an ancient refrigerator. My eyes take in more of the room.

I see a small table with a few pictures on it, some strange beads covering them, a woodcarving of an owl.

That better be a woodcarving, 'cause if that sucker suddenly hoots, I'rn outta here.

I move toward the kitchen and past an armchair; then I turn and almost pass out.

A figure is sitting in the chair.

It's a corpse.

A rotting, stinking corpse.

It's the reason this place smells so bad, and the reason that I'm so out of here.

I jerk back and hit the wall and knock down something to the ground.

"Chris."

"Mom-did you see-"

But it's not a dead body. It's a mannequin.

A dressed-up mannequin of a woman wearing pants and a jacket.

Dead eyes stare back at me.

I can just picture having a cup of coffee while sitting next to that thing. Maybe if I stay long enough, it'll start talking.

Mom keeps chatting with Aunt Alice while I pick up the framed stitching I knocked off the wall.

It's a pentagram.

I'm not sure what side was up or down. I forget what a pentagram stands for. Upside down or not, I'm beginning to think wonderful little Aunt Alice is into some weird stuff.

She lights more candles and proceeds to sit in the chair that the crow is resting on.

I lean against the wall, telling my mom I'm fine right where I am. Away from the mannequin.

"Are you Chris?" Alice asks me.

I was beginning to believe-well, hope is the word-that she hadn't even noticed me.

"Yes, hi, hello."

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

Her eyes grow dim. Even in a chair, she slouches, as if her back is permanently bent. I see spotted, fleshy hands rub something-a clear stone that's on a chain. It looks like a triangle.

"When are you leavin'?" Aunt Alice asks Mom.

"We're here to stay."

"You can't stay around here."

"This is our home."

"No home to you, not anymore. You should know that. You should know that by now."

"How have you been?" Mom asks her, ignoring her threats and warnings.

For fifteen of the longest minutes of my life, I listen to Mom try and engage the lady in this strange, smelly house in Nowhereland. The sound of the rain hits the metallic roof. My legs are tired, but I'm still okay standing. In case I need to run out of the door for any reason. In case the mannequin sits up and starts singing "Hello, Dolly."

"This is no place for him. For a family. For young'uns."

"Have you seen my brother, Aunt Alice? Have you see Robert at all?"

"Don't know a Robert."

"Bobby?"

Aunt Alice thinks for a minute, still rubbing that rock of hers.

I see something white come out of nowhere and slip between her legs.

A cat. Some big white ball of fur.

"He was around not long ago."

"Do you know what happened to him?"

"The mouth of the beast swallowed him up," Aunt Alice says. "Just like Jonah. Just like Annie. Just like it will swallow you."

Mom seems unfazed. "Did you talk to Bobby?"

"Death surrounded him. Death hung in the air around him like a broken halo. Death chased after him."

"What happened to him, Aunt Alice? Where'd he go?"

Aunt Alice suddenly turns to me, then starts to laugh.

I see missing teeth-either that or black ones. She starts to howl with laughter.

"Hell," she says in that southern drawl. "Hell. He stopped by just before he reached hell. Just like the two of you. Just like you."

I don't know whether I should laugh or shiver.

My mother plows down the long driveway from Aunt Alice's house. It's twenty minutes after the quote of the day involving us somehow going to hell. That was the climax of the morning as far as I'm concerned. The only thing that could have topped that would've been the mannequin standing up and asking me to play a game of checkers.

I'm waiting for Mom to say something.

When she does, it's a keeper.

"Well, that brings the term dysfunctional family to a whole new level."

We laugh. I mean really laugh.

Sometimes when life is so amazingly awful, that's all you can do. That's one option, at least. It's either laugh or cry. We've done our share of both.

"Was she always that friendly?" I joke.

"She saw Robert. At least I got that out of her."

"Maybe she buried him in the backyard."

"Stop."

"Did you smell it in there?"

"Yes."

"That wasn't a normal smell. That wasn't the sort of something's- gone-bad-in-the-garbage smell. That was the sort of Dahmer-next-door smell."

"Stop it."

"I'm serious," I say.

"It's probably just some dead animal."

"Oh, well, in that case, it's fine."

My mom laughs at my sarcasm. "I didn't realize-I didn't know she was like that."

"What do you mean?" I ask. "You didn't realize Aunt Alice was completely whacked?"

"Stop."

"This was fun. Can't wait to meet some more relatives."

"Chris-"

"I'm not even going to say it."

"Then don't."

But of course I do. "I don't get why we came back here."

"I thought you weren't going to say it."

"Did I say that? Sorry, my thought spoke out loud."

"We've had this conversation a hundred times."

"And a hundred times, I keep getting the wrong answers."

"There's no right answer I can give you," Mom tells me.

"Sure there is."

"No. Because all you want to hear is that we're leaving this place. And that's not going to happen. We're staying."

"Even if that means we're going to hell?"

"Your Aunt Alice has some issues."

"You think?"

"Chris, be respectful."

"This just keeps getting better."

"What?"

"Everything. This place. This life."

"Stop it."

"I can't wait to get home and find out that the authorities are coming to get me. Maybe I'll be placed under house arrest. Or better yet, confined to stay a month with Aunt Alice."

Even though my mother doesn't want to, she laughs.

That's all either of us can do.

I peel the orange at the small table by the kitchen as I wait for my mother to get off the phone. When she finally thanks Principal Harking, I hold my breath and wait.

"It's all sorted out. The principal said that they ruled out that the gun belonged to you."

"Whose was it?"

"They can trace it back to a seller in Tennessee. Obviously there are no ties to you. The principal said that one of the deputies was going to stop by."

"It's almost seven o'clock."

"Maybe they'll stop by yet tonight."

"Doubt it. So that means I have to go back tomorrow?"

"You make it sound like a penitentiary."

"You haven't walked the halls."

"One more day and you have the weekend."

"Fantastic."

I can't help but think of the dance that I'm not going to.

It's not that I want to go to a dance. I'd go milk cows with Jocelyn if I could. Or do whatever kids around here do for fun.

"Chris?"

I don't notice the mess I'm making with the orange until Mom gets my attention. "Yeah?"

"Do you really think those guys you had a run-in with might have put a gun in your locker?"

"Yeah. I mean-I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't think it happened accidentally."

"You need to be careful, okay?"

"I've got the whole school watching me now. I'm probably safer than I was a couple of days ago."

"You have a point there."

I eat a sliver of orange. "You forget how fast I am."

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

"Sorry."

"You can't outrun everybody. I know, Chris. I've tried."

The phone call around nine o'clock makes me jerk even though I'm upstairs and only hear it faintly.

I wait.

It's not like we get many calls.

And calls at night are never good things. At least not for the Buckley household.

"Chris!"

I go downstairs and see the glow of the television as my mother holds the phone.