A Skeleton in the Family (13 page)

Actually, I thought she sounded kind of gleeful in a stare-at-the-car-wreck kind of way, but since I was just as gleefully eavesdropping, I had no high moral ground on which to stand.

“Oh, don't get me started on that damned dog,” Corrina said. “I do—you know I have two of my own. But here's the thing. When Rich was growing up, he wanted a dog in the worst way, but Mother Kirkland wouldn't let him have one. . . . No, no cat either. Not even a hamster! She said a pet might mess up her experiments and that she didn't have time to deal with one, anyway. Then, when she retired, the first thing she did was get a dog, which she paid more attention to than she ever did her grandchildren. . . . Well, we certainly weren't going to take it, and the twins wouldn't, so Rich dropped it off at a shelter. . . . Lunch next week would be great. Pick somewhere with a good bar. Having to deal with these academic types makes me crazy!”

Corrina's husband, Rich, came striding our way, and I pulled my own phone out of my purse so I could pretend to read e-mail or tweet or watch Justin Bieber videos—anything that would make my nosiness less obvious.

Corrina ended her call, and after she spoke to her husband for a few moments at a much lower volume, they went back toward the chapel. I saw that the lawn was nearly empty of people and the caterers were cleaning up the buffet table, so it was time to go. I took my empty plate and cup back and headed for my van.

I just hoped Sid would see something on the video I'd taken that would help him remember something useful.

H
e didn't.

“Are you sure you don't recognize anybody?” I asked after showing him every bit of footage I'd filmed. It was late, and we were in the attic again. I was spending more time up there than I was in my bed.

I pointed to people I'd thought were key players, saying, “These two are of Kirkland's kids. This guy is their little brother. The woman is her not-so-devoted daughter-in-law. Michaels there is head of the anthro department. He said he'd known her for years. This other guy gave a eulogy, too.” I showed him everybody whose identity I'd found out, but he kept shaking his head. “Don't any of these people look familiar?

“Not a one,” he said. “It's like the red carpet for the most boring awards show in the world.”

“Coccyx!”

Sid patted me on the shoulder. “I'm sorry, Georgia. I'm just causing trouble. Let's forget I ever saw that woman. I don't care that much.”

I might have believed him if I hadn't noticed one of his smaller bones lying on the floor under the table. “I'm not giving up!” I kicked a box of books, which didn't help but did make me feel better for the millisecond before the pain kicked in.

“Stop that and go to bed. You can leave me the computer and I'll go through the video again. Maybe I'll see something.”

It was a better plan than anything I had to offer, and I was beat. So I told him to sneak the laptop back down to my bedroom before I got Madison up in the morning.

I was too tired to stay up worrying, but in the morning, I really was hoping he would have found something. Instead, I found a note on top of my computer bag:

I'm sorry. Nothing.

“Damn it!” I said.

Of course Madison picked that moment to come out of her bedroom. “What's wrong?”

“I stubbed my toe.” I noticed she was rubbing her eyes more than usual. “What about you? You're not looking too chipper this morning.”

“I didn't sleep well. I kept hearing noises from the attic. Did you get a squirrel trap yet? I think he's having squirrel raves up there.”

I'd forgotten that particular lie. “I'll take care of it today.” Another lie. I really hated lying to her, but I didn't feel I could break Sid's confidence, either. Bouncing back and forth between the two of them was starting to make me feel like a philandering wife, but instead of getting twice the sex, I was just getting screwed.

The two of us stumbled through our morning routines, and since Madison was running late, I went the few blocks out of my way to drop off her and her bike at school so she wouldn't be late. Of course that made me late for my first class, which provided a new dose of guilt.

After class, I bought myself the biggest cup of coffee offered on campus and stumbled toward the adjunct office. I would have gone to my parents' office instead, since it was bound to be quieter, but if I had, I'd have fallen asleep and missed my afternoon classes. I didn't need any more reasons to feel bad about myself.

In a desperate attempt to impersonate a useful member of society, I got caught up with all the e-mailed questions and requests for deadline extensions. Next I whipped through some early essays that had shown up in my mailbox. It was a better-than-average showing—a few papers showed some nice turns of phrase, and none were utter disasters. Most cheering of all, Fletcher called and asked if I had time to meet him for lunch, which I definitely did.

It wasn't fancy—we went to Jasper's, the diner just outside McQuaid's front entrance—but I was happy to count it as a third date, especially when he expressed regret that he had to cover a story that night, so we couldn't go out. Instead he suggested we go out on Sunday. I accepted, and got back on campus early for my next class.

I'd thought I could spend some quality time with Madison that night, but she had other ideas. After she wolfed down a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, a friend picked her up for a movie. A less-fortunate woman might have felt glum at the prospect of a Friday evening alone, but I had an ace in the hole. Or rather, a skeleton in the attic. I made sure all the blinds were down, put the chain on the door so Madison wouldn't come in unexpectedly, and went up to knock on Sid's door.

“Who is it?”

“Who do you think? Want to come down and watch a movie?”

“I don't know. I just started a book and it's really good.”

“Uh-huh. You've been eavesdropping and you know I'm alone, so now you're playing hard to get.”

“I'm made of bone. You don't get much harder than that.”

“Suit yourself. I thought you might want to watch
The Nightmare Before Christmas
in Blu-ray, and—”

Before I could finish, he came clattering down the stairs.

Since Jack Skellington was one of the few positive role models in media for ambulatory skeletons, the movie was a favorite for both of us, so we didn't talk until it was over. Only then did I say, “I guess you still don't recognize anybody from the memorial service.”

“Maybe I shouldn't have expected to. People can change a lot in thirty years.”

“You recognized Dr. Kirkland.”

“She's an exception—from the stuff you found on the Web, she looked and dressed the exact same way for the last forty years.”

“I suppose we could try to find pictures of people from thirty years ago. . . .” I said, but we both knew I was grasping at straws. Which people would I look up? Kirkland's family? Colleagues? Students? “Have you come up with anything else?”

“There's still my tattoo.”

“Your what?”

“My tattoo. In my skull.”

“That's not a tattoo.”

“Sure it is. All the cool kids have tattoos.”

“If you say so. Anyway, I don't know what to do about the ‘tattoo.' Yo said there's no standards for IDs, so how can we track down the collection you came from?”

“Put it up on the Web, see if anybody recognizes the markings? Or check around with other adjuncts?”

“What if word gets back to the curator of whatever collection you came from and he or she wants you back? Yo said you were worth a lot of money—”

“I'd say I'm priceless.”

“Without a doubt, but it's not like we have a bill of sale for you—the carnival you were in probably thought somebody stole you.”

“I escaped,” Sid said haughtily. “Speaking of the carnival, maybe the people there killed me.”

“Sure, traveling carnivals kill patrons and then use them to decorate their haunted houses all the time. They probably caught you in the tunnel of love making out with the carnival owner's voluptuous daughter and took umbrage. Didn't Wes Craven use that story? Or was it George Romero?”

“I'd totally watch that movie.”

“But not as a documentary. Anyway, back to the tattoo. An ID number says
scientist
to me, not
carnival
. So what connection would Dr. Kirkland have with a carnival?”

“I don't know, but the carnival is the first place I remember. Maybe somebody there could tell us more.”

“Sid, I don't even remember which carnival it was. Do you?”

“No,” he admitted. “Would your parents know?”

“We're only supposed to call if there's an emergency.”

“Yeah. Not an emergency.”

I heard a bone hit the floor and knew he was letting pieces of himself fall off on purpose. Not that it mattered—it worked every time. “Deborah might remember.”

“Good idea! Only you better do the asking. She's still on her ‘Sid doesn't exist' kick.”

He looked at me, and I realized he was expecting me to call right away. I didn't know if Deborah was even home, but I did know he'd keep looking at me with those big, black eye sockets until I tried, so I got the phone.

Apparently her social life was as lively as mine—she answered on the first ring.

“Deborah? Georgia.”

“What do you need?”

“Glad to hear your voice, too.”

“Uh-huh. What do you need?”

“Just your memory. What was the name of the carnival where we got Sid?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I know this is going to sound crazy—”

“Everything involving that bag of bones sounds crazy, because everything involving him
is
crazy.”

“I'm trying to find out who he is.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“He wasn't born a skeleton. Okay, he was born
with
a skeleton, but it's a safe assumption that there were also skin, organs, and such included with the original package. And a name. It's the name I want.”

“Why?”

“Haven't you ever wondered what his real name is?”

“Not once. I've wondered about how to get him out of our lives, but not how he got into it.”

“Look, if you don't remember the name of the carnival—”

“Oh, I remember, but I'm not going to tell you unless you tell me what caused the sudden interest.”

I sighed. Deborah could give mules lessons in stubborn and was impervious to any bribe I could afford to offer. “Sid saw somebody he remembered from when he was still conventionally alive.”

“What? Where?”

“At that anime convention. He saw a woman he recognized.”

“Did she recognize him?”

I didn't bother to answer.

“Please forget that I asked that.”

“It's forgotten. Anyway, we found out her name and a lot about her, but he hasn't remembered anything else.

“He's not planning to approach her, is he?”

“No, of course not.” That was a safe bet. “But now that he's remembered something from his past, he wants to know more. I thought we could track him back to where we got him.”

“Meaning the carnival.” There was a pause. “It seems to me that you're just opening a can of worms. What if I don't tell you?”

“Then I'll get in touch with Mom and Phil. If they don't remember, I'll go to the library and find any ads for carnivals in that period. Or maybe there was a newspaper article about the fire that night. It might take me a while, but you know I'll find it.”

“If you'd devote some of that energy to researching a paper or two—”

“You don't want to finish that sentence.”

“Okay, fine. The carnival was Fenton's. Fenton's Family Fiesta, Fenton's Fun Festival, something like that, but it was definitely Fenton's.”

“Thank you.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I'm going to say good night and hang up the phone. Good night.” I hung up the phone.

The next step was to get my laptop out and Google “Fenton” and “carnival” and hope for the best. Much to my surprise, it turned out that carnivals had entered the Internet age. Not only did Fenton's Family Festival have a Web site, but it was on Facebook and Twitter as well. I thought about trying to send an e-mail or make a phone call to ask for information, but it's much harder to turn down a request for information in person.

According to the site, the show stuck with the New England area, so I checked the route, hoping it wasn't too late in the year for them to be touring. I lucked out. They were going to be about an hour's drive away in Westfield for Oktoberfest. We could even go the next day, since Madison had already planned to hang with Samantha for anime-related shenanigans.

That cleared the way for Sid to come with me, or so he informed me when I told him I was carnival bound. “And I am not riding in that suitcase.”

“Let me guess. You want to sit in the front seat with me and give heart attacks to all the other drivers. I think that would snarl traffic a bit.”

“You've got more degrees than a thermometer, and I'm brilliant. I'm sure we can come up with something.”

W
e came up with something, but it would have been a stretch to call it brilliant. I took Madison to Samantha's house first thing in the morning, teenager time, which was just before noon. Then I drove back to the house, where Sid was waiting for me, already in disguise.

He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that was a souvenir from one of my previous jobs, hood up, and he had a Red Sox cap over that. A pair of oversize sunglasses, left over from when oversize sunglasses were fashionable, covered most of his face. For his legs, he'd cinched a pair of sweatpants as tight as they would go, but was still in danger of losing them if he wasn't careful. When we added a pair of tan stretchy gloves and my father's snow boots, he was mostly concealed. I figured that as long as I didn't let any other cars get overly close, we should be okay.

Getting him to the van unseen took a little maneuvering, but we got it done and were soon on the highway to Westfield.

“This is great,” Sid said. “I haven't ridden shotgun since that Halloween back when you were in high school.”

“I remember that,” I said. “We crashed Rinda Patterson's Halloween party.”

“
I
crashed the party,” Sid corrected me. “You just drove the getaway car.”

“I was still close enough to see.” I grinned. “And hear.” Sid had rung the doorbell, and Rinda answered, expecting either a trick-or-treater or a tardy party guest, not a skeleton moaning at her. She'd screamed and fled, leaving the door wide open for Sid to go inside. Which he'd done with enthusiasm, zipping into the living room, through the kitchen and dining room, and then back out the front door to dive into our car, which I'd parked behind a bush in case anybody was watching. Nobody was—they were too busy screaming and running to notice as I drove away, laughing my ass off. “I suppose I should feel guilty about that, but I don't. Not inviting me to the party was one thing, but inviting every girl in our class except me was just mean.” It had been worth being grounded for two weeks when my parents heard about it through the school-yard grapevine and deduced the identity of the monster.

We reminisced about other Halloween pranks for the rest of the drive and even laid some possible plans for the upcoming holiday. At the very least, we could put Sid in the front yard and pretend he was one of those animated skeletons I'd seen in the stores.

Once we got closer to the Oktoberfest, traffic slowed and Sid obediently scooted down in the seat so he wasn't visible. But when I parked, he balked about being left behind.

“Sid, I am not taking you with me. If it were dark, maybe, but it's broad daylight. You're going to stay here until I get back.”

“What if you get into trouble? At least take my skull in a bag so the rest of me can come running if you need me.”

“The rest of you wouldn't be able to see where it was going! Besides which, if a headless skeleton ran through that crowd, people would probably panic. At the very least, they'd spill their beer and take pictures with their phones. Either promise to stay behind, or I'm turning this van right around and taking you home.”

“I'm developing claustrophobia thanks to you,” he muttered, but he collapsed himself onto the floor of the van and let me cover him with a blanket.

I double-checked to make sure the door was locked behind me, not wanting to scare any sneak thieves to death, then headed for the festivities. After paying the two bucks admission, I headed for the midway, resisting the tantalizing aroma of bratwurst.

None of the rides looked particularly familiar. Of course, I assumed that everything had been repaired, repainted, and brought up to current safety codes any number of times in thirty years. I found a haunted house, but the one from my memory had a house-of-wax theme, with grotesque scenes of melting faces and buxom girls in fringed vests running from shambling mad scientist types. This one was a zombie beach party, with grotesque scenes of rotting faces and buxom girls in bikinis running from shambling undead types. Apparently, buxom, running girls and shambling villains were key to haunted-house decor.

It could have been the same ride with an extreme makeover, but I couldn't be sure, and one important thing was missing: a gibbet, with a skeleton inside. There had been some sort of mechanism to wriggle the cage and make the skeleton rattle. Ironically, I'd barely noticed the skeleton—the skeleton hadn't scared me—but I'd been fascinated by the gory paintings in that way that kids can't help staring even when they know it's going to give them nightmares. In my case, however, the nightmares had come while I was awake.

I couldn't really remember all the details of what had happened that night—I'd only been six—but over the years, I've filled in the gaps with my family's memories.

It had been early spring when we'd come to the carnival and was already dark when we arrived. My parents had promptly herded Deborah and me past the haunted house and thrill rides to get to the kiddie stuff. That had been fine with me, but ten-year-old Deborah quickly grew bored with the little boats, little motorcycles, little racing cars, and other miniature modes of transportation going around in circles. She wanted to go on big-kid rides like the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Scrambler.

After consultation, Mom had agreed to go ride with Deborah while Phil escorted me to the little helicopters and the little stagecoaches. I'd been so proud to be riding without a parent or my big sister for the first time.

Then the power went out.

I learned later that it wasn't the city power but the carnival's own generator that had been the problem, but at the time, all I knew was that the ride stopped, and it was suddenly dark as far as I could see. Immediately people started screaming. Kids screamed for their parents, parents screamed for their kids, people trapped on unmoving rides screamed to be rescued, and carnies screamed for people to stop screaming.

Deborah and my mother were stuck several feet off the ground on the Octopus, but Mom kept Deborah from getting overly anxious, and in fact got all the people on the ride to sing along to “Octopus's Garden.”

Meanwhile, Phil was trying to get to me, but so were the parents of all the other kids riding on the little stagecoaches. He shouted for me, but again, so were all the parents, and I didn't hear him.

I wasn't really scared at first. Once I was sure the ride had come to a complete stop, I carefully unbuckled my seatbelt, climbed out of the stagecoach, and made my way to the exit, but I couldn't find Phil. He'd forced his way onto the ride by that point and was looking through each of the stagecoaches to find me.

The commotion started to bother, though not really scare, me, and I decided I wanted to go home. I started retracing my family's earlier path back toward the exit, getting jostled like crazy as people panicked. Some folks claimed to smell smoke, and others said they'd seen people falling from the Ferris wheel. Neither turned out to be true, but it added to the confusion.

Somehow I found myself in front of the haunted house, and if those paintings had been creepy before, now they were downright terrifying. A few of the carnies had pulled out flashlights and were trying to herd people to safety, but the flickering lights made it look as if the mad scientists were moving, reaching for me.

I began to cry, too scared to move.

A big hand landed on my shoulder and a stranger put his face right up to mine. His breath smelled bad. “Hey, little girl. Calm down, it's okay.”

I was nearly as frightened of the man as I was of the monsters. When I tried to jerk away, his grip tightened, and I whimpered.

“Come along with me, I'll take care of you.” He started pulling me toward the one place I didn't want to go—the entrance to the haunted house.

Now I started screaming, but with so many other screams, nobody even noticed.

We were right under the gibbet when the skeleton started rattling. Which made no sense. The power was still off.

“What the hell?” the man said.

A creaky voice said, “Leave the kid alone!”

“Who said that?” He looked around wildly.

I tried to wriggle free again, but he clamped down on the back of my neck, pulling my hair in the process.

“Let her go!” came a voice from above, and both my captor and I looked up.

The skeleton was looking down at us, and while we watched, he reached above his skull to unhook himself from the chain that was keeping him suspended. The gibbet wasn't particularly authentic, so there was plenty of space between the bars for him to get out, and he dropped to the ground in front of us. “Let her go,” the skeleton said.

The man's grip loosened, and I smelled pee. He stumbled away and ran, knocking through people in the crowd as he went.

If I'd been older or younger, I'd have wet my panties, too, but there was something about being six that kept me from being afraid. Besides, compared to the smelly man and the gruesome pictures, the skeleton looked downright friendly.

He knelt down in front of me. “Are you okay?”

“I want to go home.”

“Okay. Where do you live?”

I gave him my address.

“Is that far?”

I rolled my eyes. “You have to drive.”

“I don't think I know how to drive, and I don't have a car.”

“We have a station wagon. You can take me to the parking lot and Phil will drive us home.”

“Who's Phil?”

“My father.”

“Why do you call him Phil?”

“Because that's what Mom calls him. Sometimes Mom drives, too, but mostly Phil.”

“Do you know where your car is?”

“I may need you to help me look. It's blue, with a white top.”

“Okay.” He offered his hand, and I took it without hesitation and started leading him toward the exit.

I don't know why nobody noticed that there was a skeleton walking around with a little girl—either they were too busy going berserk or assumed it was somebody in costume from the haunted house or just didn't believe their eyes. At any rate, nobody stopped us on the way to the parking lot.

It was an absolute zoo in that lot, with people driving like idiots in their efforts to escape the carnival. I probably would have been hit a dozen times if I'd been out there alone, just because it was so dark and I was so small, but the skeleton lifted me up for a piggyback ride.

Again, nobody seemed to notice us, but of course nobody would expect a monster to be giving a child a piggyback ride. From the vantage point of those bony shoulders, I managed to spot our station wagon, and we made our way over there. The doors were locked, but my new friend plopped me onto the hood before climbing up himself.

“My parents will be here soon,” I said with complete assurance.

“I'll wait with you.”

“Okay. Then you can come home with us.”

But the skeleton was looking at his hand as if he'd never seen it.

“What's the matter?”

“I think I'm having a really strange dream. I'd ask you to pinch me, but I don't seem to have anything to pinch.”

“You can't pinch a skeleton.”

“I guess not.” He looked at his hand, then his feet, and then reached up to feel his skull.

At about that point, I decided it was time to attend to the social niceties. “My name is Georgia Thackery. What's yours?”

“I don't know.”

“How can you not know your own name?”

“Maybe skeletons don't have names.”

“I think your name is Sid.”

“Why Sid?”

“You look like a Sid.”

“Okay. Sid sounds good to me.”

I asked Sid about living in the carnival and who that smelly man was, but he didn't have any answers for me. I later found out that he only became completely aware at the moment he saw that guy grab me. He had some very vague impressions of seeing things happening around him before that, but said it was as if he'd been watching the world through a wall of water.

Then he asked me about myself, but I don't remember what I said. Now that I was safe, I was getting sleepy, and before too much longer, I dozed off. The next thing I knew, I was being hugged awake by my mother.

The carnival's lights were back on and she and Deborah had been rescued from the Octopus only to find my father frantically searching for me. They got the carnies involved, and Mom had come out to get a jacket for Deborah because it was getting chilly. She'd found me sound asleep on the hood of the car.

Sid was nowhere to be seen.

Mom grabbed me up and ran back to the carnival, yelling at the top of her lungs that she'd found me. Phil heard her and started running, too, and an orgy of hugging and crying commenced. Even Deborah, not the most demonstrative of people even as a child, socked me in the arm and said, “About time you showed up.”

The carnies were mightily relieved, and the owner gave Deborah and me stuffed Scooby-Doos that we kept for years, even after we realized they were knockoffs. My parents let us accept the toys but turned down the offers of a wall clock and matching watches that were prizes from the dart game.

Nobody thought to ask me how I'd ended up at the car. They just assumed I'd found my way there alone. Between the hugging and my being half asleep, I didn't think to explain. I did see Sid back in his gibbet when we walked by the haunted house, and I waved, but he didn't wave back.

It wasn't until the next morning that anybody asked for details about the previous night—characteristically, it was Deborah who demanded an explanation. I think it was because she was jealous of the attention I was continuing to get. Mom and Phil had made my favorite breakfast: cheese and eggs with extra-crispy bacon. Plus Deborah's Scooby-Doo wasn't as nice as mine, and she didn't even like Scooby-Doo that much.

When I told her about Sid, she accused me of making it up. An argument broke out, and when the volume reached the lower end of the Richter scale, my parents intervened.