The Good Neighbor (18 page)

“But what am I supposed to do with it?”

“I don’t care. Dump it out at sea. Bury it. Just don’t try and sell it, whatever you do. You’ll get caught, and that will be the end of you. You’ll go to jail for a long time, and no one will be able to get you out. Promise me.”

“All right,” said Michael. “I promise.”

“And if you said you’re not going to touch any of it, then what are you smoking right now?”

“Well, they won’t mind me helping myself to a
little
,” said Michael. “I mean, after all, I did save it from the cops. And ‘Thou shalt not muzzleth the ox that treadeth the corn.’ Remember that one from the Bible? Ha ha! And you thought I didn’t know any thing!”

Francie covered her face in her hands. Then she grabbed the joint out of Michael’s fingers and stubbed it out on her tea saucer.

“Stop,” she said. “Just stop.” “Are you mad?”

“Yes. I’m mad.” “How mad?”

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“Really mad.” “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, well,” Francie said, “in that case, I guess everything’s all right.” She sighed. “Let’s go to sleep. I’m exhausted.”

❚ ❚ ❚

When they went downstairs, Colt had disappeared. Michael dragged his air mattress in from the bus, trudging through snow that had now piled up in drifts over a foot high. He set it in front of the fire, and he and Francie snuggled in on top of it together, a couple of blankets thrown over them, using their arms for pillows. Francie, chilled, was still wearing her sweatshirt. She rolled over now and put one arm over her brother, who already slept the deep sleep of the drugged. She almost managed to drift off, despite the noise made by Colt, who was apparently stomping from room to room on the third floor, shoving around the few articles of fur

niture they’d brought with them.

What the hell does
he
have to be mad about? she thought. He’s not the one who’s just had his heart ripped out of his chest. He’s not the one who’s been gutted.

And yet it soothed her, in an odd way, to know that he was feeling something. At least he wasn’t sitting there ignoring her and the world around him, watching television, which was what he always did after an argument.

The last thing of which she was aware was that the power came back on. Light flooded the room, and beneath her, Francie could hear the faint hum of the polybrachial furnace as it sprang into life once more. She got up quickly, shivering, and turned the overhead light off, then dove back onto the mattress. The furni ture noises upstairs stopped abruptly and were replaced by the ticking of the vents as the house began to warm again. Comforted by this, and by her brother pressed against her, she slept.

13
‌

The Diary of Marly Musgrove

A
s is common with secret doors, Francie found hers by acci dent.

The day had begun with her waking sometime before sunrise. Michael was snuffing and puffing gently beside her, his arm flung over his face as if still trying to protect his battered nose. She slid off the air mattress carefully, so she wouldn’t wake him, and waited for a moment on her hands and knees to see if he would stir. The house was dark and cold—even though the furnace was struggling gamely—but it was far from silent. Mysterious creaks and groans came from every beam, and the floor crackled under her feet as she went to her pants and felt in her pocket. Already the hair was rising on the back of her neck, the same way it did when she was watching a scary movie, or when she imagined that she was being watched by spirits. And yet she was not afraid.

On her key chain was a tiny flashlight, the kind you squeezed in the middle. Francie took it out of her jeans pocket now and shone it around the living room, slicing through the blackness as if it were jungle undergrowth. She was an explorer; she would do

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some exploring. She padded slowly through the other living room and into the den. She had no idea what time it was, but the sky was still black. She marveled once again at the deep, dark sheen of the den’s oak paneling, ran her fingers over its smooth richness. Then she went into the kitchen, shivering as her feet came into contact with the frigid slate, simply looking around at how differ ent everything seemed under the feeble beam of the flashlight.

The uncharted second floor beckoned her next, with its long hallway of closed doors. Here were the bedrooms, which must once have been full of children but now were empty of every thing, even beds. The rooms were narrow and tight, each with a single window at the end. There were six of them. She stuck her head into each, like a prison warden. Through a window at the end of the hall she caught a glimpse of a single high-flying cloud, no bigger than a man’s fist, reflecting the first pinks of the rising sun as it spilled over the eastern edge of the world. At the same time she became aware of a raucous and stentorian snoring from upstairs. The hair on her neck rose again. Colt. Oh yes. She’d al most forgotten about him.

Francie tiptoed upstairs to the third floor and looked tenta tively into the master bedroom. There he was, sprawled diago nally, bachelor-wise, on the mattress that they’d brought from the guest bedroom, just his nose visible as it emerged from under the edge of the duvet. Look at him, sleeping away as if he hadn’t a care in the world, she thought. How dare he be so relaxed? She would just have to fix that.

She picked up the empty suitcase that sat on the floor and thunked it down again, but he didn’t move. Vindictiveness for yesterday’s crimes surged in her suddenly, and she felt a strong urge to throw something. She picked up the suitcase again and flung it with all her might into the open closet, where it smacked heavily against the wall. Still, he didn’t move. Intending now to drop it on his head, or something like that, she went into the closet to retrieve the suitcase and, turning on the light, saw where

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it had struck the wall. It had left a mark, and when she touched it to see if it was permanent, she felt the wall itself give slightly. Oh, dear, she thought, all anger fled now, I’ve broken something. And, pressing experimentally upon the spot, a door about three feet tall swung inward.

Francie sank to the floor in astonishment. Childhood memo ries, again possibly hers, probably not, flooded her mind: a wardrobe in England, with a Christly lion on the other side. Sweet nostalgia overcame her as she remembered: yes, there
was
a better place than this, and she could still find it, if only she looked hard enough.

And now, apparently, she had.

For some moments she was too surprised to do anything. Colt had finally begun to rustle in the bed. Francie hastily pulled the closet door shut behind her. Now she didn’t want him awake, for he would ruin this, too. Crouching, she reached up and yanked the chain that turned off the closet light. Then, suddenly timid, she shone her flashlight into the little doorway that had just mag ically revealed itself.

“You have got to be kidding, house,” she whispered. “No way.

No way
.”

But the house wasn’t kidding. Her light revealed a cramped, narrow stairway, heading down. It was a tight fit, and ahead of her lay utter darkness, but without a second thought she ducked in.

The air in the stairway was close and musty, and, unbearably, it was full of cobwebs, which to her had always felt like skeins of human hair—
dead
human hair. She couldn’t bear the way they clung to her. But for something as unexpectedly wonderful as a se cret stairway, she could put up with it.

Down, down she went, shining the finger-thin beam ahead of her. She was aware that the stairway wound around once and then twice, by which time she was disoriented. Her breath came quickly as she wondered what she would find at the bottom of it.

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Surely it would be marvelous; surely it would change her life, like an angel’s wing brushing her forehead. There would be talking ani mals, and witches, both good and bad. Perhaps she would find a whole race of beings who’d been waiting patiently for centuries for her to come lead them to freedom. Her blood boiled with a fever she hadn’t known since girlhood.

And then, quite suddenly, she found herself in a little room. She thought that she must be back on the first floor by now,

only it was a part of the first floor that none of them had ever seen. The room was no more than five feet tall at its highest end; at the other, it petered out into the point of a triangle. Judging by the ziggurat-shaped ceiling, she was underneath the main stair way. If she stretched her arms out to either side she could touch the walls simultaneously. So it was a crawl space, more or less—a hiding place. It could be nothing else. Obviously, no one was sup posed to know it was there.

Yet
someone
had known, for they had been here, and left arti facts. In the glare of her little flashlight Francie saw an old green- glass bottle, lying on its side. Near it, propped against the wall as though taking a break, were three creepy little figures, which Fran cie recognized as old-fashioned rag dolls, their cloth faces blank as thumbnails. Someone had wrought these with great skill out of sewing scraps, for despite their facelessness they were easily rec ognizable as a man, woman, and child—a little rag family, each in their own suit of clothes. Picking up the child doll, Francie gasped as she stuck her finger on a wooden splinter in the floor. A globe of blood swelled like dew on her fingertip. She licked it off, the sour taste of copper mingling with a bit of grit. Grimacing, she hawked and spat. Her saliva pooled in the thick dust; here was one place where the tender ministrations of Flebberman had not reached. No one had ever cleaned in here.

Which meant it was
really
secret.

Francie tucked the child doll into the sleeve of her sweatshirt, deciding to leave the other two where they sat. She didn’t want

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Colt to know anything about this. He didn’t deserve it. It was
her
world, she thought; he would only do something to ruin it. Then, casting her light around, she noticed the bottle again. Wiping its face clean, she read the yellowed label:

McNally’s
SPECIAL ORIENTAL TONIC

Cure-all for
MIND
,
BODY
and
SOUL
! Guaranteed to Fix What Ails You! Made From
A SECRET
Ressapie

OF ONE HUNDRED HERBS
of the
ORIENT
!

T
HIS ELIKSIR OF HEALTH
has been Used From Time Out of Mind in the East by

Sages, Wise Men, Kings and Queens!

As Well As Princes and Conquering Heroes!

It Is Unknown in Europe!

ONLY IN AMERICA
!

All Ailments Healed!

Youth Restored!

MANLY VIM AND VIGOR
Will Return to You Upon Taking Only

ONE
draught of this
SPECIAL RARE
Potion!
PRICE ONLY
$1.00

Excellent Also for Sleepless Children, Toothache, Fever, Stummickache and

The Pains of Childbearing Womon!

What kind of snake oil was this? Francie wondered. A dried cork still plugged the bottle’s mouth, but crumbled to dust when she removed it. Inside she could make out the encrusted remnants of whatever dubious substance it had once held, long thickened into solid sludge. She sniffed it carefully, and some faint, medici nal odor drifted into her nostrils. She set the bottle down again and wiped a hand on her sweatshirt.

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Conscious now that she had stumbled onto some kind of trea sure trove, Francie felt a delighted tightening in her bowels. She was, she knew, in the very heart of the house. Some child had played in here once—probably a girl, judging from the dolls. This was confirmed when she next discovered a brooch, missing half its paste diamonds, and a hairpin with a butterfly on it. These were the kinds of things only a girl would appreciate. Picking up the lat ter, she realized that the butterfly was woven from human hair. Its wings were looped around and around, like tiny strands of rope, and they were twisted expertly together in the middle to form the delicate body. She overcame her momentary revulsion to wonder at the patience that had been required to make such a tiny thing. Whose hair was it? she wondered. Carefully she blew the dust from it, and saw that the hair was a beautiful gold—time had dimmed it only a little.

And then she saw the book.

She’d nearly missed it, for it was covered in such a thick layer of dust that it blended in perfectly with the floor. It was a big book, a thick book. Another thrill ran through her. Running her finger along its spine, she felt the dried leather of the binding, and a shiver ran like a current down her own spine. She lifted it, mar veling at its weight. This was no cheap paperback. It was a real book, made the way books used to be. Judging by its heaviness, Francie knew that the pages were made of materials other than just paper; perhaps linen, too. She had learned something about bookmaking while she was in college—not much, but enough to realize that this was the kind of book they didn’t make anymore. Neither the spine nor the cover bore any sort of inscription.