Tighter (9 page)

Milo hadn’t taken either of the cars, so wherever he was, he’d gone by foot. I hoped he was smart enough to stay put. I wound upstairs, pacing the corridor, and then I looped back into Isa’s room, where she’d fallen asleep.

Her art notebook was drying on top of her desk.

I picked it up and flipped pages. Wildflowers, a sparrow, and then, toward the end, a sketch that had been drawn by a more sophisticated hand. A shiver lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. Now this was Jessie’s work, I was sure of it. The sketch of Peter was in three-quarter view. In the taut curve of his stingray lip, I recognized that reluctant smile.

On the flip side was a drawing of Isa. She looked softer, younger, and the date, July 5, was printed at her collar. Next to this sketch was a rendering of a hand. Jessie’s hand. She’d drawn it to scale. I curled my own hand over the sketch, and now it became a near-perfect, phantom match to mine.

Last summer, Jessie was here, in love, sketching her boyfriend, driving too fast. This summer, she was gone. And yet she wasn’t gone; in some ways, as long as I was here, doing all the things that she had done, an essence of her life remained trapped in this house. Or maybe in me. And in a dislocated tug of my senses, I almost missed her, even though I hadn’t even known her.

Maybe my loneliness was starting to unwind me. I knew I needed more socializing than just interacting with Connie and Isa and Milo; even a daily phone call with Mags would have helped, but the longer I stuck with just myself, the more messed up I might become
rapping at the windows crying at the locks
and it was beginning to bother me how much.

“Miley’s home.” Isa’s head snapped up like an elastic from the pillow, as if she hadn’t been sleeping at all. “I think I hear him, Jamie. I bet he’s freezing cold.” She yawned and then, confident that on her command I’d take care of everything, dropped off just as quickly as she’d woken.

As if on cue, the front door slammed. I was downstairs in an instant.

Milo was soaked through, hair plastered and legs darkly mud-streaked. Wherever he’d been, he carried his secrets in the spark of his eyes and color in his face.

As I reached the bottom step, I crossed my arms in front of my chest and tried to do the au pair thing. “Hey. I’ve been worried sick.”

“Hey, yourself, baby,” he answered. “Glad you care.”

I scooped a breath. “Where’ve you been?”

His smile was deliberately mysterious. “Hanging out. With my peeps.”

My heart raced. He wanted me to go first. To be first to say the name. “But I know who you were out with, Milo. You were out with Peter,” I whispered.

He stepped back. “Ha. One week at Skylark, and you might have officially lost your mind.”

“You want to tell me, but you want to keep it private, too. I get it, Milo. That other night, when you talked about being watched?” I took the last step down. “Well, now I know what you meant. Because I saw him earlier, on the lawn. And I’ve seen him twice with Jessie near the lighthouse. But this isn’t any news to you, because you’ve seen him, too, haven’t you?”

Milo stared at me as if he was trying to decide something. “I need a hot shower,” he said. “Maybe you haven’t noticed? But it’s raining.” Then he charged past me up the stairs, swiping me on purpose with his wet clothes.

I followed him, up the stairs and down the hall, my words aimed at his back. “Just hear me out, okay? Because I know what it feels like. I do.”

Milo stopped. Pivoted. “What
what
feels like?”

“The … pull.” Tall as I was, I’d never been so aware of the couple of inches that Milo had on me.

“The pull,” he repeated. “The pull of
what
?”

And then, in a spinning second, it was as if I didn’t know him at all. As if Milo’s face lost focus and his features rearranged themselves to look entirely different. What was happening? Was it the side effect of a pill? When had I taken my last pill? I couldn’t remember. Blinking, I stepped to the side, my fingertips touching the wall to hold myself steady. “The pull from the other side.”

This wasn’t coming out right. Even in my own ears, I sounded bewildered. I wobbled on, scrabbling for my truths. “But it’s a bad idea. They come to you when they sense your need. And all they want is to pull you in tighter.” Saying it, I realized that this part, at least, was true. When I needed them most, I became Uncle Jim’s and Hank’s most electric connection to the world they’d left.

Milo shook his head hard like a dog, and in his teasing insolence, he became Milo again as the water droplets smacked across my face. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. “Okay, here’s the deal, Jamie. Maybe you didn’t mean it to be so random, but the last thing I need is some chick from New Jersey suddenly instructing me not to hang out with a guy who
died last year.
”

“No, Milo.
You
started this.” My blood burned beneath my skin. “
You
warned me. Now I’m telling you, Peter can’t be here unless you acknowledge that he is. Don’t do it. The more you give in, the harder he’ll hold on to you; it will be impossible—”

“And what I’m telling
you
,” interrupted Milo, “is why don’t you figure out how to keep your head on straight and your eyes on my sister? At least till your time here is finished. Meantime, I’ll forget that we had this conversation. That work for ya?”

I swallowed. Milo’s words were the hard push that shoved me outside myself.

We stared at each other. I’d been quick with my convictions, so positive that the kids on the cliff were Jessie and Peter, so certain that Milo possessed something extra special, maybe almost prophetic. I’d been sure that he’d wanted, maybe even needed, to reach out to me that first night on the porch, when he’d warned me about being watched.

I’d trusted my instinct, but I must have made a mistake. What did I have to go on, anyway? Isa hadn’t ever acknowledged the kids on the cliffs. Not either day. That mark on the carpet might have been there already … and these stupid pills … I rubbed my dry eyes. I hadn’t thought this out.

Milo was waiting for my response. “Okay?”

Retreat on this one, Jamie.

“Fine. Just don’t come crying to me when you hear something go bump in the night.” I arched an eyebrow, as if I might have been joking with him all along. My effort to preserve my dignity mortified me. Especially when, without another word, Milo shut the door in my face.

I slunk off, tunneled down to the subterranean family room, flipping from bad movies to nighttime talk shows to news programs. Just like home, only minus all my mild reassurances—Mom’s voice, the woolly maroon afghan. Later, dragging myself upstairs and around the long halls toward my bedroom, I tripped against the darkness. I’d left the lamp on in my bedroom, and as I opened my door, the light spilling out into the hall seemed to ignite my vision.

The children had changed. I sensed it even before I turned to confront the portrait head-on. They were watching me now, with held breath and three sets of eyes. Two boys and their sister, posed exactly as they had always been. Navy velvet, tatted-lace collars, strawberries-and-cream complexions. Then what was different? Was it their expressions that had altered, or my perception?

Slowly and methodically, I made myself step forward. My fingers reached out to touch the canvas, tracing lightly across the bumpy, cool surface, passing over the older boy’s cheek and up to his eye, the center of his pupil, where a tiny hole had been stabbed clean through. I could feel the rough notch of its split against my fingertips.

I touched the other eye. Same. Both eyes of every single child had been punctured through the center. More than a pin, less than a fork. So precise as to be undetected.

Almost undetected.

Stepping back, I was conscious of a dull roar, as if I were holding a conch shell to each of my ears.

It was hardly any change, and yet for all intents, it had mutilated the children. They had become eerie distortions of themselves. My heart tumbled as I stepped back to look at the portrait again. Now that I’d discovered it, there was no way not to see it.

“You think you’re so sly, Peter,” I spoke low into the darkness, my own voice soothing me, reminding me that I was here, truly here, in a way that he was not. “But I don’t. And now I’m learning your tricks, aren’t I?”

Of course, I wasn’t the first person who had discovered them.

ELEVEN

Just by luck, I was able to broach the topic with Connie the very next evening. Milo had gone out with friends, while Isa had been invited by a Green Hill Beach Club family to a barbecue. Since Connie had already bought groceries, she went ahead with dinner. She liked to eat, I’d noticed, and devoted much time to shopping for, preparing and cleaning up meals. It tired me just to watch.

But tonight I decided to help with the salad—a first—which seemed to make her happy. Or at least she was humming as she brushed a marinade onto the tuna steak that she was preparing with tomatoes and capers. When I hauled out the full trash bag to the Dumpster, she thanked me—another first.

The Dumpster was tucked back along the hedgerows. As I yanked it open, dirty collected rainwater sloshed down my legs, and a flock of flies swooped up in my face.

“Ecchh!” I batted them away. Connie had tucked the dead squirrel into a wastepaper bag, but she hadn’t knotted it right. I chucked it into the garbage bag and slammed down the lid, then raced back up to the house.

Connie had set the table. She said grace. Then we ate in silence.

“Pretty day at the beach,” I started. “They had some competitions today, and Isa placed third in her division for diving.”

“Mmmph.” Not a great jumping-off point, so to speak. Connie wasn’t much for activities; she seemed to much prefer the Great Indoors.

“I love how you did the zucchini,” I said, smiling, hoping I didn’t seem too not-me.

“Wath a time Itha wouldn’t eat anything until I pureed it,” Connie remarked as she ladled me a second helping. “Thpoiled children can be a challenge and a trial. I grew up on the island. We all hated thummertime, when the fanthy folk came in. I’m thtill thuthpithuth.” This last word would have set Mags off; alone, I nodded seriously.

“But aren’t the McRae people fancy folk?”

“I work for Thkylark,” Connie clarified. “And my mother before me, and her mother before her. And
her
mother lived here. Thkylark wath built by my great-grandfather.”

“Winslow Hastings Horne?”

Connie looked pleased. “Why, how do you know ’bout him?”

Here was my opportunity. A pleased Connie was not in her signature mood. “My parents are architecture buffs,” I lied. “I read about Horne in one of their books. He’s kind of a big deal. In my house, anyway.”

Pleasure opened Connie’s face. “He’th internationally recognithed. Fact ith, I own Horne’s only thilhouette.” She leaned forward. “Never published.”

“Horne’s silhouette? Cool. I can’t wait to tell my parents.” I gave it my all. “So you’re from an original family of Bly.”

Connie seemed thrilled that I’d reached this conclusion on my own. “That’th true.”

“And the Quints have lived here forever, too, right?”

Another nod. “Augie Quint doeth home thecurity. He can lock and unlock the entire island with the touch of a button.”

“Was Peter planning to go into the family business?”

Connie’s lips pursed at the name. “Peter? No … too much of a hothead.”

“But he sounds like he was fun to be around.”

A tic in her face suggested doubt. “He’d come over full of mithchief. Throw Itha in the air, tell joketh, play all hith awful muthic real loud. But he brought in the dark, too.”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated. “Moody, wath all I meant.”

“And Jessie? What was she like?”

“A thummer Bly girl. Only thing different being how thee picked Peter over her people—and her family weren’t none too happy about that.” Connie pulled out her hankie and blew.

“But it must have been hard on Peter.”

“How tho?”

“Just, I mean, with Jessie and Isa and all these other Bly kids having so much.” It was now or never. “I’ve been here over a week. And I’ve discovered some things. The strange things he did.”

“Who?”

“Peter. I’ve noticed how he took some of his, you know, his darkness out on Skylark.”

“What are you thaying?” If Connie’d had quills, they’d all have been sticking out in defense.

“Almost like little tantrums or grudges.” I shrugged. “Even Isa knew about it. It’s like there are all these scars all over the house.”

Connie fell quiet.

“Like the cigarette burns.” Now I’d really launched myself. “And the missing tiles in Isa’s fireplace. I know you saw the
J
that he knifed into the wood of that lounge chair upstairs. At first I’d thought it was Jessie, but that’s not her style at all. She was outgoing, a free spirit. He was different, more withdrawn, but he was angry, too—and he’s done a lot of damage around here. That’s why you never go up to the third floor, right? Because you take good care of this house, Connie. You see everything. Except for some reason you’ve decided not to see the pinholes in that portrait of the three kids. And you’ve ignored the ashes in the fireplace, and the dead squirrel and the—”

“No, no, thith ith all too thilly.” With a snap of her head, Connie seemed to break herself from her trance of listening. “I don’t have the leatht idea what you mean,” she declared.

“You do so,” I pressed. “You let Peter hang out here all last summer. Because he was a local, and the locals always watch each other’s backs. But you didn’t know the damage he was doing, or you’d never have let him. You’re probably still kind of upset about it, since it all happened on your watch, am I right?”

Hot spots had appeared in her cheeks. The flat of her hand rolled her napkin back and forth, back and forth. It made me nervous to see her so vulnerable. I’d expected something else: a guilty admission, and an alliance, maybe. “Go tell the Mithter, then,” she said stiffly. “If it’th trouble you’ve wanted all along.”