Help for the Haunted(19)

“One moved away. That’s all. I have plenty of others.”

“Well, don’t forget if you ever need anything, how do you reach me?”

“RIBSPIN,” I told her, repeating the acronym she’d worked out for her number.

“Good. And do you have paperwork from your doctor visits like we discussed?”

“All right already,” Rose said. “You’re off duty, so let’s skip the official business. We are supposed to be having fun, remember? And where the hell is your date?”

So this was not an unexpected visit after all, I thought, as Cora informed us that “the Hulk” was waiting in the car. I went to the window and looked out to see an enormous rottweiler leaping from the front seat to the rear and back again, its tail a drumstick beating the seats.

“The Hulk belongs to Dan,” Cora explained. “Dan lives upstairs from my mother. He let me borrow her for the night.”

“Her? The Hulk’s a girl?”

“Yeah,” Rose told me, thrill rising in her voice. “We’re going to tie her to a tree. She’ll scare the crap out of anybody who comes around to mess with the place.” My sister turned away and started rummaging through the closet.

[page]The news should have made me feel safer. But that dog would also keep away ordinary trick-or-treaters, like my happy hookers, spoiling what little fun I looked forward to. I didn’t bother saying any of that, though. “So are you going to the party with my sister?” I asked Cora.

She gave a tight-lipped smile. “Guess that’s probably breaking some sort of code. But it’s just one party. You don’t mind, Sylvie, do you?”

I shook my head then remembered Louise’s warning about speaking up. “No.”

“Here we go.” Rose unearthed two brooms, buried so far behind the coats it made me realize how seldom we swept. One had a wooden handle and cinched straw at the base, the other, a lime-green plastic handle and stubby plastic bristles. Rose handed Cora the bad broom before opening our front door and stepping into the dark. On the top step she paused, adjusting her hat so it didn’t blow off in the wind. Then she stuck her broom between her legs and leaped off the stairs. She went so high that for a second it seemed she might actually keep on soaring before she landed on the mossy lawn.

“Not bad,” Cora said, taking her place on the step.

“Well, I did date a former track star. It’s how I learned everything I know.”

“Come on!” my sister called to Cora. “Your turn!”

As the wind whipped the dead birch leaves into a whirl, Cora hesitated. I could tell she felt nervous about jumping, even if it was just three measly steps. But then she surprised me by letting out a cowgirl’s “Yeeehaaaw!” and leaping off the step. She didn’t soar nearly as high as my sister, and she made a crash landing, stumbling as leaves spun around her feet. But she managed to regain her balance and danced around the lawn, cackling.

Once they released the Hulk and hitched her to a tree, Rose and Cora climbed into the car. The engine started, and I noticed that one of the headlights was out. Isn’t that a game for some people? I wondered. When you see a car with one missing, you punch the person you’re with. Or maybe you kiss them, I was never sure of the rules. Either way, I realized they’d forgotten to leave water for the dog. I went to the kitchen and filled a bowl. Before taking it outside, I opened the freezer and dug out a bone behind my father’s glass tumbler that I saw every time I reached for a Popsicle. My mother had frozen that bone to make stock for her beef barley soup.

When I put both the bowl and the bone by her paws, the Hulk didn’t growl or bark. She didn’t drink or bother with the bone either. She just sniffed my toes and slobbered on my flip-flops before rolling on her back in an invitation to scratch her belly.

“You’re real fierce, aren’t you, girl?” I said, kneeling and rubbing her velvety fur.

It was early enough that we had hours ahead. I stared off into the woods, thinking of Albert Lynch in a holding cell not twenty miles away, because of the answer I’d given Rummel that day in the hospital. And then I thought of what I heard those boys talking about while I’d been tucked in a study carrel at the school library days before.

“What would it take?”

“You’ve seen the dude’s picture.”

“It’s not like I’ve jerked off to it. I didn’t memorize what the hell he looks like.”

“I guess we need a skullcap to look bald. We definitely need his weird ’stache. I could grow one. But you might need help, pansy. Use burned cork. Plus there’s those glasses. Little round things that make him look like a bug. Then all we need is a weapon.”

“A weapon?”

“Not a real one, moron. But you know, like a rubber hatchet.”

“Dude, a hatchet isn’t what he used to do it.”

“Okay, so now you’re the expert. How the hell did he do it?”

“He blew their—”

Shhhh . . .

That day in the library, I pressed my hand over my good ear and shut out their voices. Now, just as I’d done then, I pushed the thought away. I quit petting the dog and stood to go inside, which was when I glimpsed the brake lights down the street. Cora and my sister had come to a halt by one of those cement foundations. As the car idled, the moon shone down, making it possible to see their pointy-hatted silhouettes. Funny how I’d been thinking about that game with the missing headlight and what you were supposed to do when you see one, because this is what I witnessed: two witches who had just completed their first successful broom flights of the night and were stopping a moment.