Help for the Haunted(59)

I reached in his coat that I was still wearing. Sure enough, his gloves were inside. “I thought you didn’t slaughter the turkeys until Thanksgiving?”

“We’re only six days away, Sylvie. We do some each day. Makes no sense, I know, to go through the effort to buy a fresh one, only to freeze it first. But people don’t care, and we’ve got a lot of birds to slaughter.”

I looked at Dereck’s hands on the steering wheel, at his handsome face in the shifting light.

“You’re trying to figure it out, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then go for it. Make a guess.”

I was quiet, thinking of all that I really was trying to figure out. At last, I gave him what he wanted. “A firecracker went off in your hand at a Fourth of July party.”

“Now you’re getting somewhere, Sylvie. It happened at a party. That’s the closest you’ve come.”

We reached Butter Lane, and Dereck made the turn. After passing the empty lots, he pulled into my driveway. Same as it had since Halloween night, the basement light glowed. The rest of the house was dark, Rose’s truck gone. “Where’s my sister?”

“Don’t know. Not my problem anymore. We broke it off.”

The news was the smallest of so many disappointments that day. And yet, it poked at something inside. Now I’d only see Dereck at the farm if he happened to be outside when I passed. After Thanksgiving came and went, he’d go back to just working at the garage, and I wouldn’t see him at all.

“So,” he said, flashing his wolfish teeth in the dark. “Do you finally want to know how I lost my fingers?”

I told him I did.

“First you have to admit that you couldn’t figure it out on your own.”

“I admit it.”

“See, Sylvie. And you’re still here just the same. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t always know all the answers.”

It will be soon, I thought, glancing at the dashboard clock.

“Well, here goes. The fall after graduation, when everyone was home for Thanksgiving, one of my buddy’s parents went out of town. So we got the idea to throw a party. Not just any old lame kegger; what we wanted was a rager people would remember. A reunion blowout. All the guys from every team I ever played on were invited along with their girlfriends. Plus, all my Honors Society buddies were there. For once, everyone got along. Word got out and tons of people crashed. Your sister was there, too, with her friend. Rose was lucky to walk away without getting hurt the way a lot of us did. She never mentioned any of this to you?”

I shook my head.

[page]“Well, none of us saw it coming. The house was mobbed. People were spilling drinks, dropping food, breaking glasses. This guy’s parents lived in a raised ranch with a deck off their kitchen on the second floor. The grill and an army of kegs were out on the deck, so that’s where the fun was. Fifty-seven of us, by the police officer’s count.”

“Why were the police—”

“I’m getting to that. Someone plugged in a boom box. It was cheesy music. Madonna or Paula what’s her face. But the girls started dancing, and they got the guys dancing too. Next thing I know, I feel something shift beneath me. At first I thought I was just dizzy from all the beer, but before I knew what was happening, we were tipping. That deck couldn’t support the weight.

“Some people got burned by the grill. Others broke arms or legs.” Dereck held up his hand. “My fingers got wedged between two boards and ripped right off.”

I lingered there, putting the pieces of Dereck’s story together in my mind. Finally, I said, “I’m surprised I never heard about it. It’s a small town. Seems like I would have.”

“It was in the paper. Probably the biggest news story ever to hit Dundalk.”

I was quiet, thinking of my parents, so many headlines about them.

“Sorry,” Dereck said, realizing.

“It’s okay.” I tugged off his jacket and boots. “But I better go.”

“Remember, I’m right through those woods if you need me. And even if you don’t, you better come visit anyway. We’ll think up some new game to play.”

I forced a smile, told him I would. That’s when Dereck leaned close, the stubble on his face brushing against me. The warm, earthy smell of him—wood chips and autumn leaves and worn clothes—was all around for an instant as he kissed my cheek. Four years between us—I couldn’t help but think of what he’d said earlier about all the differences they created. Even so, some part of me wanted him to kiss me again. Instead, I opened the door and got out, my eyes automatically scanning the lawn for more rag dolls. Dereck flicked on his high beams and waited as I stepped in my bare feet up the walk. On the doorstep a foil-covered bowl shimmered in the headlights. I picked it up.

Inside, I flashed the porch light and Dereck beeped a few times before driving away. Alone in the house, I went to the kitchen, put the bowl on the table beside my mother’s book of wallpaper swatches, and opened the freezer for a Popsicle. None left, so I made up my mind to go to bed. But on my way out, something made me stop. I stood at the door to the basement. Pressed my ear—the good one, of course—against the hollow wood.

When I heard nothing, I put my hand on the knob and pulled. The yellow glow lit the staircase from below. I took a step down, then another, then two more, before stopping in the middle and bending to look around the shadowy space. I saw my father’s desk, messy with papers, which was not how he had left it, but the way Rummel and his investigators had when they came, again and again, to look through his things. There was my mother’s old rocker, the shiny blue knitting needles she had used forever waiting on the cushion for her return. Just beyond, I saw the bookshelf covering the hole in the cinder blocks that led to the crawl space. On top, the cage with Penny inside. Her blank face stared back at me just as it had on the ride home from Ohio so long ago. I read the sign on the bars, remembering the day my father had written those words: DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! At last, I looked away at the partition wall my father had finally finished. I thought of what Coffey had told me about people’s gossip, the things they talked about happening here.