The Winter People(27)

She spotted Gary’s battered red metal tackle box, which he’d used to organize his supplies for cleaning and restoring the old photographs he collected. There should be a small brush in there—he often did retouching by hand. Most people did all their restoration on the computer these days, but not Gary.

She popped open the box and went through it: can of compressed air, white cotton gloves, cotton swabs, soft cleaning brushes and cloths, alcohol, dyes and toners, and there, at the bottom, in a plastic case all their own, were the brushes, including just the one she needed.

Lifting the case out, she saw there was a small hardcover book tucked underneath. How odd.

Visitors from the Other Side

The Secret Diary of Sara Harrison Shea



It felt like a funny joke, a book Gary had planted there for her to find right now: This is what I’ve become, a visitor.

She reached for the book, flipped it open to page 12:

I have been despondent ever since. Bedridden. The truth was, I saw no point in going on. If I’d had the strength to rise up from my bed, I would have gone downstairs, found my husband’s rifle, and pulled the trigger with my teeth around the barrel. I saw myself doing just that. I visualized it. Dreamed it. Felt myself floating down those steps, reaching for the rifle, tasting the gunpowder.

I killed myself again and again in my dreams.

I’d wake up weeping, full of sorrow to find myself alive, trapped in my wretched body, in my wretched life. Alone …



Leaving the case of brushes, Katherine stepped away from the art table with the strange little book clenched in her hand. She crossed the living room, grabbed the cigarettes and lighter from the coffee table, curled up on the couch, turned back to the very beginning of the book, and continued to read.





Ruthie


“It’s definitely loaded,” Buzz said, holding the gun they’d found under her mother’s floor. He kept his index finger off the trigger, resting it along the metal barrel. They were sitting side by side on her mom’s bed. Ruthie was holding a bottle of beer. Buzz had put his down on the bedside table, where it sat abandoned and sweating. Ruthie was worried it would leave a ring in the wood, a telltale sign that they’d been there. She put the bottle on the floor and wiped off the tabletop with her sleeve.

It was ten o’clock, and Fawn was sound asleep. She’d had a fever of 102. Ruthie had been giving her Tylenol every four hours to keep it down. She’d even made up a brew of some of her mother’s tea with feverfew and willow bark and had Fawn drink it. Once Fawn was asleep, she called Buzz and asked him to come over. He brought a six-pack of beer.

“See? Here,” Buzz said, and held out the gun to show her the inner workings. “The cylinder holds six cartridges. Six shots. It’s an older gun, but it’s a real beauty, and it’s in good shape. Your mom’s kept it cleaned and oiled.”

“Are you sure?” Ruthie asked, still unable to believe that her mother would even touch a gun.

“Well, someone has. And this is her bedroom, right? It’s not so unusual, really, for a woman living alone out here with her kids to want some kind of protection. My dad sells more handguns to women than men.”

Ruthie shivered, but moved in for a closer look. “So how’s it work?”

“Simple,” Buzz said, eyes all lit up. He was loving this—the chance to be an expert in something. Buzz’s dad ran Bull’s Eye Archery and Ammo out on Route 6. Buzz had grown up around guns and had been hunting since he was eight years old. “What we have here is a Colt single-action revolver. This is the safety latch. You want to push that back. Then use your thumb to pull down on the hammer until it clicks. After that, you just aim and pull the trigger. The trigger releases the hammer, and the gun fires.”

Buzz turned the gun in his hand. “If you want, we can try it out tomorrow. I can show you how to fire it.”

Ruthie shook her head. “My mom would kill me.”

He nodded and put the gun back into the box carefully, respectfully.

“I still can’t believe she just disappeared like this,” he said, taking off his baseball cap and running a hand through his close-cropped hair.

“I know,” Ruthie said. “It’s not like her. She’s a little odd, but she’s so … dependable. Stuck in her ways. She barely ever goes to town, and now she’s gone and vanished off the face of the freaking earth. It doesn’t make sense.”

“So what’s your plan? I mean, if she doesn’t show up?”

“I don’t know.” Ruthie sighed. “I had been thinking that I’d call the cops if she wasn’t back by tonight, but then we found this stuff. Now I truly don’t know what the hell to do. What if she’s caught up in something … illegal?”

Buzz nodded. “Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t call the cops. Finding the gun and wallets—it does make you wonder.”

“I know,” Ruthie said weakly. It seemed impossible—the idea that her mild-mannered, herbal-tea-loving, middle-aged mother was involved in something criminal.

What else didn’t Ruthie know? What else might be uncovered if she did call the police?

Buzz was a quiet a minute. “Maybe it’s the aliens.”

“Goddamn,” Ruthie spat. “I am so not in the mood for any alien theories right now.”