Just Like Home(12)

Vera’s father smiles at her, then lowers his hands, resting them over the two quilt squares that represent the house he built. “But—and I’ve never told you this until now, because I didn’t want to scare you—there are other things in the basement, too. Things worse than spiders.”

A shiver runs up Vera’s spine fast as a watersnake vanishing under the garden shed. “Like what?” she whispers, her imagination blossoming faster than her fear can keep up with.

“Possums,” her father says. “And raccoons. They come in looking for trash, looking for a place to have their babies. I know you think they’re cute,” he says, holding up a finger to stop Vera from deciding that the basement now holds fresh appeal. “But they’re not. They’re wild animals, and sometimes they have rabies. They’ll run up and bite you as soon as you set foot in that basement.”

Vera isn’t sure if she believes him or not. She’s never seen a possum before, but she’s seen racoons ambling through the sideyard near the garbage cans. They’re fat and clumsy and they look soft. They don’t look like they’d bite her.

But she remembers the tools and the spiders, and rabies sounds like bad news. She decides that the basement holds no temptation, even if there might be baby animals in there with big eyes and soft fur.

“So … that’s what that noise was? Possums?”

“Probably raccoons this time. I thought I saw one down there earlier today.” Vera’s father smooths out the quilt under his palms, his eyes on the movement of his own hands. “I’ll set a trap for it and get rid of it. If you hear those noises again, don’t worry, okay? It’s just animals that wandered in and want a way out. Sometimes they don’t understand where they are and they get scared,” he adds. “Sometimes they get hurt. And I have to help them escape.”

Something has come into Vera’s father’s voice, some far-away thing that she knows he will not explain to her. Adults do that all the time, talking around big feelings and ideas as if no one will notice that they’re saying two things at the same time. Vera knows that he will not tell her the secret of what this means to him. His shoulders are drooping as though a weight has settled across them and his eyes are starting to glaze over, and his fingers are suddenly tight around fistfuls of her quilt.

Vera thinks that he must be very tired. After all, she did make him run into her bedroom in the middle of the night. She lies back, letting her head rest stiffly on her pillow, the clearest I’m-ready-for-bed signal she knows how to broadcast.

“Thank you for checking under the bed,” she says.

“Of course, Vee. Hey, will you promise me something?”

“You don’t have to say ‘hey,’” she replies softly. “I’m already listening.”

He smiles, releasing her blanket. “Promise you won’t go into the basement to see the animals,” he says. “It’s really very dangerous. You could get hurt.”

His voice is gentle, serious, and he’s looking right at her. This, she understands, is big. This is the way adults talk to each other. Her father isn’t just telling her a rule. He’s telling her a why, and he’s asking her for a promise.

She nods solemnly, her hair shush-ing against the fox pillowcase. “I promise,” she says.

Vera’s father kisses her goodnight and pulls the covers all the way up to her chin. It’s not how she likes to sleep—she prefers her arms on top of the covers—but she likes it when her father tucks her in, and she knows he won’t keep doing it for much longer, so she doesn’t move until after he’s turned off her light and shut her door. Vera closes her eyes and lets her head sink down deep into the soft cool embrace of her fox pillowcase.

When the noises resume under her bed—the long harsh scrapes, and the wet slaps, and the rich gurgling, and the high tight painful squeals—she doesn’t open her eyes. It’s just an animal, and her father will take care of it by morning.

Still, she can’t help but give a little involuntary shiver at the sounds. She slips one arm out from under the blanket and lets it dangle off the edge of the bed. In school that day, her teacher told the class about superstitions, which are things that people believe will keep them safe. Like magic but different.

Vera is still undecided as to whether or not she believes in magic. It ultimately depends on whether believing in magic turns out to be kid stuff or very adult stuff—but a superstition seems like something outside that question, something anyone might have. Right now, when she’s a little afraid even though there’s nothing to be afraid of, feels like the perfect time to try out a superstition of her own.

Her small hand hovers in the darkness of the bedroom, her elbow bending ever-so-slightly backward over the edge of the mattress in a casual hyperextension. She waits for the next thud from the basement, which makes her startle even though she knows now that it isn’t anything scary.

When the thud comes, she snaps her fingers four times fast.

The sounds fade quickly. Vera smiles at the quiet and returns her hand to the bed, resting her arm on top of the covers. She decides that she likes this new superstition. She decides that it works.

Three years from now, when there are policemen at the door, she will feel afraid. But right now, even with an occasional faint noise drifting up from the basement, she is not afraid. Between her father and this new superstition she’s decided on, there’s nothing to fear.