The Night Visitors(33)

Chapter Fifteen


Alice


OREN IS WORKING away at the potatoes like he’s spent his whole childhood doing hard labor. “Hey,” I say, “this is like that old movie we watched where those guys in the army had to peel sacks of potatoes when they did something wrong.”

“KP duty,” Oren says without looking up. “But Mattie isn’t punishing me; I’m just pitching in, like you said about shoveling the path this morning.”

“Sure,” I say, annoyed that he’s come to her defense. Why does he like her so much? “I was just worried about your arm. Does it feel okay? I’m sorry about before . . . I was just trying to keep you from running up the drive where that cop could see you.”

“It’s okay,” he says, shrugging. “It feels fine now. Look, Mattie gave me an ice pack.”

“And you’re okay about staying here tonight?” I ask, as if we had any choice.

“Yeah, I like it here. It feels like a family lives here.”

Like ours didn’t. Like this crazy-ass spinster living in a falling-down old house is more like a family than Davis and me. “Yeah, the Addams family,” I say. I start to hum the theme song to the show, which we watched on Nick at Nite, but Oren glares at me.

“Don’t do that. Mattie might hear you and she’ll think we’re making fun of her house.”

I roll my eyes. “Come on. How much can she really care about this house when she keeps it like this? The place is a mess.” I lean forward and lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I found mouse poop.”

Oren wrinkles his nose.

“Yeah,” I go on, “and stacks of newspapers from, like, the eighties. You know what? I think Mattie might be a hoarder.” This was another show we sometimes watched, but only because Davis liked it. He liked to make fun of the people on the show because he thought they were such sad sacks compared to him.

Oren shakes his head. “She collects all this stuff to give to people,” he says.

So that’s why he thinks Mattie is so great. Because she’s a do-gooder. “Yeah? Then why does she keep her dead brother’s room just the way he left it, huh?”

Oren looks up. I’ve finally gotten his attention, but maybe this wasn’t the best way to get it. I was telling the truth when I told Mattie that Oren has a really active imagination. After watching that scary movie about the crazy dad in the big hotel, Oren was spooked about bathtubs because of one of the scenes. He refused to take a bath for a month, until he smelled so bad Davis started calling him Stinky. I’d convinced him to get in the tub only by agreeing to sit in the bathroom with him, which Davis teased him about mercilessly.

And then there was the “poltergeist” that started taking things, after we watched that movie. First it was little stuff like some change Davis left on the counter or Davis’s socks or the can opener or the TV remote. They’re here! Oren would say in a creepy, singsongy voice whenever something went missing. At first it made Davis laugh, but then bigger stuff went missing, like bills from Davis’s wallet and a bottle of Jim Beam. That’s when Davis started blaming Oren and threatening to give him a whupping if he didn’t put the stuff back.

Oren kept up the story even after Davis took a belt to him. It’s the poltergeist, Dad! he cried over and over.

Then why does it only take my shit? Davis demanded with every swing of his belt.

The next day the belt was gone. Davis tore the house apart looking for it. I locked Oren and myself in the bathroom. When I asked Oren if he knew where the belt was he looked at me like Han Solo looks at Lando when Lando turns him over to Jabba the Hutt. I told you, it’s the poltergeist. He takes stuff from people he’s mad at.

I told Oren there was never going to be any peace until he just admitted to Davis that he’d taken the stuff.

That would make the poltergeist really mad, Oren said, unless . . .

Unless what, buddy?

Unless it knows we’re doing it for a good reason, like it’s part of a plan.

What kind of a plan? I’d asked, feeling the cold from the bathroom tiles travel up my spine.

A plan to get out of here. To go away. The poltergeist told me that Davis is just going to keep hitting us. It’s just going to get worse.

We could tell a social worker, I’d said. Scott could help.

Oren had considered it. He liked Scott. Would they let me stay with you? he asked. When I didn’t answer right away he said, Because I really, really want to stay with you, Alice.

The ice creeping through my veins melted then. And I really want to stay with you, buddy, I said, and I meant it. We’ll leave. I’ll start saving money tomorrow. We’ll take a bus upstate somewhere. There are shelters that take in women and kids up there. We’ll figure it out.

You promise?

I looked down at him, a little boy crouched on the bathroom floor clutching a Luke Skywalker in one hand and a Chewbacca in the other, and realized he was the first person who’d ever really needed me. Yeah, I said, I promise.

The next day all the lost stuff came back. Loose change, dirty socks, beer bottles, and Davis’s belt, all in a big pile on the living room floor. Not the missing cash, though. I found that in my purse: a roll of bills that added up to $316. I hid the money in a tampon box under the sink and got a Trailways bus schedule that day. I started saving my tips from the diner instead of using them to buy books and toys for Oren. I looked up shelters and domestic abuse services. Ulster County seemed to have the most services and it felt . . . familiar. My adoptive parents had lived up there. I remembered them talking about the orphanage where they got me like it was someplace nearby. And after they died when I was seven, I was placed in a group home not far from where they had lived. Never mind that I didn’t like it then; now it would be a good place for me and Oren. I kept my promise and the poltergeist stayed away.