The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller(23)

“She lost her canoe paddle.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“No, she dropped it in the lake when she was passing the island. I helped her out.”

“I bet you did.”

Evan frowned. “I can’t tell you anything.”

“I’m kidding—that’s great! Are you going to see her again?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Ev, it would be good for you.”

Evan stood and went to check on Shaun, a familiar agitation rising inside him. “Listen, I don’t even know if I’m ready to go down that road yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”

“Hey, I’m not saying marry her, just get to know her.”

Evan watched the TV for a few seconds without seeing it. “Yeah, I gotta get going, Shaun’s appointment’s in an hour.”

“Ev, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I gotta go.”

Evan hung up without saying goodbye. He spun his wedding band around and around his finger, and then began to get them ready for the trip into town.

~

When he left Shaun at the hospital, the occupational therapist they met earlier in the week told Evan that it would be about two hours before they would finish. Shaun’s head kept swiveling to inspect all of the colorful drawings attached to the walls of the OT room, and Evan had to lean into his view to tell him he’d be right back.

The day hadn’t warmed, but the town held a certain chilly beauty as Evan drove, a scalding coffee clutched in one hand. After buying new sheets, he sat in the store’s parking lot, sipping his coffee and thinking about where to go next. This was the part he liked about writing articles: the research. So much could be gleaned from merely asking questions and visiting places. It was almost like he absorbed the feeling of a piece through osmosis. Justin at Dachlund magazine had raved over his first article on special education, and had demanded him to write more. But then Elle got sick, and ...

He didn’t want to think about that right now. He’d trodden that path too many times, had gotten lost on it. It was unsteady and dangerous. He could cut himself on memories like that. He couldn’t control his dreams, but he could make an effort to keep his mind his own while awake.

He put the van in drive and made his way toward the docks. Jacob hadn’t been at the shop when they came through earlier; perhaps he would be in now. It would be the simplest place to begin.

When he parked the van in the lot, he saw that the elderly twins were again at their posts outside the front door, beneath the building’s awning. Both wore identical jeans and woolen sweaters against the brisk morning air.

“Does their mother dress them like that?” Evan mumbled before getting out of the van.

He smiled at them as he approached, nodding once before beginning to walk past them.

“You the feller out at the Fin?”

Evan stopped before pulling open the door. The twin on the left had his bald head tilted, and he could see just how polished the dome was.

“Yes, Evan Tormer,” he said, holding his hand out for the elderly man to shake.

“Arnold Benson, and this is my brother, Wendal.”

Evan stepped forward to the other man and shook hands. Wendal smiled, his mouth open slightly, revealing a small stub of grizzled muscle where his tongue should be. Revulsion tried to make him yank his hand away, but he steeled himself and pretended that he hadn’t seen it.

“Wendal can’t speak, bit his tongue clean off when he was ten falling down a set of stairs to our basement. He does the thinkin’, and I do the talkin’,” Arnold said.

Evan didn’t know what to say, so he nodded and gestured toward the store. “Is Jacob in?”

“No, that old mick brought his wife over to Wilson Springs this morning. They’ll be shoppin’ and carryin’-on until afternoon, for sure.”

Evan nodded again, noting the irony of Arnold calling Jacob “old.”

“Okay, maybe you can tell him I stopped in? He can give me a call if he’d like.”

“Will do,” Arnold said.

Wendal’s head bobbed.

Evan took a step toward his van, then stopped and turned back to the twins. “You guys wouldn’t know anything about an old grandfather clock that the Prices used to own, would you?”

Wendal’s brow furrowed, crinkling his scalp in a multitude of lines, before he glanced at his brother. Arnold sat back in his chair and took a slow sip of coffee.

“What makes you ask such a question?” he said after swallowing.

Jason’s prior warning of townsfolk and their distrust of outsiders replayed in Evan’s mind. “Just curious, it looks like it could have a history.”

Arnold laughed in a harsh bark. “Yeah, you could say that again.”

“So you know about it?”

Arnold held out an age-spotted hand and tipped it back and forth. “Before our time. It originally belonged to a man named Abel Kluge. Odd fellow, from what I heard, violent sometimes. Lots of rumors floating around about him.” Arnold’s eyes twinkled.

“What kind of rumors?” Evan said, taking his cue.

“He was a clockmaker from Chicago back around the turn of the century. There’s some that say he was one of the best in the world. And there’s others that say there’s reasons for that.”