Unspeakable Things(39)

I didn’t find any of that. In fact, there was nothing new since I’d last scoured his drawers, right around when Sephie had gotten boobs and Dad had grown extra weird.

There wasn’t much time. Sephie was surely already complaining about how long I was taking and how much more work she had to do. Maybe Dad was even stomping toward the house, ready to catch me in the act. I made sure all his drawers were closed, peed really quickly because it would be a while before I got another chance, and was almost to the front door when I thought of our basement.

Dirt basements are haunted, Frank had said. Always.

When was the last time I’d been in ours? Surely it used to be a place Sephie and I could go, but I didn’t really remember being down there other than that one time years ago. The thought chilled me. Dad had been up late this past week. I’d thought he was skulking around the kitchen, but had he been going in and out of the basement?

My feet motored toward the pantry.

I flicked on the light.

I watched my own hand reach toward the basement door. The knob was cool. I twisted it. The smell of damp dirt crowded in my nose. The absolute black below gobbled up the weak pantry light, panting for more. I put my foot on the top stair. The steps were a glorified ladder, really, not much wider or deeper, built into the wall.

The top step creaked under my weight.

My heartbeat was thundering.

“It’s just a damn basement,” I said out loud, swearing to give myself courage.

It didn’t work. I couldn’t force myself any farther, and once I made the decision to close the door, I couldn’t escape that house fast enough. I pulled my shoes back on in the bright sunlight, shaking like a dog.





CHAPTER 23

If Sephie thought she was going to get out of chicken butchering because she had a fresh wound, she was dead wrong. We got to work like usual, Dad chopping off the chicken heads and me, Mom, and Sephie running the processing line.

“Hey, Mom,” I said, once Dad had finished his chicken murdering and gone into the house. I had to lean over the butcher table to talk across Sephie, who was sitting between us, her bandaged knee propped up. “Did you and Dad go to school with Sergeant—Mr. Bauer?”

“Sure did,” she said. Slick slice, her chicken was open, into the chest cage went her hand, out came the first wash of guts, good stuff like heart and gizzard in the stainless-steel bowl, entrails to the cats.

“How about Karl the bus driver? Or Mr. Connelly?” I was listing everyone who’d behaved peculiarly lately.

“I’m afraid I don’t know either, unless you mean your music teacher?”

“That’s him,” I said.

“I only know him from parent-teacher conferences. He seems like a nice man.”

I nodded. “What do you know about Goblin?”

Sephie twitched at the mention.

“Who?” Mom asked.

I realized I didn’t know his actual name. “The guy who lives at the end of the road, right where you turn left to go to the old Swenson place.”

“You kids call him Goblin?” Mom fake shuddered. “Yes, he graduated high school with me and your dad. He’s strange, that one. Has been forever, though I think he and your dad were friends for a time back in the day. Your dad can’t stand him now. The man’s a draft dodger. Mr. Bauer’s not so bad, though, not once you get to know him.”

Mom leaned toward Sephie, talking girlfriend to girlfriend. “I used to date him in high school, did you know?”

“Sergeant Bauer?” I asked. Hearing that hollowed me out.

Mom giggled. It was a little-girl sound. “Don’t sound so disgusted! I wasn’t always married.”

Sephie burped.

Mom nudged her. “What do you say?”

“Excuse me,” Sephie said.

“My favorite ladies still hard at work!” Dad appeared behind Mom and wrapped his arms around her. His mood had changed yet again. He must have downed a drink.

I tugged out feathers, my eyes on Sephie. She shifted her wounded leg.

Dad kissed Mom’s neck, and she leaned back and laughed. “Not now! I’ll get us both dirty.”

Dad growled something in her ear, and she laughed again. “Fine. Ten minutes. You’re on your own, girls. I have to help your dad with a project.”

“There’s a dozen chickens to go!” I wailed.

“You’re always so dramatic,” Mom said, hosing off her hands.

A fly buzzed down and landed on the chicken I was plucking. The insect was fat and black, glossy, its back legs rubbing together as it rested on the hen’s pimpled flesh.

“I’ll finish the plucking,” Sephie murmured. “You gut them.”

Mom turned off the hose. “Don’t get that leg wet, Sephie. It’ll get infected.”

Sephie nodded.

“I don’t want to gut them,” I said, a poor sport to the end.

“Okay, then let’s pluck together,” she said. “When we’re done, you slice them open, and I’ll pull everything out.”

“All right.”

I kept at the stinky chicken corpse I’d been working on, feeling her eyes on me.

“Why’d you ask Mom about Goblin and Sergeant Bauer and those other guys?” she asked.