Darkness First (10 page)

2:03
P.M.
, Saturday, August 22, 2009

Eastport, Maine

T
abitha Stoddard stared vacantly out her bedroom window at the irregular patterns of sunlight and shadow that stretched across the yard like witch's fingers pointing toward the toolshed at the back.

She was sitting, knees up, head and back propped against the painted white wooden slats of the headboard Pike had made for her when she was little. Just before the accident that killed Terri.

Back then, when Pike could still use his legs, he did things like that for her. Made headboards and showed her how to handle the
Katie Louise.
He used to keep the boat painted up and in good shape instead of letting her slowly disintegrate into the rotting bucket she'd become.

Sometimes back then, Pike would take all three of his girls out to cruise around the harbor. He'd tell the other captains and anyone else who'd listen how he liked showing off his three beautiful daughters. But Tabbie knew, even then, that it was only Tiff and Terri who were beautiful and not her. No, Tabitha was the ugly duckling. Only this ugly duckling was one who would never grow up to be beautiful or graceful or smart. This ugly duckling would never grow into a swan.

Still, Tabbie loved the headboard. Each of the slats had a carved wooden bird perched on top. Pike drew up the design himself. Cut out each of the bird shapes with his jigsaw so they all were exactly the same size and shape, the only difference being that the ones on the left side of the bed faced right, and the ones on the right side faced left. When he screwed the two sides together and placed them behind the bed, the two birds in the middle ended up looking into each other's faces, beaks about half an inch apart, like they were squaring off to have a fight or something. Over the years Tabitha named all the birds. The two in the middle were Roxie and Dick.

Making the headboard was the last special thing Pike ever did for her. He screwed it together and attached it to the bed frame just days before he crashed his motorcycle into the tree, killing Terri and crippling himself.

Afterwards he never did much of anything except drink whiskey and scream at Donelda and sometimes at Tabbie that he needed one of them to get her ass down here right away to do something for him and what the fuck was taking her so goddamned long anyway.

Tabbie knew Pike wasn't as helpless as he pretended to be. He managed to get stuff for himself – food for lunch, treats for Electra, the TV remote – when she was at school and Donelda was out digging for winkles and bloodworms or sometimes during blueberry season, when the two of them were out together raking berries to make a few extra bucks.

She knew Pike spent a lot of time training Electra. He was good at that. Liked talking about how, if someone tried to sneak into the house,
she'd tear their fucking throats out before they knew what hit them
. Pike also spent a lot of time cleaning his gun. He always kept his gun with him just in case somebody tried to break in. Although why anybody'd want to break into this house she couldn't imagine. Sure as hell wasn't anything worth stealing.

Tabitha was the last of the daughters. The afterthought they called her. The accident. Now with Terri and Tiff both dead she really was the last. Tabitha was quite certain that if Pike and Donelda knew they were only going to have one daughter left, they certainly wouldn't have chosen her. They'd have taken either Terri or Tiff way before her. Trade Tabitha in on one of the others about as fast as they could get the words out.

Tabbie supposed, if she was really going to be super honest about it, she couldn't argue with that. She'd do exactly the same thing in their shoes. It was the only logical choice considering how beautiful and cool Tiff and Terri both were and how semi-fat and funny looking she was.

Tabbie got up, went to the bathroom and pulled a length of toilet paper off the roll. She wiped away the tears that had been rolling down her cheeks most of the day, blew her nose and flushed the paper away.

No, Tabbie wasn't much good at anything and she didn't have any friends except Toby Mahler, who was in her class at school and was clumsy like her and much fatter and no good at sports or much of anything except computers. All Toby ever did was screw around on his computer and talk about stuff she didn't understand. She figured he knew even more about computers than Mr Cory, the science teacher. Still, he was a real dork. But at least he kind of liked her and hung out with her and almost no one else did. Though she was pretty sure she didn't like him back. Leastways not in a
romantic
way.

In fact, the only things Tabitha really liked doing were reading,
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
being her all-time favorite, and sitting in her room or up in the attic letting her mind wander. Anyway, she told herself, she shouldn't be thinking about herself now. She should be thinking about Tiff being dead and what she was going to do about that.

Tabitha had been sitting here in the same position since about 10:30 this morning, when the cop left. The lady cop who told them about Tiff being dead. What the cop said – and Tabbie remembered her words exactly – was that some sonofabitch had
picked up a great big knife and slashed open Tiff's neck like a hog in a slaughterhouse
. She was pretty sure the cop couldn't have seen her peeking around the side of the stairwell when she said those words. Wouldn't have said them if she knew an eleven-year-old was listening. An impressionable eleven-year-old with a
vivid imagination
. ‘Tabitha has such a vivid imagination,' Miss Weigel, her fifth-grade teacher, wrote on all her report cards last year. ‘I only wish she would concentrate more on her studies and not let her mind wander in class.'

Miss Weigel was right. Tabitha's mind did wander a lot. But right now it wasn't wandering at all. It kept coming back to the last time she saw Tiff. Yesterday afternoon. Tiff sent her a text in the morning.
Need 2 C U. Alone! Don't tell anyone!!! 3:00 @ school playground
.

Tabitha rode her bike over to the school in plenty of time, locked it in the bike rack and was sitting on one of the swings when she saw Tiff's green Taurus pull into the parking lot. Her sister waved her over.

‘Hi, hop in.'

‘Jeez, what happened to your face? Somebody hit you?'

‘Don't worry about that. Just get in the car.'

Tabitha climbed in and they started driving.

‘You didn't tell anyone you were coming to see me?' Tiff asked.

‘No. No one.'

‘Swear to God?'

‘Swear to God. Why? Where are we going?'

‘Nowhere.' Tiff handed her a package. It was wrapped in layers of newspapers and taped tight. ‘I need you to hide this for me.'

The package weighed next to nothing. Tabbie shook it and thought she heard some stuff rattling around inside but couldn't tell for sure.

‘Don't do that,' said Tiff.

‘What's in it?'

‘A secret. Something I don't want anyone to know about or see. Including you. So don't open it. I'll know if you do because I wrapped it in a special way. When you get home hide it where nobody will find it and don't say anything to anybody. That's very important. You can't tell anyone. Not Mom or Dad. Not any of your friends. Nobody. Ever. Can you promise me that?'

‘I guess. How long do you want me to keep it?'

‘I'll come and get it from you when I'm sure the coast is clear. Or call you on the iPhone and tell you where to send it.'

‘Okay. I won't open it.'

‘You promise?' asked Tiff. ‘You're the most honest person I know, Tabitha, so if you make a promise I know you'll keep it.'

Tabbie looked at her big sister, a serious expression on her face. She didn't know what all this was about, but it seemed important. ‘I promise.'

‘Tell me what you're promising.'

‘I promise to hide your package where nobody will find it and not open it or anything and not tell anybody anything about it.'

‘No matter what they tell you?'

‘No matter what they tell me.'

‘You promise?'

‘I promise.'

And because Tabitha made a promise and because she always kept her promises, when she got home she did exactly what her sister asked. She cut open the back of Harold, her biggest stuffed teddy, who was a hand me down from Terri and Tiff, pulled out Harold's stuffing and pushed the package deep inside. It just about fit. Then she pushed as much of Harold's stuffing back inside him as she could. She sewed the teddy back up so you couldn't see any stitches and put him back on the bookcase between the bunny and the panda. The package kind of pushed Harold out a little bit in one or two weird places so he didn't look quite as much like Harold as he used to but she didn't think anybody else would notice.

‘I'll come and get it from you in a few days when I need it.' That's what Tiff had said. ‘And honey, when I do I'm going to blow this town. This county. This whole freezing-ass state. And believe me, once I get out of Dodge, I am never, ever coming back.'

‘Can you take me with you?'

‘I wish I could,' said Tiff. ‘But that just won't work. I'm going to be moving fast. I don't even know where I'm going except it's gonna be someplace warm, and the last thing I can deal with is a kid trailing along with me.'

Tabitha said she understood. But she really didn't. She wouldn't be any trouble at all. She was never any trouble to anyone and someplace warm sounded awfully good. But now Tiff was dead and wasn't coming back to get the package or anything else. She wasn't going anyplace warm either except maybe to hell.

Tabbie had a hard time thinking of Tiff as dead. Everything about her big sister had always seemed so alive. Tiff was everything Tabitha always wanted to be but knew she never would. She was beautiful. Smart. Fun and funny. The idea of someone like Tiff being dead seemed crazy. Ridiculous.

Tabbie told herself to stop being stupid. Anybody could be dead and at eleven years old a person really ought to understand what being dead meant. Dead was dead. Just like Terri was dead and had been for three years. Just like Grammy Katherine was dead. And their old dog Lucy. She was dead too. Tabbie'd gone to the vet with her mother when they gave Lucy the shot. The vet put the needle in and just like that Lucy went from being an alive thing to a dead thing. At eleven years old a person obviously knew what dead meant.

What she wasn't all that sure about was what happened after you were dead. Were you just not there any more? Gone.
Poof
. Like you never existed? Just a rotting lump of meat in a box underground being eaten up by bugs and worms? Or was dying more like what they said in church? Tabitha was by no means certain it was, but if it was, well then there was a distinct possibility Tiff was flying around somewhere in either heaven or hell. She was in what Mrs St Pierre who lived up the road called
a better place.
Mrs St Pierre came over with some cupcakes after she heard on television about Tiff being murdered. Tabbie didn't know why she thought cupcakes would help.

‘Donnie,' Mrs St Pierre said, ‘I know this is hard for you to accept but please believe me when I tell you she's in a better place. They both are. Both Tiff and Terri. Together again. Safe in the arms of Jesus.'

Tabitha thought her mother might throw Mrs St Pierre out of the house along with her cupcakes because she knew her mother not only didn't believe in God but also thought Mrs St Pierre was pretty much full of shit about everything. But to Tabbie's surprise her mother didn't say anything except thank you.

Tabbie tended to think her mother was right on the religion thing. But if it turned out she wasn't and Mrs St Pierre was right, well, Tabbie thought that might make a pretty good argument for killing yourself. Who wouldn't want to be in a better place? Especially if you lived in Eastport. And double especially if your spirit didn't actually have to have a body and thus didn't have to put up with being semi-fat and wholly clumsy.

Killing herself would be easy. She knew where Pike kept his gun. The bullets too. And she knew how to load it and use it. Pike had taught her himself. So maybe she
would
kill herself. Or maybe not. She couldn't make her mind up about that. Tiff might get pretty damned pissed if she showed up unannounced in heaven or hell or wherever Tiff had gone to. She could just hear Tiff saying something like: ‘Oh Jesus, what are you doing here? I told you the last thing I can deal with is a kid trailing along with me.'

The house was quiet again. Tabitha hadn't heard her parents screaming at each other for at least an hour so she figured they'd both fallen asleep. Her mother on her bed and Pike downstairs in his chair.

She picked up the old 3G iPhone Tiff had given her last month when she got the brand-new one for herself.

‘I can't afford this,' she told her sister when she gave her the phone. ‘I don't have any money.'

‘Don't worry, Tabs. It's in my name. I'll pay the monthly charges. I just need a private way to call you. You just pay for any apps you download. Deal?'

Tabbie couldn't believe it. Not a single other kid in her whole class had an iPhone. Not a single one. Not even Toby Mahler, whose family had plenty of money. Just her. It had to be about the best present she'd had ever gotten from anybody. Except maybe for the headboard from Pike.

‘Deal,' she said.

Tabbie looked again at the text message she got yesterday.
Need 2 C U. Alone! Don't tell anyone!!! 3:00 @ school playground
.

She missed her big sister so much she kept speed dialing Tiff's new cell phone number. Of course she knew there would be no answer but she liked hearing Tiff's voice on the message that kept kicking in even before the phone rang. ‘Hi, this is Tiff. You know the drill. Leave your number and I'll call you back.' Must have listened to that about twenty times.