Forest of Shadows (17 page)

John’s head was encased in an invisible bubble of magma while everything below his chest remained at room temperature. It was getting hard to breathe. Every inhalation brought intense pain to his seared lungs. His heart beat against his chest with the reckless abandon of a drowning man. 

The door to the room at the end of the hall began to open, slowly, slowly, until it was all the way back on its hinges and he was staring at the boarded-up window inside. 

Whump!

The plywood that had been nailed over the broken window dropped to the floor, its bent nails sticking out along its side in four neat rows. 

Instantly, the sensation of heat disappeared and a strong gust of humid air wafted in from the exposed window pane. John sucked in huge gulps of fresh air, dousing the fire in his organs. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, summoning up the strength to meditate on something, anything relaxing that could calm his heart and stop it from beating his chest to dust. He had taken meditation classes on the advice of Dr. Anderson a year ago and though he may not have become a yogi, he did get good enough to prevent himself from going over the deep end when his panic attacks hit, buying the necessary time for the medication to take effect. The ultimate goal of meditation was to eliminate his reliance on the various antidepressants that his body and mind had become so dependent upon just to carry on the façade of a semi-normal existence. 

But now all of his medication was back in New York on the mantel. 

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just been assaulted. 

Concentrating on his mantra, John managed to steady his pulse, though his arms and legs still shook. He checked his hands, expecting the usual tangle of short black hairs to resemble the charred stumps of a forest after a wildfire. They were, in fact, fine. Even the smell of burning hair was gone. 

“That was a new one,” he huffed.

It was as if nothing had happened, if not for the board lying face up on the floor. His good EMF detector was downstairs and he wanted to get some readings while the event was still fresh. When he turned towards the stairs, he jumped back.

“Jesus, squeak-pip, you scared me.” He held a hand to his chest. 

Jessica’s hair was a tangle of knots and her hands were black with dirt. It looked like she’d been rolling in the garden for hours. 

“I saw a boy,” she said. 

“Is he outside playing with Liam and Eve?” He wanted to edge past her to get the EMF detector but she remained square in his way. 

“I was digging a hole by myself outside the dining room doors when I saw him in the living room. When he started to go upstairs, I came inside.”

John’s spine turned to ice. 

“Are you sure you didn’t see me when I was lugging this upstairs?” he asked, nodding at the black camera case. 

Jessica giggled. “I know what you look like, Daddy. No, it was a boy like my age, with really short hair.”

He knelt down and grasped her arms gently. “Now honey, are you sure you saw a boy in the house? Did you see where he went?”

Jessica looked serious now as she sensed the growing concern in her father’s posture and voice. “I
did
see him and he saw me. He even waved at me. He started going upstairs as soon as I got in the door, so I followed him.”

John drew a hand through his hair and sighed. 

“Do you think you could describe what he looked like?”

Jessica looked puzzled. “Why? Didn’t you see him when he came upstairs?”

John silently gazed at her, unsure what to say. If he said yes, he’d be lying and she’d know it. If he said no, she might get scared. Sure, she was a brave kid, but seeing phantom children in the house they were living in would scare the stuffing out of most adults. 

“He was energy, wasn’t he?” she asked in her small voice.

Her intuitive abilities were astounding, especially for a six-year-old girl. Sometimes she could see situations and people for what they really were and could cope with them in ways far beyond her years. It was best to be honest. “I’m not sure. I never saw him but if you say he was here, I believe you.”

“He looked nice.”

Jessica looked completely unafraid, and aside from the oppressive heat from before, so was he. This is what he came for, though maybe not to such an extreme demonstration, especially for his initial encounter with the unknown sharing space in this house. 

“I bet he was.”

Jessica smiled and somehow it made everything all right.

As she turned to go back down the stairs, John said, “Do me a little favor, okay?”

“Okay,” she said without hesitation.

“Don’t tell Aunt Eve about the boy. She’s not tough like us. It might scare her.”

“I won’t,” she replied then skipped down the stairs. “But he’ll come back.”

The front door slammed shut, leaving John alone in a house that no longer felt quite so empty. 

The apartment was an absolute mess, worse than usual, but Judas couldn’t give an emu’s ass. He sat back on his bean bag chair, its sides held together by wide strips of silver duct tape, listening to the beans shift with his weight. He kicked off his boots and watched Teddy prepare the bong. 

Teddy’s chubby fingers tamped the weed into the metal holder. He grabbed a lighter, inhaled and passed it to Judas who did likewise. They went back and forth several times before the effects started to settle in. Judas laid his head over the edge of the bean bag and stared upside down at his front door.

“So, tell me about your trip out to the house, man,” Teddy said, his voice raspy and strained as he slowly exhaled the pungent smoke. 

“It was nothing like I thought it’d be. Like, if all that shit hadn’t gone down with me when I was there alone and then those weird shadows when we went, I would think it was just a normal house.”

Teddy placed the bong on the cluttered coffee table and eased himself onto the floor with his back to the couch. He flicked open a large pocket knife and started to pick under his nails. “So you think maybe we’re just hallucinating?”

“I didn’t say that.” He sat up, his face flushed red. “What I am saying is that when I went, it was kind of quiet. And I didn’t tell him about the time you and I went back to the house and that weird stuff in the woods. I didn’t want to push it, you know?”

“Yeah, I hear you. I talked to my grandmother and she thinks it would be wise if Backman came to talk to her.”

Suspicion tickled the back of Judas’s brain. Teddy’s grandmother was less than warm and inviting on a good day. Why would she be so willing to talk to John of all people?

“Damn. Did you tell her the real reason he’s here? That’s supposed to be a secret, man.”

Teddy waved his hand. “Nah, I just told her that a rich white writer had moved into the house because he was doing research for a book. I figured maybe he’d want to talk to her since she’d been here so long and I heard he was interested in getting a flavor of the town’s past.”

“Nice recovery,” Judas sighed. 

The beer can that Muraco had thrown at his chest a few weeks ago sat on the side table by the lamp. He hadn’t the heart to throw it away. The look on Muraco’s face when he’d popped it open and drank it was almost worth the week of pain in his chest and the massive bruise that was still a faint blue blur. 

He grabbed the empty can and tossed it into the air, catching it just before it landed on his face. 

“Hey, guess who I’m going to see tomorrow?”

Teddy shrugged his shoulders. 

“Millie,” Judas answered without waiting for a guess. 

“You gonna ask her out?”

“Maybe,” Judas said and grinned. He hoped his love of books and geeky charm would eventually win her over. 

They both sat and listened to music, feeling their nerves, frayed by the daily grind of being social outcasts, settle from breakers assaulting a rocky shore to ripples on an empty pond. After a couple of songs, Teddy asked, “You ever miss your parents?”

“Which ones?” 

“The ones who raised you.”

“Nah. It’s their fault that I’m here. In fact, it’s all four of their fault. The first set for dumping me at the orphanage, the second set for dumping me here.”

“Cold, man.”

“With the exception of a few months, Shida’s a cold motherfucking place to be.”

Judas closed his eyes and tossed the can from hand to hand until it dropped and skittered onto the floor. 

That night, Jessica was bursting to tell Eve about the boy in the house. Not because she was frightened. No, because she thought it was exciting. However, she had promised her dad and he looked so serious. 

Dad rarely used the serious voice, so when he did, she knew it was best to listen. 

She put on her best poker face all through dinner and even when Eve gave her and Liam a bath. If only science could learn to harness the energy of a child with a secret.

“Would you like a bedtime story?” Eve asked after she changed into her pajamas by herself, thank you very much. 

“Is it really bedtime?” she asked, her eyes drawn to the sunlit trees outside. 

“It sure is,” Eve said and pointed to the Looney Toons clock on the wall. “I know it’s hard getting used to it still being light at bedtime, but pretty soon that will change and it will be just like back home.”

“Because of the changing of the season?”

Eve smiled and kissed her nose. “Yep. As summer starts to end, it gets darker earlier and earlier. You’re a little smarty, aren’t you?”

Eve read her a story, then her father came in to read her another one and officially tuck her into bed. Only her father’s expert tucking would do when it came to lights out. 

“I’m very proud of you, kiddo,” he whispered as he kissed her cheeks and forehead. 

“Why?” She yawned.

“For keeping our secret. I saw how hard it was for you today. You’re getting to be a very big girl and I love you, you know that?”

“I love you mucho much,” she said and sat up to wrap her arms around his neck. 

“Sleep tight.”

She settled into bed, pulled her favorite teddy bear, Pinky, to her chest and tried to sleep. The excitement from earlier had her mind in a whir. 

Pretty soon, the importance of the day melted into the dream landscape of infinite possibilities and she fell fast asleep. The faintest of breezes floated through her window and made her yellow curtains sway back and forth. Her tiny body shuddered as if she had dreamed of falling and her legs kicked off her blanket.

A boy, his multicolored form like gauze seen through a prism, carefully pulled the blanket back up to her shoulders, moved his arms to his sides and watched…

And watched.

And waited. 

It took over a week of unpacking, exploring the house inside and out, settling the kids into some semblance of a routine, becoming accustomed to their entirely new surroundings, but Eve was finally starting to relax. Funny, she never realized how much tension she had been carrying until she felt it melting away. It had been a wild four or five years, most of it spent worrying about John and Jessica at first, then her marriage to Patrick, doomed as it was, and last but not least, the love of her life, Liam. She’d thought she had fared quite well over the years. Being a shelter from the storm had always been her specialty. On her sixteenth birthday, her father had given her a framed picture of Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip. In it, Lucy was seated behind her makeshift booth advertising psychiatry for five cents a session. 

That picture was still hanging in her bedroom back in New York. The role of being a shoulder to cry on suited her well and any good shrink would tell her she immersed herself in the problems of others as a means of avoiding the various issues in her own life. In fact, those very words were spat at her many times during the last months of her marriage to Patrick. That and a host of other things she’d rather forget. 

Some time during their second week in the wilderness, she awoke to a quiet house. The rising sun spilled through the skylight to warm her face while a well-rehearsed symphony of birds performed just outside her window. The kids were still asleep and John’s snoring was thankfully absent. Wearing only an extra large T-shirt and panties underneath, she crept out of bed and padded down to the kitchen where she brewed up a cup of hazelnut coffee. It was late August and already a slight chill was creeping in to the mornings. It was still warm enough to sit outside in a T-shirt, so she went out through the glass doors in the dining area and settled into one of the Adirondack chairs on the patio to take in the breathtaking beauty around her. 

She put the aromatic coffee under her chair so she could fully enjoy the crisp air. A pair of squirrels zigzagged across the lawn and up a tree, jumping from branch to branch. A gentle breeze blew some stray hairs across her face, tickling her cheeks. 

It was at that moment of total happiness and relaxation that she realized just how much stress she had been ignoring and secretly storing up. God, she had put herself through the wringer but dammit, it was for good reason. Now they were here and John was brimming with some of the old confidence they’d both feared was dead and gone and the kids were in love with the house and especially the endless wonders they uncovered every day in the surrounding woods.