Melody Burning (10 page)

The den, then. The walls are fake paneling. Could he be coming in through the paneling under the bookcases—like, pulling a piece of paneling back, laying it aside, and crawling through?

He sure could. But how do I find that out? Maybe I can’t, actually.

Where is my phantom boy?

This seems hopeless. I’ll check the closet just for the heck of it, because I can. Here’s all of Mom’s old stereo equipment. Here’s the ridiculous basket collection. Why were we into that, collecting antique Easter baskets? And the Monopoly, Risk, Diplomacy, and Mexican Train boxes—all the old, ancient games of our life. Even Chutes and Ladders. Oh, wow. I remember Daddy always lost, and it was so funny because he wasn’t faking to let me win. He was just hilariously awful at it.

Now, look at that! There is a hatch. It’s in the ceiling of the closet, above the shelf so you hardly notice it even if you look up to get a game. But it’s there. It looks official, like some kind of equipment access hatch or something, which is probably exactly what it is.

I think that it’s also the only other way to get into this apartment apart from the locked doors.

I’ve found it.

I go into the kitchen and get the step stool out of the pantry. Oh, he’d better be in there, or I am going to go
insane
. Mom’s head is thrown back, and she’s snoring. She was wobbly drunk when we came in and does not hold her liquor well.

I return to the den and set up the step stool.

The hatch is so neatly framed, it’s obviously an access point that’s part of the building. There is no lock on it that I can see. It’s basically a painted board resting on a frame. I push on it—and it silently goes up. Of course, he probably uses it all the time, so he’d make certain it was smooth and silent.

The smell of the dead air of the crawl space causes a shivery thrill through my body. And, wow, what a weird person I am that a crawl space gives me literal shudders. It’s dark up here. I am talking
cave
dark.

I need a flashlight. The tool chest? No. The kitchen.

I make yet another trip past comatose Mom and look in the junk drawer. Very good, the flashlight sort of works.

So, back past Sleeping Beauty. I close the den door.

I look up into the darkness and turn on the flashlight. First I see black pipes. It looks too crowded up there even to get in, but then I see how it could be done. And, in fact, if I just move my head a little, I see that behind the pipes there is a big clear area. Above it, the light shows some kind of junk that has been sprayed on the top of the space. Insulation, maybe. Hanging below it are three rows of electrical wires.

I am fairly strong, I guess, but pulling myself up is going to be really hard. I’m going to do it, I have to do it. Why doesn’t he come back, darn it? I guess I sort of threw him out, didn’t I? I’m such a moron sometimes, but I was scared because it was all just so different and not what anyone would expect.

“Hey, up there!
Pssst!
Are you there?”

Not a sound, so I get up on top of the step stool and stick my head into the crawl space, which is not very roomy. How can he live like this?

I pull myself up, struggling, trying to get my knee up to brace myself, kicking against the wall (crap,
shh
!), pulling myself a little more and then rolling a bit, and I’m up. I am in the crawl space. His space.

I shine my flashlight around, looking for something resembling a human shape.

Off to the right there is a darkness. I move over that way, keeping to the beams because I have no faith in the plaster ceiling I am crawling on. All I need is to fall through and land on Mom.

With my flashlight and the light from the den, which is now behind me, I can see a bit. So I crawl farther, and where there are no pipes or wires, it’s actually possible to get around.

Ahead, I hear rock music. That’s our next-door neighbor, the party girl. Then
bzzzz, scree, bzzzt
! Light comes up and there is a hissing sound, which I realize is one of the elevators. I hear voices, a woman telling a man good-bye. Then the elevator goes clicking and scraping off down its shaft.

I go over and look down and the shaft is HUGE. You can see light glowing out of the rooftop vents of the four elevators, which are moving up and down, and a couple of them look
really tiny
because this building is
T-A-L-L.

How could I
ever
have stood so close to the roof’s edge? Was it really just the night before last? Time is losing all meaning.

I shine my flashlight around—and, of course, my flashlight is so awful, it only shines about three feet. I move a bit, trying to see more. I have to let him know he can come back. He is in here somewhere—he has to be.

Not around here, though. And suddenly I’m not sure where I am. Is the elevator shaft still over to the right?

I back up. Careful, here. I find a narrow shaft. It’s not big around, maybe three feet on a side, and there are all kinds of pipes in it. I don’t know what they are—sewers, water lines, whatever.

This is the shaft behind my room wall—must be. But how ever does he stay in here? This is his world, his home—that’s how. He is somewhere down in there, but there is no way I can climb down a floor. Not possible.

I decide to call him. I will shout. Maybe it’ll be audible in my room and maybe in the party girl’s apartment, but not with all that music.

“Hello!” I flick my flashlight on and off. “HELLO!” I do it again, on and off, on and off. “HELLOOOOO!”

Nothing. So I have to give up on this because climbing around in here is dangerous, obviously, and I am no longer the girl who was on the roof. I am a different girl because I have a phantom boy somewhere off in that darkness.

One more try: “HELLOOO . . . HELLOOO . . . HELLOOO!”

Echoes. The rock music suddenly gets turned way down. Uh-oh.

I am as still as death, barely breathing. And then I hear something—a slapping sound. Is it party girl coming out of her apartment to see what’s going on?

I hear it again, louder,
slap, slap, slap.
Louder and louder and I think—is it—is it coming from below?

I lean over the edge and shine my light and,
oh, Jesus, there he is
! And look at
that
, he is climbing the pipes, levering himself up from one side to the other. It’s just awesome and magical to see how he does this, moving up the shaft so fast he’s like the wind. Graceful and agile, look at that, just
look
at that!

My stomach goes shivery as I watch him coming, his hair flying, his hands gripping the pipes, his muscles rippling in the dim light of my flashlight. He almost doesn’t look human, he is so good at this, a dancer of immense strength and power, a beautiful dancer. Then he rises over the edge, pulls himself up, and he’s beside me. I am looking into the most beautiful, innocent smile I think I have ever seen.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he says back.

We lie in the crawl space side by side, facing each other. He reaches over and lays his hand on my cheek. I close my eyes and feel its weight, feel it stroking my skin.

Should I say it? Should I tell him I’m crazy for him? I want to but—Why do I hold back? This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment of magic, and I can’t ruin it with my analytical, practical brain.

“I love you,” he says. His breath smells like a taco. So he was down there somewhere eating Mexican food.

“Thank you,” I say.

Our eyes link in the almost dark.

I open my mouth a little. I’m waiting. I don’t want to wait, but I will wait because I want him to do it, to take me in his strength and his gentleness.

He kisses me. Our lips are together, but it’s clumsy. We part, laugh a moment, and then he rolls his eyes and tries again. This time it works. I just love his strength, the feeling of him holding me to him so tight and him all trembly and excited, and me, too. I am so excited, I am almost wild—as wild as he is—except he is no brute, and I am no cave woman. He’s very gentle with me, looking at me now with wonder in his eyes, then kissing my face all over until I throw my head back and laugh.

He says, “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I was scared,” I say.

He looks at me with the kind of seriousness you see in the faces of little boys, and it’s so endearing. So I kiss him again, longer, more intimately. Afterward I draw back and he remains very still, his eyes closed, his lips slightly parted. He’s savoring me, and I know how he feels about me—it’s written in his shadow-filled face. I am so happy that I feel like laughing and kind of, I don’t know, bubbling up inside in some way that I can’t quite put my finger on. He is ready for me, and I can sense that he is quietly hopeful, but this is not the time. We have to cherish this moment. I have to especially cherish him, because he is so innocent.

I want him with me, because I think what’s happening between us matters, and I want to find out for sure.

“You have to come and live in our apartment.”

“Where would I stay?”

“We have two more bedrooms.”

He turns onto his back and puts his hands behind his head. He’s considering this. Finally he asks, “How?”

“
How?
Just come in and use whichever one you’d like.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Let me ask you this. Have you ever been out of this building?”

“No.”

“Never? Never ever?”

“Not since Dad got killed. Luther held me over the edge. Luther wants me dead, too.”

“Who is Luther?”

“Luther. That’s all I know.”

The quiet sadness in his voice reveals his grief.

Then I hear a noise. The sudden stillness that envelops him tells me he heard it, too.

“What is it?”

He doesn’t reply. He’s listening to something I cannot hear.

All of a sudden and without the slightest warning, a light shines on me.

From behind it, I hear Mom’s voice say, “You must be psychotic.”

I just scream. I scream and I scream, and I cannot stop screaming. He tries to comfort me, holding me, fluttering his hands at me, his face a pale image of agony.

Then
more
light—this time, shining directly at him—and his face is white as if glowing, his eyes bright with shock, his teeth bared, and I can hear him go, “
Aah! Aaah! AAAH!
”

The person shining the light on him is on top of an elevator that has risen up and stopped.

“Okay, young fella, don’t try anything. I’ve got a gun.”

My boy’s eyes meet mine, and it’s as if all of his heart is in those big eyes of his, now looking at me with terror. He grabs me for a second, lets me go, and then heads toward the equipment shaft.

“Stop or you’re dead, kid.”

So calm, so matter-of-fact, and not a cop, either, because no cop would ever say anything like that.

He is in the shaft now, and I try to go to him. I see the black maw of it and I know that it’s death, and I think maybe I should just go with him, just drop down into the dark forever.

The man grabs my shoulder like some kind of iron monster, digging into me. The pain makes me shriek—and then my beautiful boy drops. Oh my God, he just
drops
.

But then I hear his
slap, slap, slap, slap
fading downward.

I turn and crawl toward the light my mother is shining in my face, and I go back down into the real world with her.

In the den, she grabs my shoulders and glares at me. “Did he touch you?”

“Go to hell!”

She cuffs my head, and I run out of the den and into my room and lock my door. Let her think what she wants. I go to my big windows and look out over the city, thinking of my beautiful boy and wondering if I will ever see him again.

That evil man’s words ring in my memory: “I’ve got a gun.”

Was it Luther? I couldn’t see who it was ’cause of the bright light shining in my eyes. Well, whoever it was, he sure sounded like he meant what he said. I’ve got a feeling that he’ll not only kill my sweet boy if he can, he’ll enjoy every minute of it.

C
HAPTER 11

T
o save himself, he had to leave her behind, that was crystal clear. She could never run a chase like he could. He saw her angelic face go flashing away as he dropped down the shaft, slapping against the pipes that lined it to break his fall.

When he was maybe five floors down, he stopped. It was nice and dark. He felt safer. But then there was a whining noise and something came zipping down from above—a cable!

A second later, light was beaming on him again, and with a terrifying screaming sound, a human form sped down the wire.

It was mountain-climbing equipment. He knew a lot about it; he’d seen it on TV and wanted it.

He dropped so fast that he almost lost himself, but then he managed to clutch a pipe. Again he went down, faster and faster, farther and farther, until the floors were whizzing past. Then he stopped and threw himself onto one—he wasn’t sure which—and went skittering off into its crawl space, as far from the shaft as he could go.

The light came flashing, and he pressed himself down between two beams, praying that the ceiling he was lying on would not give way. Slowly, the light worked its way back and forth, back and forth, coming closer and closer.