The Accidental Siren (23 page)

The basement was black. Something jabbed the
arch of my foot and I swore. It was a Lego–a relic from the
twins–and I swept it beneath the couch with my heel.

I tiptoed past the dumbwaiter and exercise
equipment to the unfinished guest room. There wasn’t a door, only
brass hinges and a burgundy curtain left over from the Red Room
scene. Inside, a potpourri of cat turds and citrus spray tickled my
nose. I found the pull-string, jerked it, and a twenty-five-watt
bulb barely illuminated the white brick walls, concrete floor, and
stack of moldy ceiling panels in the far corner. The burgundy
curtain was actually a bed sheet we stapled to the rafters. It
covered the door frame and half the guest-room wall. A bucket of
crayons provided a welcome burst of color. Ten years old at least,
their paper sheaths had been stripped by a hundred tiny hands;
their brilliant colors defiled by specks of other hues.

Dorothy’s litter box was on the opposite side
of the room. Beside it: a naked green cot with Mara’s artwork piled
neatly in the center.

I snatched the pages. On top was a drawing of
the hill. I flipped to the next page and
there it was again
,
picture after picture of the ominous mound that I first discovered
polluting Mara’s diary.

The curtain shifted and Dorothy slunk in. She
meandered to the box, squatted, and watched me while she peed.

Some of the drawings depicted a stick figure
beside the water tower. Sometimes there were two figures, a boy and
a girl, arms reaching toward a blue line at the top of the page
that represented sky. (Ryan told Mara the drawings were good.
Either he was lying, or beauty was truly in the eye of the
beholder.) In one picture, a flying saucer hovered above the hill.
In another, an angel.

I was moderately shocked by the repetition of
the drawings and Mara’s inherent obsession, though the concept was
nothing new. Whit and I rented
The Shining
last year and
covered our eyes as Mrs. Torrance scanned her husband’s repetitive
novel, and
Close Encounters
was one of my all-time-favorite
flicks. But there was darker than obsession in Mara’s drawings. For
the first time, I realized the disconnect between the girl’s cheery
personality and her inner turmoil. I missed it when I read her
diary. I missed it when she so easily accepted the news of her
parents death. But I saw it now–
repressed outrage
–evident in
the hard-pressed lines of colorful wax.

Dorothy crossed the room, collar jingling
with every off-beat step of her mangled paw, and rubbed her side
against the curtain. As she pranced away, the hem of the fabric
clung to a tuft of fur and revealed–for a split second–crayon on
the hidden wall.

I dropped the pages on the cot, took five
steps across the room, and peeled back the sheet. A blue ribbon of
Crayola sky weaved above my head. Below it: a massive tapestry of
Mara’s hill so large that I had to step back to take it all in. I
jerked the curtain hard, popping the staples from the rafter. It
billowed, then drifted to a puddle at my feet.

The stick-figure girl had been re-imagined on
the wall. Her hair was a row of squiggly lines the same shade of
yellow as the sun. Her legs were misshapen and disproportional to
her awkward torso. Her arms were thrusting upward, beckoning what
appeared to be a horse-drawn wagon among the clouds, swooping
toward the girl with brilliant orange zig-zags blasting from the
sleigh.

I backed up again and Dorothy shrieked when
my heel caught the tip of her tail.

“Scat, kitty-cat!” I lifted my foot and she
charged through the open door.

“Mara...” I muttered as I pondered the mural,
“What the heck is going on.”

* * *

Mara Lynn was in my bed when I returned to my
room. The moon that had been illuminating my workspace only minutes
ago was now highlighting the summer-brown cheek of a
twelve-year-old girl. The rest of her face and body blended in with
the shadows and sheets. Her knees hugged her chest and stretched
her cotton nightshirt.

A faint click and her finger glowed red. She
was holding the baby monitor. I looked to the far wall. The hatch
had been opened.

“Scat, kitty-cat?” she said.

The accusation barely sunk in; I was still
reeling from the girl sitting on my bed; in the middle of the
night; naked beneath that shirt.

“Shouldn’t you be editing?” she asked.

I released my grip from the doorframe and
stepped inside. “Why were you going through my stuff?”

“There’s kids in the trees,” she said. “You
weren’t in your bed, so I checked the Batcave. Then I heard the
baby monitor and listened.” She turned off the device and tossed it
to the floor.

I didn’t know which to address first, the
zombie-ferrets outside our windows, the drawing of the hill and
fiery wagon, or the possibility that Mara knew I was just as
ferrety as the rest. “I didn’t read your diary,” I said.

“You think I’m crazy.”

“Huh?”

“You saw my drawings.”

I shrugged, grateful she wasn’t ticked about
the bug or Ryan’s claim. “You’ve always been a little crazy,” I
joked.

Mara didn’t respond, but hugged her knees and
wiggled her toes.

My eyes were still adjusting to the darkness.
As Mara’s face became clearer, I saw that her forehead was wet.
Drenched
. Instinctively, I touched her cheek with the back
of my hand. She didn’t flinch, but her eyes found mine and I knew
she was afraid.

“You’re burning up,” I said, a phrase stolen
from my mom. “Do you feel cold?”

“I’m kinda hot.”

“Probably not a fever, then.” I rolled over,
reached into the bottom drawer of my nightstand and pulled out a
miniature, battery-powered fan. I flipped the switch and held it to
her face.

Mara’s head rose from her kneecaps. Loose
strands of hair danced in the mild breeze.

“You think I’m crazy,” she said again.

I put my lips to the fan blades. My words
sounded buzzy like a robot. “Maaaraaa, I don’t think you’re
craaazyyy.”

She smiled. She leaned to the fan and spoke
with adorable, buzzing words. “Great Lakes
Faaaaaaaaaamily
Diner!”

We laughed until Mara released her knees and
toppled to her back. She pinched her nightshirt at the chest and
fanned herself with the fabric. I turned off the fan, but she
scowled, so I turned it back on and held it to her face.

“It’s from my dream,” she said.

“Huh?”

“The picture, silly goose.”

“You had a dream about a wagon in the
sky?”

She rolled her head and faced me. Her hand
was still cooling her torso with her nightshirt. “Promise you won’t
tell anybody?”

“Promise.”

Mara studied my eyes. She was probably
wondering if she could trust me after the escapade with the baby
monitor. “Pinky promise?” she asked, then held out her fist and
wiggled her pinky.

I nodded. Our pinkies shook.

“Lay down,” she said.

I obeyed. Our bodies didn’t touch, but I felt
the warm electrical charge of nearby girl.

“It always starts the same. I’m running
through the woods away from the castle.” Mara’s words were so close
I could feel her breath. “And I get this excited feeling in my
chest and I start to run faster. Then the trees are all around me
and I can’t see the house anymore and my heart feels like it might
explode right out of my shirt.”

“Were you running to the hill?”

“Always to the hill.”

“What happens when you get there?”

“I climb it. It’s all trees at first. Then
sand. There’s this round building at the top–”

“A water tower?”

“Maybe. But when I get there, it’s just me
an’ the tower so I wait. Sometimes I wait so long that Livy wakes
me up and I tell her to let me sleep just a little longer so I can
find out–”

“Find what out?”

“What’s coming.”

My little fan wasn’t helping; the
perspiration on Mara’s brow was thicker and the loose strands of
hair were wet and matting with the others.

“Sometimes it’s a chariot,” she said. ”All
hot and white with flames zipping out the wheels, just like Elijah
in the bible.”

I didn’t know the story.

“Sometimes it’s a UFO. Sometimes a ray of
light comes out of the clouds and I float right up inside
them.”

“Whoa.”

“One time, a bright red hand came out of the
dune grass and grabbed my ankle and pulled me under the sand.”

I thought of the scene in
Beetlejuice
where the claws come out of the dessert and grabs the people’s
faces. “Holy Hannah,” I muttered.

“I wasn’t afraid,” she said. “Not by any of
it.”

“Where do they take you?”

Mara stopped fanning her chest. “I never find
out. I wake up and the dream’s over.”

A twig snapped outside my window. Mara rolled
her eyes. I dropped the fan, jumped up, bounced across my mattress,
and set my chin on the windowsill. Even with a full moon, I could
only see branches swaying ever-so-slightly in the wind.

“Forget about ‘em James.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I think they’re–”

From the blackness came a burst of color; a
boys face lit for a split second by a flashlight. His eyes were
watching me–
level with me
–so close I could hit him with a
rock if I had one to throw. “Who the heck–”

“Ignore them,” Mara said.

I dropped to my bed and scooched to the foot.
“I’m gonna tell Dad.”

“No,” she said and sat up. “Not yet.” Mara
worked her knees back into her oversized shirt. Her eyes pleaded
with mine as her hands rubbed her bare ankles. She was
shivering.

“How did they find you?” I asked.

“They’re different. Not the boys from
auntie’s house...”

“But we live in the boonies! If you’re not
singing anymore, why are they outside your window?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think someone from the party told
them?”

“James!” she said. “Cut it out and warm me
up.”

I pulled the covers around her body and
touched her shoulder.

“I just don’t wanna think about it anymore
tonight.” A minute later, the shivering stopped.

I imagine there are only two ways a boy can
sleep in the same bed as Mara Lynn: either fully awake–pondering
her dreams, relishing every heartbeat and innocent twitch, inching
closer and closer until she stirs–or sound asleep, dreamless, as in
a womb.

I did the latter.

“James?” she said before I fell asleep.

“Yeah, Mara?”

“The hill...”

“What about it?”

She yawned and snuggled her face in my
pillow. “It’s not just a dream.”

* * *

TINK.

I awoke to sunlight and Mara asleep in my
bed. She was on her side, facing me, and breathing through her
nose.

I kissed her temple. I couldn’t help it.

TINK.

Crap!
I thought.
What time is
it?
Do my parents know Mara’s in my bed?
“Mara!” I
whispered. “Hey, Mara!”

Her eyes fluttered like a startled moth. Her
arms stretched toward the headboard, revealing a porcelain armpit
and the side of her chest through the open nightshirt sleeve.
“Mornin’ sunshine.”

TINK.

She froze. “What was that?”

TINK.

“The window,” I said. We stood on my bed and
bounced to the sill.

A.J. was fifteen feet below, waving his
hands, beckoning us to the woods.

“He looks excited,” Mara said.

“Doesn’t this kid have parents?” I asked.

A.J. flailed his arms, gestured to the trees,
then dashed into the brush.

I hopped off the bed, snatched a pair of
shorts from the floor, and wiggled them under my nightshirt.

“James!” she said.

“Stay here.” I opened the door, scanned the
parlor to assure my family wasn’t privy to the stowaway in my bed,
then bolted through the room, down the stairs, out the door, and
around the back of the castle.

Mara was behind me, still in her nightshirt,
crunching leaves in my mother’s sandals. “I’m coming with!” she
said and deftly hurdled a log.

I knew it was dangerous. I knew it was stupid
to let her follow. But I was happy to have her at my side.

We arrived at the clearing below our windows.
No sign of A.J.

“Age!” I shouted.

“A.J.!” she yelled.

I cupped my hands around my mouth. “A–!”

“Wait!” Mara cut me short. “Look at
this!”

I spun around. Floating six inches from her
face was a white slipper. “What the heck?” I shuffled through a
patch of ferns and stopped at her side.

“It’s from my old pajamas...” she said.

The bootie was laced through a branch with
fishing wire. I tore it down, branch included.

“There’s more,” she said, pointing deeper
into the woods. It was an arm, part of the same outfit, dangling in
the open air.

I grit my teeth, jumped for the fabric, and
yanked it from the tree.

“Don’t go, James,” she said.

“I’m gonna kill that asshole.” I noticed
another fabric arm at the top of The Great Divide and made my way
up the mound.

Mara scrambled to keep up. I tossed back the
first arm, then stared down the gulch. “A.J.!” I yelled. “I’m gonna
tear your face off your skull!”

I took Mara’s hand. Together, we found solid
footing and dodged thorny weeds and prickers. Two dangling legs led
us halfway down the incline, and a frayed zipper signaled us to
stop on a narrow path on the side of the bluff. The fishing wire
was caked with dried worm guts; this was the first piece that A.J.
hung.

CLINK.

“Now what?” Mara asked.

I glanced up the hill to see how far we came.
Too far to turn back,
I thought.

CLINK.
It was the sound of metal on
metal, not twenty feet down the path.