The Boy Who Drew Monsters: A Novel (15 page)

The Wellers threw their questions at Tim, but he could not find the words to answer. His face reddened in the warmth of the house, and the frost in his matted hair melted. From behind the scrim of adults, Jack Peter caught his father’s eye, and he looked as if he was conjuring a plausible explanation. “You had us worried absolutely sick,” Mrs. Weller said.

“There was someone out there. The same thing I saw on the road that night I brought Nick back to you.”

“Coyote,” Mr. Weller said. “You’re not the only one who’s seen it. The Hill brothers found one had been at their trash cans just last week, and it nearly ate the Rivards’ little dog. Some of the fellas were playing poker in the basement there, and they heard all this yapping, and out in the yard, a mangy old coyote snapping its teeth, ready to carry the poor pooch away.”

“It wasn’t a coyote but taller than a man. The boys saw it, too. Tell them.”

Jack Peter waved the bloodied towel in his hand. “It was a monster. Trying to get in our house.”

All of the adults stared at him as if he were crazy. He hid his face behind the wing of his crooked arm and retreated from their scrutiny.

Mr. Weller laid his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “How ’bout it, son. Man, or something else? Maybe a werewolf out in the middle of the day. Did you get a good look at the beast?”

The boy’s lips quivered and his eyes blinked rapidly as he fought the urge to cry. “I don’t know. It was far and we turned away and when we looked back, it was gone.”

Tim rose from his chair, as if emerging from a cocoon of ice, crackling and stiff in his joints. Anger contorted his features, and he stepped between Nick and his father to confront the boy. “But you saw him, clear as I did. You saw him today and you saw him that night.”

Nick chewed his lip and stared at the floor.

“Tell the truth, boy. A man, wild and naked.”

Everyone now watched Nick for some affirmation or denial, but the boy was in a panic that threatened to drown him.

From his crouch, Jack Peter listened as they questioned his friend, saw how scared he looked, and jumped up to save him. “He didn’t have a pecker.”

In unison, their heads swiveled to face him. Mrs. Weller laughed at the comment.

“That’s what Nick said.”

His father croaked a warning. “Jip—”

“I never said that.”

“You did,” Jack Peter said. “You saw the drawing and you said he had no penis.”

The adults, even his father, laughed again. Jack Peter hated it when people laughed at him, and he wrung the bloody towel in his hands and waved it to make them quit. When he saw the shock on their faces, he stopped and clasped his hands behind his head to keep still, to show them they should not be afraid.

His mother entered the room, bearing the first-aid kit, and she came at once to his side. “I’m just going to help you,” she said and laid her hand upon his knotted fingers, prying gently to get him to relax his grip, but he didn’t want to, not yet, he wasn’t finished telling them about the monster, but she kept tugging at his hands and speaking slowly, words full of music, till he finally gave in to her and let go of the towel. She held his left hand in her right, rubbing his thumb with her thumb, and he was okay.

“What’s going on? What happened here?”

Nobody wanted to tell her. Each person avoided her gaze.

“Who set off Jack?”

“It was nothing,” his father said. “Just a misunderstanding about what’s appropriate in mixed company.”

“Heavens, Tim,” Mrs. Weller said. “I’ve heard ‘pecker’ plenty of times.”

“Mixed, children,” he said.

Rising for the defense, Mr. Weller tottered to the middle of the room. “Jack here was trying to tell us what he saw—or didn’t see—in regards to that creature your husband chased all the way to Canada.”

His mother took out some gauze and a bandage and went back to patch up his father. She pressed the nail marks with her fingertips. “So much blood. Do you think you might need stitches?”

He dismissed her anxiety with a wave of his hand. “I saw something out on the rocks, white as a ghost, and I chased it. I must have passed out, and when I came to, it was early dark and I was so cold. My neck was bleeding. I could feel something had been at my throat. All the way home, I kept hearing noises out in the blackness, following me, footsteps behind me, all around, that would stop when I stopped and start up again whenever I moved.”

“White as a ghost,” his mother said. Mrs. Weller kept pulling at the hem of her sleeve, and Mr. Weller was quite nearly smiling, skeptical and bemused.

“A couple times I yelled out, but whatever it was would run away—you could hear it scamper over the rocks—but then it came around again the way a dog will circle back on you. Or maybe there was more than one of them. Maybe you’re right, Fred, maybe there’s coyotes or a pack of wild dogs out there. Maybe that’s what got my throat.”

Mr. Weller’s smile broadened, and then he blushed.

“Were you just frightened to death?” Mrs. Weller asked. She had inched closer.

“Let me tell you, I was scared, and didn’t know where I was half the time. Only by keeping the sea on my left could I figure out the way home.”

He pictured his father out in the dark, using his mind to turn the landscape so that the sea would be on his left-hand side, rotating the darkened sky like tilting a picture. Maybe the monsters would just slide off the page. He wanted his father to open the doors and shake out the Wellers. Erase Nick from the page. He was tired of them. Without hesitation, he yawned wide and roared a protracted sigh.

“Seems we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Mr. Weller said, nodding to the sleepy boy. “We really ought to be getting home. Thanks for having Nick.”

Mrs. Weller stared at her husband as though he had said a bad word. “Not until Tim finishes his story.”

“Of course not, dear,” Mr. Weller said, folding his arms across his chest. “Tim, we’re pins and needles.”

“There’s not much more to it. I picked up a rock and threw it, and whatever it is stopped following me. The boys must have forgotten to turn on the outside lights, which would have been a beacon, so I stumbled around in the dark, looking for the house, till I spotted Jip’s bedroom window. Go to the light at the end of the tunnel. Isn’t that what they say you do when you die. Look, I’m all right. A bit frosty around the edges, and the blood—”

“I think you should see a doctor,” Holly said. “If not tonight, at least in the morning.”

“But you must have been out cold for hours,” Mrs. Weller said. “You could have a concussion.”

“Did you hit your head?” Jack Peter asked.

From the corner of the room, Nick coughed, reminding them of his presence.

“I don’t remember.” He touched his forehead. “Maybe that’s one symptom of amnesia. You can’t remember if you have it.”

Mr. Weller fetched their coats and hats. “No more monsters for tonight.”

“No more monsters,” his father said.

“Peckerless or otherwise, no more monsters. Doctor’s orders.” Mrs. Weller stood to join her husband. “You get him to bed, Holly, and we’ll give you a call in the morning, eh?”

“You’ve been too kind,” his mother said. “I’ll take care of Tim, now.”

Jack Peter studied the Wellers as they readied themselves to go, wrapping themselves until they nearly lost all shape. At the door, Mrs. Weller leaned over and kissed his father on the cheek. Mr. Weller grabbed him in a bear hug and squeezed so hard it made his father gasp, and then they stepped into the night. Through the window Jack Peter watched them pass through the beam from the porch light. Nick looked left and right and all around as if worried about what lurked in the shadows, ready to pounce. They made it safely to the car, which trailed away, two red taillights that narrowed to pinpoints and vanished.

Beside the easy chair, his mother crouched next to his father so that their faces were on the same plane. She had led him back to comfort and warmth, wrapped a blanket around his legs, and now they conspired in secret looks and low voices. They often spoke this way, in a language of gestures foreign and inscrutable. She laid her hand upon his forearm. He bowed his head toward hers.

“How about I run you a nice hot bath? And while you’re soaking, I’ll make us something to eat—you must be starving.”

Careworn, she slowly stood and made her way upstairs. Rushing water overhead broke the silence. His father reclined in the easy chair, head back, resting his eyes. Jack Peter read the angles of his face, normal color returning to his skin, and listened to the soft purring of his steady breathing. From afar, he traced the three long lines swiped across his throat and a nick beneath his left ear. Just when he seemed to have fallen fully asleep, his father arched an eyebrow and popped open one eye. They considered each other from a short distance before Jack Peter had to turn away.

His father closed his eyes again and spoke in a calm and measured tone. “Who do you think was out there, Jip?”

He cleared his throat and whispered. “A monster.”

“But there are no such things as monsters, son.”

“Then I don’t know.”

The roar of water upstairs ended abruptly, and he knew his mother was now testing the temperature with her elbow. He had seen her do so a hundred times before, rolling back her sleeve and hunching over the tub to make sure the bath was not too hot or too cold. She specialized in making things just right. In a moment, she would call his father when it was all set, but Daddy was already moving, untangling the blanket from his legs and lifting his sore and tired body from the chair.

His mother stayed with him and did not return immediately to make their dinner, leaving Jack Peter alone downstairs. He gazed at the strings of colored lights on the Christmas tree, touching the different ones to feel if blue was hotter than red or if green was as cool as grass, but the bulbs were all the same, the heat as tiny as the heart of a bird. When he tired of that experiment, he wandered to the kitchen and found the bloodied dishcloths soaking in the sink next to the dirty dishes from his feast with Nick. Battle wounds from the wars of the toy soldiers. On the refrigerator door, the boy in the picture seemed to be following him with his eyes, so Jack Peter turned his back on him and saw at once in the opposite window a white flash of movement. A face watching him had turned away. The man was in the yard. Jack Peter ran to the glass, but all he could see was the pitch of night and his own reflection smattered with light from the kitchen. His warm hands on the cold surface left ghost impressions when he withdrew, a sign on the windowpane, hello, good-bye. He decided that he would not tell them about the visitor, that he would not let on that he was losing control.
Better to keep some secrets to yourself.

An hour after she had said she would be right back, his mother came down to the kitchen in a bathrobe, her wet hair turbaned in a high towel, her face flushed against her white smile. His father followed shortly thereafter, he too in a robe and slippers, moving with rejuvenated assurance, as if nothing had happened. Only the bandage at his neck hinted otherwise. Each parent nodded upon first seeing their son but was otherwise indifferent to his presence. They worked together at the stove and counter, throwing together a boiling pot of pasta and a jar of tomato sauce, a casual salad, and frozen rolls heated and brushed with olive oil and garlic. Believing himself invisible, Jack Peter was surprised when they remembered to invite him to the table. He saw how they had changed. They were a team again, and he would have to see what he should do about that. The blush of red wine filled the room when his father uncorked the bottle. Piping hot, the spaghetti was no sooner set on the table than they were at it like a pair of wild beasts. They chomped at the bread, slurped at the sauce, and drained their glasses to the lees. They ate as though they had been starving, abandoning themselves to desire, as if the raw act of eating was somehow wicked when true wickedness was just outside the door.

Three

The man next to Holly took the light from his son, a boy of Jack’s age, and passed it to her, tipping the small candle to her wick, a drop of wax falling to the circle of cardboard protecting her hand against just such accidents, and then she turned to the stranger on the other side to send the dot of flame on down the pew. Soon the darkened church was illuminated by hundreds of such candles, and at the altar the priest, resplendent in his white and gold vestments, was saying something about the child who brought light into the world, but Holly could not understand his prayer, for she was caught in the yellow and blue flickering before her eyes, remembering similar ceremonies with her parents and sisters at the midnight Masses of her youth. She had nearly forgotten how it felt to be so carefree and filled with expectation. The congregation listened to the first measure from the organ and then all voices rose in song, and the music carried the altar boys and the deacon and Father Bolden on their recessional along the center aisle. She had just found her place in the hymnal when it all ended, the carol complete, the parishioners blew out their candles and wished friends and fellows alike a Merry Christmas.

In mere moments, the flock had flown, leaving behind a few kneeling penitents, heads bowed, whispering their prayers. In front of her an elderly woman in a lace mantilla reminded Holly of her grandmother. Across the aisle, a family with six children as well dressed and well behaved as the von Trapps were putting on their overcoats atop their suits and dresses, the youngest crying softly as he was roused to be bundled up. A toddler in a tiny vest and red bow tie could not keep from staring at Holly, and when she smiled back and waved, he buried his head on his father’s shoulder. The crowd at the rear of the church thinned to a manageable few, so she slipped into her coat and headed toward the vestibule. She hovered at the edge so she could be among the last people there, greeting the priest.

Father Bolden brightened when she came into view and grabbed her extended hand with both of his and pulled her to him, close enough so that she could smell the wine on his breath and the incense lingering in the folds of his vestments. She was aware of a few souls around her, but at the same time, his gesture created an intimate space, perfect for what she had come to say.