The End of Never (24 page)
Ian had not crushed her sleeping pills as he should have before he hid them in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he served June for dinner. She had hidden the capsules under her tongue until he excused himself for a cigar on the veranda. Ian never suspected she had spit the pills into his glass of whiskey. As the cubes of ice danced in the glass of bitter booze, the pills dissolved slowly, waiting for Ian to finish his cigar and return to the study.
“Thank you, darling,” he told June when she handed him the drink. Five minutes later, he had collapsed into a worn leather armchair by the fireplace, his glass slipping from his fingers and shattering as the crystal clattered to the floor.
June did not want to eat or sleep. She was horrified that her granddaughter might be in danger because she had failed to protect Alexandra from family secrets.
Dixie scrambled from her arms as they approached the staircase door. The dog remained a cautious step behind her mistress while June nudged the door open to the attic steps. One by one, they climbed the creaky steps until they found the attic landing. A shaft of moonlight illuminated a mattress and army locker, the only furnishings in the bare room.
In the moonlight, June kneeled and opened the locker. Dixie growled, pawing frantically at the wooden floor. “Hush,” June scolded the frightened dog.
“June Bug,” someone whispered. “What are you looking for in there?”
June stroked the scratched, olive-green helmet on top of a heap of uniform clothing. The name Peyton was still clear in the white-painted letters across the back. “Joseph,” she said softly.
“June Bug,” the voice called to her again.
Slowly turning her face to the window, she saw Joseph in the moonlight. He was tall, handsome, and smiling. His army uniform was pressed and his boots had been shined. Her big brother beamed at her.
“I've seen him,” he told his sister.
June did not speak. She did not move for fear of startling the animated apparition. Hiding in the shadows, Dixie whimpered and waited.
“Who, Joey?” June asked as she raised herself timidly to her feet.
“Jonathan,” her brother answered.
With a moan, June crumpled to the mattress. “No,” she murmured. “Please, no,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Her brother's face evaporated into a glowing mist of sparkle and haze.
“June Bug.” She heard her name again.
Closing her eyes, she rested her head on the mattress and curled her legs up to her chest. The ghost was gone and Dixie decided she could crawl from her corner. Snuggling close to June's back, the dog drifted to sleep, as fear and exhaustion thrust June into unconsciousness.
She saw Alexandra as a youngster. “Baby girl,” she murmured in her sleep, and dreamed of a summer's day a long time ago.
In June's dream, Alexandra cradled a skinny blonde doll in her arms and grinned. Giggling, she stuck her tongue through the hole in her mouth where her two front teeth had been.
“Five and feisty you are,” the cook said, approaching the table on the veranda, a tower of chocolate-chip pancakes wobbling in his hands. “Here we are, little missy,” said Patrick. He laid the butter-drenched, maple-syrup-soaked breakfast platter in front of the little girl. “Dig in while they're hot, Miss Alex.”
“Thank you, Misser Patrick,” she said, smiling. Behind her, the sun rose over the ocean. “Can Princess Britney and Bob eat some, too?” she asked, tucking her blonde doll and toy dinosaur into her lap. She grabbed a fork in her fist.
“Of course,” Patrick agreed, retreating across the wooden porch. “I'll fetch them each a plate. Would they fancy some bacon, also, do you think?”
Alexandra glanced down at the faces of her guests and vigorously nodded her head yes. Diving into the pile of pancakes, she rubbed her belly.
The round Irish cook returned to the table on the veranda with a platter of crispy bacon and two fresh plates. “For you, Sir Bob,” the cook said, setting a plate for the plastic dinosaur. Then he turned to the blonde doll. “And for you, your highness,” he said, heaping pancakes on the guests' plates.
“Misser Patrick,” Alexandra said, tugging on his apron. “May I please have some juice?” she asked, poking out her bottom lip.
“Oh look at me now!” Patrick told her. “I've gone and forgotten your juice, lassie. I'll be back in two shakes of a leprechaun's fist.”
Alexandra giggled, her long strands of ringlets cascading down her shoulders and into the syrup-smothered plate of pancakes. Straining for the platter of bacon, she dropped a handful of crispy strips into the red sand pail resting at the foot of her chair.
“That's for the birdies over there,” she said to her toys. She pointed her chubby hand to the beach, which was beyond the high sand dunes at the foot of the backyard. Peyton Manor was quiet; only Alexandra and Patrick were stirring so early in the dawn.
“Let's go,” she said hurriedly. She slid from her perch. She was wearing a neon-pink bathing suit with a silver star stitched across the chest.
Throwing the dinosaur and the doll into her red pail with the bacon strips, she scooted across the veranda to a set of wooden steps and jumped to the grass. Skipping across the backyard, she reached the sand dunes and glanced back at the porch. She did not see Patrick, who was still inside, looking for juice. Ahead of her, she saw the sandy shoreline and choppy ocean. A light breeze lapped the low waves against the beach.
Scampering across the sand dunes and to the beach, Alexandra hunted for a sand castle she had built the previous afternoon. Not one sign of her triumph remained. The mighty castle had been knocked down overnight when the full moon washed the high tide ashore. Plopping herself in the sand by a driftwood log, Alexandra stuck out her bottom lip and pouted.
“It's gone,” she sniffled, her chubby fingers gripping the handle of her sand pail.
The smell of fresh bacon soothed her worries. She sucked on a fatty strip and rested her toys on the beach beside her. Humming to herself, she gathered her yellow shovel and commenced a fresh excavation.
Bob the Dinosaur and Princess Britney stared at her in silence as the hole at her feet grew larger. On the veranda across the dunes, the cook realized his guests had abandoned breakfast.
“Alexandra!” Patrick called into the air, his hands cupped around his mouth.
Determined to rebuild her castle, Alexandra dug furiously on the sun-soaked beach, her back to the sea. Dig and toss. Dig and toss. The dry sand flew into the air.
Suddenly she shrieked and dropped her plastic shovel, startled at what she had found.
Her soft voice carried to the edge of the shore. There, the waves lapped against the shins of a silent man. His khaki pants were damp from the waves. He had been gazing away from her, toward the rising sun on the horizon. His hair was thick, with wavy, blond strands. At his temples were silver streaks. He turned his head in the direction of the innocent squeal.
“Let me help you,” he said solemnly. As he rushed to help, his bare feet trampled Bob and Britney.
“It's okay, misser,” Alexandra said. She held a plastic army man to his eyes. “Some boy mussa lost this guy.”
The man smiled and knelt beside her. “May I?” he asked. His gray eyes locked on the tiny green figure.
“My name is Alexandra,” the girl said, smiling proudly.
“That's a big name for a little girl,” the stranger told her. “My name is Joseph,” he said, bowing to her. “It is a pleasure,” he said, offering his hand.
“You look sad, Misser Joey,” the girl said, shaking his hand softly as a frown spread across her pink, freckled cheeks.
“I'm lost, you see,” he explained. “I cannot seem to find my way home.”
“That's my Granny June's house over there,” Alexandra said, pointing to the roof peeking above the sand dunes.
“My sister is named June,” the man said, kneeling beside the hole in the sand.
From over the dunes, her grandmother called, “Alexandra, where are you?
June stalked across her backyard, fear seizing her heart. Could her granddaughter have fallen into the ocean? With a determined but trembling step, she mounted the top of the dunes and spied Alexandra talking to herself across the beach.
“There she is. There's my Granny,” Alexandra said, waving her arms. “See?” she said, turning to the stranger. But the man had gone. She looked up and down the wide shoreline, but he had disappeared.
Racing across the beach, Granny June swallowed the girl in her arms and held her tight. “You scared me, Alexandra. Don't ever run off like that again. Promise me.”
“Okay Granny,” Alexandra said, sniffling. “I just wanted to feed the birdies,” she explained, pointing her fingers at the bacon bits that she had spread across the sand.
“Who were you talking to just now?” Granny June asked.
“He's gone,” Alexandra said, glancing at the ocean. “He told me his name was Joey,” she said, plopping back down next to the hole she had begun digging in the shifting sand. The tiny toy army man lay on his back, his rifle aimed at the cloudless blue sky. “He said he had a sisser named June. Just like you, Granny.”
A fire kindled in the woman's heart. Granny June retrieved the plastic army figurine from the sand. “What else did he say, Alex?” she asked, petting her granddaughter's auburn ringlets.
“He's real sad. He said he was lost and just wanted to go home,” Alexandra told her as she grabbed her yellow shovel. Yet Granny June could see that there were no footprints in the wet sand other than the child's.
Granny June sighed and closed her eyes.
Brother Joseph. What else can my little girl see?
“Did he say anything else?” Granny June asked, scooping sand in her palms.
“Nope,” Alexandra said, her knees dug into the beach.
Let me help you, brother,
June called silently to Joseph
. That witch in the woods will only lead you to hell if she finds out you are still here.
On the horizon, the sun drifted into the ribbon of interstate stretching endlessly before the Mustang.
“Red sky at night,” Callahan whispered as he drove.
The ball of fire melted into the earth, and a rising moon summoned the night.
“A sailor's delight,” he said, “and fortuitous for our journey.” His thoughts of the battle ahead were interrupted by the blonde beside him.
“Callahan,” Taylor pried, “you don't have a girlfriend, do you?” She was already certain of his answer.
“That's none of your business,” he assured her, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.
“Sure it is,” she said, flipping on the stereo, a wall of static blasting through the speakers in the door panels.
In the back seat, Benjamin fumbled to answer his buzzing cell phone. “Hold it down,” he said, staring at the caller on the screen.
In response, Taylor turned the volume higher as she scanned the radio stations. An angry, twangy-voiced girl sang about her boyfriend cheating on her. A vehement preacher shouted about the end of the world. The screeching static between stations drew a scowl to Benjamin's face.
“Hi Mom,” he said, kicking at the bottom of Taylor's seat.
She turned the volume down a decibel and tried to listen to his conversation.
“I don't know when I'll be home,” Benjamin admitted. “I'm hanging with Taylor.”
Benjamin glanced at the back of Taylor's blonde head, her ears cocked backward to overhear him better. “She's not as bad as you might think,” he said into his phone.
Taylor turned up the volume on the stereo again. A talk-radio host complained about the president and gas prices.
“Really?” she whined. She turned off the radio and refocused her attention on Callahan.
“So why don't you have a girlfriend?” Taylor asked.
“I don't want one,” Callahan said firmly.
“But you're like this international man of mystery,” Taylor insisted. “Women dig that kind of stuff.”
Benjamin stuttered in the back seat while he nervously chewed his lip. “The bank really called you?”
Tipping his head to the fidgeting boy, Callahan raised a finger to his lips. “Shh,” he told Taylor.
“I swear I'm not in any trouble. I took the cash out of the ATM to help a friend,” Benjamin explained. “I'll tell you everything later,” he said, hiding his panic. At that point, the call dropped when the Mustang descended down a low hill.
“Don't worry, Ben,” Taylor said, trying to soothe him. “If she calls back, let me talk to her.”
“No way,” he said, staring at the words
No Service
on the screen of his phone. “Where are we, anyway?”
“In the middle of nowhere,” Taylor quickly ascertained.
“The Atlanta city limits are precisely one hundred fifty-three and one-quarter miles behind us,” Callahan announced, reading the odometer. “Before much longer, we will need to wake up our sleeping beauty,” he said. He glanced in the rearview mirror at the dozing Alexandra, snug against Benjamin.
“You need a girlfriend,” Taylor advised Callahan. “I'll introduce you to my stepmother. I am absolutely sure she is some sort of demon, or witch, or something, so you'll get along fabulously. Feel free to lock her up in your attic, too.”
“Isn't she already married?” Callahan asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Duh,” Taylor insisted. “Maybe you could change that. She likes older dudes. You just need to tell her you have loads of cash.”
“You've really thought this through, young lady,” Callahan insisted.
“I know she's not normal. You could take samples of her blood and her hair. And she stays up all night. I've never even seen her asleep once when it was dark outside.”
“I see,” Callahan said, checking the rearview mirror again for any sign that Alexandra might be waking.