I am wrong about Herb. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong, or the last.
My head knocks into an abrupt curve in the wall because I’m still turned toward Herb. “I’m fine,” I tell Mrs. Wermuth quickly. She lifts her hand but hesitates to touch my stinging cheek, because it is just a little too close to the scar, the permanent mark from a garnet ring dangling off a skeletal finger. A gift from a Susan who didn’t want me to forget her, ever. I push Mrs. Wermuth’s hand away gently. “I forgot that turn was coming up so soon.”
“Crazy damn house,” Herb says under his breath. “What in the hell is wrong with living in St. Pete?” He doesn’t seem to expect an answer. The spot on my cheek begins to complain and my scar echoes, a tiny ping, ping, ping.
The hallway has settled into a straight line. At the end, an ordinary door. Mrs. Wermuth pulls out a skeleton key from her apron pocket and twists it in the lock easily. There used to be twenty-five of those keys, all exactly the same, which could open any door in the place. An odd bit of practicality from my grandfather.
A chilly draft rushes at us. I smell things both dying and growing. I have my first moment of real doubt since I left home an hour ago. Mrs. Wermuth reaches up and yanks on a piece of kite string dancing above her head. The bare, dusty lightbulb flickers on.
“Take this.” Mr. Wermuth prods me with the small Maglite from his pocket. “I carry it around for reading. You know where the main light switch is?”
“Yes,” I say automatically. “Right at the bottom.”
“Watch the sixteenth step,” Mrs. Wermuth warns. “Some critter chewed a hole in it. I always count when I go down. You take as long as you like. I think I’ll make all of us a cup of tea and you can tell a bit of the history of the house after. We’d both find that fascinating. Right, Herb?” Herb grunts. He’s thinking of driving a little white ball two hundred yards into Florida’s deep blue sea.
I hesitate on the second step, and turn my head, unsure. If anyone shuts this door, I won’t be found for a hundred years. I’ve never had any doubt that death is still eager to catch up with a certain sixteen-year-old girl.
Mrs. Wermuth offers a tiny, silly wave. “I hope you find what you are looking for. It must be important.”
If this is an opening, I don’t take it.
I descend noisily, like a kid, jumping over step sixteen. At the bottom, I pull another dangling string, instantly washing the room with a harsh fluorescent glow.
It lights an empty tomb. This used to be a place where things were born, where easels stood with half-finished paintings, and strange, frightening tools hung on pegboards, where a curtained darkroom off to the side waited to bring photos to life, and dress mannequins held parties in the corners. Bobby and I would swear we had seen them move more than once.
A stack of old chests held ridiculous antique dress-up hats wrapped in tissue paper and my grandmother’s wedding dress with exactly 3,002 seed pearls and my grandfather’s World War II uniform with the brown spot on the sleeve that Bobby and I were sure was blood. My grandfather was a welder, a farmer, a historian, an artist, an Eagle Scout leader, a morgue photographer, a rifleman, a woodworker, a Republican, a yellow dog Democrat. A poet. He could never make up his mind, which is exactly what people say about me.
He ordered us never to come down here alone, and he never knew we did. But the temptation was too great. We were especially fascinated with a forbidden, dusty black album that held Granddaddy’s crime scene photographs from his brief career with the county morgue. A wide-eyed housewife with her brains splattered across her linoleum kitchen floor. A drowned, naked judge pulled to shore by his dog.
I stare at the mold greedily traveling up the brick walls on every side. The black lichen flourishing in a large crack zigzagging across the filthy concrete floor.
No one has loved this place since Granddaddy died. I quickly cross over to the far corner, sliding between the wall and the coal furnace that years ago had been abandoned as a bad idea. Something travels lightly across my ankle. A scorpion, a roach. I don’t flinch. Worse things have crawled across my face.
Behind the furnace, it is harder to see. I sweep the light down the wall until I find the grimy brick with the red heart, painted there to fool my brother. He had spied on me one day when I was exploring my options. I run my finger lightly around the edges of the heart three times.
Then I count ten bricks up from the red heart, and five bricks over. Too high for little Bobby to reach. I jam the screwdriver from my pocket into the crumbling mortar, and begin to pry. The first brick topples out, and clatters onto the floor. I work at three other bricks, tugging them out one at a time.
I flash the light into the hole.
Stringy cobwebs, like spin art. At the back, a gray, square lump.
Waiting, for seventeen years, in the crypt I made for it.
Tessie, 1995
“Tessie. Are you listening?”
He is asking stupid questions, like the others.
I glance up from the magazine, open in my lap, that I had conveniently found beside me on the couch. “I don’t see the point.”
I flip a page, just to irritate him. Of course he knows I’m not reading.
“Then why are you here?”
I let the air hang with thick silence. Silence is my only instrument of control in this parade of therapy sessions. Then I say, “You know why. I am here because my father wants me to be here.” Because I hated all the others. Because Daddy is so sad, and I can’t stand it. “My brother says I’ve changed.” Too much information. You’d think I’d learn.
His chair legs squeak on the hardwood floor, as he shifts positions. Ready to pounce. “Do you think you’ve changed?”
So obvious. Disgusted, I flip back to the magazine. The pages are cold and slick and stiff. They smell of cloying perfume. It’s the kind of magazine that I suspect is filled with bony, angry girls. I wonder: Is that what this man sees when he stares at me? I’d lost twenty pounds in the last year. Most of my track star muscle tone, gone. My right foot is wrapped in a new leaden cast, from the third surgery. Bitterness rises in my lungs like hot steam. I suck in a deep breath. My goal is to feel nothing.
“OK,” he says. “Dumb question.” I know that he’s watching me intently. “How about this one: Why did you pick me this time?”
I toss the magazine down. I try to remember that he is making an exception, probably doing the district attorney a favor. He rarely treats teen-age girls.
“You signed a legal document that said you will not prescribe drugs, that you will not ever, ever publish anything about our sessions or use me for research without my knowledge, that you will not tell a living soul you are treating the surviving Black-Eyed Susan. You told me you won’t use hypnosis.”
“Do you trust that I will not do any of those things?”
“No,” I snap back. “But at least I’ll be a millionaire if you do.”
“We have fifteen minutes left,” he says. “We can use the time however you like.”
“Great.” I pick up the magazine full of bony, angry girls.
Tessa, present day
Two hours after I leave Granddaddy’s, William James Hastings III arrives at my house, a 1920s bungalow in Fort Worth with somber black shutters and not a single curve or frill. A jungle of color and life thrives behind my front door, but outside, I choose anonymity.
I’ve never met the man with the baronial name settling in on my couch. He can’t be older than twenty-eight, and he is at least 6’3”, with long, loose arms and big hands. His knees bang up against the coffee table. William James Hastings III reminds me more of a professional pitcher in his prime than a lawyer, like his body’s awkwardness would disappear the second he picked up a ball. Boyish. Cute. Big nose that makes him just short of handsome. He has brought along a woman in a tailored white jacket, white-collared shirt, and black pants. The type who cares only vaguely about fashion, as professional utility. Short, natural blond hair. Ring-free fingers. Flat, clipped, unpolished nails. Her only adornment is a glittering gold chain with an expensive-looking charm, a familiar squiggly doodle, but I don’t have time to think about what it means. She’s a cop, maybe, although that doesn’t make sense.