Marla became quickly aware that Jessie’s expression had changed from one of dismay to a shock of disbelief.
“What is it? Jessie?”
Trembling, Jessie raised a hand and pointed to the space beyond Marla, her eyes fixed on something there. From behind her, in the subdued half-light of the hallway, Marla heard a voice.
“What are you doing in my daddy’s house?” the voice said, quietly.
God help her, it was a child’s whisper.
Marla turned slowly, chilled to the bone at the sound of the child’s voice. Standing in the gloom of the doorway was the little boy she’d seen running across the beach and into the cove. He looked ready to run again, already backing up as she instinctively took a step towards him—her arms held out like an offer of motherly care.
“How did you get in here?” she asked, then glancing at Jessie, “Don’t be afraid, we’re not going to hurt you…”
“Speak for yourself,” Jessie muttered. “Creepy little bastard, sneaking up on us like that, I nearly had a heart attack…”
Marla quickly shushed her before she could do any more damage with her ouzo-sodden tongue, then fixed the boy with as open and calm an expression as she could muster.
“It’s all right… How did you get in here?”
The boy put a dirty finger to his mouth, chewed on it childishly.
“Were you in here already, is that it? Before the shutters came down? Poor thing, you must have been so frightened.”
At this, the lad’s attitude changed, his physicality shifting into a posture of defiance. He raised one bare foot off the floorboards and stamped it down, making a dull slapping sound.
Then he spoke.
“What the fuck are you two doing in my house?”
Marla’s jaw dropped. Whatever she was expecting him to say, it certainly wasn’t this. The profanity was utterly at odds with the boy’s age, yet somehow suited his disheveled demeanor. Jessie cracked up with laughter, clutching her belly as she did so. Then the boy spoke again and her giggles began to subside.
“You made a big mistake coming here and locking yourselves in.”
“We’re waiting for some…for some friends,” Marla tried to explain. “And when they get here, the shutters will open again.”
“HE will know you are here. HE will be coming,” the boy replied.
Something in his tone unsettled Marla. She tried to rub some warmth into the gooseflesh pricking at her arms, peering into the gloomy doorway to get a better look at the boy’s face.
“Don’t worry, kid, it’s like the lady says, Fowler and his cronies can’t get to us in here—they’re stuck outside. You’re perfectly safe with us…”
The boy snorted. “Not Fowler. Not outside.”
“What…what do you mean?”
“HIM. HE’S inside with us.”
Flushed, Marla looked over to Jessie, who just shook her head.
“Little bastard’s just trying to scare us. There’s no one in this museum except us two and Adam.”
Marla turned back to the boy, crouched slightly to better meet his eye level.
“Who? Who’s inside with us?”
Then, just as suddenly as he’d appeared, the boy turned on his heels and ran.
Incensed, Jessie took off after him first, knocking a surprised Marla to the kitchen floor. There was no time to dither, nobody spoke to her like that and got away with it, least of all a snotty kid. Marla would be okay. The boy was agile, and fast, darting this way and that through the halls and rooms of the house as though their layout was imprinted in his brain matter. A couple of times, she almost lost him in the shadows— only to pick up his trail again at the sound of his dull little footsteps on the floorboards. As she followed him through the glum interior of the games room, Jessie got an inkling of where he was headed. The cellar must be his bedroom. At this, she felt a sudden pang of pity for her quarry. What kind of life must this kid be living in such squalor, she could only guess. For him to even be in this house alone when all the families on the island were away just didn’t tally. Had he been abandoned, she wondered as she ran, left behind by mistake when everyone set sail to the mainland for the season? She recalled the stagnant mattress and the ripe stink of the cellar and shuddered. She’d get him away from here, get him cleaned up, and make him talk—just as soon as she could catch him. Easier said than done when he was so damned fleet of foot.
“Get back here!”
She skidded around a corner and careered into the facing wall of the narrow passage she and Marla had walked down earlier. Steeling herself for a moment, Jessie filled her lungs with air and continued her pursuit to the basement door, which was open. Just as she’d suspected, the boy was headed to his sorry little hideout all along. Damp air smothered her respiratory system as she descended the steps into the gloom. Reaching the foot of the stairs, she did a one-eighty, looking and listening for signs of the boy.
“Hey? No need to be frightened, I just wanna talk with you.”
At the sound of her voice, there was a movement, slight and rat-like from the corner of the room. There he was, a tiny phantom in this hellish little underworld, crawling towards a large flap of mildewed wallpaper that hung from the wall like skin from a wound. She started towards him, but knew the folly of her actions even as she did so. The flap of wallpaper gave access to a hole in the wall, through which the boy was wriggling even now as she took clumsy adult-sized steps towards him. The boy grunted with difficulty as he worked his distended little belly through the tight gap. Jessie remembered a picture book from her youth and almost chuckled out loud at the memory—Pooh Bear stuck in a hole in a tree, looking for honey. Looking for honey. Was the child suffering from the effects of malnutrition? Had he truly been forgotten—left here like some lost boy to fend for himself? Her eyes alighted on the pornography lurking on the shelves near the filthy nest-bed just a few feet from the hole in the wall. A dark kaleidoscope of images rushed at Jessie—abuses all too awful to consider, yet imminently possible given the implications of this dreadful scene.
“Don’t run, come back, I won’t hurt you.”
Just his feet now, disappearing through the hole into the crawlspace beyond, or God only knows where. Jessie covered the final distance and dropped to her knees, intent on catching a glimpse of where the frightened, abandoned little lad was going to. As she kneeled there prostrate, peering into the gap, the air seemed to cool around her. A shadow fell, monstrously large, engulfing her. Something large was blocking out the scant light, turning the basement world into that of a photographic negative. Jessie felt suddenly so vulnerable and afraid that she inadvertently whimpered. Blind panic gripped every nerve ending, fear flooding every pore in her skin like coolant. Her eyes searched the filth for something to grab onto, some weapon or totem of defense. But there were no such amulets here. only the piss-stinking rags and tattered detritus of a childhood denied that increased the burden of her despair.
“M… Marla?” The sound of her own voice was hopeful as it rang in her ears. All hope was gone when she finally turned her head to see what was standing over her.
Marla picked herself up off the kitchen floor and dusted herself down. Damn Jessie, damn her all to hell. She’d done the worst thing possible in chasing the boy like that—he was already frightened enough. As she followed the distant clatter of footsteps through the house, Marla recalled seeing the child on the beach. He’d looked like a ghost then. But here he was a real flesh and blood thing, trapped in a big dark house and being chased by a mental American hippy chick half-soaked on ouzo. Marla picked up the pace—it would be better for everyone if she could do the talking.