I unfold the old newspaper and read the rest of the story about how Mattie’s family died.
Judge Matthew T. Lane was found dead in his home in Delphi, New York, along with his wife and ten-year-old son. Police suspect accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. The only remaining family member, Judge Lane’s 25-year-old daughter, Mattea Lane, discovered the bodies when she came home in the morning after being forced to spend the night at a friend’s house because of a blizzard. When she entered the house she smelled gas. She found the judge in his study, unconscious and unresponsive. Mrs. Lane, née Celeste Van Allen, was found dead in her bedroom. Ten-year-old Caleb Lane was not at first discovered, leading to the conjecture that he had escaped his parents’ fate, but after an exhaustive search of the house and grounds, Chief Henry Barnes discovered the body of the boy outside in the barn, where he had apparently died of hypothermia and exposure to the elements.
Froze to death, I think, remembering the boy in that story Travis and Lisa had told us. Mattie didn’t mention that detail. My parents and brother died of carbon monoxide poisoning, she’d said, not My parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning and my brother froze to death trying to get the hell out of this batshit-crazy house.
A gust of ice pellets hits the window, making me jump. There’s more to the story, but I’ve read enough. I fold up the newspaper and tuck it in my pocket. Then I walk down the hall to the boy’s room. It’s easy to tell which one it is, because it’s got a pattern of plastic stars on the door—a pattern just like the one that showed up on the window downstairs. I consider knocking, but I’m afraid Oren will just crawl under the bed, so instead I open the door slowly.
At first I’m so dazzled that I’m not sure what I’m seeing. Pinpricks of light dance around the darkened room. It’s like the star show I took Oren to see at the planetarium. He had begged to go because it was called “Star Wars.” I thought he’d be bored when he found out it wasn’t like the movie, but he liked it so much we stayed straight through three showings, hunkering down in our seats so they wouldn’t kick us out between shows.
“Oren?” I call quietly, scanning the room. It’s hard to make out anything through this crazy light show, which I realize is coming from a lamp on the night table. A constellation projector lamp. Oren asked for one at Christmas but it was too expensive. He must have been over the moon when he found this one.
I move cautiously across the room, expecting Oren to jump out at me any minute. But there’s nothing really to hide behind. The only place he could be is under the bed.
I walk slowly to the night table, offering up my bare and vulnerable ankles. “I wonder where Oren can be,” I say, mock-serious. “It’s too bad he’s not here to tell me the names of all these stars. Hmm . . . I think that one’s called Rumplepotomi Doofus. And that group over there must be the Three Stooges.”
I think I hear a tiny giggle from under the bed.
“And that must be the constellation of Snuffleupagus.” This time I hear a definite snort. “And this one, under the sign of the bed, must be—” I drop to my knees and grab under the bed, ready to pull out a giggling boy, but instead my hands close on dust balls. I sweep the space, finding only one small plastic figure, a miniature R2-D2 with a Post-it note that says: “These are not the droids you’re looking for. Look inside the house inside the house.”
What the—
I flatten myself on the floor to look under the bed for a trapdoor, somewhere Oren could be hiding, but just as I do all the lights go out. Followed, two heartbeats later, by a scream from downstairs.
Chapter Twenty
Mattie
WHOEVER IS COMING in must be startled by the lights going out because he freezes. His hesitation gives me the advantage: I’m in the dark, but there’s still a little light left in the sky so I can see him—or at least the shape of him. A man, definitely, with a baseball cap under a hood. His face is in shadow. I can make out the gun in his hand perfectly well and an inch of bare skin between coat cuff and gloved hand. Although I’m flattened against the wall I’ve angled myself, with my dominant foot back, in exactly the right defensive posture we learned in self-defense class, so when I swing my right arm forward I bring my leg with it, adding force to the blow I aim at his wrist.
The knife sinks deep into flesh. The man screams and drops the gun to the floor. I kick it behind me and wrench open the door. The door opening knocks him off-balance and he falls backward into the snow. I take a step forward but then I hear Doreen’s voice in my head. Close it, idiot! Or at least get the gun first!
I step back, slam the door, and lock it. Then I turn to look for the gun, but it’s too dark. I sink to my knees and feel around on the floor, groping in Dulcie’s bed and through the piles of lint and old socks and half-chewed dog bones under the dryer. Finally, my hand closes on cold steel. I feel along the barrel gingerly for the safety and find that it’s off.
The bastard was ready to shoot.
Leaving it off, I get to my feet but stay half crouched below the window. He could have another gun. I peer out the window.
He’s gone.
Which means he could be trying the front door. Did I lock it? Doreen’s always after me to, but living out here at the end of the road, surrounded by woods, I hardly ever bother. What’s to steal? I’d ask Doreen.
Your life, she’d say.
Who’d want that? I’d quip back.
But now there are two more lives in this house. I head for the front door—and trip over Dulcie. I reach out to brace myself but the gun’s in my hand and I end up banging poor Dulcie’s head. She whimpers and I feel terrible. I could have shot us both. I thumb on the safety and keep going more cautiously, left hand out, feet feeling for obstacles. I know the way well enough, but there are piles of donation bags in the hall and boots lying by the door.
This is what comes of bad housekeeping, my mother’s voice says in my head.
“Fuck off!” I shout out loud as I throw the bolt on the front door.
“Who are you talking to?”
The voice right behind me nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I wheel around, right arm extended, left hand bracing my grip, dominant foot back, body angled to protect my own vital organs (who knew I even still cared about them!). I’m aiming into the dark, though, and for a moment I wonder if I really heard anything at all. Haven’t I been listening to the voices in my head for years? Didn’t I just hear Caleb’s voice in a tin can?
But then the voice comes again. “What the fuck? Are you trying to kill me?”
Of course she can see me. Now I’m the one standing in the dying gray light. “Alice,” I say.
“Who the hell else would it be? What happened? I heard someone scream. It sounded like—”
“A man,” I say. “A man was coming through the kitchen door. I stabbed him and took his gun but he’s still out there.”
“A man? What did he look like?”
“I didn’t get a good look at him . . . why? Were you expecting someone?”
“What? No! I just thought it might be someone you knew.”
I’m about to snap back that I don’t know any housebreakers but then I realize that I probably do. Instead I ask where Oren is.