“Just let me—”
I’m leaning into the fireplace and it’s big, bigger than I thought it would be. Alice could have fit her whole self in here easily, and it smells cinereous, like cold ashes long dead. I reach out for that scrap of glass, my fingers outstretched and trembling, the chimney rising above me like a long black throat, and as I feel a cold draft on the back of my neck I have one simple thought.Don’t. Look. Up.
A scraping overhead and a fine scrim of powder trickles onto my bare shoulder. I almost cry out at the feathery touch, pinching the glass between my fingers and lifting it away hurriedly. Beneath it there is something half-buried in the soot and ashes. A child’s shoe. Something about it stops me cold, stirring the hairs on the back of my neck. My teeth snap closed. Sam is behind me now—so close that I can smell the sweat on his skin, the mint gum he is chewing—but I can’t move. I just stare at it—a tiny leather shoe with yellow stitching and a strap with a silver buckle.
“Hey, what the hell?” Sam croaks. I know what’s going to happen as soon as he sees it. He is going to reach in there for it. “Maggie had those shoes.”
“Don’t.” I put my hand on his arm. His skin is shockingly cold. “Don’t. It’s a trap.”
“Huh?” Sam’s brow knits together, his face drained of color, and I don’t know how I know it but I do, it’s a trap set just for him. It’s bait. It’s a fuckinglure.
A scraping comes from above us in the chimney and I have a vision of the witch folded in up there, eyes wide and luminousin the dark, arms knotted over her head, legs crooked and bent, knees jutting somewhere up near her ears forming impossible angles. Her broken bones grind as she moves, desirous to be free. Her tongue will be long and black and spongy like a cancerous lung, and in her hand a piece of fishing wire, the end of which is tied to that single child’s shoe, half-buried in the soot. She is drooling with excitement.
“Come on.” I tug Sam’s arm, practically hauling him away from the fireplace. The scratching sound has resumed with more intensity than before. “We have to go. Now!”
Sam hesitates but only for a moment, his face still drained of color. I dig my nails into his skin, as if trying to break through his captivation.
“Now, Sam!”
That seems to do it. His expression changes from that haunting, slack-jawed shock to something almost like comprehension. We leave at a run, shins stung by the nettles in the overgrown yard, almost slamming into Alice’s discarded bike left leaning askew against the wall. We only slow down as we pass the sign for Tanner’s Row at the top of the lane, hearts bright and quick in our throats.
FOURTEEN
Sam and I walk fast until we are past the church and into the sunlight between the houses, when our pace finally slows. Cheeks flushed and breathless, I catch Sam’s eye and we both snicker at ourselves, slightly embarrassed.
“You know, I read once that a cat was found up a chimney that had survived seventeen days just drinking rainwater. All kinds of things get stuck up there I bet. Seagulls or bats or foxes, even. It happens all the time in these old places.”
I can’t tell if I’m trying to convince Sam or myself. Either way it doesn’t matter. He scuffs his foot against the curb, hands deep in his pockets, chin to his chest. Buried in his thoughts.
“The bike’s bothering me,” he says finally, as we turn onto the High Street. I glance over at him. “I’m surprised that no one has tried to steal it or dismantle it for parts. If what Alice told usis accurate, that means it’s likelyno onehas gone up to Tanner’s Row since that day last winter. Not kids, not squatters, not the developers. No one.”
“We can’t know that,” I tell him, but I’m being punctilious. I’ve been wondering the same thing. Of course, I tell myself, there’s no reason that people wouldwantto go up there—the house smells bad and there are obviously dangerous structural issues with the buildings—but I don’t think that is all it is. I remember what I told Alice about mass psychogenic illness earlier that morning and how easy it is to seed ideas into soft minds. All it takes is one person to whisper a story and soon the whole town hears about it. A witch in a bottle, a girl hearing voices, hagstones and amulets andbE Not afrAIdwritten in pale colors.
There’s something wrong with that house on Tanner’s Row. I felt it the moment we stepped inside the hallway with its peeling wallpaper and swollen, bulbous ceiling, those tadpole shapes burned into the rafters. The air inside was oppressive; hot and heavy as treacle. Oscar had once told me about a disaster which took place in Boston back at the beginning of the twentieth century. A large storage tank had exploded and flooded downtown Boston with millions of gallons of hot, sticky molasses. He’d described how people and horses had drowned, thrashing about in the boiling viscous liquid. The harder they’d struggled, the deeper they were ensnared. That’s how it felt inside that house. Slow moving, suffocating. Like drowning in tar.
We don’t speak againuntil we’ve nearly reached the video shop. There are a couple of figures waiting outside it, one tall, one short. I recognize the short figure immediately, even at a distance: the bowl haircut, gap-toothed smile, and that sweet,doughy face. It’s the little girl we nearly hit with the car outside the churchyard, the one who grudgingly decided not to shoot me.
“Mummy!” she is yelling, jumping up and down. “Come on! Quicker! It’s almost starting!”
There’s Fern crossing the street and hurrying toward her, a big, welcoming smile on her face and I realize the little girl—Stevie, she told me her name was—is her daughter. I don’t know how I didn’t see the resemblance before. Stevie catches sight of Sam and me, and her face changes, just for a moment.
“You’re the Mina lady,” she says thoughtfully. Then Fern is lifting her up into her arms and swinging her giggling through the air. The taller figure steps back to give them room and I see it is Bert Roscow, the man who lives next door to the Webbers. He nods a greeting to Sam but it’s me he turns toward, his eyes gleaming with interest beneath silvering, bushy brows.
“Ah, Mina! I was hoping to see you. How are you finding things? All this has been rather a baptism of fire for you, I imagine. I hope Alice is okay. They should turn the hose on those ghouls outside the gate.”
“She’s doing her best to ignore them,” I tell him.The people outside the house say I’m holy.“Alice speaks very highly of you and Mary.”
“Ah, Bert and Mary have been my saviors since Stevie was born,” Fern says, lowering Stevie to the ground. “Being a single parentandhaving a business to run? Forget it. Honestly, I couldn’t do it without them.”
“It helps that Stevie is easy-peasy-pudding-and-pie,” Bert says and laughs softly when Stevie wraps her arms around his legs. “Just like you were.”
Fern catches my eye and winks.
“He’s being generous. I was a troubled kid.”
“You were a delight,” he says, as Stevie reaches for the door handle, urging, “Mummy come on, it’s starting! Ninja Tuttle is starting!”
“See you later, Stevie-Beans.”