Castles (11 page)

What happened to Daddy?

The back of the Bus shook as the head of the wave collided with it. I looked at the bag containing Dusty as sand blew in through the broken windows. It wasn't long before the air was thick and choking, charged with static. I stepped back into the passenger's seat and waited.

The bag stirred in the wind. My heart stopped for a moment as I considered the possibility that Dusty was still alive and Justin and I had buried him without checking. But his throat was cut, his tail snipped off, his leg severed. Dusty
had
to be dead.

I crawled to the back and knelt over the bag. I never thought I'd have to open the thing, but it dawned on me then that the dust eels needed to feed. How could they if I'd wrapped up their dinner in plastic?

I untied the drawstring and slowly opened the end. The smell of dead flesh stung my nose and forced an involuntary spasm in my stomach. I took a deep breath, covered my mouth and lifted the opposite side of Dusty's coffin to let his remains fall to the floor of the Bus in a pile of matted and bloodied fur.

My stomach turned again and I threw up.

It was too much to see. I invited death into my life, but I didn't want it to stay any longer. I dropped the bag and turned back to the front just as the first eel latched onto the dog's flesh and tore inside with its horrendous teeth. I could hear it tear off a chunk and chew. More sounds followed: hissing and biting, high-pitched screams that melded with the wind. The Bus shook more as hundreds of eels poured through the windows.

I didn't turn around this time. I sat in the passenger seat, leaned my head back and cried. I wanted that peace to come to me, that sense of completion. Grandma hinted at it and I believed it. The dust eels needed to hurry up and get it over with.

One of the eels slid next to my ear. I could feel its breath on my neck and smelled something stronger than the strongest alcohol. "
You have other messes, Maggie,
" it whispered. "
You're not done yet.
"

I scrambled out of the Bus and fell on the ground. The wind whipped the sand around me like a rock in a stream. It stung my face, pushed my clothes aside and pelted my side. I looked up with my back against the wind. Everything appeared to be wrapped in a deep red fog, and no matter how long I looked or how much I squinted, I couldn't make out the lights of the trailer park in the distance.

The sound of the eels feasting and squealing inside the Bus grew louder. I didn't fear for myself, but I didn't want to stay any longer.

I stood up, wiped the tears from my cheeks with sand encrusted palms and ran.

Mama stood at the door when I got home. She crossed her arms and looked at me sternly. "Where have you been?"

I had to catch my breath before answering. I leaned over and looked at the dirt on my shoes, the sand on my knees and the cuts on my hands. There was no way I could make up a lie quick enough to keep her wrath at bay.

"I was cleaning my mess." I looked up.

As the wind died down around us, I watched what I thought was the hint of a sly smile slither across Mama's face. "It's about time," she said and opened the door to let me inside.

Mama met Billy Pulman in the grocery store. That's the story she told me as I sat on the couch during the spring of my sixteenth year and watched the two of them stumble in drunk. They held each other and kissed for what seemed like an eternity before shutting the front door. While Mama escaped to the kitchen, Mr. Pulman smiled at me. He was well built and clean, and I think that made me more nervous than I could have been had he walked in wearing overalls and wielding a knife. There was something wrong with him, but I couldn't for the life of me say what.

Justin had moved away from the trailer park within a few months of burying Dusty, and I never got the chance to really show him what he meant to me. It was almost like I reached the end of a chapter in my life and turned the page. Those of us who so innocently found the body in the Bus had all disappeared, one tragically. Cade was gone (I never really played with him much to begin with), and Justin was a memory ready to fade into obscurity. Discounting Grandma, I was the only person left who knew about the body.

I wasn't, however, alone. Revenge was a burning ember in my heart. When I saw Steve a year later, I felt that ember flare. He was an idiot, full of himself and all too often a bully to everyone else. I knew if I could lure him in, Grandma would show me how to finish cleaning up my mess. It took a while to get up the nerve to talk to him, but when I did, he was extremely pliable.

With the arrival of Mr. Pulman, however, my life was about to take a drastic change for the worse and my plans for Steve would have to wait. I didn't know why, and I couldn't talk to anyone about it. As he took a seat in Mama's chair, though, I sensed storms brewing on the horizon.

"Nice to meet you, Billy," I said. My body shook for some reason. I certainly wasn't cold.

"Please, call me Mr. Pulman." He smiled. I watched his eyes for a moment, praying I didn't see something I didn't like. He turned from me and looked around the room. "So, what grade are you in?"

"I'm a junior." What did it matter to him?

"Graduating next year, huh? Set to get your driver's license, bouncing from boyfriend to boyfriend, out on the town on Friday nights. I remember those days well."

I opened my mouth then shut it again. I could have said something—probably should have, in retrospect—but I didn't have the nerve. I was right about him, though: he was a pompous ass and Grandma wouldn't have approved. He couldn't even look at me.

Mama walked in from the kitchen with a beer. She looked at me and dropped her smile. "Don't you have homework to do, Maggie?"

I didn't, but I wasn't going to sit around and be ignored. Mama hadn't entertained a man since Alfie left, and I'm sure she was horny. Conversation between Mr. Pulman and me would have to wait, but I wouldn't cry if it never happened.

I stood up and walked to my room.

I couldn't prove Steve was behind the death of Dusty. There were other boys who taunted me, and any one of them had the ability to sink so low and silence the animal with a quick blow the head and a hacksaw. I often wondered which one it was, but unless I overheard rumors, I wouldn't know for sure. Two years had passed since that horrible night, and rumors weren't about to flow easily. If they did, they would probably be corrupted by time. You see, if you don't write it all down, the memories change.

I won't lie and say I wasn't attracted to Steve despite what he might have done to Dusty. When you spend time with something so hideous, it tends to grow on you. I became more aware of his quirks and less aware of how much an ass he could be when provoked. He did have a sense of humor, a gentle touch and helpful attitude. In truth, he was more of a gentleman than I expected, but certainly not more than I needed.

The first time I kissed Steve it was no more than five feet from where I found Dusty. It felt wrong.

Steve stood back from me and wiped his mouth. "What's wrong?"

I didn't know what to say to him, but I couldn't remain silent for much longer. I looked over at the spot behind the shed. "This is where I found Dusty. I don't like this place."

"That stupid dog of Michael's?"

"Yeah. That stupid dog." I turned my eyes up from the shed to the Bus in the distance and sighed. "That stupid dog."

I think Steve felt something at that point. It's hard to tell with some men; there are those who wear their feelings on their face like maudlin makeup, while others conceal it behind blackened eyes. I wanted to believe Steve was somewhere between the two extremes, and in his brown eyes I could see remorse or sadness, maybe empathy.

"I'm sorry about what happened to him. You know that, don't you?"

"I just wish I knew who it was."

"Why? What difference would that make, Maggie? If people are capable of killing an animal and cutting it up, what makes you think they couldn't do something to you?"

I stared at Steve and let my stomach settle. Although Steve knew Dusty had died, I never once mentioned how. I figured it was something I didn't want to remember, something I could erase if I just ignored the memory altogether and let that part of my brain die with age. He pointed it out, though. On his own. Without prompting.

I turned and walked back to my home without a word, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts. I was convinced he was more involved than I thought originally, and the only way to appease the eels was to feed the bastard to the wind. I felt something for him, though, and the more I let my guard down, the closer I became without knowing it.

When I reached the trailer, Mama and Mr. Pulman were on the couch quietly watching television. They didn't acknowledge I was there, and I didn't expect them to. I was fast becoming an afterthought to Mama. I looked past both of them and went to my room without saying a word. I needed to talk to Grandma, to know I was in the right and whatever I planned was going to build my castle that much larger. I needed to sort out my feelings.

I sat on the bed with my back against the wall and cried. There are times when you're exposed to truths, to secrets kept from you. They may not have been intentionally held back, nor may you even have an inkling of knowledge. When something is revealed—whether directly or through cracks in the weather-stripping of silence—it hurts. It's not because of the truth itself so much as it's about the loneliness you feel. Face it: you weren't good enough to know.

Steve didn't confess to me, but he did have knowledge I didn't give him. That implied accessory and I'm sure I could coax that into a judgment of full guilt. Whether or not he was the one to kill Dusty, he was behind it in some form.

His kiss, however, lingered.

I wiped my mouth as if they touched tainted lips. Outside, the sun was far from disappearing behind the horizon, and its angle brought knife-like shadows into my room. I looked down through my tears at the ones crossing my sheets. I wanted to see a premonition that would tell me how to clean up the mess I'd made that started when I first kissed Michael behind the maintenance shed.

All I saw, though, were patterns in the sheets.

"Sometimes, Maggie, a brick in the castle takes a long time to lay out."

I looked over at Grandma in the corner of my room. She sat in her ethereal rocking chair with her ghostly afghan wrapped around her. Her smile was delicate, and in her eyes was the love I needed at that very moment.

"Things take time."

I wiped the tears from my cheeks and sat up straighter on the bed. "What do I do, Grandma?"

"You know what to do if you search your heart. There are parts of this life you don't understand until you marry them to the whole."

Grandma's image faded. She was never one to stick around, but I always felt better for hours after the few seconds I was permitted to see her again.

I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. I didn't know what she meant, but I wasn't going to ignore her. Somewhere in my past was a piece of the puzzle I had to dig up. It might have been placed in the cushions of my mental couch and sat on for years, but it was there. I hoped in my dreams I would find it, and I could clean up for good.

A few weeks later, the world turned upside down. I still hadn't figured out what to do about Steve, and as I sat on the couch in the living room, my stomach churned with the acid of anticipation. Something was going to happen.

Mr. Pulman opened the door and stepped inside. He set his suitcase down and snapped his fingers in my direction. "You want to take this to my room, please?"

I didn't like the sound of that. It was Mama's room, and this was still Grandma's house, as far as I was concerned. I'd argued with Mama enough about moving Mr. Pulman in, but she didn't want to listen. I didn't dare tell her that Grandma wouldn't approve, but I think she knew. In the end, I was being immature and Mama was in the right. Mr. Pulman was here to stay.

I did as I was told and put the suitcase up. It would be different in the house, and with all the uncertainty I had every time I looked at Mr. Pulman, I knew that difference couldn't be good. It was the end of my improved relationship with Mama and the return of living like the unwanted child Grandma tried so hard to remedy.

Another reason I didn't want Mr. Pulman in the house had to do with waking up in the middle of the night, usually naked and curled on the floor of my room. I'd done that when I was fourteen, but it wasn't until Grandma's last vision and Mr. Pulman's increased need to be around Mama that I started again. I was worried, and so was Mama. On more than one occasion, she had opened my bedroom door only to find me writhing on the floor. The way she described it made me think of the eels in the wind—unnatural and hideous.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked once while we sat at the kitchen table alone.

"I don't know what it is, but I'm fine."

"Are you dreaming of something?"

I was, but how could I explain why I dreamed of cutting people with scissors and shards of glass? I looked at her, tried to examine her worried expression, and left it alone.

Mr. Pulman wouldn't be so kind. I was sure of it. His demeanor around me was authoritative, a trait I recognized the second he told me to call him "Mr. Pulman." If he found me on the floor and naked, I don't know what he would have done, but there would be no concern in his voice. I wondered at times if he wouldn't slip in next to me, naked, and try to arouse my interest. He wasn't a dirty man like Alfie, but there was that aura I hated.

Steve sensed my trepidation on numerous occasions and pestered me enough about it.

"Just ignore the old man. He's not your dad, and you don't have to listen to him."

"I don't think you understand," I said. "If he tells me to do something, I'll have to do it. He's got Mama wrapped around his finger."

"So, talk to her about it."