Paint by Magic (6 page)

Mom just looked at me as if she had no idea what she'd meant.

Then Crystal shouted a bad word in the kitchen and Mom jumped up, dropping the green wool. "No cursing in this house, young lady, or you'll be grounded for a month!" Mom called. "I'm ashamed of you."

"Well, you should be ashamed of yourself," Crystal retorted, appearing in the doorway, "making me into your
servant
just so you can save money and not hire Mrs. White anymore!"

I stood there, still holding Mom's arm. The skin felt cold—with the muscles underneath tight and hard—as if Mom really had been frozen and was just starting to thaw again.

"Now you're being silly," Mom told Crystal mildly. "Every girl needs to learn to cook."

"No way!"

"
And
to mind her manners."

I jerked my head at Doug, and he followed me out of the room. We were just tiptoeing across the hallway to the living room, when I stopped, aghast at what Mom was saying next.

"And it's not only girls who need to know how to keep house these days." Mom's voice was still cheerful. "Women didn't get the vote just to stay home and clean house. They're going out into the world—and into the workforce. Men are going to have to get used to sharing their offices.
And
they'll have to learn to help out more at home, cleaning and cooking and caring for the children."

Then there was a pause for a second like she was thinking things over. I hoped she was going to take back the part about cooking, but instead she laughed gaily and said, "Silly me—of course women have been out working for
years!
"

"Like about a hundred," Crystal snorted, but I bet she felt as scared as I did about Mom's talk of working women and voting. "Anyway, who would want to eat anything
Connor
cooked?"

I agreed with Crystal. No way.

In the living room I scanned the shelves again but saw no sign of the big art book. So I grabbed Doug's arm and propelled him out of the room and back up the stairs before my mom saw us.

Doug and I hurried down the hallway to my parents' big master suite. It had a sitting room decorated in whites and golds, with royal blue velvet furniture. The master bedroom had a king-sized bed covered in a white-and-gold duvet, topped with gold-tassled royal blue velvet pillows. Both rooms looked perfect—clean and elegant, with not one stray sock out of place. They looked as frozen as my mom had.
Just as—as posed,
I thought. And quite suddenly, I wanted to jump on the bed and rumple all those pillows. But I carefully checked out the stack of books on the bedside table without touching a thing. None of the books was
the
book.

There were two bathrooms—his and hers—also done in blue and gold and white. In Dad's I found copies of
Money
magazine in a wicker basket. That was it. Nothing at all to read in Mom's—or so I thought. As I was turning to leave the room, my eye caught sight of something peeking out from the half-open door of the linen closet. Something brown and green that didn't match the blue and white and gold towels.

I opened the linen-closet door.
Yes!

I reached in carefully, holding my breath as if I were approaching a rare and possibly dangerous animal. I slid the art book out from under the towels and held it out to Doug in triumph.

"
Cotton in the Twentieth Century?
" Doug read aloud in a hiss, disappointment coloring his voice. I knew he'd probably been expecting a book about magical spells—like the ones on
Mad Scientist
about how to raise the dead and teach them to shoot. Something like that.

"Don't worry," I told him, hugging the book. "You want to see this. You really do."

Doug didn't look convinced, but I knew he would see what I meant as soon as I showed him the paintings. I led the way out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, back into the sitting room—heading back for my own bedroom—when we heard footsteps coming up the stairs. We froze.

"Someone's coming," Doug whispered. He had a big grin on his face now; suddenly he was having fun. But my heart was thumping hard, and I pulled him back into the master bedroom. It was either my mom or Crystal coming. If it was Crystal, those footsteps would stop at the top of the stairs, where her bedroom was.

But the footsteps kept coming along the hallway, tapping on the shiny hardwood floor.

I wrenched the handle on the massive mirrored closet and, pulling the door open, shoved Doug inside and followed right after him. I pulled the door closed just as I heard Mom come into the bedroom.

The closet was dark, but I could sense Doug was standing next to me, trying not to giggle. He kept flicking the red light on his
Star Wars
key chain on and off, on and off. Was he using his good-luck charm to ward off trouble—or was this just a game to him? I knew it was no game. There was something serious going on, something real, and the book was part of it. I sucked in my breath silently when I heard the bedsprings creak as Mom sat down. We waited, then I heard the bed creak again as Mom stood up and walked—where?

I peeked out and saw her heading for the bathroom.

If I was lucky, she just had to pee.

But then I heard the linen-closet door slam, and she came back into the bedroom, then out into the hallway. "Connor! Crystal?
Where is my book
?" Her voice was angry, yes, and outraged. But there was a note of something else in it, too.

A note of absolute hysteria.

"
Whoa!
" Doug hurst out, his breath coming hot on the side of my face. "You'd better give her book back!"

"No, not yet." I edged the door open, my heart hammering hard. Mom had run downstairs, so I darted down the hall, into my bedroom, and quickly slid the book behind my dresser. Then I flopped down onto my desk chair. Doug collapsed onto the bed, and both of us contrived to look as though we'd been there all the time, bored out of our minds.

"What?" I asked when Mom ran back up the stairs and appeared in my doorway, hands on her hips, eyes blazing.

"My book!" she cried. "Where is it?"

"Which one?" I asked innocently.

"You know the book. The one you were looking at last night."

I shook my head. "Isn't it on the coffee table?"

"No." She hugged herself suddenly, looking lost. "Crystal swears she didn't take it. Did you, Connor? Because it isn't yours to take! It's a very important, very valuable old book."

I just kept shaking my head.

"Well, if you see it, Connor, I need it back. I need it—" Mom turned away as her voice cracked. She took a shuddering breath. "If you see it, please bring it to me immediately. And do not open it. Do you understand? There is a
valuable
old paper inside. You must not touch it!" She hesitated. "It could be..."

The unspoken word hung in the air:
dangerous.

"Okay, Mom," I said in the same gentle voice I once used on a wild-looking dog who menaced me in the grocery store parking lot.
Down girl. Atta girl.

"Is dinner almost ready?" Doug asked. "Because I have to be home by seven."

That was the right thing to say. Mom took a deep breath. "Yes," she said. "Dinner is ready, and you boys should come downstairs right now." She ran her hand over her hair, smoothing the new, short curls.

I heard the grind of the garage door opening. "Dad's home early again," I said. "Maybe
he
took your book."

We all went downstairs, Mom still pale and trembling, Doug looking excited, and me with my stomach throbbing in fear—and relief—and probably even hunger.

The stew really did smell delicious.

We ate in the dining room, as we had the night before. This time Mom didn't ask anyone else, but just said a simple prayer herself. Ashleigh complimented Crystal on the stew. Crystal grumbled about how she nearly cut off her thumb, chopping carrots. And Dad urged more helpings of potatoes and bread and salad on everyone. "I could get used to feasting like this every night," he said approvingly, but a little worried frown creased his forehead.

Doug ate and ate. He ate like he could hardly believe how good it was. He cooperated politely with Mom, telling us all about the high and low points of his day.

But I was too worried about the book hidden in my bedroom to enjoy the food or conversation. The stew might have been cold pizza as far as I was concerned.

I felt a strange prickling at the back of my neck, and I imagined I could sense the big art book waiting for me, almost calling to me to come. I imagined it inching its way out from behind my dresser, thumping onto the floor, the pages fluttering in a breeze until they stopped turning right at the very page where
Elsie's Party
was in full swing. I actually had to jump up from the table and run out of thè room without even excusing myself—just to check.

The book was still there behind my dresser.

I heard Mom calling me from the foot of the stairs. "Sorry," I said, walking back downstairs. "I had to—um—go to the bathroom."

She frowned at me. "Manners, Connor."

Right after dessert—homemade apple pie with ice cream—Doug had to go home. He lingered in the hallway while my mom wrapped up a piece of pie for him to take home to Becca.

"You never showed me the book!" he hissed at me.

"Next time," I whispered.

"After school tomorrow, okay? After soccer practice."

"Okay," I agreed as my mom came back into the front hall and handed Doug the foil-wrapped pie. But I knew there was no way I could wait that long. The art book was practically screaming to me now—it was a wonder the whole neighborhood didn't hear it calling me:

Come tome ... come back! I'll die without you!

I felt shaky and sort of sick, but first I helped Dad clean the dishes. Crystal did her homework at the kitchen table. We could hear Mom upstairs opening closets and slamming drawers, and my stomach clenched with each thump. Mom was looking for her book. Dad kept glancing over his shoulder, and I thought maybe Mom's banging around up there was getting to him.

"Don't bother, Dad," Crystal said sourly. "You can look around all you like, but no TV is going to appear. I've checked everywhere. There is not a single TV anywhere in this house."

Dad looked sheepish. "Well, maybe Mom was right to store them away for a while," he said slowly. "Because I'm having withdrawal symptoms—and you don't have those unless you're addicted to something."

I rubbed the stew pot dry with a clean dish towel. "I bet she took them all to the dump."

Dad shook his head. "She promised me that she didn't throw them out." He reached for the newspaper, delivered that morning, still lying unopened on the counter. Dad pulled off the rubber band and unrolled the paper. "She's acting oddly—I'll give you that, kids. But I think we ought to go along with her for a while." He leafed through the paper. "We can just read, I guess." I wiped the countertop while he turned a few more pages. Then he dropped the paper onto the counter. "Or—maybe I'll go visit Ashleigh for a little while."

"I'm coming with you!" Crystal leaped up from her chair.

"Finish your homework," Dad said. "You don't even like to watch hockey."

"Neither does Ashleigh," Crystal retorted. "And at least it will be
something
to watch."

They were just leaving the kitchen when we all heard Mom's footsteps running down the stairs. "Connor!" she yelled.

I turned the water on full force in the sink to rinse my sponge. "In the kitchen!" I called over the din.

Mom appeared in the doorway. Her face was red and her voice was trembling. "Connor! What is the meaning of
this
?"

This
was Doug's
Star Wars
key chain. Its little red light flashed in Mom's hand. My stomach clenched again; it felt like someone had punched me.

"That's Doug's," I said, surprised that my voice came out sounding halfway normal.

"Indeed it is," she said. "And what was it doing on the floor of my closet, may I ask?"

"Your closet?" I squeaked. "What would Doug be doing in your closet?" I screwed up my face like I was trying to think.

"Doug's a little sneak," Crystal announced from the doorway. "I found him in my room once, snooping in my desk. He said he was looking for the
Mad Scientist
software. Right! Like anyone's going to believe
that!
"

"Well, maybe that's what he was doing in your closet," I said hurriedly. "I mean, with my computer gone, and PlayStation and everything, we didn't have anything to do. I told him I didn't know where you'd stashed everything. Maybe when he went down the hall to use the bathroom, he just thought he'd check the closets or something. Maybe he wasn't really
snooping
—maybe just trying to help me out..."

Dad put his arm around Mom's tense shoulders. "Pam," he said in his sweetest voice. "Speaking of helping out, my love, where
have
you stashed them? There's a hockey game I'm dying to see—"

Mom handed me the key chain with a sigh. She turned to Dad and rubbed her fingers over her eyes. She looked tired, seemed defeated. She sank onto one of the stools at the counter.

And then it happened again. Worse than ever this time.

She jerked, then stiffened. Her lips curled back from her teeth in a terrible smile. Her eyes were wide with panic. She was frozen stiff—but a deep groan spilled up out of her, the sound of someone trying to wake from a nightmare.

"Pam!" cried Dad, and he wrapped his arms around her. Each time she'd frozen like this before, touch had brought her out of it, but this time nothing happened. Dad held her and sort of shook her, but she sat like a stone on that stool, except that stones never make noises like someone being tortured. There were no drops of blood though, this time.

"
Aahhhbgghh!
" she cried. "
Aaaghh ... aaaghh...
" And then, "No! Noooo!"

Dad dropped his head to her chest and listened to her heartbeat. He grabbed her hand and tried to turn it so he could feel the pulse in the wrist, but it was like trying to turn steel. "Kids," he cried to us. "Her pulse is weak. Her heart rate seems too slow—"