The Strangers (12 page)

The sky was overcast, a sheet of dark gray clouds obscuring the moon. The weak glow of the streetlights outlined the Halloween headstones still scattered across the lawn. The sight of them made Olive catch her breath. She thought of the gravestones in the basement, the freezing shock of her hand against the wall. She thought of the headstones in the painting of the Scottish hills,
Mother
and
Father
carved on their silent faces. Shuddering, she darted forward, keeping her eyes fixed on the silent street.

Before she’d passed the first row of headstones, something lurched out from between the graves. Olive froze, dropping to the ground. The figure lumbered forward. It was tall—so tall that it hardly seemed human—and it headed directly toward her, in long, deliberate steps.

“Olive?” said a deep voice. “Mmm . . . What are you doing out here?”

“Walter!” Olive squeaked.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” said Olive, inching backward. A foam headstone bumped her in the side. “I was—I was just going to look for my parents.”

“The S.M.U.D.S. has already checked the whole street.”

“I know, but I thought I might—”

Walter’s black silhouette towered over her, moving closer. “This isn’t safe. It’s my job to guard you. And the only places you’re allowed to be are
school
and
home.
”

“But—”

“Sorry.” The bony shoulders of Walter’s silhouette went up and down. “These are the rules. I have to keep you safe. Now, let’s go back inside.”

Olive let out a shaky breath. Slowly, she rose to her feet and headed toward the old stone house. Walter’s watchful presence loomed behind her.

She slumped up the staircase to her room. As she climbed, she could hear Walter turning the locks of the front door, checking the windows, making sure everything was secure. The walls of the stone house loomed around her, solid and watchful. For the first time, Olive realized that being
protected
and being
trapped
could feel like the very same thing.

I
knew that Mabel was on her way out, but Dunstan . . .” Ms. Teedlebaum shook her head sadly. Her red hair, still stiff with wood glue, shook too. “Dunstan came as a complete shock. I’d nursed him back to health, played his favorite bagpipe music, read to him from
The Joy of Cooking . . .
It was his favorite book. And still, last night . . .” Ms. Teedlebaum sighed. “I’ve told myself again and again, ‘This is the last time, Florence. Spider plants are one thing, but you get too attached to ferns. You can’t keep putting yourself through this.’ But then you see another fern just waiting for you in its little pot, and it looks so friendly and hopeful . . .” Ms. Teedlebaum sighed again, brushing a tear from the corner of her eye. “I just don’t know how Graciela and Howard are going to pull through.”

At the front of the classroom, the girl with the eyeliner raised her hand. “Are Graciela and Howard houseplants too?”

Ms. Teedlebaum waved her paint-flecked fingers dismissively. “Of course not. They’re goldfish. Ooh, that reminds me.” She uncapped one of the pens dangling from cords around her neck and jotted in one of the notepads that hung nearby. “‘Four codfish filets.’”

Capping the pen again, Ms. Teedlebaum gazed around the classroom of staring students. “Now—what were we working on? Oh, yes. Collages.” She gave a happier sigh. “Aren’t collages marvelous? They’re so relaxing, especially when you’re a highly organized person, like me.” The art teacher slid down from her stool with a clatter of keys and pens and necklaces. “All right, everyone. Find your materials and get started.”

With the rest of the class, Olive trudged to the cabinets and pulled down her collage. It was supposed to be an almost-finished outdoor scene, but instead it was a far-from-finished mess. Olive couldn’t keep her mind on her work. All week, she had dragged herself through the school days, doing meaningless assignments and gluing meaningless bits of paper to a meaningless art project, while the sadness and guilt that sloshed inside of her boiled down into something dry and volatile, like the powder inside of a firecracker. One spark and she would come flying apart.

Olive leaned her head on one clenched fist and glared down at her collage. The sliver of her brain that hoped that her parents would return on their own, safe and sound, had been snipped down to nothing. There was no room for patience. There was no room for art class, or homework, or picking at meals alone with Walter in the quiet stone house. In fact, Walter was driving Olive batty. From the moment she got home from school until the moment she went to bed, Walter watched her, lurking around corners, too big to be truly sneaky. At night, after Olive was meant to be asleep, she could hear his steps creaking along the upper hall, pausing outside her closed bedroom door. Listening.

The people who were supposed to be helping her hadn’t been any help at all, Olive realized. Inside of her, a spark began to snap and fizzle. How much longer did they expect her to shuffle obediently back and forth from school to the house, wasting her time on art projects and—

A swinging clump of keys smacked Olive between the shoulder blades.

“Are you all right, Olive?” Ms. Teedlebaum asked. She craned over the side of Olive’s high white table, her bangle bracelets jangling. “You look like something is bothering you.”

“I’m fine,” said Olive, as calmly as she could. “Thank you.”

“My story didn’t upset you, did it?” Ms. Teedlebaum lowered her voice. “Have you lost a houseplant yourself recently?”

“No. I haven’t lost any houseplants.”

“Good,” said Ms. Teedlebaum. She turned to focus on Olive’s collage, and a corkscrew of red hair, smelling faintly of wood glue, tickled Olive’s cheek. “This is very interesting work, Olive. You have a unique way of looking at the world. That’s just what an artist needs: That vision, and a way to capture it.”

With those words, Ms. Teedlebaum sailed away on a jingle of keys, leaving Olive chewing on the inside of her cheek. She fought down the sudden, strong urge to tear up her collage, rip that captured image into bits, and set it free into the chilly wind that roared past the classroom windows.

• • •

The instant she and Rutherford had climbed off the bus at the foot of Linden Street, Olive whirled around and grabbed Rutherford by the sleeve. “What are they going to do tonight?” she asked urgently. “Your grandmother and the others?”

Rutherford looked vaguely surprised to find Olive’s fingers wrapped around his arm. “They are making progress,” he said, blinking back at her. “My grandmother says that they haven’t found definitive proof of where your parents might be, but they’ve eliminated several possibilities.”

A gust of cool autumn wind swept down the hill. Olive scowled at the leaves that flung themselves against her jacket, like a hundred little hands trying to push her backward. “What about Annabelle?” she asked, dropping Rutherford’s sleeve. “Do they know if she’s alone, or if she freed Aldous somehow, or if she’s working with someone else?
Anything?
”

“They have not drawn any conclusions on that matter,” said Rutherford.

“But it’s been
days
. Why is it taking so long?”

Rutherford blinked at her through his smudgy glasses. “They are trying to help while maintaining the safety of everyone involved, Olive.”

“I know. But, I just—” Olive clenched her teeth, imagining a miniature Annabelle between her molars. “I just want to
do
something. I can’t wait any more.”

“I understand.” Rutherford’s face brightened. “Perhaps you should join us for dinner this evening. Walter could watch the house, and you and I could play chess. Or we could set up my new figurines for a reenactment of the War of the Roses.”

Olive shook her head. “I would, but if I even go out to the yard, Walter follows me.”

They had reached the lawn of the Nivens house. Olive slowed her steps, glancing up at the lifeless windows looming above them. “Are you sure we can trust him, Rutherford?” she asked. “I know he’s not a real witch, and the cats would never let him use any of the house’s secrets—if he could even figure out
how
—but I hate leaving him there while I’m gone. Yesterday, when I came home, I found him picking through the dead plants in the garden. And on Wednesday, he asked me if there’s a root cellar under the basement. He must have noticed the trapdoor. Do you really think he’s safe
?
”

Rutherford halted. He turned to stare at Olive. “You’re asking me if I think
Walter
is
dangerous
?” he asked. “I think a baby rabbit with a sleep disorder would pose more of a threat.” Olive pictured a tiny rabbit in a turtleneck flopping down with a snore on the library rug. She giggled in spite of herself. Rutherford tilted his head to one side. “You need to trust people sometimes, Olive.”

Olive sighed. She wrapped both arms tight around herself and felt the spectacles digging into her skin. “But sometimes I’ve trusted the wrong people.”

They were quiet for a moment. Through the broken window of Lucinda Nivens’s abandoned bedroom, the curtains gave a ghostly twitch. Olive shivered.

“Did you say something?” Rutherford asked abruptly.

“When?”

“Just now.”

“I said, ‘Sometimes I’ve trusted the wrong people.’”

“After that.” Rutherford blinked. “I thought I heard you say something about parabolic equations.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever said
anything
about parabolic equations,” said Olive. “Except right now.” She smiled, thinking how happy her parents would be if they knew she had even used the words
parabolic equations
 . . . and then her lips began to tremble. She wheeled back to the sidewalk, striding toward the old stone house. Rutherford hurried to keep up.

“Tonight, I’m going to do
something myself,” said Olive as they climbed the creaking porch steps. The cold that radiated from the walls swirled over them, enveloping them in its chilly breath. “Maybe I’ll sneak out of the house, maybe I’ll get the cats to help me search; I don’t know. But I have to do
something
.” She glanced at Rutherford. “You can come with me, or not—but don’t tell anyone. Please.”

Rutherford nodded solemnly. “I will consider your proposal,” he said. “And my secrecy is assured.”

“Good.” Through the windows to her left, Olive could see a twitch of motion as a dark, skinny figure scurried past the glass. Walter was in the library. An anxious feeling began to spread like a burning rash over Olive’s skin.

“That reminds me,” she said, pulling an empty lunch container out of her bag and pressing it into Rutherford’s hands. “Please tell Mrs. Dewey thanks again for making all my lunches. And my dinners. Walter tried to fix dinner two days ago, and somehow he set canned soup on fire.”

“I will relay the message,” Rutherford announced. “Good luck with tonight’s endeavors.”

“Thanks,” said Olive, opening the door. “See you tomorrow.” With a last little wave at Rutherford, she stepped inside and locked the door behind her.

Walter’s head popped through the library doors. “Hello, Olive,” he rumbled.

“Hi, Walter,” said Olive, hoping the distrust that prickled on her skin wouldn’t seep into her voice.

“Mmm.” Walter blinked at her. “How was your day?”

“It was fine.” Olive dropped her book bag and leaned against the front door. “How was yours?”

“Excellent.” Walter nodded, his head bobbing on his long, skinny neck, which in his black turtleneck looked even longer and skinnier. “No sign of trouble. And Horatio finally stopped ignoring me. When I said ‘Good morning, Horatio,’ he said ‘Hmph’ instead of nothing.”

Olive forced a smile. “That’s good.”

“Mmm. I was wondering—um . . .” Walter hesitated. “. . . do you know—did the McMartins keep books anywhere besides the library? Maybe in the attic, or . . .”

“I don’t think so,” said Olive firmly. “Why?”

“I just—mmm—it seems strange that there isn’t a single book about magic. Not in the whole library.” Walter’s voice grew even deeper as he drew his head toward his shoulders. “No magical history. Or folklore. Or anything.”

Olive stared hard at Walter. He still reminded her of a giant bird. But now, in his black turtleneck, he looked less like a crane and more like a vulture.

“Maybe Ms. McMartin destroyed them,” she said pointedly. “Maybe she didn’t want
anyone else
to find them.”

Walter’s head bobbed in a way that might have been a nod.

“Well,” Olive resumed, “I’m going up to my room for a while.”

Olive started up the staircase. She looked back over her shoulder, just once, to see if Walter was watching her—but he had already vanished behind the closing wooden doors of the library.

Once she’d heard the doors click shut, Olive tugged the spectacles out of her collar. She raced the rest of the way up the stairs and dove into the painting of Linden Street.

In front of his tall gray house, Morton was hopping through the squares of a game of hopscotch. The chalk lines were rapidly disappearing from the pavement, and the acorn cap he threw flew straight back to its spot by his feet. He didn’t look up as Olive approached.

“Can I play?” she asked.

Morton shrugged, stopping to pick up a stick of chalk and redraw the fading lines. “I don’t know. That’s up to Elmer.” He nodded toward an empty spot on the sidewalk.

Olive had met Morton’s invisible friends before. They weren’t exactly
imaginary
friends. They had been real once, just like Morton—but unlike Morton, they had gone on being real. By now, they had probably grown up and gone away, while Morton never would.

She waved at the empty sidewalk. “That’s okay, Elmer,” she said. “But after you’re done, maybe you could help me. Both of you.”

“With what?” asked Morton, tossing the acorn cap. It landed on square 8, then zipped back to its starting spot.

“I thought we might sneak out of the house—we can’t let anyone see us, because I’m not supposed to go anywhere on my own—and search for my parents.”

Morton frowned at the pavement, flicking the acorn cap with his toe. “What if we find them? Won’t
she
be there too? With the Old Man?”

“He can’t be there,” said Olive. “He’s still stuck in his portrait. Probably.”

Morton folded his spindly arms. “And how come you’ll let me out of the house to look for your parents, but not
mine
?” With a ripple of his long white nightshirt, Morton whirled around. “I don’t know if I will help you,” he said.

“Morton, please!” Olive called. But Morton strode toward the crest of the hill without looking back.

They hurried up the quiet street, Morton storming ahead, Olive scurrying after. On either side, sleepy houses towered over them, their curtained windows staring out like blinded eyes. A few candles burned on the other side of foggy panes, tiny flecks of warmth pressing against the night.

“Please, Morton,” Olive panted to the back of Morton’s tufty head. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get either of our parents back. I’m just—I’m just trying to do the best I can.”

Morton’s footsteps began to slow. He didn’t turn around, but he didn’t move away as Olive caught up with him either. Side by side, they walked past a porch where a budding rosebush that would never bloom twined its thorny arms through the railings.

“I’ve never walked down this part of the street before,” said Olive as they passed another deserted lawn.

“These houses are empty, mostly,” said Morton.

Olive looked up at the dark windows and looming rooftops, enclosing spare rooms for guests who would never arrive—or, if they did, who would never leave again.

They passed a house with a rounded tower, its siding such a deep shade of green that in the twilight it looked almost black. The house might have vanished into the darkness, if not for a delicate light glowing in the first-floor windows of the tower. The light glimmered softly, like a candle, but it had a very un-candle-like color. This light was an unearthly greenish blue, like an aquamarine held in front of a fire.

Olive stopped, putting a hand on Morton’s arm. “Who lives in that house?” she asked.