Unquiet Dreams (15 page)

I should go to work, Charlie thought, but found his steps taking him to the Long Walk. He found something calming in that spot where the wild waters of the Corrib poured into the bay. Nimmo's pier on the other side of the channel hummed with joggers, dog walkers and visitors, but once you got past the museum, this side stayed fairly empty.

He sat down on the set of steps leading down to the water. The waves lapped the bricks. Distance muted the sounds of the feeding frenzy on the opposite bank. An elderly woman fed the swans and gulls with some bread from a carrier bag. People snapped photos.

A rough croak broke his reverie. A rook perched on the lamp attached to the blue wall of the houses. Charlie started, then told himself, it's not the same one. He turned his gaze back to the water, but the bird persisted. He looked again. The bird hopped over to the steel railing and regarded Charlie with its shiny eyes.

A graveyard chill rippled through him again. The rook sidled closer making a variety of clicks and vaguely human-sounding noises. Charlie assumed they only made that
kaah
sound, but supposed they must be capable of making sounds like these. As long as it didn't get too weird.

"You're not going to say 'Nevermore' are you?" Charlie said aloud then immediately wished he hadn't. The rook opened its beak as if to answer, but made no sound as it opened and closed it making audible clicks.

He'd never seen one so close. The beak offered an impressive shape. The shaggy legs fluttered in the wind and its broad wings flapped as if it were considering what to do next.

Charlie reached out a tentative hand. He couldn't have said why precisely: to show he meant no harm, perhaps, or to suggest he had no fear. The rook ruffled its feathers, hovered for a moment in the air, then approached his outstretched hand. Charlie had a moment to panic that the bird might attack him, when it opened its beak and dropped something into his palm.

Charlie stared.

It was a gold claddagh ring with a rough dent in its side that came from wearing it while playing field hockey, which she wasn't supposed to do. "You'll bend it all out of shape," their mother had warned.

Charlie rolled the ring around. The morgue had lost it. He assumed someone had pocketed it. He looked up at the rook. It leaned forward, croaking again loudly, eyes fixed upon him. Then with a kind of laugh, it flew off. Charlie stared at its shrinking form.

I'm not going to work today
, Charlie decided.

 

 

It really didn't bother her at all. Yes, it was gruesome, but as Betty told her sister Jerri the day they got the good news, these things happen. And the house of their dreams was affordable because of it: no more cramped bedrooms, mildewy closets, cardboard walls and unsavory sounds. Elaine and Michael were going to grow up in a real house, with a big backyard and a swing and a tree-house—well, maybe next summer anyway—but a home. One the size of which her dreams had not permitted when she and Everett sallied forth with that tiny bank loan.

Yes, she'd felt that sinking in her chest when Ms. Gordon coughed through the explanation, why such a magnificent place as this was going for a price they could just barely afford. Six bedrooms! And closets enough for any packrat, not to mention the huge yard—two acres almost—and the row of poplars discreetly screening the nearest neighbors. Perhaps that's why no one had seen anything.

No, Betty admonished herself, firmly slipping the 12th volume of the Children's Encyclopaedia of Knowledge into the remaining space of the box, we won't dwell on that. Bad things happen everywhere. She rolled the tape dispenser over the lid of the box and again crosswise. All sealed up. Just a few more to go and they'd actually be ready for the movers, a first. Brakes moaned low in the parking lot below, followed by three quick door slams. Her family was back, Elaine loudly demanding to carry the pizza, Michael giving up without a word. Betty regretted moving them to a different school mid-year, but her daughter could make friends even waiting in line at the DMV and Michael, well, Michael really didn't have friends, did he. Betty let the curtain drop and went to get the napkins and plates out. Things would be better at the new house; maybe even Michael would find a friend, if not a puppy—yes, that would be a good idea.

***

"Careful!"

"Sorry, ma'am! These curvy stairwells are a bitch—uh, sorry ma'am." Betty gritted her teeth silently. There were so few things they had that were of any worth. At least the bed could be taken apart, no worry there. Everett snaked his arm around her waist, warm and damp. "Come have some lemonade, dear, you'll feel better if you don't watch."

"My imagination is worse," she groused, but let him pull her toward the kitchen.

"I thought you didn't have any imagination," he grinned over the pitcher. "That's what you told Ms. Real Estate."

"It doesn't take much to figure out that my mother's armoire is going to have some serious scrapes on it."

"Nah, it'll be the walls. That armoire is even tougher than your mom."

"Very funny." The kitchen was a shambles. Betty had entertained fantasies of a big family dinner their first night in the new house, foolish of course. Not pizza again, though. Her family's love for the gooey mess didn't overrule her need for an organized meal. Wasn't there an Italian restaurant over by the highway?

***

Perhaps it was all the garlic—really the cook had been overly generous with it—or just the sheer amount of food—after all none of them were used to such quantities—it could after all, just be the newness of the house. Whatever the reason, Michael had a humdinger of a nightmare. It was bound to happen, she supposed, not that it made it any easier to listen to his shrieks and to hold his trembling body till he calmed. Betty couldn't bear to see either of her kids in any kind of pain, but well, life was like that. Michael's tears were tapering off to sniffles and the hitching coughs were gone. Elaine snored on, happily oblivious, in the next room.

"Feel better?"

"Yes, I guess."

"Don't do that, here, use a tissue." He blew a resounding honk and stared stonily at Puff the Rabbit clutched under his arm like a bagpipe's bladder. "Do you want to tell me about it, Michael?" Quick shake of the head. "It might help . . ." No sign either way. Betty lifted his chin up gently to meet his eyes. It was always so unexpected, the beauty of his soulful eyes, even if she couldn't help but think of Elvis. She smiled in spite of herself. "Tell me."

"It was . . . the people who lived here . . . before."

A sigh; of course, but still she had been right to tell them. Elaine was fine, anyway. Michael was just sensitive. But he would get used to the idea. It was just his overactive imagination. "You imagined them?"

"I guess."

"Well now, Michael, I didn't tell you about this sad business to give you nightmares."

"I know, Mom."

"You remember what I told you about it?"

"Mmmm hmm."

"I told you it was a terrible thing that happened here, a very sad family and a poor man who was quite out of his mind." He nodded but gripped Puff a little harder. "Bad things happen everywhere, right? And a bad thing happened here once but it's over and those poor people, well, they're . . . at rest now. Right?" Another nod. "No such thing as ghosts, remember? Just stories bad people tell to scare little kids." For god's sake why did people tell scary stories—as if there weren't enough to worry about in the world today, people had to invent such things and make those terrible movies like that horrible man with the razor nails.

"I guess. I want to go back to sleep now." He turned away and burrowed his face into the pillow. Puff 's ears flopped over his eyes. Betty couldn't help smiling as she leaned over to kiss them both.

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

Well, that went better than I thought it would, she mused, padding her way down the hall back to her room. One little bad dream, over and done with, now they could get on with things. Betty wedged herself in next to Everett, who had of course slept through the whole thing and taken advantage of her absence to grab a larger share of the covers. Wiggling her butt, she worked them both back toward the center of the bed. Tomorrow, I can get that kitchen done, if nothing else. Life would be back to normal with her kitchen in order.

***

Michael dreamed. It was the third time that night he'd come down the green-carpeted stairs in a pre-dawn Christmas morning haze of snowy sunlight. Puff mutely bore the terrorized clutching of his sleeping arms. In his dream, Michael was without the comfort of his friend. He didn't even want to go to the kitchen. He knew it was like the panda box in Ms. Edwards' story and like his Dad's scary comment "curiosity killed the cat," which he guessed was why they didn't have one. Maybe if he'd listened to his teacher's story with more than one ear he'd know why he had to keep going back down to that room, but the other ear just had to listen to the conversation between Jimmy and MaryBeth, which he'd understood no better but had something to do with the potty things. His breath stopped as he turned the corner through the doorway and there they were.

Michael whimpered in his dream and body. He could hardly stand to see his dad's rare steaks—let alone this much blood. The first time he'd dreamed this, the red tide had thrown him into a jerking wakefulness. But now, even though he knew he dreamed, such relief was out of reach. A dull thudding filled his head.

Two little girls looked like painted dolls, carelessly thrown in the corner of the kitchen. Barely perceptible under the pungent aroma of blood were the lingering smells of holiday cooking: pecan pie, chocolate pie, Christmas cookies, biscuits and of course, a turkey. But the carving knife was sunk deeply into the mommy's back where she slumped over the pedestaled table. Michael sucked his thumb, tears rolling down his dreaming face. He heard a sound and turned back to the girls. Did they move? He wasn't sure.

"Michael…" The whisper was so hoarse and low that he thought perhaps it was all in his head, but then their eyes opened and again they said his name, "Michael…help us…"

His screams were muffled by Puff as he wet his pants. Stop, stop stop! He could think nothing more, couldn't think at all when the two chilly blue hands brushed his foot, their touch softer than Puff's paws.

***

Betty awoke with an instinct of panic. Michael's dark form smudged the doorway. Another nightmare, she thought, until she felt, heard even rather than saw the drops fall from the knife's shining point.

"Michael?" He swayed as if moved by an imperceptible breeze. He did not answer. Slowly so as not to startle him, she eased herself out of bed, quashing her impulse to rush over to the small boy twisting in the moonlight. "Michael," she gently laid her hands on his arms, "What is it?" His eyes, glazed, mirrored her face unblinking. Her hand slipped down to his, loosing his grip on the handle. The knife dropped to the carpet and she could not stop her annoyed thoughts about the stain.

Betty searched fervidly for a wound. "Michael, did you hurt yourself?" No answer. But he did not appear to be bleeding. She breathed freely for a moment—then stopped. Betty rose, gently brushing the catatonic boy aside to run down the hall. No, no, no, not Elaine, it can't be. I can't take it. No! She threw the door open. Elaine's body sprawled over her bed, sheets crumpled to the floor. Her breathing bordered on a soughing snore—but she breathed. Betty felt a joyous sob rise, flattened immediately by a flush of shame. How could she think him capable? Betty turned; Michael stood tentatively, blinking now, awake.

"Mommy?" The single word tugged at the roots of her love and she hurried to swallow his trembling body in a hug. His words were incoherent mumbles and cries. When at last his shaking slowed, she held him away from her to wipe his wet cheeks.

"Michael, what happened?"

"I dreamed again. They were there again."

"Who was there?"

"The people who were killed."

"Michael—" How to address this?

"I know it was a dream, but it was real too." His words tumbled out now, "The little girls wanted me to come with them. Their daddy is real mean—they say he'd be nicer to them if they had a brother because he always wanted a son and didn't love them because they were girls and he killed them, he killed them all." His sob wrenched her already aching heart and she set aside argument, and logic and sense, and they clung to one another like the grieving souls they were; the knife a mute witness to their embrace.

***

Blood—but no wound, no source. Betty twittered fitfully, waiting vainly at the window for dawn. He said it was their blood. And not a knife she recognized, but after twelve years of marriage and three moves, they had accumulated a lot of detritus that had ceased to look familiar years before. Betty ached for her son, for her homey dreams, for her family. She was not willing to release any of them yet, though they seemed to be scattering from her protective grip and, in the process, pulling her flesh apart.

Michael slept, his brow touched with shadows, his features animated by his strange sorrows. How is this child mine? she thought. A whole little person, unlike them both, born from her body, from his seed—an amazing alchemy that produced something completely new and different—and now frightening, as if he were a key to a world of which she wanted no part.

The knife gleamed with snickering menace from the dish rack as if muscling aside the other cutlery. Was it really not here? Would the first rays of true dawn make it shimmer and disappear? Betty ran her finger over its still-warm edge. Too real; when her family rose and clambered down for breakfast, it would still be here. It must be theirs. There must be an answer, an excuse, a reason—one that would be clear in the daylight.

***

"Michael?" Although he lately thought himself too old for her help in the bath, he submitted dully to her fussing today, as if it were of no real moment. Betty hoped the warm yellow haven might prove safe for confessions and truth. "How did you get the knife?"