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One night, very late, Rosalind and Stephen were whispering together in the darkened corridor outside their bedrooms, and Rosalind dared to ask Stephen if he was starting to forget their brother—almost, Rosalind had forgotten Graeme’s name!—quite deliberately pronouncing it, “Graeme.” Stephen’s reply was an immediate, perhaps too immediate, “No.” Rosalind then asked if Stephen sometimes heard their names so faintly and teasingly in distance, like the wind, and Stephen shivered and acknowledged, yes, he sometimes heard “something—I’m not sure what.” “But it sounds like Graeme, doesn’t it?” Rosalind persisted, and Stephen said, as if this were something he’d been brooding over himself, “If he wants us to join him, how the hell can we? We don’t know where he is.” They talked for a while, in lowered voices, of where Graeme might have gone. Back home?—to the city? But what would he do there? Live with a friend? Not very likely. As for relatives, Mother and Father seemed to have few; Father’s parents were long dead, and Mother’s widowed mother, remarried and living in a condominium in Sarasota, Florida, had never expressed much interest in her grandchildren. Rosalind said, frowning, “But do you think Graeme could take care of himself, support himself?” and Stephen said, “We could all take care of ourselves, if we had to. We could get jobs, we could be independent. We could go to school but live alone—why not?” Rosalind said in a thrilled, tremulous voice, “We—could? I’d be afraid, I think,” and Stephen said impatiently, “Our great-grandfather Moses Matheson came to this country by himself when he was only twelve years old,” and Rosalind said, “Did Father tell you that?” and Stephen said, “No. I read it in a book in the library in town,” and Rosalind said, “But people were different then! I don’t think I would be that strong or brave,” and Stephen said, moving away, a forefinger to his lips, “Yes, you could.”

II. “Immunity”

Stephen whispered aloud, “I can’t believe it.”

He was too upset to remain seated at the table in the Contracoeur Public Library and so heaved himself to his feet to continue to read stooped over the outspread newspapers, a pulse beating in his head, sweat running in rivulets like tears down his face. Even as he was thinking, sickened,
I
can’t believe it; I know it must be true
.

These ugly, damning headlines. In forbidden newspapers dating back to the previous winter. Front-page photographs of Judge Roderick Matheson and a half dozen other men. Arrested on charges of bribery, corruption, conspiracy to interfere with police investigations. These were Albany papers forbidden to us, the children of Roderick Matheson. These documents Stephen had at last sought out in the Contracoeur library, in willful defiance of his father’s command.

He wiped tears of angry, hurt shame from his eyes. He hoped no one was watching! Wondering at his naïveté, his stupidity, in having taken so long to seek the evidence when he’d half known, all these months, what it might be.

Should I bring a knife, a weapon to protect myself?

Somehow, Stephen never did. Thinking only of a knife when it was too late, when he was already gone from the house and pedaling his bicycle energetically away.

Those languid summer nights he’d begun to slip away from the ruin of Cross Hill. Too restless to sleep or to lie in his rumpled bed listening to the shrill rhythmic cries of the nocturnal insects. Though in the deep humid heat of mid- and late August there was virtually no wind, yet Stephen heard the faint, whining, reproaching voice calling to him
Ste-phen! Stephen!

But when he held his breath, to listen intently, the voice was gone as if it had never been.

At last slipping away from the ruin of Cross Hill. In secret!

To ride, defiantly, his spare, lithe bicycle that now hurtled itself along the moonlit road with the hungry energy of a mongrel dog.

The first night, Stephen rode perhaps two miles before, stricken with conscience and worry that Father would have discovered his absence, he turned back. He was fearful, too, of venturing farther in the dark, as clouds like shrapnel obscured the moon. For what of that thing his brother had seen, or had claimed to see—the thing-without-a-face? Stephen didn’t believe that such a creature existed but he well believed that a crazed black bear must be preying upon human beings, its appetite whetted by the taste of human blood.

The second night, Stephen bicycled perhaps four miles before turning back. He was breathless, exhilarated.
A weapon, a knife—I should have protection
. How strange that, each time he ventured out on his nighttime journey, Stephen forgot to bring a knife, even a paring knife; only when he was actually on the road, in the stark loneliness of night, hurtling between somber, darkened, fragrant fields and meadows and wooded hills that quivered with unknown, invisible life, only then did he remember—
I
might be in danger; I should have protection
.

How he yearned never to come back to the ruin of Cross Hill! His heart beat in an ecstasy of flight. Yet he always returned, of course; he was a responsible boy; never would he have abandoned his sister, Rosalind, and the twins, Neale and Ellen; and he was reluctant, too, to abandon Father and Mother, despite everything. For he yearned to believe all that Father had vowed—
Bear with me, children. I will be redeemed. I will redeem us all
. It was true, wasn’t it? It had to be true!

So each night in succession, Stephen returned home well before dawn; his head aching with exhaustion, and yet exhilaration; his shoulder, arm, and leg muscles pleasurably tingling. It was quite an experience now to ride his bicycle: no longer the sleek, elite Italian road bike that had been a costly birthday present to Stephen from his parents but this scarred, battered mongrel that fit so comfortably between his legs. Almost, it seemed to him alive. Eager to fly along the bumpy road into layers of shadow that parted to admit him as if welcoming him.
Ste-phen! Oh, Stephen!

And so returning, to hide his bicycle beneath a waterproof tarpaulin in dense cover beside the road. Congratulating himself on his cleverness. Congratulating himself, though he was sweaty and shivering with nerves, on his fearlessness. He kept his bicycle beside the road so that he could more readily slip from the house and run stooped over through the grassy park to push through an opening in the wrought iron fence, undetected; as he might have been detected had he pushed or ridden his bike along Acacia Drive.

Stealth had come second nature to Stephen.

He wondered—
Was this Graeme’s way, too?

He wondered—
Am I following my brother’s path; will I be reunited with him?

Stephen was never detected leaving Cross Hill at night. How strange then, how unexpected and bold, that he should find himself daring to slip away during the day.

For by late summer, poor Mother was never vigilant about any of her children. Rosalind tended the twins, who clung to her like children of three or four, not nearly eleven. “Poor Neale!—poor Ellen!” Rosalind hugged them, and kissed them, and tried gently to extricate herself from their desperate, sticky embraces: “You have got to find games to play by yourself. Please!” Stephen, though he loved his baby brother and sister, had even less patience with them than Rosalind. If they followed him around when he was working outdoors, mowing the ever-lush, ever-fertile lawn, he tolerated them for a while; then sent them indoors, loudly clapping his hands. “Rosalind’s calling you!—go
on
.” His eye moving slyly to the house, to the blank glittering windows from which, weeks ago, Mother might have gazed to see what he was doing; or lifting to the mysterious third floor, where Father might even now be watching.

But Father was increasingly remote, locked away from us. He rarely appeared downstairs before early evening, and sometimes not even then. No words of chastisement had been heard from him since his outburst of rage at Graeme’s traitorous behavior. No words of anger or disgust uttered at Stephen, though sometimes, at the dinner table, he commented sarcastically upon Stephen’s “uncouth, disheveled” appearance or pointedly asked, “Son, when did you bathe last? Can you recall?”

And so, Stephen began slipping away from Cross Hill during the day. Repairing a barn roof, for instance, he jumped down, ran stooped over toward the road, grinning to himself like a wild, willful child. And there was his bicycle he loved, lying waiting for him beneath the tarpaulin; always, it seemed to Stephen a miracle that the bicycle was there, hidden; he jumped on it, and struck off in the direction of Contracoeur. It seemed the most natural, the most inevitable thing in the world, as if a powerful force were drawing him to that small, ordinary city on the banks of the Black River; a former mill town, no longer economically prospering; yet not so depressed as other, similar towns in the Chautauqua Mountain region, for there was a thriving lumber business. Where once he’d scorned Contracoeur as a hick town, not worthy of a second glance, now he strolled happily about the streets, paved and unpaved; he smiled at strangers and was touched that they should smile at him in return. He was a handsome, tanned, amiable boy with sun-bleached wavy brown hair that grew past his collar, and a frank, direct, warmly brown gaze; yet too lacking in vanity to have a clear sense of how he might appear to others. For when he’d come to Contracoeur with our mother on her strained shopping expeditions, people had stared openly at Stephen; now, alone, he felt their eyes move upon him with pointed curiosity, yet not, so far as he could judge, hostility. One afternoon, seeing boys of high school age playing softball, Stephen was drawn to watch; within an hour he was invited to join the game; before long, he became acquainted with a dozen or more Contracoeur boys and girls. Hesitantly he introduced himself as “Steve” at first; only when asked where he lived did he say, “That old stone house about five miles out in the country—Cross Hill.” How peculiar the name tasted in his mouth, like tarnish.

Stephen’s new friends glanced at one another and at him. A red-haired boy said, smirking, “Cross Hill?—hell, man, no one lives there.” Another boy poked this one in the ribs and said, in a quick undertone, “It’s lived in now, man. Must be.”

Stephen was smiling and did not allow his smile to fade. He asked, “Who lived at Cross Hill before?”

The second boy said, “Before what?”

“Well—five years ago? Ten years ago?”

Frowning, the young people shook their heads. Cross Hill had “always” been empty, they said. For as long as anyone could remember.

On other days, in Contracoeur, Stephen asked for work. Hourly labor hauling furniture, unloading trucks at the Buffalo-Chautauqua railroad yard, sawing and helping to stack planks at McKearny’s Lumber. Over the summer he’d grown to a height of almost six feet; his arm and shoulder muscles were filled out and solid; he was unfailingly good-natured, uncomplaining— anywhere that wasn’t Cross Hill, and manual labor in isolation, seemed a cheerful, convivial place to him. His Contracoeur employers liked him very much. He seemed to know (for Stephen was as perceptive as any Matheson) that all of Contracoeur was speaking of him; speculating about him; assessing him.
Knowing more about me than I know about myself?
One day in late August Fred McKearny invited Stephen to stay for supper, and soon Stephen found himself befriended by the entire McKearny family, including the golden labrador Rufus, who, while Stephen sat at the dining room table with the McKearnys, rested his head on Stephen’s knees. There was Mrs. McKearny, who seemed as fond of Stephen as if she’d known him all of his life, and there was eighteen-year-old Rich, and there was sixteen-year-old Marlena, and there were several younger children; Stephen was giddy with happiness, for he’d forgotten what it was like to sit at a table, relaxed, and eat delicious food, and talk, and laugh as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
This is real life
, Stephen thought.

And how different, too, the semirural neighborhood in which the McKearnys lived, in a large white clapboard house surrounded by similar woodframe houses where homeowners kept gardens, orchards, livestock. Everywhere, friendly dogs like Rufus ran loose. There were roosters and chickens pecking in the dirt by the roadside. And not a mall for miles—many miles. Stephen tried to recall his old home in the city, where no one knew neighbors and where everyone drove cars, rushing from place to place and back again, traffic in snarls on the expressway. How mad that life seemed now. How aberrant, as if seen through a distorting lens.

I never want to return
, Stephen thought.
I
won’t!

He could attend Contracoeur High School with Marlena. And Rosalind, too, could enroll. Their parents had not said a word about school; perhaps Father expected to be returning to his own life by the time school resumed; how utterly unrealistic, how blind and selfish, for of course that wasn’t going to happen; that wasn’t going to happen, Stephen realized, for a very long time.

Often, alone, thinking dreamily of Marlena McKearny, who was so different from the girls he’d known in the city, his classmates at his private school; Marlena who was short, freckled, pretty but hardly glamorous—hardly “cool.” Her way of hugging Rufus, her sweetly teasing manner of laughing at Stephen as she laughed at her older brother Rick, making both boys blush. Had he fallen in love with Marlena? Stephen wondered. Or with all of the McKearnys. Or with Contracoeur itself.

Stephen wiped angrily at his eyes. Tears embarrassed him!

But he’d been missing it so—
life
.

Stephen, too, had surreptitiously visited the small Contracoeur library to browse through the local history shelves. He, too, had been shocked and disgusted to read about his great-grandfather Moses Adams Matheson. The “most wealthy mill-owner of the Contracoeur Valley"—the “distinguished philantropist-conservationist who had donated thousands of acres of land in the Chautauqua Mountains for free public use.” But there was the matter of the South Winterthurn “tragic blaze” of February 1911, killing more than thirty persons and injuring many more. There were striking workers locked out of their mills when they attempted to return, and numerous instances of union organizers “dispersed” by Pinkerton’s security police. Stephen read with particular disgust about the construction of “the most ambitious and costly architectural design of the Contrecoeur Valley, Cross Hill.” The massive, pretentious limestone house, in emulation of English country houses of a bygone era, had required eight years to build and had cost millions of dollars. Before it was completed, Moses Matheson’s wife, Sarah (about whom little information was provided in these texts) had died. Moses Matheson was said to be “estranged” from his single heir, a son, as from most of his family; he lived at Cross Hill in “guarded seclusion” for eighteen years, a recluse who died in 1933, at the age of sixty-five, “under suspicious circumstances, the country coroner not having absolutely ruled out the possibility of a ‘self-inflicted fatal injury.’ “ Suicide! Quickly Stephen turned a page in the crumbling
History of Contracoeur Valley
only to discover that the next several pages had been crudely torn out. Just as well; he didn’t want to read further.