Elsinore Canyon (5 page)

“We’ll be together a long, long time.”

“You’ve got to believe me. You’re the one I care about.”

He looked up at her like he did in those baby pictures. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

The sounds of heavy feet and harrumphing heralded the entry of Polly, who appeared in full regalia, tie-tack, French cuffs, and vest, brandishing an itinerary. “How many preventable problems are there going to be this time?” he bellowed at the brother and sister, still lightly clasped. “Have you locked those suitcases? Don’t bother answering, I found the keys in a Kentucky Fried Chicken bag. With a half-eaten leg. Phil, move that duffel—that’s right, put it right where I’ll fall over it. Do you know what the leading cause of death is in this area of the country?” And with such assistance and encouragement, the three of them got Laurie’s things into Polly’s van, and they all left for LAX.

Polly drove leisurely down the fast lane of the Coast Highway and glanced sideways at Laurie. “You’re giving up quite a bit of family time for Clark.”

“I know, but—” The darkness gave her freedom to speak, to be her true self. She had never been so passionate about anything in her life. “It’s not just Clark. It’s his work. We have a lot to do before he goes away.” Their plan was crucial. Their plan would change everything. Their plan was for her to transfer to a Boston-area college at the end of her sophomore year. There they would lay the foundation for their future, which would be a romantic and professional partnership to rival the ages. There would be meaningful, important work that would not only transform society; equally important, it would also give rise to a glorious new Laurie. Clark would be a lawyer and then a politician, and Laurie would administer agencies that would dwarf the Hamlet Family Foundation in their powers to charge the greedy and help the needy. In the right setting, Laurie would shine. Everyone had big ideas about just and thorough solutions to the world’s problems, Laurie had discovered—but they didn’t have Clark. You had to have someone brilliant and handsome and powerful, at whose side you could work the levers and the channels of wealth that would make your ideas reality.

“Will he be picking you up?” Polly asked.

“No. I’ll surprise him.”

“Didn’t you try to call him?”

“Yes. He spends a lot of time in the library. It’s fine for me to take a cab.”

“That’s quite an indulgence. You really need to be careful with your money.”

“I know, Daddy. You should see the way some people spend it up there.”

“I hope those people aren’t your friends.”

“No way, Daddy. That’s why I moved out of the dorms.”

“As long as you keep a balance in your life. A little attention to your own pleasures at least shows that you respect yourself. That way, you’ll get the respect of others.”

“Of course I get my pleasures, Daddy. Wasting life is a sin.”

“I’m glad you know yourself so well. Really, all you need when you deal with others is to be yourself. If you can manage that, it’ll keep you honest.” This was an old saw of Polly’s, usually phrased as “Be true to yourself, and then you can’t be false to anyone.” It was odd, because the way he lived, you’d think he was a huge fan of deceit. But I suppose he needed the truthfulness of others the same way thieves need honest workers. Who else would they steal from?

Laurie realized as she stood with her father and Phil in the terminal that Phil had endured the entire trip without a word. “Remember,” she murmured to him as she hugged him good-bye.

“Remember?” Polly echoed as he and Phil got back into his van. “Remember what? My birthday isn’t until October.”

Phil answered reluctantly. “It’s Dana. Laurie thinks I should drop her.”

Several ideas fell together in Polly’s mind, and his brow darkened. “That’s a good thought. I’ve noticed you two are spending a lot of time together.”

Phil half nodded.

“Well, I don’t like it. Claudia is looking for excuses to fire people. The further you stay from
all
the Hamlets, the better. Especially the boss’s daughter.”

Phil smiled playfully. “As far as I know, Dad, you’re my boss.”

“That’s right. I give you everything you have. You don’t owe Dana a thing.”

Phil’s cufflink got loose again.

“Do you hear me, Phil?”

“I’ve only given her the same things she’s given me. She promised me the same things I promised her.”

“Hah. Whatever she’s given you is fish bait. What things?”

“Do I have to do this again?” Phil pleaded. “Why does everyone think Dana’s insincere? And why does everyone think I’m a pike?”

“What have you and Dana ‘promised’ each other?”

“Nothing you could object to.”

“Said the
object.
Young girls break promises. They’re in love with words of love, but they don’t mean them. They stare up at you through those fluffy eyelashes and talk about some rosy future that never happens; they run away the minute you start to make it possible. Are you sulking there? I’m telling you this for your own good. If I had had someone to talk to me like this, I could have been spared a lot of grief when I was young.”

It went on like that all the way back up the coast, Polly grumbling about Mr. Hamlet’s infatuation with his new wife and how it was ruining everything. Phil could only puzzle at the inscrutable, insectlike politics of adult romance and adult occupations. Dana was so passionate and pure. She clung to him after her mother died. He felt so full and fine when he comforted her—more than comforted her. Melded with her. Engulfed her. “You are not alone, Dana. I am yours. I will let you love me.”

But Polly knew only two things: he needed to reestablish his footing with the Hamlets, and Phil’s behavior wasn’t helping. It was the perfect time, he decided, for Phil to visit Laurie in Alaska.

The perfect time indeed. Phil would be on a plane two days later, just as the mosquitoes had descended on Laurie’s neighborhood and her soul had been crushed and every nerve in her body sliced and seared.

She had returned to Anchorage to find Clark Jeffords in bed with two other girls.

Noise, out there somewhere. Shooting?

BANG BANG.

I turned sideways in bed. Gugh.

BANG BANG BANG. “Horst!” It was Dana’s voice outside my room.

I pushed myself up and looked at a clock: it was just after one in the morning. “Dana?” I called foggily.

“Horst! Get up!”

“I’m. Up.” I switched on a light, shuffled my clothes on, and transferred into my chair. I opened the door to the odd duo of Dana, in her black dress and dark cloak, and a rumpled, blinking Marcellus dressed for a walk in the cold. “What?” I said. “Did it come back?”

“We’re going to the adobe now,” Dana announced. “We’re getting ahead of this prank if that’s what it is.” I rolled around and picked up shoes and sweaters while she rambled on. “We were expected during the day, we show up at night. Day or night should all be the same to a ghost if that’s what it is. No point waiting another twelve hours to get this thing done if that’s what we’re doing. You’re not tired, are you?” she asked me.

“Naw.” I finished getting dressed. The three of us went down the hall and out a side door.

Dana drew her cloak across her chest as we stepped into the moist, dark air. “Freaky weird time either way.” She looked like a ghost herself as the three of us got into carts and rolled down the path.

The rhythmic booming of the surf blended with our movements. A slow stop, a fluid, three-person clutch by the door, Marcellus’s expressionless face and his fingers flying over the keypad, our entry into the adobe, one by one. We spread out silently. The broken vase, the toppled table, and the books still lay scattered. Marcellus tiptoed around and switched on every light and lamp in the room. “We don’t have to
wait
for it in the dark.”

Dana wiggled herself onto a high table. Her cloak spilled down and around her in heavy folds. She looked at me and Marcellus nervously. “No one’s been in here since this afternoon?”

Marcellus pulled a digital device out of his pocket and tapped in code. “Nope.” He set it on the arm of the leather club chair he’d picked the last time. “I’m gonna get ready.” He sat down, the cushion whooshed. The sound of the ocean was softer with the door closed, like a memory or a dream. We looked at each other, tired and expectant, Horst in his chair, me in mine, and Dana on the table’s edge. Three pairs of eyes tracing triangles in the tense air.

Dana drew in a slow breath. “Does anyone feel anything?”

It happened. My wheelchair was drifting in blackness.

“Oh God.” It was Dana’s voice, husky with terror.

“Dana!” I said.

“I’m here,” she panted. “I can’t see.”

Black soup. Voices only.

“This is it,” came Marcellus’s voice. Breathing hard.

“What, is it here?” I said. I rolled this way and that, trying to see.

“What are you?” croaked Dana’s voice.

“What?” I said.

“You don’t
see?”

I spun in my chair, and there it was. Mrs. Hamlet, as large as life, standing or floating somewhere in the room. “That’s it.”

“Mom?” came Dana’s terrified voice. “Is that you?”

Huh, huh, huh
—one of us, or all three of us, were puffing. Once again, the thing stared in sad, desperate longing. It held our eyes that way for a full minute until it turned and moved slowly through the blackness. To the stairs? It paused—I could swear it hadn’t done that before. With its eyes fixed—on Dana, I thought—it raised its hand, palm inward, and crooked its finger, beckoning. Its eyes gleamed, tiny beacons signaling across a dark and treacherous sea.

“What the hell,” came Marcellus’s voice.

“You see that?” I said.

“What!” Dana called.

“What it’s doing. It didn’t do that before.”

“She wants me to go,” Dana said softly. “She’s looking straight at me.”

“Don’t!”

“Don’t go, Dana.”

“She wants me to!”

“What if she wants you to jump off the damn roof!” Marcellus said.

As if on cue, the roof door swung up and the weird light lashed down and bubbled over the steps. The ghost seemed to shudder in its effluvium, and beckoned again. Its hand curled and uncurled softly like a white anemone.

I wheeled toward the sound of Dana’s voice, plunged my hands into the syrupy blackness, seized nothing, wheeled some more. I knew where I was now, but—I rolled to the table where Dana had been sitting, reached out, and caught her. Clammy bare legs that were kicking away from me, also corduroy pants, a down jacket, that blanket of a cloak, big shoes swinging, too many limbs, too much torso—Marcellus had had the same idea as me. The three of us were rolling and thrashing. “Marcellus!” I shouted.

He grunted back. “She’s not going, she can’t go.”

Dana yelled. “I’m going to her, you bastards! Why did you bring me here?”

I had one half of her firm, wriggling body pinned, Marcellus the other. The ghost put one foot on the bottom step and gestured again for Dana to follow.

“I’m going to it!” Dana screamed. “I don’t care what happens to me!”

“AAAAAAAAH!” yelled Marcellus. Dana’s arm flung free.

“I’ll bite your arteries!” she raged. Christ—she’d bitten him.

“Talk to her in here!” I said. “You don’t have to go out.” I was scuffling with Dana alone now, her body torqueing and the notches of her spine against my hand, her hair—I couldn’t bring myself to drag her by her hair.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Horst!”

“Let her go,” came Marcellus’s voice from somewhere farther off. “We’ll follow her.” I let go of her—her arms, back, legs, feet, brushed through my hands and I found myself clutching her empty cloak on the floor. Bumping and scraping sounds, and then Dana stumbling into the chill-colored light, her knees knocking each other, her arms flailing for balance in her wide black sleeves, and her frightened eyes surrounded by the tangled gold of her hair. The ghost was on its way up. Dana peered at it as if possessed, and followed as it climbed steadily, up, to the roof. The thing went out the door, Dana went out the door, her ankles and soles floating away, and the door swung shut with a BANG. The room was light again.

Marcellus and I leapfrogged up the steps. He rammed the door with the stick used for pushing it open, but it might have been nailed shut for all it would move. He reached up and shook the handle. Frozen. Blood all over the place from his bitten hand. He banged on the door itself. Not a sliver would it move. “Shit. Dana! DANA!”