Little Secrets (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

“A blank canvas is only intimidating if you don't let yourself imagine what you might paint on it.”

Louisa had been fond of saying that as she walked around the room, looking at what they were working on. Ginny knew she was trying to be helpful, but it was never that she'd found the blankness intimidating. If anything, she always had too many ideas about what to paint and never enough skill to re-create what was in her mind's eye. Not intimidating, frustrating.

The canvas in front of her was now frustratingly and intimidatingly blank. She'd dutifully kept it set it up on the easel near the window, where the light was best. She'd sketched out on a notepad the shapes of what she thought to paint, her pencil making a scritch-scratch noise that was uncomfortably like the noises she'd heard in the walls.

She looked around the room, waiting for inspiration to strike. And it did, but not to create anything. The fainting couch called to her. That, and a mug of tea and the rest of her book. That was a much better prospect.

There was nothing that said she
had
to paint. It should never have become something forced upon her, the way she felt forced now. But Ginny didn't feel like painting.

The truth was, Ginny was sure she'd never really feel like painting again.

Children's laughter caught her attention, and she looked out the window to search for them. As she watched, the boy pushed through the hedge and bent to pick up what looked like a badminton birdie. It must've flown over the bushes, though why those kids would be outside playing badminton at this time of year… Ginny shrugged. Not her kids, not her problem. Well, except for the fact they were in her yard again. The boy ran through the pile of leaves just down the hill, his sister following, and she lost sight of them.

The sky had gone gray again. Ginny shifted her weight from foot to foot and dabbed her paintbrush without enthusiasm into a blob of a color called Azure Sky, which was nothing like the color she could see through her window. Despite the chill in this room, it wasn't cold enough outside for snow, which meant the clouds covering the sun meant rain. Cold November rain, just like in that Guns N' Roses song. The faint rumble of thunder proved her right a minute or so later.

Autumn thunder always felt strange, not like summer storms that sprang up after a hellish day and broke the heat. Storms in the fall were creepy, not sexy. The rain would be cold, not warm.

* * * * *

Warm rain. The sound of thunder. Ginny closed her eyes, remembering how the sky had opened, how everything had come down. Steady, unyielding rain, hard enough to sting her bare arms as she ducked between the tents, wishing she'd thought to bring a sweater or an extra outfit. She would be soaked by the end of the day, her carefully styled hair flattened, her makeup smeared, her pretty shoes bloated with wet.

Her paintings hadn't looked the same in the glare of strung light bulbs instead of sunshine; nobody's had. They'd strung some on wires in the tent. Others leaned on unsteady easels, posts sinking into the rain-softened ground.

The crowds came, despite the rain. They splashed in the puddles and trekked through the mud. They carried shopping bags of crafts and paintings carefully wrapped in plastic to shield them from the ceaseless downpour. They waved giant tubs of French fries and apple dumplings and ignored the ice-cream truck and cotton-candy vendors—cotton candy dissolves in the rain before it can be eaten. It leaves behind a sticky film as the only reminder of its sweetness. Ginny knew this because she'd watched a young mother pushing her toddler in a stroller, unaware of his tears as his treat washed away before he could get it to his little mouth.

Lots of people had come to the art show, and it had seemed to Ginny that at least most of them took a turn through the tent she shared with the rest of Louisa's students. Lots of strangers took the time to ask about her work, some even complimenting it. A couple even bought a piece. Lots of faces, lots of smiles, but no matter how often she looked up hopefully to the tent entrance, waiting, none of them had been his.

* * * * *

Blinking at the next rumble of thunder, farther away now, Ginny came back to herself. Her back ached, and so did her fingers from clutching at her paintbrush so hard. She'd been standing there so long the small dabs of paint she'd put on her palette had started to dry, a thin sheen of darker color covering the brightness beneath. She took a deep breath and put everything down.

She didn't want to paint today, or maybe never any other day, but she left her supplies where they were so that perhaps when she returned they might taunt her into feeling creative.

Ginny went downstairs to make some tea. As she filled the kettle at the sink, the first fat drops of rain splattered the glass. She leaned to crane her neck, trying to get a glimpse of the sky but couldn't quite make it.

The kids from next door ran across the yard, kicking at the leaves and shrieking with laughter. The wind picked up strands of the girl's blonde hair as she twirled and fell down into a pile, her arms and legs moving like she was making a snow angel. Her brother tossed the birdie at her, hitting her in the forehead. She sat up, indignant, and shouted something at him Ginny couldn't make out. Then she got up to chase him, and they ran out of sight again, down toward the creek.

The kitchen was broiling hot again, even as the library had been chilly. Her memories had left her flushed, but the temperature in here was unbearable, too hot for hot tea. She settled the kettle on the stove but didn't turn on the burner, and instead went to the fridge for a cold glass of orange juice.

The carton was empty, not even a swig left. Fuming, she tossed it in the trash and wrote “orange juice” on the list clinging beneath a magnet, advertising window treatments, on the fridge. She drank some water instead, then wet a paper towel and used it to dab at her face and the back of her neck, the swell of her cleavage.

It was too damned hot here. Too cold in other rooms. The damned furnace, Ginny thought, needed a kick. She didn't care what the guy said about it, there was something wrong.

Determined, she pulled the rechargeable flashlight from the wall dock. Sean would be happy to know she'd found a use for it, even if she didn't want to admit that it had been an eminently practical present.

The basement door creaked as she opened it. Behind it was the set of spindly, creaking and open wooden stairs with a splintery railing she gripped firmly. The floor below was concrete and unforgiving of a tumble. For a moment she considered taking off her slippers, but she wasn't wearing socks with them and the thought of going in bare feet into the filthy cellar was as unappealing as taking the time to go upstairs and put on socks. Instead, Ginny just made sure to settle each foot firmly on the stairs before she took another step.

The bulb swayed a little when she pulled the chain, and the pool of light at the bottom of the stairs shuddered. Just beyond it was another pull chain, though, and a few feet more, another. They were hung all over the basement, none connected by a light switch but all close enough that you never needed to pass through any darkness to get to the next…unless, as she discovered now, several of the bulbs had burned out.

But that's why she had the flashlight. Ginny clicked the button. The blue-white light flashed rapidly, like a strobe, before she clicked it again to put it on the regular setting. A steady beam of bright light shone ahead of her, looking almost solid with the dust she'd kicked up swirling in it.

Ginny held the flashlight in her palm and slowly waved the light from side to side. “Whommmmm. Whommmm.”

Lightsaber.

The effect was ruined when the light bent along any objects in the way, but still it was good for a giggle as she oriented herself. She swept the room with the flashlight. All the corners the light from the bulbs wouldn't reach, even if they were all lit.

The furnace was in the far corner, in a little jig-jog that upstairs was part of the dining room. Ginny flashed the light above her, into the ceiling joists. She remembered too late the sound of nails and claws, and screamed when the shivering shadows tossed a pair of bright eyes at her, a flash of teeth.

Seconds later, of course, with her heart pounding and palms sweating, she had to laugh. It wasn't a raccoon—or worse, a rat—but a child's stuffed toy shoved into the space between the rafters and close to the silver ductwork.

That was creepy and gross, but not terrifying and not as weird as some people might think. She could remember as a kid hanging out in her grandma's basement with Peg and Billy and their cousins, trying to scare each other with stories or playing hide and seek. As a teenager, Ginny's uncle Rick had built a rec room of sorts in the basement, using spiffy 1970s paneling and cast-off furniture he and his friends had salvaged from the garbage. There'd been plenty of weird things tucked into the rafters of Gran's basement, including the gape-mouthed plastic face of a decapitated blow-up doll Peg and their older cousins had convinced her was a “princess mask.” Compared to that, a kid's teddy bear was hardly strange at all.

To her right was the concrete wall that had been repaired in the long-ago fire. It was just as dirty and hung with cobwebs as the other walls, but of slightly different brick. Sean had stacked their ski equipment along it but left bare the metal shelving unit she'd meant him to use. Ginny shook her head, biting her tongue and refusing to let herself get worked up over it.

The furnace kicked on with a rumble when she approached. That had to be a good sign, right? She didn't know much about furnaces, other than how to change the filter, but the repairman had mentioned that Reset button and whatever he'd done to it had worked, at least for a little while, so it seemed like it was worth a try again.

Over in this corner, the bulb had not just blown, it was missing entirely. Ginny touched the chain and set the fixture swaying anyway as she passed, but she used the flashlight to look over the furnace. She regretted, now, playing the role of little wifey while Sean went with the repairman to check things out. She'd always made it a point in the past to be aware of everything, the basics of what she considered necessary adult skills. How to change a tire, balance a checkbook, change a fuse, mix a basic cocktail. In the days before she'd gone to a Mac, how to defrag a computer. Yet when the repairman was here, she'd hidden herself away in the kitchen like some sad parody of June Cleaver, complete with apron and bare feet.

What the hell had happened to her?

A sudden sob threatened to strangle her, but Ginny forced it back. No crying. Not here in the dim and dirty basement. Christ no. She wasn't going to lose it. She bit her tongue and rubbed the sore spot against her teeth until the urge to cry went away enough to ignore.

The Reset button. Where would it be? She shone the light over the entire furnace, but there was no helpful marking. The furnace itself still rumbled comfortingly but also deceptively.

“Let me heat your house,”
the furnace's rumble said.
“Or, you know, make you think I'm going to. But then you wake up freezing your tits off while chocolate melts in your cupboards.”

Just to the left of the furnace was a small window set high in the wall. It opened into a well framed with a half circle of metal and a patch of gravel at the bottom. She could see nothing through it, but some pale light filtered through, enough that when she went around the side of the furnace she could click off the flashlight.

And there it was. At least, she assumed the switch on the side of the furnace, tucked between two sections and just above the place the filter nestled, was the right one. What else could it be?

What's the worst that could happen, Ginny thought, and flicked it off.

At that moment, the light from the window cut out completely, leaving her in shadow. Ginny turned, the flashlight tumbling from her fingers as she spun. Framed in the window was a face, eyes wide and mouth yawing.

It screamed, shrill and high and piercing. The sound ripped at her eardrums and set the hair on the back of her neck on end. She dropped the flashlight, screaming herself, louder and more frantically than when the stuffed bear had startled her.

The face disappeared. More screams echoed. She heard the faint rustle of feet in the leaves.

Ginny collapsed against the furnace, no longer rumbling, and let herself dissolve into relieved laughter. She pressed a hand to her heart to slow the beating. The other went between her legs, praying she hadn't lost control of her bladder. She seemed safe enough there, though there'd been a moment when she was sure she was going to piss herself. At least she'd managed to avoid that.

It was one of the kids from next door, the face in the window. For whatever reason, they'd been peeking in her windows. Well, they'd had a scare, hadn't they? Maybe it would keep them away from her house, she thought, even as she laughed again at how they'd terrified her too.

She bent slowly, carefully, to find her flashlight, but it had rolled away somewhere. It was gone. She'd have to look for it later, in the brighter daylight or at least when she'd replaced all the burnt-out bulbs, but for right now her bladder was protesting the strain she'd put on it. She'd be lucky to make it upstairs.

Somehow, with her knees knocked together, Ginny made it to the bathroom in time to avoid an accident. Washing her hands, she caught sight of her reflection and laughed again at the memory of the neighbor boy's terrified face. Of her own fear. She laughed, loud and long.

And then she was weeping, both hands gripping the porcelain while she bent forward, helpless against the onslaught. Her shoulders heaved. Sobs racked her. She opened her mouth and almost expected to puke, that was how fierce the tears burned, but, instead, snot and saliva dripped into the sink. Fat, hot tears splashed. Her fingers curled and gripped, tight and tighter, because if she let go of the sink she was surely going to fall onto the floor.