Phantom (6 page)

She looked at Michael. A good, well-meaning
man. Solid and reliable. It had been a pleasure to watch him grow
over the years from a nervous and somewhat awkward youth into an
assured and sociable man. A devoted husband and father, too. If at
times he seemed a little complacent, if the edge was softening—was
that so unexpected, so terrible? It happened to everyone. Didn't
it?

As for herself, Linda knew she wasn't making
much of an effort to fight the tide, real or imaginary. Your body
slackens, your face changes. After all, she had been a mother for
nearly ten years now. The mind shifts as well. She was aware of the
fact that she read more magazines and fewer books than she once
had. It seemed that any old radio program would do, whereas in the
past she had searched out good classical broadcasts. And, worst of
all, she surrendered now to television shows she would never have
even glanced at a few years ago. At her gloomiest Linda felt as if
she were caught in a vast process of attrition, the slow but
inexorable obliteration of herself as a person.

Day after day

In every way

I’m turning gray.

On the other hand, Michael's mind never
seemed to stray within a thousand miles of such thoughts. He had
reached the point where he took life as it came and rode with it,
lucky man. He was so remarkably free of uncertainty that Linda
didn't know whether to be envious or frightened.

Their lives were one thing, but what was
important above all else was to make sure that everything was right
for Ned. Insofar as it was humanly possible, Linda was determined
to see that it was done.

A child is all you have.

One boy-child.

"Hey honey, why the face?"

Oh, yes, and a husband. Linda smiled
mechanically and took another sip of sherry.

"Game of cribbage?" Michael asked.

"I couldn't pay attention to the cards
tonight. Do you mind?"

Michael shrugged. "Okay. I just asked."

"Do you think Ned spends too much time with
those men at the bait place or whatever it is? I worry about
that."

"Oh, I think it's all right," Michael
answered after a few seconds' thought. "I asked Bill Fischer next
door about them and he says they're just a pair of harmless old
coots."

"You don't think they might be a little ...
funny? With Ned being a pretty, young boy, you. know, they—

"Nah listen. There's no gossip at all about
them, and. there'd be plenty if there was even the flimsiest reason
for it. You know that. Besides, Bill said they've been here
practically since the last Ice Age and never any trouble."

"Well, it still doesn't seem right to me,"
Linda persisted. "He goes over there to see them almost every
day."

"So he
has
found a couple of
friends."

"Michael, they're a couple of old wharf rats
who live in a setting that belongs on Tobacco Road."

Michael frowned at his whiskey. "That's
rather judgmental, don't you think?"

Linda looked away. ''I'm sorry," she said.
"Maybe it was, but he is our son."

Michael rose and went to get another
bourbon. He could see that this had the makings of a three-or
four-drink discussion.

"Look, honey, Ned's grandparents are way the
hell up in Buffalo and he sees them only once or twice a year. So
it shouldn't come as any surprise to find that when he has the
chance he enjoys the company of a couple of older people. That's
natural and good for a kid. It increases his perspective. And
secondly, whether you like them or not, and you don't even know
them, what are you going to do? Tell Ned he can't see them, that he
has to stay away from that place? What would that accomplish?"

Linda shook her head unhappily. "No, I don't
suppose that would do any good."

"Of course it wouldn't. More sherry?"

"No, thanks."

"Linda, if you want, I'll ask around some
more about those two old-timers, maybe even go down there myself
and check them out. But I really think all we have to do is what we
have been doing: watch out for anything that might go wrong or harm
our son, but otherwise leave him room enough to grow his own
way."

"You're telling me I worry too much."

"We already know that, honey."

Michael picked up the remote control for the
television. Like a fisherman casting onto a lake, he raised his arm
above his head and then swung it down, pointing the device at the
set and at the same time thumbing a button to turn it on. He
repeated the movements half a dozen times, patrolling the channels
until he found one that was acceptable.

Poor Lin. She did get in these moods from
time to time. There wasn't much he could do about it either, except
to be as calm and reasonable as possible. He knew there was really
no way to talk her out of it; you just had to try to help her work
her own way back. It was understandable. First, there was the move
to Lynnhaven, coming after years of living in a city. That would
take her a while to adjust to, but he was confident she would with
no real trouble. The move itself wasn't wrong, it was in fact the
very thing they had worked for for so long. Second, of course, was
her health—not always a conscious fear, perhaps, but a very real
one all the same. She must wonder every day if she might be about
to suffer another devastating attack like the one five years ago.
The doctors had no explanation for it either. Linda had been
asthmatic from childhood, she had bouts of wheezing and troubled
breathing now and then. The inhalers kept it under control very
nicely. But that attack, the overwhelming severity of it ... It had
happened only that one time in her life so far, but the threat of a
rerun was a terrible thing to live with. Well, he had made their
house as safe as he could. They had enough air conditioners,
purifiers, dust removers, humidifiers and ionizers to open a small
appliance store. Third, Ned was their only child. If they'd had
others, even only one more, maybe the focus of her anxieties would
not be so circumscribed and intense. But the doctors had advised
against another child. Not the happiest of situations, but it was
obviously more sensible to make the most of it and enjoy the one
child they were fortunate enough to have than to ache for the ones
that would never be.

Michael was sure that everything would sort
itself out in time. Lynnhaven was a nice town and they had a lovely
house. He could be happy here for the rest of his life. The house
had character. A large and roomy saltbox with two fireplaces, it
was situated on a good four acres of land. A sensational
investment, too. Sooner or later, sadly but inevitably, more people
would rediscover Lynnhaven, and when they did property values would
soar. Not that Michael could ever imagine selling the place, but it
was nonetheless comforting to know that his home was destined to
appreciate significantly—dramatically, even—in the years to come.
All in all, they had done well and were in a good position.

But try to tell that to Lin.

* * *

4. A Very Special
Room

It was the best room in the house. It was
outer space and inner earth, the triumph of a young boy's mind.

It was: stamps and coins and a handed-down
set of old Hardy Boys mysteries and crab shells with bits of gooey
stuff still sticking to them in places and strangely colored rocks
and dried out worms and acorns and horse chestnuts and a microscope
and a telescope and a salamander in a bowl of mud and comics and
all kinds of cards and a cherry bomb hidden for an occasion that
would be known only when it came and carved sticks and a jack knife
and waterproof matches and a canteen and a pocket magnifying glass
for frying Japanese beetles and a rabbit's foot and a shell plugged
up with a dead snail and ...

It was the best room in any house. It was a
boy's room. Here and only here could magic forces be found. The
Invisible Weights, which on certain mornings anchored your arms and
legs so that you couldn't get out of bed until they decided to let
you go. The Moving Pebble, which might change position only an inch
or two but was never in the exact spot where you left it. The Night
Fire, which could only be seen in a mirror in the dark when you
brushed your hair (you know it's static electricity, but if that's
all you know, you don't know anything).

It was a small, narrow room, and Ned had
chosen it over the other available bedroom for just that reason. He
knew it would be tricky enough for him to keep track of every
square inch here; the bigger room would have defeated him. Besides,
a large room feels loose and vacant, no matter what you do with it.
This shoebox with the angled ceiling was perfect.

A measure of confinement isn't necessarily a
bad thing either, so one window is better than two. The view from
the porthole: the backyard, an expanse of grass that Ned's father
would have to rehabilitate, future flower beds and a vegetable
garden, some lawn chairs and, farther out, a couple of stately
sugar maples and a scattering of gray birches. The land rolled
away, beyond the limits of the Covington property, to a broad
meadow that had, over the years, spoiled with thick brush and
undergrowth.

The only thing that stood out in that
unremarkable landscape was the stark remnant of an ancient
scarecrow, a mute and forlorn reminder of other, presumably better
times, when the meadow had been tilled. Ned had inspected the
scarecrow the first day they moved into the house. Only a few
strips of rotting cloth remained, but the "body" was still firmly
fixed in the ground and the rope binding the "arms" had tightened
so much Ned's fingers found no give in the knots.

When he wasn't outdoors Ned spent most of
his free time in his room. Aside from a few favorite programs, he
did not watch much television because it made him feel tired. And
the room, which was after all a very special place, always offered
more to occupy Ned's mind than the flat TV screen.

For one thing, magic. Not just the Moving
Pebble, but the magic that lies beyond such phenomena. The magic of
the unseen. Ned believed in it, without knowing what it was. You
had to have a special feeling for it, be in a special place,
otherwise there was only the ordinary. The twin alarms of fear and
excitement were signals Ned had come to know well. When it was
finally definite that the Covingtons were going to leave
Washington, Ned had worried that the magic in his room would be
lost forever. But the first day in Lynnhaven, when he chose this
room, he knew that everything would be all right. Perhaps it was
nothing more than the aspect of light, or the way the air felt,
that almost tangible charge that, even at its weakest, bespoke
secret powers. Magic is an imprecise term, but if Ned couldn't say
what it was, he did know it was there.

"Is there such a thing?" he asked Peeler one
day.

The old man considered this for a moment,
composing his face in a serious expression. "I believe so," he said
at last. "Could be."

"What is it?'

"Ain't nobody knows that, no matter what
they might tell you to the otherwise." Then he held up one finger
to emphasize his next point. "But I do know this. It ain't rabbits
outta hats or card tricks or parlor stunts like that."

"Well, if nobody knows what it is and you
can't see it, how do you know for sure that there is such a
thing?"

"Sufferin' hellcats, you sure can fish an
unrewardin' mudhole when you've a mind to, boy. You can't see the
air neither, but you know it's there. Maybe magic's like that,
although I can't say I've had the experience of any since I don't
know how long."

"Are there real magicians, people who can
use it and do things with it?'

"Never seen one," Peeler scoffed. "Nor never
heard of one who wasn't just doin' tricks and stunts. Them fellers
are a dime a dozen."

Ned was pleased. It would be great to have a
real knowledge of magic but something told him that was not
possible, and now Peeler was saying much the same thing. Magic was
a property, a state, something you might come across from time to
time and take little notice of, like a cold spot or a patch of fog.
But the fact that it was so elusive didn't mean a boy couldn't look
for it all the time, and perhaps even find it.

"Are there night things, phantoms, Peeler?"
Ned already knew the answer to this, but he wanted to hear what the
old man thought about it.

"Tell me what
you
mean by that, and I'll
tell you my answer."

"I don't know what they are," Ned said. "I
don't think you can see them but sometimes you know they're there,
in your room at night in the dark. Strange creatures, like, and you
can't move from your bed or they'll get you."

"Oh, yeah, I think I can remember what
they're like," Peeler said. "They're a part of magic, I'd say."

"Can they hurt you?"

"I don't guess so."

"Do they go away when you get older?"

"Everything goes away when you get older."
Then, seeing the look on Ned's face, Peeler smiled and added, "But
other things come along, Nedly, better too, if you keep your eyes
open for 'em."

"Does Cloudy know about magic and
stuff?"

"Cloudy's same as me. He don't know nothin'
about nothin' from nothin', and that's a fact. You ask him, he'll
tell you so hisself. "

"But you know a lot."

Peeler just laughed.

Ned knew the phantoms very well; it seemed
he'd been aware of them for most of his life. He'd never seen one,
of course, and he had to admit he'd never even actually been
touched by one, but he knew them all the same. Sometimes, when they
weren't around for several nights in a row, perhaps a week or more,
he thought he missed them. But then they would be back, surrounding
his bed, shivering his nerves and stirring up fears so that he'd
give anything to have them go away for good.