That damn brain tumor is acting up again, I told myself, trying to laugh it off.
Maybe, thanks to my dad’s stories about all the whacked-out stuff that was happening at night, I’d somehow made myself sort of paranoid. Maybe last night I’d been actively looking for something to be strange and had convinced myself I’d seen it. Damn it, I was going to stick to logical explanations as long as I possibly could.
I snapped a quick picture of the railing on my phone before I left to catch my train. Surely I’d shattered the illusion now that I’d seen the railing in the bright light of day, but I wanted that photographic evidence in case my eyes or memory started playing tricks on me when I walked Bob later that night.
* * *
I spent the day trying not to obsess. Not only did I do a piss-poor job of it, but I was so lost in my own head that I couldn’t seem to concentrate on the inconvenient pop quiz my teacher sprang on us during calculus class. I’m really good at math—obviously, or I wouldn’t have been taking calculus—but my skills failed me that afternoon, and I knew I’d be lucky if I got a C.
I consoled myself with the thought that, unlike my mom, my dad didn’t pore over my every grade and share his opinion of my performance. But that thought evoked a strange twist of yearning in my chest. I’d gotten over the worst of missing my mom within a month or so of her moving to Boston, but every once in a while her absence would rise up out of nowhere and smack me in the face. I talked to her on the phone every week, and I’d be going up to Boston soon to spend Thanksgiving with her and my sister, but that wasn’t the same.
If my mom were still living with me, would I have confided in her about all the strange things that had been happening? I wasn’t sure I would have had the nerve, because talking about it would somehow make it all more real, but I might have. She was warmer and more approachable than my dad. At least more so than my post-divorce dad. But then she wasn’t warm and nurturing enough to hang around in Philadelphia for my last year of living at home, and her taking that job in Boston had forced me to decide between her and my dad. Maybe she used to be someone I could have confided in, but she wasn’t anymore.
I was not a bit surprised when, shortly after I got home from school, my dad called to let me know he’d be home late. Again.
“Maybe you should call when you’re not going to be late,” I quipped. I meant it as a joke, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that Dad didn’t take it that way.
“I’m really sorry, honey,” he said. “If there was any way I could—”
“Relax, Dad. I was just kidding.”
But was I? I honestly didn’t know if there was something passive-aggressive about that little joke. I had to admit, I was pretty sick of being home alone all the time.
“I’m sorry anyway,” Dad said, and I wanted to kick myself for putting the guilt trip on him, whether it had been semi-intentional or not. He was doing the best he could, and I knew that.
I fixed myself some tomato soup and a grilled cheese for dinner, too lazy to put together something that required any actual effort, then fed Bob and prepared for what I feared would be the ordeal of walking him. I didn’t know what I was going to see on our little stroll around the block, but at this point I knew I would be unnerved by the time I got home, either way.
I bundled up against the cold and clipped on Bob’s leash. “Let’s do this,” I muttered under my breath.
But when I reached the front door I found myself hesitating, not sure I had the courage to face what was out there. Or what wasn’t out there.
Bob whined and scratched at the door, giving me an impatient look.
I took a deep breath and finally found my courage. My cell phone was tucked away in my pocket, and within a few minutes I would know whether I should be fearing for my sanity or fearing that something genuinely goose bump–inducing was happening.
Out into the cold I went, Bob leading the way. I had the brief, cowardly thought that I should choose a different route, but Bob knew the way, and I didn’t argue.
We passed the antiques store with its barbed grille, but since I hadn’t seen it during the day, I didn’t know whether those barbs were unusual or not. When we got to the house that may or may not have had a tongue-shaped door knocker the night before, I saw that the door was open and some guy was going at the knocker with a screwdriver. So apparently the homeowner was messing around with the knocker.
Hope surged through me, and my knees felt weak with relief. I wasn’t crazy, and nothing spooky was going on. There had been a logical explanation all along.
The relief and hope both retreated when I remembered the phallic railing and my inability to come up with any logical explanation for it. Certainly that homeowner wasn’t changing the railing back and forth within the span of a single day.
Bracing myself, I continued on my route. As soon as I turned the corner up ahead, the railing would come into sight, though it would be too far away to make out details yet. Bob slowed us down by taking care of business, but then we were rounding the corner, heading toward the railing in question. My eyes homed in on it immediately, and I stared at it with single-minded purpose as we approached.
My stomach did a nausea-inducing backflip when I got close enough for a good look and saw the unmistakable phallic symbol in a circle of iron at the center of the railing.
I swallowed hard and came to a complete stop, shaking my head. Bob gave me a curious look, no doubt wondering why we’d stopped, but he was perfectly content to spend a little time sniffing around.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my cell phone and brought up the photo I had taken just this morning. In that photo, the emblem in the center of the railing was clearly a fleur-de-lis. I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight, then ventured another peek at the railing in front of me. Everything about the house looked exactly the same now as it did in the photo—up to and including the house number on the weathered gray door—except for that railing.
This was no trick of the light or of my imagination. The railing did not look the same now as it had this morning. Period.
The realization made my head spin and my pulse race.
With shaking hands I raised my phone and took another picture of the railing. I was thinking that maybe I could show the two pictures to Dad tonight when he came home, though I wasn’t sure I could wait that long to get confirmation of what my eyes were telling me. Maybe I’d just send the two pictures to Piper and ask her what she saw.
But apparently seeing a phallic symbol with my own two eyes after confirming earlier that it was a fleur-de-lis wasn’t enough weirdness for one night, because when I pulled up the photo I had just taken …
There was the fleur-de-lis, right smack in the middle of the railing where it was supposed to be.
It has to be the wrong photo, I told myself, but I knew it wasn’t, even as I flipped to the previous photo on my phone and saw the daytime shot. One was clearly taken during the day, and one was clearly taken at night. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the railing again, but that phallic symbol remained firmly in place. Mocking me.
I tried taking a photo again. When I looked at the camera view, I saw the phallic symbol, but when I actually snapped the picture, the fleur-de-lis was back.
I felt near hyperventilating and was probably white as a ghost. A kind-faced lady walking by looked like she was thinking of asking me if I was all right, but then she saw Bob and kept moving. Bob doesn’t even have to bare his teeth to make people think twice about getting close to him. I considered asking the lady to look at the railing and tell me what she saw, but if I was going crazy, the last person I’d want to confirm it for me was some stranger who just happened to be passing by.
The cold was starting to get to me, and I was hovering on the edge of panic. There was nothing more I could do while standing out here staring at the railing, so I somehow managed to gather myself enough to make my way home.
CHAPTER NINE
Once home, I made myself a big mug
of hot cocoa in the vain hope that it would somehow soothe me. I was spooked enough that I seriously considered adding a splash or three of something from Dad’s liquor stash, but my head was feeling swimmy enough already.
I kept looking back and forth at all the photos I’d taken. All the photos that looked pretty much exactly the same, and with about as boring a subject as you could ever hope to see. If I was going crazy, or if it was all some hallucination caused by a brain tumor, wouldn’t the nighttime photo look identical to the real thing?
Somewhere in the midst of my brooding and staring, I realized I had moved past the stage of wanting to keep the weirdness in my life a secret. Whatever was happening, whether it was something going terribly wrong with me or terribly wrong with the city, I wanted to know. And until I had outside confirmation one way or another, I would keep bouncing back and forth between being convinced I was crazy and being convinced Philadelphia had entered the Twilight Zone.
I found myself constantly looking at my watch, willing Dad to get home at a semi-reasonable hour just once, but that was wishful thinking. If only the photo had turned out … At least then I’d have been able to share it with Piper and talk this whole thing over with her on the phone while I waited for Dad. My stomach was churning, and my head felt all thick and achy with anxiety. I couldn’t sit still, and I couldn’t come close to concentrating well enough to do my homework.
I wanted to know the truth about that stupid railing so badly that I briefly revisited the idea of stopping some stranger on the street to ask them what they saw. Then I wondered why it had to be a stranger.
I knew most of my neighbors by name, and I went through them one by one, considering who was most likely to be home, who was most likely to help me, and who was most likely not to haul me straight to the hospital if it turned out the phallic symbol was all a figment of my imagination.
Which all sounds very logical and methodical, but I knew before I even started the process that there was one person and one person only I could even consider approaching. Even if the thought of picking up the phone and calling him out of the blue—or worse, knocking on his door—made me want to dive under my bed and hide.
I had found the nerve to call Luke exactly once, when I’d invited him to my birthday party. I’d come really close to chickening out, sure he was going to laugh at me (behind my back, not to my face, because he was too nice to do that), because I knew I was going to be my usual inarticulate self the moment I heard his voice. Also, I was sure he was going to say thanks but no thanks.
My invitation had been as clumsy and awkward and generally embarrassing as I’d expected, but he had shocked the hell out of me by saying yes.
Of course, asking him to come to my birthday party, especially when it was being held about thirty feet from his back door, was different from asking him to come with me and confirm whether I was a lunatic or not. I didn’t think I could face the latter conversation, so I came up with a cover story.
I called Luke’s number before I gave myself time to think about it any longer. The phone rang three times, and I suppressed a groan as I remembered it was Friday night. Luke and Piper were probably out on a date somewhere. It was silly of me to expect him to be home.
I lowered the phone and was millimeters from hitting the Off button when suddenly Luke’s voice said, “Hello?”
I jerked the phone back up to my face so fast I dropped it, my hands suddenly sweaty. I winced as it clattered on the floor; then I snatched it up and prayed I hadn’t just broken it.
“Hello? Luke? Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” he answered with a little chuckle. “Everything all right over there?”
I was glad he couldn’t see me, because I was sure my face was bright red. He must have thought I was totally spaztastic. “Um, yeah. Fine. I just dropped the phone.”
Because I’m a total klutz and lose all hand–eye and brain–mouth coordination whenever I talk to you.
There was a momentary pause. “Seriously, are you all right? You sound kind of … I don’t know, freaked out?”
I let out a slow, silent breath. I reminded myself that I’d spent an entire car ride sitting in the front seat with Luke while Piper was passed out in the back, and I had managed it without making a total fool of myself. I’d felt almost at ease with Luke by the end of the ride, and I tried to call up that feeling now.
“Well, I guess I kind of am,” I said, truthfully enough, before I launched into my mostly untrue explanation. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just, I have to pick up some stuff at the store, and my dad says there’s been a serious crime spree going on lately. I’m sure I’m overreacting, but I really don’t want to go out alone at night after some of the stuff he’s been telling me. I’d take Bob, but he can’t go into the store with me, so I was wondering…”
My voice trailed off because I felt like such an idiot. I may be a cautious city girl, and I may pay extra attention when I walk around alone at night, but I wasn’t even remotely scared to walk two blocks to the grocery store. Luke probably thought I was a pathetic wimp, and I wondered how I’d ever managed to convince myself this was a good cover story.
But if Luke thought my request was weird, he did a great job of hiding it. He didn’t hesitate even a little bit before he said, “Sure, I’ll go with you. I’m sure there’s something we’re low on around here. There always is. I’ll be right over. If you’re ready to go now, that is.”
There was a strange, fluttery feeling in my chest. I couldn’t tell if it was panic or excitement or a little of both. I instantly scolded myself for the excitement, if that’s what it was, because Luke was just being nice and walking me to the store. It wasn’t like I’d just asked him out on a date or anything. So my palms were sweating and my pulse was thumping entirely because I was worried about what he would see when we passed the railing in question. Absolutely, definitely the only reason.
“Thanks so much,” I said in a rush of breath. “I feel like such a chicken asking, but—”
He made a short, dismissive sound. “You’re not a chicken. You’re just being practical. I saw on the news tonight that a woman was jumped in a parking lot not three blocks from here. I wouldn’t let my mom walk to the store alone at night right now.”
I suppressed a shiver. Dad had talked about the crime spree in very basic terms, and I hadn’t asked for details. I certainly hadn’t realized anything had happened that close to our home, though Dad had said it was happening all over the city. Maybe asking Luke to walk with me to the grocery store wasn’t such a bad idea after all. If I’d actually needed to go to the grocery store, that is.
“Thanks again,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“No problem. See you in a few.”
* * *
I bundled up and took one more look at the photos on my phone as I waited for Luke to arrive. Those photos remained stubbornly the same, the railing appearing identical both day and night. I might be going nuts, but it seemed I was at least consistently nuts.
I shoved the phone into my pocket when Luke knocked at the door. Bob barked loudly enough to rattle the windows, running to the door and preparing to rip the potential intruder’s throat out.
“Bob!” I shouted over the racket he was making. “At ease!”
When my dad gave that command, Bob would shut up practically midbark and politely move aside so that Dad could get the door. With me, the response time was considerably slower, and he stayed parked in front of the door, so I had to shove him out of the way.
“Sit,” I ordered him sternly.
He parked his butt down obediently, looking up at me with wide, innocent eyes. His tail thumped against the floor, and he wasn’t snarling, but his neck hair was still suspiciously fluffy looking.
“It’s just Luke,” I explained, as if I thought Bob would understand me. “You know Luke. The guy who gives you Milk-Bones?”
For whatever reason, Bob had never warmed to Luke, always watching him suspiciously whenever
they were out in the courtyard together. Dad had Luke give Bob treats in an effort to foster good will, a tactic that met with mild success. Bob still didn’t seem to like Luke, but he tolerated him.
I checked through the peephole to make sure it really was Luke before I opened the door. He gave me a lopsided grin and held out his hand, showing me the Milk-Bone in his palm. “I came prepared with a peace offering for the man of the house,” he said.
I gave a little snort of laughter and opened the door wider. Luke might not be Bob’s favorite person, but a little bribery went a long way.
Bob’s tail thumped louder on the floor, his ears perking forward, his eyes fixed on the treat in Luke’s outstretched hand. A thin whine rose from his throat, and he leaned forward eagerly, but he waited for me to give him permission before he stood up and swept the Milk-Bone off of Luke’s palm.
“Good boy,” Luke said, giving Bob a quick scratch behind the ear. “We’re best friends now, right?”
Bob licked his chops, and I could almost hear him saying, Sure, we’re friends, as long as you give me another treat in the next five seconds.
Belatedly, I noticed that Luke was carrying an empty grocery bag. Because, duh, he thought we were going to the grocery store.
“I’ll be right back,” I told him, then darted to the kitchen to grab a bag. If Luke saw the railing and saw nothing but a fleur-de-lis, I would just have to go through with the grocery shopping charade and try to act natural.
I gave Bob a pat on the head on my way out, then locked up and tried to keep myself relatively calm. Which was a pretty tough challenge when Luke was around, even when I wasn’t fearing for my own sanity.
“Sorry about Bob,” I said, because I felt the need to say something and it was the only thing that came to mind.
“Don’t be,” Luke said as we started off toward the grocery store. “You don’t want a wuss for a watchdog. He’s just doing his job.”