She relaxed slightly but continued scanning the room. Okay, it was nothing. A little bump in the night, that’s all. A shadow. A bird flying by outside, casting a shadow through the window. Somebody walked by her door in the hallway and the floor creaked. A coincidence that both things happened at the same time. A long shot, to be sure, but very possible. Creak, shadow. Simple. She moved over to the doorway of the bathroom and placed the ball of her foot on one of the planks of the wood floor. She leaned on her foot, hoping that there wouldn’t be a creak. But there was. A good one. Just like the one she had heard. But that’s a coincidence, too. Obviously, it’s an old hotel, nice wood floors, they’re going to creak. I bet every plank in this room creaks.
Jenna resisted the temptation to test every plank. She backed into the bathroom, keeping her eyes on the doorway. She dried off, put her hair up in a towel, and threw on her clothes.
THE ISSUE BEFORE US is that of telephones. On a boat there are no phones. That makes things easy. No decisions to be made there. In a town, however, even in a dumpy little town like Wrangell, Alaska, there are phones everywhere. This fact dawned on Jenna as she looked out her window toward Front Street. For, even though the rooms at the Stikine Inn have no phones, Jenna could see one from where she stood. Directly across from the hotel was a little A-frame shack with a sign on it explaining that it was the Wrangell Tourist Center. The little shack had a yard, and in the yard were a few things: a totem pole (what’s a tourist center in Alaska without one?), a picnic bench, and a telephone booth.
And now, Jenna was faced with her obligation. She should call her family so they wouldn’t worry about her. She should let them know that she’s okay. Even though Jenna felt she had to keep her vow of silence, that whatever healing process she had started by her flight demanded strict and total adherence, she did feel bad about her mother, who was probably worried sick. Jenna had better call to set things straight.
She went downstairs to the lobby, also equipped with a telephone booth, and stepped inside. When she sat down and closed the door, a light went on and a noisy little fan began to whir over her head. She dialed, using her calling card number, and her mother answered on the first ring.
“Hi, Mom.”
There was a pause.
“Jenna?”
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“I just had to get away for a little while.”
“Jenna, where are you? Are you all right? We thought you were kidnapped. The police found Robert’s car, but nobody found you. And then the message you left sounded so strange. But you’re all right? What happened? Is there a problem between you and Robert? Are you leaving him? Jenna, where are you now? Are you in Seattle?”
Jenna was saddened by this barrage of questions. There was confusion. Confusion and utter chaos left in her wake. The troops had been left without an explanation, so they tried to invent one. It was sad listening to her mother go on, fire off question after question. So much had to be learned, so much to be explained.
The act of leaving was the ultimate in selfishness. Jenna knew that. But she also knew that she was not a selfish person. Jenna always bent to others, always conceded, always adapted and changed her behavior to be more compatible. She didn’t like making people uncomfortable, so she always allowed other people to decide where they would eat or what movie they would see or where they would go on vacation. But right now she didn’t want to answer any of her mother’s questions. As a matter of fact, she resented the questions because they were her mother being selfish. Mom was demanding information to soothe her wounds, but she didn’t make any attempt to soothe Jenna’s wounds.
And Jenna wasn’t about to give up the selfish trip now that she had gotten so far. Her disappearance was an act of empowerment. She had put herself in a situation where she was in control, and she had to follow through.
“Mom. I’m on vacation. I’m fine. When my vacation is over, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“What do you mean? You tell me right now where you are.”
“No, Mom. I’ll call you again to see how things are.”
“Jenna! You listen to me. You have hurt your father and me very badly and I insist that you answer my questions.”
“Mom, tell Dad I love him. I love you. I’ll call soon.”
“Jenna!”
“Bye, Mom.”
She hung up the phone. What a disaster. Jenna now understood why people disappear all the time, take off and don’t tell anyone where they’re going. In Five Easy Pieces, Jack Nicholson just got in the truck and drove away. He had had enough. Hold the chicken between your knees, you ugly old cow.
Jenna’s hand was still on the receiver. Should she call Robert? Should she call Robert? Yes. Did she want to? No. Oh, just call him. Do it on your terms, though. Don’t take any flack.
“Robert, it’s me.”
“Jenna—”
“Robert, listen, don’t ask me a million questions, because if you do I’ll hang up right now.”
Silence.
“Look, I’m sorry I took off like that, but I had to go. I’m all right, everything’s fine, but I need to stay away a while and reorganize.”
“You’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Look, I know it was bad the way I did it, but it was good that I did it, you know? I had to.”
“I understand.”
Robert sounded defeated.
“When are you coming home?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well . . . where are you?”
Jenna chewed on the inside of her lip.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Okay. You’re safe and you don’t know when you’re coming home. Is that all?”
Is that all is that all is that all? Yes that’s all. That’s why I called. To tell you that and that’s it. That’s all. Good-bye.
“Give me your number. So I know I can reach you.”
“No.”
“I promise not to call you. So I know that if I had to call you I could. Please.”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“Jenna, please. Just so I can call you right back. So I know.”
“So you know what?”
A pause.
“So I know that you’re coming back to me.”
Oh. Robert was holding a lot in. His voice betrayed him. He was on the verge of tears. He sat at his desk, his head in his hands, cradling the phone, his eyes red. Jenna wanted to give him something to make him feel better. But the telephone number was too much to ask. It would stop the process. It would no longer mean that she was looking through a one-way mirror. If she gave him the number, they all could invade her. She left to get away. If they had access, that wasn’t getting away. She needed to be selfish, to do something for herself. She had to be resolute. She could not cave in to emotions. She must be firm.
“I’ll call you tomorrow. That’s the best I can do.”
“Oh, Jenna.” Robert let a sob slip out. Poor thing. He was crying. “This is killing me.”
Jenna took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Robert. But it’s saving me.”
Jenna hung up the phone and sat quietly in the booth, the fan spinning angrily above her head, wondering to herself what would have happened, how things might have been different, where she would be right now, if only that stupid party hadn’t been on the anniversary of Bobby’s death.
Chapter 17
THE DAY WAS FILLED WITH PROMISE. THE ENTIRE TOWN OF Wrangell was at Jenna’s disposal. She could be her own person, write her own ticket, fill out her own dance card. Why, then, was she overcome with such dread?
She retraced her steps from the previous night, down Front Street toward the ferry dock, until she was standing before her grandmother’s house again. In the daylight, the house was a pile of kindling. Dry, lifeless wood stacked up to give the illusion of shelter without actually having structural integrity.
Alone on the porch was th
e rusted yellow rocker that Jenna remembered from so long ago. Jenna climbed the two steps and sat in the chair, which groaned under her weight. She looked out to the water. The overcast sky made the view slightly depressing. A pale street, gray water, a dark island across the inlet, and a white sky above. She waited for something to hit her, a swelling of emotion, a feeling of satisfaction, anything. But it didn’t come.
Disappointed, Jenna stood and turned to the house. The windows were covered with sheets of warped plywood. An old screen door stood uselessly next to the front door, which was padlocked and nailed shut. Jenna stepped off the porch and walked around the side of the house. The windows on the side were covered, too. The entire house seemed impenetrable.
Around back was an enclosed porch with a screen door that creaked when Jenna opened it. She gingerly mounted the rotten steps and looked around. The back porch was filled with junk. An old sink on its side, several broken crates, a sofa with its cushions gone and its stuffing ripped out. Against one wall was a bicycle with no rear wheel or handlebars. Leaning against the back door of the house was a refrigerator door.
Jenna slid the refrigerator door aside. Strangely, the back door wasn’t barricaded in any other way. It wasn’t nailed shut or boarded up or anything. Someone must have opened up the house at some point. Jenna tried the door. The knob turned, but the door was stuck. She leaned her weight into it and forced the door open. She went inside.
The house was cold and dark and smelled of rot. Jenna was standing in a long; narrow hallway that reached toward the front of the house. Immediately to her right was a closed door that Jenna remembered led upstairs. To her left, another door opened to a bathroom.
Jenna moved down the hallway. The old floorboards creaked loudly with each step. It felt as if the whole house listed from side to side as she walked. Outside, the house had seemed dead; inside, it seemed scarily alive. It seemed to breathe. She looked into a room on her left that she remembered as her grandmother’s room. Inside was nothing but a mattress frame, a beaten-up dresser, and a broken mirror that lay on the floor, reflecting a jagged ray of light from the window up onto the ceiling.
Farther down, the hallway opened into a living room, one side of which was a kitchen. The entire room had been cleaned out. Nothing at all remained. Even the doors had been taken off the cupboards. A thick layer of dirt covered all the surfaces. Small footprints across the kitchen linoleum showed traces of the only recent life in the house, but even a small animal couldn’t have found enough food to live on in here.
Jenna retreated to the back of the house and the door that led upstairs. She tried the knob, but it was locked. She glanced around for a tool, but there was nothing, so she took a step back and kicked the door right next to the knob. It flew open. Jenna smiled. Just like on Starsky and Hutch.
She peered up the narrow staircase. A window at the top of the stairs allowed enough light into the staircase so Jenna could faintly make out the walls and the steps. She started up the stairs.
Halfway up, Jenna regretted what she was doing. Crawling around this house was really not what she had had in mind. Besides, what on earth would she find? The place had obviously been cleaned out, and very well. What was the point? When she was last in the house, seventeen years earlier, the upper floor was off-limits. The door was locked and it was common knowledge that nobody was allowed in. So why was she there now? She didn’t know, but she kept going.
The stairs were rickety, and there were no handrails of any kind. The walls were damp and sticky, Jenna imagined, from all the mildew and mold that was probably growing on them. She tried not to touch the walls, but she wanted to keep her feet toward the sides of the steps, guessing that where the stair met the wall would be the sturdiest part. Slowly, she made her way to the light.
She finally reached the top, and she felt a little more comfortable. The light from the window illuminated the hallway that led to the back of the house. There were several doors in the hallway, one of which probably opened to more stairs and the attic. She went into the first bedroom at the top of the stairs and tugged at a board on one of the windows. It came off easily, falling to the floor with a thud that rocked the house.
Jenna caught her breath. She was afraid the whole place would come crashing down and bury her forever. The house shuddered, then settled, and Jenna, relieved, looked out the window down to the street. Outside, a lone man walked along, pulling a red wagon behind him. She watched him for a moment. He was middle-aged with a long beard, gray hair, and worn and ragged clothes, like some kind of hermit who lived in a cabin on the edge of civilization.
The man paused. Oddly, he turned and looked up at Jenna. Their eyes met, and Jenna suddenly became nervous. She wasn’t supposed to be in the house. Nobody had been there for years. She could get in trouble if he told anybody. The house wasn’t safe. Even Jenna could tell that. There were issues of liability. She knew some authority figure or other would want her out, or at least want to know what she was doing there in the first place. So she quickly ducked out of sight.
Standing next to the window, Jenna laughed at her own silliness. What was she thinking? If anything, the man would think he saw a ghost. What would she think if she looked at an old, abandoned house and suddenly a young woman appeared at a window on the second floor? She would freak out. She would run. She wouldn’t tell anyone, that’s for sure.
After a moment, she peeked around the corner of the window. The man was gone. Whew. What a relief. No harm done.
Meanwhile, the room was now lit from the daylight, and it wasn’t empty at all. On the contrary, it was full of things. There was a heap of old clothes in one corner. A wooden chair, a bookcase with books, a bed. Things that nobody wanted. Downstairs had stuff that was of value, obviously. An oven, a kitchen table. People could use that. But someone’s old sweater? An old book? Worthless.
She crossed to the bookcase and crouched down before it. Mostly Hardy Boys stuff. Old Book of the Month Club editions. A small volume of college verse. She took the book of poetry off the shelf and opened it. Barely readable, but there it was. Her mother’s name, Sally Ellis, inscribed inside the cover, with a dorm address at the University of Washington, where she had gone to school. Jenna flipped the pages open to where a bookmark held a place. It was a Blake poem. Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright. Jenna smiled. Finding her mother’s old college text made the excursion worthwhile. Worth enduring even the mold on the staircase walls.
But then she heard a thump and she froze. It was from upstairs, in the attic. A definite thump. She held her breath and waited. What would thump in the attic? Something must have fallen over. Jenna’s prowling around must have been enough to set off a chain reaction, to make that one lamp leaning against the wall tip too far over and hit the deck. Despite her logical calm, Jenna’s heart was flailing away in her chest.
Thump.
There it was. Another one. What the hell was it? She stood up slowly. The floorboards creaked under her feet. Little black stars speckled her vision, the result of being crouched down for so long. She was very sensitive to circulation problems. Then more sound from upstairs. Shuffling. Or more like scurrying. An animal?
Goose pimples erupted all over her body. She tried to breathe regularly. Tried to calm herself. It was an animal of some kind. She felt tingly, as if every pore were reaching out in a frantic attempt to determine what was going on. It was probably a mammal. Bigger than a mouse, smaller than a person. Maybe a large rat. Knocking over lamps and scampering around. Formulating this theory didn’t make Jenna feel any more comfortable.
She peered around the door into the hallway but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. It was ridiculous, she knew, getting this excited over nothing. But all the same, she wanted out immediately.
She bolted across the hallway and stumbled down the stairs, grabbing at the slippery walls to keep her balance, hoping that the stairs would hold her weight as she took them two at a time. She tripped and envisioned herself crashing down the stairs
and landing in a twisted pile of limbs at the bottom, but she somehow managed to brace herself against the walls with her hands. She lost her grip on her mother’s book and it flew out of her hand, disappearing into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. She cursed herself. There was no time to stop and look for it. She burst down the stairs and ran out of the back door and around to the side of the house.
Okay, outside everything seemed harmless. She really wanted her mother’s book and thought briefly about going back inside to look for it, but then she changed her mind. Maybe she’d come back later with a flashlight or something. Or maybe not. Maybe the book didn’t want to leave the house. That’s why the house had scared her. The book wanted to stay with the house, where it had been for so long. It wasn’t Jenna’s place to take it away. Sometimes things are where they are for a reason, and it would be presumptuous to change them. Jenna chuckled at her thoughts and started back to town.
THE RED WAGON was parked out in front of the general store, but Jenna went inside anyway. The wagon-man was standing at the cash register while a young man behind the counter rang up his order. Mostly potato chips and soda, it seemed. Jenna slipped to the back of the store and grabbed a bottle of mineral water out of the cooler. She hovered in the back, examining the soup display, waiting for the wagon-man to leave.
He was finally finished and left the store. Jenna moved to the cashier and put down her water. The young man punched numbers and the register rang.
There was something odd about the cashier. His eyes weren’t quite right. They only seemed to open halfway. Not to mention the fact that his face was pierced in several places. His eyebrow, his nose, his lower lip all were adorned with silver hoops. Jenna cringed when she wondered what else on his body was pierced.
“Say, I’m here on vacation,” Jenna said. “Do you know of any good sights to see?”
The young man wheeled around and snatched a brochure off the shelf behind him. His neck was pierced, too. A bone was threaded through about two inches of flesh on the back of his neck near the base of his skull. He turned back around and dropped the brochure in front of Jenna. Luckily, he didn’t look up, so he couldn’t see the expression on Jenna’s face.