“What address?” Mrs. Beeson asked.
Nickie described the house. “And,” she said, suddenly inspired, “you know that man Hoyt McCoy?”
Mrs. Beeson leaned forward. The vacuum had moved on to another room now, so she set Sausage back down on the floor. “Yes? What about him?”
“When I passed his house,” Nickie said, “I kind of peeked up the drive, and I saw strange shadows. Like black ghosts or something, hovering around outside. It made me feel creepy.”
“Um-hmmm,” said Mrs. Beeson. “Very interesting indeed.”
“I know it was bad to spy,” Nickie said. “And bad to eavesdrop, and to look in the window at the boy with the snakes. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but—”
Mrs. Beeson held up a hand. She looked Nickie straight in the eye. For a moment she didn’t speak, and Nickie heard again the jingly tune that the noise of the vacuum had covered up. “You did well,” Mrs. Beeson said. Her voice was solemn. “Listen, honey. I want you to remember this. When you know that you’re doing God’s work—then you’re willing to do anything. I mean anything.”
A shiver like a miniature lightning bolt shot through Nickie’s middle, right beneath her ribs. Anything if it’s God’s work, she thought. Yes, that’s what it is to be a holy person: you’re willing to do anything. She thought of stories she’d heard about saints who let themselves be killed in awful ways. She thought about the brave characters in the books she loved, how they faced monsters and crossed flaming mountains and did not live by the rules of ordinary people. And it wasn’t out of the question for someone as young as herself to be like them. Often, at least in books, it was a child who vanquished the darkness. She could be like that. She felt a great fierce desire to bring goodness to the world—or at least to Yonwood.
Mrs. Beeson stood up. Sausage got up, too. “What a help you are, honey,” Mrs. Beeson said. “I think you and I have the same thing in mind—a bright, clean world where everyone knows how to behave! Wouldn’t it be splendid?”
Nickie nodded, imagining it: everyone kind, everyone good, no creepiness, no wars.
“So the more of these trouble spots we can find, the better off we’ll be,” Mrs. Beeson went on, her voice becoming very stern. “Remember what I said about how one moldy strawberry can ruin the whole basket? We’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to make this a good and godly town through and through.” She bent over and swept the crumbs of Nickie’s cookie into her hand. “And I’ll tell you frankly, honey, I’m the one to get it done. I may look like a dumpling, but I have a spine of steel.”
“Are you a preacher, Mrs. Beeson?” Nickie asked.
“No, no. I’m retired. But I can’t just sit around, can I? That’s not my way.” She laughed. “I coach girls’ baseball in the spring. I lead a study group at the church. Organize Yonwood’s spring cleanup. Might even run for mayor someday. I like to wear a lot of different hats.”
They headed for the hall, where several of Mrs. Beeson’s different hats hung from a tree-shaped hat rack. “I keep hearing music,” Nickie said. “Where’s it coming from?”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Beeson, smiling. “It’s my music box!” She darted back into the living room and picked up the heart-shaped box from the mantel. “It’s very high-tech—powered by some new kind of tiny everlasting battery. Plutonium, I think. It just goes and goes. Isn’t it charming?”
“Yes,” said Nickie.
Mrs. Beeson opened the front door and ushered her out. “Thank you so much,” she said. “Anything else you notice, you just come and let me know.” She beamed at Nickie, and Nickie glowed.
Afterward, though, she felt a tiny bit guilty. She hadn’t really seen ghosts hovering around Hoyt McCoy’s house, or anything bad at all. She’d just had a feeling about the place. But everything else she’d said was true; maybe that made up for one small fib.
As she came through Greenhaven’s front door, the telephone rang. She picked it up and said hello, and Amanda’s voice answered. “Oh, good, it’s you. I just remembered something. I still have the house key. I oughta bring it back.”
“Okay,” Nickie said. “Come whenever you want. And Amanda—anything new about the Prophet? Is she better?”
“No, she’s just the same. Really sad and quiet. Keeps on saying stuff you can’t figure out. Sometimes she wanders off.”
“Wanders off?”
“Yeah, it’s almost like she’s walking in her sleep. She goes out in the yard, or even out the front door, and I have to quick go get her and bring her back.”
“Is she trying to go somewhere?”
“I don’t know.”
“And I still can’t come and meet her? Because I’m so interested, Amanda. Maybe I could tell what she’s saying.”
“I doubt it,” said Amanda. “If Mrs. Beeson can’t tell, I don’t see how you could.”
“Well, okay, maybe not,” Nickie said. “But I’d like to just see her sometime. What does she look like?”
“She looks sick. All shadowy around the eyes.” Amanda sounded impatient. “I have to go.”
Nickie spent the next hour or so roaming around Greenhaven. She loved being alone here. She burrowed through the silent rooms like a miner hunting for gold. What she wanted was anything old, and especially anything written. From desk drawers and closet shelves and the backs of cabinets, and from the trunks and boxes in the third floor rooms, she pulled out packets of letters, programs from long-ago theater performances, journals and ledger books and guest lists and postcards. She sat on the floor reading until the air around her felt thick with the past. All these words, written so long ago, seemed to say to her, Remember us. We were here. We were real.
She kept Otis nearby. If she was sitting on the floor, he pushed his nose against her arm, wanting to be petted. He tugged at the leg of her pants, wanting to play. Sometimes he slept, stretched out, belly to the rug, his rear legs flopped behind him like a frog’s. Now and then he would wander off, and when Nickie remembered to look for him, she’d find him chewing happily on the corner of a curtain, or trying to dig through the hardwood floor. He was all the company she needed.
Around two-thirty, when Crystal still wasn’t back, she decided to take Otis for his afternoon outing. She heard banging as she went down the hall, probably coming from one of the bathrooms. The plumber must be here. She went out through the kitchen to the back garden.
To her surprise, the basement door was slightly ajar. The plumber must have gone down there to get at the pipes under the house. Good. She’d been curious about the basement—she could have a look. She picked Otis up, pulled open the door, and peeked in. The plumber had turned on the light. It was dim, just a bulb in the ceiling, but it showed her a flight of stone steps. Holding Otis tightly, she went down.
CHAPTER 14
__________________
Someone in the Basement
The basement was huge—a low-ceilinged room that stretched out into shadowy darkness ahead of her and to the left. It wasn’t an empty darkness—she could see what appeared to be low hills lurking in the shadows. Another light bulb shone dimly in a far corner. Did that mean someone was down here? One of the workmen, maybe? She thought of calling out, “Anyone here?” But there was something still and heavy about the silence that made her afraid to break it. She would just look around a little, quietly, and then she would climb up the stairs and leave.
The air had a smell like the damp, earthy underside of rocks. Once her eyes had adjusted to the dimness, she saw that the hills were piles of furniture, a great crammed-together mass with just a narrow passage winding through it. Tables lay with their feet in the air, and between the feet were other tables, and dining room chairs and stools and chests of drawers, and on top of the chests were more chairs, upside down, making a nest for footstools and mirrors and lamp bases and unidentifiable things covered in sheets. Far back against the wall stood four-poster beds, some piled with three or four mattresses, and great looming wardrobes with mirrored
doors. All of it had turned the same dirt-gray color because of the dust that coated it. Cobwebs drifted in long strings from the ceiling, brushing Nickie’s face as she walked by. Otis squirmed in her arms.
She followed the passage that twisted through all this—it was like walking down a tunnel, almost, because the furniture was stacked shoulder-high. She moved toward the light.
She heard a scrape, and then a rustling sound.
She stopped, held her breath, and listened. Was someone in here? She bent down and peered through the forest of furniture legs, but it was too dark to see.
Something stirred over by the wall. Wood knocked against wood, a head rose from the jumble of furniture, and a voice spoke.
“Pa?” it said. “Is that you?”
“No,” said Nickie. Her heart jumped, but curiosity kept her from running away.
The head ducked down again. There was more scraping and rustling, and then someone crawled out from beneath a big table: a boy with cobwebs in his hair.
“I know who you are,” the boy said. He held his hands cupped together as if protecting something. “The old guy’s granddaughter.”
“Great-granddaughter,” said Nickie.
“And who’s that?” He nodded at Otis, who was squirming in Nickie’s arms.
“It’s Otis,” she said. “I’m taking care of him for somebody. Who are you?” She couldn’t see the boy’s face; the light was behind him. It cast his huge, blurry shadow onto a cabinet that leaned against the headboard of a bed.
“Grover,” said the boy. “My pa is fixing your pipes.”
“But what are you doing down here?”
The boy sprang toward her all of a sudden. “Lying in wait!” he cried. “For unwary creatures to fall into my trap!”
Nickie shrieked and then instantly regretted it, because he laughed to see that he’d scared her.
“I already caught one unwary creature,” he said. He held up his clasped hands. “It’s a prisoner now, awaiting its fate.”
“What is it?”
He stepped toward her and she stepped back. She couldn’t help it. He might have a spider in his hands, and he might be the kind of boy who would suddenly throw it at you.
“I’ll show you if you’re brave enough to look,” he said. He stretched out his hands and opened them so she could see what he held. It was not a spider. She couldn’t tell what it was. Something small and pinkish. Otis strained forward, sniffing madly. She put her hand around his muzzle.
“An infant mouse!” the boy cried. “There’s eight of them in a nest down there by the heating pipe.”
“Let me see,” said Nickie. “Hold it in the light.”
He did. It had hairless, almost transparent skin, tiny, twitching paws, and little blind eyes. It was about as big as a quarter. “Why did you steal it?” she asked him.
“I need it,” he said. “For my snake.”
“What?”
“For my snake to eat.”
She looked up at the boy’s face, which was framed in blond curly hair. His ears stuck out. She knew, suddenly, who he was.
“You don’t believe me?” he said.
“I believe you,” she said. “But I don’t like it.” She turned around and started back the way she’d come.
He followed her up the stairs and out of the basement. She set Otis down, and he sniffed Grover’s shoes with great interest.
“Where’d the dog come from?” Grover asked.
“I’m just taking care of him for a little while,” Nickie said. “He’s a secret—don’t tell about him, all right?”
Grover tilted his head upward and yelled, “Hey, everybody, guess what, there’s a—”
Nickie shouted, “Stop it!”
He laughed. “I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “Now you owe me a favor.”
“Are you really going to give that baby mouse to a snake?” Nickie asked.
“Yep.” Grover stretched his mouth into a wicked grin. “Because I’m meeean and eeeevil,” he said, and gave a maniac laugh. “Worse than”—he lowered his voice to a gruesome whisper—“Hoyt McCoy. Have you heard of him?”
Nickie nodded, feeling a lurch in her stomach.
“Well, I’m much worse than him,” Grover said.
“You have spiderwebs in your hair,” said Nickie. She turned and walked away from him, through the back door and into the house. What terrible luck, she thought. A boy right here where she could get to know him—and he turns out to be the boy with the snakes. And on top of that, a kidnapper and murderer of baby mice. She couldn’t possibly fall in love with someone like him.
She went upstairs again, planning to read until Crystal got home. She switched on the lamp and picked up her great-grandfather’s notebook. On the floor beside her, Otis went to sleep and dreamed, making soft little wip-wip noises and fluttering his paws. Nickie read:
1/2 Legs very weak and painful. Spent the day reading the scientific journals. Intrigued by this notion of extra dimensions—other worlds right next to ours? Had a chat with M but of course can’t understand a word.
What might that mean? She knew about three dimensions—up, down, and sideways. What were extra dimensions? Who was M? She read on:
1/4 Extraordinary experience last night: Went into the back bedroom to look for the scissors, thought I saw someone in there, over by the bed—dark-haired figure, transparent swirl of skirt. Dreadful feeling of sorrow hit me like a wave. Had to grab the doorknob, almost fell. Figure faded, vanished. Maybe something wrong with my eyes. Or heart.
He was ninety-three when he died. Maybe he was losing his mind a little bit, thinking he was seeing ghosts. She read on:
1/19 Brenda B. came by today. All worked up, trying to figure out what Althea is saying and what to do about it. Kept talking about how she’s studying every holy book she can get her hands on, aiming to understand God’s word. I quoted St. Augustine to her: “If you understand it, it isn’t God.” Gave her a cup of chamomile tea.
That was interesting. But then came another mystifying one:
1/30 String theory—M theory?—eleven dimensions—gravity waves—alternate universes? Possible leakage between one universe and another? Amazing stuff. M says his research is very promising.
Maybe he thought he’d slipped into an alternate universe in the back bedroom and seen a ghost, somehow. Which one was the back bedroom, anyhow? Nickie left the sleeping Otis and went down to the second floor, hoping to catch sight of the ghost herself. It was clear which one was the back bedroom: its window looked out over the backyard. She saw no ghost in that room, but through the window she saw Grover, who was probably waiting for his father. He was walking along the low wall that bordered the concrete terrace and crouching down every now and then to study the ground, maybe looking for more creatures to capture. She watched him for a minute. He was definitely good-looking. She liked the springy way he moved, and his floppy hair more or less covered up his sticking-out ears. She couldn’t fall in love with him, of course, because of the snakes and the baby mouse, but she decided to go down and talk to him again anyhow.
When Grover saw her come outside, he beckoned to her, and she went over to him.
“Listen,” he said, in an urgent whisper. “I want to show you something amazing. No human eye has ever lit on it before.”
Nickie was wary. “Is it about snakes?”
“No, no,” said Grover. “I told you, no one has ever seen this.”
“Not even you?”
“Not even me.”
“Well, what is it?” Nickie said.
Grover reached into his lunch bag and brought out a small green apple.
“I’ve seen apples before,” Nickie said.
“Yeah, but watch this.” Grover took out his pocketknife, pulled the blade out, and sliced the apple in half across the middle. He pointed to the inside—the white flesh oozing juice, the five little seeds in a star shape.
“I’ve seen that, too,” said Nickie.
“No, you
haven’t,” Grover said. “No one has. Not a single person has ever seen the inside of this apple until now. It is a completely new sight to the human eye.” He took a big bite out of one half of the apple and stood there chewing, with a wide, satisfied smile across his face.
“Oh, you think you’re so clever,” Nickie said. She grabbed the other half of the apple out of his hand. She was annoyed at being tricked, but she couldn’t help smiling a little, too. What he’d said was true, after all.
An idea popped into her head. “I know something you’ve never seen before,” she said. “No human eye has ever seen it, or ever will see it.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Grover, munching on his apple.
“Yes, it does. I’ll show you.”
“But if you show me, then I will have seen it.”
“No, you won’t,” said Nickie. “Just wait here. I’ll go get it.” She ran inside, went to her bedroom, and came back out clutching a piece of paper. She held it out. “Do you know what this is?”
Grover peered at it. “It’s some fake monster out of a science-fiction movie,” he said.
“Nope,” said Nickie. “It’s a dust mite. In this picture, it’s magnified many, many zillion times. You will never see it in real life, because it’s smaller than the eye can see.”
“Hah,” said Grover. He looked up at her and quirked an eyebrow. “Where’d you get it?”
“I cut it out of a magazine. I like strange, interesting things.”
“You don’t like snakes, though,” Grover said. “Probably you’re afraid of them.”
“I am not.”
“You’d never want to see a snake eat a mouse.”
“Maybe I would.” As soon as she said this, she realized it was true. It would be a horrible thing to see, but interesting. And it might help her decide if there was something evil about this boy or not.