“And did he go back upstairs after that? Could you hear him?”
“No. He didn’t even seem all that interested. But she kept pestering him, asking him questions about Blix’s state of mind when he first got here, and then he started telling the story about how Blix wouldn’t go to the hospital. He told his mom that she did spells and stuff instead. Honestly, you would have thought, to hear how his mother was reacting, that Blix was out drinking bats’ blood in the full moon.”
“Oh my.” I swallow hard. “This actually might be a good time to tell you that I found Blix’s journal. It was in a book of spells she had in her kitchen, and I read it, and she did have all kinds of spells and remedies—not bats’ blood that I remember, but she talked to her ancestors, and she contacted some spirit god and went out in the dark of the moon.”
“Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and think we need to put that in a safe place. Do you know where it is now?”
I try to think. I’d been reading it in bed, but then I’d taken it downstairs, hadn’t I, when I made up the little pockets for the spell for Sammy? I think I’d put it back in the bookshelf. That’s right. I did. I tucked the whole thing back where it had been, there among the cookbooks.
Right out in the open.
Where it’s always been and where anyone could find it.
I stand up. “I think I have to go.”
“Call me if you need backup.”
All the lights are off in the apartment when I go upstairs, and Noah is nowhere to be found.
Feeling ridiculous, I call his name, walking through, turning on lights, looking into corners. I’ve watched enough thrillers to know that people always hide behind doors and curtains, so I make sure these do not go unchecked. I even go into the bathroom and rip aside the shower curtain while I yell.
I’ve got myself all worked up just the way Natalie and I used to do after watching horror movies. Still, it’s true that there is a strange vibration in the house tonight. Bedford is cowering in his crate and he whimpers when I let him out. There’s something . . . it’s as though the air has gotten all messed up somehow, like the molecules got scrambled and weren’t able to reassemble themselves before I came in.
“Noah!” I call. “Are you here?”
There’s no answer. His bedroom door is open and the light is off. “Noah?” I flick on the light. The bed has been stripped, and his closet has about eight empty hangers and nothing else. Bedford licks my hand.
There’s an empty cardboard box in the hallway, and one of Noah’s gym socks is stuck under the bathroom rug. So he’d finally come back for his stuff.
But did he come back in after talking to his mom? That’s the question. I run into my room, and head for the underwear drawer. The sweatshirt is still there, and I shake it out, searching in the sleeve for Blix’s letter.
Nothing. It’s gone.
I turn it inside out to make sure, but no. I can feel hot tears just behind my eyes. Why hadn’t I known he’d look for this at some point? Why, when he’d even asked me for it, did I think it was safe in the underwear drawer? Of course he was going to look!
Patrick texts me:
I hear you running around. Is he there?
Not here. His closet is empty.
Is the “eagle” safe?
Patrick, the letter is gone! The one that Blix wrote me. I just want to cry.
What about the OTHER eagle?
Checking now. Walking, walking . . . in the kitchen . . . YES! The spell book and journal are on the shelf! Safe and sound.
For God’s sake, speak in code! What kind of evidence hider ARE you?
Sorry. Forgot my #spyeducation. Going undercover now. Call me Natasha from now on.
SHUT UP I NEVER HEARD OF YOU
I remove the book from the shelf and take it downstairs with me. I’ll sleep with it tonight in my bed. And tomorrow I’ll call Charles Sanford and tell him what’s happened.
Bedford’s professional opinion is that we should go outside so he can pee, and then we should lock the bedroom door tonight, just in case. He actually lies on the floor with his nose by the door and growls every few minutes to make the point.
I’m pretty sure that Noah isn’t going to come back tonight, but then what do I know? I never thought Noah cared all that much about getting this building in the first place. And clearly he does.
I go over and scratch Bedford behind the ears. “No one’s here but you and me, boy. Come on up on the bed. Everything’s fine.”
He finally, worriedly comes up on the foot of the bed, but every car that goes by sends a cascade of light darting around the walls, ending in a point in the corner. And each time he lifts his head and growls a bit. There are noises, the settling of the house and the banging of the radiator, voices of people going past in the street, laughing even though it’s the middle of the night. A car backfires and Bedford and I both leap into the air.
At last he puts his head on the pillow. But he keeps his eyes open long after I think we should both be sleeping. It’s like he knows we’re not done with the bad vibes just yet.
And I feel so sad about the missing letter. My connection to Blix.
THIRTY-EIGHT
MARNIE
It’s after noon on Wednesday when I finally get back to the house from the store, lugging the eighteen-pound turkey and the bags of groceries—so many that I had to take an Uber instead of the subway.
Bedford is even more hyper than usual, so after I put all the food away, I leash him up and take him outside. But then he’s not interested in anything in particular. Pees on the curb with a lackluster air. He sits on the stoop and looks at me expectantly, like I’m the one who needed to come out here, not him.
When we go back inside, he charges into the bedroom.
My head is full of cooking plans, but he’s barking and running around . . . and that’s when the little prickles of dread start.
I follow him into Blix’s bedroom, which looks different, even since two hours ago when I left it. My dresser drawer is open a crack, and my flannel pajamas are on the floor. And the walls—they’re bare! Not entirely bare, but things have been taken down—Blix’s artwork, her talismans, her weavings.
And the bed—the bed is all in disarray, with the covers tossed everywhere.
My breath is high up in my chest as I run and lift up my pillow, which is where I had hidden The Encyclopedia of Spells.
It’s gone. I feel around under all the sheets and blankets, look under the kantha, look on the floor on the other side of the bed.
Bedford looks at me.
Blix’s secrets are gone. I slide down onto the floor.
Patrick comes right up when I call him. I let him in, and we walk through the rooms, and I show him all the places where there was once artwork. The living room, the kitchen, the hallway—everywhere you can see little pale patches on the wall with nails sticking out.
I think my heart is breaking.
Patrick says I should immediately call Charles Sanford, and I do, but he’s not picking up. Right. It’s the day before Thanksgiving. A lot of people are going over the river and through the woods today. They are not in their offices.
“Should we call the cops, do you think?” Patrick says.
“I feel too sad,” I tell him. “I don’t want the police going after Noah. For God’s sake, his great-aunt has died. And maybe this stuff had some sentimental value to him. Also, who’s to say Blix wouldn’t want him to have some stuff from here?”
“Yeah,” says Patrick, but he doesn’t look convinced.
“Do you want some coffee?” I ask him. “I fight every day with this damned coffee press, and I’m willing to go another round with it.”