Shaken, he stepped out into the storm and hollered at the place the man had been, but there was no reply, and he really hadn’t expected one. In the cold and wet, he walked around to the rear and saw that the bumper on the passenger’s side had plowed deep, and he could not tell if it was jammed against the earth or simply wedged into a snowbank. If he tried to power his way out of the drift, he ran the risk of sinking deeper without any traction. The Jeep was usually a hog in the dirt and mud, but he’d been stuck before when he’d gone off-roading and couldn’t figure the escape angle. Caked in snow, he studied the situation and then got back in, convinced he could rock backward and wiggle his way free. Otherwise he’d have to hope to raise a cell signal in the storm and wait on a plow or the police for help.
“What the hell is that thing?” He sat behind the wheel considering possibilities, some crazed loon escaped from the nuthouse now wandering out to sea. Or worse, a ghost from Holly’s ship. Whatever it was, that thing was as big as a man, that much he knew for sure. “White dog, my ass,” he muttered and popped the car into reverse as he stepped on the gas. For a brief moment, the Jeep responded as he had hoped, swaying backward, and he could sense the treads dig and catch hold, but he shifted too slowly into drive, and the wheels simply fell back in place and spun a deeper rut. He was stuck. He beat on the steering wheel and mashed the horn, but it only made him feel foolish.
*
The blare of the car horn sliced through the quiet landscape, and even inside the house, the boys could hear it bleat like a lost sheep. The second sound was just as forlorn, the wailing of a man, and Nick wondered how the car sounded so far away, yet the man sounded so near. He imagined Mr. Keenan crashed on the road, his head striking the steering wheel, and he speculated, if that was so, when help might arrive and how long he would be trapped alone in the house with Jack Peter. The monster boy, the boy monster. He had gone mad these past few days, possessed by some spirit that had him drawing, drawing, drawing all the time. Even now, when they had the run of the place, Jack Peter scribbled at the table, oblivious to everything but his work.
Restless, and anxious about the tracks in the snow, Nick pestered Jack Peter for attention. “Let’s do something. Instead of sitting around all day. This is worse than school.”
“Let me finish. Leave me alone.” He looked up from his work, malice in his eyes. “Do you want them to send me away?”
Nick hated him. He felt nothing but anger and resentment for him. Stupid, why did he have to be so stupid? Why couldn’t he be normal, same as everyone else, and just get off his butt and play or fight or talk or throw a ball or break something or go outside? Stuck in the house in a glorious snowstorm with a lunatic. He wanted to smash his face. He wanted to sit on his chest and make him cry. Instead Nick just left him at the kitchen table and went wandering through the house.
He toured the downstairs rooms, picking up knickknacks on the tables and reading the titles of the books in the living room library. Toying with the idea of watching TV, he remembered that only soap operas and cooking shows and programs for little kids were on at this time on a weekday afternoon. He pawed through the mail in the basket by the front door. He thought of his parents out on the ocean in the warm sunshine. Stupid parents. They should come get him from this madhouse. Circling round Jack Peter, still concentrating on the details of his stupid drawing, he made his way up the stairs and headed for Mr. and Mrs. Keenan’s room.
The inner sanctum. He had never been in their room without an adult present, and his solitude made him feel like a spy. Behind the door, their robes hung side by side, and he remembered Mrs. Keenan in the nightgown, the spill of her breasts. The bed was neatly made, so he was careful when he got in it, wondering which side was whose, and then he inhaled deeply on the pillows trying to catch their scent. Nothing, so he eased his way off and straightened the covers. In the dresser drawers, all the clothes were folded and sharply stacked, but he hesitated to open the closets, suddenly afraid of what might be lurking behind the door. The shadowy dimness of the space gave him the creeps, and he was about to leave when he noticed a white corner of a piece of paper peeking out from beneath the rug.
Squatting on his haunches, he peeled back the edge and found one of Jack Peter’s pictures lying on the floor, but he could not make out the details, so he took the page to the window and held it at an angle to catch the available light. Two boys, half-dressed and floating beneath a wavy line, were locked together, wrestling, surrounded by fish and a ragged-clawed lobster on the sand. One boy pushed down on the other’s head while the other boy had his arm round his attacker’s shoulder to drag him to the bottom of the sea. The boys were mirrors to each other, a self-portrait fighting with itself.