“Well, none of us saw it coming. The house was mobbed. People were spilling drinks, dropping food, breaking glasses. This guy’s parents lived in a raised ranch with a deck off their kitchen on the second floor. The grill and an army of kegs were out on the deck, so that’s where the fun was. Fifty-seven of us, by the police officer’s count.”
“Why were the police—”
“I’m getting to that. Someone plugged in a boom box. It was cheesy music. Madonna or Paula what’s her face. But the girls started dancing, and they got the guys dancing too. Next thing I know, I feel something shift beneath me. At first I thought I was just dizzy from all the beer, but before I knew what was happening, we were tipping. That deck couldn’t support the weight.
“Some people got burned by the grill. Others broke arms or legs.” Dereck held up his hand. “My fingers got wedged between two boards and ripped right off.”
I lingered there, putting the pieces of Dereck’s story together in my mind. Finally, I said, “I’m surprised I never heard about it. It’s a small town. Seems like I would have.”
“It was in the paper. Probably the biggest news story ever to hit Dundalk.”
I was quiet, thinking of my parents, so many headlines about them.
“Sorry,” Dereck said, realizing.
“It’s okay.” I tugged off his jacket and boots. “But I better go.”
“Remember, I’m right through those woods if you need me. And even if you don’t, you better come visit anyway. We’ll think up some new game to play.”
I forced a smile, told him I would. That’s when Dereck leaned close, the stubble on his face brushing against me. The warm, earthy smell of him—wood chips and autumn leaves and worn clothes—was all around for an instant as he kissed my cheek. Four years between us—I couldn’t help but think of what he’d said earlier about all the differences they created. Even so, some part of me wanted him to kiss me again. Instead, I opened the door and got out, my eyes automatically scanning the lawn for more rag dolls. Dereck flicked on his high beams and waited as I stepped in my bare feet up the walk. On the doorstep a foil-covered bowl shimmered in the headlights. I picked it up.
Inside, I flashed the porch light and Dereck beeped a few times before driving away. Alone in the house, I went to the kitchen, put the bowl on the table beside my mother’s book of wallpaper swatches, and opened the freezer for a Popsicle. None left, so I made up my mind to go to bed. But on my way out, something made me stop. I stood at the door to the basement. Pressed my ear—the good one, of course—against the hollow wood.
When I heard nothing, I put my hand on the knob and pulled. The yellow glow lit the staircase from below. I took a step down, then another, then two more, before stopping in the middle and bending to look around the shadowy space. I saw my father’s desk, messy with papers, which was not how he had left it, but the way Rummel and his investigators had when they came, again and again, to look through his things. There was my mother’s old rocker, the shiny blue knitting needles she had used forever waiting on the cushion for her return. Just beyond, I saw the bookshelf covering the hole in the cinder blocks that led to the crawl space. On top, the cage with Penny inside. Her blank face stared back at me just as it had on the ride home from Ohio so long ago. I read the sign on the bars, remembering the day my father had written those words: DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! At last, I looked away at the partition wall my father had finally finished. I thought of what Coffey had told me about people’s gossip, the things they talked about happening here.
Courage—that’s what I wished for, so I could keep walking down those stairs and turn off the light. But Penny and the hatchet on the wall and all the rest filled me with enough fear that I turned back. At the top of the stairs, I shut the flimsy door behind me. Rather than go to my room, something made me walk back to the kitchen. I lifted the foil on that bowl. Chocolate pudding. Again, I thought of Coffey and how he claimed my sister had refused the food he brought.