I guess if it were earlier in the evening—and if Caroline wasn’t already mad at me—I might call the Maxwells and ask for help. But I’m determined to fix the problem on my own. I go to the kitchen and fill a plastic pitcher with water. This thing, whatever it is, can’t be as big as it sounds. I know noises can be deceiving, especially in the dark, especially late at night. I kneel on the floor and try to lift the panel, but it won’t budge. All the summer humidity has expanded the wood, locking it into place. So I apply all my force to one side, pulling with both hands, ignoring the pain in my fingers, the sharp dry wood cutting into tender skin. Finally, with a loud pop and a cloud of gray dust, the panel springs out of the floor, like a cork exploding from a champagne bottle. I grab it and hold it close to my chest, using the panel like a shield. Then I lean forward and peer down into the hole.
It’s too dark to see anything. The earth below is arid and lifeless, like ash left after a campfire. The cottage is silent. The creature, whatever it is, has vanished. There’s nothing to see down there, just mounds of gray dust speckled with black spots. I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I exhale with relief. All the noise from yanking open the hatch must have frightened the thing away.
But then the ash moves and the black spots blink and I realize I’m staring at the thing itself—rearing up on its legs to meet me, baring ugly pink claws and long sharp teeth. I scream, a full-bodied shriek that pierces the night. Then I slam down the panel and throw myself on top of it, using all my body weight to barricade the hatch. I hammer the edges with my fists, trying to force the warped wood back into place, but it no longer fits. Caroline is at my cottage within a minute, unlocking the door with her key. She’s dressed in a nightgown and Ted is right behind her, shirtless, wearing pajama bottoms. They hear the noises under my cottage, the thrashing beneath the floorboards.
“It’s a rat,” I tell them, and I am so freaking relieved they’re here, that I’m not alone anymore. “It’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen.”
Ted takes the plastic pitcher of water and carries it outside while Caroline puts a hand on my shoulder, calming me, assuring me everything is going to be okay. Together we turn the panel ninety degrees so it fits back into the hatch, and then I hold it steady while she stomps the corners back into place. Even after she’s finished, I’m afraid to move from the spot, afraid the panel will fly out of the floor. She stands beside me, holding me, until we hear a splash of water through the open window.
A moment later, Ted returns with an empty pitcher. “Possum,” he says, grinning. “Not a rat. He moved pretty fast but I got him.”
“Why was it under her cottage?”
“There’s a hole in the lattice. On the west wall. Looks like a tiny section rotted off.” Caroline frowns and starts to say something but Ted is way ahead of her. “I know, I know. I’ll fix it tomorrow. I’ll go to Home Depot.”
“First thing tomorrow, Ted. This thing scared Mallory to death! What if she was bitten? What if it had rabies?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“She’s fine,” Ted says, but Caroline is unconvinced. She stares down at the hatch in the floor. “What if it comes back?”
Even though it’s nearly midnight, Caroline insists that Ted go get his tool kit from the big house. She insists that he drive nails through the hatch into the floorboards so that nothing can ever force its way into my cottage. While we wait for him to finish, she boils water on my stove and makes chamomile tea for all three of us, and afterward the Maxwells stay a few minutes longer than necessary, just to make sure I feel calm and relaxed and safe. The three of us sit on the edge of my bed, talking and telling stories and eventually laughing, and it’s like the scolding about the phone call never happened.
7
The next day is a hot and muggy Fourth of July and I force myself to go for a long run, eight miles in seventy-one minutes. On the walk home, I pass a house that Teddy and I have started calling the Flower Castle. It’s three blocks from the Maxwells, a giant white mansion with a U-shaped driveway and a yard exploding with colorful flowers: chrysanthemums, geraniums, daylilies, and many others. I notice some new orange blossoms climbing a trellis in the front yard, so I take a few steps up the driveway to get a closer look. The flowers are so odd and peculiar—they look like tiny traffic cones—and I snap a few pictures with my cell phone. But then the front door opens, and a man steps outside. In my peripheral vision I see that he’s wearing a suit and I sense he’s come to chase me off his property, to yell at me for trespassing.
“Hey!”
I walk back to the sidewalk and wave a lame apology but it’s too late. The guy is already out the door, coming after me.
“Mallory!” he calls. “How are you doing?”
And only then do I realize I’ve seen him before. It’s well over ninety degrees but Adrian looks perfectly comfortable in his light gray suit, like all those guys in the Ocean’s 11 movies. Under the jacket he wears a crisp white shirt and a royal blue tie. Without his cap on, I see he’s got a mop of thick dark hair.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t recognize you.”
He glances down at his outfit, as if he’s forgotten he’s wearing it. “Oh, right! We have a thing tonight. At the golf club. My dad—he’s getting an award.”
“You live here?”
“My parents do. I’m home for the summer.”
The front door opens and out walk his parents—his mother tall and elegant in a royal blue dress, his father in a classic black tuxedo with silver cuff links. “Is that El Jefe?”
“He’s the Lawn King. We do half the lawns in South Jersey. In the summers he has a crew of eighty guys, but I swear to you, Mallory, I’m the only one he yells at.”
His parents approach a black BMW that’s parked in the driveway but Adrian waves them over to join us, and I really wish he hadn’t. You know all those runners in Tampax ads who finish their workouts with glowing complexions and runway-ready hair? After eight miles in ninety-degree weather, I don’t look anything like them. My shirt is soaked with sweat, my hair is a stringy, greasy mess, and there are dead gnats speckled all over my forehead.
“Mallory, this is my mother, Sofia, and my father, Ignacio.” I dry my palm on my shorts before shaking their hands. “Mallory babysits for the Maxwells. The new family on Edgewood. They have a little boy named Teddy.”
Sofia looks at me suspiciously. She’s so well dressed and perfectly coiffed, I can’t imagine she’s broken a sweat in thirty years. But Ignacio greets me with a friendly smile. “You must be a very dedicated athlete, running in all this humidity!”
“Mallory’s a distance runner at Penn State,” Adrian explains. “She’s on the cross-country team.”
And I cringe at the lie because I’ve already forgotten about it. If Adrian and I were alone, I’d come clean and fess up—but I can’t say anything now, not with both his parents staring at me.
“I’m sure you’re faster than my son,” Ignacio says. “It takes him all day to mow two backyards!” Then he laughs uproariously at his own joke while Adrian shifts his feet, embarrassed.
“That’s landscaping humor. My father thinks he’s a stand-up comic.”
Ignacio grins. “It’s funny because it’s true!”
Sofia studies my appearance and I’m convinced she sees right through me. “What year are you in?”
“Senior. Almost finished.”