The Piper

THIRTEEN




Olivia heard Teddy’s voice as she scrambled up the stairs.

‘Are you OK, Winston buddy? Are you all right? How is your head, let me kiss it. Good boy.’

The bathroom door was open. A flutter of cobweb hanging from the attic fan in the hallway caught Olivia’s eye. The attic fan was the one thing Olivia had never liked about the house. When she was a little girl, she had always wondered if there was something up there, watching her behind the grill. She thought about Charlotte’s story. The attic fan coming on in the middle of the night. Could some kind of intermittent connection cause something like that? Maybe Janet had turned it on herself.

‘Teddy? Are you okay?’

Teddy was out of the tub, naked and dripping and squatting beside Winston, who was covered in the chunks, shards and powder of shattered plaster. A two foot square of the bathroom ceiling had caved in, landing right on the dog.

Olivia grabbed a thick white towel and wrapped it around Teddy, pulling her daughter to her feet.

‘Don’t worry about me, Mommy, worry about Winston. The ceiling caved in on his head and he cried really loud.’

Olivia crouched down to pet Winston. No cuts, no obvious damage, just plaster in his fur. Olivia took a bit of tissue and wiped grit from his eyes. He stood up and shook like he did when he got his bath.

Teddy put her fists up under her chin. ‘It’s my fault, Mommy. He was scared to come in and I made him and then the ceiling came down on his head. Do you think he knew it was going to happen?’

‘Teddy, Winston follows you everywhere, it’s not your fault the ceiling caved in. Stuff like that happens in an old house. It usually means a water leak.’ Olivia craned her neck and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about the runaway cost of repairs. There was no sign of the telltale yellow discoloration that meant water collecting behind the scenes. Just wood slats and dirt, and an exposed support stud that looked, oddly, as if there were burn marks in the wood.

‘Teddy, is that stepladder still in your room?’

‘Want me to go get it?’

‘No, I will, you get your nightgown on and brush your teeth. And pull the plug in the tub so the water can drain.’

There were still boxes in Teddy’s room, and the ladder was in front of the built in bookshelves that Olivia and Teddy had been filling with Teddy’s entire collection of stuffed animals and Nancy Drew. Olivia took the ladder into the bathroom, kicking away some of the plaster. She was aware of Winston and Teddy, watching from the hallway, the sound of water draining in the tub.

‘Teddy, do you still have that flashlight under your bed?’

‘Yes, Mommy. Want me to get it?’

‘Please.’ Olivia was aware of the patter of bare feet on wood floors, as Teddy ran to her room, and then back.

‘Here you go, Mommy.’

‘Thanks.’

Olivia pointed the light into the gaping ceiling. The burn marks in the wood were letters. Burned in, like a brand. Some of the edges looked charred, and she thought of fires. Chris had smoke alarms all over the house. Had he been worried about fires?

‘Teddy, go back out into the hall with Winston, in case more of this plaster falls.’

‘What are you looking for, Mommy?’

‘Water leaks.’

‘Is that what made the ceiling crash?’

‘That’s the usual suspect.’

But there was no water, no dampness, no blue black sign of mold. Olivia touched the wood stud, found it dry to the touch. She climbed to the top step of the ladder for a closer look, shining the flashlight to study the burnt letters in the wood. Names. Some of them written sideways, some upside down. Two of the names she did not recognize – Allison. Bennington. But the other two she knew. Emily, her sister. And Jamison. McTavish’s cousin who’d suffered a debilitating closed head injury in a car accident, not too long after Emily disappeared.

Olivia played the light up and down the wood. And found one more name, a bit further up. This one looked different. This one looked new. The letters were so deeply branded that she could trace the grooves in the wood. Her brother’s name. Chris.