The Piper

SIXTEEN




Olivia tried to call Charlotte before she went to bed. She felt bad about their fight, but no one picked up the phone. She left a message, asking Charlotte to call her about hiring a plumber. A mundane request, and a perfect way to break the ice.

Olivia curled up against the pillows, thinking of Chris saying he paid the piper. Imagining him lying in his bed in the dark house, afraid and unable to move, strangling in his sleep, the words hereditary condition echoing in her mind. She drifted in and out of sleep, until the sound of a barking dog brought her fully awake.

She sat up in bed, listening.

And there it was again. The deep throated huff of a big dog, somewhere close by the house. It sounded like Winston. What was he doing outside?

Olivia sat up, wide awake now, and switched on the lamp by the side of the bed. The bedroom, dormer windows and dark woodwork, was still unfamiliar, but it was her bed, and her lamp. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and slid as soon as her feet hit the floor. She went down on one knee and grabbed the mattress to break her fall.

The floor was wet. She looked up at the ceiling, thinking there might be a leak. The ceiling was dry. Olivia turned on the overhead light, saw that the water trailed across the room toward the hallway, as if someone had left wet footprints, as if someone had come in from a bath.

She thought about Teddy getting up in the middle of the night, taking a bubble bath, then wandering around the house. Preposterous, but what else could it be? Maybe whatever caused the bathroom ceiling to come down was causing the water on the floor. She would call Charlotte again in the morning about a plumber. Or go on Angie’s List and look.

The dog barked again, sounding hoarse and frantic, and Olivia headed out into the hallway, turning on lights as she went. She had left that hall lamp on, hadn’t she? Maybe the bulb had burned out.

But Winston was inside, not out, pacing and restless outside of Teddy’s room, lifting his head and whining. Teddy’s door was closed.

Olivia felt the thump of her heart. ‘What’s going on, Winston? What are you doing out here?’

Because Teddy always slept with her door open, comforted by the stream of light coming in from the lamp they always left on in the hall. And Winston slept on the bed beside her, taking his half out of the middle. Teddy complained that he hogged the pillow, but Winston had been sleeping beside her since the night they brought him home from the pound.

The door creaked as Olivia pushed it open. It was dark inside the bedroom, the last unpacked boxes stacked in front of the window so that even the moonlight didn’t relieve the pitch blackness inside.

Teddy was quiet, and very still and at first Olivia thought she was asleep. Until she saw her daughter’s eyes, wide open, shining like a possum’s eyes did in the dark.

‘Teddy? Teddy, are you okay?’

Olivia hit the overhead light, and felt tears come to her eyes when she saw her daughter move. She wasn’t sure what she had thought. Teddy had been so still in her bed.

‘Mommy. You came.’ Whispering. But wide awake. Teddy’s face was pale, her little freckles standing out against the blanched whiteness of her skin.

Winston bounded into the room and jumped up on the bed. Teddy sat up and hugged him and she trembled, though it wasn’t cold.

‘Teddy, are you sick?’ Olivia put a hand to her daughter’s forehead. Warmish. Maybe yes maybe no on a fever, possibly something on the way. Which made perfect sense, new school, new germ pool. ‘What’s going on, Teddy? Why was Winston out in the hall?’

Teddy’s lower lip trembled. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

Winston groaned and put his head on Teddy’s knee.

‘Teddy, don’t lie to me, tell me what’s going on.’

‘I can’t.’

‘What do you mean, you can’t?’

‘He won’t like it if I tell.’

‘He? Who is he? Teddy. Who is he?’

‘Duncan Lee.’

‘Who the hell is Duncan Lee?’

‘The one that texted me. At Aunt Charlotte’s house, you remember, that day in Janet’s room. He talks to me now since you took the phone away. He likes to sit on my bed. But he doesn’t like Winston. He says that Winston can’t come in my room anymore.’

‘Teddy.’

The tears came suddenly, a downpour, and Teddy sobbed hard as Olivia wrapped her in her arms.

‘He said something bad would happen if I let Winston come in anymore. He said I had to lie in bed and be still and very quiet and I wasn’t allowed to wake you up, or tell you. He said if I didn’t do what he said that he would hang Winston from the attic fan with a red leather belt. Oh, Mommy, I was so afraid. How did you know? How did you know to come?’