Then, having heard Tom’s voice, Gary leaves her and heads to the foyer.
Once the questions have been asked and the housemates have their eyes closed, Malorie hears the front door open. The cool air rushes in, and with it the reality of how close Malorie just came to confronting Gary without Tom in the house.
Dogs paws on the foyer tile. Boots. Something smacks against the doorframe. The front door closes quickly. There’s the sound of the broomsticks scratching the walls. Tom speaks. And his voice is deliverance.
“My plan was to call you guys from my house. But the fucking phone was out.”
“Tom,” Felix says, manic but weak. “I knew you guys would do it. I knew it!”
When Malorie opens her eyes, she doesn’t think about Gary. She doesn’t see the perfectly manicured letters that wait in his briefcase.
She sees only that Tom and Jules are home again.
“We raided a grocery store,” Tom says. The words sound impossible. “Someone had been there before. But we got a lot of good stuff.”
He looks tired, but he looks good.
“The dogs worked,” he says. “They led us.” He is proud and happy. “But I got something from my house that I hope will help us even more.”
Felix helps him with his duffel bag. Tom unzips it and removes something. Then he lets it fall to the foyer floor.
It’s a phone book.
“We’re going to call every number in here,” he says. “Every single one. And somebody is going to answer.”
It’s only a phone book, but Tom has turned it into a beacon.
“Now,” Tom says. “Let’s eat.”
The others excitedly prepare the dining room. Olympia gets the utensils. Felix fills glasses with water from the buckets.
Tom is back.
Jules is back.
“Malorie!” Olympia calls. “It’s canned crabmeat!”
Malorie, caught somewhere between two worlds, enters the kitchen and begins helping with dinner.
thirty-six
Someone is following them.
There is no use asking herself how much farther they have to go. She doesn’t know when she will hear the recorded voice that tells her she’s arrived. She doesn’t know if it still exists. Now, she only paddles, she only perseveres.
An hour ago, they passed what sounded like lions engaged in battle. There were roars. Birds of prey screech threats from the sky. Things growl and snort from the woods. The river’s current is moving faster. She remembers the tent Tom and Jules found in the street outside their house. Could there be something like that, so astonishingly out of place, here, on the river? Could they crash into it . . . now?
Out here, she knows, anything imagined is possible.
But right now, it is something much more concrete that worries her.
Someone is following them. Yes, the Boy heard it, too.
A phantom echo. A second rowing, in step with her own.
Who would do it? And if they meant to harm her and the children, why didn’t they do it when she was passed out?
Is it someone escaping their home as well?
“Boy,” she says quietly, “tell me what you can about them.”
The Boy is listening.
“I don’t know, Mommy.”
He sounds ashamed.
“Are they still there?”
“I don’t know!”
“Listen.”
Malorie considers stopping. Turning. Facing the noise she hears behind them.
The recording will be playing on a loop. You’ll hear it. It’s loud. Clear. And when you do, that’s when you’ll have to open your eyes.
What follows them?
“Boy,” she says again. “Tell me what you can about them.”
Malorie stops rowing. Water rushes around them.
“I don’t know what it is,” he says.
Still, Malorie waits. A dog barks from the right bank. A second bark answers.
Wild dogs, Malorie thinks. More wolves.
She begins paddling again. She asks the Boy again what he hears.
“I’m sorry, Mommy!” he yells. His voice is cracked with tears. Shame.
He doesn’t know.
It has been years since the Boy wasn’t able to identify a sound. What he hears is something he’s never heard before.
But Malorie believes he can still help.
“How far away are they?” Malorie asks.
But the Boy is crying.
“I can’t do it!”
“Keep your voice down!” she hisses.
Something grunts from the left bank. It sounds like a pig. Then another one. And another.
The river feels too thin. The banks too close.
Does something follow them?
Malorie rows.
thirty-seven
For the first time since arriving at the house, Malorie knows something the others don’t.