41
WHEN JULIE FINALLY drifts off, I duck away to call an electrician, running through the search results until I find one who can pay us a visit today. When he arrives, though, the sound has silenced itself. Without that to point to, I have little to share as a possible symptom of the problem. I describe it. I lead him to the breaker box in the basement. He takes out clamps and gauges. He runs tests. I follow him around as he plugs his equipment into outlets. He tries to pull a clue out of the energy in the walls. When he deems everything in order, he packs his bag. I pay him in cash. I see him out and then I hunt for an answer on my own. I climb stairs. I knock on walls. Still I feel cut out of the equation. We’re a part of this now. Let us in.
The sun’s angle softens. I jostle every room. The moon slides into place. I drive to the bar. I only know the one that Sam has taken me to. Tonight, at least half the seats are filled. This is what busy feels like in this town.
I ask any person who sits down what they know about the house. Everyone I talk to has a different story. The bartender ignores me at first, the same way he did the last time I came in. Then he starts to hear what I’m being told. When someone says something he thinks is wrong, he stuffs those gnarled old hands into his pockets until he can break in to correct the person. Each customer is insistent on his own truth.
That the son was an only child.
That there was no son, just the father and the mother and the girl, no brother.
That the sister died and the town ignored it.
That the sister was lost and never found.
That they lived in our house first and then the house next door, and vice versa.
That the girl took care of her brother, and the opposite of that, too.
That they were lovers, not siblings. That they were both at the same time.
“Rolf, then?” I ask. “Was the next-door neighbor, Rolf, involved? He’s the brother?”
A woman arrives in a dress too fancy for the bar. Her hair looks as if it would crunch if I touched it. I can’t hold her face in my mind. I get the sense I might not recognize her if I saw her again. She drinks her whiskey straight, sipping it rhythmically, like a habit. She is older than me. She possesses the sultry gravity of having arrived in her forties. I remind myself this is all business. Still I slip into the motions of a bar flirt.
“My grandmother talked about the Kinslers,” she says. “They went to the same church. Lost one son when he fell out of a tree. Everyone was happy when they had the daughter, but something was off about her. It’s a small town—lots of gossip and stories rumbling about. You know, all friendly ‘How do you dos’ on Sundays, but the rest of the week, whispers tearing each other down.”
“What were they whispering about, though?” I force myself into silence by shoving pretzels in my mouth.
“She had a lot of nervous energy, I guess. Tapped out rhythms, scribbled on any surface she could reach. People wondered why the parents didn’t stop her. The mother seemed embarrassed, like nothing could be done, but the father and brother acted like nothing was wrong.”
The radius of reason narrows around this woman and me. She is setting out some ground rules I can work with. Her glass is empty. When she goes for her purse, I offer to buy the next round. “Was there something wrong with the girl?”
“That’s hard to tell—so much talk was bobbing about and modern medicine wasn’t what it is today. I’m sure there was something you could slap a diagnosis on. Hyperactivity, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, multiple personalities, hysteria, a fugue, aphasia.”
My eyes pop at this woman’s easy list.
“In the end, I think they decided there was no use in naming her particular brand of dysfunction. My grandmother always used it as an example, especially when they sent me and my sister off to therapy: ‘Sometimes there’s no righting a wrong.’”
“But they lived in 891, right? Not 895?”
“That is beyond my knowledge,” she says. “I can show you where I live, though.”
I’m surprised at this suggestion even though, in a different set of circumstances, before I was married, I would have sensed a dynamic growing, too. I might have launched a similar cue. I decline her offer. She smiles wryly. “Such a shame. A new face in town, curious for answers that I might just have.”
I thank her for her time. I turn away. I don’t want to draw out our farewell any further. The bartender looks at me with pity. He tells me that my companion was making up stories to keep my attention. He points to her sidled up close to a gentleman in a suit near the door. I wonder if the bartender might be right.
The seats around me fill again. No one knows enough.
I make mistakes. I tell people about the sounds we hear. I mention the secret passages. I ask if they know anyone who’s had bruises like Julie’s. I tell them all the effects hoping they can offer a cause. I ask them if they know about the children in the trees. I meet skeptical glares. They think I’m making it all up. They see me unraveling in front of them.
The room starts to swirl. The bartender tells me that maybe I’ve had enough. He calls me a cab. I stand outside. I open the door of the first car that pulls up. A blankness takes over.
I wake up on a couch in Rolf’s house. I wonder how I got in. I remember only climbing into what I thought was a taxi. My clothes are covered in cat fur. I smell that rank odor. I hear no sounds. I see no lights when I peek up the stairs. I want to flee. Instead, I wait for a while. I tell myself that the shame of asking Rolf how this happened will be mitigated by having an answer. I begin to worry. If Rolf finds me downstairs, he might attack me or call the police. I edge around the corners of the rooms. The kitchen counter is covered in dark, sticky dust. Dirty dishes pile high blackened by smears of who knows what. I retch at the sour smell. I step out the back door, to try to get away from it. There is no reentering. Rolf surely heard the door slam. He can certainly hear me coughing now. I step down off his back stair. I cross his yard into the woods instead of going home. I hope this decision will save me some guilt. If Rolf sees someone heading into the forest, maybe he won’t realize it was me who had let myself in.
I say, “The woods are closer now,” and things like that can be true and logical. Forests seed. They grow out. At the beach, the shore appears narrower, too. The trees have advanced in the sand. “The water sneaks up on us,” I say. But that’s just the tide.