It was little warmer in the kitchen. He tried the light switch; it gave him nothing but a hollow click. They kept a flashlight in one of the drawers, and Ben tripped over something as he went to look for it. The thing on the floor was heavy and immobile, and it sent a jolt through his leg when he knocked into it. He dug through the drawer but was unable to find anything more useful than a matchbook. Through the flare of a match, he found a candle to light and used its glow to survey the kitchen.
The kitchen table held several mugs of half-drunk coffee. Ben felt the mugs, but they were as frigid as the air. He could not guess how long ago the Crofts had lost power. Without heat, the house would have quickly succumbed to the terrible cold. Clouds burst from his mouth with every breath, shining like nebulae in the flicker of the candle. Ben wondered if the entire village had lost its electricity. It would not have taken more than a single ice-laden tree collapsing against the lines for the valley to revert to a time of darkness.
Bub was still asleep in his arms. The cold was no good for the baby, but Ben didn’t plan to linger.
The chairs around the kitchen table had been pushed away, as if their occupants had left in a hurry. Ben had expected Caroline and Charlie to be waiting for him in the kitchen, but losing power might have slowed their packing. This is what Ben told himself. There was no sign of the villagers. They might still be searching the forest for JoJo, though Ben did not know what luck they could expect in the dark.
As he headed to the staircase, he noticed what he had tripped over. It was a thick coil of iron chain. Its links were rough and hand-hewn, each the size of Ben’s fist. It caught the candle light dully across its timeworn shine. Red blooms of rust flecked its surface.
Even if he hadn’t had a sleeping child in his arms, Ben would not have called out for Caroline and Charlie. There was something about the cold quiet of the house that demanded silence. This feeling became even more pronounced as he walked the halls and stairs and peered into the chasm of the Crofts. Without the hum of the furnace, the house was as still as a grave. With his own footsteps as the only sound, it was as if the Crofts itself were holding its breath.
Caroline and Charlie were not upstairs. Ben checked all the bedrooms and found nothing more than half-packed suitcases. Fear fluttered in his chest. He called Caroline’s phone and heard a chirp from across the room. Her phone lay on the floor by their bed.
He held Bub close. He did not know what to do.
The tightness in his chest told him that nothing was more important than finding them, and the pounding in his heart came from the fact that he had no idea how to do that.
Charlie had told him that they should leave, but Ben hadn’t listened. And now they were gone.
Even if they were somewhere in the house, it would take him forever to search the place room by room. He wanted to scream into the emptiness of the Crofts, but he didn’t. If Caroline and Charlie had left the house, it had been for a reason. If they were hiding, then there must be something here that they were hiding from.
Ben’s gaze wandered to a window. In its frozen valley, the village was so dark that it might have vanished. The snow was stone gray in the light of the moon and the color of sapphires where the trees cast their shadows. The wind kicked up loose snow as it ravaged the fields, glazing them in an icy mist.
The ceiling above him creaked.
He froze and turned his eyes slowly upward. With the horrors dancing through his brain, Ben prepared himself for anything. He half-expected to see some abyssal creature poised on the ceiling, peering through lidless eyes at him. But there was nothing other than an inert chandelier and the shadow of his own hand warming itself over the candle’s fire. Then there was another creak.
Slow footsteps made their way across the floor above him.
Ben headed for the stairs. Anything could be waiting for him on the third floor, but he chose to believe that it was his missing wife and son.
It would be interesting, he thought, to write all this down one day. Perhaps then he would see where the facts and his fantasy parted ways. He’d heard it said that the difference between fiction and nonfiction was that fiction had to make sense. It would be satisfying to impose order on the series of unfathomable events his life had become.
He opened the door into the drafty expanse of the third floor and came upon a tall, solitary figure bundled against the cold.
“Oh!” said Roger Armfield. “Ben, hello! You startled me.” His voice was muffled by the scarf he wore around his face. He stood in the puddle of illumination left by his flashlight. All Ben could see of his face were his eyes, which darted in their sockets.
“Where are my wife and son?” Ben asked.
“That’s why I’m here,” Armfield said. “I’m looking for them.”
“Why? Why are you in my house?” Ben didn’t remember the hapless veterinarian helping with any of the searches for Bub.
“The chief asked a bunch of us up here to help search the forest for JoJo Tanner,” Armfield said. He paused, expecting Ben to say something, then continued when he didn’t. “Then your wife and Charlie went missing. We don’t know where they are. The chief is searching the forest, but I thought I’d have a look around here.”
“Why would they be hiding?” Ben asked.
“Hiding? Oh, I wouldn’t say they’re hiding. We know your wife hasn’t been well; maybe she got confused.” There was something different about the vet. His words had often tripped over themselves, but now there was a kind of mania to them.
“Confused,” Ben repeated.
“We want the best for them. It’s just that sometimes what seems like the right thing isn’t the right thing. Do you know what I mean?” Armfield pulled off his scarf. Under its striped wool, his face was gaunt and unshaven.
“No.”
“That’s why we need to find him,” Armfield said. “We have to do the right thing. Even if it seems hard. Especially if it seems hard. If it weren’t hard, then it wouldn’t count for anything.”
“Where’s everyone else?” Ben growled. “All we want to do is get out of here.”