Magic for Beginners: Stories (10 page)

Henry wakes up in the middle of the night. There are people
downstairs. He can hear women talking, laughing, and he realizes
Catherine’s book club must have come over. He gets out of bed. It’s
dark. What time is it anyway? But the alarm clock is haunted again.
He unplugs it. As he comes down the stairs, a voice says, “Well,
will you look at that!” and then, “Right under his nose the whole
time!”

Henry walks through the house, turning on lights. Tilly stands
in the middle of the kitchen. “May I ask who’s calling?” she says.
She’s got Henry’s cell phone tucked between her shoulder and her
face. She’s holding it upside down. Her eyes are open, but she’s
asleep.

“Who are you talking to?” Henry says.

“The rabbits,” Tilly says. She tilts her head, listening. Then
she laughs. “Call back later,” she says. “He doesn’t want to talk
to you. Yeah. Okay.” She hands Henry his phone. “They said it’s no
one you know.”

“Are you awake?” Henry says.

“Yes,” Tilly says, still asleep. He carries her back upstairs.
He makes a bed out of pillows in the hall closet and lays her down
across them. He tucks a blanket around her. If she refuses to wake
up in the same bed that she goes to sleep in, then maybe they
should make it a game. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Catherine hadn’t had an affair with Leonard Felter. She hadn’t
even slept with him. She had just said she had, because she was so
mad at Henry. She could have slept with Leonard Felter. The
opportunity had been there. And he had been magical, somehow: the
only member of the department who could make the photocopier make
copies, and he was nice to all of the secretaries. Too nice, as it
turned out. And then, when it turned out that Leonard Felter had
been fucking everyone, Catherine had felt she couldn’t take it
back. So she and Henry had gone to therapy together. Henry had
taken some time off work. They’d taken the kids to Yosemite. They’d
gotten pregnant. She’d been remorseful for something she hadn’t
done. Henry had forgiven her. Really, she’d saved their marriage.
But it had been the sort of thing you could do only once.

If someone has to save the marriage a second time, it will have
to be Henry.

Henry went looking for King Spanky. They were going to see the
vet: he had the cat cage in the car, but no King Spanky. It was
early afternoon, and the rabbits were out on the lawn. Up above, a
bird hung, motionless, on a hook of air. Henry craned his head,
looking up. It was a big bird, a hawk maybe. It circled, once,
twice, again, and then dropped like a stone, towards the rabbits.
The rabbits didn’t move. There was something about the way they
waited, as if this were all a game. The bird dropped through the
air, folded like a knife, and then it jerked, tumbled, fell. The
wings loose. The bird smashed into the grass and feathers flew up.
The rabbits moved closer, as if investigating.

Henry went to see for himself. The rabbits scattered, and the
lawn was empty. No rabbits, no bird. But there, down in the trees,
beside the bike path, Henry saw something move. King Spanky swung
his tail angrily, slunk into the woods.

When Henry came out of the woods, the rabbits were back,
guarding the lawn again and Catherine was calling his name. “Where
were you?” she said. She was wearing her gas mask around her neck,
and there was a smear of paint on her arm. Whiskey Horse. She’d
been painting the linen closet.

“King Spanky took off,” Henry said. “I couldn’t catch him. I saw
the weirdest thing—this bird was going after the rabbits, and then
it fell—”

“Marcus came by,” Catherine said. Her cheeks were flushed. He
knew that if he touched her, her skin would be hot. “He stopped by
to see if you wanted to go play golf.”

“Who wants to play golf?” Henry said. “I want to go upstairs
with you. Where are the kids?”

“Alison took them into town, to see a movie,” Catherine said.
“I’m going to pick them up at three.”

Henry lifted the gas mask off her neck, fitted it around her
face. He unbuttoned her shirt, undid the clasp of her bra. “Better
take this off,” he said. “Better take all your clothes off. I think
they’re haunted.”

“You know what would make a great paint color? Can’t believe no
one has done this yet. Yellow Sticky. What about King Spanky?”
Catherine said. She sounded like Darth Vader, maybe on purpose, and
Henry thought it was sexy: Darth Vader, pregnant, with his child.
She put her hand against his chest and shoved. Not too hard, but
harder than she meant to. It turned out that painting had given her
some serious muscle. That will be a good thing when she has another
kid to haul around.

“Yellow Sticky. That’s great. Forget King Spanky,” Henry said.
“King Spanky is a terrible name for a paint color.”

Catherine was painting Tilly’s room Lavender Fist. It was going
to be a surprise. But when Tilly saw it, she burst into tears. “Why
can’t you just leave it alone?” she said. “I liked it the way it
was.”

“I thought you liked purple,” Catherine said, astounded. She
took off her gas mask.

“I hate purple,” Tilly said. “And I hate you. You’re so fat.
Even Carleton thinks so.”

“Tilly!” Catherine said. She laughed. “I’m pregnant,
remember?”

“That’s what you think,” Tilly said. She ran out of the room and
across the hall. There were crashing noises, the sounds of things
breaking.

“Tilly!” Catherine said.

Tilly stood in the middle of Carleton’s room. All around her lay
broken night-lights, lamps, broken lightbulbs. The carpet was
dusted in glass. Tilly’s feet were bare and Catherine looked down,
realized that she wasn’t wearing shoes either. “Don’t move, Tilly,”
she said.

“They were haunted,” Tilly said, and began to cry.

“So how come your dad’s never home?” Alison said.

“I don’t know,” Carleton said. “Guess what? Tilly broke all my
night-lights?”

“Yeah,” Alison said. “You must be pretty mad.”

“No, it’s good that she did,” Carleton said, explaining. “They
were haunted. Tilly didn’t want me to be afraid.”

“But aren’t you afraid of the dark?” Alison said.

“Tilly said I shouldn’t be,” Carleton said. “She said the
rabbits stay awake all night, that they make sure everything is
okay, even when it’s dark. Tilly slept outside once, and the
rabbits protected her.”

“So you’re going to stay with us this weekend,” Alison said.

“Yes,” Carleton said.

“But your dad isn’t coming,” Alison said.

“No,” Carleton said. “I don’t know.”

“Want to go higher?” Alison said. She pushed the swing and sent
him soaring.

When Henry puts his hand against the wall in the living room, it
gives a little, as if the wall is pregnant. The paint under the
paint is wet. He walks around the house, running his hands along
the walls. Catherine has been painting a mural in the foyer. She’s
painted trees and trees and trees. Golden trees with brown leaves
and green leaves and red leaves, and reddish trees with purple
leaves and yellow leaves and pink leaves. She’s even painted some
leaves on the wooden floor, as if the trees are dropping them.
“Catherine,” he says. “You have got to stop painting the damn
walls. The rooms are getting smaller.”

Nobody says anything back. Catherine and Tilly and Carleton
aren’t home. It’s the first time Henry has spent the night alone in
his house. He can’t sleep. There’s no television to watch. Henry
throws out all of Catherine’s paintbrushes. But when Catherine gets
home, she’ll just buy new ones.

He sleeps on the couch, and during the night someone comes and
stands and watches him sleep. Tilly. Then he wakes up and remembers
that Tilly isn’t there.

The rabbits watch the house all night long. It’s their job.

Tilly is talking to the rabbits. It’s cold outside, and she’s
lost her gloves. “What’s your name?” she says. “Oh, you beauty. You
beauty.” She’s on her hands and knees. Carleton watches from his
side of the yard.

“Can I come over?” he says. “Can I please come over?”

Tilly ignores him. She gets down on her hands and knees, moving
even closer to the rabbits. There are three of them, one of them
almost close enough to touch. If she moved her hand, slowly, maybe
she could grab it by the ears. Maybe she can catch it and train it
to live inside. They need a pet rabbit. King Spanky is haunted. He
spends most of his time outside. Her parents keep their bedroom
door shut so that King Spanky can’t get in.

“Good rabbit,” Tilly says. “Just stay still. Stay still.”

The rabbits flick their ears. Carleton begins to sing a song
Alison has taught them, a skipping song. Carleton is such a girl.
Tilly puts out her hand. There’s something tangled around the
rabbit’s neck, like a piece of string or a leash. She wiggles
closer, holding out her hand. She stares and stares and can hardly
believe her eyes. There’s a person, a little man sitting behind the
rabbit’s ears, holding on to the rabbit’s fur and the piece of
knotted string, with one hand. His other hand is cocked back, like
he’s going to throw something. He’s looking right at her—his hand
flies forward and something hits her hand. She pulls her hand back,
astounded. “Hey!” she says, and she falls over on her side and
watches the rabbits go springing away. “Hey, you! Come back!”

“What?” Carleton yells. He’s frantic. “What are you doing? Why
won’t you let me come over?”

She closes her eyes, just for a second. Shut up, Carleton. Just
shut up. Her hand is throbbing and she lies down, holds her hand up
to her face. Shut. Up.

When she wakes up, Carleton is sitting beside her. “What are you
doing on my side?” she says, and he shrugs.

“What are you doing?” he says. He rocks back and forth on his
knees. “Why did you fall over?”

“None of your business,” she says. She can’t remember what she
was doing. Everything looks funny. Especially Carleton. “What’s
wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Carleton says, but something is
wrong. She studies his face and begins to feel sick, as if she’s
been eating grass. Those sneaky rabbits! They’ve been distracting
her, and now, while she wasn’t paying attention, Carleton’s become
haunted.

“Oh yes it is,” Tilly says, forgetting to be afraid, forgetting
her hand hurts, getting angry instead. She’s not the one to blame.
This is her mother’s fault, her father’s fault, and it’s Carleton’s
fault too. How could he have let this happen? “You just don’t know
it’s wrong. I’m going to tell Mom.”

Haunted Carleton is still a Carleton who can be bossed around.
“Don’t tell,” he begs.

Tilly pretends to think about this, although she’s already made
up her mind. Because what can she say? Either her mother will
notice that something’s wrong or else she won’t. Better to wait and
see. “Just stay away from me,” she tells Carleton. “You give me the
creeps.”

Carleton begins to cry, but Tilly is firm. He turns around,
walks slowly back to his half of the yard, still crying. For the
rest of the afternoon, he sits beneath the azalea bush at the edge
of his side of the yard, and cries. It gives Tilly the creeps. Her
hand throbs where something has stung it. The rabbits are all
hiding underground. King Spanky has gone hunting.

“What’s up with Carleton?” Henry said, coming downstairs. He
couldn’t stop yawning. It wasn’t that he was tired, although he was
tired. He hadn’t given Carleton a good-night kiss, just in case it
turned out he was coming down with a cold. He didn’t want Carleton
to catch it. But it looked like Carleton, too, was already coming
down with something.

Catherine shrugged. Paint samples were balanced across her
stomach like she’d been playing solitaire. All weekend long, away
from the house, she’d thought about repainting Henry’s office.
She’d never painted a haunted room before. Maybe if you mixed the
paint with a little bit of holy water? She wasn’t sure: What was
holy water, anyway? Could you buy it? “Tilly’s being mean to him,”
she said. “I wish they would make some friends out here. He keeps
talking about the new baby, about how he’ll take care of it. He
says it can sleep in his room. I’ve been trying to explain babies
to him, about how all they do is sleep and eat and cry.”

“And get bigger,” Henry said.

“That too,” Catherine said. “So did he go to sleep okay?”

“Eventually,” Henry said. “He’s just acting really weird.”

“How is that different from usual?” Catherine said. She yawned.
“Is Tilly finished with her homework?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “You know, just weird. Different
weird. Maybe he’s going through a weird spell. Tilly wanted me to
help her with her math, but I couldn’t get it to come out right. So
what’s up with my office?”

“I cleared it out,” Catherine said. “Alison and Liz came over
and helped. I told them we were going to redecorate. Why is it that
we’re the only ones who notice everything is fucking haunted around
here?”

“So where’d you put my stuff?” Henry said. “What’s up?”

“You’re not working here now,” Catherine pointed out. She didn’t
sound angry, just tired. “Besides, it’s all haunted, right? So I
took your computer into the shop, so they could have a look at it.
I don’t know, maybe they can unhaunt it.”

“Well,” Henry said. “Okay. Is that what you told them? It’s
haunted?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Catherine said. She discarded a paint
strip. Too lemony. “So I heard about the bomb scare on the
radio.”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “The subways were full of kids with crew
cuts and machine guns. And they evacuated our building for about an
hour. We all went and stood outside, holding on to our laptops like
idiots, just in case. The Crocodile carried out her rubber band
ball, which must weigh about thirty pounds. It kind of freaked
people out, even the firemen. I thought the bomb squad was going to
blow it up. So tell me about your weekend.”