Servants of the Storm (11 page)

I look on the big wipe-off calendar my mom started keeping when I went on the meds and got forgetful, and it reminds
me that tomorrow is garbage day. I hate garbage day. But I didn’t complain about it before, so I can’t complain about it now.

I pull the bag out of the kitchen pail and carry it at arm’s length through the back door and out to the big can by the gate. Then I have to drag that monster can down to the end of the alley. That might not sound too bad, but it’s never fun. The alley behind our house is barely wide enough for a car, and every house on our row backs up to it, as do the backs of the houses on Henry Street. It’s pretty much a claustrophobic tunnel, a space that has only gotten smaller since the day I found my cat Snowball splayed out in two pieces in a rusty ring of blood-soaked sand. It’s been seven years since that happened, but I still don’t look at that spot if I can help it. Carly used to say the alley was haunted, that she had seen Snowball’s ghost running along the fence. As if that weren’t enough to give me a wiggins, the honeysuckle and wisteria intertwine and brush your face like it’s swallowing you whole, and I always get back inside with cobwebs in my hair.

And then there’s the neighbors. Sometimes I just have to deal with growled death threats from Axel the German shepherd, and sometimes it’s drunken catcalls from the middle-aged Duvall brothers who live two doors down. Worst of all, though, are the old people who want to reminisce about how great the street used to be and tell stories about my grandmother, when she still lived around the corner. It didn’t bother me so much when I was on my meds. I was zoned out anyway. But before the meds—and now—I just dreaded it. It hurt too much.

The can rumbles behind me on its bad wheel. The night has gotten even colder, and I move fast, hoping I might not have to talk to a single soul. Maybe the chill has driven the lot of them indoors, Axel included. And that’s when I hear a methodical sort of slobbering, and I pause and slump over in defeat. I can’t turn back, because he’s already heard the can, and he’ll just call me by his favorite stupid nickname until I come back.

“That you, Lovey Dovey?” an old man’s voice calls sweetly, and I steel myself to walk past the big pecan tree and into sight of Mr. Hathaway’s backyard.

My mama calls him the scourge of Gordon Street because every single person on our alley has asked her to do something about him. She’s not on the HOA, but people around here seem to think that lawyers actually have power. Unfortunately, there’s nothing she can do; he’s ornery and settled in his ways. The last neighbor who threatened him had to move after lightning struck his house and burned it to the ground. That lot now sits empty, charred black.

Mr. Hathaway’s home is in disrepair, with crooked shutters and broken windows and a roof that rains shingles when the wind’s up. I’m kind of amazed Josephine didn’t flatten it. His yard is so overgrown with weeds that you can barely see the back door. And his slobbery old basset hound, Grendel, takes a two-pound dump on somebody’s doorstep every morning. All that, and you still have to put up with talking to him while you’re taking out the trash.

“Yes sir, Mr. Hathaway,” I say, putting on my sweetest Southern accent. “How you doing tonight?”

He watches me from his backyard, waiting beside a cheap metal fire pit, its glow illuminating a face I’d rather not see. He’s crouched on an old lawn chair next to Grendel, who’s licking the old man’s feet over and over again—hence the methodical slurping. It’s a sight I’ve suffered before, and it’s a small mercy that I don’t have to see it in detail now, thanks to the shadows. My back porch lights almost reach his fence. Almost.

“Well, I’m fit as a fiddle,” he says. “Thank you for asking. How are you?”

“I’m doing fine, thank you,” I lie. And then I wave and walk briskly away before he can say anything else. I know he’s going to catch me on my way back, but I should at least be able to dump the trash first and not stand there, freezing to death and breathing in the stench.

Three more dark houses to go, and then I abandon our can with all the others at the end of the fence. Something rustles farther up, and I grab a stick and throw it into the shadows. A dark shape leaps out from between two cans and lands in the grass at my feet, and I screech and lurch back and almost fall over. The opossum looks at me like I’m an idiot and sashays off with its long, creepy tail in the air, a stripped and broken chicken carcass dangling from its mouth.

Three houses down I can already hear Mr. Hathaway laughing at me.

“Bless his heart,” I say to the sky, reminding myself to be patient. From what I hear, Mr. Hathaway wasn’t quite right in the head before he got old. He’s only been worse since Josephine, but my nana always told me to show him respect, or else.

“Lovey Dovey, are you makin’ friends with a possum?” he says as I step into view. “Back in my day we would’ve eaten that varmint for supper.”

“I already had a Hot Pocket,” I say, still walking. “Y’all have a good night.”

“Wait,” he says, and I know I’m in for it. I stop and turn around.

“Yes, sir?”

“Something’s different about you,” he says. “Come closer.”

I’ve always felt skittish around him and his mangy old dog and his broken-down house, but with the last two days of seeing things that aren’t there and chasing Carly’s clues, I’m downright suspicious. And a little disturbed. I try to remind myself that he’s just a damaged old man too poor and short to replace his outdoor lights, but right now I can’t find a single ounce of kindness for Mr. Hathaway.

“My mama’s expecting me back,” I say, taking a step toward home.

“The hell she is,” he says with a chuckle. “She ain’t home. Now come on over here.”

I reluctantly take a few steps toward the fence, leaving my porch light’s glow from the other side of the alley and entering
his circle of darkness. His trees are so old, they curl over toward the ground, and vines twine all over the place, like they’re trying to drag him and all his broken crap down into the earth where it belongs. I shiver a little in the shadow. His fence is like ice under my hands.

“Yes, sir?”

“I can’t quite put my finger on it,” he says, almost to himself. “You always were a mighty pretty thing. Best of both worlds, I’d say, although I don’t generally approve of mixing the races. Blossoming up quite nice. But there’s something changed. How old are you again?”

“Seventeen,” I say through gritted teeth, and he laughs.

The slobbering sound stops, and Grendel rises painfully onto his fat feet and bowed legs. He drags himself over to the fence, his belly heavy in the thick grass. Sticking his nose through the fence, he
whuff
s in the air and grumbles to himself. When his long tongue pokes through the chain link toward me, I take a step back. I’m not about to let that nasty thing touch me. After a final sniff the old basset throws his head up and bays, a long and mournful wail that makes all the hair rise up on my arms.

“Grendel smells it too, Lovey Dovey,” Mr. Hathaway says. “You can’t hide from us.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m the same as ever.”

He chuckles, a low and dangerous sound that sets me on edge. Mr. Hathaway has changed too, and he’s no longer a harmless old
man. I squint into the indigo shadows of his backyard, but all I can see is his profile silhouetted in firelight. I see the curly hair, round shoulders, and gnarled bare feet of the man I’ve known since I was born, a man who used to give me unwrapped butterscotch candies covered in lint from his pockets, candies that weren’t worth eating. He turns his head, and his eyes gleam like a cat’s, acid green, and I take another step back, and another.

“What’s the matter, girl? You see something you don’t like?”

Grendel slams into the fence, and I jump back. His teeth dig into the wire and yank while he’s growling and barking and scrabbling at me. I back across the alley until I feel the wood fence catch in my sweater, but it’s not far enough. Again and again the old dog throws himself against the wire, shaking the entire fence, and I’m frozen in place, amazed that he can support himself on his back legs, much less attack. His teeth shine in the bare light, and they’re longer and sharper than they should be. Slobber flies onto my face, and wire squeals as Grendel’s teeth rip a hole in the metal. I push off the wood and start jogging, then running toward my house.

“Come back and get some candy, Lovey Dovey!”

Behind me in the dark, over Grendel’s vicious barking, I hear Mr. Hathaway laughing.

I run into the house and slam the door shut and lock it, grateful to be out of the night and away from that crazy old man. My heart is slamming in my chest, and I feel like I just woke up from a nightmare, the kind where monsters chased me all night long.
But Mr. Hathaway isn’t a monster. He’s awful and crazy, but he’s just an old man. I’ve passed him a thousand times in that alley. He’s almost always sitting out there with that dog, or the dog he had before it. He never does anything—just sits, like he’s waiting for something that never comes. And he’s said rude things and told racist jokes and insulted me before, but never like this.

I’ve never been scared of him before, and I can’t even put my finger on why I’m so scared of him and his stupid dog now.

And that scares me too. Is this what life is like without the meds? Fear and confusion making every shadow seem like a monster? Even a harmless old man and a dog on death’s door can seem like ghouls in the dark. Maybe Baker’s right. Maybe I didn’t see Carly. Maybe there was no fox-eared girl. Maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t there.

Maybe the numb fuzz is better than this.

I reach into my pocket for Isaac’s business card.

Somehow, I’m not surprised to find that it’s gone. But the pink plastic bead is still there.

I go to bed early, just as exhausted as I was the night before. Grendel barks all night, and in my dreams I’m chased by creatures with green eyes and sharp teeth, monsters that claw at the door but never, ever leave the darkness.

THE NEXT MORNING I WAKE
up as tired as if I had actually run all night. My room feels dark and stuffy, like it did when I was little and had the flu, and I push the curtains open for what seems like the first time in years. There are muddy paw prints on my window, and I jerk the curtains back into place and jump out of bed. Surely it wasn’t Grendel. He’s not that tall, even standing on his hind legs. I can’t remember the last time I looked out my window, thanks to the numb fuzz, which utterly killed my curiosity. Those paw prints are probably months old.

At least that’s what I tell myself. But I think about rearranging my room later so my bed’s not right up against the glass. And I wish, not for the first time, that we had a two-story house, or at least bars on the windows. The neighborhood’s not what it used to be, and glass seems more fragile than ever.

I search yesterday’s jeans again for Isaac’s card, but it’s still not there. So I find a pen and scribble
Catbird Inn—Isaac
in the dream journal I used to keep. The most recent entry is last November, right before Hurricane Josephine. After that my dreams became too horrible to remember, and then they flat-out disappeared. I tuck the book back into my bedside table drawer. But it’s not like I’m going to forget about last night. How could anyone forget a guy like Isaac? So unusual and so gorgeous and so strange, how he managed to look both current and from another time. But I can’t quite remember the color of his eyes. Sometimes they seemed ice blue, and sometimes they seemed as dark as ink. Something about that worries me, because it doesn’t make sense. I’m determined to find out why.

Today’s the first day of a five-day memorial weekend in honor of the people who died in Hurricane Josephine. There are remembrance services planned, and a candlelight vigil, and the opening night of
The Tempest
is supposed to be a pretty big deal. With school out I have a day of mostly freedom, which means I can find the Catbird Inn and maybe see Isaac and ask him some questions. I remember that he told me to stop looking for Carly. And to keep taking my meds. But he also said to find him if I wanted to know the truth, and that means I’m going to find him. I wish Baker had been acting normal at the time, and I wish I wasn’t furious with him, because my memories aren’t adding up. If only there were someone I could talk to who wouldn’t just tell me to go back on my pills and write me off as crazy.

But before I can head out for answers, I need breakfast, because I’m starving. Holiday and weekend mornings have always been my favorite, because they’re one of the few times I can count on seeing my dad. I tiptoe past my parents’ bedroom, where my mom is still sleeping, and find my dad waiting for me in the kitchen, perched on the edge of his chair. He has deep purple rings under his bloodshot eyes, but his gentle, dreamy smile dominates the exhaustion.

“Morning, Billie Dove,” he says.

“Morning, old man,” I say, leaning over to hug him around the shoulders.

I pour my cereal and sit across from him, relaxing into the ritual. Home always feels most like home when it’s just me and my dad. He’s the opposite of my practical, argumentative drill sergeant mom. When they met in college, she was in pre-law, and he wanted to write and direct plays. He had to give that up and go to work in the factory once she got accidentally pregnant, but he’s never begrudged me that. He always said that when mom’s firm started making the big bucks, he would quit and write all day, but that never happened, and neither of my parents has tried to find a better job. It’s like they’re stuck in the same rut and don’t even notice. He still has a drawer full of unfinished plays in his study that he works on sometimes, when he’s not putting together model airplanes.

“Dress rehearsal started this week, right?” He leans close, eyes bright. “I always loved the first dress rehearsal. It was like Christmas, seeing everybody in their stage finery.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Tamika almost set her toga on fire, and Jasmine got all up in my business, and Baker looks like he got in a fight with a bush. It was pretty crazy. I can’t believe we open Friday.”