The Back Door of Midnight (8 page)

He surfaced choking. I pretended not to notice.

“You know,” he said, “if there is only one rope, it works better to free the loop attached to the dock. That way, if you dock somewhere else, you will still have a rope in the boat.”

I glanced at the rope, which dangled forlornly from the dock. “Fortunately, as it turns out, I will be coming back here.”

He grinned. “Fortunately.”

I pushed off from the piling, letting the boat float itself away from the dock and cabin cruiser, then picked up the oars and started rowing. It wasn’t as easy as I had thought. Sometimes I lowered the oars too deeply and could barely drag them out of the water; other times I skipped them along the surface, dousing myself. My right arm was stronger than my left, which
meant I rowed in circles. Since I had already proven I didn’t know what I was doing, there was no point in worrying about how I looked to Zack. I kept rowing. I rowed till my shoulders and arms ached, determined to master the skill.

Zack left me alone, watching me from time to time but saying nothing as he swam around and floated on his back. Perhaps he read my body language and knew I wouldn’t welcome his help.

Finally, with the skin on my hands rubbed raw, I had to stop. I floated about, watching how the sun melted in a pool behind the bridge, leaving the western sky a fiery pink, enjoying the sounds—the voices and laughter that carried across from the other side of the creek. The floor of the boat was gritty. I brushed off a spot and lowered myself onto it, resting my back against one of the two seat slats, cushioning my spine with the life vest. I could have floated out there all night, watching the sky fade to lilac.

“Hello!” Zack had popped up like a smiling porpoise and was hanging on to the bow of the boat, his arms and shoulders resting along the boat’s edge. “Permission to board, Captain?”

Without waiting for an answer, he heaved himself over the side of the boat—wet, muscular shoulders and arms, powerful legs. I stared at him, pulling myself up onto the boat seat.
Stop looking at him,
I told myself. But it was hard not to, since he took up most of the space in front of me.

“Switch places,” he said. “Take it slowly, Anna, okay?”

“Sure.” For a moment we had a slow dance in the middle of the boat, he steadying me with his wet hands and laughing when I bolted for the other seat. “You’re determined to sink this thing!”

He sat down in the rower’s seat and picked up the oars. “I thought you might like a tour of our neck of the creek. A quick one, before it gets dark,” he said, glancing at the sky.

His eyes were the color of the sky at twilight. There was a soft light in them, like the last bit at the end of the day. As he rowed across the creek, I forced myself to look at the shoreline rather than him.

“That’s a little park,” he said, pausing a moment to point, “used mostly by people from Chase College. The campus is back in that direction. The pavilion belongs to them, but everybody uses it to picnic. Those docks are for their crew and sailing teams.”

Beyond the college waterfront we passed a large house with terraced gardens, then crossed over the creek to glide by another estate. Estates, crew teams, a guy rowing me around—I felt as if I had slipped between the pages of a British novel.

“That’s the Fairfaxes’ place.”

“I can see the roof above the trees. That’s a lot of roof!”

“The house is large,” he said, as if he didn’t live in a manse.

“There’s no dock,” I observed.

“They like their privacy. You can’t see it well in this light, but they let the lower part of their grounds on each side go wild and marshy, so you can’t walk—you can’t even wade the shoreline all the way through. They own several houses and are here only in the fall and spring. They put out a floating dock then. It’s Marcy’s family,” he said. “Her adoptive family.”

“Her
adoptive
family?” He had hit a nerve. “Meaning not her real family?”

“Sorry?”

“Meaning just her adoptive family, which is something less than being her birth family?”

He frowned. “I didn’t mean that at all.”

“Then why even mention it?” I asked.
Let it go, Anna,
I told myself, but I couldn’t.

“Because Marcy mentions it—a lot.” He had stopped rowing and was studying my face, as if trying to understand. “You’re adopted,” he guessed.

“Obviously.”

“Your family must miss you,” he said.

If he thought I was going to give him the details of my family life, he was wrong. We floated in silence.

“You said they were on vacation. Where?”

“Massachusetts.”

“So, do you have any brothers and sisters?” Halfway through the question, he hesitated, as if he thought I might jump down his throat again.

“Two sisters and a brother.” The boat rocked gently, the water lapping against its side. “How about you?”

He shook his head. “Just Dad. And Marcy.”

“I like Marcy,” I said.

He looked surprised. “You do? You’ve met her?”

“I’m working for her.”

“You’re
what
?!”

“She hired me today.”

He grimaced. “Well, good luck.”

“I’m surprised your friend didn’t tell you that I stopped by her shop.” The tone of my voice gave away my feelings about his friend.

“What friend?” he asked, caution seeping into his voice.

“The guy at Tea Leaves. The guy who followed me down to the park, then up High Street. Either he’s a lousy stalker or he was trying to intimidate me.”

Without comment, Zack picked up the oars and started to row.

“Why?” I asked. “Why did he do that?”

Zack’s face was a mask, his eyes avoiding mine, which was a mistake: As long as I wasn’t looking in his eyes, I had a fighting chance against the spell they cast.

“What is your friend’s connection to the fire?” I persisted. “What is his connection to my uncle’s death? What’s yours?”

He rowed in silence. We rounded a bend in the creek, and his home slid into view.

“Tell me what you know,” I demanded.

“It’s complicated, Anna.”

“There’s nothing like facts to make things simpler.”

But he wouldn’t answer me. Letting one oar drop, he steered with the other as we drifted toward the Flemings’ dock. His long fingers caught the rope that I had so carefully untied. While he secured the boat, I unfastened my life jacket.

“You have three choices,” Zack said. “You can climb without my help and scrape your knees. I can give you a push from behind. Or I can climb out first and give you a hand from above. Which would you like?”

“A hand from above.”

He scrambled out of the boat, then extended his hand, pulling me up easily.

“Anna.” He stood so close, I could smell the creek on him. “Take care of Iris. And let the police take care of the rest.”

Mere closeness was as dangerous as his eyes. “Is that advice or a warning?” I asked.

“Both.”

I WALKED TOWARD
the gate in the hedge alone, veering from Zack’s path as soon as I could. I heard a dog barking, a shrill whistle, then the sound of a door closing. The yard was suddenly quiet.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

The voice came from behind me, and I jumped, letting go of the gate I had just opened.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman said. The voice was that of an older woman. In the thin light coming from the Flemings’ windows, her hair looked white, a fluffy halo around her head. “You’re Joanna’s daughter.”

“Yes. I’m Anna.”

“I saw you with the goats yesterday.”

I remembered the stocky figure in the black-and-white uniform. “And I saw you,” I told her. “Do you work for the Flemings?”

“My name is Audrey Sanchez.”

She said it as if that should mean something to me. It didn’t. “Nice to meet you.”

“Are you psychic, Miss O’Neill?”

“My last name is Kirkpatrick now,” I said, but smiled, relieved to know that something as silly as that was on her mind. “And no, I’m not. The farmer refused to leave until he got some advice, so I pretended to do what Aunt Iris does.”

“What Iris does is wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“It is an unnatural ability,” the woman said. “Iris’s knowledge is unholy. It is against God’s laws. Her ways are the ways of the devil.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. “Well . . . well, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I suppose that’s yours.”

“And God’s,” she replied.

“You talk to him directly?”

“Every day.”

“In prayer,” I said, hoping that was all she meant. If she imagined it was by Verizon, Aunt Iris wasn’t the only loony on Oyster Creek.

“I can tell you are an innocent girl,” Ms. Sanchez said, “and that concerns me. You need to be careful.” There was genuine worry in her voice. “This is a house of evil.”

“Oh!”

“It is so easy to stray.” One doughy hand massaged the other as she spoke. “William strayed.”

“Uncle Will?”

“He was once righteous and God-fearing, but he turned toward the darkness.”

“Really.”

“If he hadn’t, he would not have suffered a fiery death.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Psychics are the tools of the devil. Perhaps you weren’t aware of it, but William protected Iris. He was in league with her and therefore brought on his own death. It was the only thing that could save him—fire here rather than fire hereafter.”

By that, I assumed she meant hell. “I see. Well, thanks for the advice. I’m getting a lot of it tonight.” I pushed open the gate, but the woman caught it, pulling it closed.

“What was Iris burying today?”

I faced her. “When?”

“About ten o’clock this morning.”

Right after I went out.

“She had a jar,” the woman went on.

“Oh, that. Uncle Will’s ashes—at least she thinks they are. Where did she put them?”

“Behind the old kitchen.”

Close to Uncle Will’s den. That made sense.

“Be careful, girl,” Ms. Sanchez warned. “Evil draws evil. If something tells you to get out of the house, get out.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, “I don’t usually argue with voices.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you hearing them?”

“Not yet.”

She touched my arm lightly. “I am here if you need my help.”

Just what I needed, another crazy lady. “Thanks. G’night.”

On the back step of the House of Evil, I enjoyed an icy glass of Dr Pepper, then went in and took a shower undisturbed. I called good night to Aunt Iris, who wished me the same from the other side of her bedroom door. Not only did she remember I was Anna, she had thoughtfully set a fan on the bureau by my bed. With a day’s worth of heat trapped beneath the roof, I turned it on full blast and aimed it at my bed, where I lay down, thinking I’d never fall asleep. Less than five minutes later, I closed my eyes.

I awoke to a low vibrating sound. At first I thought it was the fan, but the sound grew louder, more intense. Remembering my previous dreams, I waited anxiously for what came next. The strange electrical buzz ran through my body, making each nerve ending tingle. I tried to raise my arms and found them as useless as dead things. I couldn’t even blink my eyes.

Let go,
I told myself, recalling the words that had released me once before from the noise and paralysis.
Let go,
I repeated in my head over and over, until not only my mind but my heart gave up the struggle against something that seemed meant to be.

For a moment all I knew was darkness, then, at the top of the blackness, I saw a silvery outline, the wall like that of a castle. Immediately, I found the door in the wall and went through it. The maze of paths was there, just as before, and the tall figures, blurred forms. I remembered that during my last dream experience, when I had complained to Aunt Iris about my vision, it had cleared a little.

“Aunt Iris, I can’t see. I want to see what that is.”

I found myself gazing at a rabbit. Tall as a person, its posture was almost human, like that of an animal character in a children’s book. I ventured closer, wanting to see what its rough surface was made of, when suddenly, I began to fall—Alice down the rabbit hole!

When the falling stopped, I knew where I was: the burn site. I heard someone behind me and turned quickly. The scene swam in my head, the images colliding, wobbling, then settling.

A girl had run past me. A guy was chasing her. Zack.

He didn’t appear to see me, having eyes only for the girl he had just caught in his arms, the girl who was at Tea Leaves, the girl at his stepmother’s party.

“Erika, stop! This is crazy!” He pulled her back against him.

She slumped over the arm he had around her, and for a moment I thought she was hurt, then she straightened up and let him turn her so that she faced him, his big hands handling her gently. I thought she would see me as Aunt Iris had, but she didn’t.

“I’m afraid,” she said to Zack, tears running down her face. “I’m really afraid.”

“We’ll figure this out,” he replied, his voice soft and low.

“Just being here gives me an eerie feeling.”

“Then why do you keep coming back?” he asked.

Good question, buddy.
Obviously, I didn’t buy the tears.

“I’ve got to find my cell phone. I must have dropped it along the path.”

“I told you, Erika, if any evidence was left behind, the police already have it.”

“I feel like someone is watching us. I feel it, Zack.” She pressed her face into his shoulder.

Why do guys fall for this stuff?
I thought.

“You’re imagining things.” He stroked her hair as if he were soothing a child.

I wanted to flap my arms like a ghost and howl at her. Actually, I did, but she hadn’t a clue I was standing there.

“But what if there
is
something to this psychic thing?” Erika asked Zack. “What if the old lady knows?”

“Iris is confused,” Zack replied. “I’ve heard people say she’s been crazy for years. Even if she does know something, nothing she says will be believed by the police.”

“She scares me.”

Zack shook his head. “I told you before—”