12
AT NIGHT, on the way to the bathroom, I don’t turn the hall light on. I trace my hand along the wall. I touch something wet and soft. It reminds me of rotten-apple flesh. I think of Julie’s bruise. I run my hand back. I try to find the spot, but I can’t. My senses weren’t awake. Maybe my fingertips imagined it. I massage my hands with each other to wake them up. At the bathroom, I flip on the light. I can feel my heartbeat in my eyes. My vision pulses slightly. I stare at the tiles behind the toilet while I pee. In the mirror, a darker version of myself follows directly behind me. No matter which way I turn, it’s turning immediately before me. I feel a furry smoke spreading its way up my arms. I don’t let myself think. I return to our room. Julie shifts when I get back into bed. Shadows caw outside the window. I know what a shadow is.
13
IN TOWN THE checkout lady wants to know my origin. “Where yah comin’ from? And what house d’yah live in now?”
Her rangy forearms show threads of muscle as she flips through the book that will deliver her the code to punch in for my peppers and I see her key in the number for jalape?o and tell her, “That’s a serrano.”
“They’re all the same price, ma’am. Don’t make no difference.” Her eyebrows are drawn on a little too high, and the real ones are starting to sprout below, as if the penciled-in lines were training the hairs to grow in a certain place.
I tell her we moved from the city, and she nods knowingly. “My husband and I bought the house at the end of Stillwater, right before the woods.” She glances up quickly, so I ask her, “What?”
She stalls for a moment. “Nothin’ at all. That house is fine.”
I say, “No, please. Tell me what you know about it.”
She eyes me, determining if I mean it, and scans my box of oatmeal. “Lotsa rumors about that house yah might be happier to live without.”
“Tell me.” I wonder at how she can turn each item without looking so that the bar code will prompt that satisfying beep and watch the ropes in her biceps slacken and strain.
“Woman who lived there didn’t leave that house her whole life. Born there and people say died there, too. Nobody ever found a body, though.”
“A body?” I say, and I’m not scared. I’m excited.
“That’s right. Neighbor said he hadn’t seen her for a while. Police paid her a visit, and she wasn’t under any rock they turned over. They searched the whole house. They waited. Eventually the house went into foreclosure, then went up for auction. She didn’t have any kin or nothin’. House stood empty for a spell, until, well, I guess till you.”
“Yeah, the bank told us it had been on the market for a while. We got a great deal.” I look down as she settles lemons onto the scale to be weighed. “Who was she? What did she do?”
The cashier limps a bit as she backs up to pull out a small plastic bag for some dripping meat, then resumes her rhythm, turning on her waist’s axis the ninety degrees from screen to scanner and back. “Well, her family was real rich, kept to themselves. People talked about writin’ on the walls. Messages and drawin’s. They painted over it all or replaced the plaster or somethin’, I’m sure.”
“What kind of drawings?”
“Witchcraft, voodoo, who knows? They say she started young drawin’ on the walls. Her parents would holler at her and crash around the house tryin’ to get her to stop, but as soon as they calmed down, she’d start up again. Then they gave up, let her go wild. But I betcha haven’t seen even a lick of that stuff.”
“You’re right about that.”
“How have yah found the house? Any spooks around?”
I squint. “Spooks? Not that we’ve seen.” Answers can be right there in your ears, unheard.
“People gossip about her still being in there.”
I scoff. “How could that be?”
“I agree, bored small-town talk. Flappin’ their gums with any rumor they can think up. I don’t believe it either. Just givin’ yah the full run of the chatter.”
I thank her and head out to my car. The hum of the engine sounds almost like the moans we hear in the house, and that has started to become a comfort.
14
JULIE AND I ring the doorbell. Inside, the neighbor plays what sounds like marching-band music, loud even through the heavy brick. We knock on the door and windows. Julie says she can see him sleeping in an armchair. TA-TA-TAT-TAT. She has a tray of brownies in one hand. I hold a pitcher of lemonade. Julie says, “How can he sleep through that snare?” We sit on the steps and wait for the record to end. When it quiets, we get up and try again, hammering.
Finally, the door swings open. “Must you?” his voice pounds like a bass drum. We take a step back at the sight of him. Deep creases point like arrows to his bulbous nose. The drawbridge of his broad lower jaw is pulled up tight. His forehead folds in curtains of displeasure. Extending straight out from the sides of his head, tapering at the ends, his hair, full and white, strikes the silhouette of a tricorn hat, clown hair. He is shorter than either of us, but dense. I am not convinced I could knock him down.
A sprinkler comes on and reaches just far enough to hit Julie. She scurries toward the interior. “May we come in?” I ask. The man takes his time saying yes. We step inside.
His breath strains. He doesn’t shut the door. He pauses with his hand on it.
“We’re your new neighbors,” Julie explains.
“I know that.” The man’s pronunciation is stiff, each word forced out individually like a finger poked into my chest. A low grumble lines each syllable. I stifle a smile at his gruffness. I think about making an excuse for us to leave. I look to Julie. She is letting her eyes take it all in. She scans casually, but I watch her sight snag on the intricate openmouthed face carved into the newel at the end of the stairs and then on an ancient wooden-box easel jammed beside a plastic basket of rags. She is not ready to give up.
“I’m James and this is Julie. We brought a snack. I hope we’re not imposing.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Oh, uh … to get acquainted,” I manage. “It’s always nice to know the people living around you, right?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name, sir.”
“That’s because I didn’t tell it to you. Rolf! Kinsler!” He barks his name loudly.
Julie says, “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mr. Kinsler. Do people around here mostly keep to themselves?” Julie shifts the tray of brownies to her opposite hand and offers one to him.
“I’d invite you to sit down, but you won’t be staying long.”
Then I smell it. Something fetid and sharp. I look around the filthy house: newspapers stacked twenty high, mats of fur edging everything. I skim the surface of the room for cats. I know, though, that they can make space for themselves behind and between and below. The air feels coated in a thin layer of grease.