Boy - a ghost story
If you found a ghost in your home, could you love it to Heaven?
The goofy old lady next door and the obnoxious brat across the street become the least of Ann, David and Megan’s problems as they come to an uneasy discovery. The old clapboard house they are determined to make into their dream home holds a secret.
Five-year-old Megan makes fast friends with Freda, the elderly part time garbage scavenger and mostly confused matriarch of the neighborhood. The crappy angels she crochets for the girl around bits of other people’s trash seem an odd, albeit harmless gift. Strange voices, giggles, disappearing scissors and stolen angels begin a mystery. A second, more concerning enigma for young mother Ann, is the new invisible friend Megan calls Boy.
While old hand holds young, pink sneakers and orthopedic shoes go for daily walks around the block. Are the innocent five-year-old’s most profound questions about life answered by the neighborhood’s least reliable source of wisdom or the keeper of all things unexplained?
Nothing is quite as it seems on the quiet street in the idyllic neighborhood where a young family and an unwelcome presence are both searching for the elusive place called home.
”Amusing.” “Touching.” “Unexpected.”
This novella is not yet released. Please let me know what you think of the first chapter printed below.
CHAPTER ONE
Mommy, you said I could.
An ancient porch swing, checkered by time, hangs in the shade of a wrap-around porch. Footfalls creak on the enameled deck slats of the pristine Victorian home as the scuffed heels of an old woman’s orthopedic shoes come around a bend on the porch. Wearing pull-up hosiery and a well-worn duster of floral print, Freda walks toward the swing with an unhurried pace.
When the first patches of early morning sunlight wash over her warm eyes, rosy cheeks and deep wrinkles, she smiles pleasantly. “Oh goodness. What a beautiful day.”
Heaped in her arms are a variety of cushions and bags. Upon coming to the swing, she bends and fussily arranges them. Then after settling into their softness, she does what she always does when she looks at the house next door – she sighs – wearily.
Shaggy grass, draping wood vine and low-hanging tree limbs all but obscure the utterly pitiable plea of a faded sign: For Sale. Price Reduced. Make Offer. The forlorn white clapboard house it advertises is the only-occasionally-occupied-and-even-then-not-for-very-long eyesore of the otherwise idyllic neighborhood of charming homes.
As Freda rummages through her sacks for yarns and needles, the slaps of screen doors and the voices of children coming out to play begin to be heard along the rarely-traveled avenue. Their back and forth calls are pulling together the week’s third game of roller hockey in the morning coolness.
With their carefree tones filling the street, Freda observes the children with a satisfied continence. Her fingers begin their work. Pearl one, knit two. The back and forth creaking of the porch swing accompanies the rhythm of her fingers and her smile never leaves her eyes or the corners of her mouth.
A small car comes around a corner, then proceeds up the avenue. With their game now in progress, the children seem scarcely to notice, but move aside just the same. A moment later, a large U-haul also turns the distant corner and rumbles up the street. Both vehicles come to a stop in front of the forlorn clapboard house.
Hands cease their work and the swing stops its motion. Freda squints over the frame of her glasses. “Well, here they are,” she muses to herself.
Car doors slam shut. Moments later, a young woman and little girl come together on the shaggy parking. Although Ann wears grubby blue jeans with splotches and smears of paint, she carries herself with poise. She extends her arm to embrace five-year-old Megan who cuddles at her side. Both behold the house. There is as much apprehension in Megan’s innocent brown eyes as there is pride in Ann’s confident baby blues.
“Well Megan, what do you think?”
When there is no answer, Ann twists around and bends to observe her little girl’s squinted eyes, wrinkled nose and puckered lips.
“It’s awfully messy, Mommy.”
“It is a little messy now, but it’s going to be wonderful.”
The cab doors of the U-haul open and close. Ann watches her husband of seven years approach. Joshua smiles warmly, then slips into a family embrace with Ann and Megan. Blake, Joshua’s lanky teenage brother whose face is presently distorted by a raised nostril and a creased forehead, lags behind as he surveys the tangle of foliage.
“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Joshua comments.
“I can’t believe you actually paid for this,” Blake complains. “You have seen this catastrophe before, right? I mean, you’ve seen movies about houses like this, right? The Money Pit. Poltergeist. And the documentary: Ten Signs That You Have You Gone Completely Insane.”
“It just needs a little TLC.” Ann laughs. “Yes, we’ve been here. Just wait; the inside is wonderful. It was a bargain and it will be perfect.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Joshua leans to kiss his wife.
After craning her neck around to watch her parents kiss, Megan rolls her eyes.
Blake coaxes a giggle out of Megan by mirroring her expression, then faces the family. “Alright, are we going to stand around making smoochy-face all day or are we gonna do this? I’m pumped.” Blake’s tank top shows off a flex of his lean muscles.
“Uncle Blake, you’re a silly uncle,” Megan teases.
“Silly? You dare to call me silly? Grrarrrrr,” Blake roars. “Silly uncle is monster that wants to eat tasty niece.”
With a shriek of delight, Megan runs into the yard of knee-deep grass. Blake lurches after her like the dread monster whose hunger he foretold. As Ann and Joshua laugh, Joshua’s eyes stop on something. He nudges Ann and inclines his head. “I think we just met our neighbor.”
She follows his gaze over to the porch swing of the Victorian next door where Freda unabashedly looks back at them through binoculars. Her old fingers wiggle a wave beside the still-held binoculars. The couple laughs uncomfortably, then returns the woman’s finger wave. Ann speaks through her teeth without moving her lips. “That’s kind of odd. Why don’t we go inside and show Megan and Blake around?” Ann digs in her pocket, retrieves the keys, then perks. “Oh, I almost forgot...”
When she turns toward the car, she recoils. All the children who had been playing in the street are stopped dead in their tracks staring at the new family in absolute silence. After sharing a wary glance with Joshua, Ann quickly walks to the car and opens the back door. A potted violet sits on the seat. She grabs it, then with quick glance at the staring kids, shuts the door. She breezes up the walk, past Joshua, again speaking through her teeth. “This is really creepy. Why is everyone watching us?”
Upon spying the violet, Megan comes running. Breathlessly, “Mommy, Mommy, you said I could...”
Ann graciously bends to hand the plant to Megan.
* * *
Sunlight falls through windowpanes upon the spotless wood floors and vacant walls of the clapboard house, wonderfully illuminating its cozy spaces. A tiny spider hangs from the worn staircase banister busily spinning its web to a post.
The silence is disturbed by the oak entry door, with panes of beveled glass, groaning on its hinges to open. Holding the violet firmly before her, Megan is the first to enter. She looks around in wonderment. “Oh, this is so big. It looks much more betterer on the inside.” Her comment is followed by a relieved and very exaggerated roll of her eyes. As she proceeds past the staircase, Megan curiously looks in and around every nook and cranny. The screen door slams, then bounces shut behind the family.
The kitchen’s empty glass cupboards with untold coats of paint sit slightly ajar. Mottled sunlight streams through a window of ancient paned glass into the equally ancient stained iron sink below. Water drips from a porcelain-handled faucet with a steady kerplunk. The quiet absorbing its lonesome echo gives way to the footfalls and chatter of the approaching family.
Wonderment is in her eyes when Megan enters the kitchen. With Ann, Joshua and Blake trailing behind, she heads straight for the sink. Standing on tip-toe, she strains with outstretched arms toward the windowsill above. Ann’s hands come around hers to take the plant and position it on the sill. “Now this is home,” Megan proudly states.
Imitating a static-filled 1960s Apollo radio transmission, Blake speaks into his hands. “Roger that. The violet has landed. Over, Houston, it is home.”
Joshua nudges Ann’s, points out the window and angles his head. Although nearly obscured by low branches, Freda happily sways back and forth on her porch swing as she crochets. “You want those branches to stay, right?”
“Probably a good idea.”
Joshua gathers Ann and Megan into another embrace. “This is so right.”
Blake wipes a pretend tear, drapes himself over them, then sniffs while speaking with an excruciatingly poor English accent. “It’s all so lov-er-ly.”
Big brother delivers a playful elbow to Blake’s ribs. “Hey, way to ruin a moment, bro.”
With a villainous burst of laughter, Blake lurches from the kitchen as if he has now become a hunchback – presumably fleeing angry villagers as hunchbacks are prone to do. Ann and Joshua laugh as they guide Megan ahead of them out of the kitchen.
When everyone has stepped out of the kitchen and the kerplunk of the water has again become loud again, the petals of the violet flutter – and Freda, although nearly obscured by the low-hanging branches, looks up from her work.
* * *
Footfalls reverberate on creaking stairs as Ann leads the family up the staircase and around a corner into the upstairs hall. Her voice echoes off the vacant walls and floors. “The bathroom is on the left. Notice the convenient separate faucets for hot and cold, and the rubber stopper on a chain.” She shudders. “It will be updated, trust me. And this is our room.” The family enters a spacious bedroom. “Note the wainscoting and authentic east-facing bay window to let in the morning sun, hardwood floors, elegant trim throughout.” Blake and Megan go straight to the window and peer curiously at the view below. As he’s nodding with approval, Blake takes Megan’s hand and accompanies her back to the hall.
The next doorway opens to a cozy, pale yellow room with a dormer window that faces the side yard. Walls of enameled wood plank give it warmth and character. Megan inhales with anticipation. “And this is my room?”
“This is your room.”
“I love it!” Megan’s little legs take her to examine a built-in bookshelf and then the closet. She clamors onto the window seat to survey the view of the Victorian next door. She climbs down, then with a big smile, runs in a circle with her arms outstretched, squealing with delight. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”
As everyone covers their ears, Ann yells over the searing expression of joy. “I think we’ll put in carpet.”
“Good plan.” Joshua agrees with a cringe.
With a finger stuck in his ear, Blake steps into the hall, curiously opens a linen closet, then jiggles the locked doorknob on another door. He reaches up, feels along the casing, takes down a dusty skeleton key, blows wads of dust off it and is just about to put it in the lock when Ann rushes up. “Uh, attic – yellow jackets – let’s not go there just now.”
With a sideways twist of his mouth, and doleful shake of his head, Blake surrenders the key. “Hey, there’s a surprise. I bet this place has skunks in the cellar and bats in the belfry.”
“You’re probably right, but we don’t need to meet them all today.” Ann smirks smartly at him, then passes the key to Joshua, who returns it to the casing.
Joshua enthusiastically adds, “We’ll be having them for dinner tomorrow.”
“Yum. Vermin.”
With a chuckle and firm pat on Blake’s shoulder, Joshua propels him down the hall toward the staircase. “Not to eat. As guests, moron.”
“Me disappointed. Me like vermin.”
Megan runs up, giggling and latches on to her uncle Blake’s hand. With the wooden floor creaking under their steps, they all walk back to the staircase. Though the family disappears around the corner to descend the groaning stairs, their conversation continues with Ann speaking. “I read a magazine article on how to fix creaky stairs.”
“You got anything for creaky bones after we get done scaling them fifty times?” Joshua inquires.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Ann replies right before a rather exaggerated smooch.
“Oh, hubba-hubba,” Blake teases.
They’re all laughing as the sounds of their passage grow faint, the front screen door spring screeches, and the sound of footsteps leave the home. When the door slaps closed behind them, light curiously flickers behind the keyhole of the attic door. It shudders briefly against its jamb.
* * *
The sun is blazing high in the sky as Joshua and Blake wearily shuttle boxes from the nose to the tailgate of the now nearly empty truck. Sweat runs from the men’s brows. Their shirts are soaked and their skin glistens.
The front screen door bounces closed. Ann and Megan make their way from the house to the truck with hands full of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. Blake jumps down, then seeing them, calls back into the truck. “Hey bro, take a break. The Red Cross is here.” After wiping his brow with his already saturated shirt, Blake extends his hand for a drink. Megan holds a glass while Ann pours from the pitcher. Using both hands, Megan stretches to hold it up to him. “Thank you little Miss.”
“Oh, you’re welcome,” Ann assures her brother-in-law while Megan readies another glass. “And thank you. It is so muggy today. I don’t know how you two are holding up so well.”
“Barely holding up,” Joshua clarifies. “I’m ready for a break.” He plops down on the tailgate of the truck. Blake heads for a shady spot on the curb, sprawls out and reclines against the trunk of a tree. Ann pours the drink for Joshua, then she and Megan sit on nearby packing cartons to share a glass between themselves.
“Thanks, hon.” Joshua lifts the glass, then guzzles half of his lemonade.
“After a couple more boxes are unpacked, the kitchen will be open for business.”
“And business, you shall have. I’m starving,” Blake assures his sister-in-law.
“You’re always starving.” Joshua shrugs.
“It’s ‘cause I’m a stud.” Blake flexes his glistening muscles.
When one of the neighborhood tweens whizzes by on rollerblades with a hockey stick in hand, Joshua quickly eases off the tailgate, steps out into the street, then calls after him. “Hey kid.”
Bobby Fergusson veers into a lightning-quick turn and stops. His expression uncertain, he points at himself questioningly.
“Yeah, you.”
While skillfully meandering Joshua’s general direction with a rather suspicious and belligerent expression on his face, Bobby preemptively defends himself. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t say you did. You’re pretty good on those.”
“So?” Bobby’s lightly-freckled nose wrinkles with scorn.
“Ooo – kay.” Joshua’s head spontaneously angles to the side as if a pain has just occurred in his neck. “I was wondering if you and the other kids might want to earn some money doing yard work.”
A short burst of preadolescent, sarcastic laughter escapes, then is choked back. “Yeah, right,” Bobby mocks. With a parting and somewhat disdainful glance toward the house, Bobby spins about and heads off down the street. He yells, “Hey guys, guess what this old dude just asked me.”
Joshua’s mouth falls open. “Old dude? What a rude little punk.”
Blake leans forward as if he might come to his feet. “I say we kick his...” He catches a glimpse of Megan looking at him with innocent, wide eyes, smiles guiltily and leans back against the tree trunk. “So, I guess we’re back to my idea about renting a flamethrower.”
Ann rises and looks down the street where the kids have congregated. “You know, there is just something odd about this whole...”
“Hello!” Freda veritably yells into Ann’s ear.
“Gaaaa!” Ann’s spasm causes her to splash lemonade all over her shirt.
Freda draws her hands up to her mouth while Joshua, Blake and Megan burst into laughter.
“Oh, I am so sorry. Did I frighten you?”
Ann forces her scowl to melt into an understanding smile. “Just a little.”
“I’m sorry to laugh at you, Hon, but I needed that.” Joshua sobers, then turns his attention to the old woman. “Hello.” He steps forward with his hand extended. “I’m Joshua and this is my wife, Ann, daughter Megan and my brother Blake.”
Blake pulls his lanky frame together and stands.
While Freda’s blank eyes reveal her mind’s struggle to absorb the names, she nods hesitantly, then introduces herself. “I am Freda from next door. That’s twice now I haven’t made a good impression. Are you all right?” She gently touches Ann’s hand.
“Fine. Fine. I needed to cool off anyway.” Ann pinches her wet shirt to pull it away from her skin.
Freda regards her quizzically.
“The lemonade. Spilled. Icy cold...” Ann widens her eyes and raises her brow as if that will communicate the joke better.
Freda’s blank eyes belie further confusion. She nods with an absent smile. “I see.” A moment passes as Freda’s train of thought finds it way back onto the tracks. She suddenly perks. “It occurred to me that you all might be getting hungry, so I brought you a little get-acquainted snack.”
“Right on.” Blake pumps his fist.
“Oh, I’m so glad to do something right.” Freda begins to fuss about in a plastic grocery sack, eventually producing a handful of condiment packets from various fast-food establishments.
Unaware of the family’s exchange of puzzled and wry glances, she begins to explain as she sorts through them. “Oh, these are very good and they give them away for free, if you can imagine in this day and age.” She gestures for Blake to hold out his hand. “For you, a ketchup and a mayonnaise. Mix them together, just fabulous! Oh...” she pulls out a crushed cracker in a distressed plastic wrapper. “And a cracker. I know how you growing boys can eat.” She winks. “It appears to be somewhat crumbled. I think possibly it was dropped or stepped on or squished down in a car seat.” With a shrug and a little smile, Freda turns to Ann.
“For you, a taco sauce and a... well, I don’t know what it is.” She shoves it into Ann’s hand, then dumps a couple items in Joshua’s hand. With a sparkle in her eye, she bends to look into Megan’s wide eyes. “And I have something special for you. Sweets for the sweet.” After more rustling, Freda produces a spork and a packet of honey. “This is my own secret recipe. What you do is squirt the honey on the spork and then you have a sucker.”
“Oh goody.” Megan twitches with anticipation.
While Megan and Freda work to create the sucker, the adults exchange perplexed and peculiar expressions. By the time the sucker is finished, Megan’s hands are so covered in honey that neither she nor Freda can throw the packet away. Ann plucks it disdainfully from the old woman’s sticky fingers.
“Thank you dear.” Freda turns again to Megan. “I was just going for my daily walk. Would you like to come along?” With honey now over both of her hands and most of her face, Megan looks up at her parents expectantly and licks the spork.
Joshua’s concern is obvious. “You wouldn’t be crossing any streets would you?”
“Oh, heavens no. I’ve learned my lesson with those.” Freda grimaces.
After sharing a guarded look with Josh, Ann hesitates. “I – suppose.”
“Goody! I’m going around the block for the first time,” Megan boasts.
“Just be careful and don’t eat any more... snacks,” is Ann’s motherly caution.
Freda and Megan wave good-bye, then join sticky hands as they walk away.
Unfortunately, they make it no further than the first trash can waiting at the curb. Megan stands on tip-toe as Freda rummages through its contents. Retrieved items are happily plunked into her grocery sack.
“A Norman Rockwell moment,” Ann observes to the laughter of all, but then her anxious look betrays her. She sets her lemonade down. “I think I’ll join them.”
Joshua extends his hand in front of her. “She’ll be fine. Depending on how many cans are at the curb she could be gone – oh – say a half hour or so. Freda may be a little unusual, but she doesn’t seem too terribly dangerous. Hon, relax, they’ll be fine.”
Ann watches them a moment more, then picks up her lemonade. “That would eliminate roughly two hundred questions. And no helper...” She smiles, holds her glass up in a toast, then takes a leisurely sip.
* * *
Slow, white orthopedic shoes walk next to the bouncy steps of fancy pink sneakers. Megan’s crisp voice rings out. “How old are you?”
“Really old.”
“I thought so.”
“How old are you?”
“I am five.”
“Oh, to be five...”
“Why do you look through bin-oc-u-lars?”
“My eyes aren’t that sharp anymore and I’ve found that I can see almost everything going on with...”
“Mommy says that's a little weird. What are you doing while you’re swinging?”
“Well, I crochet.”
“What’s that?”
“I make things out of yarns and thread.”
“Like what?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?”
“Mommy says I’m a expert.”
“Hmmmm. Then I’m going to have to come up with a lot more answers.”
“Prob’ly.”
The orthopedic shoes stop. “Let me see if I can show you what crocheting is.” The fancy pink sneakers go a couple steps further, then double back. They rise up on tip-toe. Freda’s hand digs in her duster pocket, then pulls out a crappy little angel that is crocheted around a bit of twig. “I hope you don’t think this is silly, but I crochet angels.” Wrinkled hands display a horrible little creation that could – with enough imagination – possibly – be an angel.
“Ohhh. It’s beautiful.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yes.”
Freda’s age-spotted hand extends the angel to Megan's pudgy, grubby hands. “I make them as a reminder that angels watch over people.”
“They do?”
“All the time. Would you like to have this one?”
Megan's fingers pick at the twig. “Why is there a stick in it?”
“It’s an artistic touch that I add.”
“But why?”
“Well, the stick is a common thing. It’s nothing we even think twice about. The divine is just as common and we never seem to notice it either.”
“Oh.” Little fingers pick at the twig a bit more. “Yes. I would like to keep it.”
“Wonderful.” Freda’s hand meets Megan’s hand and they clasp together. Shoes resume their walk.
* * *
The neighborhood kids are again gathered in a huddle, watching from a distance as Blake and Joshua continue to unload the U-Haul. A very annoyed dark haired boy questions Bobby. “You didn’t even ask how much he was going to pay?”
“I didn’t think anyone would seriously want to do it.”
A blond haired boy with blue spikes rising from the top of his head snarls. “I think you’re seriously scared.”
“I live across the street from it so I ain’t scared, jackass. My mom has seen people run out of there and not even get in their car. They just run down the street.”
“Nu-uh. You are so full of...”
Bobby thrusts out his hand. “Movers and a tow truck and a For Sale sign came the next day. Bet me.”
Dark hair interrupts. “It’s yard work, geniuses. I don’t care if the place is haunted. We don’t have to go inside. My mom says I gotta pay half for school clothes so while you two bone-heads are...”
Bobby nearly shouts, “You know what? Fine. I’m in and I don’t want anyone callin’ me a wuss.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
* * *
Through the attic window of the clapboard house that is littered with spider webs and dead bugs, the three neighborhood kids approach the moving truck in the street below. Joshua and Blake cease their labor and turn toward the boys.
* * *
“...so I’m interested,” spiked hair says to complete his pitch.
Joshua and Blake share a look. As Joshua studies the sweaty, expectant little faces, he stops at Bobby’s. “So now you want a job?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“Your enthusiasm is killin’ me.” Joshua frowns, then looks at the more hopeful, entrepreneurial faces at Bobby’s sides. “The three of you, huh?”
“If the pay is right,” dark hair says with the calculation of a future businessman.
Joshua beckons his brother to join him, then turns and they take a couple steps away. He speaks quietly. “Think they’ll show?”
Blake shrugs. “I wouldn’t pay them in advance.”
The heads of both turn to take in the sight of foliage overtaking the house. They look back at each other with dread.
“Think they’ll actually work or just goof off?”
“Listen…” Blake inclines an ear toward the boys forceful whispering.
“Way to go, asshole.”
“It was your brilliant idea, dip-wad. I’m just goin’ along with it.”
“Don’t piss him off, I need the money.”
Blake gestures a thumbs up. “I think they’re motivated.”
With a flex of his jaw, Joshua turns back around. “Okay. I’m thinking the five of us...”
“Four, bro. I got plans tomorrow.”
Joshua looks at Blake who then smiles a smile that reveals far too many teeth for honesty.
“No you don’t.”
“I have to go to a...”
“As I was saying, the five of us can kick this out in about three hours. I’m thinking about thirty...”
“Thirty five. Each,” dark hair quickly inserts.
“Fair enough. Nine a.m.?”
* * *
Through the dirty attic window, the kids walk away from Joshua and Blake just as Freda and Megan return from their walk. Their brief encounter is followed by waves goodbye as Megan stays with her father and Freda ambles back toward the Victorian.
The old woman suddenly stops.
After looking around a moment, she turns and abruptly looks directly up at the attic window. Freda smiles a very little smile, winks, then continues her homeward trek.
* * *
With filthy sticky hands, Megan holds up the crappy angel made of a twig and dingy yarn. While the little girl patiently explains, her father examines the creation with as much doubt as curiosity. “It’s a angel, Daddy. See, these are the wings and this is its hallo.”
“Ooohhh,” Joshua says with a tone that conveys the exact opposite of delighted. “I can see that now. But why is there a stick in it?”
“It’s artistic, Daddy.”
The screen door bangs shut, announcing Ann, who comes down the steps and approaches the U-haul where Joshua and Megan are speaking. Her eyebrows rise to observe Megan’s filthy hands and face. “Oh, Megan, what did you get into?”
“Only every trash can the whole way,” Megan chirps proudly.
“And whose idea was that?”
“Freda’s. She says we’re lucky because usually the truck’s been here by now.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, she says people throw away things that are perfectly good but just a little broken or worn-out but still good.”
“Uh-huh. And what does she do with all the junk she finds?”
“She fixes it and makes it gooder than it was before.”
“She told you that?” Ann squints. “I think she probably just hoards it away in plastic grocery sacks. Lord knows what’s inside that house.”
Megan blinks at her mother with wide, innocent eyes that fail to understand the complexities of hoarding.
“Well, from now on, I don’t want you digging in other people’s trash, or any trash anywhere, okay?”
“But it was fun.”
“Meeeegan.”
“Ooo-kay. But I can watch, huh?”
Ann sighs. “Yes, you can watch. But I don’t want you getting hurt, okay? Without even mentioning the germs you are exposed to in garbage, you can get poked or cut while digging around in trash like that.”
Megan’s jaw sets and her lower lip protrudes.
“I’m not mad at you so don’t get mad at me. It just scares me. Why don’t we go inside and get washed up, sweetheart? It’s almost lunchtime and you can have a PBJ.”
“Okay,” Megan answers crisply. Touching Megan’s sticky hand brings more distress to Ann’s face. She looks at Joshua with the same expression and adds a shudder. When they turn to walk away, Megan bends nearly backwards to look up to her mother. “Freda found a nik-whack that was only a little broken.”
“I think you mean, knick-knack. How lucky for her.”
“I know!”
“And I was also lucky,” Joshua calls after them. “The kids came back and took me up on the yard work.”
“Really? I saw them talking with you. That’s wonderful.”
“And, you know what else would be wonderful?” Blake blends into the conversation. “Pizza.”
“Really?” Ann feigns surprise with an abrupt pulling back of her head. “I thought maybe that cracker filled you up.” Ann’s eyes twinkle mischievously as Blake’s eyes narrow.
Blake raises his arms and morphs into his monster persona. “Grarrrrr!”
* * *
From the vantage of the attic window, Ann and Megan turn and run toward the house as Blake lurches after. Their squeals and Blake’s growls are barely audible.
Reflected in the filthy glass is the faint reflection of impassive eyes.
Watching.
Author’s note:
I’ve struggled with this novella, which is why it remains unpublished. I tell it from the outside: what is seen and heard rather than what is felt. So it lacks the intimacy I would expect in a book, especially one of my books. In some ways it works, but in other ways it feels more like an outline to a story than a story. I’d like to know what you think. Should I scrap this and start over? Or is it told the way it needs to be told?
