Tighter (Page 18)

I followed him, up the stairs and down the hall, my words aimed at his back. “Just hear me out, okay? Because I know what it feels like. I do.”

Milo stopped. Pivoted. “What what feels like?”

“The … pull.” Tall as I was, I’d never been so aware of the couple of inches that Milo had on me.

“The pull,” he repeated. “The pull of what?”

And then, in a spinning second, it was as if I didn’t know him at all. As if Milo’s face lost focus and his features rearranged themselves to look entirely different. What was happening? Was it the side effect of a pill? When had I taken my last pill? I couldn’t remember. Blinking, I stepped to the side, my fingertips touching the wall to hold myself steady. “The pull from the other side.”

This wasn’t coming out right. Even in my own ears, I sounded bewildered. I wobbled on, scrabbling for my truths. “But it’s a bad idea. They come to you when they sense your need. And all they want is to pull you in tighter.” Saying it, I realized that this part, at least, was true. When I needed them most, I became Uncle Jim’s and Hank’s most electric connection to the world they’d left.

Milo shook his head hard like a dog, and in his teasing insolence, he became Milo again as the water droplets smacked across my face. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. “Okay, here’s the deal, Jamie. Maybe you didn’t mean it to be so random, but the last thing I need is some chick from New Jersey suddenly instructing me not to hang out with a guy who died last year.”

“No, Milo. You started this.” My blood burned beneath my skin. “You warned me. Now I’m telling you, Peter can’t be here unless you acknowledge that he is. Don’t do it. The more you give in, the harder he’ll hold on to you; it will be impossible—”

“And what I’m telling you,” interrupted Milo, “is why don’t you figure out how to keep your head on straight and your eyes on my sister? At least till your time here is finished. Meantime, I’ll forget that we had this conversation. That work for ya?”

I swallowed. Milo’s words were the hard push that shoved me outside myself.

We stared at each other. I’d been quick with my convictions, so positive that the kids on the cliff were Jessie and Peter, so certain that Milo possessed something extra special, maybe almost prophetic. I’d been sure that he’d wanted, maybe even needed, to reach out to me that first night on the porch, when he’d warned me about being watched.

I’d trusted my instinct, but I must have made a mistake. What did I have to go on, anyway? Isa hadn’t ever acknowledged the kids on the cliffs. Not either day. That mark on the carpet might have been there already … and these stupid pills … I rubbed my dry eyes. I hadn’t thought this out.

Milo was waiting for my response. “Okay?”

Retreat on this one, Jamie.

“Fine. Just don’t come crying to me when you hear something go bump in the night.” I arched an eyebrow, as if I might have been joking with him all along. My effort to preserve my dignity mortified me. Especially when, without another word, Milo shut the door in my face.

I slunk off, tunneled down to the subterranean family room, flipping from bad movies to nighttime talk shows to news programs. Just like home, only minus all my mild reassurances—Mom’s voice, the woolly maroon afghan. Later, dragging myself upstairs and around the long halls toward my bedroom, I tripped against the darkness. I’d left the lamp on in my bedroom, and as I opened my door, the light spilling out into the hall seemed to ignite my vision.

The children had changed. I sensed it even before I turned to confront the portrait head-on. They were watching me now, with held breath and three sets of eyes. Two boys and their sister, posed exactly as they had always been. Navy velvet, tatted-lace collars, strawberries-and-cream complexions. Then what was different? Was it their expressions that had altered, or my perception?

Slowly and methodically, I made myself step forward. My fingers reached out to touch the canvas, tracing lightly across the bumpy, cool surface, passing over the older boy’s cheek and up to his eye, the center of his pupil, where a tiny hole had been stabbed clean through. I could feel the rough notch of its split against my fingertips.

I touched the other eye. Same. Both eyes of every single child had been punctured through the center. More than a pin, less than a fork. So precise as to be undetected.

Almost undetected.

Stepping back, I was conscious of a dull roar, as if I were holding a conch shell to each of my ears.

It was hardly any change, and yet for all intents, it had mutilated the children. They had become eerie distortions of themselves. My heart tumbled as I stepped back to look at the portrait again. Now that I’d discovered it, there was no way not to see it.

“You think you’re so sly, Peter,” I spoke low into the darkness, my own voice soothing me, reminding me that I was here, truly here, in a way that he was not. “But I don’t. And now I’m learning your tricks, aren’t I?”

Of course, I wasn’t the first person who had discovered them.

ELEVEN

Just by luck, I was able to broach the topic with Connie the very next evening. Milo had gone out with friends, while Isa had been invited by a Green Hill Beach Club family to a barbecue. Since Connie had already bought groceries, she went ahead with dinner. She liked to eat, I’d noticed, and devoted much time to shopping for, preparing and cleaning up meals. It tired me just to watch.

But tonight I decided to help with the salad—a first—which seemed to make her happy. Or at least she was humming as she brushed a marinade onto the tuna steak that she was preparing with tomatoes and capers. When I hauled out the full trash bag to the Dumpster, she thanked me—another first.

The Dumpster was tucked back along the hedgerows. As I yanked it open, dirty collected rainwater sloshed down my legs, and a flock of flies swooped up in my face.

“Ecchh!” I batted them away. Connie had tucked the dead squirrel into a wastepaper bag, but she hadn’t knotted it right. I chucked it into the garbage bag and slammed down the lid, then raced back up to the house.

Connie had set the table. She said grace. Then we ate in silence.

“Pretty day at the beach,” I started. “They had some competitions today, and Isa placed third in her division for diving.”

“Mmmph.” Not a great jumping-off point, so to speak. Connie wasn’t much for activities; she seemed to much prefer the Great Indoors.