Lily is such a brat! She knew if she stopped there, I wouldn’t be able to resist picking up the story. But she’s right. We really should get this written down before my first transformation.
So—what we heard just then was something scratching at the back wall of the mausoleum. Lily’s eyes bugged when she caught the sound. I suppose mine did too, because it was super weird. To begin with, that wall is thick. Even if someone was scratching on it from the outside, we shouldn’t have been able to hear it inside. Secondly, though we weren’t hurting anything, we knew we weren’t supposed to be in there. So the idea of getting caught was scary.
My fingers were counting off against my thumb, but I decided I should do the guy thing of being brave. So I shrugged and said, “Probably just a branch moving in the wind.”
“There aren’t any branches back there,” Lily pointed out. “No trees or bushes at all. It’s just lawn.”
Still trying to be brave, I said, “Should I go see what’s doing it?”
She thought for a minute. I knew she was thinking because she was chewing the end of her right braid. Lily has long black hair that she keeps in two braids. The right one is her thinking braid. She saves the left one for when she’s angry. When she starts chewing that one, I get nervous. Finally she said, “We’d better hide. It could be my grandfather. It would not be good for him to find us here.”
I nodded, and we scooted into the retreats we had worked out when we’d first made the place our clubhouse: a pair of spots on opposite sides of the building, each behind a low platform that held a coffin. When we had chosen the hidey-holes, they had been dusty and filled with cobwebs, and I had kind of freaked about how filthy they were. But after we cleaned them out, they weren’t too bad.
Lily told me once that when she was in her hiding spot she would lie on her back, fold her arms over her chest, and pretend she was a corpse. I suppose when your best friend is the gravedigger’s granddaughter and her nickname is “Weird Lily,” you have to expect such things.
As for me, I preferred to crouch in a position that would let me leap up and run. The problem with this was that my knees would begin to hurt after a few minutes. Fortunately, the scratching stopped before my legs got too sore.
Lifting my head so I could see over the coffin, I called softly, “I think it’s okay.”
Lily popped up on her side of the room and glanced toward the back wall. Her eyes grew wide. Without saying a thing, she pointed.
I saw it at once: a circle on the wall, about a foot wide, that seemed to be glowing. It was dim, and you had to look twice to be sure it was really there. Even so, it was pretty freaky.
“Maybe just a shiny spot on the stone that we never noticed before?” I ventured, trying to keep the quaver out of my voice.
“I don’t think so,” said Lily. She stepped from behind the coffin, went to the wall, and pressed her hand against it. Without turning, she motioned for me to join her. “Does this feel warm?” she whispered.
I touched the spot. It didn’t feel that warm to me, but to be sure I walked to the east wall and pressed my hand against that one. Definitely cooler! I returned to the back wall and tried again. Lily shook her head. “It’s gone now.”
“Are you playing with my mind?” I demanded.
I still hadn’t forgotten the time she had convinced me that some nights she slept in the mausoleum.
“No mind games!” she said, pulling the ends of her braids so that they crossed over her heart—her way of saying she is being totally honest. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. Let’s go look from the other side.”
Lily went first, in case it had been her grandfather. After she had checked, she gave the all-clear signal and I followed her to the back of the mausoleum. The outside wall was blank and unmarked.
I knelt to study the grass. “No sign of it being stepped on,” I said.
Lily shook her head. “Okay, that was really strange.”
“Which probably means you liked it!”
She grinned. “Of course!” Then her face grew solemn again. “Even so, I want to know what was doing it.”
My reply was interrupted by a rumble of thunder. I glanced up. The sky had gotten dark. “I’d better get going. The storm is going to hit soon, and Mom will be mad if I come in wet.”
“The real storm is going to be over that report card,” said Lily.
I shuddered. The thought of showing my mom that F was far more frightening than hanging out in a mausoleum with Weird Lily Carker and hearing mysterious scratchings on the back wall.
As it turned out, Mom didn’t get angry. That would have been unpleasant, but better than what actually happened, which was that she started to cry. Not wailing sobs or anything. She just sat and stared at the report card until tears rolled down her cheeks.
I really, really wished she would just yell at me and get it over with.
Finally she put the card on the table—we were in the kitchen—and left the room. I sat where I was, feeling like a steaming pile of dog poo. Or, more precisely, what a steaming pile of dog poo would feel like if it also felt miserable and frightened.
After a while I sighed and started up the back stairs. Front or back, going upstairs takes some time, since I have to touch three important spots along the wall to do it. I can’t explain why this is. It’s just that ever since Dad went off on a caving expedition and never came back, I have to do certain things. If I skip them, my gut gets tight and I feel sick and scared. The only way to make the feeling go away is to go back and start over again.
The upstairs hall is lined with portraits of my ancestors, including a painting of Tia LaMontagne, my sort-of grandmother. Tia had been married to Arthur Doolittle for a few years, then mysteriously disappeared. That’s why I call her my sort-of grandmother: though she was married to my grandfather, she’s not my father’s mother.
Tia was a painter, and the second floor of the tower used to be her studio. It’s a guest room now, though we haven’t had any guests since Dad disappeared. A door in that room leads to the third level of the tower, which is where my grandfather had his writing office. I’d never been up there. It’s locked, and according to my father, his mother threw away the key after Arthur abandoned them.
Tia was far and away the most beautiful of my relatives, but in such an odd way that the picture gave me the creeps. Even so, sometimes I would stop and stare at it. Unlike the other portraits, this was set outdoors. Dressed in a black gown, Tia sits in front of a large tree, her legs folded to the side. The ground is covered with brilliantly colored leaves, hidden in places by strands of mist. Tia’s hair, redder than the most scarlet of the leaves, tumbles over her shoulders like a river of flame, reaching nearly to her waist. Her right hand, lifted to shoulder level, points toward the enormous full moon that floats over her right shoulder. Her left hand rests in her lap, thumb and little finger folded under.
Three details make the picture particularly strange. First, it’s set in the cemetery; behind her are tombstones and a mausoleum.
Second, on the moon are the hands of a clock. It is five minutes to midnight.
Third, despite her smile, a tear is trickling down her cheek.
Dad used to stare at the painting too. If I came up beside him while he was doing so, he would put his hand on my shoulder and say, “My father used to say there was a long story behind that picture, and the key to the family mystery. When I begged him to explain, he would only say, ‘I’ll tell you more on your eleventh birthday.’”
That was all Dad ever said about it. He didn’t need to say more. I knew that by the time he had turned eleven, his father was gone.
Like father, like son …
In my room I lined up my pencils by length, then took out the picture I was working on, an attempt to copy the cover of one of my grandfather’s books. It was cool: two horrifying monsters wrestling in a swamp while behind them a beautiful woman without many clothes presses herself against a big old tree, screaming.
I love drawing. It’s about the only time I can shut out the world and not think about stuff like how many times I have to touch the door before it’s safe to open it. I got so lost in the picture, I almost forgot about the trouble with my mother.
Then I smelled the hamburgers.
Mom knows I can’t resist hamburgers, so she cooks them whenever she feels she might be even partly in the wrong. It’s her way of apologizing without actually having to say “I’m sorry.”
Mom isn’t a big talker.
I tried to resist but the smell was too good. Before long I was downstairs, setting the table—my role when Mom cooks apology burgers. Later, as we were clearing the dishes, she said, “I have to work on that tapestry I’m making for the new hotel over in Winchester. Want to join me in the Loom Room while you do your homework?”
Mom’s a weaver. She does most of her work on a big loom Dad built for her back when I was a baby. Later he made a much smaller version for me. Mom had been using it to teach me to weave. I liked it; the rhythm was relaxing. I don’t use it anymore, though. I stopped when Dad disappeared.
Mom’s big weavings hang in art galleries. One is even in a museum. After Dad disappeared, her weavings changed. Some, filled with dark, jagged designs, were downright disturbing. That was why I was glad when she got the hotel commission: it forced her to create a design more like her work used to be.
It had been a long time since she’d had a new commission. Fortunately, she has a part-time job teaching weaving at the community college. Otherwise, we’d really be in trouble.
“Well?” asked Mom, interrupting my thoughts. “Do you want to join me or not?”
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
“All right, get your books.”
Even though I was pretending it was no big deal, I loved being in the Loom Room. It’s at the front of the house, in the base of the tower. The racks of yarn make it look as if someone has spilled a rainbow on the wall. Behind the bench where Mom sits is a picture of Penelope, weaving as she waits for Odysseus. To Mom’s right is a painting of Arachne, who was turned into a spider for boasting that she could weave better than Athena. Above my own loom, which—with the help of a piece of plywood—I now use as a desk, is a picture of the three fates weaving the destiny of all mankind.
The storm had broken and rain was pounding against the windows. Mom worked on her tapestry. I pretended to work on my math. Everything was very cozy.
Actually, I didn’t plan to pretend about the math. I really did want to get the work done. But my mind kept wandering, distracted partly by the pleasure of watching my mother’s slim, quick fingers manipulate the bright strands of yarn, partly by the howling of the wind. I was trying to force my attention back to my own work when a rumble of thunder shook the house.
As it tapered off, we heard a loud thump from the porch.
Mom looked up. “Go see if the wind blew something over, would you, Jake?”
I sighed, but mostly for effect, stepped into the front parlor, and turned on the light. (With money so tight, we don’t leave on lights we aren’t using.) Even with the light the room was gloomy, since it’s covered with dark-brown wallpaper. Every time I saw that paper, I felt a twinge. Dad had always said he was going to take it down someday. Now every time I saw it I wondered if “someday” would ever come—if he was dead, or had simply gone missing like his own father. If so, might he improve on his father and actually come back to us?
At the front door I was touching the knob for the third time when another bolt of lightning split the sky, this one so close I could hear the crackle of the electricity. The thunder followed almost immediately, shaking the house.
I waited for it to fade, then pulled the door open.
A small cry at my feet caused me to look down.
I let out a yelp of surprise.