She really did walk better with Gandalf’s staff. Maybe it was time to reconsider her use of the cane packed away, abandoned, in her mom’s closet. People had stared at her a lot more back when she’d used it.
But there was no one to stare at her tonight on the empty streets.
“Hello, old friend,” Jake said softly as they arrived at 308 Maple Street.
“Wow,” Tillie marveled. She had seen the house in the family album Jake had shown her, but in person it loomed above them. Maybe Jake’s dad’s old job was a better one. In their town, a lot of people’s parents seemed to have less-good jobs the past couple of years. The night cloaked the white house in a grayish blue. The house had a real porch, not a tiny step holding a single metal chair like at Tillie’s.
Someone had taped a painting of stick figures on the inside of the front door’s window.
“You’re not worried about waking anybody up?” Tillie asked.
Jake didn’t respond. She turned to see him still gazing at the house, a dreamy look in his eye. Then, after a few seconds, he spoke.
“That’s why we’re here at night. We’ll just sneak into the backyard where the tree house is and be quiet.”
“Okay…”
“Hey, I know you’re a lot smarter than me, but give me a little credit here, Hermione.”
“You and the wizard references,” Tillie mumbled.
“Hermione’s a witch, actually…”
Tillie shushed him.
“For not having any siblings, we’re both surprisingly good at bantering,” he said, turning to her for the first time since they’d arrived. “I’m proud of us.”
“No one uses the word ‘bantering.’ That beard really is making you old,” Tillie said under her breath, unable to hide a grin. “You sound even more like my grandpa than usual.”
“See? You’re bantering again.” Jake headed for the fence and motioned for her to come along. “This fence is new. Really trying to keep out the riffraff, huh? Well, I guess we’ll have to climb it,” he said. “Let me think … Okay, you’ll use Gandalf’s staff to steady yourself, and I’ll climb on your shoulders. Wait. Bad idea. Okay, okay, I got it. I’ll dig a hole underneath the fence, and I’ll go under, and you make your body go limp, and I’ll pull you through.”
Tillie pushed gently on the gate. It opened.
“Or we could do that,” Jake said, following her in.
For such an expensive-looking house, it revealed a pretty bare backyard.
Tillie spotted a swing on a thick-trunked tree with tall, curving branches, and a rain-worn tree house propped up on the thinner tree next to it. It had small strips of wood peeling off it. There was a tiny hole carved in the front of it, probably for little-kid Jake to look out of to see when his parents were coming so he could stop his mischief, Tillie thought. A ladder led up to the box-in-the-sky, and it appeared rather precarious.
Tillie shivered and took a photo. She turned the flash off, to keep them disguised by the darkness. She’d grabbed her fastest lens, but still, most of these shots probably wouldn’t turn out.
“Okay, we have to go up there,” Jake said. “Come on.”
It was Tillie’s turn to sound harsher than usual. “I can’t climb that!” She stepped away from him a little bit, using her walking stick to keep her balance in the cold mud of the backyard.
“Look, I know that if he couldn’t talk to me or something, but wanted to send me some kind of message, there’s a possibility he’d leave it up there. Some sign he was okay.”
“Jake, it’s not … realistic,” Tillie said.
“Or maybe he’s just been there and I’ll find evidence of that. Evidence he’s hiding from something. Trust me, if he’s running or hiding from … whatever, then he’s been here.”
Cubicle Man’s face emerged in Tillie’s mind once again, hovering there like a ghost. She would hide from him, too, if he were after her.
“He was so happy in this house.” Jake looked dreamy again, and a little sad. “We used to…” Jake paused, and took a breath, holding on to it for a little too long and then pouring it out in a stream of stories. “We built this together,” he said, nodding up toward the tree house. “We used to hang out in it constantly. We read through all of Tolkien here on weekend afternoons. He’s a Tolkien fanatic. He painted an awesome picture of Aragorn that’s hanging in my room! And he taught me birdcalls. We played superheroes together. That’s why I wore that red—well, pink—cape. He was Super Hawk and I was … I was Super Ladybug.” Jake chuckled softly, and Tillie did, too. She could absolutely see fourth-grade Jake as a Super Ladybug type of kid. “I don’t really remember why, but ladybugs are awesome, and totally underrated … Anyway,” he said, his voice wistful, the night breeze blowing through his Gandalf beard, “when I wore the cape to school and people made fun of me, my dad was like, ‘Listen, Super Ladybug, there will always be jerks around. Terrible jerks. Be a nice guy and have fun and enjoy being the guy you are and the jerks will just be a “blah blah blah” in your ear.’ And I did what he said. I wore that cape every day for a year, and I loved it, and it was, like, the best year ever. So, thanks, Dad. And that’s the magic of this tree house, okay? Anyone who had to hide would want to hide here. And he’d leave something behind for me. I know it.”
Tillie tried to imagine her own dad talking to her like that and she couldn’t. She thought of when Jake had made fun of her in sixth grade, and how he had been the “blah blah blah” in her ear.
His dad sounded really fun.
“Well, you’ll have to search for evidence yourself.” She considered handing him the camera, but felt her body resisting that idea as she clutched it tighter and pulled it against her chest.
“Tillie, give me a break, I need you!” He turned to her with his big eyes, surrounded by furry gray.
She stared up at the tree house. Sneaking out was enough. It was already too much. All of this. But climbing up a ladder? She’d break her bones again. Her other leg wouldn’t work.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’ll fall.”
And that was that.
“Okay.” Jake’s eyes morphed from gloomy to determined. “I’m goin’ up.”
While Jake climbed the ladder, Tillie wandered toward the side of the house to the area right in front of where the fence began. Ivy grew on the walls and curled around a first-floor window like hair around a face. She wanted to capture the image so badly, but she had no light. She didn’t want to ruin the night’s shadow effects or wash out the cool colors that came from the slight glow of the neighbors’ back porch lights, so she diffused the light of the flash by placing a hand in front of it. The light filled up her eyes and for a moment she was blinded, and then, once again, darkness surrounded her.
Out of that darkness, and the slightly open fence, came Jake. His shoulders slouched. His beard sagged a little off his chin and a twig jutted out of the gray.
Tillie’s hip and leg began to tremble a bit, and she sat down by the window.
“There’s nothing up there,” Jake grumbled, kicking the dirt. “This was stupid.” He came toward Tillie and leaned against the outside of the house.
And then came a noise—a shuffling.
Tillie motioned for Jake to be quiet. She forced herself up. “What was that?” she whispered. Something was moving nearby, outdoors. Tillie began to tremble as she pictured Cubicle Man, his figure coming toward them in the dark, having followed them all the way there, stopping them from telling some secret they shouldn’t know, keeping them from their search for answers.
“Jake…” she whispered, reaching for his arm.
And then they heard a scraping, like the sound of long nails against a door.
“What was that?” Jake said.
Tillie stopped breathing.
“It’s him,” Jake whispered. He hopped up and down. “It’s him! He’s here somewhere. He heard me. We found him.”
“Or a different him…” Tillie whispered. “I can’t run!” A shot of panic crept up her spine.
The scratching and shuffling seemed to get louder, but Tillie couldn’t be sure.
“Wait,” she said, so quietly she was really just mouthing words. “The noise is next to us.”
Jake turned toward the fence to go back, but Tillie stopped him.
“It’s not going to be your dad, Jake,” Tillie said, holding his arm. “You know that.”
They both stayed put. Silent, listening.
Tillie’s eyes still pulsed a little from the flash. She squinted at their surroundings, studying, searching for what monsters prowled, and as she registered the strong breeze, and the foliage running along the house, she felt her whole body relax. There, right next to the window, she saw a leafless bush scraping along the outside of the house in a fury.
But Jake had already put his bearded face to the ivy-adorned first-floor window.
“I hear it in there,” Jake said. “Hey, what if the people actually moved out, and my dad is hiding out in there?”
“No, Jake, it’s just next to us. Look—” Tillie pointed to the bush, but Jake remained in another world.
His nose touching the glass, he spoke at full volume, “Dad? Dad?” Tillie tried to stop him, but he knocked on the window. “Dad!” he called out much too loudly.
And at that, a light switched on, the curtains opened, and a face appeared.
“Aaaaah!” screeched a little girl, her head peeking just above the windowsill, face-to-face with young Gandalf. “Aaaaah!”
“Aaaaah!” Jake screamed back, at almost the same piercing pitch.
As Jake and the girl both shrieked, Tillie snapped a shot, and then grabbed Jake’s arm and pulled him away, leaving the little girl yelling for her parents.
“Dad, there’s an old man at the window!” they heard as they hurried away into the empty streets, laughing even harder than two hours before, laughing so hard that Tillie saw the shimmers of tears in Jake’s beard.