We soon realized we weren’t the only ones too cool for school. We saw Alex Hewitt coming around the side of the building, and Suzie immediately decided we should spy on him. She started running after him before I could try to talk her out of it. We hurried to catch up.
“There’s no stopping her, is there?” I asked Ilona.
“Nope.”
We followed Alex all the way to the edge of Bay Harbor and well onto the road to Newton. He refused to go in a straight line and zigzagged everywhere, taking the time to kick or destroy whatever looked breakable along the way.
Alex was now walking down a stretch of dead grass toward the line of trees that hid the Hewitt farm. “He’s going home,” I realized.
People almost never dared to go near the Hewitt grounds, especially on foot. The Hewitts had a large pack of dogs that barked constantly, and Alex’s father was known for loving liquor and violence. He was a nasty giant with graying red hair and a huge beard eating up his face. He mostly stayed on his own secluded property, but sometimes he came into town to go to Gilmore’s Tavern with his friend Donahue. When that happened everyone knew to stay away and try not to upset them.
“If Old Hewitt takes a disliking to you, he’ll let you know the hard way,” I said as we passed the old abandoned church. “That’s what people say around here. They’re all scared of him.”
“What about Alex’s mother? An ogress?”
“Mum heard that she ran away years ago, leaving Alex behind. People say she was horrible too.”
“They sound like a real family of trolls,” Ilona said, but she didn’t sound concerned.
“Listen!” I said, grabbing Ilona’s wrist. The Hewitts’ dogs barked raucously in the distance. We had gone way past the wall at the edge of the old cemetery, which was already far into the Hewitt no-go zone.
“What’re we waiting for?” Suzie asked, looking back at us.
I watched Alex disappear behind the thick line of trees. The dogs barked louder.
“Look over there.” I pointed at two moving black dots at the edge of the trees. “Dogs! We need to go before they spot us and decide we’re their next meal.”
Thankfully, Ilona agreed. We started retracing our steps back toward the abandoned church. Suzie kept glancing back at the Hewitt grounds, disappointed that our mission had been called off. She picked up a stick and was about to throw it in the general direction of the dogs. But then she turned her attention to the church and whistled admiringly.
“It was abandoned a long time ago,” I said, as though I knew everything about it. I knew nothing about it.
“Do you hear that?” Ilona asked, moving closer to the church.
The dogs were quieter now. Suzie put her ear to the old white board of the wall. “There’s something moving inside.”
“Rats?” I suggested.
“Rats or something better,” Suzie said. We followed her as she walked around the building, looking for a way in. She reached the front door and inspected the rusted padlock and chain.
“I’ve always wondered what it looks like inside,” I said.
“Let’s find out,” Suzie said. She put her stick through the padlock and started yanking.
“We’re really going to break in?” I asked, turning to Ilona.
She shrugged. “I guess we are,” she said. “I’m kind of curious too.”
I tried to play it cool, as though breaking and entering was nothing special.
The stick broke and Suzie cursed in a foreign language—German, I thought. She took a few steps away and contemplated the building, then picked up what was left of her stick and walked around the church, smacking the rotting white boards as she searched for another solution.
“She’s stubborn, just like Dad,” Ilona said, sitting on the grass beside my chair. “They bite into something and never let go.”
Suzie got down on her knees and scratched the earth at the base of the building.
“Did you guys talk more about the other night?” I asked. “About the lights. And the …” I didn’t know how to put it.
“The scary lady in the attic,” Ilona finished for me. “Suzie still believes you saw the ghost of our mother. She doesn’t get that it was just an illusion.”
I nodded, but secretly I agreed with Suzie. I wanted to believe Ilona more than anything, but I knew for sure that it hadn’t been an illusion. The high-definition image of the grinning cadaver and her empty, dead eyes kept popping up in my mind. I wanted to erase it. Treat it as a trick of the mind so I could stop feeling that pinch of fear on the back of my neck each time I looked at their house from my window, which I’d done about a gazillion times since I’d seen her.
Suzie had removed enough ground to grab hold of the board at the base of the building. She broke off a large chunk of rotten wood and started scooting under on her belly.
“She’s going to get stuck under there,” I said.
“Oh, cheese!” Ilona said. She darted after Suzie and caught her foot right before she disappeared all the way under the church.
“Let go of me!” Suzie yelled. She kicked her sister’s hand away and snaked under the building faster than a fox smelling a rabbit.
Ilona turned to me and shrugged. “She’ll come out eventually. And if she doesn’t, we’ll have a funny story to tell Dad later.”
Suzie suddenly started banging and scratching hard. I went closer to the building. The noise abruptly stopped.
“Oh. Spiders,” she said calmly. And then there was a loud bang and a huge CRACK.
“Are you all right?” I called.
“Suzie! Sign of life, please,” Ilona requested.
There was no reply.
“She’s impossible.” Ilona banged her fist on the wall. “Suzie!”
“What?” Suzie said. She came around the corner of the building, covered in spiderwebs, dust, and dirt, a victorious smile on her face. “You guys have got to see this.”
We followed her around the building. Ilona was right about her sister. Once she had an idea in her mind, nothing could stop her.
Suzie had unlocked the back door from inside. A toxic cloud of stink hit us as we got close.
“Wow,” I said, covering my nose with my arm.
“Charming.” Ilona did the same with her arm. “Smells like a broken toilet in there.”
They helped me into the building. The stink inside was unbearable. It was so strong it made my eyes sting. The benches, the floor, the pulpit, everything was covered in a thick white and gray layer of bird poop. There were feathers everywhere. And there, right in the middle of the aisle, was the huge hole Suzie had dug to get into the building.
“I think owls are living here,” Ilona said. She probed one of the many strange balls on the floor with the tip of her shoe. It crumbled under the pressure, displaying a mixture of fur and bones. I immediately looked up, searching for the owls.
“Owls are nice,” Suzie said. “This could be our special place. You know, to come hide, plot, maybe have a picnic.”
Ilona and I looked at each other.
“I’m not sure this is the right place for picnics,” Ilona said.
Suzie didn’t seem affected by the smell. She walked to the altar and looked up. “They’re up there in their nest. There’s two of them.”
We went to take a look. There was a large mountain of poop and many more fur balls at the edge of the pulpit. And directly above, on the corner of a large beam, I saw the nest and two huge white-and-gray masses inside it.
One of them moved. It turned its face, opened its huge eyes, and looked straight at me. It was an actual freaking owl.
“This is amazing,” I said, my eyes wide. “I’ve never seen an owl before. IRL.”
I smiled and turned to Ilona. She was still looking up, mesmerized just like me. I never would have imagined that these mysterious great birds were hiding in this rotting old building. I had to wait for the Goolz to come into my life for a chance to see them with my own eyes.
“Have you guys ever seen an owl before?” I asked.
“Of course,” Suzie said. She was trying to sound blasé, but I could tell she was as excited as me.
“Hello, owls!” she called. “We’re going to share your home from now on.”
She turned to her sister. “I’m going to bring them mice. Do you know where I can buy mice? Maybe I can catch some. Owls love mice.”
One of the owls tilted its head as though pleased by the idea of home-delivered mice. But then dogs started barking and we quickly forgot about mice, owls, and even the bird poop. We all turned to the wide-open door. Suzie ran to close and lock it.
We heard the dogs start scratching the walls, panting and yapping along the way.
And then I heard Alex Hewitt’s voice. “Easy now. Woop! Woop! Come here, boys! Don’t scare them away.”
Ilona approached one of the windows. It was boarded, but you could see outside through the cracks. I moved to her side as silently as I could and lifted myself off the chair a little to get a look outside. Alex was sitting on the ground, exactly where Ilona had been sitting earlier. He had a BB gun by his side and was cuddling with the dogs. I counted them—one, two, three, four. Crap! Ilona looked down at me. I shook my head. Alex, a gun, and a large pack of dogs were a terrible combination.
The dogs started running around the building and back to Alex, licking his face, rubbing against him, snuggling up to him. It was like those four black monsters were his best friends. He put the gun down and took a can of something from his jacket pocket. He pulled a huge knife out from his belt and opened the can with it, then took out a slice of something juicy and slurped it down. He threw a slice at each dog and smiled as they ran after them.
“What kind of stupid dogs like peaches, huh?” But he didn’t sound like the usual Alex. He didn’t look like he wanted to hurt something. He looked peaceful, taking a walk with his dogs, having a picnic on the cemetery grounds with them. Eating peaches.
He finished the can, slicing the last peaches so the dogs would get a bite each, and gulping down the juice. “Hey!” he yelled at the building. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
My heart started beating crazy fast. I moved away from the window, but Ilona and Suzie kept looking. After a while, there was a knock on the roof right above me.
“I got you some really fat ones,” Alex yelled. Ilona turned and motioned for me to come back. Alex wasn’t shouting at us. He was taking little gray balls out of his pocket and throwing them onto the roof. The dogs were getting hysterical, scratching at the walls, trying to climb up the side of the building.
“You’re welcome, you ungrateful turds!” Alex yelled. Then he called his dogs, picked up his gun, and walked away, throwing the empty can into the road.
We waited a long time, listening to the barking dogs making their way back down to the Hewitt grounds. When it felt safe, we stepped out of the church. I was dizzy from fear and the smell of bird poop. The fresh air felt magical. We backed up until we could see the roof of the church. There were, like, half a dozen gray bodies up there.
“They’re dead mice,” Suzie said.
I shook my head. This wasn’t at all the Alex Hewitt I knew. He had no intention of killing the owls or harming them in any way.
Alex Hewitt was feeding them.