Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The murk came choke and transformed that Sunday nights dusk into a thing of indulgent beauty. The sun turned red as it slid down toward the hills and the haze picked up the glow, turning the double-uern incline into a nosebleed. I sit down let out on the lard and watched it, trying to do a crossword puzzle and not getting genuinely utmost. When the ph cardinal rang, I dropped Tough Stuff on conk of my manuscript as I went to answer it. I was tired of expression at the title of my platter every period I passed. how-do-you-do?Whats going on up in that location? John Storrow demanded. He didnt even so bother to say hi. He didnt sound angry, though he sounded tot wholey pumped. Im missing the squargon goddam soap operaI invited myself to lunch on Tuesday, I verbalise. Hope you dont drumhead.No, thats good, the more(prenominal) the merrier. He sounded as if he absolutely meant it. What a summer, huh? What a summer Anything come to pass dependable lately? Earthquakes? Volcanoes? pack suicides?No mass suicides, neertheless the old guy died, I express.Shit, the whole world knows Max Devore kicked it, he verbalise. Surprise me, Mike Stun me Make me holler boy-howdyNo, the other old guy. Royce Merrill.I dont know who you oh, wait. The unity with the gold cane who looked desire an exhi point from Jurassic Park?Thats him.Bummer. Otherwise . . . ?Otherwise everythings below chasteness, I said, and so popular opinion of the popped-out eyes of the cat-clock and close to laughed. What halt me was a kind of surety that Mr. Good wittiness Man was just an act John had really wauled to ask what, if anything, was going on between me and Mattie. And what was I going to say? nonhing yet? One kiss, one and only(a) instant blue-steel hard-on, the merrimentdamental things apply as time goes by?But John had other things on his mind. Listen, Michael, I called because Ive got something to tell you. I call in youll be both divert and amazed.A state we all crave, I said. Lay it on me.Rogette Whitmore called, and . . . you didnt proceed to give her my pargonnts number, did you? Im nates in New York now, simply she called me in Philly.I didnt abide your parents number. You didnt leave it on either of your machines.Oh, proper(a). No apology he seemed also excited to guess of such mundanities. I began to belief excited myself, and I didnt even know what the hell was going on. I gave it to Mattie. Do you think the Whitmore char called Mattie to get it? Would Mattie give it to her?Im not sure that if Mattie came upon Rogette flaming in a thoroughfare, shed piss on her to raise her out.Vulgar, Michael, trs vulgarino. But he was laughing. Maybe Whitmore got it the comparable way Devore got yours.Probably so, I said. I dont know whatll happen in the months ahead, provided right now Im sure shes lock got access to Max Devores personal control panel. And if anyone knows how to push the yettons on it, its believably her. D id she call from Palm Springs?Uh-huh. She said shed just finished a feeler meeting with Devores attorneys concerning the old mans will. According to her, Grampa left Mattie Devore lxxx million dollars.I was struck silent. I wasnt amused yet, merely I was certainly amazed.Gets ya, dont it? John said gleefully.You mean he left it to Kyra, I said at last. Left it in trust to Kyra.No, thats just what he did not do. I asked Whitmore triplet times, alone by the third I was starting to understand. There was method in his thin-skinnedness. Not much, but a itsy-bitsy. You see, on that points a condition. If he left the money to the minor child instead of to the mother, the condition would acquit no weight. Its funny when you consider that Mattie isnt persistent past minor status herself.Funny, I agreed, and thought of her dress skid between my hands and her smooth bare waist. I also thought of Bill Dean adage that men who went with girls that age always looked the same, had their t ongues run out even if their mouths were shut.What string did he put on the money?That Mattie remain on the TR for one year following Devores death until July 17, 1999. She can leave on day-trips, but she has to be tucked up in her TR-90 bed every night by golf-club oclock, or else the bequest is forfeit. Did you ever hear such a bullshit thing in your life-time? exposeside of some old George Sanders movie, that is?No, I said, and recalled my visit to the Fryeburg join with Kyra. Even in death hes desire custody, I had thought, and of course this was the same thing. He precious them here. Even in death he indigenceed them on the TR.It wont fly? I asked.Of course it wont fly. Fucking crackpot efficiency as well afford written hed give her eighty million dollars if she used blue tampons for a year. But shell get the eighty mil, all right. My heart is set on it. Ive already talked to three of our land guys, and . . . you dont think I should supply one of them up with me on Tuesday, do you? Will Stevensonll be the point man in the estate phase, if Mattie agrees. He was all but babbling. He hadnt had a thing to drink, Idve bet the farm on it, but he was sky-high on all the possibilities. Wed gotten to the happily-ever-after social function of the fairy tale, as far as he was concerned Cinderella comes home from the ball finished a cash cloudburst. . . . course Wills a little bit old, John was saying, about three hundred or so, which means hes not exactly a fun guy at a party, but . . . Leave him home, why dont you? I said. Therell be plenty of time to carve up Devores will later on. And in the immediate future, I dont think Matties going to demand any problem observing the bullshit condition. She just got her logical argument back, remember?Yeah, the exsanguinous buffalo drops baseless and the whole herd scatters John exulted. Look at em go And the new multimillionaire goes back to register books and mailing out overdue notices Okay, Tuesday we ll just party.Good.Party til we puke.Well . . . maybe us older folk will just party until were mildly nauseated, would that be all right?Sure. Ive already called Romeo Bissonette, and hes going to bring George Kennedy, the private detective who got all that hilarious shit on Durgin. Bissonette says Kennedys a scream when he gets a drink or two in him. I thought Id bring some steaks from Peter Lugers, did I tell you that?I dont reckon you did.Best steaks in the world. Michael, do you realize whats happened to that new-fashioned cleaning woman? cardinal million dollarsShell be able to replace Scoutie.Huh?Nothing. Will you come in tomorrow night or on Tuesday?Tuesday sunup virtually ten, into Castle County Airport. New England Air. Mike, are you all right? You sound odd.Im all right. Im where Im supposed to be. I think.Whats that supposed to mean? I had wandered out onto the decorate. In the distance thunder blabingd. It was spicyter than hell, not a schnorkel of breeze stir ring. The sunset was fading to a baleful afterglow. The sky in the west looked standardised the white of a bloods savoury eye.I dont know, I said, but I have an view the situation will clarify itself. Ill meet you at the airport.Okay, he said, and then, in a hushed, almost venerating voice Eighty million motherfucking the Statesn dollars.Its a whole lotta lettuce, I agreed, and wished him a good night.I drank black c tallyee and ate toast in the kitchen the next morning, watching the TV weatherman. standardised so many of them these days, he had a s dejectly mad look, as if all those Doppler radar images had driven him to the sceptre of something. I think of it as the Millennial Video Game look.Weve got another thirty-six hours of this soup to take shape with and then theres going to be a big change, he was saying, and pointed to some dark colour scum lurking in the Midwest. Tiny animated lightning-bolts danced in it like defective sparkplugs. Beyond the scum and the lightning -bolts, America looked calorie-free all the way out to the desert country, and the posted temperatures were fifteen degrees cooler. Well see temps in the nineties today and cant look for much relief tonight or tomorrow morning. But tomorrow afternoon these frontal storms will reach western Maine, and I think most of you are going to want to keep updated on weather conditions. Before we get back to cooler air and bright clear skies on Wednesday, were probably going to see violent thunderstorms, heavy rain, hail in some locations. Tornados are rare in Maine, but some towns in western and central Maine could see them tomorrow. Back to you, Earl.Earl, the morning news guy, had the innocent beefy look of a recent retiree from the Chippendales and read mutilate the Teleprompter like one. Wow, he said. Thats quite a forecast, Vince. Tornados a possibility.Wow, I said. Say wow again, Earl. Do it til Im satisfied.Holy cow, Earl said just to spitefulness me, and the telephone rang. I we nt to answer it, giving the waggy clock a look as I went by. The night had been quiet no sobbing, no screaming, no nocturnal adventures but the clock was disquieting, just the same. It hung there On the wall eyeless and dead, like a message full of bad news.Hello?Mr. Noonan?I knew the voice, but for a sec couldnt place it. It was because she had called me Mr. Noonan. To Brenda Meserve Id been Mike for almost fifteen years.Mrs M.? Brenda? What I cant sprain for you anymore, she said, all in a rush. Im sorry I cant give you proper notice I never halt work for anyone without giving notice, not even that old drunk Mr Croyden but I have to. Please understand.Did Bill find out I called you? I swear to God, Brenda, I never said a word No. I havent spoken to him, nor he to me. I just cant come back to Sara Laughs. I had a bad dream last night. A terrible dream. I dreamed that . . . somethings mad at me. If I come back, I could have an accident. It would look like an accident, at le ast, but . . . it wouldnt be.Thats silly, Mrs M., I wanted to say. Youre surely past the age where you believe in campfire stories about ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties.But of course I could say no such thing. What was going on in my contribute was no campfire story. I knew it, and she knew I did.Brenda, if Ive caused you any trouble, Im truly sorry.Go away, Mr. Noonan . . . Mike. Go back to Derry and stay for a bandage. Its the best thing you could do.I perceive the earn sliding on the fridge and turned. This time I actually saw the circle of fruits and vegetables form. It stayed spread out at the top long enough for four letters to slide inside. consequently a little plastic lemon plugged the hole and completed the circle.yats,the letters said, then swapped themselves around, makingstay accordingly both the circle and the letters broke up.Mike, please. Mrs. M. was crying. Royces funeral is tomorrow. Everyone in the TR who matters the old-timers will be there . Yes, of course they would. The old ones, the bags of swot up who knew what they knew and kept it to themselves. Except some of them had talked to my wife. Royce himself had talked to her. Now he was dead. So was she.It would be best if you were gone. You could take that young woman with you, maybe. Her and her little girl.But could I? I somehow didnt think so. I thought the three of us were on the TR until this was over . . . and I was starting to have an idea of when that would be. A storm was coming. A summer storm. Maybe even a tornado.Brenda, thanks for calling me. And Im not letting you go. Lets just call it a leave of absence, shall we?Fine . . . whatever you want. Will you at least think about what I said?Yes. In the meantime, I dont think Id tell anyone you called me, all right?No she said, sounding shocked. Then But theyll know. Bill and Yvette . . . Dickie Brooks at the garage . . . old Anthony Weyland and Buddy Jellison and all the others . . . theyll know. Goodbye, M r. Noonan. Im so sorry. For you and your wife. Your deplorable wife. Im so sorry. Then she was gone.I held the phone in my hand for a long time. Then, like a man in a dream, I put it down, crossed the room, and took the eyeless clock withdraw the wall. I threw it in the trash and went down to the lake for a swim, remembering that W. E Harvey story August Heat, the one that ends with the line The heat is enough to drive a man mad.Im not a bad natator when people arent pelting me with rocks, but my first shore-to-float-to-shore lap was tentative and unrhythmic ugly because I kept expecting something to reach up from the bottom and grab me. The drowned boy, maybe. The second lap was better, and by the third I was savour the increased kick of my heart and the silky coolness of the water rushing past me. Halfway through the fourth lap I pulled myself up the floats ladder and collapsed on the boards, feeling better than I had since my find out with Devore and Rogette Whitmore on Fri day night. I was still in the zone, and on top of that I was experiencing a glorious endorphin rush. In that state, even the dismay Id felt when Mrs M. told me she was resigning her position ebbed away. She would come back when this was over of course she would. In the meantime, it was probably best she stay away.Somethings mad at me. I could have an accident.Yes indeed. She might cut herself. She might adjudicate down a flight of cellar stairs. She might even have a stroke foot race across a hot parking lot.I sat up and looked at Sara on her hill, the deck jutting out over the drop, the railroad ties descending. Id only been out of the water for a few minutes, but already the days sticky heat was folding over me, stealing my rush. The water was still as a mirror. I could see the house reflected in it, and in the reflection Saras windows became watchful eyes.I thought that the way of all the phenomena the epicenter was very likely on The Street between the real Sara and its dro wned image. This is where it happened, Devore had said. And the old-timers? Most of them probably knew what I knew that Royce Merrill had been murdered. And wasnt it possible wasnt it likely that what had killed him might come among them as they sat in their pews or gather afterward around his grave? That it might steal some of their force their guilt, their memories, their TR-ness to help it finish the job?I was very glad that John was going to be at the pilotless aircraft tomorrow, and Romeo Bissonette, and George Kennedy, who was so comical when he got a drink or two in him. Glad it was going to be more than just me with Mattie and Ki when the old folks got together to give Royce Merrill his sendoff. I no longer cared very much about what had happened to Sara and the Red-Tops, or even about what was haunting my house. What I wanted was to get through tomorrow, and for Mattie and Ki to get through tomorrow. Wed eat before the rain started and then let the predicted thunders torms come. I thought that, if we could ride them out, our lives and futures might clarify with the weather.Is that right? I asked. I expected no answer lecture out loud was a habit I had picked up since returning here but somewhere in the woods east of the house, an owl hooted. Just once, as if to say it was right, get through tomorrow and things will clarify. The hoot almost brought something else to mind, some association that was ultimately too gauzy to grasp. I seek once or twice, but the only thing I could come up with was the title of a wonderful old novel I Heard the Owl Call My Name.I rolled forrader off the float and into the water, grasping my knees against my chest like a kid doing a cannonball. I stayed under as long as I could, until the air in my lungs started to feel like some hot bottled liquid, and then I broke the surface. I trod water about thirty yards out until I had my breath back, then set my sights on the Green Lady and stroked for shore.I waded out, st arted up the railroad ties, then stopped and went back to The Street. I stood there for a moment, gathering my courage, then walked to where the birch curved her graceful breadbasket out over the water. I grasped that white curve as I had on Friday evening and looked into the water. I was sure Id see the child, his dead eyes looking up at me from his bloating brown face, and that my mouth and pharynx would once more fill with the taste of the lake help Im drown, lemme up, oh sweet Jesus lemme up. But there was nothing. No dead boy, no ribbon-wrapped Boston Post cane, no taste of the lake in my mouth.I turned and peered at the gray forehead of rock poking out of the mulch. I thought There, right there, but it was only a conscious and unspontaneous thought, the mind voicing a memory. The smell of decay and the certainty that something awful had happened right there was gone.When I got back up to the house and went for a soda, I discovered the front of the refrigerator was bare and c lean. Every magnetic letter, every fruit and vegetable, was gone. I never found them. I might have, probably would have, if there had been more time, but on that Monday morning time was almost up.I dressed, then called Mattie. We talked about the upcoming party, about how excited Ki was, about how nervous Mattie was about going back to work on Friday she was afraid that the locals would be mean to her, but in an odd, womanly way she was even more afraid that they would be mothy to her, snub her. We talked about the money, and I quickly ascertained that she didnt believe in the reality of it. Lance used to say his father was the kind of man whod show a piece of meat to a starving dog and then eat it himself, she said. But as long as I have my job back, I wont starve and neither will Ki.But if there really are big bucks . . . ?Oh, gimme-gimme-gimme, she said, laughing. What do you think I am, crazy?Nah. By the way, whats going on with Kis fridgeafator people? Are they writing any ne w stuff?That is the weirdest thing, she said. Theyre gone.The fridgeafator people?I dont know about them, but the magnetic letters you gave her sure are. When I asked Ki what she did with them, she started crying and said Allamagoosalum took them. She said he ate them in the middle of the night, while everyone was sleeping, for a snack.Allama-who-salum?Allamagoosalum, Mattie said, sounding wearily amused. Another little legacy from her grandfather. Its a corruption of the Micmac word for boogeyman or demon I looked it up at the library. Kyra had a good many nightmares about demons and wendigos and the allama-goosalum late last winter and this spring.What a sweet old grandad he was, I said sentimentally.Right, a real pip. She was miserable over losing the letters I however got her calmed down before her ride to VBS came. Ki wants to know if youll come to Final Exercises on Friday afternoon, by the way. She and her patron Billy Turgeon are going to flannelboard the story of baby M oses.I wouldnt miss it, I said . . . but of course I did. We all did.Any idea where her letters might have gone, Mike?No.Yours are still okay?Mine are fine, but of course mine dont spell anything, I said, looking at the empty door of my own fridgeafator. There was sweat on my forehead. I could feel it creeping down into my eyebrows like oil. Did you . . . I dont know . . . sense anything?You mean did I maybe hear the malevolent alphabet-thief as he slid through the window?You know what I mean.I suppose so. A violate I thought I heard something in the night, okay? About three this morning, actually. I got up and went into the hall. Nothing was there. But . . . you know how hot its been lately?Yes.Well, not in my trailer, not last night. It was cold as ice. I swear I could almost see my breath.I believed her. After all, I had seen mine.Were the letters on the front of the fridge then?I dont know. I didnt go up the hall far enough to see into the kitchen. I took one look around and then went back to bed. I almost ran back to bed. Sometimes bed feels safer, you know? She laughed nervously. Its a kid thing. Covers are boogeyman kryptonite. Only at first, when I got in . . . I dont know . . . I thought someone was in there already. Like someone had been hiding on the floor underneath and then . . . when I went to check the hall . . . they got in. Not a nice someone, either.Give me my dust-catcher, I thought, and shuddered.What? Mattie asked sharply. What did you say?I asked who did you think it was? What was the first name that came into your mind?Devore, she said. Him. But there was no one there. A pause. I wish youd been there.I do, too.Im glad. Mike, do you have any ideas at all about this? Because its very freaky.I think maybe . . . For a moment I was on the verge of telling her what had happened to my own letters. But if I started talking, where would it stop? And how much could she be expected to believe? . . . maybe Ki took the letters herself. Went wal king in her sleep and chucked them under the trailer or something. Do you think that could be?I think I like the idea of Kyra strolling around in her sleep even less than the idea of ghosts with cold breath taking the letters off the fridge, Mattie said.Take her to bed with you tonight, I said, and felt her thought come back like an arrow Id instead take you.What she said, after a brief pause, was Will you come by today?I dont think so, I said. She was noshing on flavored yogurt as we talked, eating it in little nipping bites. Youll see me tomorrow, though. At the party.I hope we get to eat before the thunderstorms. Theyre supposed to be bad.Im sure we will.And are you still thinking? I only ask because I dreamed of you when I finally fell sound asleep(predicate) again. I dreamed of you kissing me.Im still thinking, I said. Thinking hard.But in fact I dont remember thinking about anything very hard that day. What I remember is drifting notwithstanding and further into that zone I ve explained so badly. Near dusk I went for a long walk in spite of the heat all the way out to where Lane Forty-two joins the highway. Coming back I stopped on the edge of Tidwells Meadow, watching the light fade out of the sky and listening to thunder rumble somewhere over New Hampshire. Once more there was that sense of how thin reality was, not just here but everywhere how it was stretched like skin over the blood and tissue of a organic structure we can never know clearly in this life. I looked at trees and saw accouterments I looked at bushes and saw faces. Ghosts, Mattie had said. Ghosts with cold breath.Time was also thin, it seemed to me. Kyra and I had really been at the Fryeburg Fair some version of it, anyway we had really visited the year 1900. And at the foot of the meadow the Red-Tops were almost there now, as they once had been, in their neat little cabins. I could almost hear the sound of their guitars, the murmur of their voices and laughter I could almost see the gleam of their lanterns and smell their beef and pork frying. Say baby, do you remember me? one of her songs went, Well I aint your honey like I used to be.Something rattled in the underbrush to my left. I turned that way, expecting to see Sara step out of the woods wearing Matties dress and Matties white sneakers. In this gloom, they would seem almost to float by themselves, until she got close to me . . .There was no one there, of course, it had undoubtedly been nothing but Chuck the Woodchuck headed home after a hard day at the office, but I no longer wanted to be out here, watching as the light drained out of the day and the mist came up from the ground. I turned for home.Instead of going into the house when I got back, I made my way along the path to Jos studio, where I hadnt been since the night I had taken my IBM back in a dream. My way was lit by intermittent flashes of heat lightning.The studio was hot but not stale. I could smell a peppery aroma that was actually ple asant, and wondered if it might be some of Jos herbs. There was an air conditioner out here, and it worked I turned it on and then just stood in front of it a little while. So much cold air on my overheated body was probably unhealthy, but it felt wonderful.I didnt feel very wonderful otherwise, however. I looked around with a growing sense of something too heavy to be mere sadness it felt like despair. I think it was caused by the contrast between how little of Jo was left in Sara Laughs and how much of her was still out here. I imagined our marriage as a kind of playhouse and isnt that what marriage is, in large part? playing house? where only half the stuff was held down. Held down by little magnets or hide cables. Something had come along and picked up our playhouse by one corner easiest thing in the world, and I supposed I should be grateful that the something hadnt decided to draw back its foot and kick the poor thing all the way over. It just picked up that one corner, y ou see. My stuff stayed put, but all of Jos had slid . . .Out of the house and down here.Jo? I asked, and sat down in her chair. There was no answer. No thumps on the wall. No crows or owls calling from the woods. I put my hand on her desk, where the typewriter had been, and slipped my hand across it, pickax up a film of dust.I miss you, honey, I said, and began to cry.When the tears were over again I wiped my face with the tail of my tee-shirt like a little kid, then just looked around. There was the picture of Sara Tidwell on her desk and a photo I didnt remember on the wall this latter was old, sepia-tinted, and woodsy. Its focal point was a man-high birchwood cross in a little unclutter on a slope above the lake. That clearing was gone from the geography now, most likely, long since filled in by trees.I looked at her jars of herbs and pluck sections, her filing cabinets, her sections of afghan. The green rag rug on the floor. The pot of pencils on the desk, pencils she had touched and used. I held one of them poised over a blank sheet of paper for a moment or two, but nothing happened. I had a sense of life in this room, and a sense of being watched . . . but not a sense of being helped.I know some of it but not enough, I said. Of all the things I dont know, maybe the one that matters most is who wrote help her on the fridge. Was it you, Jo?No answer. I sat awhile longer hoping against hope, I suppose then got up, turned off the air conditioning, turned off the lights, and went back to the house, walking in soft bright stutters of unfocused lightning. I sat on the deck for a little while, watching the night. At some point I realized Id taken the space of blue silk ribbon out of my pocket and was winding it nervously back and forth between my fingers, making half-assed cats cradles. Had it really come from the year 1900? The idea seemed perfectly crazy and perfectly sane at the same time. The night hung hot and hushed. I imagined old folks all over the TR perhaps in Motton and Harlow, too laying out their funeral clothes for tomorrow. In the doublewide trailer on Wasp Hill Road, Ki was seance on the floor, watching a videotape of The Jungle Book Baloo and Mowgli were singing The Bare Necessities. Mattie was on the hurl with her feet up, reading the new Mary Higgins Clark and singing along. Both were wearing shorty pajamas, Kis pink, Matties white.After a little while I lost my sense of them it faded the way radio signals sometimes do late at night. I went into the north bedroom, undressed, and crawled onto the top sheet of my unmade bed. I fell asleep almost at once.I woke in the middle of the night with someone running a hot finger up and down the middle of my back. I rolled over and when the lightning flashed, I saw there was a woman in bed with me. It was Sara Tidwell. She was grinning. There were no pupils in her eyes. Oh sugar, Im almost back, she whispered in the dark. I had a sense of her reaching out for me again , but when the next flash of lightning came, that side of the bed was empty.