The Book of Lies

44

I think it’s glued shut,” Serena calls down from the top of the ladder.

“Hit it again,” my dad says.

“Not too hard,” Johnsel adds.

“Let me just help you,” I say.

That’s all she needs. Ramming her palm up toward the ceiling, she slams the square piece of wood that covers the entrance to the attic. It looks thin, like balsa wood. From the thud and the pain on her face, it’s not.

“There you go. It moved,” my father says.

“It didn’t move,” she shoots back.

“I think it did,” I say. “Now use the flashlight to hit it.”

She looks again, knowing I’m right. To be honest, I should be the one up there, but the hole’s so small—she’s got the best chance of squeezing through.

“It’s good we brought her along, huh?” my dad whispers, but I don’t answer.

Serena winds up again with the flashlight Johnsel gave her and grips the ladder for support. On three—one . . . two . . .

The base of the flashlight plows into the wood. There’s a loud pop, then a rip as the square piece flips upward like a reverse trapdoor. The only reward is a lungful of dust and a light shower of pebbles and chunks of plaster that rain over all of us. According to Johnsel, the house was built in 1911. Tastes like it.

Waving the dust away, Serena stares up at the square black hole of the attic. It’s teeny. Barely bigger than a phone book.

“Careful,” I call out.

She steps up on the top rung of the ladder, raises her arms, and boosts herself easily into the darkness.

“Hoooo—that was anticlimactic,” Johnsel blurts.

Wasting no time, I leap toward the ladder and scale it as fast as I can.

“What’re you doing?” my father asks.

“She made it easy. I’ll fit,” I tell him as I look up at the black square hole. There’s a flicker of white light inside, from the flashlight. “Serena, anything up there?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer.

As I climb closer to the top rung, bits of dust continue to tumble my way.

“You’re not gonna fit,” my dad says.

Only one way to find out.

I put my arms straight up.

“Just like Superman,” Johnsel jokes. No one laughs.

I thread my arms through the hole, then my head, as I slowly extend my knees. The darkness descends like a noose.

“You’re too big,” my father warns.

He’s wrong. The hole swallows everything above my chest. I feel around, palming the dusty floor of the attic. All I need to do is boost myself up. But just as I push off the top rung, something catches my back . . . or, more specifically, my backpack, with the comic inside. Dammit. I’m definitely too big.

“Told you,” my dad calls out as my feet kick wildly from the ceiling.

A bright light blinds me. “Throw the backpack up here,” Serena says.

“Just drop it—I’ll catch it,” my dad promises from below.

The lady or the tiger.

I choose neither.

Thrashing wildly, I’m halfway through. The edge of the hole digs into my stomach. I don’t care what it takes. I squirm and shimmy like a worm as splinters and sharp rocks bite at my belly. My backpack tugs like a leash. Above me, Serena grips my left bicep and starts the tug-of-war. I wriggle and plant my elbows. She digs in her feet and jerks harder. The hole pinches my rib cage. The leash stays taut, pulling and yanking me . . . and then . . . then it isn’t.

Like a baby shooting from the birth canal, I fly forward as Serena tumbles back on her ass. The flashlight zigzags as she falls. My stomach scrapes across the attic floor, leaving a wide, swerving wake through the dust.

“You okay!?” my dad calls out as he hears the crash. He’s tempted to join us himself, but he knows he won’t fit.

I’m still catching my breath, which I can see in the beam of light from above. There’s no insulation. It’s freezing up here. Slowly, my eyes adjust to the darkness, but I don’t need to see Serena to know what she’s thinking. “Go ahead—say the line,” I tell her. “I’m more stubborn than my dad.”

She climbs to her feet, brushes off the dust, and stays hunched to avoid hitting the attic’s low, slanted ceiling. But she’s not the least bit annoyed. “You really believe your father’s stubborn?”

“C’mon . . . the way he insisted on coming to Cleveland . . . then held his breath like a fifth grader so I couldn’t say no to you coming, too?”

“That’s not stubborn, Cal. Your dad’s terrified.”

“He’s not alone,” I shoot back. “If Ellis made that next flight, he’ll be here any—”

“He’s not terrified of Ellis,” Serena says. “Your father’s terrified of you.” She doesn’t yell it at me. She’s concerned. Almost sad.

Down on my knees, I take a deep breath of sandy air as dozens of small stones stab through my pants. “Me? You’re joking, right?”

She shakes her head, and the beam from the flashlight shakes with her, tracing the inky air. But she never loses sight of what we’re here for. Pointing the light across the empty room, she’s already on the hunt. “You need to understand, Cal—in this world, we’re not humans having a divine experience. We’re divine beings having a human experience.”

“Yeah, I took yoga once, too.”

“See, there it is again: That’s what he has to fight.” Above our heads, the rafters crisscross like wooden monkey bars. On our left, the eroded brick chimney rises through the room and out the roof. The floor’s so thick with dust, it looks like the moon—and with each step, a cloud of it explodes upward. Serena keeps heading deeper, ducking lower and lower until she’s chicken-walking toward the far corner of the attic. But she never slows down. It’s amazing, really. No fear.

“Think about it, Cal. In this life, y’ever notice that you face the same challenges again and again? We all do. They’re challenges to your soul. We repeat them until we face them and master them. Yes, we all have free will, but there’re divine patterns out there, and the battle is to see them.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, crouching behind her as she shines the light and draws a horizontal line across the baseboard where the roof and floor meet. There’s a few ancient mousetraps and cobwebs and some tiny black droppings, but like the rest of the attic, it’s empty. “So instead of searching for old comic books, we’re now searching for God’s patterns?”

“The patterns are already there,” she says, squatting like a catcher on a baseball team and turning her sword of light up toward the dark wood rafters. “From federal agent, to the homeless van . . . why’s there such a need in your life to protect people? Why do you think you found your dad lying in that park last night? You think that’s all coincidence? Or better yet: that this is just some dumb search for Superman or the imagined Mark of Cain? You and your dad . . . This is your battle, Cal—the one challenge you’ll keep repeating until—”

She stops.

“What?” I ask, craning my neck up and following her gaze. “You find something?”

She points the light up at the rafters, not far from the top of the chimney.

“Serena, what is it?”

She doesn’t say a word.

“Serena—”

“There,” she whispers, pointing upward with the flashlight. I follow the flagpole of light up through the shadows of the rafters. Bits of dust sprinkle down like snow in a settling snow globe. But I don’t see—

Krrrrrk.

The sound is soft. Like a squeak, or some extra weight on a plank of wood.

She’s still silent.

“What?” I ask. “Is it a mouse?”

Thdddd.

To land that hard . . . That’s no mouse.

I jump at the sound. It’s up in the rafters.

Above our heads, on our far right, a narrow rain shower of dust cascades from the rafters. Whatever it is . . . we’re not alone in h—

Thddd-thdddd-thdddd.

Serena screams. The flashlight falls. And a thick black shadow swoops in, then disappears, leaving tiny waterfalls of dust on our right, then above us, then on our left.

Still hunched over, I grab Serena’s wrist and tug her back the way we came. The flashlight twirls behind us like spin the bottle, flickering bursts of light all across the attic. Up in the rafters, there’s one last thud. Straight ahead of us.

“Gahhh!” Serena yells, freezing right there.

This time, I see it also—lit by the attic entrance in the floor—two deep-set eyes: one glowing black, the other milky white, where it’s been injured. Behind it, a thick fleshy tail dangles down.

I catch my breath and almost laugh. Across from us, perched up on a rafter just past the open hole . . . “Serena, it’s just a possum.”

“I know what it is! I don’t like possums!”

“Can you please relax? Possums play dead; they don’t attack,” I insist, stepping forward to—

“Hsssss!”

“Y’hear that? That’s a hiss! It’s hissing!” she yells, her palms wide open and facing each other as though she’s holding the ends of an invisible loaf of bread. She cringes like my aunt when we once found a snake in the toilet.

“That’s not a hiss,” I tell her. “That was—”

“Hssssss!” it squeals again, baring tiny triangular teeth and raising its ears and fleshy tail.

“Okay, that part was a hiss,” I admit.

“It thinks we’re food!”

“Will you stop, it doesn’t—”

There’s another sound behind us—skrrch-skrrch-skrrch. At first, I almost missed it. But as I turn around and check the rafters, I see what the possum’s really after: the small straw-and-leaf nest that sits just above our heads. Two tiny shadows peek out. Aw, crap. “She wants her babies.”

“Babies!? Where!?” Serena shouts, wriggling wildly as if an army of millipedes were crawling underneath her skin. She tries to run, but she can’t. The possum’s directly above the hole in the attic floor. “Nuuuh! Cal, you have to do something!”

“Wait, what happened to facing life’s challenges and your nice big speech?”

“That had nothing to do with giant cannibalistic rats that just escaped from Middle Earth! Look at those mucous eyes! Please, Cal! I’m serious!”

I laugh again, but I hear that tone in her voice. Next to me, her whole body’s shaking. Her eyes well with tears. Even Superman has kryptonite. We all have our weaknesses.

“What the hell’s wrong up there?” my dad calls from below.

“Zombie possums. They want our brains,” I yell back.

My dad pauses a moment. “Serena doesn’t like possums.”

Next to me, Serena grabs my arm, clutching it against her chest. It’s the absolute opposite of her usual guru Zen confidence, and I hate to say it, but there’s something strangely reassuring in knowing she can flip out just as easily as the rest of us.

“Do your breathing,” my dad calls out from below.

It doesn’t help. She grips my arm even tighter, unable to move toward the possum.

“Serena, it won’t attack us,” I promise.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes. I do.” I go back to my old hostage training. Give them calm and they’ll find calm. I keep my voice slow and steady. “Let’s just . . . keep . . . going.”

She’s still shaking. “Cal, I can’t do this! Uhhh, it’s so— Look at it! If it pounces—”

“It’s not pouncing, okay? It’s just a protective mother.”

“Those’re the worst kind!” she says, shutting her eyes and refusing even to look.

I take a small step forward, and the possum raises its rear end like it’s about to leap.

“What’s it doing!?” Serena asks, her head buried in my shoulder.

“Nothing,” I reply, taking yet another baby step.

Hunched over, we’re less than four feet from the hole. The possum hisses again, baring its teeth.

“Cal . . .”

“It’s just watching its kids,” I lie as Serena again freezes. I try to tug her forward, but she won’t budge. “Serena, as long as her kids are safe, she won’t do anything.”

With her eyes shut, Serena nods but doesn’t move.

“Serena,” my dad calls out, “find your center—”

“Dad, enough already!” I yell.

I can slow my speech and make more reassurances, but instead, I flex the arm that Serena’s gripping and take her hand in my own.

“Serena, you take three baby steps and we’re outta here.”

Still holding Serena’s hand, I take another step. Her grip goes from vise, to clinging, to— She takes the smallest of mini-steps. It still counts.

“There you go,” I say as we finally move forward.

“You lied about the distance, didn’t you?” Serena asks. “It’s more than three steps.”

“Not anymore,” I tell her.

She ducks down quickly, knowing the possum must be close. She’s right.

Up above, perched on the edge of the rafter, the possum peers straight down at us. Its pointy nose doesn’t move, not a single sniff—and its milky eye looks more yellow thanks to the light shining up from below.

Two hands appear through the hole in the floor. “Serena,” my dad calls out, “I’m here.”

We fidget and fumble—my dad guiding her ankles to the ladder, me still holding one of her hands—as we help her squeeze back through the rabbit hole.

She sinks slowly, like she’s being sucked down a bright well. There’s a metal clink: her foot hitting the ladder. I’m on my knees, reaching down into the hole as she finally opens her eyes and looks up at me.

“When we tell this story,” she warns, “it ends with me killing the possum with a rock.”

“Of course—your marksmanship alone . . . plus your deft hand and strong will—”

“Don’t oversell it, Cal. Now let’s get outta here. I need to throw up.”

She lets go of my hand, and as my cheeks lift, I realize that it’s the first time in the past twenty-four hours that I’m actually smiling. And that Serena’s smiling back at me.

“Y’know, that’s the second time you saved me today,” she teases. “I owe you, Superman.”

“Must be the house,” I tease back. It’s nothing more than sharing a stupid joke. But, man . . . it feels good to share something.

“You’re just like him, aren’t you?” she calls up at me.

“Who?” I ask, assuming she’s talking about my father.

“Andrew. My brother,” she says. “He was protective, too—and the walls he kept around himself . . . just like with you, they’re too tall,” she explains. “But that’s why you brought me, isn’t it? To help you lower them.”

I’m about to remind her that we brought her only because we couldn’t leave her at the airport.

But I don’t.

“Cal, we really should get her to a hotel,” my dad interrupts, helping her down the ladder. “It’s not safe for her to run around like this.”

“You think?” I ask. “When she’s with us, we can at least—”

“What the french toast? What’d I tell you ’bout letting people in my roof?” a female voice calls out, making the word roof rhyme with hoof.

Taking off the backpack and squeezing down through the hole, I spot Mrs. Johnsel coming up the stairs.

“Possums are back,” her husband says, calm as ever.

“I told you that. You said it was rain.” She then looks up at me. She’s not mad, just confused. “I thought they just wanted to see the bedroom?”

“They got an attic copy,” Johnsel says.

“A whut?”

I hop off the ladder and unzip the backpack. “We were hoping to find some more details about this,” I say, pulling out the wax-paper sleeve with the Superman comic inside.

She studies the translucent cover and the typewritten address. “You should go to the museum. They got one just like it.” Looking down at the white dust all over the floor, she adds, “This better not be asbestos.”

“Wait. There’s a Superman museum?” I ask.

“This should be the museum,” Mrs. Johnsel says, bending down and picking up the small bits of plaster and rocks that’re scattered across the landing. “Can you believe the city of Cleveland wouldn’t give us a plaque to put out front? Superman was born here! Not even a plaque!”

“Um . . . you were saying about the museum,” my father jumps in.

“It’s just an exhibit—Maltz Jewish Museum. By the temple over on Richmond,” Mrs. Johnsel explains. “I think you’d like it. They have one of those attic copies. Plus they got all sorts of biblical stuff, too.” She turns casually to her husband. “We got prayer group before dinner. Don’t think of being late.”