The Night Visitors

Chapter Fifteen Alice

OREN IS WORKING away at the potatoes like he’s spent his whole childhood doing hard labor. “Hey,” I say, “this is like that old movie we watched where those guys in the army had to peel sacks of potatoes when they did something wrong.”

“KP duty,” Oren says without looking up. “But Mattie isn’t punishing me; I’m just pitching in, like you said about shoveling the path this morning.”

“Sure,” I say, annoyed that he’s come to her defense. Why does he like her so much? “I was just worried about your arm. Does it feel okay? I’m sorry about before . . . I was just trying to keep you from running up the drive where that cop could see you.”

“It’s okay,” he says, shrugging. “It feels fine now. Look, Mattie gave me an ice pack.”

“And you’re okay about staying here tonight?” I ask, as if we had any choice.

“Yeah, I like it here. It feels like a family lives here.”

Like ours didn’t. Like this crazy-ass spinster living in a falling-down old house is more like a family than Davis and me. “Yeah, the Addams family,” I say. I start to hum the theme song to the show, which we watched on Nick at Nite, but Oren glares at me.

“Don’t do that. Mattie might hear you and she’ll think we’re making fun of her house.”

I roll my eyes. “Come on. How much can she really care about this house when she keeps it like this? The place is a mess.” I lean forward and lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I found mouse poop.”

Oren wrinkles his nose.

“Yeah,” I go on, “and stacks of newspapers from, like, the eighties. You know what? I think Mattie might be a hoarder.” This was another show we sometimes watched, but only because Davis liked it. He liked to make fun of the people on the show because he thought they were such sad sacks compared to him.

Oren shakes his head. “She collects all this stuff to give to people,” he says.

So that’s why he thinks Mattie is so great. Because she’s a do-gooder. “Yeah? Then why does she keep her dead brother’s room just the way he left it, huh?”

Oren looks up. I’ve finally gotten his attention, but maybe this wasn’t the best way to get it. I was telling the truth when I told Mattie that Oren has a really active imagination. After watching that scary movie about the crazy dad in the big hotel, Oren was spooked about bathtubs because of one of the scenes. He refused to take a bath for a month, until he smelled so bad Davis started calling him Stinky. I’d convinced him to get in the tub only by agreeing to sit in the bathroom with him, which Davis teased him about mercilessly.

And then there was the “poltergeist” that started taking things, after we watched that movie. First it was little stuff like some change Davis left on the counter or Davis’s socks or the can opener or the TV remote. They’re here! Oren would say in a creepy, singsongy voice whenever something went missing. At first it made Davis laugh, but then bigger stuff went missing, like bills from Davis’s wallet and a bottle of Jim Beam. That’s when Davis started blaming Oren and threatening to give him a whupping if he didn’t put the stuff back.

Oren kept up the story even after Davis took a belt to him. It’s the poltergeist, Dad! he cried over and over.

Then why does it only take my shit? Davis demanded with every swing of his belt.

The next day the belt was gone. Davis tore the house apart looking for it. I locked Oren and myself in the bathroom. When I asked Oren if he knew where the belt was he looked at me like Han Solo looks at Lando when Lando turns him over to Jabba the Hutt. I told you, it’s the poltergeist. He takes stuff from people he’s mad at.

I told Oren there was never going to be any peace until he just admitted to Davis that he’d taken the stuff.

That would make the poltergeist really mad, Oren said, unless . . .

Unless what, buddy?

Unless it knows we’re doing it for a good reason, like it’s part of a plan.

What kind of a plan? I’d asked, feeling the cold from the bathroom tiles travel up my spine.

A plan to get out of here. To go away. The poltergeist told me that Davis is just going to keep hitting us. It’s just going to get worse.

We could tell a social worker, I’d said. Scott could help.

Oren had considered it. He liked Scott. Would they let me stay with you? he asked. When I didn’t answer right away he said, Because I really, really want to stay with you, Alice.

The ice creeping through my veins melted then. And I really want to stay with you, buddy, I said, and I meant it. We’ll leave. I’ll start saving money tomorrow. We’ll take a bus upstate somewhere. There are shelters that take in women and kids up there. We’ll figure it out.

You promise?

I looked down at him, a little boy crouched on the bathroom floor clutching a Luke Skywalker in one hand and a Chewbacca in the other, and realized he was the first person who’d ever really needed me. Yeah, I said, I promise.

The next day all the lost stuff came back. Loose change, dirty socks, beer bottles, and Davis’s belt, all in a big pile on the living room floor. Not the missing cash, though. I found that in my purse: a roll of bills that added up to $316. I hid the money in a tampon box under the sink and got a Trailways bus schedule that day. I started saving my tips from the diner instead of using them to buy books and toys for Oren. I looked up shelters and domestic abuse services. Ulster County seemed to have the most services and it felt . . . familiar. My adoptive parents had lived up there. I remembered them talking about the orphanage where they got me like it was someplace nearby. And after they died when I was seven, I was placed in a group home not far from where they had lived. Never mind that I didn’t like it then; now it would be a good place for me and Oren. I kept my promise and the poltergeist stayed away.

Oren already seems to know about the dead kid. “She keeps it that way because she wants him to stay,” he says.

“Wants who to stay?” I ask, the potato peeler slipping in my hand and nicking my thumb.

“Caleb.”

“Did Mattie tell you that?” I ask, pressing a napkin to my thumb to stem the blood flow.

“No,” Oren says. “Caleb did.”

My whole body twitches. I grab him by both arms and he yelps. The ice pack balanced on his shoulder slides to the floor with a wet thump. “Don’t you start this again,” I say, keeping my voice low so Mattie won’t hear us.

“Ow!” he cries, but low, like he doesn’t want Mattie to hear either. “You’re hurting my arm.”

“Your arm was good enough for peeling potatoes for Mattie,” I spit back. “And we had a deal. You promised that if we left the poltergeist would go away.”

“Caleb’s not a poltergeist,” he says in that prissy tone he gets when he thinks I’m not smart enough to understand something. “He’s a ghost. That’s different. He wants to tell Mattie something. That’s why Mattie brought us back instead of taking us to the police. She thinks that Caleb will be able to tell her through me.”

I let him go and lean back, staring at him. “Did she tell you that?”

Oren stares at me like I’ve lost it. “No,” he snaps. “I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah, Caleb told you.” I picture Mattie sitting on the floor with Oren at Sanctuary, asking him if he heard voices. I thought she had gotten it into her head that Oren was psycho, but now it occurs to me that she wanted to know because she thinks Oren is some kind of medium who’s going to communicate with her dead brother.

“Hey, buddy.” I make my voice gentle. “You know it’s all a game, right? You don’t really hear that boy’s voice, do you?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t hear Caleb’s voice.”

I let out my breath. Oren’s not crazy. He’s a pleaser, Scott told me once. He’s learned to anticipate the needs of adults around him and come up with ways to meet or deflect them. He’s picked up on Mattie’s need to communicate with her dead brother and he’s trying to help her because he’s grateful to her for taking us in. Well, I’m not going to let her take advantage of him.

“Of course you don’t, buddy.” I hold out my arms and he collapses into them. I feel a swell of protectiveness rise up in me, burning off the chill of the house. We’ll be okay. One more night in this batty old house and we’ll hit the road. Just Oren and me. We don’t need anyone else.

He murmurs something against my shoulder that I can’t make out. “What’s that, buddy?” I ask, holding him at arm’s length.

“I said I don’t need to hear Caleb’s voice. He sends me messages.”

The chill creeps back up my spine. “What kind of messages?” I ask.

“Like finding Yoda,” he says, “and the marks on the windows.” He points behind me and I turn around. The bottom half of the window is fogged over and there are, indeed, dots drawn in the mist. Who knows how long they’ve been there. Mattie certainly hasn’t cleaned these windows in years.

“Those look pretty random,” I say, peering closer at the window.

“They’re not. The same pattern is on all the windows.” He’s pointing to the window over the sink. I get up to look at it more closely. Above the mist I can just make out an old red barn and below, yes, the pattern does look the same. “It means something to Caleb. I haven’t figured it out yet. I think it might be . . .”

I don’t hear the rest of Oren’s sentence. There’s something moving in the snow—a blurry shape. At first I think it’s a dog or a deer, but then the snow lets up for a moment and I make out the figure of a man. Then it disappears in another gust of snow. Or it’s gone inside the barn.

“I’ve got to get something from the barn,” I tell Oren hurriedly. “You stay here.”

I’m up before Oren can stop me. Before I leave the kitchen I slip a carving knife into my coat pocket. No one is taking Oren away from me.