By the Light of His Lantern Page 31

  “And asking if he’ll come visit…”

  “I wonder why she wrote letters in the first place? Why not email or call or text or…” Lara waved a handful of letters in the air. “…anything but this?”

  “Maybe his address was all she had…”

  They read through half the pile before Catherine decided she needed a break. She stood and stretched.

  “You done?”

  “No. I just need a break. I’m going to make his smoothie. Are you hungry at all?”

  “No.”

  Catherine blended up the usual. She poured it into a small pitcher, which she’d discovered made pouring into his mouth immensely easier. She took it downstairs where they had returned him the previous night. Lara continued reading through the letters.

  “Hey you…” she whispered, kneeling next to him. “Visited your place earlier.” She set the pitcher down. She leaned in and observed his face, the color of his sickly skin, the darkness around his eyes. “Looks the same as I imagine it did last you saw it…”

  She lifted his head and slid her leg under to prop him up. She put the pitcher to his lips, pressed it against his lower jaw until his mouth parted, and slowly started to pour. Once it entered his mouth his lips puckered to it and he started to swallow. It was as if he waited for it now, the one voluntary function his comatose mind allowed.

  Footsteps down the wooden stairs made her pause. Lara was there, halfway down and watching.

  “Is this what you do every day?”

  “Every day.”

  She continued down and stood next to Catherine.

  “So those adult diapers were for him.”

  Catherine didn’t confirm nor deny, she only continued pouring the smoothie, gradual enough for him to keep up. He swallowed it down, gulp by gulp. There were probably so many nutrients he was deficient in that she wasn’t considering, but it was something. Hopefully soon it wouldn’t matter…

  “He’s not looking so good.”

  “If all goes well it won’t be for much longer.”

  Lara rubbed her arm meekly. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this alone.”

  “I did this to myself.”

  “I mean… Joy and everything.”

  The man had stopped swallowing and the smoothie was dribbling out of his mouth. Catherine set the pitcher down for the last time. It was mostly empty, anyway.

  “I’m the parent. I should have been there for both my children and I wasn’t.” Catherine lifted his head off her leg, positioned him comfortably, and then got to her feet with a groan. “Let’s finish off those letters.”

  They returned upstairs and sat down with their pile of paper and envelopes. There were still so many to go through. Catherine began to doubt they’d find one that qualified.

  “I don’t think any of these will work,” Lara said. “All these letters begging him to respond and to come home. Some of them even seem… I don’t know, manipulative? Desperate? Like she’s trying to guilt him into coming home.”

  “I think she just misses him,” Catherine said.

  Lara set down the letter in her hand. “I don’t think he liked his mother very much.”

  “He must have cared about her some, at least. Or else he wouldn’t have held on to all of these. Right?”

  That said, Catherine still wasn’t sure the letters would be good enough. Maybe there was something they hadn’t found. It was hard to know for sure with only half a conversation.

  “I don’t think he knows his dad,” Lara said, reading through another letter. “Or… he’s dead, maybe?” She read further down the letter and suddenly she rose to her knees, clenching the letter in both hands. “Mom, I think I have it.”

  “Have what?”

  Lara’s eyes flashed from one side of the page to the other, one line to the next, reading.

  “This is it,” she said. “We have to go back.”

  Instead of handing the letter over she came around to the other side of the coffee table and put it down in front of Catherine, pointing to a particular line on the page. Catherine read it over quickly.

  “A picture of him and his dad,” Lara said, before Catherine could finish reading it for herself. “She sent him a picture of his dad. I bet it’s there somewhere. We need to look through everything.”

  “A tie, too.”

  “A what? A tie?”

  “Further down, she says she sent him one of his father’s ties. A red and silver one.” Catherine looked up from the letter. “His father’s favorite.”

  “Well there we go,” Lara said. “Hopefully between the two, one will work. If we can find them.”

  “How do we know it’s emotionally significant or… whatever the hell?”

  “If we find it there, that means he’s kept it for one reason or another. We have nothing else.”

  Catherine looked woefully at the papers spread around them, like a filing cabinet exploded. “I’ll get my keys.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was well after dark the second time they arrived at the apartment complex. Quiet as sleuthing children, they slipped back up the stairway and into apartment number eight.

  Catherine had felt bitter disappointment the first time they walked inside. The lack of property had meant a lack of things to choose from. Now, however, it meant less to search through. Lara agreed to start in the living room/kitchen area and Catherine returned to the bedroom, where either of the items were most likely to be.

  She returned to the dresser. She pulled open each drawer. She rifled through every article, digging until she saw the bare wooden bottom of each drawer. There were four drawers in all and none of them contained any photographs or ties. She went to the closet again. All the band shirts. Did he even own any proper dress clothes? Catherine didn’t think so. She slid every hanger across from one end of the closet to the other. At the opposite end, separated from the more casual t-shirts and sweaters, there was exactly one button-up shirt, white. Hanging next to them on some clipping hangers was a black pair of dress pants. There was still a shelf above the hanging rod, however. She dragged the office chair away from the desk and stood on it to get a better look.

  “I found it!” Lara called. “The picture!”

  She came running into the room, waving it like it was a freshly developed polaroid. She was smiling ear to ear.

  “He has a few books on his little shelf out there. This was a bookmark.”

  Catherine was relieved they’d found something. She gave a cursory glance across the upper shelf of the closet and saw what looked to be an old pair of sneakers, a pair of hiking boots, a red aluminum toolbox, and two dress ties.

  “Oh.”

  One was black, the other red and silver.

  “And I found the tie.”

  She jumped down from the chair and they exchanged their findings. The photo had that old quality to it, the fuzzy coloring. In it was a young man, possibly in his late twenties, sat in a chair with a small boy in his lap. So many years later, Catherine instantly recognized the boy as the young man in her basement, though in the photo he was understandably more… lively. In front of them the father held a children’s book. On its cover was a brightly colored field of flowers, and standing in the flowers was a large gorilla, a blue balloon held by the string in its fist. Seeing himself there, a look of awe in his big, childish eyes, so enraptured in the story that he was entirely unaware a photo was being taken, sparked a wound of guilt so sharp and fine she felt it physically in her body, an aching. She could hardly look at it another second. She thrust it back into Lara’s hand.

  “That should work,” she said.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Tired as they both were, Catherine was impressed when Lara noticed something as they turned into the driveway. The garage door rumbled up, but Catherine stopped there to look herself.

  There was a package on the doorstep.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Open it.”

  They stood together by the front door. Cath
erine held it, a package about the size of a thick hardcover book, but it was too light to have anything like that inside. In fact, it was so light it felt empty.

  Catherine took the package into the kitchen, where she pulled a knife from the cutting block. She hesitated.

  “I’m not sure I should.”

  “Why not?”

  “We don’t know what it might be.”

  “Exactly. That’s why we open it.”

  “I’m almost positive I know who left it.”

  “That woman. The witch.”

  “Psychic.”

  “Whatever.”

  Catherine set the package on the countertop.

  “What could she have sent us?” Lara asked.

  “I don’t know. Anything is possible at this point, isn’t it? She already gave me one thing and it seemed to work pretty well.”

  Catherine must have made a good point as Lara didn’t argue further.

  “Like I said before, we got off easy. I don’t think trying to circumvent her business practices sat too well with her. Certainly not well enough to be let off with a slap on the wrist.”

  “What are you going to do? Just throw it away?”

  Catherine looked at the box for an uncomfortable amount of time. There wasn’t a name or an address, as it hadn’t been delivered by post. It had been delivered personally. She wanted to throw it away. There was really no reason not to. Anything in the box would be trouble, she thought.

  “What if it’s information?” Lara asked. “What if it’s something we need to know, or have? What if she returned your phone?”

  That was something Catherine hadn’t considered. The simple notion actually calmed her, like she’d been paranoid expecting anything else.

  “I’ll open it if you want.”

  “No,” Catherine said. “I’ll do it.”

  She slit the tape on both sides, drew the knife down the middle. Lara leaned around her shoulder to see. Catherine winced as she pinched the cardboard flaps. The box wasn’t open two inches before something emerged out at them.

  “Oh my God!” Lara yelped.

  Both their shrieks were borne more from surprise than danger. A gray moth danced into the air, pedaling its tiny wings as it swooped drunkenly from side to side. After the shock wore off, Catherine, realizing just how odd it was, couldn’t help thinking something was amiss. She grabbed for it and it fluttered just out of reach toward the ceiling.

  “What are you doing?” Lara said.

  “There’s nothing else in the box.”

  Catherine began to climb onto the countertop to get closer. Lara lifted the empty box up to see for herself.

  “What does it mean?”

  With a groan Catherine hoisted herself up. Her knees throbbed against the hard countertop. She reached for it again, clawed for it like a playful cat, but it drifted away by mere inches and floated toward the living room.

  Climbing back down Catherine said, “It means they intentionally sent us a moth in a box, which means it must be more than just a moth in a box.”

  When they pursued it into the living room, it had escaped them.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  They had the items they thought they needed. They would perform the reversal the next day. Catherine, having to return to work, entrusted Lara with watching the house and making sure the man was taken care of.

  “I’m not changing him,” she said.

  It had all come together somehow. She couldn’t wrap her head around the how of it, even if she had been there all the while. A week prior she had felt helpless, like she’d dug herself into a very deep hole with no rope or ladder. It amazed her she had found the help she had in Beth, and even more so Lara. While she still had a distant buzzing of doubt about her honesty, her intentions, she was glad Lara wanted to be involved, even if it was the most bizarre method of getting closer to her daughter imaginable.

  Catherine went to bed that night optimistic about their chances with the reversal. And not only that—she went to bed optimistic Lara would still be there in the morning.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  No amount of optimism would help her sleep. However thoroughly she imagined the next day, all its possible diversions and outcomes, she couldn’t find satisfaction in being certain it would work out. Based on the past alone, she figured she must be lying to herself in some way, to think things could return to normal. If their day had been any indication, she should expect all facets of their plan to fail.

  She tossed and turned for a couple hours until finally she’d exhausted herself enough to lay in one position for longer than a minute. The longer she lay there, the slower and more vague her thoughts became. Soon she was drifting.

  On the brink of sleep her eyes snapped open. The blank ceiling returned her alert gaze with its empty shadows. She rolled over, sat up in bed. Her door was open and someone was standing in it. A tall shape. Holding her breath, she remained sitting, limbs stiff. She blinked. She blinked again. The dark was unchanged. Someone, not Lara, continued watching. Catherine stared so directly, eyes turning dry, she wasn’t sure if she imagined that the figure swayed from side to side. When her mind mustered up enough denial, she leaned across her bed and flipped the switch on her nightstand lamp.

  The door was open but it was empty. If there hadn’t been a figure, she thought, her bedroom door didn’t open itself. Could Lara have come in for some reason? She threw the blanket off and made her way to shut the door. As she did, abrupt footsteps left the bedroom, footsteps only her ears could detect. Catherine halted at the end of her bed. She waited, listened as they trailed down the hall. She stood in place for a full minute, deciding if she’d fallen asleep after all.

  Without taking another step she called out, softly, “Lara?”

  Nothing.

  She followed into the hallway, turned the light on there. Lara’s door was shut. She tiptoed to the other end of the hall, where the stairs faded into gloom below. She peered down and her body turned stiff again. It was there, near the front door, in the corner. Watching.

  “Who are you?”

  The figure stood in place, and again the longer Catherine stared the more she thought she saw it swaying very slightly side to side. Feeling bold, she took two steps down the stairs. It was unchanged. She hunched her neck, squinted to make it out better, but the darkness offered no details. There was something so foreign about it, she felt oddly safe—or rather, she didn’t feel in immediate danger. Part of her suspected it was nothing, even as she saw its shape plainly, lucidly. She was not asleep, and it was not a coat rack or anything else playing tricks with the shadows. It was a humanoid form, arms at their sides, standing straight, and it moved, she thought. But somehow it was nothing. If she turned around and went back to bed, she would be all right.

  Feeling bolder still, she took two more steps, halfway down the stairs now, and as she did the figure took a step deeper into the corner. Goosebumps raised all down her arms.

  “What are you?”

  She took one more step down. The edges of the shadow changed. They blurred. Like vines of shadow, its form very slowly spread out behind it, like ink on wet paper. It was as though it were attaching itself to the walls like mold, gradually losing its shape. Disoriented by the sight of its transformation, Catherine took two more steps down. Then another, and then another. The closer she came, the more quickly it dissolved, until she walked directly toward it across the foyer from the bottom of the stairs, challenging it to reappear, and by the time she reached the corner there was nothing and she was alone in the dark.

  Above her the hall light turned off. She spun around. Froze. Hands out front, she made her way back to the foot of the stairs. She grabbed hold of the stair banister, directed her eyes blindly to the top. The lamp in her bedroom must have gone out as well. Pitch black.

  Footsteps again. Up above, in the hallway. They came closer, toward the head of the stairs. Paused. Catherine gripped the banister tighter.

  “Lara?”

&nbs
p; They rushed toward her, stomped down the stairs like someone in a hurry. She retreated away toward the front door, muscles wound tight around her bones, ready to carry her away from this approaching thing at any moment.

  “Lara!” she screamed.

  Her back met the wall just beside the front door and she shrank against it, the footsteps arriving before her. It towered, breathless, noiseless, a presence of watching, its eyes on her. Catherine screamed.

  Upstairs the guest bedroom door opened and instantly it was gone, that feeling, lapped away by the sound of Lara emerging into the hall, and Catherine’s terror was traded with a distinct sense of out-of-place-ness. The hall light illuminated. Lara approached the head of the stairs.

  Through the gloom, silhouetted against the upstairs light, Catherine glimpsed the flutter of a moth. Reflexively she clapped her hands, caught it between them.

  “Mom?”

  Catherine got to her feet. She opened her hands, saw the death on them, the moth which was not a moth. Its wings like dust on her skin.

  “I got it,” she said, and went to the kitchen to wash up.

  PART III

  The Glimmer

  Chapter Eleven

  By the Light of His Lantern

  He pushed himself up off the sand.

  The sea waves roared and crashed around him.

  Now you know where.

  He lay in the sand for a moment, catching his breath. He tasted the saltwater on his lips. He touched his wet lips with his now-intact finger. Good as new.

  You know there’s another boat.

  He knew where he could find one. Or at least, someone who did.

  “I’d better hurry,” he said, and climbed up and started walking.

  The man with the fiery eyes would know where he was soon enough. The living ink would tell him. Just now it would be describing his journey across the shore. It would tell of his trek along the tree line, up the slope of sandy boulders, across the grassy plain to the next beach, where a tiny wooden shack lay hidden below like a freckle in the sand, its window lit to reveal a withered old man inside…