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Her skin turned to gooseflesh, tiny hairs pulling themselves out of flop sweat.
She was looking at a drawing. A drawing of a skull with ratty wisps of hair, eyes glowing. The kind of thing that was printed on a certain type of T-shirt. She was sure if she could see more of it above the skull, above the glowing eyes, it would say Black Sabbath, Metallica, the name of some other band that toyed with painted death for purposes of coolness and album sales.
Yes, she could see now what was happening, what the explanation was.
The Corner was sitting on the stairs. His back was to her. She had seen a bit of his shirt earlier, slices of him through the vent as he’d checked those front doors, but this was a fraction of him zoomed in close. Sitting the way he was, the skull eyes gazed from the back of his shirt and through the vent at her, blinking and winking with each wrinkle, each movement.
Please, kitty, don’t you bite.
She thought the pounding of her heart might be loud enough to wake her son, still sleeping on her lap.
It’s impossible! How did he get there without you hearing him? Or…did you fall asleep again?
She didn’t think so, but supposed it was possible. Her fear, her throbbing head, the way she’d flown above the house to think of escape routes were so like a dream.
But…all the noise he made before. The toys in the playroom, the crackly board at the entrance to the office! And no way he came down the front stairs. Even quiet as you managed to get down them, with all your practice, it would still be deafeningly loud in this hollow place.
She tried to understand. Hypothesized that he’d come down the kitchen stairs and through the living room. That he’d accidentally or on purpose avoided the loud board at the entrance to the office. That he’d sat down carefully enough she hadn’t heard the stair tread crack.
He’s learning the sounds of the place. How to camouflage himself.
Again she felt her mind snag and catch on something familiar, something she should remember.
It’s something to do with the shirt. Have you seen that shirt before?
Of course you have. People wear them all the time, black shirts from some band with skulls on them, glowing eyes, bones.
If you could remember, it could help.
Stop it. Focus.
She closed her eyes, awash in gratefulness that the children had happened to fall asleep. Hadn’t been whispering, letting the Corner come on them unawares. Certainly even whispers would be hearable through the vent, on top of it like he was. A tiny twist of chance that had turned in her favor.
“This place crawls when it’s empty,” the Corner had complained aloud to himself earlier. “There are voices, noises, and no one’s there.”
Yes, he had heard voices. And now he was searching for her and the children, tracking the source of those disembodied sounds. The Corner sat five feet away watching, listening patiently with pricked ears, his closeness a suffocation.
He knows you’re here.
Stop, stop. He’s sitting in this spot because from here he can hear anyone in the playroom, the office, the stairs, the kids’ bedrooms. He’s waiting for you to make a move, a mistake. Give yourself away.
It occurred to her that she and the Corner were doing the same thing. Both waiting quietly in the surreal present, paused between their past lives and whatever future came next.
Breathe. Think. You can’t do anything. Can’t control anything but how quiet and still you are. And even that you can’t control. Not really. Snores, sneezes, sighs. The slightest movement from the children, and he’ll hear you.
This complete lack of say in her own present, her own future, made her heartbeat calm. There were no decisions to be made. Not in this moment, anyhow. She leaned her head against the brick, felt the warmth of her children’s breathing bodies, and was strangely relieved to be momentarily absolved of allresponsibility.
13
She woke up confused, mouth powdery sour. A familiar sound was just vanishing at the edge of comprehension. She saw only darkness. She oriented herself, and her heartbeat ticked up with the memory of where she was.
Her eyes flew to the vent. There was nothing on the other side. Which didn’t mean the Corner wasn’t there. Just that he wasn’t sitting on the same step.
Stupid, stupid! To let yourself fall asleep! You fall asleep now? Here?
She gingerly pressed a finger to the knot on her head. It had settled at the size of a peach pit. Still throbbing, but not sickeningly painful the way it had been. She pawed carefully with her free hand, found the sippy cup, and drank. It washed away a bit of the webby feeling from her mouth. She stopped herself from drinking more.
Save it for the kids.
