Arson (4 page)

 

Chapter 7

 

 

ARSON NOTICED A MOVING truck parked outside the property next door that night. The abandoned house had been on the market for over a year. It was eerie, as if clothed in sorrow, its shingles loosed by wind and rain and sadness. Vacant and unredeemed, the structure had turned away many hopeful buyers over that time. He knew the house was ill with something. Grandma had gotten used to its dead glow, its dilapidated, fading, and crippled shape, but somehow he never could.

Arson watched shadows glide across the withered lawn. He paused for a moment on his slow walk back to the cabin to see people moving in. At first all he could make out was the shape of a slender woman. She appeared worn and unsettled by fatigue. He looked closer. Red hair lay fastened in place by a casual pin. The business air she had about her reminded him of those career types Grandma droned on about. The woman worked vigorously but dragged her feet as she walked. There appeared to be something not right with her.

He shifted his eyes for a moment to a green station wagon, an older model with rust encasing the trim, wheel wells, and back bumper. The dent on the front panel was a real eyesore. A rundown sedan sat beside it. What stunned him most, however, was the license plate. Beneath the white and light blue colors by which all Connecticut license plates were identified, read GDBLESU. Whether it was the cynic in him or a sense of faithlessness, Arson was grieved by it. The last thing he expected or desired was a band of religious nuts moving into his quiet corner of the world.

After a moment, he saw a girl. He couldn't get a clear view of her as she emerged from the blood-red front door, but what he did notice was that when she spoke, her voice crept out through strange skin. Twilight soon revealed that she was wearing a mask. 
A little early for Halloween, isn't it
? he thought, wishing he had binoculars. Arson fought curiosity while he imagined the girl trapped beneath its tortured, leathery skin; she could be his age.

The screen door suddenly flung open again, and out came a man, moderately built, with the dark shadow of a beard. His collared shirt hung over corduroy pants sloppily, like he'd been hard at work most of the evening. He appeared softer than the woman, gentler. Perhaps he was a philosophy teacher or something sophisticated like that. Arson half-wondered if he sat around smoking a pipe and listening to Beethoven while reclining in a big leather chair.

The man met the woman at the back end of the moving truck. He took a large bin from her, set it on the ground, and started to hug her. She seemed reluctant but hugged him anyway. The man's eyes suddenly drifted toward Arson. With little more than a stare, the man unintentionally made him anxious by standing up to get a better look. Before either of them could spare an introduction, Arson was lost along the dark path toward home.                                                                                         

 

* * *

 

The man held the woman in his arms for a long moment before letting go. Their embrace was stifled by her hot temper and sour mood. He asked her what was wrong, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“I know you've been worried about this move for the last couple of months,” the man said, caressing her cheek. “But so have I. We're going to make it work.”

“I've heard that before. That's what you said when Emery was being ridiculed in school by the other kids. You remember her coming home in tears. That's why she was home-schooled. And then a few years after that, because—”

“Rumors started about our family, Aimee,” the man said.

“What about Trenton? We were fine there too. You said that would be our home. For a while it was, but…” Her voice trailed off.

“I know it isn't easy, but this is our life. Emery isn't like other daughters. She's someone we've been blessed with.”

“Blessed? You call what happened to her a blessing?”

He rolled his eyes. For years he'd tried to convince his wife that what had happened to Emery, though horrible, wasn't the worst thing that could've happened in their family and that he would try to make everything okay. But his wife never could quite see it that way. “Our home is with each other,” he said.

“That sounds sweet on a card, but this is real life. I'm not a military brat anymore. I don't want a nomadic life, moving from place to place with nowhere to call home.”

The man wrapped his hands around her waist. “This move is going to bring us closer. I promise.”

“I want to believe you, but you can't make promises, Joel, because you don't know how to keep them.”

The man's face changed. It read defeat and heartbreak. “Listen. We can try, can't we? You have a new, less demanding job, and I don't have to run a church anymore. We'll get to spend more time with each other and with Emery.”

“If you say so.”

Their eyes met for an awkward moment. He was trying to console her, but she just didn't seem to care.

“Do you even know who she is anymore?”Aimee asked.

Joel's voice cracked with despair. “Of course I do. We've been raising her for the last seventeen years. I love her.”

Her nostrils flared. “We?”

“Don't do that, sweetheart. I've tried my best. I've tried hard to be a good father and husband.”

The abrupt moment drifted past. Their masked daughter made her way down the porch steps to greet them. “I'm really friggin' hungry,” she said. Immediately, her mother stuck out her neck; the gesture was exclamation enough for Emery to reply, “All right. I'll watch my language. You're so strict. You'd think you guys were born in the Stone Age.”

“Well, close. But I'm pretty sure Hendrix and Aerosmith might remember it as the 
stoned
age.”

Aimee shot him a disapproving look, which he knew meant he should have been firmly on her side rather than reminiscing on their youth with an off-color joke.

Joel shrugged his shoulders. “No one can take a friggin' joke around here.” He and his daughter shared a chuckle. It had been a while since he'd heard her laugh, even longer since he'd seen her face. Behind the mask, he wondered if the little girl he loved so much was still there. Emery seemed like more of a secret to him now, one that wouldn't be found out. Maybe he didn't have the words or the ability to connect with her. When he reached toward Emery to remove the hideous mask from her face, she accidentally scratched his hand.

“Don't touch it, Dad,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Arson slammed the front door behind him, taking deep breaths.

“Where are you coming from in such a hurry?” asked Grandma, who was sewing at the kitchen table. Too calm.

He filled a glass with water and swallowed it down.

“Well?” Grandma asked expectantly. Her reading glasses lingered above her chest, atop her apron.

“Nothing. Just happy to be home. Long day.”

“I'm glad you can still form nice long sentences,” she said.

A grin moved across his lips. Arson didn't have time to talk about how his day had gone. He was more interested in the new, unexpected family settling in next door. It was so sudden. Years had passed since they'd had sane neighbors. Arson wanted to meet the strange girl behind the mask.

“Where did those strangers come from?” Arson asked under his breath.

“Who?”

Arson glanced out the window above the sink and dropped the empty glass.

Grandma drew nearer to steal a peek. “I suppose they've arrived. They're a day early, though. The realtor knocked on my door this afternoon, told me they'd be coming. Have you met 'em yet?”

“No,” he quickly shot back.

“Look at them. They're so intent on making this their new home. Don't worry; they'll leave us too, just like the poor soul before them. But it is rather curious. Wonder what their story is, love. Everybody's got one.” Suddenly, Grandma dropped the blinds and changed the subject. “How was your day?”

“Another day at Tobey's,” he responded matter-of-factly, taking a seat at the table.

“C'mon, I'm sure there was something good about it. Something that made 
this
 day different, hmm?” Her hand brushed his shoulder. He wanted to hug her but didn't know if she'd embrace him back. Was she still angry with him?

“Not today, Grandma.” He sighed while she prepared his dinner. He kept Ray's retribution to himself. It would be of no use to let her know. Punishment was punishment in her eyes. Arson considered telling Grandma about Mandy, though, but realized that spilling his guts about a girl like her was sure to only add fuel to an already raging fire. Mandy was the very inspiration for what Grandma called “vile and perverse.” To tell her Mandy had dropped by for the third time in a week and that she had even questioned him about starting fires might invoke more of Grandma's hatred. She wouldn't understand. But something about her this evening was unusual.

“It's a shame you work in such a dull environment. Oh, but at least you get to come home to a hot meal.” She smiled and placed the dish in front of him. His mind was swimming.

“Now eat up, love. I'm sure you're hungry. I'm going to bed. I'll see you in the morning.”

Arson sliced through the roast beef, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly. It was strange of Grandma to act so kindly, so free. He pondered it. Maybe he had just prepared for the 
darker
side tonight. Ever since he could remember, her emotions had been impossible to decipher or even fully comprehend. Her moods could change as quickly as the weather. Grandma smiled often, but there were few occasions when she actually meant it. Tonight he had seen a real part of her, alive for a moment.

As he swallowed, Arson's mind retraced his memories, back to days when Grandma would laugh and briefly find peace with the creature she had been forced to raise. Maybe she had really been happy once, before him. If only Arson could bring back his mother. If he had never been brought into this cruel world, maybe 
she'd
 still be alive, and the woman he called Grandma wouldn't be so burdened with despair and anguish.

Arson sat in silence, forgetting about the new neighbors for a while and about the job he despised. He was hopeful tonight, reminded now of the person Grandma could be, the person he wanted her to be, and why he loved her.

 

Chapter 8

 

 

WALKING BY THAT HOUSE the next morning bothered Arson. He couldn't shake the eerie feeling that rattled his insides every time he looked at it.

Arson's gaze moved up and down its haunting frame. As he stared at the house's peeling yellow skin, years of old leaves still covering the porch, the missing roof shingles, and the hoary glow in its eyes when the blinds finally lifted, he found himself thinking of the man who had once resided there.

He could remember the loud, unmentionable sounds at night, the tormenting scenarios Arson fabricated after only moments of adolescent imagination. He recalled coming home one day to find the house abandoned, the man gone. Seeing the structure alive again with new souls was beyond emotion or belief. Where had they come from? What did they want with this dull town? Who were they?

Arson wanted these questions answered. He didn't care what the answers were, but he had to know. Strangers didn't belong moving into abandoned houses, not here. They didn't deserve new lives. Soon enough, they'd realize it was a mistake all along, moving here. Soon enough, they'd run away.

He looked down and kept walking. A flood of sadness flushed through his bones. Arson smacked his lips together and sighed. This place wasn't where souls came to find new life; it was where they came to die.

 

* * *

 

“Rough night?” Joel asked his wife with a groan.

She yawned absentmindedly. Having perfected the art of avoidance, Aimee shut her eyes and leaned over her knees.

“How'd you sleep, sweetheart?” Joel picked his body up from the mattress, placed his feet on the cold floor, and shivered.

“I didn't sleep much, Joel,” Aimee finally said, breaking the air. Still tired, she finagled her way into the red bathrobe that hung off the mahogany bed frame and cracked her joints.

“I'm wondering if that's ever going to stop creeping me out,” he mumbled.

“You'll probably get used to it when I get used to hearing you snore all night.”

Should that have hurt
? She wasn't sure if she'd meant it harshly or not; it just seemed to come out that way. Tossing her hair back, Aimee shrugged it off and shuffled into the bathroom.

Aimee wet her hands and ran them down her forehead and cheekbones. The cold relaxed her face. She rubbed and stretched her skin, pulling back the pale and wrinkling flesh with a number of odd smiles and facial expressions she'd acquired in over a dozen and a half health seminars, the ones her husband bought for her but never got the hint weren't working. Sitting down for an hour at a time, listening to some phony talk about how to lose that excess flab currently residing on the corner of Butt and Hip was nauseating. Those ridiculous self-help gurus claimed to have the cure for aging and debilitation when they looked ten years older than Methuselah himself.

Aimee needed something to distract her thoughts before going into shutdown. Coffee usually did the trick. She hustled around her new kitchen. “Where did I put that stupid pot?” Flurried emotions scattered her brain. She was beginning to regret arranging and rearranging the kitchen at four thirty in the morning when her husband and daughter had been sound asleep. “Now where did I put it?”

Aimee lifted up things and moved pots and pans aside, rummaged through the pantry, but couldn't find it. What she did find were far too many Tupperware containers, containers used to throw potluck dinners for church people they would never see again.

Suddenly, a looming shadow startled her.

“Oh dear. For heaven's sake, Emery, you scared me half to death,” Aimee said, flustered.

“Good morning to you too,” the voice behind the mask replied.

“You shouldn't sneak up on me like that. I can be very dangerous this early in the morning. Were you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Emery paused.

“That was rhetorical.”

“What are you doing anyway?” Emery asked, yawning. “You look like you're searching for the holy grail or something.”

“Would that make me crazy?” she said, panting. “I need coffee. Lots of coffee. Maybe that'll fix me. Where did I put that pot?”

“Is this something new?”

“What?”

“Your multiple personality disorder, that's what. It's becoming ever so popular nowadays. When were you diagnosed?” Emery gasped. “How long's it been since the last memory of your
truer
 self?”

“Oh, stop it,” Aimee said, sticking her head into the deep of the lazy Susan. “Lots of mothers talk to themselves, but you're only seventeen. You wouldn't understand.”

Emery took a seat at the counter. “Craziness aside, Mom, do you really think caffeine is going to solve all your problems?”

“Uh huh,” she strained. “It sure is. For now, anyway.”

“Suit yourself. Hey, did you sleep all right last night? From the looks of you, I'm sensing a little more than the usual first-night-in-a-new-home syndrome got to you.”

“What makes you say that?” Aimee echoed from inside one of the cabinets.

“Because as much as I would relish the opportunity to publicly acknowledge your slow spiral into maternal insanity, I remember what you told me our first night in Jersey. You said you couldn't sleep there. So, being the prodigy that I am, I figured first nights in new homes aren't exactly your thing. But I happen to think it's more than that this time.”

“
House
, dear,” Aimee said, emerging from the dark space. “This is just a house, that's all. This place is temporary. Give your father enough time and he'll find a reason to move us again.”

“Everything isn't 
his
 fault, Mom.”

Aimee remembered the long nights alone, wondering where her husband was. She thought back to church functions that took priority over their daughter's birthday parties, the way his job forced him to put someone or something ahead of them, ahead of her.

“Oh, you were so young, Emery. You still are. We just have no real place to call home, and it bugs me.”

“You didn't have a real home growing up either; does that mean that you hate your dad too?”

“I do not hate your father. But I don't want you to grow up with regrets. I want you to have a normal life. Take this mask off, Emery, please. It frightens me. You don't need it. Besides, maybe if you take it off, we can move on with our lives. All of us.”

“I'm not taking it off.” Emery recoiled. A moment divided them. “By the way, we're not normal. Unless, of course, dysfunctional is the new normal.”

Aimee looked at her strangely. How had she and her daughter grown so far apart? She hated the lingering moments during car rides when the air would get so thick you could cut it with a knife, the moments when they both dreaded exchanging words. Or the agonizing and bittersweet disagreements that had spiraled them into separation. So much had changed so fast. When had she become the bad guy?

“Life hasn't been normal since I was a little girl,” Emery said, scooting out of the chair and running upstairs to her bedroom.

Slamming the cabinet door shut, Aimee sighed again and wiped her eyes. “I don't even want coffee,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Impatient customers stood in front of Tobey's. By the time Arson arrived, many of their faces had turned into something sour, their eyes callous and irritated. Was being a few minutes late really that monumental? With a deep sigh, he rapidly unlocked the door and let them in. Avoiding eye contact altogether, he rushed to the back, flipped on the lights, put on his white apron, and raced behind the counter to serve.

The first few orders were simple, cones of this or that. Then they got complicated. Two banana splits followed, both accompanied by mothers who had baseball games to get to, their faces consumed with unease and irritation. “Billy's pitching today,” a snarly mother said, “and if he's late, the coach will bench him.” Before Arson had the opportunity to ask why any mother in her right mind would buy an ice cream sundae before her son's game, he realized it was smarter to keep quiet. He took the money and picked up the pace. A chocolate milkshake came next, followed by three mashes: a mix of five different flavors, each complete with three extra toppings, whipped cream, peanut butter, hot fudge, and a cherry.

Scurrying back and forth behind the counter, Arson found himself thinking of how pathetic he was. Would he be stuck behind this counter forever, listening to impatient mothers shout orders at him all day? Options like college or a high-paying job weren't exactly in the cards for someone who started fires with his mind. Most of the time, he wasn't even there; his mind often found better, more dignifying places to be, off saving someone or helping an old woman cross the street or in the arms of a beautiful girl. 
But it's not real
, his head always reminded him. 
It's not real
.

Another rush of people marched in, these even more impatient, demanding, and unthankful than those before. Whether they were headed to mini-golf, a morning sports game, or merely seeking to silence the obnoxious lust for their weekend hot fudge heart attack made no difference. They all raced to the front of the line, spit out an order or a laundry list of orders, and left without leaving a tip. By half past one, there was only one customer left smiling.

She was a sweet, elderly woman who ordered a vanilla sundae. There was something Arson felt when he looked at her that made him think this was how Grandma might have been if he had not come along to disturb her life. This woman was kind and gentle. What Arson found most beautiful about her was the pleasant way she spoke to him, the 
thank yous
 and 
you're so sweets
 she threw in while he took her order. He didn't think people still possessed that kind of goodness anymore. She was special. But he couldn't, for the life of him, even remember her name.

By two o'clock, the parlor had died down, in time for his arm to rest and Jason and Chelsea to stroll in. Neither said more than a hello. They immediately rushed to the break room. After twenty minutes of giving them their space, Arson begged to have a few batches of ice cream made. Jason and Chelsea exchanged frustrated glances and reluctantly completed the task.

While they were in the back, Arson went to the bathroom. Before he had finished washing his hands, he could've sworn he heard someone walking in. But when he stepped out to greet the customer, he instead caught Jason rushing to the back again. It looked like he was up to no good, and Arson had his suspicions.

Trying to ignore it, he created the biggest, most appealing hot fudge sundae in ice cream history for himself in order to relax and calmly relish the few moments of quiet that remained before Murder Breath stumbled in.