Shadows Burned In (18 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re dismissed.”

Getting up from the couch, her mother’s hand slipping slowly
down her back as she pulled away, Elizabeth was relieved and despondent at the
same time. But at least it was over. She made her way down the stairs from the
living room.

“Not too quickly,”
her 3V voice said,
“or he’ll
get you for that too.”

When she got to her room she closed the door and got into
bed, pulling the pillow over her head. Without her 3V world, the pillow and
closed door were the only things that muffled the yelling.

“Well, that should take care of it for today,” David said,
unmuting
Web Report
. “Tomorrow on the other hand, I’m not so—”

“Oh, shut
up
,” said Susan. Her voice rose quickly,
thunder in front of an approaching storm. David stared at her, dumbstruck.
“Don’t you know
why
she left today, David? Don’t you understand that you
can’t talk to your own daughter?”

He muted
Web Report
again and stood up, putting his
hands on his hips. “Enlighten me, since you seem to know everything.”

“You push her too
hard
.” Susan’s hands were out, her
fingers working, as if she could somehow help him grasp what she was saying.
“You’re always threatening her with failure. Do you know what it’s like at her
age to be warned against being a failure day after day by the man you look up
to more than any other in the world?”

“Do you
really
have to ask that question?”

Susan stood up too then, her hands now clenched fists at her
side. “No, I suppose not. But that’s why you of
all
people should
understand her!”

“Then what do you want me to do?” He was shouting now. “Let
her get away with disobeying me? Enable her failure in school? Set her up to
fail for the rest of her life?”

Susan’s head drooped. “There it is
again
! You measure
everything in her so many different ways that none of it means a goddamned
thing! So all you do is confuse her. You hold your love out to her on a stick,
a reward for applying herself. Some parents spoil their kids with
stuff
.
You promise you’ll love her
if
she measures up to your definition of
success!”

“That’s not true!”

“Of course it is! Everything you do shows it, whether you
know it or not! Jesus, David, you were more upset when I told you about the
monitor’s call than you were when I told you she was out after dark.” Susan was
close to tears now herself. She heard the words she was saying, and hearing
them out loud showed her just how bad things had gotten.

They stood there, faces taut, each daring the other’s eyes
to give ground. David looked away and turned around to find his chair. He fell
into it. Susan stayed standing, her eyes never leaving him, pinning him to the
mat of his recliner.

“That’s not true either,” he said. His voice was level. “I’m
just as worried about her as you are.”

Susan took a deep breath. “But that’s not what I hear from
you, David. That’s not what you
say
. That’s not what she
sees
.”

“I don’t give a good goddamned what you
. .
.
” He grimaced. The hounds of his anger were dragging him forward into
rage. He could feel their leashes breaking. But he held on. “You should know me
well enough by now to know that I worry as much as you,” David said coolly.
“For godsakes, we’ve been married long enough.”

Susan sat back down on the couch.
He’s relaxing, now you
relax
, her mind advised her. “I used to think I knew you. Before we moved
back here.”

He flashed her a look. It warned her not to start that
argument.
Let’s at least finish the one we’re having first, deal?

After fifteen years of marriage, she knew what the look
meant. “David, for once I’m not digging at you for coming back here. But it’s
this
town
. It’s cursed or something. I can’t imagine why—”

“Jesus,
please
—”

Susan threw up her hands to ward him off. “I’m sorry. It’s
just that—”

“It’s a safer community, Sue!” David heard his own raised
voice and flinched away from it. He lowered his tone.
Down, boy
. “We
talked about this. It’s simpler living here.”

“
We
talked about it,” murmured Susan, “then
you
made the decision to move back here.”

“Here we go—”

“But I’m telling you, David,” she said, cutting the other
debate short, “it’s this
town
. She has no real friends here. And kids
need more than
. . .
” She motioned at the muted
Web
Report
with its horizontally scrolling numbers and interactive stock-buying
options. “She needs more than the Web.”
And so do I
, she thought but
didn’t say.

“She’s making friends. It takes time to get adjusted. I
realize that.”

Susan grabbed onto that. “Then
tell her that
. Don’t
come down on her so hard.
Help
her. Don’t berate her.”

David stared at the scrolling numbers on the screen. He forced
himself not to focus on the MerChrysler numbers. “I’ll talk to her again
tomorrow, after school.”

“Better yet, talk
with
her. David, she’s a wonderful
girl.”

“I
know
that,” he said defensively.
Don’t you
think I know my own daughter?

“Almost a teenager.”

He rolled his eyes. He remembered what he and Theron had
looked for in teenaged girls. At that moment he recalled the ridiculous memory that
he and Theron had pooled their money to buy X-ray glasses from the back of a
comic book so they could see through girls’ clothing. The X-ray specs hadn’t
worked, dammit.
Jesus, what am I thinking?

“She’s growing up,” Susan pressed. “We have to help her with
that.”

“Don’t remind me,” was all he said, running his hand through
his hair. He unmuted
Web Report
.

Susan, sensing maybe she had made some progress, let the
conversation end there. She walked into the kitchen to putter around. Nothing
really needed to be done. She’d spent her day worrying over Elizabeth’s
whereabouts and cleaning the house so much it almost shined.

David sat in the living room, hearing
Web Report
but
not really listening to it, unable to think of anything else but the body
language of the two people he loved most in the world as they’d sat on that
couch.

They pulled away from me
.

He played the scene over in his mind. He had leaned forward;
they had leaned back.

They felt safer sitting away from me.

He rewound it again, replayed it. And again.

They felt the
need
to feel safer
.

The thought broke his heart.

Chapter 17

Elizabeth pulled the pillow down tighter over her head. The
Parent-Free Zone sign on her door implied they couldn’t enter without her
say-so, though sometimes, like now, she couldn’t keep even their voices out. Still,
it remained her sacred space, unspoiled by unwelcome visitors if nowhere else
but in her mind.

She lay face down on her bed, tempted to cry but ashamed for
wanting to. Instead, she settled for clamping the pillow over her head. She
thought about her fantasy world, imagining the landscape of Rheanna around her.
The smell of the horses and the blooming sweetness of the green grass. The
power of the horse beneath her and the feel of his muscles as she rode across
the plain. Her Companions riding at her side to meet the evil Mallus on the
field of battle.

But it just wasn’t the same. She couldn’t really smell the
grass below her. Caomos didn’t jostle and jolt her in the saddle. No Companions
pledged fealty to her, come what may. There was only the dull roar of her own
blood pounding, amplified by her stopped-up ears. And it was already getting
hot under the pillow.

She took it off her head and sat up, brushing her tangled
hair from her eyes. Elizabeth could hear another dull roar now, the low,
occasionally not-so-low argument between her parents. Her mother once called it
a “disagreement” when Elizabeth had asked her about it a long time ago. As if
using that word to describe the yelling and cursing could somehow make it
better, maybe even soften the loud voices in her memory’s ear.

But children always know.

And so she called it an argument in her head and never asked
her mother again what it really was because Elizabeth already knew, and all the
calling-it-something-else in the world couldn’t convince her it was anything other
than what it was.

“Let’s get in the tank,”
her 3V voice said.

No
.

“They’re too busy arguing,”
it said.
“We can ride
in Rheanna—”

“I said no!” Elizabeth shouted it out loud, a ringing echo
in her sanctuary that drowned out the mumbling, heated voices from the other
room. She put her fists to her temples, hoping the pressure would drive out the
demon voice tempting her to do what she knew she shouldn’t. Seeing no other
option, she was about to put the pillow over her head again when she heard the
scraping at the window. It was a quiet, shy sound, and it spooked her. She
turned slowly

(don’t bother, monsters can still see you)

and stared at the glass. The glare of the streetlight
sliced through the window. The automatic shading for the window was turned off,
so only clear glass separated her from whatever had made the sound. The
curtains hung to either side as if framing a stage, ready to show her—what?

The scraping came again, this time a little louder. There
was another specter arm, elongated by the streetlight, reaching up to the
window. It made its scratching noise again and was gone. Never taking her eyes
off the window, Elizabeth curled up very slowly into a fetal position.

(he sees you when you’re sleeping)

She bunched her fists under her chin and held her arms in
close. Again the scrape came, louder than ever, and then a larger image—a head—moved
behind the glass. She almost screamed when it noticed her. Did it smile?

(he knows when you’re awake)

“If you can’t go to Mallus, maybe Mallus has come to
you,”
her 3V voice said.

Shut up.

“Or sent a Wolf Rider to do his bidding.”

Shut up!

(he knows when you’ve been bad or good)

But this wasn’t 3V.

This was real.

And there was no such thing as Mallus or Wolf Riders in the
real world. There were no Companions, no enemy army. The thought reassured
Elizabeth for a moment, then pained her with its truth. How often had she
wished that Rheanna
could
be her real world and that she never had to
come back to this one? How many times had she been willing to take on Mallus
instead of her father? How much easier would that battle have been?

But perhaps it
was
possible, somehow. Perhaps
Mallus—the Dark King, the First Enemy—had come for her. All the way from
Rheanna to her sanctuary.

(so be good
,
for goodness sake)

But if that was true, then it was also true that if she were
Elsbyth in the world of 3V, then she could be Elsbyth in this world too. And
Elsbyth wasn’t afraid of Mallus. He had killed Ulaemeth, her beloved. And she
would cleave Mallus with her sword for stealing him away from her.

“Um, what sword?”
asked her 3V voice.

Then I will use my hands
, Elizabeth thought, and she
no longer feared the shadow at the window. She uncurled her body slowly, less
prey and more cat, now. The sweat from her fear soaked into the comforter as
she moved over the bed. Quickly, her hands were dry.

All the better to strangle you with
, she thought.

Elizabeth positioned herself below the window. The next time
the sound came, she would find its source. And strangle Mallus, the Murderer of
Ulaemeth.

She reached up and unlocked the sliding-glass window, then
coiled both hands close to her chest like whips. And she waited. Since there
was no screen, the trap would be easy to spring.

When the rapping came again, she sprang straight upward,
whipping the window open with her left hand. She grabbed Mallus by his shirt
and yanked him hard against the outside of the house. The Dark King’s groan of
pain was very satisfying. Still, he felt way lighter than she’d expected

(spirit bodies are not heavy)

as she pulled his face into the slanting light,
eye-to-eye with her.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” shrieked Mallus.

“EEEEEEEAAAAA!” screamed Elsbyth, Warrior-Queen of Rheanna.

“Elizabeth?”

Michael’s voice was relieved, embarrassed, and excited, all
at the same time.

“
You’re
not Mallus,” Elizabeth said.

“No,” said Michael hesitantly, as if internally debating
that perhaps he
could
be Mallus, if that’s what Elizabeth wanted him to
be.

“Well,” began Elizabeth, her voice indignant, “what the hell
are you doing at my window at ten o’clock at night?”

“Um, well,” he began hesitantly, and then it spilled out of
him all at once: “I thought you might be feeling a little bad about what
happened in school today
,
so I waited till my parents
thought I was asleep and I climbed out my window and came over here and rapped
on your window hoping to get a chance to see you and I thought I could maybe
make you feel better.”

Elizabeth was impressed that he got all that out considering
she still had him pressed chest-first against the windowsill. Her first
impulse—on a day when everyone except perhaps the homeless man in Old Suzie’s
house had seemed out to get her—was to kiss Michael for riding to her rescue.
But then that scared her more than the thought of finding a real Mallus at her
window ever had, so instead she released him and heard a satisfying crunch of
leaves as the boy’s weight settled on them.

“What’d you have in mind?” she asked innocently.

Michael ducked his head.

“I dunno. I just wanted to make you feel better.”

Inwardly Elizabeth smiled, though she kept her face neutral,
in case he could see her despite the night. “I know someplace we can go.”

Michael brightened. “Really, where?”

She placed her knee on the low bookshelf below her window
and started climbing up to the sill. “You’ll see,” she said, climbing over to
drop out the other side onto the cool grass.

Elizabeth led him along the side of her house to the street.
She tried to stay out of the streetlight as much as she could, in case anyone
happened to be looking out their window. A neighbor’s dog barked at their
passing
,
and the two of them froze. After a moment,
Elizabeth motioned Michael to follow her, and they were off again and made
their way calmly down the street. They walked in silence for a while. Elizabeth
seemed to be somewhere else, and Michael hesitated to say anything for fear of
saying The One Wrong Thing.

“Did you get in trouble?” Michael asked finally, unable to
stand the silence.

“Course,” she said.

“Monitor Skinner called your parents, huh?”

“
Course
.”

Her tone seemed to wonder why he would even ask such a
stupid question. Michael thought he shouldn’t speak again. Everything had been
going pretty well before he’d spoken. “You didn’t miss anything in class,” he
said anyway. “It was really boring there without you.”

“Really?” She looked back at him and saw the moonlight reflecting
on his teeth as he grinned to himself.

“Yes.” He whispered the word. “Debbie Maselic got three
questions wrong in a row and then didn’t say anything for the rest of the day!”

“Really? Debbie? I thought she
never
got a question
wrong!”

“Well, she did today,” he said brightly, glad that he’d hit
upon something that pleased her. They walked along and he said, “Did your dad
take away your 3V privileges again?”

Even in the pale night he could see her shoulders slump.
Stupid,
stupid, stupid!
his thoughts pounded him.

“Yes,” she said heavily, “for a whole week.” Her voice had
curdled in his ears again.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!
He decided to try to make it
better. “Only a week? That’s not
too
long.”

She turned her head and vomited at him, “It’s for
ever
in that house!”

Stupid, stupid . . .

Michael decided again to keep his mouth shut. Then,
Elizabeth stopped. He thought she would turn on him and lay into him again.
Oh
God, why can’t you just keep your friggin mouth shut, Mike?

“We’re here,” was all she said.

He blinked, not understanding her at first. “We’re where?”

“
Here
.”

Michael turned and stared at Old Suzie’s house. “You gotta
be kiddin,” he said.

“Nope.”

“So now what’re we supposed to do?”

Elizabeth said, as if explaining to an infant, “We’re going
in
,
of course!”

Michael was horrified at the thought. Then he noticed his
muscles constricting and tried to relax, to keep the fear from his face. His
father had always told him not to show his emotions,
especially
to
girls. “Oh,” was all he said.

“You’re not afraid, are you?”

“No, I’m not afraid!” he said a little too quickly. Michael
stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at the ground, finding the
gravel and other road trash quite fascinating.

“Well, come on then,” she said, leading the way.

He stared after her openmouthed, unable to believe this was
the same girl who hadn’t wanted to go near the house just two days before. Even
though he was scared, he also thought it was pretty neat that she was marching
right up to the porch.

“Okay, I’ll come along,” Michael called after her as he
jogged to catch up. “You know, just to make sure you’re okay.”

And though she didn’t really know what she was doing yet,
Elizabeth fell into the familiar response that women give when they know men
are playing a part because they have to or they wouldn’t be men. “That would be
nice.” She said her own lines quite convincingly. “I’d feel much safer if you
did.” She walked up to the porch and placed her arm on the rickety railing and waited
for Michael to catch up.

“It sure looks spooky in there,” he said. There was a small
light flickering—a candle, no doubt—and Michael wondered if Old Suzie was in
there getting her cauldron ready.
Boiling water, vegetables, seasoning . . .
only one thing missing. Oh! Here are the children now!

“Is that what you see when you look at this old house?”
asked Elizabeth.

“Well . . .
yeah
. Whata
you
see?”

“I saw the same thing until earlier today. But now I don’t
think it’s so bad.”

Michael stared at her. “Uh-huh.” Was she nuts?

She stepped up onto the porch and stopped at the door. She
knocked three times.

Michael stared at her. “Why knock, unless—”

“Shhhh,” Elizabeth said, index finger to her lips. Michael
wondered why she did that. She
had
just knocked. But suddenly he was
very worried. Maybe Old Suzie had enlisted Elizabeth in her ranks. Yeah,
brainwashed her, maybe. And her assignment was to bring other kids to the house
to put into her cauldron for dinner. It was Old Suzie’s revenge for all those
broken windows and dare-runs through the old place. All those times they had
disturbed her shows. Old people liked to can things, put them up on the shelf
for eating later. She probably put canned kids up on the shelves to tide her
over in the winter.

The screen door began to creak on its hinges, and suddenly
Michael’s bladder was full to bursting. Then he saw it wasn’t an old woman who
answered the door at all but an old man.

“Well, hello again!” he said to Elizabeth.

“Hello, Rocky.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“His name’s Michael.”

“Well, hello, Michael. Glad to meet you. Y’all come on in.”

The old man led them inside and into the parlor. Michael
looked around in wonder at the old house, as if he were passing through a
ghost.

Maybe he’s one
, he thought, looking at the old man.
Suzie’s
run-off husband cursed to come back and haunt the house
.

A dog lay on the floor in front of the old man’s chair. She
raised her eyelids, took note of who’d entered her domain, and slowly closed
her eyes again, satisfied all was well.

“You are
so
brave
,”
Michael whispered to Elizabeth. He couldn’t help
himself. They were in
Old Suzie’s house
. Elizabeth only smiled as she
sat down on the floor and the old man settled into his chair again. He’d lit a
small fire in the fireplace. It was turning into a cool night.