Skeleton Man (2 page)

I was so sure that everything would work out. I never doubted. Not even when the people came to the house the next night and started questioning me. Nor when the Social Services lady and the two cops escorted me out. I just kept saying, “I have to stay here.
They'll be back.” I even said that to the news-people when they showed up. I don't know who called them. Maybe they just sensed it the way sharks smell blood and come swarming in when something has been wounded.

It just looks like I was crying on that TV show. The microphones make your voice sound all weird, like you are hysterical or something. And the lights make your eyes look all wild and scared. They even made mine water so much that you might have thought I was crying. I wasn't. I knew Mom and Dad would be back.

I still know they'll be back. But I don't want to talk about that. I just wanted to explain that I was never afraid. Not at all. Until later that night when this old guy showed up.

“Molly,” the Social Services woman said, “someone is here for you, one of your relatives.”

That was a big surprise to me. I didn't know I had any relatives anywhere near here. Mom is an orphan and all Dad's closest relatives are dead. It's a really sad story, how his brothers died in a car accident and his sister drowned, and then there was this big fire while Dad was away at school and his parents were in the house. That left only his two aunts to raise him, but they were old people and they died before I was
born. I think that's the reason why we've never gone up to the reservation. There's nobody close to Dad there anymore, and that makes him too sad. But Dad had said that there were cousins and that maybe sometime we'd get to meet them, although they lived way out in California.

The Social Services woman led me into another room. A tall, elderly, thin man with stooped shoulders, all dressed in gray—even his shoes!—was standing there looking out the window.

“Here's your niece,” the Social Services lady said in a chirpy voice. He turned around to look down at me with a face that was so thin it looked like bone. He didn't look Indian. Though his skin was almost as brown as my dad's, it was as if he'd dyed himself that color. His eyes were round and unblinking, like the eyes of an owl. He smiled, and I could see how big his teeth were.

“I don't know him,” I said, taking a step backward.

“Of course not,” chirped the lady. “He's been out of the country.” She smiled at him, and he nodded back at her. They were two adults, and I was just a kid. What could I know about anything? “You see,” she said, taking the
tone that certain grown-ups use with children and idiots—who are the same in their minds—“this is such a wonderful coincidence. Your great-uncle here moved into our town just two weeks ago without even knowing that your father, his own dear nephew, was here. He just happened to see the story on the news and came right over here. You are his flesh and blood, dear.”

I looked up at him again, and he nodded. There was a little smile on his face. It was as if he knew what I was thinking, as if he knew I knew he wasn't who he said he was, but there was nothing I could do to stop this.

“I don't know him,” I said again. “I've never heard of him. And I don't care if he
is
my uncle. My parents will be back soon. And my teacher said I could stay with her if you're worried about me being home by myself.”

That was true. Ms. Shabbas had left only an hour ago. She had come to the offices where I was being kept. She'd agreed with me that my parents would be back soon, but she had suggested that, just for now, I might like to stay with her, so I wouldn't have to be alone. But Social Services wouldn't hear of it. Not when an actual relative was coming to get me.

The lady shook her head. She was losing her patience. “Dear,” she said, “we have checked things very thoroughly.”

She turned and gestured to the tall stranger she was determined to hand me over to. The expression on her face said that she was sorry to bother him, but they needed to humor me to keep me from making a scene. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a big wallet. It was covered with snakeskin.

“Here,” she said, taking the wallet and holding it out to me.

I put my hands behind my back. I didn't want to touch it.

“Oh!” she said in an exasperated voice. “Look!”

She flipped the wallet open. There was a driver's license with a picture of the man who was saying he was my uncle. The picture looked more human than he did, but it was him. I looked over at him. A horrible thought came to me. Maybe I was the only one who could see him this way. Maybe he looked normal to other people. I snuck a glance at him. He gave me that little nod and knowing smile again. A shiver went down my back.

“Dea-arrr, look
here
,” the lady said, her
impatient finger pointing to the license. There was his name, the same last name as my family's. She flipped the license over to show me another clear plastic pocket with a photo in it. It was the smiling face of my father, the high-school graduation photo he'd shown me more than once. She flipped again, and there was a picture of my dad and mom's wedding. The photos were just the same as those my dad always carried in his wallet. That wedding photo even seemed to have the same torn corner….

She slapped the wallet shut and handed it back.

“Then it is settled,” she said. “Until your parents return, you will be in the custody of your great-uncle.”

And that was that. Unlike in a court of law, when grown-ups make a decision about a kid's future there is no appeal.

I was just so worn-out from all the attention that I didn't protest. I let him take me to this old spooky house.

What was that? Footsteps, heavy ones on the stairs.

Now I am afraid.

I
T'S THE SEVENTH NIGHT
that I've been in this house. I should be ready for his routine by now, but I'm not. First there is the all too familiar sound of heavy feet thumping up the stairs:
thump
,
thump
,
thump
. Then there is a long silence while he catches his breath.
Thump
,
thump
,
thump
and silence. There are exactly thirty-six stairs, so he does this eleven times. The twelfth time is when I hear the
wood on the landing creaking. Then comes the worst part. The silence. Because even though he makes noise coming up the stairs, the noise always stops when he reaches the top. Just that first creak when he steps up from the last stair.

And then nothing.

I imagine that his feet don't really move. He just glides half an inch above the rug, like Dracula in the movies. I know that can't be what happens. I know I'm just scaring myself and that it's the thickness of the rug in the hallway that cushions his steps so that I don't hear them. But even so, I find myself getting up from the bed to stand in the middle of the room, staring at the chair I have in front of the door. And I'm thinking, maybe, just maybe, he won't come to my door tonight. Maybe he'll just go down the hall and into his own room and hang by his toes from the rafters or whatever he does. Maybe he'll leave me in peace.

As always, I'm holding my breath. I'm listening like a deer does when it catches the scent of a mountain lion and then the wind changes so that it can't smell it anymore. But the deer knows the lion is out there somewhere. Maybe moving away, maybe getting closer, maybe…

WHACK-WHACK!

The crack of his bony knuckles against the thick wood of the door makes me jump a mile. But I don't scream, like I did the first night he did this after I was brought here.

“You all right?” he says. His voice isn't all that scary, even though it's muffled by the door and sounds as distant as the voice of a memory or a ghost.

I lean back away from the door, trying to make my voice sound as far away from it as possible.

“I'm okay. I'm in bed. I'm going to sleep,” I say. Then I wait.

SNICK!
That's it. It's the sound of the lock on the outside. Like every other night, he's locked me in. The first night it scared me, but now it makes me breathe a sigh of relief. I count out under my breath. One, two, three, four, five, six. And then I hear it. The sound of his feet going back down the stairs. And unless he comes floating down the halls at midnight, or maybe flying outside to peer in my windows, that's it for the night. I can try to go to sleep now. I'm locked in and, I guess, safe.

And, like the other nights before this, I will try to not think about what it is that I am
locked in against. I'll try not to think about why there are bars on my windows.

I look around the room. There's not much to see. There's the four-poster bed, the bedside stand, and a table by the window, which is covered with thick purple curtains. The walls are bare, though there are square and rectangular-shaped places where the wood isn't quite so dark. I guess there used to be pictures hanging there. There's no closet, just one of those old stand-up wardrobes. It has only six coat hangers in it, but my stuff is still in the suitcase and the cardboard box I brought with me. I'm not planning on staying long, so I don't want to unpack. All the furniture in the room seems to be pretty old, all made of dark wood. The rug on the floor is new and it is cream colored. It doesn't really go with everything else in the room, but at least it means that things aren't so dark in here. I'm grateful for that because the only light is the one on the nightstand and it's got a 40-watt bulb in it. There's also a light in the bathroom, which is attached to the room. I always leave the bathroom door open with the light turned on.

I walk over to the window. Bad idea, a voice is saying to me. But I'm doing it anyway.
Don't look outside. But I can't help myself. I reach for the curtain, feel the heavy fabric in my hand, pull it back.

The whole world explodes in a great burst of light and sound.

I
DON
'
T SCREAM
. It was only thunder and lightning, a rumble that shook the whole building as if it were a dollhouse rocked by a giant's heavy foot thudding down next to it. When there was lightning Mom always said it was the flashbulb of the Creator taking pictures with a giant camera.

Dad always said thunder is the rumbling steps of the Henos, the Thunder Beings, who live in the sky. They're good guys who throw
down lightning like spears to destroy monsters.

But this time, at least, their lightning spears seem to have missed. In that moment of absolute brightness outside, my eyes took their own quick picture, one that made me yank the curtains back in place and get into bed with the covers over my head. What had I seen in the flash of lightning? Down there, on the lawn, his face shaded by a wide-brimmed hat, was a man. A tall man, skinny as a skeleton. He was standing at the door of an old shed. It was my uncle.

My mind is going a million miles a minute now. Why was he there? What is he doing? Am I just being paranoid or am I really in some kind of danger? My mind keeps going back to that shed, too. It's a lot older and bigger than the little plywood one Dad has in back of our house. It doesn't have any windows in it like Dad's shed, just one heavy door with a new padlock on it. What was my uncle going to do in that shed in the middle of the night?

I can't find an answer. So I turn it all off by thinking of Ms. Showbiz singing. I think of her singing that song from the musical about Annie, another orphan—assuming I might be one, which I know I really am not. “Tomorrow, tomorrow…” And as I put all my thoughts and
fears into imagining her singing I fall asleep. And I dream.

It's like some of the dreams I've had before. I know I am dreaming, but I can't wake up. It is what my dad calls an “aware dream.” That is a dream where you know you are a dreamer and, if you are alert enough, you'll get some help from your dream. Someone or something will guide you or give you a message. But I am too busy running to look for a guide. Whatever is chasing me is getting closer. I can feel its hot breath on the back of my neck and I know its bony hands are about to grab me.

Then the dream changes. I am in a cave. I live in that cave and I am not alone there. Someone is sitting in the corner of the cave, his face turned away from me. “Hold out your arm, child!” he says in a rough voice. I hold my arm out toward him, and he reaches back to feel it without looking around. His long, dry fingers squeeze my forearm. “Thin as a stick, thin as a stick,” he growls. “Go into the forest and check your snares. You must eat more, my niece. Eat and grow fat.”

In an eyeblink I'm not in the cave but in the forest. I'm dressed in deerskin, checking the snares I've placed on the trails. I'm worried
because I haven't caught anything. My uncle will be angry.

Then I see motion in the brush. Something is struggling at the side of the path. It's a rabbit, its hind foot caught in one of my snares. I lift my stick to hit it. But the rabbit looks up at me and speaks.

“Little Sister,” the rabbit says, “spare my life, and I will help you save your own life.”

I put down my stick and loosen the cord from the rabbit's foot. It doesn't run away when it is free. Instead it looks me in the eye and speaks again.

“Little Sister,” the rabbit says, “thank you for sparing me. Now I will tell you what you must know. The one you think is your uncle is not human.”