The Haunted (38 page)

I grabbed my bottle of lotion from the counter, returned to Caspian, and sat down on top of my suitcase. This time, I was the one to beckon him.

I braced my feet on the carpet. One knee was exposed, and I hiked the towel up a little bit more until my whole thigh was showing. The thought that I was playing with fire crossed my mind, but I pushed it away. I was in the mood to get burned. Scorched, even.

The scent of vanilla wafted around us as I opened the lotion and squeezed some into my palm. Caspian watched my every move intently. I slid my hand up and down my leg, smoothing on the lotion. The sensation was heightened by the fact that he was there with me. Beads of sweat gathered on my forehead,
and I quickly wiped them away. “It’s hot in here,” I whispered.

Caspian licked his lips, and a muscle in his jaw clenched. “You have another.”

“Another?”

“Another leg,” he said.

I smiled. “You’re right.” Squeezing out some more lotion, I massaged my other calf and worked my way up past my knee. I closed my eyes, picturing his hand there, on my leg… warm and firm… sliding up the towel… caressing my skin… The lotion bottle suddenly fell out of my hand and rolled away, banging against the end table with a thud.

An instant later the lamp crashed to the ground.

I jumped and met Caspian’s eyes. He looked just as startled as I was.

There was a knock at the nearby door and then Ben said, “Abbey? Are you okay?”

I let out a frustrated sigh and tucked my hair behind one ear. The pounding continued, and I glanced at Caspian.

“We’ll finish this later,” he promised.

Standing up, I felt a little wobbly in the knees and went to open the adjoining door.

“Remember, you’re in a towel,” Caspian called out.

I looked down and pulled it around me tighter. Cracking
the door open a couple of inches, I stuck my face near it. “Ben, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I heard a loud bang.”

“Yeah, I just knocked over a lamp.”

“Are you almost ready to go?” he said.

“I just got out of the shower. I’m not dressed yet. Give me ten minutes.”

“Oh. Okay.” He backed away, and I shut the door.

Returning to my suitcase to get some clothes, I told Caspian, “We’re leaving in about ten minutes.”

“I’m ready,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I looked down at his bare chest. “Your shirt?”

His muscles flexed. “You seemed to like it better off. I could just walk around like this. No one would see.”

My mouth went dry. “I, um… yes.” Then common sense kicked in. “But I don’t want to be distracted all day.” I ducked my head and rummaged through the suitcase, pulling out some jeans and a black baby-doll tee.

In the bathroom I dried my hair and got dressed next to the toilet, privacy firmly in place. All my earlier brashness had deserted me. When I walked out, Caspian was waiting by the door. And his shirt was back on.

“I liked your other outfit better,” he said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But I gave him just the tiniest of smiles.

“Just you wait until you’re asleep,” he threatened. “I’m going to ogle you until my eyeballs fall out.”

I grabbed my cell phone from next to the bed, and right before I opened the door, I winked at him. “Promises, promises.”

He grinned, and we went out to meet Ben.

We found Shepherd University pretty easily, and Ben dropped me off at the main campus. “You’ll be able to find someplace to eat here, right?” he said.

“I’ll be fine, Ben. I’m a big girl.”

“Okay. I’ll be helping out at the junkyard all day, so I’ll be back around six.”

I waved him off and waited until he was out of sight. Then I opened my cell phone and dialed the cab company that I’d preprogrammed in. Ten minutes later the cab was picking us up.

“Martinsburg,” I told the driver. Caspian stayed silent beside me. Once we reached the downtown area, the cabbie asked where I wanted to be let off. We were next to a florist shop, so I said, “Here’s fine,” and thrust some money at him.
Caspian got out first, and I followed quickly behind.

As the cab sped away, I turned to Caspian. “Does anything look familiar?” The streets were empty, so I didn’t have to worry too much about anyone seeing me talk to myself.

“Yes. Of course. This was home.”

“Where do you want to go?” I asked him.

“That’s up to you,” he said. “This is your visit.”

I nodded. “Do you want to walk around here for a while? You can tell me about the town.”

He jerked his head in some semblance of a yes, and started walking. I hurried to catch up, and waited for him to say something. He stayed quiet for a long time.

Finally, as we passed a balloon shop, he spoke. “See that door there?” I craned my neck and saw a glass door. “I cut my foot on it. Sliced the top right open. There’s this wicked metal piece that acts as a door stopper. But I had sandals on, and it went right over the top of them. Took twelve stitches to close up.”

I cringed. I didn’t like thinking about him bleeding.

We turned the corner and left Main Street behind. It just fell away. There one block, gone by the next. The streets grew dirtier, and the houses shabbier, the farther we went. Row-houses sat crammed next to each other, practically one on top of the other.

“That’s strange,” I said to Caspian. “No kids playing outside. Since they’re out of school, I’d expect to see them in the yards, or on the street.”

“There weren’t very many kids around when I lived here,” he replied. “It’s mostly elderly people who can’t afford retirement homes. They can’t really afford their own homes, either.”

“Oh.” That was sad.

At the end of the block Caspian stopped in front of a small gray house that sat right next to some railroad tracks. The windows were tiny and dirty, and there weren’t any shutters. “Home sweet home,” he said.

“This is where you lived?” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

He kicked a loose stone. “Yup. This was my house.” Moving closer, he stooped to peer into one of the front windows.

I came up next to him and looked in too. “Is anyone home?” I whispered.

“There probably isn’t anyone living here.” He tried the door, but it was locked.

Two or three paint cans, half a dozen brushes, and some empty beer bottles littered the floor of the small kitchen. “Somebody’s redecorating,” I said.

Caspian sat down on a concrete slab in front of the
house and put his head in his hands. “I hope they rip up that damn carpet in the kitchen.”

“Carpet in the kitchen? That’s weird.”

“Tell me about it. The whole house was rigged with duct tape and chewing gum. Faucets only worked half the time, the shower didn’t have hot water, and you couldn’t use more than two outlets at a time or the whole fuse box would blow. The house was a death trap.”

He looked embarrassed, and I thought about the house that I lived in. Sure, it creaked and settled every now and then, but it was big and spacious and remodeled. I never had to worry about what plug I used, or whether or not I had hot water.

“It was still
your
house, and I’m glad I got to see it,” I told him. “It’s a part of your childhood.”

“A part I’d rather forget.” Caspian looked away from me and kicked at a stone again. “The only good thing about this house was the railroad tracks.” He stood up. “Follow me.”

He led me across the train tracks, and we came to a steep embankment that held a drainage pipe at the bottom. After climbing down, he reached behind the pipe and appeared to be wiggling a section of it free. “It’s loose,” he called up to me.

I stood at the top of the embankment until he motioned for me to climb down. In his hand was a small cigar box. He
looked at me with such pride on his face that a sweet joy flooded my heart. “It’s still here. My box of treasures from when I was a kid.”

There weren’t very many items, but he pulled them out one by one, showing me all of them. “Here’s a Mike Schmidt baseball card, my favorite kazoo, a lucky rabbit’s foot…”

“It wasn’t lucky for the rabbit.”

Caspian smiled at me and kept talking. “A LEGO man, a lucky medallion, and here… the best for last.” He tipped the box over, and flashes of silver and copper winked up in the sun. “Give me your palm.”

I held my hand out flat, and he dropped a completely smooth, flattened piece of silver metal into it. I glanced down, recognizing the stretched markings. “It’s a quarter!” I said. “What happened to it?”

“I put it on the tracks and a train flattened it. Used to do it all the time when I was a kid. Here’s a dime, a penny, and a nickel that are all flattened too.”

He dropped the rest of them into my hand, and they clanked together. I closed my fist, feeling the cool smoothness, and imagined Caspian as a little boy.

“I bet you were adorable,” I said softly. “When you were little.”

He shrugged and looked back in the direction of the house. “I was the weird, quiet kid who drew pictures all the time. I had a couple of friends, but no one special.”

I looked up at him, wishing I could have seen the little boy that he once was. “I would have been your friend.”

He smiled at me. “I know you would have, Abbey.” He thrust the cigar box at me. “Here. Take it.”

“But I can’t. They’re your treasures.”

He held the box out even further. “I know. That’s why I want you to have them. They’re all I have left of my childhood, and it’s a piece of me that I want to give you.”

Fear of rejection was written all over his face, and my heart almost broke for him. Taking the box, I put the coins back inside and cradled it gently. “Thank you, Caspian. I’m honored.”

My words seemed to make him happy, and he beamed at me. It was contagious, and I smiled back. The warm sun beat down on our backs, and in that moment I knew there was no greater feeling in the whole word.

“Do you want to see my elementary school?” he asked, almost shyly.

“Absolutely.”

I tucked the box under my arm, and we climbed back up the embankment. He took me behind his old house and down
several roads, until we came to a small red brick building.
MARTINSBURG ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 1842
was carved above the front door.

Go Bulldogs!
was painted in faded red and white letters along the side of the building.

“Home of the bulldogs, huh?” I asked, walking toward the school.

“Best basketball team since… okay, since never. The team here sucks.”

I laughed and spotted a side door. “Should we try there? Do you think it’s open? What are the odds?”

“Not very good,” Caspian said, but he followed me to it.

I gave the silver metal push bar a slight tap, and the door swung right open.

We crossed the threshold and entered into the school. The hallways had that classic stale smell to them—papers, erasers, new sneakers, and old cafeteria food—and I wrinkled my nose. “I hope they air this place out before the new school year starts.”

Caspian didn’t answer. He was too busy looking at rows of black-and-white class pictures hanging up in the hallway. Most of them were hidden behind dusty glass and faded wooden frames.

I turned to the pictures. “Are you here?” I tried to find him, searching for his hair, but the photographs were yellowed and grainy.

He put one finger on a frame, and I leaned in to see where he was pointing. Even with the washed-out coloring, I recognized the hair and eyes. “There you are,” I whispered. He had on a plaid shirt and brown pants, his eager smile showing a missing front tooth. “I was right.
Adorable
.”

He turned and gave me the same smile as in the picture, and I giggled. “I knew it. You’re still nine.”

Caspian nodded and ran his finger over the glass one more time. “Feels like a lifetime ago.” His voice was wistful, and then abruptly changed. “I have one more thing to show you. Out back.”

We left the school, and he took me to where a small fenced-in playground stood. It was shabby, and obviously not very well taken care of. The peeling paint on the red-and-yellow monkey bars barely clung on, and the swing set had only two swings, both with cracked wooden seats. A small row of plank-wood bleachers had been set up in the corner of the playground, looking out at what passed for a baseball diamond.

Caspian led me there.

He bent down and looked under the first seat. “Down here.”

I bent down too, and saw a mishmash of carved initials, just barely making out a
CV
. “You were here,” I said. “I see your initials.”

“I carved them on my first day of school. I saw some older kids doing it, and they lent me their pocket knife.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Six, I think. Old enough to want to make my mark on the world.”

I ran my fingers over the
CV
, committing the feel of it to memory, and sat the cigar box down carefully. “It’s too bad we don’t have a knife now. I’d like to add my initials there too. Maybe next time.”

“If there
is
a next time.” Caspian gazed at me with a serious expression, and the mood turned somber. I didn’t want things to stay that way, so I hollered, “Race you to the monkey bars!”

I got a head start and was already hanging upside down when he caught up. All the blood was rushing to my head, making me feel dizzy. “I can’t stay like this much longer,” I told him. “Head rush.”

He leaned down and stuck his face next to mine, gifting me with a beautiful smile. “I know the feeling,” he said. “You give me a head rush all the time.”

˜   ˜   ˜

We left the playground around two, and I was surprised by the fact that I wasn’t hungry yet. We went back to Main Street, and Caspian pointed to a little gas station on the corner. “Go get something to eat.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“All you’ve eaten since last night was a bite of pizza and a burrito. You need to eat more. Go fill your stomach with some food. I’ll wait for you here.”

I wanted to protest, but he had a point. And the smells of relish and hot dogs drifting out of the store were slowly starting to awaken my sleeping appetite.…