The Night Strangers (28 page)

“Well, you’re making a mistake. I do like them. I want to be one of them.”

One of them
. Garnet thought about what that meant and realized that she honestly didn’t know. She had heard of ladies’ garden clubs where the women made floral arrangements and tried to spruce up parks and neighborhoods; there was one in West Chester and there was probably one in Littleton or Bethel. But these plant ladies were different. She thought of the books they had given her sister and her. These women wanted to make potions and tinctures and teas—not arrangements.

“Hallie?”

“It’s Rosemary,” she reminded Garnet, her voice flat and blunt.

“Why do you think they want us to take new names?”

“God, will you let that go? What is the big freaking deal?”

“It’s just—”

“Would it make a difference if they didn’t want to call you Cali? Would you stop making waves if you had a name you liked?”

She curled her bare feet underneath the quilt and accidentally grazed Hallie. “Your feet are freezing,” her sister cried out.

“I know. Sometimes I just can’t get warm in my room,” Garnet said.

“One more reason why you should accept the fact that, from now on, you’re Cali.”

“My room will suddenly warm up like yours?”

Her sister shrugged. “Everything is easier. Everything is better.”

Garnet tried to imagine a plant name she might like, but she could only come up with the names of ordinary vegetables and fruits and trees. And the women didn’t seem to use them very often. “There will still be that hole in the wall,” Garnet murmured. “The one that goes to the attic. There will still be that draft.”

“The door fits tight. There is no hole. There is no draft.”

She knew Hallie was right. But, still, her room always seemed chillier than her sister’s. “It scares me.”

“The little door? I think it’s cool. You know I’m jealous. Someday I think we should switch rooms.”

“Maybe,” Garnet said, but she knew in her heart that they never would. She understood that there was a certain amount of bluster to Hallie’s confidence. Her sister was frightened by the door, too. “When will you tell people at school?” she asked after a moment.

“You mean about my new name?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t know. Anise says to wait until September. We just come back after the summer and tell everyone we want to be called by our new names. And we’ll have had some sort of cool naming ceremony in the summer—outdoors, when it’s warm.”

“Assuming Mom doesn’t mind.”

“Obviously.”

“And we’re still living here.”

“Which we will be.”

Garnet sighed unhappily. “Do they scare you?” she asked after a moment.

“The plant ladies? No. I can see why they might scare you—because you’re still being stubborn. But once you get over that stubbornness, you’ll see. They only want us to be happy.”

“I think there’s more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

“They need us.”

“
They need us?
” Hallie repeated, her tone incredulous and condescending.

The idea was vague and not wholly comprehensible to Garnet; she was still formulating the notion in her mind. Volume II.
The Complete Book of Divination and Mediation with Animals and Humans
. She had found nothing about it on the Internet. “Yes. I think they need us more than we need them.”

“Well, we need them a lot,” Hallie said. “I told you, they’re all we have.”

“Maybe. But do you see them spending time with any other kids? Wanting to give any other kids new names? I don’t.”

Hallie curled her knees up to her chest under the quilt and wrapped her arms around them. “So?”

“Why is that? Is it because we’re new and everyone else knows to stay away? Or is it because we’re twins? And, really, why
do
they want to rename us? You and me. Why do they want to teach us to make all those potions and teas and things?”

Outside, the rain continued to thwap against the window, and occasionally the glass rattled in its frame. Hallie seemed to consider this. “Mom said she might take a new name, too.”

“I know. It begins with a
V
.”

“You scared?”

“Sometimes. I wish we had houses nearby.”

“Like in West Chester.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You want to sleep in here tonight?” Hallie asked. And while this wasn’t why Garnet had come to her sister’s bedroom, she knew now that she did. And so she nodded and curled up under the sheets, and soon both girls were sound asleep.

Y
our plane is, finally, a triple-seven heavy. A Boeing 777. You know the flight deck, even if you have never flown one before. And you know this is a dream because you are alone as you do the preflight checklists from the captain’s seat and because this peculiar airport is in the middle of a harbor. Literally. All of the planes are floating on the water, a row of skyscrapers rising up from the ground along the edge of the surf in the distance. But the belly of the plane is also hooked on to a conveyor belt, and the belt runs on a track just beneath the surface of the water. It is like a train track. No, a roller-coaster track. Because a quarter mile to your right a camelback rises from the salt water, the track summiting higher than any roller coaster you have ever seen in your life—higher than any roller coaster ever built anywhere. Is it fifty stories high? Maybe. One of the skyscrapers along the beach is Boston’s Prudential Center (though clearly this is not Boston because all of the other towers are unrecognizable totems), and the track’s peak is about the same height as the Prudential. But the descent doesn’t go all the way back to earth, to the gently rolling waves. If the vertical climb is fifty stories, the drop is only twenty-five. Then the track angles up again, but the pitch is gentle, no more then five degrees. This is, you understand, the runway. A chain lift locked into the bottom of your plane will pull you along the surface of the water and up to the peak of the camelback. Then, like it would a roller-coaster car, gravity will send your plane plummeting down the other side, the antirollback locks disengaged. You will be traveling two hundred miles an hour, your engines will click on and you will feel the plane hurtling along this runway track in the sky. And then you will be flying, leaving the edge of the track as if it were the end of an aircraft carrier. This is how you take off. You watch a 737 do it. Then a CRJ. Then an Airbus. Then another CRJ. It’s beautiful the way these planes are launched. They leave the track roughly thirty stories in the air, turn right into the departure corridor, and grow smaller and smaller as they disappear into a soft blue sky, an egg-colored setting sun in the distance. And then it is your turn. The tower has cleared you, and so you inform your passengers and flight crew that you are number one for takeoff.

You sit straight in your seat, your hands on the yoke, and feel the plane lurching forward, jerking just like a roller-coaster car at first, and then you are climbing up the track. The plane rests at the summit for a second or two, the tower says go, the antirollback struts slip away, and the nose of your aircraft dips. And then you are rumbling down the far side of the track, the passengers behind you screaming—but not in terror, in delight, because this is, apparently, the tradition in this particular aviation culture. You have the feeling their hands are over their heads.

When you hit the bottom—and the start of that gently angled runway itself—your engines kick on. On the instrument panel you can see the turbines are spinning. All good. And then, a moment later, you are flying, angling into the departure corridor high over this bay and getting clearance from the tower to climb to five thousand feet. And there isn’t a bird in sight. Delightful.

But this is a dream, and do your dreams ever end well? Not these days. A flight attendant knocks on the door, and even though you are in the midst of your initial climb, you unbuckle your harness and see what he needs. He is a young man and his face is colorless. You walk into the first-class cabin and gaze at the floor where he is pointing: This plane seems to have a long row of baseboard heaters along the floor, and what is occurring is most visible before the feet of the passengers in the first row—the bulkhead seats—but is happening the entire length of the plane. Waves of what looks like woodstove or fireplace ash are spewing from the grates on both sides of the jet, rolling from the openings like lava and coating the floor and the feet of the passengers.

Meanwhile, the plane continues to climb, though there is no one on the flight deck piloting the aircraft, and you and the flight attendant conjecture amiably about the location of the fire. You seem to believe that the blaze must be out, because this is ash and it doesn’t seem to be causing the passengers any pain, so it must be cool. But then the plane begins to dive. Not only is it not climbing—or even gliding—it is plummeting, almost nose down. And so you leave the flight attendant to see if you can prevent the aircraft from breaking the surface of the water like an Olympic diver.

You climb into the captain’s seat on the flight deck and pull the yoke back as hard and fast as you can, and instantly the plane starts to rise; you hit the vertex of the parabola, the very bottom of the U, and you resume your climb. But in your haste to save the jet, you pulled back too fast and too hard. Yes, you are climbing. But it is only a slingshot effect. You pulled the triple-seven heavy out of its dive so quickly that you asked more of the metal than it could handle: You sheared off the wings. You are now in the front of a long tube, not a plane, that is going up but in a moment will reach the top of its arc and then fall headfirst into the earth. Into that bay. And behind you the passengers scream once again. They, too, have seen the wings ripped off, and this time they are screaming in horror at the imminence of their death.

And then you wake up.

You always wake up before your plane augers in.

You listen to Emily’s breathing beside you, her hair on her pillow wild like Venus’s when she was born in Botticelli’s painting. You feel your head pounding, and you know instantly that Ethan is with you. You turn toward the doorway, and there he is, beckoning you with one finger. It’s time. You climb from beneath the sheets, careful not to untuck them because Emily sleeps best when the sheets are tight, but tonight this is not merely because you are such a considerate husband. It is because you can’t risk her waking when you do what you have to do. This can’t continue. This can’t go on for you or Emily or your beautiful daughters. This can’t go on for Ethan or Ashley. God, poor, poor Ashley. You are all in pain. You are all unhappy.

Together with Ethan you go downstairs. You peer into the den, and there are Sandra and Ashley playing with Hallie’s and Garnet’s American Girl dolls on the floor. Sandra looks up at you and shakes her head no, but Ethan takes you by the elbow and pulls you along into the kitchen. There you fall onto your hands and your knees and reach underneath the oven, finding the blade of the knife with your fingertips. You pull it along the linoleum floor and then grasp the pearl handle in your palm.

“Let’s take the back stairs,” Ethan suggests, and you agree. You know why. It is because he does not want you to see Sandra again when you pass the den. He does not want you to be dissuaded from this hard, hard task by her disapproving eyes and, perhaps, her desperate entreaties. But there really is no danger of that. Not tonight. She is not connected to you the way Ethan and Ashley are. You don’t feel as profoundly what she feels; you don’t know as precisely what she thinks.

Still, you move gingerly up the back stairs and then as silently as you can along the second-floor corridor and up to the third floor. To Hallie’s and Garnet’s rooms. You hold your breath for long moments as you walk, the knife wrapped tightly in your fingers. The pain in your head and your side is excruciating. You will begin in Garnet’s room, for no other reason than it is nearer to the top of the stairs. You will place your left hand on her sleeping mouth so she cannot scream when she is awoken by the knife, moving in your right hand like a jackhammer. You will stab her in the chest and the abdomen. Then you will move to Hallie’s room.

You wonder: Are you dreaming now? Still? Perhaps at this moment you are in fact in bed beside Emily.

It was raining earlier tonight. No longer.

You gaze into Garnet’s room, and the idea that you might still be asleep becomes more pronounced when you see that she isn’t in bed. She should be. It’s the middle of the night. And so you go to Hallie’s room, presuming you will simply begin with her.
Begin
. Not
stab
. Did you want a euphemism? Is the actuality of slaughtering your twin girls really becoming too much for you?

Just in case, Ethan wraps his wet arm around your shoulder and guides you to Hallie’s room. And there you see your daughters together. At some point, for some reason, Garnet has gone to Hallie’s bedroom to sleep. So be it. Besides, there is a symmetry to handling it this way: They were born within moments of each other, and they will die within moments of each other. Born together, dead together. You cross to the far side of Hallie’s bed and stare down at them. You try not to view them as beautiful children, though you are their father and so the idea that they are is inescapable. But so is Ashley. So are all the children who died or were made orphans or lost a parent when you crashed Flight 1611 into Lake Champlain.

You are contemplating precisely how to begin, the knife at your side, when you hear your name.

“Chip?”

You look up. There in the doorframe is Emily. She is lit by the hall light behind her, but she has not turned on Hallie’s bedroom light. Her hand is near the wall switch. If she does, she will see the knife. You hold your breath.

“Chip?” she whispers again, her voice a little more urgent this time. She clearly has no plans to risk waking the children by turning on the light. You press the knife against your side, shielding it from her view. You join her and wrap your free hand around her waist. You pull her against you.

“I was watching them sleep,” you murmur, the words catching strangely in your throat. You look for Ethan, but he’s gone.