The Suburb Beyond the Stars (4 page)

T
he cat box was full. It sat by the front door, the turds old, dry, and frosted white. That explained the smell. Beside it sat the cat’s water and food dishes, empty.

Brian and Gregory looked up and down the entry steps. There was no sign of motion. Upstairs, pleasant daylight shone through dirty windows. The place was in a much better state than when Brian had been there the last time, hiding with Kalgrash while a Thusser agent had tracked them through the wood. It had been a ruin then. Now there was a sofa and a few stuffed chairs in the living room. There was a television. A magazine was open on the floor, as if someone had been reading and had just fled from the room.

Gregory pointed up and pointed down with a quizzical look on his face, as if to say,
Which first?

Brian shrugged. Gregory nodded slightly and walked silently up the four steps that led to the main floor of the house.

The two kept close together. There was nothing else to see in the living room. On the walls, Prudence had hung Norumbegan art — old scrolls, matted and framed, depicting an ancient tale of men in robes and top hats. Above the mantelpiece was a Norumbegan blunderbuss.

They stepped on the carpet like the floor was about to give way at the touch of their toes and buck them into a pit. Brian couldn’t help but feel that something was hunched in one of the rooms, spike nosed, half turned from a trail of carnage, listening. Something, he felt, was waiting.

They kept moving through the house.

Nothing in the kitchen to see. Dishes and a frying pan in the sink. A stink from rotting pork. On the refrigerator were sepia photos of Gregory and Brian engaged in the Game, whispering to each other in a gloomy hallway or sitting on a hassock by the fire, looking frightened and guilty.

Carefully pressing his fingers against the handle, Brian swung the fridge open.

Gregory whispered, “Can’t the party pizzas wait till later?”

“I’m sniffing the milk,” Brian said.

“Sniffing the milk.”

Brian nodded. “And stuff. To see if it’s rotten.” There were several Tupperware containers filled with scraps. All of the scraps and the curdling beans were spotted with mold.

“It’s been a while,” whispered Brian, grimly.

Gregory opened the cupboard.

“What are you looking for?” Brian asked.

“Hidden intruders. Listen: We are looking in every closet. Every single one. Together. And you’re pulling back the shower curtain. I am really unhappy.”

Brian was really unhappy, too. His stomach was tight. His elbows wanted to jump. He complained, “Why do I have to be the one who pulls back the shower curtain?”

“Your skills.”

“Skills.”

“Exactly.”

“Thanks.”

First, they progressed into the master bedroom. Bookshelves, skirts on the floor, a laptop on a desk, a gold-leaf mandala from Nepal hanging above the bed. The bed itself was wrenched apart. The comforter had been yanked to the side. The fitted sheet had popped its corners. The mattress was skewed on the box spring.

“Every closet,” said Gregory, pointing at the slats of Prudence’s closet door.

They stood to one side of it and Gregory flung it open.

Clothes. A few stuffed animals. Charcoal sketches of tennis shoes and conch shells that Prudence had done in some art class.

Brian inspected Prudence’s laptop.

“It’s on,” he said.

“Sleep mode?”

“Yeah. The light’s flashing. Should we check what she was doing?”

“Let’s check out the rest of the house first,” said Gregory. “To make sure that Gelt the Winnower isn’t
waiting for us in the bathroom. I don’t like this. I’m still unhappy.”

“Me too,” said Brian.

The bathroom … makeup on the counter, smears of flesh-colored powder by the soap … nothing in the shower. The dining room … a glass table and mismatched chairs … a painting of Prudence in one of her nineteenth-century dresses, holding a doll with a spyglass as a head. Otherwise, nothing.

So they went downstairs.

Brian hated it every time they opened a new door. At each one, he tensed and flinched. Gregory opened the closets. Brian stood to the side. Gregory’s mouth was fixed in a line. But they found nothing.

Part of the basement was unfinished. It was just concrete floors and metal poles. The furnace. Power tools.

Part was carpeted. A television room. In the television room, there was a door.

Gregory went to open it.

“That’s where they found the guy who died,” said Brian. “Last time. That guy who went into the woods. Who went crazy. He ran here and hid in that room. He lay there until he starved to death.”

Gregory blanched. He took his hand away from the knob.

Brian stepped up and turned it, then walked in.

The room was empty. The walls had been repainted white. There were neat rows of small brass objects on the floor, ordered like ants. They formed a grid.

“What are they?” whispered Gregory.

“Norumbegan protective charms,” said Brian. “A lot of the books she gave me to read were sealed with them.”

Gregory looked around and backed up. “What are they protecting against?”

Brian wrinkled his lips and fiddled with the doorknob. He didn’t answer because he didn’t know. They left the room and Brian closed the door behind them. “She must not have wanted to use the room again. I don’t blame her.”

“I don’t like that room,” said Gregory.

“It used to be Prudence’s bedroom, I think.”

“I wouldn’t sleep in there. You couldn’t give me a million dollars.”

“A million?”

“All right. You could give me a million.”

“Let’s … let’s go back upstairs and check out her laptop.”

“You go do that. I want to go and ask those kids outside if they’ve seen anything,” said Gregory. “At least then we’ll know exactly how long she’s been gone.”

They had made it up the stairs as far as the front door. Gregory pulled the door open. “Back in a sec,” he said, and walked out.

Brian watched the door swing closed. He didn’t want to keep going up the steps. He wished he’d gone with Gregory, or that Gregory had agreed to come along and check the computer. One of the two.

Either way, he was alone now.

He went up the stairs and down the hall to Prudence’s room.

The computer blinked softly on the desk.

Brian slid the window open so he could hear Gregory calling out to the circle of little kids. He wanted to be able to shout if anything went wrong.

Brian brushed the mouse to wake the computer from its hibernation.

“Hey,” he heard Gregory say. “I’m the cousin of the woman who lives in that house over there. Prudence. Hey there. Hi. Yeah, you, too — hi. Have you seen her around?”

The kids were maybe about seven or eight. They clustered around Gregory.

“She’s disappeared,” said Gregory. “Did any of you see her leave or see anything unusual?”

“She has donuts,” said a boy. “She gave us donuts.”

“She had a box,” another kid agreed. “She gave us one each.”

“Donuts,” said Gregory. “When was this?”

The computer, roused, asked Brian if he wanted to resume. He did.

A child said, “Mine was a Boston cream.”

“Fascinating,” Gregory responded. “This is all great stuff. When did she give you the donuts?”

“A month.”

“A month ago?”

The child wouldn’t respond, became coy. And then the kids were throwing out times at random: “A week.” — “Two. Two whole weeks.” — “Are you her dad?”

The screen flashed, and it was back to how it must have been when Prudence last saw it. E-mail. She had been in the middle of writing an e-mail.

Brian squinted at the screen.

“Could we settle on just one answer?” Gregory asked his crowd.

Brian felt a chill go down his spine.

It was an e-mail, half written. She had been writing to him and Gregory when she had disappeared.

He bent closer to read it.

G
regory didn’t especially like little kids. He and Brian had suffered through a disastrous summer of babysitting a couple of years before. Mrs. Thatz had told them that it would be a powerful learning experience, and indeed it had been. The most important lessons were about how easy it was to break expensive stereo equipment with ice cream and when to use a tourniquet. It was a summer that Gregory referred to as “Babies Get Rabies.”

Now Gregory looked around his circle of admirers. What particularly bothered him was that they looked like they kind of
pitied
him. They were sorry he had apparently lost his cousin and that he seemed kind of irritated by their help. He felt like they were about to offer him more information regarding donuts.

“Okay, my sticky little friends,” he concluded. “It’s time to question a higher power.”

He broke through their ranks and headed for a house
a few doors down, where a mom was climbing out of her SUV.

“Hi there!” he said. “Hey!”

She was tall and pale. She wore slacks that were business casual and carried a stack of color photocopies under her arm. “Hi,” she said, without enthusiasm.

“I’m Gregory. I’m Prudence’s cousin. She lives in that house there, just past the corner.”

“The little sixties one?”

“Yeah. I’m just wondering if you’ve seen her around.”

“Seen her?”

“Recently.”

The mom looked vexed. She called her kids. “Cassie. Charlton. Come on.” She turned back to Gregory. “I’m worried about her,” she admitted. “She’s really nice. We met her when we moved in. It looks like things are falling apart over there.”

“She’s missing, I think. I’ve come up to look for her.”

“We’ve been worried about her. Her car’s in the driveway.”

“Do you have any idea where she might be? Or have you seen anything strange going on over there?”

“She’s been gone for … I don’t know … three weeks or a month.”

“I’ve heard from her more recently than that.”

“Maybe it’s been more than a month.”

“I got an e-mail from her a couple of weeks ago.”

“It seems like a long time,” said the woman. Her eyes were on the trees.

“Have you noticed anything?” Gregory asked. “I’m talking
unusual.
Things that skulk or are mysterious.”

“Like what?”

“A guy in a hat. Big centipedes. Anything.”

“She’s not the only one,” the woman whispered. “I’m afraid something’s going on.”

“What?”

“Something’s invading.”

“What have you seen?”

“The Carruthers are gone.”

“I don’t know the Carruthers.”

“They live on Heather Lane. Everyone knows they’re gone.”

“Has someone called the police?”

The woman looked at him like he was crazy.

He said, “So the Carruthers and Prudence.”

“I think there are others,” the woman said. “I think people are disappearing.”

Gregory stepped back from the woman. She kneaded the keys in her hands. Her car key scraped back and forth on the ring. “Then we’ve all got to do something,” said Gregory.

“We’ve got to stay happy,” the woman replied. She did not seem to be speaking to him.

Gregory looked at her in perplexity. “How long have you lived here?” he asked.

She looked startled. “Six months,” she answered. “About six months. I completely forgot my groceries. I think I left them at the store. You know how you sometimes do that?”

“Sure,” said Gregory, who had never left his groceries at the store.

“I guess I’ve got to drive back and get them. Cassie! Charlton! Come over here and get in the car.”

They arrived, looking, to Gregory’s eye, dazed. “He’s the donut lady’s cousin,” said Charlton, crawling up into the backseat. Cassie clambered up after him.

“Okay,” said the woman. She nodded faintly, as if Gregory were a spirit who had just given her instructions and faded. She got back into her car and shut the door.

“Thank you!” said Gregory, trying to put on his most amiable, adult-pleasing smile.

She didn’t notice him. She almost backed out over him.

She drove off slowly.

Watching her car roll down the smooth lane, he shook his head.

He walked back to Prudence’s house to see if Brian had found anything.

B
rian rose from the office chair to let Gregory have a seat and read the e-mail. Gregory rolled the chair to the desk. He swiveled from side to side. “What’s it say?” he asked Brian.

“Read it for yourself,” Brian said. Gregory scrolled down the page.

It was from Prudence to the two of them. Their addresses were already in the
To:
field. She’d never had a chance to send it. She had written:

“That’s it,” said Brian. “As if she was typing, when she suddenly heard something and got up.”

“Or got grabbed,” murmured Gregory. He looked sick.

“Too bad it’s not dated.”

“She would’ve had to have sent it for it to have a date,” said Brian.

“Yeah,” said Gregory. “Let’s get out of this house.”

“We have to keep looking for clues,” said Brian.

“We can walk around the neighborhood,” Gregory said. “Things are going on. Other people have disappeared. The Carruthers. Over on Heather Lane.”

“The Carruthers?”

“Nice people. Super-nice people. Great at a barbecue. Vamoosed.”

“How do you know?”

“Lady down at Number Four Fisher Way told me.”

“Okay,” said Brian. “Let’s look around.” An idea suddenly struck him. “Let’s find Kalgrash. We can sleep at his place.”

Gregory seemed to relax. “That’s a great idea. That is so much better than sleeping here and waiting for something with more eyes than legs to come crawling up from the basement.”

The two set out, locking the door behind them.

The circle of kids wheeled slowly at the intersection, chirping to one another in the summer sunlight.

“Hey there,” said Gregory. “Hi. Hey. Yo. Munchkin brigade.”

“You find that lady yet?”

“My cousin? No. We’re still looking. Here’s another question: Do you know what happened to her cat?”

“Melior,” said a little girl. “She’s really cute.”

“She’s the cutest,” said another.

A third said, “I — when she was gone, Prudence, when she was gone to Boston a couple months ago — I watched Melior for her. I let myself in with the key and I fed her. If you pat her just by her tail, kind of thumpy, if you pat her there? She licks the carpet.”

“Yeah,” said Gregory. “That’s Prudence for you.”

“No. The cat. Melior. If you thump her side near her tail, she —”

“I know. Joke. Have you seen Melior recently?”

“She’s the cutest,” said one of the girls.

“I haven’t seen her for six years,” claimed a boy who was maybe five.

“All right,” Gregory said to Brian. “I’m done. So much for the caramel parade. Let’s go.”

“Thank you!” said Brian to the kids, waving, because Gregory clearly wasn’t going to thank anyone, and Brian
thought kids deserved to be thanked. He wished, frankly, that he could spend the evening playing on lawns and riding bikes, like he and Gregory used to do when they were seven and it was summer and night fell late.

The kids all stared while the two boys walked away.

When Brian and Gregory had followed the soft curve of the road and were finally out of sight, the children began to revolve in circles again, cooing to each other like doves.