"Your message was intriguing and not very informative," Garth said.
"Sorry about that," Steven said. "I needed to get your attention, because I need your help."
"And how can I help you?" Garth asked, pouring cream into his coffee.
Months ago Steven might have danced around the subject. Now he felt the direct approach was the best. "Over the past few days," Steven said, "I"ve been hara.s.sed by your father, Frank."
"Stepfather," Garth said, taking a sip of coffee. "And that"s quite impossible, since he"s been dead for forty years."
"It"s not his physical self threatening me," said Steven. "It"s his soul."
Garth sat his cup down and looked at Steven defensively. "Is this a shakedown? Despite all this," he said, waving his hand, "I don"t have money. It"s all locked away in my children"s hands, so you"re wasting your time."
"No, nothing like that," Steven said. "I"m only after information. Your stepfather has threatened to kill me. I"m trying to figure out why."
"You"re speaking about him in the present tense," Garth said. "You realize you sound like a lunatic?"
"I"m betting you know I"m not," Steven said.
Garth eyed Steven again, giving him the once over.
"Frank"s soul has been caged for the past eighty years," Daniel said. "Even though he pa.s.sed away forty years ago, his soul is still very much alive. The problem is the cage is now deteriorating, and he"ll be on the loose within a few days. And he appears to be p.i.s.sed off."
The color drained from Garth"s face. He looked from left to right and back again, seeming to be searching for a way out of something. "I didn"t think there was a time limit," he muttered.
"What?" Steven asked. "Did you say a time limit?"
Garth looked up. "Yes, I didn"t think there was a time limit."
"On Frank?" Steven asked.
"Yes, on Frank," Garth said.
"So you know what I"m talking about?" Steven said.
Garth sighed. "Yes," he said. "I think I do."
The waiter appeared with their food. Garth paused while the plates were pa.s.sed around and more coffee was poured. Once the waiter left, Garth took a bite of a bagel. He chewed it slowly and deliberately, as though he was using the time to pull up memories of Frank.
"It"s a rather long story, Mr. Hall," Garth said.
"Please, call me Steven," he replied.
"All right, Steven then. It"s a long story, and it happened a long time ago. If you hadn"t noticed, I"m rather old now, and my memory isn"t what it used to be. But I"ll go back if you want me to."
"It"s more of a case of needing you to," Steven said. "I believe when the cage is gone, he will try to kill me. He"s already tried and failed."
"All right then," Garth said. "I believe you. My stepfather was an evil man. Let me tell you what happened back in 1933."
Chapter Five.
Sean had been hungry all day from the moment he"d woken up. He"d eaten a couple of spring onions while working in the fields with his stepfather, but they were still young and bitter and not very satisfying. Still, it felt good to have something in his mouth to chew. Since his mother died, that feeling had become increasingly rare.
The years with his mother now seemed like a distant dream, a paradise. Then, he and Garth played at home all day while she worked around the house. They had a large house and a large lawn, and he and Garth would be sent outside by their mother when she couldn"t stand them in the house anymore. In the yard they would drag an old red wagon around and try to play badminton with an old set of rackets that were missing most of the strings.
Sometimes they would venture into the old stand-alone garage in the far corner of the backyard, but only to grab a rake or ball or the badminton set. They were both afraid of the garage. The open door entrance allowed the afternoon light to shine into part of it, and they limited themselves to the areas where the light fell. They had ventured deeper into the garage once, towards the back of it where the heavy doors had once swung open to allow a car to drive inside. There were dirty windows in those doors, and they didn"t let in much light. The doors hadn"t been opened in a long time, and the garage was now full of cast-off junk from the house, their mother and stepfather preferring to park the family truck on the street. The one time they tried exploring back there they had both become frightened. It was now an unspoken agreement to limit their garage boundaries to the area immediately inside the door with the light.
There were other areas in the house that were frightening, too. They slept together in a bas.e.m.e.nt bedroom, and the bas.e.m.e.nt itself was dark and unsettling. Every night when forced to bed, they"d descend the wooden steps from the kitchen, and make a quick sharp turn into their bedroom at the base of the stairs, shutting the door quickly behind them. The rest of the bas.e.m.e.nt was largely unexplored, a collection of unfinished sections. In a far corner was a large pile of coal, used to feed a furnace. They never played downstairs outside of their bedroom.
Inside the bedroom things were less scary, but being a bas.e.m.e.nt bedroom with a tiny window near the ceiling it didn"t have a lot of light. There was a dim overhead fixture which helped some, but not much. Even in the middle of the day with the light turned on it felt dark.
They shared a double bed pushed into a corner of the room. Laying in the bed at night, Sean and Garth would point out the things in the room that calmed them, like the baseball pennants they"d arranged on the walls and a bobblehead doll that sat on a dresser. They were both afraid of a hole in the ceiling by the open closet, which was tucked into the s.p.a.ce under the wooden stairs that led down from the kitchen. The hole was about a foot across. Neither boy knew how the hole got there. They avoided looking at it, especially at night, because whatever might emerge from it was too horrible to consider.
Their mother would listen to their fears and try to console them. She was who they ran to when anything needed solving. But after their mother died, things changed. Their stepfather Frank became unfriendly to everyone, especially Sean and Garth. With their mother not there to stop him, he would drink and become mean. After a while Frank stopped any pretense of being a loving father and settled into a daily pattern of work followed by a few hours of liquor-induced stupor. Sean and Garth had learned to make themselves scarce during the hours between, when he was at his meanest.
Several months ago Frank had begun taking Sean and his brother into the onion fields to work every day. The boys were expected to help irrigate and weed the rows. It was tough work for young children. Sean had learned early on that playing with Garth while they worked was not a good idea. The sun beat down on them relentlessly, and having a drink of water every now and again was essential to staying conscious. When Frank found them playing instead of working, he"d punish them by eliminating their breaks, which meant they couldn"t stop for water. It only took once or twice having to go thirsty for hours while on his knees pulling weeds for Sean to know it was better to leave Garth alone and stick to the ch.o.r.es.
This evening Frank had been swearing and yelling ever since he raised the bottle to his lips. He and Garth had decided to play outside so Frank wouldn"t notice them. They instinctually played quietly, knowing that drawing attention from Frank while he was drunk was a bad idea. Neither he nor Garth had any food throughout the day, and Sean was hoping he could sneak inside the kitchen and grab something while Frank wasn"t paying attention, so he and Garth could eat.
He tried to convince Garth to wait in the backyard for him to return with something, but Garth said he was starving and would go with him to help carry out more food. Sean didn"t think having his five-year-old brother in tow would help make his task any easier, but Garth was insistent.
They crept up the cement steps that led to the kitchen door. They both knew how to get the kitchen door open without a sound. Sean could hear Frank swearing and cussing elsewhere in the house; it sounded like he was lying in his bedroom, which was a comfortable distance from the kitchen.
Sean lead the way, with Garth quietly tip-toeing behind him. Sean knew the best food would be in the icebox. He was after the bread, and Frank always kept it there. After carefully avoiding the floorboards that he knew would creak, he tried to open the icebox latch slowly so it wouldn"t make its normal clicking sound.
Once he had the door open, inside they both saw a heel of bread, about two inches thick. Sean turned to look at Garth, who smiled back and nodded. This would be their prize if they could successfully sneak it out of the house without Frank hearing them.
Sean grabbed the chunk of bread and handed it to Garth, then he shut the icebox door, going as slowly as he could to avoid any noise. When he was done, they both turned to tip-toe back to the kitchen door.
"So you"re G.o.dd.a.m.n thieves now?" Frank said from the doorway that lead to the living room. "Sneaking in here like common thieves?"
"We haven"t had anything to eat today," Sean said, pleading. He could see the bottle in Frank"s hand; it still had a couple of inches of brown colored liquid inside, but enough was gone for Sean to know he was arguing with the devil.
"Oh, that"s right you gotta eat, I know that," Frank said. He sat down in a kitchen chair next to the kitchen table, positioning the chair to face the boys.
"Let"s see who wants it the most," Frank said. "Do you want it more than your brother?"
Sean stared at Frank, unsure of what he was asking. Garth held the bread to his chest a little more tightly. He wanted to take a bite of it, but was afraid to do it in front of Frank.
"Looks like your brother stole all the dinner," Frank said to him.
"He"ll share some with me," Sean said.
"No, he won"t," Frank said. He waved his hand at Garth. "Give me that, boy!"
Garth knew better than to go against Frank. He walked over to where Frank sat and placed the bread in Frank"s hands. As he turned to walk back to Sean, Frank raised a foot and kicked Garth squarely in the back. Sean saw Garth"s frame bend into an arc as the foot made contact with him, the surprise and hurt spread across his face, and then his body was propelled forward towards Sean. He caught him just before he made contact with the kitchen cupboards. Garth began crying.
"This bread," Frank said, "is only enough for one thief. Only one of you can have it. No sharing."
Sean felt the pit in his stomach widen.
"Who wants it?" Frank asked.
Sean and Garth looked at each other. They both weakly said "I do" at the same time.
"The winner gets it," Frank said to them. "Fight him for it." He took another long throat full of the booze. Both boys stood in the kitchen, still. They weren"t sure they understood him.
Frank looked at Garth. "Fight him for it! You can"t both have it. Hit him. Give him a good punch. Beat him up, and it"s yours." Frank pulled a piece of the bread off and ate it. "Sure is good. I"m gonna wind up eating it all if you don"t fight him for it, then you"ll get none."
Sean looked at Garth; he could see the hunger in Garth"s eyes. He wanted Garth to have the bread, but he knew Garth would never start the fight. So he pushed him hard enough that he fell to the floor.
Predictably, this enraged Garth. He leapt to his feet and charged Sean. Sean pretended to fight back, but at seven years old he could easily have beaten Garth had he wanted to. Garth threw punches and Sean took them. He let Garth climb on top of him, swinging. Garth was crying, partly from pain, partly from hunger, and partly from anger. Sean felt his little fists pounding into his stomach. He raised his hands to defend himself but let Garth make contact with each punch. Sean felt like doubling over, but he couldn"t with Garth on top of him. He tried to grab Garth"s arms to stop the swinging, but Garth had turned into a machine, running on automatic, starving and determined to have the bread. Sean felt the pain from the punches combine with his own hunger and humiliation at having to let his brother do this to him just to satisfy Frank. As Garth"s punches slowed, he started to cry and rolled away from Frank so he couldn"t see him, pushing Garth off.
"Pathetic," Frank said. "What a p.u.s.s.y."
Frank tossed the bread onto the floor where Garth lay, panting and sobbing. "Here you go. Eat it now, in front of me. I wanna make sure he doesn"t get any."
Garth grabbed the bread and began chewing it. Sean quieted his crying; he didn"t want either of them to hear how angry and upset he was. After a few moments, he could hear Frank stand up.
"Now, get out of here!" Frank yelled, walking towards them. Garth was on his feet and out the kitchen door immediately. Sean raised himself up on one arm but felt the pain in the side of his abdomen where Garth had made several successful punches, and he winced. Frank walked over to him and kicked his arm out from under him; he went back down. He grabbed his arm, afraid it might be broken.
"Out," Frank said. "Or the next one"ll be on your a.s.s."
Sean raised himself up despite the pain and ran towards the door. As he walked down the steps that led into the yard, he saw Garth disappear into the open door of the garage.
He stumbled through the backyard, walking towards the garage. He knew he needed to talk to Garth. He wanted more than anything to fall down on the cool gra.s.s and just rest, but he could hear Garth sobbing in the garage and wanted to go to him, and he felt like putting distance between himself and Frank.
As he walked through the door opening, the smell of old wood that had been baking in the sun greeted him. The garage had always smelled like this, old and musty and dry. Even though the sun was starting to set and it was getting a little darker outside, the garage still retained the heat from the day.
Garth was at the back of the lit area, under a wooden bench. "I"m sorry," he said as he gulped air between sobs.
"It"s OK," Sean said, sitting down on the floor, holding his side.
"Did I hurt you?" Garth asked.
"No," Sean lied, "a little runt like you couldn"t hurt a fly."
Garth didn"t reply and kept crying. Sean leaned back, thinking it might help the pain. It didn"t.
"What are you going to eat?" Garth said, still under the bench.
"I guess nothing," Sean said.
"We could sneak in later," Garth offered. "We could sneak up in the middle of the night, after he"s gone to sleep."
"Maybe we"ll do that," Sean said, rolling over onto his side. He looked into the back of the garage, into the area where they never went. His eyes rested on the piles of junk. There was just enough light still coming through the door that he could see the various pieces of it.
"I"ll do it," Garth said. "I won"t get caught. He can"t hear me."
Sean thought he"d reply to Garth, telling him that was a bad idea, but instead he blinked his eyes, unsure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Sticking out of the pile of junk was a hand. It was outstretched towards him, as though it was holding something. It looked pale white and he couldn"t see anybody attached to it. He thought it might be part of a dead body. He felt the hair on his neck rise.
"Shh," he said to Garth. "Be quiet for a second."
Garth quieted his crying and Sean pushed himself back up into a seated position. The new viewing angle confirmed it was indeed a hand. Its palm was open as though it was offering him something, but he couldn"t see what it was.
"Garth, come over here," Sean said. "Be quiet."
Garth crawled along the garage floor to where Sean sat. When he reached him, he sat next to him, mimicking Sean"s pose.
"Do you see it?" Sean asked.
"What?" Garth asked.
"Look!" Sean said, nodding towards the back of the garage. Garth raised his head and wiped his eyes.
"Yeah," Garth said. "What is it?"
"It"s a hand," Sean said.
"Whose hand?" Garth asked.
"Let"s find out," Sean said, crawling forward towards the back of the garage. The hand remained motionless, extended and cupped as though it was holding something. Sean couldn"t see anything it was holding, but Garth reached forward to touch it.
"There"s something in its hand," Garth said. "I could feel it."
"I don"t see anything," Sean said.
"Try yourself," Garth said.
Sean reached forward. As he pressed a finger into the s.p.a.ce above the hand"s palm, he felt resistance against something soft.
Garth grabbed Sean"s arm. "Look, Sean!" he said, pointing to a s.p.a.ce in the junk pile. A small white face stared out at them. It looked like a baby"s face, but after a moment it looked more like a child their age.
"Try it," the face said.
Sean looked at Garth. His cheeks had been red from crying, but now the color drained from his face. They both tensed, feeling the need to bolt from the garage.
"It"s food," the face said.
Sean stared back at the face, which seemed to look older now. He looked back at the hand. "I don"t see anything," Sean said.