CHAPTER 3

The next day, hundreds of miles from the Hargett Theatre, Anna Grove twisted a crocheted pillow cover in her hands. Her voice shook a little. She’d been talking for some time.

“I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know where he goes at night.”

The man she spoke to took a long puff on his pipe. “I wish I knew what to tell you. He’s been out of my league for a while now.”

A moth tap-tapped against a windowpane. Two clocks ticked in unison. Anna Grove, ex-actress and stunning at forty-five, sat in the den of her fourteen-room, white-columned house in a small town near New Orleans and tried not to shiver.

The man who’d spent the last hour and ten minutes hunched in a tall wing-backed chair, watching her closely, was Jim Fautsch, her family’s doctor and a close friend. Fautsch looked a little like Wilford Brimley. He was one of the few people in whom Anna confided.

She moved closer to the edge of the couch and twisted harder on the pillow cover. Her voice stayed low, and every few moments she glanced over her shoulder, as though in an exaggerated tic.

“If Simon actually did the...what Sheriff Bowman said...”

She stopped and stared down at a framed five-by-seven on the antique cedar chest that served as the den’s coffee table. She’d taken the picture down from its place, high on a shelf in her closet.

“I’d like to think he didn’t, couldn’t. But after what happened next door, and then those others, I just, I...” Anna’s face mingled sadness and regret. “I shouldn’t have been so...controlling, all these years. Shouldn’t have kept him so sheltered.” Her words grew even softer. “I thought I was doing the best thing.”

Fautsch took a while to respond. Unlike the general public, he’d seen pictures of what had taken place in the neighbors’ house. He couldn’t think about it too much.

“It sure as hell wouldn’t be like the boy I remember.”

“No...no.” Her voice faltered. “He’s always been so timid, so...”

Anna had known from the beginning that Simon was different. Keeping him away from the other children, keeping him safe in the house, had only seemed natural. She thought initially that letting him attend a public school would solve any socialization problems he might have had, but... that wasn’t the case.

Fautsch blew out a long stream of smoke. “My son... he’s told me how they treat Simon. When they see him in the halls. They call him names, push him down. You know how many fights he’s been in. He’s always run away.”

She shook her head and, resisting it, started crying. Fautsch stood nervously, sat down next to her and put an arm around her.

“He’s always been like that,” she said unsteadily. “He’s always been so fearful. Never... He never could talk to anybody. Oh Jim, I made him that way, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

Outside, late afternoon deepened into summer twilight. The sky descended into the dark, rich blue of late summer nights, and katydids filled the trees with their droning, two-note song. As a girl Anna had imagined they were calling her name, every evening, Ann-a, Ann-a, rising and falling, Ann-a. Sometimes it gave her bad dreams. She conquered that fear, or thought she did, when she became a teenager. But right now, tonight, combined with everything else, the sound made her want to scream.

A gust of wind moved over the vast expanse of manicured lawn outside the house, touched a loose section of gutter, made it creak and groan against the eave, and behind the ocean of scorching air the first cool currents of fall winnowed their way through.

Autumn seemed to be arriving well ahead of schedule, insistent, with no consideration for summer’s desire to stay.

The Grove house, built on the eastern edge of her home town, had once been a place of joy for Anna. As she told Life magazine, it represented her triumph over the world...but in the course of the last two decades, the joy had slowly drained away, leached out, until the house stood gray and cold, like a headstone.

Anna stared at the five-by-seven. It was a high school Valentine’s Day dance picture: beneath an arch of red and pink marble-patterned balloons, a dark-haired young man in an immaculate tuxedo stood arm in arm with a wholesome-looking blonde in a snug green dress. The girl smiled tightly at the camera. Anna knew why. Every time she thought about it her heart broke. She knew her son would be furious if he discovered she hadn’t thrown the photograph away, as he’d asked her to do.

The boy looked just as uncomfortable, but in a different way. He seemed ready to flinch, ready to throw his hands up to defend himself. Even with the girl on his arm his whole attitude radiated fear.

Anna reached to touch the photo, but her hand trembled. “It’s just Jessica and me here now, you know that. I sent everyone else away. Jim, what am I doing? Am I losing my mind?”

Fautsch narrowed his eyes and stared at the toes of his shoes.

“I wish I could say I thought you were. I don’t know what to do about this. It’s too strange.”

That tight smile in the picture. Michelle Mangrum, the girl’s name was.

Loser of a bet. Simon hadn’t found out till the prom ended, when Michelle turned on her heel and walked away from him, to a group of her friends. “Finally, it’s over,” Simon had heard her say.

And faintly, from another friend as they filed out the door, leaving him there alone, “How could you stand that guy all night?”

Anna had tried to show him as much sympathy as she could, but he’d pushed her away. Once again, out of habit, Anna looked over her shoulder, and said, “Oh!”

Fautsch followed her line of sight and almost gasped himself. Simon Grove stood in the hall doorway, cloaked in shadows, watching them. His eyes glittered.

A few seconds passed before Anna could speak. “Simon! Wh-when did you get home, son?”

Simon moved into the room slowly. He ignored the photograph. “Just now.” He nodded at Fautsch. “Evening, Doc.”

Fautsch nodded back, his eyes a little wider than normal. “Hello, Simon. How are you?”

Simon shrugged. He wore jeans and sneakers and a polo shirt, and in most ways looked like a normal young man. But something about the way he stared at them, swung his head back and forth between them, made Jim Fautsch’s insides knot.

“I’m a little tired, actually,” Simon answered. “I think I’ll go up and lie down for a bit.”

Anna said, “All right,” but Simon had already moved past them, heading for the back stairs. They both watched him disappear up the steps, and waited until they heard the ceiling squeak above them. Fautsch exhaled slowly.

Anna covered her face with her hands, rubbed her eyes. “I think I know what to do. God.” She snuffled and reached for a Kleenex. Neither of them said anything for close to fifteen minutes, and aside from the small sounds of Anna’s tears the room grew claustrophobically silent.

Finally Anna said, “Jim—hand me the phone.”

# # #

Simon Grove lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The familiar surroundings of his room gave him no comfort as he tried to recall the dream he’d had the night before. There’d been something, something in it he couldn’t remember, but knew he needed to.

Faces seen through wet red glass, Paul, Paul’s mother and father. The girl with the broken-down car. The old man under the bridge.

Those, no, those were just memories, played out again and again for him.

No insights revealed. Just recollections.

Skin and muscle and bone, shifting, moving. The world in green and yellow.

More of the same. But there was something else, something new. Something foreign, working its way into his mind.

What, what was it?

Simon sat up straight. There. He knew he could get it if he thought about it long enough. A new part of the dream, a new feeling, a new urge. It was ...

Traveling. Moving, moving toward the sunrise. Moving east, headed for ... a cylindrical tower, a dome shining gold.

There! That was it! And with the recognition his mind flooded with the need to make it real. Where was it? What city had he seen?

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stared around him.

Simon felt as if he sat in the room of a stranger. Nothing here was necessary, nothing here applied to him any longer.

It wasn’t just the words he’d overheard between his mother and Doc Fautsch downstairs now; it wasn’t just the things people in town said about him. It wasn’t just that he’d been getting careless—that he had left the last one to be found too soon. Now something else tugged at him, something new, and he felt no need to resist it.

Simon pulled a gym bag out of his closet and threw a few items of clothing into it, grabbed his toothbrush from his bathroom, and crept silently down the front stairs.

# # #

In the kitchen of the Grove house, Jessica Siede finished putting away the last of the dishes and turned to straighten the hand towels on their rack. She felt just as nervous as her employer, Ms. Grove, and performed her duties methodically. Like a neurotic’s ritual. If the things she did remained relentlessly normal, then maybe the world around her would as well.

She stopped, glanced at the door leading from the kitchen to the garage.

Quietly: “Simon? Is that you?”

Jessica was tall and slender, with clear green eyes and thick yellow hair pulled back into a tail. Only a few strands of gray hid among the blonde. Not bad for forty-three, she often told herself. She’d been thrilled when she first landed the job at Anna Grove’s house. Even if Ms. Grove wasn’t exactly A-list anymore, she was still a movie star, and Jessica enjoyed dusting the Academy Award Ms. Grove kept on the marble mantle of the drawing room fireplace.

Now, in the kitchen, Jessica’s heart thrummed against her ribs and she struggled to keep her breathing even. Her hand fluttered near the oak knife rack.

“Simon?”

Another sound, soft and scraping. Jessica took a hesitant step toward the door, then another. She knew Ms. Grove and her friend the doctor were just two rooms, two doors away. She took a third step toward the door—and stopped as the knob turned. The latch clicked, and the door swung a few inches open.

“Jess...”

It was Simon, but his voice sounded strange. He stayed out of sight behind the door.

“Are you...Simon, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Just two doors away, she could be through there in ten seconds, she was fast enough, he wouldn’t catch her.

Jessica knew what the people in town said about Simon Grove. About what had happened next door, about all the others they’d found. They didn’t have any proof, she didn’t think, or they would have been out here to get him already. No proof...but they hadn’t seen the way he’d been acting. Or the way he’d looked at her lately.

When she first started this job she would’ve guiltily welcomed Simon’s attention. Maybe told her sister about it during their weekly phone conversation. Chuckled about robbing the cradle. Her sister used to make jokes about finding a boy, seventeen or eighteen, and “training” him; she’d even suggested the possibility to Jessica after seeing Simon’s picture.

But a year was a long time. Jessica carefully pulled out the sharpest of the carving knives.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Simon said. He paused. “Could you...” The words came out strained, as if he had his teeth gritted. “Could you come out here? ...Just for a minute? I, uh, I...need...” He cut off in a strangle, as if his vocal cords had suddenly clogged.

“Simon...” Jessica struggled to say the words, hoping, praying. They came out in a rush. “Your mother, I, I think she’s going to call the sheriff, and tell him something, and they’ll come for you.”

Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus, please let this work...please don’t let this be a mistake...

A movement caught her eye. Cast by the light from the garage on the floor of the kitchen, Jessica saw Simon’s shadow.

There was something wrong with it.

She backed up a couple of steps. Slowly, the door started to swing open.

Jessica stared long enough to see the edge of something, some sort of mass, white and smooth and writhing.

She turned and bolted out of the kitchen, half-blind with sudden tears.

# # #

Simon watched her go. He sighed and closed his eyes, momentarily ashamed of himself, and pulled the door shut. He’d only wanted to say goodbye, really; he hadn’t meant it to be anything else. Even though it almost had been. He whispered, “Bye, Jess,” to the darkness.

Soon a gloss black Ford Mustang accelerated out of the Grove garage and squealed long burn marks into the road as it left the driveway.

A sheriff’s cruiser arrived not thirty seconds later.


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