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  There was no answer.

  Chapter 26 (Monday, October 26th)

  Bleep- bleep. Bleep-bleep.

  I look around in confusion. I am standing in a celluloid grey field filled with strangling weeds and emaciated stick figure trees stripped bare of leaves that I can’t help but be reminded of the bony naked bodies of Auschwitz prisoners being led to their deaths. The landscape is desolate and dead, the surface of an alien planet.

  In my mind, this dream world has become real enough to name; I now call it “The October Country,” with respect to Mr. Bradbury.

  With shock, I realize that I am in the valley below the house. There is an insurmountable hill—no, strike that--a mountain in front of me.

  Bleep- bleep. Bleep-bleep.

  The trees around me are reaching for me and restraining me. I twist and duck beneath their limbs, but I nonetheless feel one of the gnarled fingers scratch me along one arm. I spin away and leap backwards in an attempt to put some distance between me and these unnatural horrors. Suddenly, my perspective changes, and the trees are sailing backwards away from me at a rate so fast they are simply blurs. My feet touch ground, and I realize that the trees are far below me now. I turn a complete circle and realize that I have just jumped hundreds of feet into the air and landed on the hill above the forest.

  I turn to find that I am now in the imposing presence of the House Without Doors. No windows. No stairways or trellises. It is a natural fortress.

  Bleep- bleep. Bleep-bleep.

  My instinct is to back away from it, and in so doing, I step onto something wooden, something unstable. I peer down and see a grey door seated flush with the graphite colored surface, nearly indistinguishable from the dark earth around it. It is a coffin, its lid exposed above the ground, and I recognize that I am standing atop it. I turn a slow circle and realize that I am surrounded by tombstones. Indeed, I am in a cemetery.

  With irresistible curiosity diluted with enormous trepidation, I nonetheless reach down to open the lid of this coffin when I feel the presence of someone at my back.

  Bleep- bleep. Bleep-bleep.

  I turn. The figure is slightly taller than me and has long curly hair. Whether blond or brunette I cannot tell, for it is too dark to distinguish any details. My fingers shoot out and grip one of the collars of his button up shirt, my thumb finding his neck by sheer accident. It digs deep just as he pulls away from me.

  Bleep- bleep. Bleep-bleep.

  “I’ve got you,” I tell him through gritted teeth and for a brief instant, despite the darkness, I can see fear in that unshakable visage, then…

  With a steady shake, I stirred from my troubled sleep. It was Monday morning. I looked around, realizing that I was still in the hospital room. Claudia was in bed and my father stood above me with a confused half-smile on his face.

  “Get up, Paul.”

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s six,” he answered, kneading my shoulder affectionately. “Deputy Nick’s here to bring you to school.”

  I looked around and saw my mother standing in the doorway, almost as she was afraid to cross the threshold out of superstition.

  “I don’t think I should go.”

  “She’ll be safe with your mother.” He firmly gripped me beneath the arm and lifted me out of my seat.

  “Where will you be?”

  “I have to make the arrangements for the funeral.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow or Wednesday.”

  I stood against my will and turned to Claudia. Her eyes were open. How long she’d been awake, I hadn’t a clue. She was just staring off into space almost as if watching something on the blackened television screen.

  “Claudia, I’ve got to go to school but I’ll be back tonight, okay?”

  She didn’t blink. Not a twitch.

  I led my father a few steps away from her. “Does the doctor know about this?”

  He nodded. “Her psychiatrist is coming by later.”

  I took one last look back at her. “I promised Mrs. Wicke I wouldn’t leave her.”

  He gave me a long serious look. “She’ll be safe with us. Don’t worry.”

  “Claudia’s mother was supposed to be safe with Sterling last night.”

  My father flinched at that. “If he were conscious and able to defend himself, I’m sure he’d tell you himself that he did the best he could,” my father said with obvious attempt at control. “Now I want you to go to school, Paul.” He steered me out of the room past my mother.

  “Where will she go?” I asked. “She doesn’t have any relatives, does she?”

  He looked over at Mom.

  “Your father and I have decided to file for legal guardianship,” she said to me. “Pat told me once that’s what she’d like for us to do if anything… ever happened to her.” She was staring at Claudia with an expression I couldn’t read.

  Deputy Nick was waiting for me in a cruiser outside. I murmured a hello as I climbed into the backseat.

  His eyes found me in the rear view mirror. “How are you holding up, Paul?” he asked with genuine concern.

  “Just going through the motions,” I murmured, anxious to get the niceties out of the way and get back to stewing in my own misery. Feeling a tingling itch on my arm, I stared down at it for the first time since I’d awakened. There was a raised reddened mark down my forearm, a scratch not quite deep enough to break the skin but proof enough that I had taken something out of the October Country that I didn’t have going in.

  Now, I lifted my thumb--the same one I had planted in the throat of the dream phantom--in front of my face and scrutinized it. Was that skin beneath my nail?

  I leaned forward and put my hands through the gridded division between us. “Is Sterling okay?”

  “They said he has a concussion. In and out of consciousness, but if I know Sterling he’ll be back to work the day after the doctor’s release him.”

  “Between you and me, was this car accident really an accident?”

  Nick glanced up at me in the mirror then focused back on the road. “What did your old man tell you?”

  “I’m asking you,” I responded, then decided to add, “man to man.”

  Nick gave me a congenial smirk and took a few moments to consider before telling me, “They’re calling it a hit and run based on the evidence they got from the scene of the accident. No other witness to the accident has come forward and Sterling can’t give a statement yet.”

  “He was a pretty experienced driver, right?”

  “Sterling? You kidding? I’ve known the guy for over ten years, and he’s never even come close to a fender-bender.”

  I sat back and thought about this until I got to school.

  Nick dropped me out front, and after I thanked him and assured him I would be in the same place at three-thirty, I wandered over to the student lot to check on my car. I hadn’t seen the old Grand Prix since Thursday and she looked fine.

  When I entered the school, I guess I expected a change, perhaps a more somber, quieter place, but I couldn’t detect any difference in the least. Since Mrs. Wicke was a counselor, I figured maybe there would be some public acknowledgement of her death. Maybe a meeting to let everyone know of her passing, but there was nothing. It was almost as if it was a secret or something.

  Finally, I went up to the main office and let Mrs. Fillmore know that Claudia wouldn’t be in for a while because of her mother’s death. Mrs. Fillmore nodded and patted my shoulder. “Of course, Paul,” she told me in an almost mechanical voice that seemed calculated to exhibit the maximum amount of sympathy for the minimum amount of effort. “We’re all very sorry.”

  I felt like screaming to her: “Then why doesn’t someone actually show it!”

  Instead I simply replied, “They’re still making the funeral arrangements, but I believe it’s going to be on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

  She just nodded noncommittally. I think she registered that I’d reached the limits of my tolerance f
or her insincerity, because she thanked me and returned to the paperwork on her desk as if I’d simply disappeared from the room. I sighed and wandered out into the hallway, wishing for just one honestly sympathetic face in the crowd, and finding only Brent Jacobs.

  “Paul?” he called, rushing after me, frantically keeping pace with me.

  “Yeah?” I answered, increasing my pace, hoping to dissuade him from following.

  “I heard what happened, and I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” I felt his hand start to clutch my arm, and I twisted away, angling toward the bathroom, but he only followed me. Once inside, he blocked my way to the urinals, took a glance beneath the empty stalls, and finally looked me in the eye. “It was Nathan’s idea, man.”

  He had my full attention now. “What was Nathan’s idea?”

  “That stupid drinking game.”

  “What does it matter who’s idea it was? Lotta good it does for Claudia now!”

  Brent nibbled his lip and looked uncomfortable. “Look, I wasn’t going to say anything before but… Graham’s been acting a little funny lately, y’know, since Bridgette’s death. Maybe it’s just me or something, but…”

  It was then that two other guys burst inside, laughing at a private joke, and Brent slid around me and disappeared outside before I could manage to stop him.

  I went on to my morning classes, making a good effort at pretending to care, and took my noon break. For the first time, I realized that I hadn’t been able to pack my lunch and didn’t have any cash. I was too sick to my stomach to eat anyhow. Grabbing my horn and my music from the band hall, I retreated to our spot in the bleachers to wait for rehearsal. I found a couple up there hiding out for a quick make-out session.

  I sat down, resenting the fact that these idiots had defiled our sacred spot, and called Claudia’s hospital room. There was no answer. I called Dad’s cell. No answer. (God forbid I should be in trouble or anything.) I left a message asking why no one was picking up Claudia’s phone.

  The couple had finally gotten the hint and decided to find another place to give each other hickies.

  I called the hospital again and asked to be connected to the nurse’s station on Claudia’s floor. When I was connected, I asked the nurse why no one was picking up the phone in Claudia Wicke’s room, and she said that she would go check. About five minutes later, she said she would transfer me to the room. Mom picked up the phone.

  “I just called a few minutes ago. Where were you?” I asked sharply.

  “Sorry, I was just talking to your uncle,” she answered. I could tell from the way she’d abruptly edited herself that she had been about to say something, but at the last moment decided to hold it back.

  “What is it, Mom?

  There was a moment’s hesitation. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but this woman out at the church, she had something of a panic attack last night, and your uncle had to check her into a psychiatric hospital over in Lockhart.”

  As I was mulling over what this might mean, I heard her ask, “How are you, Paul?”

  “Fine. How’s Claudia? Is she talking to you?”

  “No, she’s sleeping right now,” she began to whisper. “They gave her a sedative about an hour ago.”

  “What did the doctor say about how she’s handling all this?”

  “He was a little concerned but he said that she’s probably in shock and handling this the only way she can. The doctor’s going to keep her here under observation until the funeral.”

  “What if she’s not better by then?”

  “He’s going to advise that she not attend the funeral.”

  “What? It’s her own mother’s funeral? He can’t do that!”

  “Honey, I’m not agreeing or disagreeing, but I think it would be traumatic to take Claudia to her mother’s funeral in the condition she’s in now.”

  A few minutes later the fifth period bell rang, and the first band members started to wander onto the field. Mom said that she loved me, and I murmured something in response.

  As I wandered down from the bleachers, I realized that half the band was watching me. When Greg and Sonny wandered up, the crowd closed almost protectively around me. I could see Brent and Nathan holding their own private conversation just outside the rest of the group. Brent turned brusquely away from me.

  “How is she?” Sonny asked.

  “Stable, they say.”

  “So Mrs. Wicke wasn’t even driving the car when it happened?” Treena asked with wide interested eyes. Another girl gave her a shove. When Mr. Woods called us to attention, everyone wandered back to his respective place.

  The rest of the day crawled by without incident. I waited impatiently for the three thirty bell so that I could get down to the hospital and see Claudia. When it finally arrived, I was rushing to my car out of instinct, when I heard a shrill whistle.

  Then I turned and saw Deputy Nick in the cruiser.

  When I proposed that I drive my car to the hospital with him following, he gave a stern shake of his head. “I’m under strict orders from your Dad.”

  He did, however, make me a promise that he would personally see to it that my car made it back to our house by the end of the day, even if he had to drive it himself.

  When I finally got to the hospital, Mom told me that Claudia was a little more animated today and seemed to be responding to her channel grazing. After lunch, she even watched some of a documentary about the sixties. She still wasn’t talking though. By the time I had arrived, she had fallen back into a funk, trading bouts of sleeping for staring somberly out the window.

  I spent the rest of my night sitting beside Claudia’s bed and telling her everything that had happened that day, including all the concern from the band—consciously leaving out Brent’s cowardly denial of responsibility. She didn’t respond. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and had just closed my eyes for some sleep when I heard humming. I recognized the tune as “Crimson and Clover” and thought it might have been me again, but this time it wasn’t. It was Claudia.

  She rolled over, and despite the darkness, I could see her dark eyes glistening in the dim light. “I found out what it means.”

  “Claudia?” I exclaimed and leaned my ear down to her face.

  “It was their song, y’know.”

  “Whose?”

  “My parents, while they were dating.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They just told me.” She smiled, closed her eyes, and fell almost immediately to sleep.

  I kissed her one last time and sat back to ponder what that could possibly mean.

  Chapter 27 (Tuesday, October 27th)

  When I awoke on Tuesday morning, Claudia was already awake and watching a documentary about all the sightings of ghosts on board the Queen Mary.

  “Good morning,” I croaked.

  She reached over and put a hand on my arm. It was warm. I turned my hand over and watched as she put her hand in mine.

  “I missed you,” I said.

  She looked at me blankly. “Of course you did,” she said with a smirk, then turned back to her program.

  “You scared us.”

  “Sorry, Paul, but if you’ve got something to say, can you wait until the commercial?”

  As I sat quietly beside her watching this documentary, I slowly realized that something was wrong with Claudia. She seemed emotionless, as if the death of her mother had occurred a long time in the past and not less than forty-eight hours ago.

  When Mom and Dad came in about an hour later, Mom hugged her fiercely and cried, but Claudia just seemed to endure her. I could tell right away that my mother knew something was up, but she chose to just let it go.

  “Just Claudia’s way of coping,” she told me later with a confused shrug, her eyes still glassy from tears.

  After a half hour of uncomfortable silence and another Discovery channel program on supernatural phenomenon, Dad asked me to step outside with him. He patted me on the arm and said, “You should probably stick aro
und here today, I’m thinking.”

  Just after noon, Dr. Patel came in and spoke with Claudia for about ten minutes and told my us that they could discharge her whenever she was ready.

  “Are we going back to the apartment today?” I asked Dad, dread in my voice.

  “One more night of it, then they’re going to let us return to the house,” he replied. Seeing my knee-jerk positive reaction, he added, “We need to set up for the funeral wake, Paul. After that, they’re going to establish an around the clock guard.”

  “What about Claudia?”

  Adopting an official posture, he laid a hand on my shoulder and pronounced: “We’re temporarily commandeering your room.”

  I nodded. “Ok, where am I going then?”

  He gave a casual shrug and turned away from me in mock indifference. “Any friends you think might be willing to take you in? How about Lonnie Bertrand’s kid?” He glanced back at me to gauge my reaction.

  “Guess I could take sanctuary at the church.”

  I had, of course, meant it as a dark joke, but the instant the words were out of my mouth, I knew I had killed the brief moment of levity between us.

  His lips hardened and his eyes shifted away from me. “We’re putting you in my office for now,” he growled and went back into the room.

  True to his word, Deputy Nick had delivered my car back to me. It was waiting in the drive when we got home. I took a quick look inside to make sure she was secure and undamaged before I could relax again.

  That night Mom set me up in Dad’s office on the fold-out couch and let Claudia have my room. “Just until we can figure out how we’re going to arrange things,” she told me, but I knew the way the wind was blowing. It wouldn’t be long before I would be finding places in his office for my stuff and then, Presto Chango, like magic all Claudia’s bloody crime books would occupy what was formerly my shelves.

  I still wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about having Claudia under the same roof. Would the close quarters change our relationship for the worse?

  When I got out of the bathroom, Claudia was waiting for me in Dad’s office. She sat in his big office chair, legs folded over one of the arms, and swiveled back and forth. I could already tell she was wide sun-shiny-day awake.