And maybe he’d been rude earlier, to the Malloy girl, but he had to keep her at bay. She had no idea what she was walking into with him. And her asking him out . . . for a friend? He cracked a small smile. Then he shook his head. That had to be self-serving too, in some way. He wondered what she really wanted from him, who she’d been trying to impress, or make jealous.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be around long enough to find out.
He tossed in the cap and started zipping the bag closed. The piece-of-shit zipper got jammed and he had to fuss with it, which was when he heard the creak on the attic steps, stopped what he was doing, and shoved the duffel bag beneath the bed. He stood up quickly, banging his head against a low rafter just as Diane entered the room.
He rubbed his head and plopped down on the bed. Already he felt bad, seeing his great-aunt, frail and bent over like that, winded just from climbing the stairs. She’d probably called up to him and he hadn’t heard over the sound of the rain.
“How was school?” she asked, brushing wispy white hair away from her temple and carefully tucking it in to some invisible hairpin. The stray lock flopped down again as soon as she let go.
He shrugged.
“Well, I guess that’s better than awful, isn’t it,” she said, more a statement than a question.
Either way, he didn’t have a response. He hated the shame that sweltered him like a sweaty sheet in summertime whenever his great-aunt tried to converse with him. She’d never had any kids of her own. Why would she want to start dealing with a teenager now, especially one with “behavioral problems”? Which, by the way, was a highly hyperbolic term for having gotten into a total of one ill-advised fight. It wasn’t like he’d gone out looking for it even.
“So,” she said. “I’m making pierogi.” She paused, then added, “It would be nice if you’d help with the potatoes.”
She waited there until he followed her back down the stairs, the packed duffel sagging in the back of his mind like an unkept promise.
Later on, with the steam from boiling dumplings rising around their heads, carrying the warm smell of leek and starch, and Uncle Liam in a cheerful, semilucid mood, and the rain falling steadily outside, Patrick almost regretted his plans to leave here. He thought again of the sodden leaves filling up the yard. Who would clear them up when he was gone?
They were sitting around the dining room table and his great-uncle was talking about a paper he was working on for the university—something about cannibalistic ogres. He recalled his uncle used to teach a course or two on folklore and fairy tales, but he’d never really thought about how gruesome the stories could be.
“What do you think, Tom?” he asked suddenly.
Patrick did a double take, but Diane gave him a quick look he didn’t quite get. “Sorry, what?”
“I could really use help organizing them, Tom. The notes are all over the place,” Liam said.
Diane folded her napkin and got up to clear the dishes. “That’s all right, dear. We’ll discuss the paper tomorrow.”
In the kitchen, she told Patrick not to mind. “He’ll forget what he said.”
“Who’s Tom?”
“I have no idea,” Diane replied. “Probably a former student.” Her arm shook as she wiped down one of the plates.
“Let me do that,” Patrick said, taking the plate and dish towel.
Diane beamed at him. “We’re so happy to have you with us, Patrick. You’ve grown into such a good young man.”
“It’s no problem,” he said, trying to avoid looking into her eyes.
“Don’t let Liam’s ramblings bother you,” she went on. “He used to be quite successful, you know. His second book sold in six different countries.”
Patrick nodded.
“He used to buy me presents—mostly jewelry, sometimes other artifacts, vases, that sort of thing—from every city he visited on tour,” she added, a hazy look passing over her face. She laughed a little and shrugged. “Thousands of dollars’ worth of mementos, probably. Ironic, a little bit, don’t you think?”
Patrick didn’t answer. He was thinking about the expensive objects she mentioned. The jewelry and vases. Thousands of dollars could get a person far. A lot farther than empty pockets. He squirted more soap than necessary into a glass and let it fill with water from the faucet, watching it foam over.
“Anyway,” Diane continued, “he knows he’s doing it. Sometimes. He’ll realize it. Calls it dream chasing. I thought that was a nice way of putting it, don’t you,” she said—another statement question.
“Ogres who eat human flesh? Some dreams.” Patrick shut off the faucet.
Diane looked at him funny, and it took him a moment to understand her surprise—it was more than he’d said the entire time he’d lived with them. He too felt surprised. He never thought of himself as a quiet person. Just seemed like lately he was the one who was caught in a series of bad dreams. No ogres, maybe. But other sorts of monsters.
“Not all the stories are bad. There are good fairies who grant wishes,” Diane said, almost to herself, as though she didn’t mean for him to hear.
But he had. And once again, his mind turned to the Malloy girl, with hair like pale fire.
HOOKED
BY KATHERINE MALLOY
The fishermen’s lines fly over the water,
making me think of hunger and desire
—each an intrinsic part of the other—
driving the fish to the end of the wire
on which its own death winks, silvery and hooked,
and on which somebody’s survival may depend.
I lie on the shore, gazing at my notebook—
the lines of poems draw me toward their end:
full of sentiments that lack completion,
and holding hidden longing, long unmet—
while in the strong arms of the fishermen
I see your hands, that haven’t touched me yet.
But who’s been baited and who’s the lure?
Who will give in first and ask for more?
Chapter Seven
Now
FEBRUARY 7
HERE WERE TESSA’S LEADS. Okay, her one lead:
Patrick Donovan was reported missing. Had been gone since Friday night. At least, that was according to Boyd. She didn’t know what to think of that fact. She hadn’t really gotten to know Patrick in the months he’d lived in Devil’s Lake.
It was suspicious, though, wasn’t it?
It was something.
She stepped through the back door into her house, feeling the tiny weight of the engagement ring in her pocket. It was quiet—everyone would be coming home soon from the service, but somehow she’d gotten here first. Casseroles and fruit salads slouched on the counter in shrink-wrap, waiting for concerned visitors and distant family members to expose and devour them. The thought of it—all that potato salad and pity—sent a violent wave of nausea through her.
She ran up the stairs and barely made it to the hall bathroom before puking her guts out.
She kneeled on the floor for a few minutes, then got up and ran the faucet, hot. As the mirror fogged, she felt herself disappearing. She tried to conjure another memory of Kit, tried to make her be here.