adam-meyer:
They stepped inside the house, finding themselves in a small, narrow corridor leading to a staircase, a square of darkness cut out of the side wall— which, moments later, his eyes adjusted enough to recognize as a doorway. Beyond it, only black. A small collection of picture frames hung crookedly on the walls, their glass dully reflecting moonlight. Adam’s gaze traveled slowly around and landed on the one closest to him. He could just barely distinguish the shapes of two women in it, smiling, their arms around each other, dark hair whipped by a strong wind. He could tell it was an old photograph, faded and discolored. A happiness trapped forever in a distant past.
Together they stood unmoving in the hallway. Listening, waiting. Then Penny called out to the darkness, making Adam glance sharply at her— if he had a surplus of concern, she seemed to have none. “Wait, we don’t know— maybe there was like a break-in or something—” he hissed, glancing back at the front door that had swung loosely on it hinges, now standing open to the fast-falling dusk. Maybe Mrs. Evelyn Garretson was currently growing cold in her favorite armchair, mouth agape, skin already blueing. Maybe the burglar was still somewhere in the house, prowling around in search of heirloom silver, and even now his head was lifting at the sound of a girl’s voice carrying boldly from the downstairs, eyes narrowing, mind quickly formulating solutions to yet another unexpected complication, two more loose ends to take care of—
Before Adam’s mounting panic could develop the scenario any further, it was interrupted by shuffling. He went still like a startled rabbit. The shuffling sounded like slippered feet moving over carpet, then a thud and scrape, furniture moving. Adam felt his breath hitch uncertainly in his lungs, eyes locked on the open doorway, watching as first a single light, then a shape, materialized from the dimness.
Evelyn Garretson stopped at the threshold of the doorway without crossing over, flashlight in hand. She was bundled head to toe: long housedress, thick, lumpy sweater, a crochet blanket wrapped around her stooped shoulders, misshapen daisies embedded in the pattern. She looked between the two of them. She didn’t seem very alarmed to have intruders standing in her foyer. Pouched in folds of wrinkled skin, Adam could see eyes so pale they looked like they’d blow away and leave a cloudless sky. They were, surprisingly, very alert.
Then she stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled it around. “I was listening to my music,” Evelyn informed them, quite loudly, as if said music were still playing and she wanted to make herself heard over it.
Adam looked at Penny, at a loss. What music? The old house creaked around them and otherwise, there was silence. His gaze returned hesitantly to the old woman, one hand straying up to scratch the back of his neck. “Hi Mrs. Garretson. We were just, uh…” In the neighborhood? Dropping by? Hard to explain why they’d just walked into her house without invitation— it seemed too soon to start getting into all of it— but Evelyn didn’t even wait for whatever half-assed explanation he would’ve invented. She turned away from them again, her shambling steps igniting sparks along the carpet. Either she was expecting they would follow or— maybe to her they were only as real as the music, Adam realized. Leave the room, and they too would disappear.
Disconcerting.
A quick dialogue of furtive expressions and gestures followed. Adam’s waving hand, motioning towards the empty doorway (What was that all about?) rebuffed by Penny’s skeptical, arched brow (How should I know?) and a stand-off as his own eyebrows inched higher (Now what?) and her eyes performed a final, exasperated roll (Oh my god, just go!), culminating in Penny taking the lead, yet again, as he huffed quietly and trailed behind. Passing through a dining room where all the chairs wore white shrouds, they entered a small parlor. The olive paint was so peeled it looked like the walls were shrugging out of their skins. A lampshade hung askew, spilling the light out sideways. On the table besides it, his eyes immediately fell on a pair of black, stereo headphones; oh, Adam thought with certain relief, shoulders almost sagging as a distant orchestra launched into a faint allegro molto. Evelyn had sunk back into an armchair closest to the radiator. She pulled an orange afghan blanket onto her lap, and fumbled to turn down the dial on the handheld Walkman the headphones were plugged into. “My grandson left me these,” she told them, voice rasping. “Damn radio keeps goin’ on the fritz and I can’t take it to get fixed, so now I’ve got these ear muffs to play my music. I look like a damn air traffic controller! Ha.” Her startling, pale eyes lifted and found Penny first. Recognition flickered across her face. “Oh, hello dear. I didn’t know you were coming by today.” She pointed one finger, curled and arthritic, at a half-drunk cup of tea. “I made tea. Pot’s in the kitchen, help yourselves.”
Next her eyes went to Adam. He felt the full attention of her staggering stare, and his own gaze darted away for a second before nervously returning. “I’m uh, Adam. Meyer. My family, we run the funeral home,” he clarified lamely, eyebrows rising before he could stop them. He had side-stepped into the room and now stayed close to the door, watching Penny from the corners of his eyes. “We were hoping to uh, talk to you. About something that happened a long time ago.” No point beating around the bush. They were here, in her home, and there was a certain shrewdness in the way she was looking at him: somehow, she already knew. “To your sister.”
Penny knew that whatever went on in Adam’s brain had to be a mirror image of his own physicality; jumbled-up threads of worry, some more plausible than others, knotted together until they must’ve been impossible to pick apart, until Adam himself couldn’t sort out what was real or nonsense. Or maybe it was all real to him. He looked tense enough that Penny half-worried some muscle or ligament would cleanly snap if he made a sudden movement. It seemed a miracle he still stood upright as they shuffled themselves across the dusty floorboards of Evelyn Garretson’s old, forgotten home, following her into the shadows. It was musty and damp, but it still felt more pleasantly lived in than a handful of places Penny had been. Old family photos, faded and a faintly warped, hung from precarious nails on the walls, between the peeling wallpaper and dodgy stains. The frames held the faces of smiling, gap-toothed children, women in old fashioned swimsuits squinting in the sun, and one notable Yorkshire terrier with a small bow adorning its head. Penny had never seen a photo of herself younger than ten years old, and here the Garretsons were; their history mapped out—disorganized and dusty, and each decade accounted for. She wondered which happy face had once belonged to Jeanie. She had never asked before.
“Oh, I know but I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience,” Penny acknowledged, commiserating in tone because there was no real smooth way to imply they had fully intended on blindsiding her. She plastered on a sweet smile and opened the tote bag slung over her shoulder, reaching in to pull out a tupperware container. The contents knocked around with the movement, cushioned by the tinfoil Penny’s grandma carefully tucked into the empty spaces, as she placed it on the table beside Evelyn’s massive headphones. “May wanted me to bring you some Hamantaschen she made earlier—” she tapped a forefinger against the side of her nose, then pointed toward Evelyn. “—Both poppy seed and chocolate. She warned me you had a bit of a sweet tooth.” She glanced over at Adam, just to clock where he was at. He seemed momentarily subdued enough in appearance, though wiry around the edges, and she could practically smell the thin metallic undercurrent of barely-concealed anxiety. Ultimately, Evelyn was just an old lady. The reality of her situation served to trigger a type of worry in Penny too, but more in the sense that Evelyn’s eyes were hazel like her own and made cloudy with age; her face wrinkled heavily when she smiled; and even though she spoke of a grandson, she was still alone.
Penny shifted uncomfortably then jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “I'm gonna go grab some of that tea,” she nodded, and knocked Adam with her elbow as she passed. The kitchen sported a decor not unlike what they had already seen of the house. The door and half-wall wood paneling were painted a faded mint green, a cast iron stove tucked in the corner, and the walnut table was covered with a fraying tablecloth speckled with Virginia bluebells. Penny let the door swing behind her and immediately pulled out her phone. There was a notification from Naomi, asking how things were going. Things were not really going, per se. They hadn’t even gotten into the meat of why they were even there yet. Penny thought of the antsy way Adam’s eyes darted around and leaned into it: fully convinced we’re about to get turned into human lamps seeyaaaaaaa! Her phone lit up with subsequent replies and she got caught up for a moment, bit after bit falling flat. No one other than Naomi seemed susceptible to her undeniable charm, which was straight up bonkers. She grimaced when Adam’s name popped up twice, basically begging for a ceasefire, and she locked her phone again with a huff, stuffing it into her back pocket. What-freaking-ever.
She poured herself a cup of tea from the tepid pot into a mug with a worn-pale baby portrait emblazoned on the side; it smelled spicy and herbaceous, neither a particular selling point. Penny didn’t even like tea. She quickly grabbed another mug for Adam, not sparing a thought to whether or not he actually wanted one, and re-entered the parlor. Handing off the extra drink to Adam, she just managed to keep from upending it down his front in surprise when he spoke. She let out a low, quiet whistle, banking on Evelyn’s shoddy hearing to ensure only Adam caught it. Ripped off the band-aid; she was a little impressed. Penny placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder and smiled wanly at Evelyn, performing sheepishness, and stepped around him to the overstuffed armchair placed kitty-corner to Evelyn’s own. “I’m so sorry,” she said, now committed to an insensitive cop-attentive cop sitch rather a traditional good cop-bad cop one, and took a careful seat. “We’ve been doing a lot of reading about the town’s history.” Naomi actually had but po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe. “And we just noticed—” she wet her lips, her fingers twitching briefly around the warm mug. “What happened to her was really similar to what happened to Luiz Alves in 2004.” She shook her head and sighed quietly, purposefully twisting the corner of her mouth downward in an aim to communicate an awkward trickle of shame. “You don’t have to talk to us about this if you’re not comfortable.”
