The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [72]
Tools. You gaze for a moment at the sponges and scrapers and box cutters and pause on the word. Each tool has a purpose.
As did that ax that was left for you. It was meant to batter down that door in the basement.
And that would suggest that the crowbar and the pearl-handled knife have specific functions, too. They’ve been provided to you for a reason. Unfortunately, you see only the barest wisps of that reason; it stretches away from you like the delicate, silken threads of cirrus you gazed upon too many times to count from the flight deck.
You have just steeled yourself to begin scraping for the day when you breathe in through your nose and there it is: the aroma of lake water and jet fuel. (The smell of the jet fuel actually makes you a little nauseous. This is new. You find this reality disconcerting.) You turn, and there on the dining room rug is little Ashley with her Dora the Explorer backpack, sitting with her legs curled up on the carpet underneath her. She looks at you with her big eyes and her damp hair, and you study her wet face. It’s not all lake water that is on her cheeks, you realize. You know from the redness of her eyes that she is crying, and her cheeks are moist with her tears.
And so you sit on the floor beside her, your own knees a little creaky.
“Hello, Ashley.”
She sniffles and folds herself around that backpack. She looks down, and you can no longer see her eyes and her face, just the way her sodden hair is plastered to the top of her head.
“Why are you crying, sweetie?”
The second the words are out there, you regret the question. Why wouldn’t she be crying? She simply shakes her head obstinately and ignores your inquiry. Which is when the more practical question comes to you.
“Sweetie,” you begin, and the second time you use this particular term of endearment, it dawns on you that this is a name you use often with Hallie and Garnet. “Is there something I can do?”
She deserves friends. Do what it takes.
Again, she offers you only a sad, stubborn twist of her head.
“Are you lonely?”
Slowly she meets your eyes. She nods almost imperceptibly. You recall your conversation with her father: You had offered to introduce this poor child to your own wonderful girls. You need to follow through with that idea of yours. You need to find Ashley playmates. This is something tangible you can do.
“I know you’ve seen Hallie and Garnet,” you tell her, and you reach behind you for the roll of paper towels on the floor. You hand one to the girl so she can blow her nose and wipe her eyes. “How do I introduce you to them? Any idea there?”
She presses the paper towel flat against her face for a moment and chokes back a small sob. Then she pulls it away and looks more composed. “I don’t know,” she says.
“Tell me: Have my girls seen you?”
“Sort of. But not really.”
“Not really?”
“I don’t think they can.”
“Why?”
“They’re breathers.”
“Breathers?”
“You know. Like you.”
“But I can see you. I can hear you.”
She shrugs.
“Well, then,” you say in your most gentle, paternal voice. “We have a problem. And problems need solutions. Right?”
She turns from you and gazes out the dining room window. You follow her eyes and see in the clear sky high over the meadow a plume from an airplane. Really, planes are everywhere. Just … everywhere. When you turn back to Ashley, she is gone. Reflexively you pat the carpet where she was sitting, and it is still damp with lake water. All that remains is the paper towel, which you pick up. It, too, is wet, and it has the rank odor of jet fuel. So, you wad it into a ball and push yourself to your feet. You know the solution to the problem and you know you have the tools. Or, to be precise, the tool. But you have no intention of taking the knife that the Dunmores left you and butchering either Hallie or Garnet so Ashley Stearns can have a playmate.
Wouldn’t that be asking too much of you—of anyone? One would think so. Yes. That is indeed what one would think.
Emily wasn’t about to call Reseda because she hadn