I thought about our lives when my father wrote that letter. We had been so great, hadn’t we? Mom and Dad had been happy and in love. Now, thanks to my wants, Dad was dead and the only thing Mom was in love with came out of a needle. And the truth-the unmistakable truth when you looked at it with honest eyes-was that it was my fault.
Nice work, Mickey.
The basement door opened behind me. Myron called down, “Mickey?”
I wiped my eyes. “Homework!”
Myron’s voice had a happy-little-singsong quality to it. “You have a visitor.”
“What?”
I could hear his footsteps coming down.
More singsong. “There’s a young lady here to see you.”
I spun around. Myron reached the bottom of the steps with the biggest, goofiest, dorkiest smile I had ever seen on a human being. Behind him, coming into view just now, was Rachel Caldwell.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. Mr. Romance.
Myron smiled at us like a game-show host. “Do you kids want me to make you popcorn?”
“No, thanks,” I said quickly.
“How about you, little lady?”
Little lady? I wanted to die.
“I’m fine, Mr. Bolitar, thank you.”
“You can call me Myron.”
He was still standing there, smiling like the most pleased jackass. I stared at him, flaring my eyes a little so that he’d catch the hint. He did. Awkwardly. “Oh, right,” Myron said. “I’ll just leave you two alone then. I’m going to head back upstairs, I guess.”
Myron pointed up the stairs with his thumb. Like maybe we didn’t know where “upstairs” was.
“Great,” I said, hoping to move him along.
Uncle Dork took one step and turned back toward us. “Uh, um, if it’s okay-and even if it’s not-I’m going to leave the basement door open. It’s not that I don’t trust you two, but I think Rachel’s parents wouldn’t approve-”
“Fine!” I said, interrupting him. “Leave the door open.”
“Not that I feel like I have to check up on you or anything. I’m sure you’re both very responsible teenagers.”
I wondered if I would ever in my life feel more mortified. “Thanks, Myron. Bye.”
“If you change your mind about the popcorn-”
“You’ll be the first to know,” I said. “Bye.”
Myron finally headed up the stairs. I turned to Rachel, who was smothering a chuckle.
“I’m sorry about my dorky uncle.”
“I think he’s nice,” Rachel said. “By the way, is everyone in your family over seven feet tall? Remind me not to wear flats when I visit you.”
I laughed at that, maybe a little too hard, but I needed a laugh.
“I’ve got two tests next week,” Rachel said, “so I thought maybe we could get a jump on the French Revolution project?”
“Sure,” I said.
Rachel took in the basement. Myron’s posters. Myron’s lava lamp (yes, he had one). Myron’s beanbag chairs. “Cool room.”
“It’s my uncle’s.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. I’m just here temporarily.”
“From where?”
“All over,” I said.
“Nice vague answer,” Rachel said.
“I was trying to be a man of mystery.”
“Try harder.”
I liked the way she said that.
“So, man of mystery, what were you doing by your girlfriend’s locker yesterday?”
I almost said, She’s not really my girlfriend, but I didn’t. “Just checking on something,” I said.
“Checking on what?”
“Do you know Ashley?” I asked.
“Not really, no.”
I didn’t know how much to say here. Rachel looked at me with deep-blue eyes a boy could fall into and never find his way out. And he’d be happy that way. “She left school,” I said. “I mean, I haven’t seen or heard from her in a week. I don’t know where she went.”
“And you thought her locker…?”
“I don’t know. I thought it might hold a clue or something.”
Rachel seemed to consider this. “Ashley is new to the school too, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“So maybe she just moved away.”
“Maybe,” I said.
From upstairs Myron yelled, “How’s it going down there? Anybody want some popcorn and apple juice?”
Apple juice?
Rachel smiled at me. I felt my face flush.
Myron shouted down again, “Mickey?”
“Homework!”
chapter 14
LATE THAT NIGHT, while I was getting ready for bed, I got a text. Ema: can you get out?
Me: Yes. What’s up?
Ema: something I saw in the woods at Bat Lady’s. I think we should take a closer look.
Now? I thought, but then again, when would it be a better time? We needed the cover of dark, I guess, because I wasn’t sure we could approach the yard during the day without being seen. I threw on a pair of sweats, grabbed a flashlight, and headed for the front door.
When I reached for the knob, I heard a voice behind me say, “Where are you going?”
It was Myron. “Out,” I said.
He made a production of looking at his watch. “It’s late.”
“I know.”
“And it’s a school night.”
I hated when my uncle tried to play parent. “Thanks for the heads-up. I shouldn’t be gone long.”
“I think you should tell me where you’re going.”
“I’m just meeting a friend,” I said, hoping that would end it. No such luck.
“Is it that Rachel girl who was here earlier?” my uncle asked.
I needed to nip this in the bud. “We had a deal when I agreed to stay here,” I said. “Part of that was, you were going to stay out of my business.”
“I never agreed to let you go out at all hours.”
“Yeah, you kind of did. I’m just meeting a friend. It’s not a big deal.”
I rushed out before he could argue. I knew that Myron was trying to do the right thing here, but man, he was the wrong guy to try. I found Ema about a block away from Bat Lady’s house.
“How do you get out so late?” I asked her.
“What?”
“You’re fourteen years old and you’re out at all hours,” I said. “Don’t your parents get mad?”
Ema frowned. “Are you writing my biography or something?”
I frowned right back. “Good one.”
“Yeah, sorry, that was pretty lame.”
“Writing your biography.”
“I know,” she said. “I used to be funnier. I mean, before I hung out with you.”
We both slowly turned and looked down the street at Bat Lady’s house. In a word: spooky. It was nearly midnight now. The house was totally dark, except for one light on, shining from an upstairs corner window. Her bedroom, I guessed. Shouldn’t an old lady have all the lights out by now? What was Bat Lady doing up there at this hour? I imagined her alone, lying in bed, reading or casting spells or devouring small children.
Man, I had to get a grip.
“So what did you want to check out?” I asked Ema.
“When I was hiding in the woods from that bald guy, I spotted something behind the garage.”
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly.” She seemed to think about how to proceed. “It looked like a garden or something. And I thought I saw…” Ema stopped, swallowed. “I thought maybe I saw a tombstone.”
The air was hot and humid tonight, but I suddenly felt a chill. “You mean, a tombstone like in a grave?”
“I don’t know. It might have just been a stone or something. That’s why I thought we should check it out.”
I agreed. I also wanted to check out the garage. What, I had been wondering, had that car been doing there anyway? If they were just visiting Bat Lady-and I couldn’t really fathom that-why not just leave the car outside? Why go to the trouble of putting it in that small garage that barely had room for the one vehicle?
I flashed back to my last encounter with the shavedhead man:
Is my father still alive?