She shook her head. “It’s in my bedroom upstairs. Under the bed.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know. Something that shouldn’t be.”
Grant noted a sickening chill plunge down his spine, prompted by a realization he’d been fighting against all his life: his sister was crazy.
He glanced down at the mattress poking out from underneath the couch.
“You’ve been sleeping down here, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re afraid to go upstairs.”
She nodded into the couch.
Grant looked up at his friend.
Don said, “Paige, I just want to make sure I understand exactly what you’re saying. Something under your bed is keeping you from leaving the house.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know what it is?”
She shook her head.
“Are you talking about a flesh-and-blood person?” Grant asked.
“I told you. I don’t know.”
Don said, “Sometimes, we sink down to these bad places in our lives and we lose the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what’s—”
“I know how fucked-up this sounds, okay?”
“Do you want my help, Paige?”
“That’s the only reason you’re still in my house.”
Don said, “Then come with me.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“No.”
“We’re going to walk into your bedroom—”
“I can’t—”
“—and I’m going to show you there’s nothing in there that has an ounce of power over you. Then we’re going to do whatever it takes to get you better.”
Paige sat up. She was trembling. “You don’t understand—we can’t go in there together.”
“Then I’ll go by myself.”
Paige struggled to her feet. She said, “You don’t have my permission to go upstairs,” but the edge in her voice was ebbing.
Don said, “I fully respect how real this feels to you. But I’m going to go up there, have a look, come back down, and tell you that everything’s okay. That there’s nothing in your room. That, as real as this may feel, it’s in your mind.”
All the fight was leaving her.
She looked scattered and helpless.
Don crossed the living room, which had fallen into near-darkness now that the fire was dying.
He stopped at the bottom of the staircase.
“Which room, Paige?”
“Please don’t.”
“Which room?”
“Turn right at the top of the stairs, round the corner, and go down to the end of the hall. My bedroom is the door at the end.”
“Grant, would you come with me?”
Grant followed Don.
The staircase lifted out of the foyer into darkness.
“She’s cracked,” Grant whispered as they climbed.
Each step creaked like the hull of an old ship.
“She doesn’t look well, and this paranoid delusion about something keeping her in the house is disturbing.”
“So what do I do?”
“Consider an involuntary commitment.”
“Seriously?”
“I can help you with the paperwork.”
“Great. Maybe she can room with Dad.”
The meager light that warmed the foyer fell away behind them.
They climbed the last few steps into complete darkness and stopped, waiting for their eyes to adjust.
Grant looked over to where Don stood, but could make out nothing of his shape.
“Let’s find a light switch,” Don said.
Grant heard him shuffle over to the wall and begin feeling his way along it. Grant followed suit, groping across wallpaper but his fingers only grazed a few picture frames. He continued down the hall and then around a corner, both hands guiding him along like a caver without a light. At last, he barked his shin against the leg of a table, rattling its contents.
“You okay?” Don called from the other side.
“Yeah.”
Grant’s fingers moved across the surface of the table until they came to what felt like the base of a lamp.
He followed it up, found the switch.
Weak yellow light filled the hallway, barely enough to reach the far end.
The ceiling was high and the walls so close together it almost looked like an optical illusion. Grant was struck with a fleeting imbalance, like standing in a funhouse, the proportions all wrong.
The carpeting was thick, burgundy, and old.
The wallpaper peeled in places, the Plaster of Paris underneath far more appealing than the maudlin floral print. Along the opposite wall, a cast-iron radiator belched out waves of heat that did little against the chill. Grant had fumbled down the hallway farther than he realized. The bedroom door loomed straight ahead, its thick frame detailed with scrollwork that matched the wainscoting.
It sounded like Paige had begun to cry down on the first floor.
Johnny Cash punctuated the moment with a muffled rendition of “Ring of Fire.”
Grant’s heart jolted.
He turned to find Don staring down at the wailing cell phone in his hand.
“It’s just Rachel,” Don said.
“I think Paige is crying. I’m going to head back down.”
“Sounds good. Let me deal with this call, and then I’ll handle things up here.”
Grant walked quickly back toward the staircase, secretly glad to be leaving that drafty hallway.
Chapter 10
Paige was curled up on the couch, and as soon as she saw him, she turned away and wiped the mascara stains from her cheeks.
Grant sat down on the hardwood floor at eye level with his sister.
Laid his hand carefully on her shoulder.
“I don’t know how I got to this point,” she said. “You ever feel that way?”
“Absolutely. I’ve had my share of spinouts. All that matters is you’re moving forward. Things are going to get better.”
“I sound like a crazy person.”
“You should’ve seen me a few years back.”
She wiped her cheeks again and rolled over to face him.
“But did you ever feel like you didn’t know what was real?”
He shook his head.
“It sucks.”
“You and I have never been crybabies about anything, but we haven’t exactly lived the nuclear family dream.”
“So?”
“So cut yourself a little slack, all right?”
“I don’t want to be crazy.”
In their entire lives, Grant couldn’t think of anything his sister had said to him—even during her drugged-out ravings—that hit him so hard. It was a killshot, and he could feel his heart breaking as she stared at him. Yet another moment of Paige in agony, and not a damn thing he could do to make it better.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“I’m trying.”
“Will you let me help you get help?”
For a long time, she didn’t say anything. Just stared at him as her eyes glistened with a reinforcement of tears.
At last she said, “I will, Grant.”
He leaned in, kissed her cheek.
The room had grown dark and cold.
All that remained of the fire was a single log with glowing ember veins.
“Is there more wood?” he asked.
“There’s a wrap in the pantry.”
Grant went to the kitchen and dug three logs out of the bundle. He carried them into the living room and dragged away the screen. The bed of coals put out the faintest purple glow.
He arranged the logs on the grate, blew the embers back to life.
The new wood caught easily.
Grant turned, letting the heat lap at his back as he watched the firelight play across Paige’s face. She looked beyond tired. Like she could sleep for months.
What was taking Don so long? Had he found drugs?
“Remember when we squatted in that abandoned house for a few weeks?” he said. “No electricity. Just a fireplace.”
“Yeah. We burned wooden crates that you found behind a grocery store.”
“Things have been worse than this, Paige.”
“But I don’t look back on that and call it a low point.”
“Seriously?”
“Those were the moments when I knew we’d be okay. Life could get shitty but we were in it together.”
“We’re in this together too.”