Page 2 of Rattling Bone (OutFoxing the Paranormal #2)
CHAPTER TWO
Oscar followed his dad out of the dining room, through the living room, down the stairs, and into the basement.
The basement was half-sunk into the hill, allowing for windows at the end facing the road. But night fell fast in these mountains, especially at this time of year, and Dad had switched on the lights mounted above his workbench.
The basement was mostly a place to store tools and work on small projects. Its stone walls were unfinished, and some of them bore long ago marks, as if shelves or the like had been secured to them by previous inhabitants of the house. Its wooden ceiling creaked loudly whenever someone walked across the floor above.
Once, when he was home alone, Oscar had heard the clear sound of footsteps right above his head. When he hurried upstairs to see who was visiting, no one was there. But by that age, he’d learned not to mention any weird occurrences to Dad or anyone else.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Dad didn’t look around, instead picking up screwdrivers and putting them down again. There was no heat down here, and the cold had seeped in, chilling the air. “Nothing to talk about.”
“Like hell there isn’t!”
Dad looked up, finally. “If you and your friends want to play pretend on the weekends, trick other gullible folk into believing this nonsense is real, that’s your business.”
Oscar ground his teeth together. “It is real! The things I saw as a kid were real, even if you didn’t see them too. Pretending they weren’t didn’t fix anything, it just made me afraid to speak up!”
Dad’s nostrils flared. “You listen here, son. You know how gossip is in a town like this, where everyone knows everyone else. If you’d kept on talking about hearing voices and seeing things, you’d never have gotten on the football team, never gone to college, never landed a good job somewhere else. Instead, you’d have been the town’s weird kid, the liar who couldn’t be trusted, the one littler kids threw rocks at when you walked past. I protected you from all of that, even if you couldn’t understand at the time.”
Oscar took a deep breath. His dad was deadly serious, meant every word. And maybe he was even right.
“Is that what happened to Mamaw Fox?”
Dad’s expression tightened. “No, it isn’t. People came to my mama—your mamaw—for help. They believed, just like her. But none if it was real.”
Okay. Maybe they were making progress. “What if it was, though?”
“It wasn’t!” Dad snapped, and the fury in his tone made Oscar take a step back, even though he was by far the bigger of the two. “Do you know what it was like, to wake up one morning and find my mama acting like an entirely different person? Laughing and talking to things that weren’t there, scratching herself until she bled, attacking my daddy when he tried to stop her?”
Oscar’s heart fell. He hadn’t realized it had been that bad. “Of course, I don’t. You never told me.”
“What was I supposed to tell you, that you would have understood at that age?” Dad shook his head angrily. “After they took your mamaw away, I saw her twelve times a year. Your papaw and I drove all the way to the asylum and back on the last weekend of every month, from the time I was eleven until I was eighteen and she died. It might’ve been called the state hospital, but it was mostly a warehouse, with too many patients and not enough space. I still remember how it smelled.”
He turned away, bracing himself on the workbench. “I don’t know what kind of medication she was on, but she’d just sit there, trembling and shaking. Not even looking at us. Your papaw would talk and talk, catching her up on things, but I don’t think she ever heard a word.” His head bowed. “I hate to say it, but it was a mercy when she died.”
Silence fell between them, broken by the hiss of the water heater in the corner kicking on. Oscar wasn’t sure what to say, except, “I’m sorry, Dad.”
Dad raised his head but didn’t turn around. “I couldn’t let the same thing happen to you. I wouldn’t. So I did the best I knew, and maybe you want to throw all that away now. That’s your choice. But I don’t want to hear about it, understand?”
Oscar’s heart sank, but what could he do? “I understand.”
* * *
“Are y’all still awake?” Lisa called softly.
Scott had stayed down in the basement, but Oscar had returned. He hadn’t said much, only that his father had requested they not say anything else about ghosts during their stay.
Nigel had hoped to get him alone to talk, but there hadn’t been a chance. Lisa took out some old photo albums and treated them to pictures of Oscar from infancy to college graduation, thoroughly embarrassing Oscar in the process. After, she’d cajoled Oscar into opening presents, even without Scott. Oscar got a sweater in Clemson’s orange and white colors. Nigel received one in Duke’s blue and white, presumably as a nod to his place of employment. Tina and Chris both got Christmas scented candles, since “I didn’t know what y’all might like.”
Deeply embarrassed, Nigel apologized for not having brought a gift, but Lisa just laughed it off. “You’re our guest, honey; don’t worry about it.”
Then it was time for bed. Oscar’s old room had a single bed, which he offered to Tina, since she’d been having back problems lately. Nigel, Oscar, and Chris decamped to the den, which had a fold-out couch and an air mattress already prepared for them. Chris took the air mattress, leaving the fold-out for Nigel and Oscar.
They’d only had time to put on their pajamas and brush their teeth, when Lisa appeared at the door. She wore a thick woolen robe over her pajamas and a pair of fluffy slippers, and held something in one hand.
“Yes.” It was incredibly awkward to talk to the woman while tucked into bed beside her son, so Nigel quickly got up. He’d forgotten to bring any slippers, but the thick woolen socks Oscar had given him kept his toes warm.
Oscar lowered his phone, where he’d been checking OutFoxing the Paranormal’s social media channels. “What’s up, Mom?”
“Listen, I know things haven’t been easy with your dad.” She glanced up at the second floor, presumably in the direction of the master bedroom. “I had a word with him about being so rude to our guests.”
“It’s all right,” Chris said, but she shook her head.
“It’s not how he was raised—how either of us were—and he knows it. He ought to be down here right now, hanging his head in shame. But he’s a stubborn man sometimes.” She looked at Oscar. “We argued a lot when you were growing up. What happened to your mamaw scared him, but…well, it doesn’t matter now. You’re grown up, and I think you have a right to know about her, if that’s what you want.”
Oscar’s lips parted in surprise. “Yes, please. Anything you can tell me—I know she died before you ever met Dad, but anything you know about her would help.”
“I honestly don’t know any more than you do.” Lisa crossed the room and held something out to Oscar. “But maybe this can help you find out more.”
The light from the single lamp gleamed off something silver in her palm. A key.
Nigel’s heartbeat quickened, and he glanced at Oscar. Oscar stared at the key as if mesmerized. “What does it open?”
“When your papaw died, Scott moved a bunch of his stuff into a self-storage unit here in Marrow. He kept saying he would go through it when he had the time, but he never did.” She snorted. “That’s what keeps those places in business, you know—everyone thinks they’re going to have more time to do things in the future, but the future keeps turning into the present.”
“True enough,” Nigel said. “Do you think some of…I don’t know her name, actually.”
“Her name was Barbara,” Lisa said. “And I don’t know if anything she owned is in there, but Richard, Oscar’s papaw, wasn’t the sort of man to throw things away willy-nilly. There are probably things in there that he meant to deal with one day and never got around to.”
“Right.” Oscar reached out and took the key from her. “Thanks, Mom.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Just don’t tell your daddy.”
* * *
Oscar woke up all at once, a sudden, sharp transition between sleep and awareness. The den was in shadow, the only light leaking in through the blinds from the streetlight in the yard. Nigel curled beside him on the lumpy mattress of the fold-out, his breathing deep and regular. A turn of his head showed Chris unmoving in a pile of blankets on the air mattress.
So what had woke him up?
He turned his head the other way, looking past Nigel and toward the door. He sensed a presence there, and for a moment, he thought Mom might have come back.
Whoever was there took a step into the room. But the old floor didn’t creak under their weight, and there was no accompanying rustle of cloth.
A sudden memory gripped him of opening his eyes in his bedroom as a kid and seeing a woman standing near the foot of the bed, looking at him. That same presence was here, now.
He sat up slowly. “Who are you?” he asked in a low voice. “Do you need my help?”
Even though no light touched the figure, it seemed to briefly solidify into the woman. Her features were indistinct, but he could make out dark hair hanging over a pale gown. The cold air grew even colder, as though the room had turned into a freezer. Her lips parted, moved, but he could hear no words.
Then she turned back to the door, took a step, and vanished.