House of Secrets

“Seriously, Bren?” Cordelia smirked. “Since when do you have a moral compass?”

Brendan didn’t answer – partly because he didn’t know what a moral compass was, partly because he was terrified of the old crone. Maybe she was a homeless lady, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she lived at 128 Sea Cliff Avenue. Maybe she didn’t take kindly to curious girls stealing books from her library. Brendan almost spoke up then about seeing her, about how he could still feel her hand around his wrist, about how that wrist felt cold even now, about how she had said “Walker” like it meant something… but he didn’t want to be made fun of. He would handle the crone himself when they moved in. Like a man.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just… it’s not right to steal.”

“That’s true,” Dr Walker said, “and Cordelia, you’ll be putting that book back next week.”

“What happens next week?”

“We’re moving in.”

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Spartan Movers was a removal company in San Francisco, the name of which was a source of huge embarrassment for Cordelia. “Why don’t we just go with Low-rent Movers?” she asked her mum. But when she saw the truck, she realised it wasn’t spartan like self-denying; it was Spartan like a citizen of ancient Sparta, with a plumed helmet for a logo.

The Spartan truck pulled up in front of Kristoff House, and a trio of burly men got out. The Walkers were already there, eager to get their stuff moved in. Brendan was more eager than anyone: he had visions of turning his attic bedroom into a teenage man cave where he could happily ignore the rest of his family. He started trailing one of the removal men as the man carried a bag of lacrosse equipment into the house.

“That goes in my room, the attic,” Brendan said.

“No problemo,” said the man, eyeing Kristoff House. It looked the same, except the lawn needed mowing. Brendan’s dad would probably make him do it.

“Nice place,” the man said. He was clearly one of those people who liked to talk. “Most folks are downsizing these days. But you guys are moving up.”

“Back up,” corrected Brendan as they walked down the path. When Dr Walker looked over, Brendan gave a big smile, pretending to help the mover with the bag. “We used to live in a place like this.”

“What happened?”

“There was an incident,” said Brendan, before realising he’d said too much.

“Oh yeah? What kinda incident?” asked the man. “Your old man was running schemes on the stock market and he got caught?”

“No.”

“He did time in the joint for tax fraud?”

“Oh, no—”

“Did he wear a scuba suit to check the mail? Was he riding his bicycle naked in circles? What?”

Brendan stopped short: “Yes. Yes, you totally nailed it. Riding his bike naked in circles.”

The removal man nodded and frowned as if he knew Brendan didn’t want to hear any more from him. They moved into the kitchen… and Brendan’s mind went back to the day that had changed everything.

Dr Walker had been a surgeon at John Muir Medical Center. His speciality had been gastric bypass surgery; he’d been heading for a senior position – but then one day he fell asleep in the break room during a shift and woke up standing over a patient, holding a bloody scalpel.

He had carved a symbol into the man’s stomach.

It was an eye, with an iris and pupil in the centre and half-circles above and below.

Brendan had come home from school and found his mother and sisters in tears. His father couldn’t remember disfiguring the man’s stomach; Dr Walker had been taking sleeping pills to help him rest, and they had made him sleepwalk.

The patient had sued, of course. Dr Walker had lost his job. The lawsuit was still pending, and the Walkers had spent so much money fighting it that they’d been forced to sell their old home and their two cars. It was so weird – so crazy and unlikely – that Brendan still had trouble believing it had really happened, even though he was living with the results.

“You know, I heard weird stuff about this place,” the removal man said as they walked along the upstairs hall, past the portraits of the Kristoff family.

“What?” Brendan asked.

“Maybe I’m no Harvard grad, but I’m a real good listener and an even better eavesdropper. And I heard this house was cursed. That’s why the last family left.”

“You believe in that stuff? Curses?”

“In San Francisco? With all kinds of hippies and freaks running around? Anybody could get cursed.”

Brendan had a question, but he wasn’t sure if he could ask it without sounding crazy. He pulled the string so the attic stairs came down and went into the attic with the removal man.

“Where you want the hockey stuff?” the mover asked.

“Lacrosse,” Brendan said. “Put it anywhere.” The man put it by the window. Then Brendan said, “If this place is cursed, how do I fix it?”

The man didn’t seem to think that question was weird. “Best way to fix a curse is to find the person who set it up,” he said, shrugging. Then he left Brendan to think about the old crone.

Out on the pavement, the removal man returned to the Spartan truck for his next item: a white trunk with bands of riveted bronze. It had rounded metal corners and the faded initials RW stencilled over a hefty lock.

“What’s in that trunk?” Cordelia asked. She was standing outside with her father.

“Just some old family records,” said Dr Walker. “You never noticed before? I’ve been lugging them around for years. Master bedroom!” he told the removal man. Two hours later the Walkers had settled in, hardly daring to believe that this was their new home. Since the purchase price had covered the furniture, everything inside was as beautiful as when they’d first visited: the pottery, the suit of armour, the grand piano… The Walkers’ belongings seemed out of place, unworthy of their new surroundings. Even the box of groceries that they brought from their old house didn’t seem to belong in the shiny kitchen. After making her family take a self-timed photo with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, Mrs Walker let her kids wander while she made tea in the stellar kitchen and her husband dozed beneath a sunbeam in the living-room Chester chair.

Cordelia went to the library to return Savage Warriors to the shelves, but was surprised to see there wasn’t any space for it, as if the other books had multiplied in its absence. Oh well, she thought, putting it on the table and taking down a book called The Fighting Ace.

Eleanor went upstairs and bravely passed under the creepy old pictures, moving to where Diane Dobson had pointed out the dumbwaiter. She pulled the handle in the wall; it opened like a mailbox. She was just tall enough to see a small compartment hanging on what looked like two bicycle chains. She wanted to climb in, but she knew that her mother would have a fit, so she tossed her dolls inside the dumbwaiter and tried to figure out how to make them go down to the kitchen.

Brendan grabbed a lacrosse stick to use as a weapon and went outside to investigate the stone angel. He was sweating nervously and hated himself for it as he crept around the side of the house. He came to where the statue had been…

And it was still gone. Pine needles and twigs lay over the area in uniform distribution.

It was her, Brendan thought. He had no idea where the thought came from, but he knew he was right. He remembered how the angel had been missing a right hand. He tried to remember which hand the old crone had grabbed him with. He would put money on the left. Eleanor saw her, and she turned into stone to hide herself. Now she could be anywhere.

Brendan scanned the property. He didn’t hear anything but a babbling squirrel and the irregular sibilance of cars passing on Sea Cliff Avenue. After a few minutes he decided he wasn’t doing anything useful and made his way back inside.

She was right there, in the great hall, talking to his family.

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“What are you doing here?” Brendan demanded, brandishing his lacrosse stick like a two-handed axe. “Leave my family alone!”

“Brendan!” his mother snapped. “Have you lost your mind? Put that down!”

The old crone turned to face him. She wasn’t dressed in dirty rags any more. She wore a loose polka-dot dress and a floral bandanna that hid her baldness; her teeth were freshly cleaned and polished, almost white. She carried an apple pie in her left hand; her right was tucked into her dress pocket. “What’s wrong, son? You seem troubled.”