Return to sender, p.14
Return to Sender, page 14
Nan looks at me. ‘Well?’
‘I thought you told me not to hang out with bridge trolls?’
‘I also told you not to get arrested and look where that got you.’
‘Hey! I wasn’t technically –’
But Nan’s not listening. She’s already retreating up the stairs. ‘I’ll pop dinner in the oven if you’re late.’
I turn to look at them both: Elliot looking bashful, Levi looking pleased.
‘Fine. Where are we going?’
Treegap looks different under the half-twilight sky. Less murdery, more mysterious. Levi walks laps around the outside, searching for some kind of clue. I hate that we both thought the same thing: they spent so much time here. They must have left something behind.
He checks the roof and the stoop, yelping when all he finds under the stairs is a pissed-off possum that scuttles into the trees.
I unload my backpack, setting out cans of bug spray and a solar lamp. When Levi is done crawling around under the stairs, we play scissors/paper/rock to decide who has to drag the old sleeping bag outside. Elliot loses, and he looks inside the cabin with forlorn eyes.
‘What if there’s a body in there?’
‘It’d be all lumpy,’ Levi says. ‘Right?’
For some reason, he looks at me for confirmation.
‘Are you implying that I should understand how to dispose of a corpse?’
Levi cocks an eyebrow. ‘I mean, of the three of us . . .’
I roll my eyes. ‘There’s no body in there. Here, I’ll do it, Elliot’s starting to look green.’
He’s standing in the doorway, looking at the sad scene below. A few games and scraps of food wrappers. The sleeping bag torn in one corner.
‘It just feels weird,’ he says with a shudder. ‘Maybe we should leave it.’
‘Shove,’ I say. He ducks outside with Levi, and when they’re not looking, I give the sleeping bag a few good stomps, checking for bones and snakes. The blanket doesn’t jingle or hiss, so I take a breath and grab the closed end with gloved hands and drag it outside.
The boys look down, waiting for something to crawl out. Nothing does, except a few moths.
‘Well, that was underwhelming,’ Levi says.
‘What were you expecting?’
‘I don’t know. A cloud of smoke. Bloody handprint. The Rydal Devil with a fiddle of gold to trade for souls.’
We look down at the sleeping bag. Nothing happens.
‘Just a sleeping bag,’ Elliot confirms. ‘Plus, you don’t have a soul to trade.’
‘Hey!’
I leave them bickering and venture inside, inspecting dark corners and running my hands under the windowsill. There are etchings on the wall, some scratched in and others written in fading markers. Names twined in hearts. Initials roped together. Snatches of song lyrics. I run my fingertips over their words, recognising their writing.
August was here.
I trace the lines, wondering about the day he carved these words. Was it warm? Did he come here, bored and alone? Or were the girls with him? Where did he go after – where did they all slip away to, when the letters stopped?
On a whim, I take out a pen and write a reply below.
Where’d you go, August?
I brace my hand against the wall to stand, boots sliding over slick moss below. The sleeping bag covered a section of floor that’s damp and green, clearly weathered by years of rain dripping through the roof and slowly rotting away. I take a step back and the floorboards groan underfoot.
‘You can’t even play the fiddle,’ I hear Elliot argue outside.
‘It’s four strings, how hard can it be?’ Levi replies.
‘You got kicked out of orchestra because you couldn’t play the recorder in tune.’
‘That was ten years ago!’
I frown at the floor. My boot eases down. It groans again, but the sound is strange. Hollow. ‘Hey, guys,’ I call out.
‘– bet I could do the dance, though. The little jig. See? Elliot? Are you watching? Look –’
‘Please stop before you hurt yourself –’
‘Hey!’
‘– Am I doing it? I’m totally doing it.’
‘That’s more of a shuffle –’
‘What is the difference between a jig and a shuffle?’
‘HEY!’
They both turn to look at me, pausing midsentence. Levi stumbles out of something that looks halfway between an Irish high-kick and a country line dance.
‘Do you hear that?’ I say.
‘What? The sound barrier shattering? That’s just Levi trying to sing.’
‘No.’ I stomp my foot on the dry floor, then on the rotting boards. A hollow echo fills the cabin again. ‘That.’
Levi frowns and surges toward the cabin, crouching beside me. Elliot trails after, leaning against the doorway. I knock on the floorboards, searching for the sound again, until we’ve mapped out a few loose boards. Levi tries to pry the board up with his fingernails, but curses under his breath when he can’t get a proper hold – the water has bloated the planks and they won’t budge.
‘Anyone got a pocketknife?’ he asks.
They both look at me.
‘Move over,’ I grumble. ‘And for the record, I use it to open boxes at the post office.’
‘Sure you do, Red.’
I wiggle the blade between the rotted edge, grunting in surprise as it splinters into wet green chips. I pick up a section that’s come loose, the edge coated in grey film. They’re not just water damaged . . .
‘It’s glued shut,’ I say, passing the fragment to Levi.
‘Huh,’ he says. ‘Guess they really didn’t want anyone getting down there.’
I peer into the tiny hole we’ve created, pressing my eye as close as I dare. ‘Elliot – hand me the lamp. There’s something down here.’
He doesn’t answer for a long moment, and I glance over my shoulder to find him ghost-pale. ‘You okay?’
He jolts, spurred into action. ‘Yeah. This place just gives me the creeps. You don’t feel it? Like someone is still here?’
I shake my head – trust Elliot to start believing in ghosts now. Or maybe he means an actual someone. The thought makes me shiver.
He passes me the lamp while Levi moves back to give me more room. I work on the driest section of the board, sliding the blade under and up. It sticks, stubbornly refusing to budge – then suddenly it springs free and clatters between us.
‘Holy shit,’ I whisper.
They both press close, leaning over my shoulder. Levi whistles low, then settles back. Elliot just swallows hard, waiting.
‘Ladies first.’
‘Chicken.’
‘Criminal,’ he mutters.
I pull a face, but now we’re just delaying the inevitable. I shake my fingers out, trying not to cringe as I stick my hand into the dark, praying it doesn’t come out covered in spiders. But all that’s down there is an old shoe box, wrapped in a plastic bag that’s dotted with brown muddy droplets.
I cradle it in my hands, like it’s precious cargo, and wordlessly carry the parcel outside. We stare at it for a long time before I start peeling away the plastic layers, working away the edges of wrapped duct tape. Whoever boxed this up knew they weren’t coming back for a long time, and they definitely didn’t intend on anyone getting in.
‘I feel like we’re robbing someone’s grave,’ Elliot mutters. ‘Maybe we should put it back.’
Levi frowns. ‘I didn’t seriously expect to find anything.’
‘Why’d you make us all come out here then?’
Levi glances up, eyes locking on mine. The corner of his mouth lifts. ‘Adventure. For old times’ sake.’ He winks at me. Winks. ‘Open it, Red. It’s your mystery.’
My heart hammers a chaotic beat against my ribs. Years of wondering who the dead letter writers were – was I holding the answer in my hands?
Only one way to find out.
I take a breath, holding it until my lungs ache, and ease open the lid.
Crinkled yellow pages are stacked in neat bundles, along with a few small tokens, a pressed flower, the frayed remains of a friendship bracelet, a movie ticket stub.
I flick through the letters, searching for their names. Their real names. But they’re all the same as the ones in the post office: Winnie and June and August.
Something falls into my lap. A black-backed square that I don’t quite understand until I flip it over: a polaroid photo. A boy standing at the shore of a lake, grinning at the camera. The edges are faded blue and white, the details a little fuzzy, his face not quite in focus. It looks like a dream you can’t quite remember, hardly even a glimpse, just a feeling that’s slipping away.
Levi looks down, mouth dropped half open. ‘Who is that?’
They crowd over my shoulder again, peering at the boy in the photo. Elliot responds, reading the name scrawled below. ‘That’s August.’
I can hear them, whispering reverently, theories rapidly unravelling. But I can’t hear the words, can’t focus on what they’re saying. Because that face, those curls, the tilt of his smile.
‘I think I know this kid,’ I say.
The woods fall dead silent. I can feel the weight of their stares.
‘What?’
‘How?’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t . . . I can’t remember. But I’ve seen him before, I know I have.’ I grasp the edge of memory, as useless as trying to spool grey mist in the mornings. His face. I’ve seen it. But where?
Levi sighs. ‘So you don’t know him, know him?’
I hold the picture up to the sun, squinting. Think, Brodie.
I tilt the photo, searching for some kind of clue, anything that –
Suddenly, I clutch the photo close, pressing it almost to my nose, sure that I’ve imagined it. But no, there it is and –
‘There’s something else,’ I say, flipping the polaroid so they can see. ‘He’s wearing the Adder Stone.’
Levi tosses a popcorn kernel into the air and catches it in his mouth. ‘Semi-famous game show host?’
‘Nope.’
‘Town pervert?’
‘Nope.’
‘That one guy at the grocery store who always wears a three-piece suit?’
‘Please stop.’
‘The illegitimate love child of a distant relative?’
‘Oh my god, Levi, stop.’
Levi swings his legs off the edge of the couch, sitting up. ‘I’m sorry, but how can you just not remember where you saw someone?’
I pull a face at him, and Elliot shoves him in the shoulder. ‘Dude, chill.’
We’re in the attic of the post office, the air stale and warm, dust blowing through sun traps and settling on every flat surface in a grey film. Elliot tried to wrestle a window open earlier, but it remained stubbornly closed and so now we’re all sweaty and irritable. Levi’s sprawled on an old settee, boxes of abandoned photo albums at his feet. We’d trawled through every box in the attic, carefully looked through every photograph, and I still couldn’t remember where I’d seen August. I was starting to think I’d dreamed it – maybe I just thought I knew the dead letter writers. Had read their words and known their thoughts so intimately that I’d imagined their faces and convinced myself it was real.
Levi looks incredulous. ‘How is this not bothering either of you?’
I groan, tipping my head into my hands. A dolphin-shaped candelabra stabs me in the ribs. ‘It does bother me, but you aren’t helping.’
‘Okay, fine. Next question,’ Levi says. ‘How did he get the Adder Stone? He must be someone in town, right? Brodie remembers him, and the stone went missing three years ago. That can’t be a coincidence – and at least that means they’re still alive. Right?’
Elliot looks unconvinced. ‘Maybe the stone is unrelated. The picture is so grainy, how can you even be sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ I repeat. It took all afternoon and I had to pay fifty dollars for a proper Photoshop program, but it’s definitely the Adder Stone: blown up and slightly pixelated, but it’s definitely that ugly hunk of rock strung around his neck with a piece of leather twine. Why did we want to steal this thing so badly again? More important, why did he?
Something else about the polaroid bothers me, but I can’t quite place it. Something about the letters and his clothes, out of place with the recent disappearance of the stone. How did it all fit together? Are the letters not as old as we thought – are they still out there, right now, still writing? But that doesn’t make any sense, because the letters have sat in the post office for years. Unless these are more recent, mildew aside?
I hold the polaroid up to the light again, half expecting to see something new. But I’ve stared and stared, and there’s nothing else. Just a boy at the lake, smiling at the camera.
Elliot leafs through the letters, pulling them out so gently, like he’s worried they’ll flake away. ‘August,’ he says, the same way you’d say hello to an old friend. ‘I wonder if it’s his real name.’
‘It has to be a code name,’ I answer. ‘They all do. We looked for them everywhere.’
Although August’s and June’s names did make it hard to search, I think, remembering back to that night in the police station.
‘Also, what kind of names are they?’ Levi adds. ‘Two months and the Pooh.’
‘Okay, one, rude. Second, maybe they’re just nicknames?’
‘Or maybe this is a very elaborate prank and they never existed at all.’ Restless, Levi starts prowling around the attic and flips open random boxes. He recoils from one, vaguely disgusted. ‘Why do you have a bag of bones sitting in a salad dish?’
‘It’s a scrying bowl. Nan went through a pagan stage.’
He gingerly replaces the lid and moves on to the next box. He pulls out a silk scarf and a bowler hat, donning both.
‘Would you come to the dance with me if I dressed up like this?’
I peer over the letters, still inspecting the way they wrote August. ‘You look like the Babadook.’
Elliot snorts, handing me more letters, and stretches until his joints pop. ‘I’m getting hayfever up here. Wanna go for a swim?’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘In the lake?’
He chuckles, crossing his arms. ‘McKellon Felon, scared of a little water.’
‘First of all, I’m not scared of the water, I’m scared of what’s in it, and secondly –’
My phone buzzes. It takes me a moment to realise it’s my phone, because nobody ever calls me, and just about every friend I have is standing in this room.
Elliot tilts his head. ‘Gonna get that?’
‘Uh . . . it’s my dad.’
He manages to only look surprised for a second. ‘Come on, Levi, show me those chicken bones.’
‘But –’
‘Come on.’ He muscles Levi over to the other side of the attic, distracting him with a box full of theatre swords with retractable blades (Nan went through a thespian stage after the paganism).
The phone vibrates again. I close my eyes and hit answer.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, kiddo. How’s things?’
How’s things. So casual. No, Hey, Brodie, sorry for basically kicking you out and shoving you on the midnight train with hardly a backpack full of clothes. No, How’s school, do you have everything you need? I can hear the low hum of traffic in the background, the slight static of a car phone. The call was probably an afterthought on the way to somewhere better.
‘Fine, I guess.’ Pause. Silence. ‘How’s the new job?’
‘Good, real good.’ Another pause. More silence. ‘I’ve been meaning to call. I know we talked about you staying for a while, but . . .’
A while. Actually, what he said was I need you to go stay with your grandmother for a few days. That was almost a month ago now. God, I hope he’s not calling to tell me I have to go back to RAGs. Though at this stage, he’d have to claw me out of Nan’s hands without getting hexed into the next century to take me.
‘– finish up the school year?’
I blink, trying not to concentrate on the cold sweat gathering on the back of my neck. ‘What?’
‘With the new dates added and the shows all sold out, things are gonna be busy for a while. You can go back to Rowley if you want –’
‘No!’
‘But you’ve got friends there, now, right? Plus, your nan likes having you around. How is she?’
Mad at you, I want to answer. ‘She’s fine. But Mabel has been –’
‘Well, good,’ he says, not bothering to let me finish. ‘So you’ll stick out the school year there, and I’ll see you soon. Right?’
‘Right,’ I agree.
‘Thanks, Brodes. You’re a good kid.’
I shake my head, sinking onto the closed lid of a leather chest. You’re a good kid. That’s what he said when Mum died, and I managed not to cry at the wake because it made everyone too upset. It’s what he said the first time he went on tour – just a few days, then, the fridge stocked with microwave meals. It’s what he said before he closed the door and drove away from Rowley, leaving me with a bunch of kids staring at the girl with a suitcase at her feet and no one to help carry it upstairs. And suddenly I’m so angry: angry that he left, that he never bothered to try, that I never even really knew him at all – not since Mum died. I think of that stupid Father’s Day card, with the golf bag and the cars and the barbecue tongs. I blink back fury-tears, so angry that my voice shakes when I speak.
‘Hey, Dad?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you even like cooking?’
‘Cooking?’
‘Yeah. You used to do it all the time, but I didn’t know . . .’ Suddenly, I lose my nerve. The phone droops in my hand. What’s the point? ‘Actually, it’s stupid. Never mind.’
The line goes quiet for a while. For a moment, I think he’s hung up. When he speaks, his voice is coloured with surprise. ‘Sure, I like cooking. Started when your mum got sick.’
Oh. ‘Really? I don’t remember that.’ I was nine the first time she got one of her headaches. We were driving, and she pulled over to vomit out the window.
He huffs a laugh. ‘Both of us were hopeless cooks – lived off takeout, sandwiches, cereal sometimes. But then she couldn’t eat so much, and when she was hungry she always wanted your nan’s spaghetti, so I learned how to make it. She got tired of that eventually and wanted soup instead, so I learned to make that too.’
