Black Creek Crossing

Chapter 10

S IT REALLY OURS, MOM?” ANGEL SULLIVAN ASKED AS her mother pulled the Chevelle to a stop well behind the big yellow truck Marty had rented the day before. All three of them had been up until past midnight, packing everything into the truck except the blankets in which they caught a few hours of rest before getting up with the sun to make the drive to Roundtree.

“Why don’t we go right now?” Angel had suggested when the last box had been stuffed into the truck. “I’m not going to be able to sleep, anyway.”

“And do what when we get there?” her mother replied. “Haul everything inside in the middle of the night? What would people think?”

When her father had been no more enthusiastic than her mother, Angel wrapped herself up in a blanket and tried to go to sleep. But between the hardness of the floor and the excitement of moving in the morning, she hadn’t slept at all.

Or at least not for more than a few minutes.

But now the night was over, and the drive was finished, and the house at Black Creek Crossing was standing before her, looking even more wonderful than she remembered.

“It’s really ours,” Myra Sullivan replied, shutting off the engine. She got out of the car as Marty emerged from the cab of the truck. At least for now, she added silently to herself. She hadn’t slept much last night either, but it wasn’t out of excitement as much as worry. Until she got the closing papers, she hadn’t realized just how much the mortgage payments would be — almost twice what the rent on the duplex behind the rectory in Eastbury had been — and there were so many times over the last few years when she’d wondered how they were going to make the rent that the idea of a mortgage terrified her. Falling behind in the rent was one thing; falling behind on the mortgage could cost them the house.

“Will you for Christ’s sake stop worrying?” Marty had told her over and over again. “You think Ed Fletcher’s ever going to fire me? He’s family, for Christ’s sake!”

Myra had known better than to remind him that his sister-in-law’s husband was among the thirteenth generation of Fletchers in Massachusetts, while Marty’s family had arrived in Boston as servants — perhaps to cousins of Ed Fletcher — only four generations back. There wasn’t much likelihood that Edward Arlington Fletcher was going to claim close kinship to Martin O’Boyle Sullivan, the fact that they had married sisters notwithstanding. And if the chips were ever down, Myra was fairly certain that Joni Fletcher would stand with her husband rather than Marty.

Still, Marty hadn’t been drinking as much the last few weeks, which was a good sign, and maybe after getting fired by Jerry O’Donnell — who was a lot closer to being “family” to Marty than Ed Fletcher would ever be — he’d learned his lesson.

And maybe actually owning the house would give him the motivation that having nothing never had.

Marty pulled open the back doors of the truck, climbed in, and began handing boxes down to Myra, who passed them on to Angel. “Shall I start taking them in?” Angel asked as the pile on the lawn began to grow.

“Maybe we’d better all take them in,” Myra replied, glancing at the sky, which was rapidly clouding over.

“It’s not gonna rain,” Marty declared. “Let’s just keep going.”

The three of them unloaded the truck as fast as they could, and moved the furniture into the house so it wouldn’t get ruined if it rained. In less than an hour they’d hauled in the beds, and in another hour Marty had gotten them set up. The table was in the kitchen, and most of the rest of the furniture was in the living room.

They were only half done when there was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. A moment later the first drops of rain splattered onto the pile of packing boxes Marty had left on the lawn. “Goddammit, how come it always happens to me?” he complained, climbing out of the truck. He slammed the doors shut and picked up one of the boxes. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he called back as he headed for the front door. “You want everything to get wrecked before we get it inside?”

Another bolt of lightning slashed across the sky and the rain increased as both Angel and Myra snatched up boxes and ran for the house, ducking through the front door just as the thunderclap crashed over the house, rattling its windows. Setting her box down, Myra quickly crossed herself and uttered a silent prayer to St. Peter and St. Swithin that the violent storm that had blown up out of nowhere was nothing more than a freak weather system.

Angel’s clothes were soaked through and she was shivering with cold.

“Go up and put on something dry,” Myra told her.

“I don’t have anything,” Angel replied through chattering teeth.

“That box,” her mother told her, pointing to a stack in the corner of the living room. “The one next to the top that’s marked ‘A.R. Clothes.’ ‘A.R.’ stands for Angel’s room.”

A minute later Angel pushed her way into the little bedroom at the front of the house that had fascinated her from the first moment she set foot in it, using her hip to close the door behind her and lowering the box to the floor. She was just starting to pull its flaps open when she heard a noise.

A soft noise, barely audible. A moment later it came again, but this time she was listening for it, and she recognized it instantly.

A cat!

It mewed a third time, its voice muffled but insistent, as if it had been locked outside and now wanted to come back in.

Angel went to the window and looked out. The storm was still raging, the glass so streaked with rain that she could barely see. Despite the rain, she lifted the window, and peered outside.

Nothing.

In fact, the ledge was so narrow, she couldn’t see how even a cat could cling to it, and the only other place it could be was on the little roof that sheltered the front stoop. But even if there had been a cat on it, how could she have heard it through the window and the storm? She slid the window down again, and just as the sash dropped onto the sill, the sound came again. But this time it came from behind her.

Turning, she scanned the room, but saw nothing. Then, when the cat mewed yet again, this time accompanying its mewl with a scratching sound, she knew. She crossed the room and slowly pulled the closet door open. The gap was no more than three inches wide when the cat’s nose appeared, followed by its head and body. The moment it was out of the closet, it wound back and forth between Angel’s legs, rubbing first one side against her, then the other. Angel gazed down at it. “Where did you come from?”

The cat — pure black, except for a tiny white blaze in the exact center of its chest — looked up at her, then bounded up onto the bare mattress that Angel and her father had set up only an hour ago.

As it began licking itself, Angel pulled the closet door all the way open. Except for a single shelf and a bar for hanging clothes, it was empty. She searched the baseboard, looking for a hole the cat could have crept through, then searched the ceiling as well.

Nothing. Not even a hatch to get to the attic.

“How did you get in?” Angel asked, sitting on the bed next to the cat. The cat stopped grooming itself to creep onto her lap, its sinuous body shivering as Angel began to pet it. Rolling over to get its stomach scratched, it began licking Angel’s hand. Then it rolled over again, curled up, and began purring.

Though it wore no collar, it didn’t look like a stray to Angel. She could feel its muscles rippling beneath its skin, and the cat neither looked nor felt underfed. In fact, its coat was thick and clean, as if someone had been looking after it all its life. But how long had it been in the closet? If it had been more than a day or two, why didn’t it seem either hungry or thirsty?

Maybe she should change her clothes, she thought, and go down and see if she could find something for it to eat, and a bowl for it to drink out of. Easing the cat off her lap, Angel went back to the box she’d just opened when she first heard the cat, and burrowed through it. She found clean underwear, a pair of sweatpants, and a thick sweater, and stripped off her wet clothes. As she used a second pair of sweatpants to dry her skin, she heard the cat hissing. Turning, she saw that it was standing straight up, its back arched, staring at the bedroom door. As the cat hissed again, Angel heard the door open behind her. Whirling around and clutching the sweatpants over her naked torso, she saw her father standing in the doorway.

“Daddy!” she cried. “What are you doing in here? I’m not even dressed!” For a moment her father’s eyes remained fixed on her, and then he backed out and pulled the door closed.

“Sorry,” he called out. “I–I thought you were in the other room.”

Still clutching the sweatpants against her body, Angel went to the door and locked it. But even knowing it was locked, she couldn’t get the image of her father out of her mind, of him looking at her before he left the room. There had been something strange in his expression, something she’d never seen before as he gazed at her.

Gazed at her nakedness, with a look in his eyes—

But that was crazy! He was her father! He’d never looked at her like that before. He wouldn’t!

She was wrong. She had to be!

Suddenly, the room was filled with a blinding light, and Angel whirled around as an explosion of thunder shook the house. Angel shrank back against the closed door as the storm howled outside. Another bolt of lightning flashed, and the house trembled again as the second thunderclap struck. As it died away, Angel remembered the cat.

It was no longer there.

“Kitty?” she called, as she pulled on her dry clothes and scanned the corners of the room.

Nothing.

Crouching down, Angel peered under the bed.

Nothing.

The closet?

The door was still ajar, and Angel pulled it wide.

No sign of the cat at all.

Angel searched the room again, then gave up. However the cat had gotten in, it must have gotten out the same way. “Houdini,” she said softly, as rain slashed against the window. “If you ever show up again, that’s going to be your name.” With one last glance around the room, she went back downstairs.

Her mother was unpacking boxes in the kitchen, a kettle of water was coming to a boil on the stove, and there were three mugs on the table, along with a box of hot chocolate mix.

“I thought a cup of cocoa might do us all some good,” Myra said, offering Angel a wan smile that didn’t quite cover the nervousness the storm was causing her. She glanced out the window. “They certainly didn’t say anything like this was going to happen on the weather reports.” Another bolt of lightning struck, and Myra winced as the thunderclap immediately followed. “Go tell your father his hot chocolate will be ready in another couple of minutes.”

The memory of what had happened upstairs flooded back to Angel, and she hesitated. Should she tell her mother? But what had happened, really? Her father thought she was in the other room, that’s all.

And nothing had happened.

So there was nothing to tell her mother.

Nothing at all.