Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

Though maybe he’d been wrong to believe that Portership was mandatory—Annie never said those who were “chosen” couldn’t simply refuse. What a concept! Suddenly, the idea that Willow could bail was a great comfort. He whispered I didn’t sign up for this into the ether and felt instant relief.

He shut his eyes, letting the riddle of Roy Eakins wash over him. When the kids told him that Roy used to come to the Meeting, he was flummoxed. It short-circuited his instincts to further pursue the man as a suspect. But now, thoughts came pell-mell, like the turning of a kaleidoscope, and he felt Annie’s presence as if she were inside his head. What if a landlord happened to be a child-killer in the life before he was conscripted into Annie’s world? What if the very being who was animated by one of the children of the train in order to enact the moment of balance turned out to be malevolent, infected, impure? And so? So what if they were? Would that necessarily preclude a successful result, an effective moment of balance ? Wouldn’t the process itself—the arrival of the dead child-tenant—serve to distill or remove such impurities? In AA, they say, “Principles before personalities”… in the quest for the moment of balance , wasn’t it “Principles before personality disorders ”? Yet what if “haywire” meant that things had gone so askew that the unknowable force responsible for selecting those landlord-vessels had become damaged and willfully perverse in itself , and was running amok? You’d have to be some kind of psychedelic scientist to answer that one… an astonishing corollary followed: Was it possible for a returning child to inhabit the same body of the person it had actually been murdered by? If Roy Eakins had killed Maya and Troy, then who was “Dabba Doo,” the child who became his tenant? Another of Eakins’s kills? Or had Dabba Doo been murdered by someone else —and his tenancy in the body of Roy, a child-killer other than the one he sought, was random, coincidental? To complete the brainteaser, if Dabba Doo was killed by Roy, then the hapless phantom’s moment of balance seemed surely, almost poetically doomed: a captive of his predator yet again, he would have no way of killing him because the man was already dead.

Willow called it “haywire squared”—

Dixie cried out in nightmare, startling him from his feverish cogitations. That was when Willow realized he was in the living room, standing before the mural like a sleepwalker. He rushed to the bedroom and held her until the terrors passed. (She never fully awakened.) He gently kissed her head. He felt a stir and thought of making love but was prudishly mindful that she’d set her alarm for an early-morning shift.

As he tucked her foot beneath the sheet, a shock went through him.

“It isn’t a palm print,” he said aloud. “It’s a footprint,” he whispered. “A fucking footprint .”

He grabbed his wallet from the end table. Folded inside was the phone number that Roy had written down and then stepped on.

I don’t have athlete’s foot, he’d said.

We’ll see about that , thought Willow.

3.

“We’re going to go a lot slower than the last time,” said Roy. “Tell you one thing: if someone would have told me I’d have the chance to do you again , I’d have said they were crazy to their face. But here we are! Will wonders never cease? Your little sister actually went faster than you did—which kind of surprised me, ’cause the Lolitas usually hang in. The lollipops are tougher than they look. Anyhoo, I blame myself for that. Wasn’t like it was my first rodeo. Mea culpa. When it’s your culpa, you gotta say mea.”

Roy never shut up. It took nearly an hour to drive from Smiths Creek to the farm in Wolcott Mills. Grundy and his wife half-carried Daniel into the house. He was barely conscious but could hear and smell a river. When he came to, he was nude, spread-eagled on a bed. They didn’t gag him and he immediately understood why. They were far enough away from the world that his screams would never be heard.

The Porter said that in “endgame time,” the children of the train summoned superhuman force to confront those who had harmed them. In confused recognition of the moment of balance that would soon become a miscarriage , Daniel’s tenant thrashed within like a punch-drunk heavyweight. Wishing to protect him from their common enemy, the landlord instinctively shooed Troy away, though with little success.

“I’m rusty so please forgive—haven’t done this in a while! Violet doesn’t count, not really, but boy oh boy that gal sure gave me the taste again. She’s what they used to call a ‘ten.’ Real marriage material. But you know grown-ups were never my thang. To each his own.” He pursed his lips and grew quiet. “I’m going to make a confession, man-child, and I hope you’re flattered. I never told anyone this before—not that there was anyone to tell. Never even told Grundy. Some things just aren’t appropriate for fathers to share with their sons. But I’m going to tell you . What I want you to know is that out of the baker’s dozen—give or take a few cupcakes—you and your sister were my pièce de résistance. Pardon my French toast. And mind you, don’t get me wrong, all my kids were wonderful; like Mr. Twain was fond of saying, they didn’t repeat themselves but they often rhymed. But the Rum-Rum-Rummers stayed with me all these years, providing much constipation during sleepless nights. I meant consolation. Pardon my Portuguese.”

Grundy laughed (his wife had been banished to the living room) and his father said, “Shut the fuck up.”

“You know,” said Roy, “this whole landlord-tenant thing has been utterly fascinating—I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that—but really, don’t you think? I mean, who could have imagined? It’s inconceivable. I mean, my dead jaw just drops. Still does. Definitely given me food for thought. I was a teacher, as you know, so I’m given to analysis and reflection—unlike my dull-witted son, whom I’ve sometimes been ashamed to call my own. Oh, he has other ‘abilities,’ but not in the lucubration department. Put a major crimp in my style for years . But I took care of him when the world wanted to flush him. Didn’t I, Grundy? Didn’t I take care of you?”

“You did, Dad. You took care of me.”

“His mom didn’t want him. Uh-uh, no way. I got rid of that particular problem a few years after he was born. What kind of mother rejects her own son? Yeah, yeah, I had to break his nose a few times—a jaw, a rib—but hey, what’s a father for?” He laughed and Grundy did too. “Gave him a helluva beating that day you and Maya were in the trunk. See, I was present and accounted for when your daddy sent you for that accursed lighter fluid. I say ‘daddy’ but what I really mean is executioner, ’cause that’s what he was—the man sent you straight to your deaths, but hey, what are fathers for?” He winked. “I briefly recused myself from the happy festivities. Whispered to Father of the Year that my boy needed to take his meds and have a little quiet-time siesta, which everyone was used to because wherever Roy Eakins appeared, his gruesome spawn was soon to follow. A package deal, that’s all. We got snubbed all over the place but Ronnie and Elaine still invited us over, which was very kind. Good people, Ronnie and Elaine. So I took Grundy into the house, threw him in the guest room and told him to keep his mouth shut and stay put. He knew the drill. He was already pretty well-trained ’cause that’s exactly what I would do with him at home when I was up to sundry off-color shenanigans with my Huckleberrys and Lolitas—once I got Dumbshit into the guest room, oh, it was on . When he got older, I’d let him watch, but that’s a bedtime story for another day. Not that you’ll live to see one. Anyhoo. I knew the shortcut you’d be taking with your bike, so off I went—probably a bonehead move on my part if you think about it, ’cause you never can tell who’s watching. But that was before every random asshole was whipping out his phone to piss on the notion of some kind of public privacy; a kinder, gentler time. And I was younger then—young and in love! Impetuous, that’s the word. Have to say I was always lucky that way: lucky in finding my kids and lucky in not getting caught . Lucky in love . But I digress. When I got back, Ronnie was still prattling about some football game whilst putting the final touches on another round of muy perfecto Rummerburgers—the man had skills! And there you were just fifty yards away in the trunk, having sweet and sour dreams, quiet as two bugs in a rug. You weren’t conscious, so that couldn’t have been too tough. I couldn’t believe how beautifully I pulled that off. But … I was getting cocky. Careless. That’s the cliché, isn’t it? Started to scare myself. I didn’t want to be one of those dumdums the profilers always say are dying to get caught. I hate when they say that because it’s bullshit . The only people dying to get caught—the only ones dying ’cause I caught ’ em—were kids like you! Anyhoo, I thought it best to lay low after our steamy little ménage à trois. Pardon my Middle English. I was like a crocodile: I drowned ’em, grabbed ’em by my tail and sank down deep, deep to the bottom of the river. Could stay at the bottom for years. I seem to be a bit of a departure in that regard. The experts at Quantico don’t know quite what to do with a gent like myself. I’m the anomaly, the square peg… the square peg who sticks himself in tiny round holes! Hahaha! In rare form today, aren’t I, Grundy?”