F. Paul Wilson - Haunted Air

"No, you didn't." He put his hand on his brother's shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. "You know you didn't. What are you pulling here?"

"Just practicing." He picked up the tempo. "I've got to play this note perfect for my recital."

"Stop it, Charlie."

He played faster, his fingers flying over the keys. "No. I've got to play it twenty times a day to make sure-"

Lyle reached over and grabbed his brother's wrists. He tried to pull them away from the keyboard but his brother fought him. Finally Lyle threw all his weight into it.

"Charlie, please?"

They both came away from the piano together, Charlie tipping over backward on the piano seat and landing on the floor, Lyle staggering but keeping his feet.

For an instant Charlie glared at him from the floor, his eyes blazing with rage, then his face cleared.

"Lyle?"

"Charlie, what on-?" Then Lyle saw the blood on the front of his shirt. "Oh, Christ! What happened?"

Charlie stared up at him with a bewildered look. "What goin' on, bro?"

He started to rise but Lyle pushed him back. "Don't move! You've been hurt!"

Charlie looked down at the glistening red stain on the front of his shirt, then looked up again.

"Lyle?" His eyes were afraid. "Lyle, what-?"

Lyle tried not to lose it. His brother, something awful had happened to his baby brother. They'd been through so much and now... and now...

He wanted to run for the phone to call Emergency Services, but was afraid to leave Charlie's side. There might be something he could do, needed to do right now to make sure he survived until help arrived.

"Take your shirt off and let's see. Maybe it's not so bad."

"Lyle, what wrong with you?"

Lyle didn't want to see this. If it was only half as bad as it looked it was still terrible. He yanked up Charlie's shirt-

And gaped.

The skin of his chest was unbroken, without a trace of blood. Lyle dropped to his knees before him and touched his skin.

"What on earth?"

Where had all that blood come from? He yanked the shirt back down and gasped when he found it clean and dry and pristine white, as if fresh from the dryer.

"Lyle?" Charlie said, a different kind of fear in his eyes now. "What happenin' here? Is this a dream? I went to bed, next thing I know, I'm here on the floor."

"You were playing the piano." He struggled to his feet and helped Charlie up. "Don't you remember?"

"No way. You know I can't-"

"But you were. And playing pretty well."

"But how?"

"I wish to hell I knew."

Charlie grabbed his arm. "Maybe that it. Maybe that crack in the cellar let a little bit of hell into this house. Or maybe there always been a bit of hell in this place, considerin' what happened here over the years. Whatever it is, it's gettin' to you."

Lyle was about to tell his brother to cool it with that shit when the front door unlocked itself and swung open.

SUNDAY

1

Gia cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Not a task she minded as a rule, but today... scraping leftover scrambled eggs from the bottom of a frying pan roiled her already queasy stomach. The eggs had been for Jack; she'd whipped them up and mixed in crumbled soy bacon strips for a don't-ask, don't-tell breakfast. He hadn't asked if he was eating real bacon and she hadn't told. Not that he would have minded. Jack ate just about everything. Sometimes, when he was in his Where's-the-beef? mode, he'd complain about too many vegetables, but he rarely failed to clean his plate. A good boy. She never had to tell him about the starving children in China.

He'd said he had an appointment with a new customer this morning-someone who claimed he couldn't wait until Monday-and had wandered off to the townhouse's little library to kill some time before he had to leave.

"How about a shnackie?" he said as he wandered back.

She looked up and smiled at him. "You just ate breakfast an hour ago."

He rubbed his stomach. "I know, but I need a little shomething."

"How about a leftover bagel?"

"Shuper."

"You've been reading one of Vicky's Mutts books, haven't you?"

"Yesh."

"Well, get yourself out of Mooch mode and I'll toast you one."

He sat down. "After a week of this you'll never get me to leave." He looked at her. "Wouldn't be so bad if I stayed, would it?"

Oh, no. Their recurrent topic of contention: whether or not to live together.

Jack voted yes, and had been pushing for it-gently, but persistently-since late last year. He wanted to be a bigger part of Vicky's life, be the kind of father her real father had never been.

"It would be great," Gia said. "As soon as we're married."

Jack sighed. "You know I'd marry you in a heartbeat if I could, but..."

"But you can't. Because a man with no official existence can't apply for a marriage license."

"Is a piece of paper so important?"

"We've been over this before, Jack. Marriage wouldn't matter if I weren't Vicky's mother. But I am. And Vicky's mom does not have a live-in boyfriend, or manfriend, or significant other, or whatever the latest accepted term is."

An archaic mindset. Gia freely admitted that, and had no problem with it. The values by which she guided her life were not weather vanes, changing direction with every shift of the social climes; they were the bedrock on which she'd grown up, and they still felt solid underfoot. They formed her comfort zone. She didn't care to impose them on anyone else, and conversely, didn't want anyone else telling her how to raise her child.

She believed in raising a child by example. Definitely hands-on, setting rules and limits, but being bound by her own rules as well. None of this do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do nonsense. If Gia wanted Vicky to tell the truth, then Gia must never lie; if Gia wanted Vicky to be honest, then Gia must never cheat.

The perfect example had presented itself last week when she and Vicky had gone to the liquor store. Knowing Jack would be around a lot during Vicky's absence, Gia had picked up a case of beer, plus a couple of bottles of wine. On the way out of the store Vicky whispered that the cashier hadn't scanned one of the wines. Gia had checked her receipt and, sure enough, Little Miss Never-Miss-a-Trick was right. She'd turned around, pointed out the error, and paid for the extra bottle. The clerk was astounded, the manager had wanted to give her the bottle for free, and two other customers waiting on line had looked at her as if to say, What planet are you from?

"Why didn't you just keep the bottle, Mom?" Vicky had asked.

"Because it wasn't mine."

"But no one knew."

"You knew. And once you told me, I knew. And then keeping it would have made me a thief. I don't want to be a thief."

Vicky had nodded at the obvious truth of that and then started talking about the dead bird she'd seen yesterday.

But living the life she wanted Vicky to live meant sacrifices. It meant no moving in with Jack, no Jack moving in with her. Because if sixteen-year-old Vicky one day asked if her boyfriend could move into her bedroom, Gia wanted to be able to look her daughter straight in the eye when she said no.

How in the world could Gia ever explain to Vicky her love for Jack? She couldn't explain it to herself. Jack flouted all the rules, thumbed his nose at society's most basic conventions, and yet... he was the most decent, most moral, truest man she'd met since leaving Iowa.

But as much as she loved him, she wasn't sure she wanted to live with him. Or with anyone else, for that matter. She liked her space, and she and Vicky had plenty of that here on Sutton Square. This high-priced, oak-paneled, antique-studded piece of East Side real estate belonged to the Westphalen family, of which Vicky was the last surviving member. Her aunts had left the townhouse and most of their considerable fortunes to her in their wills, but they were listed as missing instead of dead. It would be years before the place and the fortunes were officially Vicky's, but until then the executor let them live here to keep up the property.