Kelly Link - Stranger Things Happen

"Yeah, right," Hildy tells him. The sight of his white teeth across the table, floating in the mild, round pink expanse of his face, makes her sad for a moment, as if she is traveling a great distance away, leaving her father pinned down under the great weight of that distance. "You're silly." She spins the ball fast across the net.

"That's what all the ladies tell me," he says. "The silliest man in the world, that's me."

The basement is Hildy's favorite room in the whole house, now that Jenny Rose has taken over her bedroom. The walls are a cheerful yellow, and fat stripey plants in macrame hangers dangle from the ceiling like green and white snakes. Hildy lobs a Ping-Pong ball into the macramЋ holders – it takes more effort to retrieve these balls than it does to place them, and at night when Hildy watches television in the basement, the Ping-Pong balls glow with reflected TV light like tiny moons and satellites.

She lets her father beat her in the next game, and when he goes back upstairs, she ducks under the table. This is where Hildy sits whenever she needs to think. This is where she and Myron do their homework, cross-legged on the linoleum floor of their own personal cave. Myron is better at social studies, but Hildy is better at math. Hildy is better at spying on Jenny Rose. She shifts on the cold linoleum floor. She is better at hiding than her cousin. No one can spy on her under the table, although she can see anyone who comes into the basement.

She has learned to identify people from the waist down: brown corduroy would be her father; James and Myron wear blue jeans. Her mother's feet are very small. The R.M. never wears shoes in the house, and her toenails are always red, like ten cherries in a row. Hildy doesn't need to remember Jenny Rose's legs or toes – she would know her cousin by the absolute stillness. Jenny Rose's legs would suddenly appear above two noiseless feet, pale and otherworldly as two ghost trees. Hildy imagines jumping out from under the table, yelling "Boo!" Jenny Rose would have to see her then, but would she see Jenny Rose?

Last night at dinner, the R.M. set four places at the table, the blue plate for James, red for Hildy, orange for her husband, purple for herself. The R.M. likes routine, and her family accommodates. No one would ever eat off the wrong-colored plate – surely the food would not taste the same.

Hildy set a fifth place, yellow for Jenny Rose, while her mother was in the kitchen, and retrieved the fifth chair with the wobbly leg from her mother's study. She did these things without saying anything: it seemed unthinkable to say anything to the R.M., who in any case, neither noticed her error nor saw that it had been corrected. At dinner, Jenny Rose did not speak – she hardly ate. No one spoke to her and it seemed to Hildy that no one even noticed her cousin.

She was as invisible as Hildy is now, under the green roof of the Ping-Pong table. She almost feels sorry for Jenny Rose.

Jenny Rose's parents write her every week. Hildy knows this because Jenny Rose donates the stamps to Mr. Harmon's stamp collection. Her father currently has eighteen stamps, neatly cut out of the airmail envelopes, lying on his desk in the basement.

As for the letters themselves, they are limp and wrinkled, like old pairs of cotillion gloves. They are skinny as feathers, and light, and Jenny Rose receives them indifferently. They disappear, and when the R.M. or Mr. Harmon asks, "How are your parents doing?" Jenny Rose says, "They're fine," and that's that.

October 10th, 1970

Darling Jenny,

We have been staying in Ubud for three weeks now, visiting Nyoman's church. Every night as we fall asleep the lizards tick off the minutes like pocket watches, and every morning Nyoman brings us pancakes with honey. Do you remember Nyoman? Do you remember the lizards, the length of your pinky? They are green and never blink, watching us watching them.

Nyoman asks how you are doing, so far away. He and his wife are having their second baby. They have asked us to be their child's godparents, and to pick the baptismal name. Would you like the baby to have your name, Rose, if it is a girl?

It is sticky here, and we go for walks in the Monkey Forest, where the old woman sits with her bunches of bananas and her broom, swatting the monkeys away. Do you remember how they scream and fly up into the trees?

Aunt Molly wrote that you are quiet as a mouse, and I don't blame you, in that noisy family!

Love you,

Mom and Dad

Hildy knocks on the door of her mother's study. When she opens the door, she can see a cigarette, hastily stubbed out, still smoldering in the ashtray. "It's only my second," the R.M. says automatically.

Hildy shrugs. "I don't care what you do," she says. "I wanted to know if you'd take me to the library. I already asked Jenny Rose – she doesn't need to go."

The R.M.'s face is momentarily blank. Then she frowns and taps another cigarette out of the pack.

"Three," she says. "I promise that's it, okay? She's so quiet, it's easy to forget she's here. Except for the wet sheets. I must be the worst guardian in the world – I got a call from one of Jenny Rose's teachers yesterday, and when I put down the phone, it flew straight out of my head. She hasn't turned in her assignments recently, and they're worried that the work might be too much for her. Does she seem unhappy to you?"

Hildy shrugs. "I don't know, I guess so. She never says anything."

"I keep forgetting to write and ask your aunt and uncle if she wet the bed before," the R.M. says. She waves her cigarette and a piece of ash floats down onto her desk. "Has Jenny Rose made any friends at school, besides you and Myron?"

Hildy shrugs again. She is mildly jealous, having to share her absent-minded mother with Jenny Rose. "No, I mean I'm not sure she wants any friends. Mostly she likes to be alone. Can you take me to the library?"

"Sweetie," her mother says. "I would, but I have to finish the sermon for tomorrow. Ask your dad when he gets home."

"OK," Hildy says. She turns to leave.

"Will you keep an eye on your cousin?" the R.M. says, "I mean, on Jenny Rose? I'm a little concerned."

"OK," Hildy says again. "When is Dad coming home?"

"He should be here for dinner," her mother says. But Mr. Harmon doesn't come home for dinner. He doesn't come home until Hildy is already in bed, hours after the library has closed.

She lies in bed and listens to her mother shout at him. She wonders if Jenny Rose is awake too.

So Hildy and Myron are watching Jenny Rose again, as she lies on her bed. They scoot their bare feet along the warm, dusty plank floor of the gazebo, taking turns peering through the binoculars.

"She hasn't been turning in her homework?" Myron asks. "Then what does she do all the time?"

"That's why we're watching her," Hildy says. "To find out."

Myron lifts the binoculars. "Well, she's lying on her bed. And she's flipping the light switch on and off."

They sit in silence for a while.

"Give me the binoculars," Hildy demands. "How can she be turning off the light if she's lying on the bed?"

But she is. The room is empty, except for Jenny Rose, who lies like a stone upon her flowered bedspread, her arms straight at her side. There are three oranges in the bowl beside the bed. The light flashes on and off, on and off. Myron and Hildy sit in the gazebo, the bared twigs of the oak tree scratching above their heads.

Myron stands up. "I have to go home," he says.

"You're afraid!" Hildy says. Her own arms are covered in goose pimples, but she glares at him anyway.

He shivers. "Your cousin is creepy." Then he says, "At least I don't have to share a room with her."

Hildy isn't afraid of Jenny Rose. She tells herself this over and over again. How can she be afraid of someone who still wets the bed?