Take Your Turn, Teddy Read online

  “But Mom, I—”

  She handed him the key. Gravel crunched under a car coming down the road. Teddy and his mother turned to look. Teddy could see alarm in his mother’s face. What is she expecting? Teddy wondered.

  A bright red car came down the road. A younger guy had his window cranked down, and The Beatles blared from the radio loudly enough to hear before he got to the end of the woods in front of the house. Teddy and his mother watched the man, waiting, but he hardly slowed his vehicle and only offered a lazy wave as he passed.

  Teddy’s mother sighed and returned her attention to unloading the car. “Go on, Teddy. Go start unpacking. I’m right behind you.”

  He glared at the window, waiting for even the slightest movement so he could make his mother see it too. But it was still.

  “I’ll be right behind you, Teddy. I just mislabeled some of my boxes so I’m trying to figure out what to take in and what can be stored in the shed in the back.”

  With her hands on her hips and a little laugh, she said one more time, “Go on, Teddy. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Teddy nearly dragged his feet across the dry, dead grass. The dust from the yard clung to the white trims of his Adidas Shelltoes. He was beginning to think that nothing bright, not even his white tennis shoes, would last long in this house. If anything ever wasn’t so dark and dreary, it had gobbled it up the way the Kraken ensnared ships and sailors in its deadly whirlpool.

  The steps creaked as Teddy climbed to the front door of his new home. The front porch had splintered wood and gapes in the floorboards, showing the darkness underneath. He imagined a tentacle of the Kraken rising from one of the holes, wrapping around his pantleg, and carrying him away to the icy depths below. Instead, he heard soft squeaks of what he assumed were either mice or rats. Either way, something was down there. Teddy hurried through the door, kicked his boxes inside, and closed the door behind him.

  Teddy closed his eyes and leaned against the dry wood of the front door as he took a deep breath.

  Hello.

  Teddy’s eyes peeled open and his neck snapped to the curtain he had seen move. Nothing was there. He could’ve sworn he heard someone.

  “Hello? Is someone here?”

  The house sat silently.

  With careful steps, Teddy inched toward the front window. Between his thumb and index finger, Teddy lifted the torn fabric. He jumped back, scaring himself.

  Nothing was behind that curtain. Nothing looked out at his mother in the drive other than him.

  Teddy wasn’t sure that made him feel much safer as he stood alone in the house.

  The living room was dark and cold. It had sheet-covered furniture and light fixtures with pull strings rather than switches. The walls, marked with bands of yellow, peeled like the paint outside.

  Teddy grabbed a piece of the wallpaper and pulled it down, peeling it with greater force than time and wetness had. There was damp paneling behind it, like his home in New Hampshire. He closed his eyes and envisioned the paneled hallway of his childhood home. For a moment, he felt a sense of comfort. But then, Teddy saw his mother’s blaring red face as her body slid down the wall. His father, chest raging with anger, fumed above her.

  Teddy shook his head and pushed the wallpaper back into the wetness of the wall. It stuck.

  He heard a creak in the floor behind him. Teddy jumped and spun around. Nothing was there but sheet-covered furniture, his bright plastic moving tubs, and the damp, peeling wallpaper. Teddy swallowed hard and went back to the window he thought he had seen movement in when they pulled up. He lifted the curtain once more. Still nothing. His body shivered involuntarily.

  At the far side of the living room was a long staircase that, like the rest of the house, had traces of water stains.

  As expected, the stairs felt thin and weak, making each step audible. The handrail was dusty, and the corners of the walls had cobwebs.

  Teddy couldn’t help but wonder how long ago the previous family left. Because when he and his parents went to visit his grandparents in Florida for a week’s vacation, the house didn’t collect this much dust, and he never saw so many cobwebs—not even in his father’s office, which he only cleaned the first day of the year. It was like the house carried its own sickness. The dust was a visual symptom, like hives, and it was set on dying.

  The rooms upstairs were small. Teddy didn’t think his baseball diamond rug would spread neatly in any of them. The first room had a vent that let the copper smell from outside blast through. He thought it would only get stronger when his mother turned on the heat. A large desk sat in the middle of the room with papers scattered across it. Teddy took one step closer and a chill breathed down his neck. He stepped back into the hall and closed the door.

  The next bedroom was terribly small. He took one glance, hoped the final room would be better, and closed the door. Its hinges squealed.

  Past the bathroom with the same pull string light fixture like the one at the center of the living room was the biggest bedroom. It had a decent size window on the far side of the room. Teddy set his boxes on the floor. The creaks in the floor made him feel like wherever he walked, someone was just a few steps behind.

  He raised from his boxes on the floor and looked for any other company, like the owner of the hand he thought he saw downstairs. But he was alone. Teddy returned to the window to see if maybe the backyard was less desert-like than the front. It wasn’t. The grass was dry and the massive tree looked like a corpse—a rotten, decaying remembrance of something that once lived tall and full. Like the trees in the woods they passed on the drive, this tree was bare and its branches looked like arched skeletal hands, ready to nab the first thing that ran below it.

  The same chill he felt in the office teased the back of his neck and then slithered down his shoulder and onto his arm. Teddy watched his skin break out in goosebumps that felt normal back home in the New Hampshire fall wind. Here, it wasn’t a breeze. It was an icy, abnormal cold that sank into his skin and froze him in fear. He had never been unable to escape the cold. In Oakhaven, the icy wind would beat into his cheeks, but when he came home and stood inside the house, the cold stayed outside. Here, the cold lingered.

  Teddy stared at the yard below. He told his arms to move and then his legs, but he was still. He heard footsteps, softer than the pounding of his mother right before a big blow-up with his father. Somehow, he now thought, quiet was worse.

  Move. Right leg, turn. But he was still.

  The chill intensified and forced a shiver throughout Teddy’s otherwise frozen body.

  Right, leg, move. Move. Move. Move.

  He thought it with such force, he began to say it aloud, louder, and louder. “Move. Move. Mooove!”

  Nearly tripping over himself and the box he set below, Teddy ran from his room. He stumbled into the hallway and his door slammed shut behind him. All the closed doors flew open and snapped back shut, piercing the quiet with their shrieks of age and wear.

  Teddy watched the lights from the window burst into the hall and then be ripped away by darkness when the doors slammed.

  He ran down the stairs and to the backyard. He put his hands above his head as he ran, taking cover from the tree he was sure would nab him otherwise. His heart pounded in his chest, like it was trying to escape Teddy’s body and the horror from the house all on its own.

  “Mom! Mom!”

  She turned to Teddy. “What! What? Are you okay?”

  Teddy was trying to catch his breath.

  “What happened, sweetie?”

  “The doors. All of them. I couldn’t move. I tried, I could hear myself telling my body to move and I couldn’t.”

  “Shh. Shh. Hey, Teddy Bear.”

  Teddy’s mother pulled him into her chest.

  She wrapped her hands around his head, holding him close.

  “It’s okay, Teddy. This is an old house in an old town. It
makes me jumpy too.”

  He pulled away from her, sniffling his runny nose and wiping his wet eyes.

  “But they were… they were slamming shut.”

  “Oh, sweetie. That’s probably my fault. I opened some of the windows downstairs to air the place out. The wind probably pulled them all shut.”

  Teddy shook his head. “No. No. I shut them when I went upstairs. They were shut. They opened and slammed shut again. Again and again.”

  His mother crouched down and brought herself to Teddy’s level. “Teddy, honey. We’re both very tired. We’re both on edge. We need food and sleep. Take a deep breath and come inside.”

  When Teddy hesitated, his mother smiled and said, “Unless you prefer to spend the night out here.”

  She stuck her tongue out at Teddy and laughed to herself.

  Teddy looked up at the tree, its claws ready for him the minute he walked through. I wouldn’t make it out here all night.

  Teddy’s mother ran her fingers through his hair, and they went back inside. She grabbed her knitted purse covered with buttons that said things like “Give Peace a Chance,” “Make Love Not War,” and a few with the four Led Zeppelin symbols.

  Before Teddy could ask where she was going, she pulled a yellow slip from the fridge.

  “I saw this before I went out back. There’s a pizza place not too far from here. I think I still remember where it is. Want to do that for dinner? We can do the grocery shopping tomorrow?”

  “I want to come,” Teddy said with more force and haste than he meant to let on.

  “I want you to stay and unpack. Besides, I need to make a stop.”

  “I don’t mind waiting in the car. Please, Mom. Let me go.”

  She shook her head. “No, Teddy. I need to drive by myself for a few. I just need to clear my head a bit. You’ll be fine. I’ll be one hour, tops. That gives you plenty of time to unpack your room before dinner.”

  Teddy tried to quiet the heaviness of his breath. He was trying to hear the house move—the doors, the curtains, whatever subtle or obnoxious thing it did next. He wanted his mother to see it too.

  “I can unpack when we get back. Please.”

  Teddy was whining. He could hear it in his voice, but the fear made him desperate.

  His mother walked from the kitchen to the front door saying, “Your room, Teddy. Get the boxes unpacked so we can a get a mattress in there tomorrow.”

  She grabbed her keys and pointed up the steps, signaling Teddy to get going.

  She closed the door behind her. Teddy’s eyes wandered the living room, waiting for the house to seize its moment, but it was still.

  Teddy went to the window, and as someone had when they arrived, he pulled the torn curtain back to look down the drive. He felt a chill inch down his neck and over his spine. He waved to his mother as she blew him a kiss. When she pulled past the mailbox and out of sight, the orchestrator of the symphony of terror waved his hands and cued the slamming doors upstairs.

  6

  The next few nights in the new Indiana house for Teddy were full of taunting images of his battered mother, the heaving breath of the bull, and the roaring train as it ripped across the tracks.

  The train sent vibrations into Teddy’s room each morning. The walls shook, and the floors hummed. Teddy wondered if he’d ever get used to that awful noise.

  Teddy sat up in bed and rubbed his tired eyes. He had never felt sleep deprivation like this in his life—not even during summer baseball camp when they’d play a game until nearly 10 p.m. and be up and on the bus by 8 a.m.

  Last night, the bull had circled his mother in the dusty arena. She ran, helplessly stumbling on her own feet. She would occasionally stop with her hands stretched before her. She would plead with the bull, “Please, not in front of him. Don’t do this.”

  Teddy had heard variations of this plea his whole life. “Please, Teddy can hear you.” Or, “Stop it. Teddy is asleep.”

  Only now did he realize that those nights she pleaded with his father were more than harsh words and screams. For all he knew, they were all variations of what he had seen the night they left, how his father’s hands flew with such power into his mother’s delicate face.

  It had never occurred to Teddy to hit his father before then. But he did with the bat his father had given him. And, for some reason he couldn’t quite make sense of, that really stung.

  When he awoke from the nightmares in the arena, Teddy knew his mother’s face would begin healing eventually, and she was downstairs safe from the bull. But Teddy wondered, when the arena faded, and his new room replaced it, where was the beast?

  In the new house, the taunts of Teddy’s nightmares didn’t end when he got out of bed. His ears caught every creak in the hall or on the stairs. Every noise invited torment to his peace of mind—one that left Teddy in suspense, waiting for the doors to simultaneously open and close.

  Last night, when the nightmare from the bull and the stench of Abraham’s Abattoir woke him, he heard the same Hello he’d heard when they arrived. The voice was hollow-sounding. Almost as if someone were shouting it down a well, and he happened to be sitting at the bottom of it. It was soft and gentle. Its delicate nature made Teddy jump, the same way a person might when something tickled them lightly.

  Teddy climbed down from his bed and followed the smell of breakfast to the kitchen. His mother was not only cooking breakfast but painting a trim around the kitchen. The fridge was pulled from the wall, and a mound of lemons were stuffed in the sink. His mother always hated the smell of fresh paint.

  Teddy’s mother brushed perspiration from her brow and smiled at Teddy. She wiped her hands on her smock and said, “Hey, Teddy Bear. Do you think you could take care of those dishes for me this morning?”

  Teddy froze, staring at his mother’s right eye. It was so swollen she could only squint. He wondered how much longer it would take for the swelling to go down.

  “Mom, have you iced your eye today?” Teddy asked.

  His mother looked surprised. She placed a hand on her eye and winced. “No. You’re right, sweetie. I’ll take more Tylenol and ice it after I finish the trim.”

  She motioned to the dishes. “Don’t worry about me, sweetie.”

  Teddy turned his back to her, wondering how he was supposed to not worry with a constant reminder of the night on her face and the arena tormenting him when he closed his eyes to sleep. The night wanted him to remember it. At least it seemed that way to Teddy, and it only made it all the more painful for him.

  Hello, Teddy.

  The echo-sounding voice returned. It wormed into Teddy’s mind, taking center stage and pushing aside his thoughts about the night they left.

  Teddy dropped the plastic cup in the dishwater. The rusty well water splashed onto his white baseball camp jersey. He turned behind him as calmly as he could. Teddy’s mother, with a paintbrush in her hand, smiled back.

  “Did you say something, Mom?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I was just singing to myself. I wish we had some music while we worked this morning.”

  Teddy smiled. A hint of their past life, their traditions, that wouldn’t make his mother cry. He skipped to the living room to find their cream Crosley record player. Teddy was pleased with himself for going back for it.

  Teddy spotted the bag of records and stopped. It was under the window where he thought he saw someone when they pulled into the drive of their new home. He was hesitant, despite the curtain’s position that didn’t seem to point to some kind of being on the other side of it. Part of him wondered if ghosts really took on a full form that he would be able to see. What if all he could see was its hand, the way he did when they pulled in. Teddy put a hand over the nape of his neck, trying to ease the rising hairs.

  Teddy reached for the bag with caution. He planted his feet where he stood, squatted, and reached out as far as his arm could go. He figured if
there was something there, it couldn’t gobble him up. He would only need to free his hand.

  Hello, Teddy.

  Teddy fell back on his feet and to the wooden floor. Like a crab on the beach, he used all fours to scoot away from the window. His eyes widened as he waited for a sinister smile to emerge from behind that curtain, following the same dead, ghostly hand he saw a few days ago.

  Teddy’s mind was racing, telling him to move, but the fear pinned him to the floor. Was it curiosity? It couldn’t be. Not with the dry knot swelling in his throat.

  It’s me, Teddy.

  Teddy lowered his chin to his chest and cocked his head, but he couldn’t see behind the curtain.

  “Hello? I—I don’t understand.”

  I’m warmer now than I’ve been in a very long time, Teddy.

  Teddy felt a disturbance behind him, an unsettling chill he couldn’t put his finger on. And just like he had been with the curtain, he was both afraid and curious.

  “Please, leave me alone. I don’t know who you are.”

  The chill wrapped its arms around Teddy and encapsulated him. It isolated the fear and made him abandon curiosity. Teddy, nearly tripping over his own feet, stood and ran to the steps. His feet pounded up the stairs and carried him to his room. Teddy slammed the door shut and pressed his back to it. His breath was hard and shallow. Teddy grabbed his throat to console the burn of each inhale.

  When Teddy’s breath settled, he stomped his feet to his bed and tucked himself under the covers. “I hate it here. I hate it. I hate it.”

  He ripped the comforter above his head and cried in the blanketed darkness.

  His mind raced, from getting pizza with Pete, what he might’ve said had he known it was the last time, his father with Amber, the way Amber couldn’t look at him as she followed his father into the garage, the way his father turned on his mother so quickly, and the way his mother’s face looked as she sat against the paneled wall in the hall. And now, hearing voices in the house.