But then the ash moves and the black spots blink and I realize I’m staring at the thing itself—rearing up on its legs to meet me, baring ugly pink claws and long sharp teeth. I scream, a full-bodied shriek that pierces the night. Then I slam down the panel and throw myself on top of it, using all my body weight to barricade the hatch. I hammer the edges with my fists, trying to force the warped wood back into place, but it no longer fits. Caroline is at my cottage within a minute, unlocking the door with her key. She’s dressed in a nightgown and Ted is right behind her, shirtless, wearing pajama bottoms. They hear the noises under my cottage, the thrashing beneath the floorboards.
“It’s a rat,” I tell them, and I am so freaking relieved they’re here, that I’m not alone anymore. “It’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen.”
Ted takes the plastic pitcher of water and carries it outside while Caroline puts a hand on my shoulder, calming me, assuring me everything is going to be okay. Together we turn the panel ninety degrees so it fits back into the hatch, and then I hold it steady while she stomps the corners back into place. Even after she’s finished, I’m afraid to move from the spot, afraid the panel will fly out of the floor. She stands beside me, holding me, until we hear a splash of water through the open window.
A moment later, Ted returns with an empty pitcher. “Possum,” he says, grinning. “Not a rat. He moved pretty fast but I got him.”
“Why was it under her cottage?”
“There’s a hole in the lattice. On the west wall. Looks like a tiny section rotted off.” Caroline frowns and starts to say something but Ted is way ahead of her. “I know, I know. I’ll fix it tomorrow. I’ll go to Home Depot.”
“First thing tomorrow, Ted. This thing scared Mallory to death! What if she was bitten? What if it had rabies?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“She’s fine,” Ted says, but Caroline is unconvinced. She stares down at the hatch in the floor. “What if it comes back?”
Even though it’s nearly midnight, Caroline insists that Ted go get his tool kit from the big house. She insists that he drive nails through the hatch into the floorboards so that nothing can ever force its way into my cottage. While we wait for him to finish, she boils water on my stove and makes chamomile tea for all three of us, and afterward the Maxwells stay a few minutes longer than necessary, just to make sure I feel calm and relaxed and safe. The three of us sit on the edge of my bed, talking and telling stories and eventually laughing, and it’s like the scolding about the phone call never happened.
7
The next day is a hot and muggy Fourth of July and I force myself to go for a long run, eight miles in seventy-one minutes. On the walk home, I pass a house that Teddy and I have started calling the Flower Castle. It’s three blocks from the Maxwells, a giant white mansion with a U-shaped driveway and a yard exploding with colorful flowers: chrysanthemums, geraniums, daylilies, and many others. I notice some new orange blossoms climbing a trellis in the front yard, so I take a few steps up the driveway to get a closer look. The flowers are so odd and peculiar—they look like tiny traffic cones—and I snap a few pictures with my cell phone. But then the front door opens, and a man steps outside. In my peripheral vision I see that he’s wearing a suit and I sense he’s come to chase me off his property, to yell at me for trespassing.
“Hey!”
I walk back to the sidewalk and wave a lame apology but it’s too late. The guy is already out the door, coming after me.
“Mallory!” he calls. “How are you doing?”
And only then do I realize I’ve seen him before. It’s well over ninety degrees but Adrian looks perfectly comfortable in his light gray suit, like all those guys in the Ocean’s 11 movies. Under the jacket he wears a crisp white shirt and a royal blue tie. Without his cap on, I see he’s got a mop of thick dark hair.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t recognize you.”
He glances down at his outfit, as if he’s forgotten he’s wearing it. “Oh, right! We have a thing tonight. At the golf club. My dad—he’s getting an award.”
“You live here?”
“My parents do. I’m home for the summer.”
The front door opens and out walk his parents—his mother tall and elegant in a royal blue dress, his father in a classic black tuxedo with silver cuff links. “Is that El Jefe?”
“He’s the Lawn King. We do half the lawns in South Jersey. In the summers he has a crew of eighty guys, but I swear to you, Mallory, I’m the only one he yells at.”