And I realize what’s happening: Anya must be taking the pictures out of the bedroom, before Teddy wakes up, so he won’t have to look at them. And I’ve come along and interrupted their usual process.
It’s all too much for Teddy because he explodes into tears and I pull him into my arms and his body is soft and loose again; he feels like a regular boy again. I realize I’m asking him to explain something he doesn’t understand. I’m asking him to explain the impossible.
He places his right hand in mine, and I see his tiny fingers are smudged with dirty pencil marks. I hold him tight and calm him down and assure him that everything is going to be okay.
But really, I’m not so sure.
Because I know for a fact this kid is a lefty.
14
That night, Adrian comes over and together we review all the illustrations. There are nine drawings in total—the three pictures left on my porch, the three pictures pinned to my refrigerator, and the three pictures I collected today from Teddy’s bedroom. Adrian keeps reshuffling the pages, like he’s trying to put them in a proper order, as if there’s some kind of magical sequence that might reveal a story. But I’ve been thinking about them all afternoon and I still can’t make sense of them.
It’s dusk and the sun is almost down. The air in the backyard is hazy and gray. The forest is full of fireflies blinking on and off. Across the way at the big house, through the windows of the kitchen, I can see Caroline loading the dishwasher; she’s cleaning up dinner while Ted is upstairs putting their son to bed.
Adrian and I sit side by side on the steps of the cottage, scrunched so close our knees are nearly touching. I tell him about my experiment with the baby cam, how I watched Teddy draw without the use of his eyes, without the use of his dominant hand. And by all rights Adrian should tell me I’m crazy—I know my story sounds crazy—so I’m relieved when he takes me seriously. He holds the drawings close to his face and coughs. “God, these really stink.”
“That’s the smell of Teddy’s bedroom. Not all the time but some of the time. Caroline says he wets the bed.”
“I don’t think this is pee. Last summer, we had a job in Burlington County? Near the Pine Barrens? Some guy hired us to clear his vacant lot. It was a half acre of land gone wild, weeds taller than your head, we were literally hacking with machetes. And trash like you wouldn’t believe—old clothes, beer bottles, bowling pins, just the weirdest junk you can imagine. But the worst thing we found was a dead deer. In the middle of July. And we’re hired to clear the lot, so we need to bag it and get it out of there. I won’t go into details, Mallory, but it was awful. And the thing I will never forget—and you hear this in movies all the time, but it’s true—the smell was horrible. It smelled like these pictures.”
“What should I do?”
“I don’t know.” He takes the stack of drawings and puts them at a distance, like maybe it’s not safe to be sitting so close to them. “Do you think Teddy’s okay?”
“I have no idea. It was really weird. His skin was broiling. And when I touched him, he didn’t feel like Teddy anymore. He felt like … something else.”
“Have you told his parents?”
“Tell them what? ‘I think your son is possessed by the ghost of Annie Barrett?’ I already tried. They freaked out.”
“But it’s different now. You have proof. All these new pictures. It’s like you said: Teddy couldn’t have drawn these without help.”
“But I can’t prove Anya helped him. I can’t prove she’s sneaking into my cottage and leaving them on my refrigerator. It sounds crazy.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“You don’t know his parents like I do. They won’t believe me. I need to keep digging, I need real proof.”
We’re drinking seltzers and sharing a large bowl of microwave popcorn—the best refreshments I could provide on short notice. I feel inadequate about my hosting skills, but Adrian doesn’t seem to mind. He updates me on the situation with the Spring Brook Public Library. His mother has started combing through the archives, but she hasn’t found anything yet. “She says the files are a mess. Land deeds, old newspapers, nothing’s organized. She thinks she’ll need another week.”
“I can’t wait another week, Adrian. This thing—this spirit or ghost, whatever it is—she’s getting inside my cottage. Some nights I feel her watching me.”