“Claude, I think Ant might know where Maureen is.”
He leaned back. “Why do you think that?”
I told him about the snippet of conversation I’d overheard on the party line.
He shook his head. “That could be about anything.”
“It could be. Or it could be about Maureen. That’s why I stopped by. I’m going into the tunnels to listen at Ant’s door. I want you to come with.” I paused, studying him. I didn’t want to tell on Maureen, but I wanted Claude to know what he’d be signing up for. “I’m also going to go to that door that Junie opened that night, the one with the twenty-three over the top. I think it might be Jerome Nillson’s place. Things have been going south ever since we opened that door.”
His eyes slid away and then back, like he wanted to ask me something but thought better of it. “If you can wait until tomorrow, I can go with,” he finally said. “It’s game night here.”
Every Sunday the Zieglers played board games. Sometimes I’d join them. “It’s okay,” I said, sounding much braver than I felt. “I’ll be fine. It’s just the tunnels. If I don’t come back, you know where to look.”
The driveway was empty when I returned home, which meant Dad was still out. Junie was planted in front of the TV. I told her I was heading to the basement to do laundry. She didn’t even glance up, lights dancing across her face, hypnotizing her. Mom was certainly in bed.
I ran upstairs to grab dirty clothes from my hamper and Junie’s, making sure I had her DADDY’S FISHING BUDDY tee. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. My clock radio caught my eye, reminding me that I’d forgotten to record songs off Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. I’d really wanted to tape the Ohio Players’ “Who’d She Coo?” before it dropped off the charts. I had my cassette recorder right next to the clock radio, all ready to go, but I’d missed the whole show. I reached for a pencil and paper to write myself a reminder note for next time when I realized what I was doing.
I was putting off entering the tunnels.
Despite what I’d told Claude, I was terrified at what I’d find, especially since I’d made up my mind between his house and mine that I wouldn’t just listen, that I’d bring the Pantown skeleton key and break into Ant’s house and then the one I believed to be Sheriff Nillson’s. My heart lurched sideways just thinking about it. But if Maureen was locked up in one of those places, I had to free her.
I was hit with a memory of Maureen, Claude, and me, all three of us playing at Maureen’s. It was after her dad had run out but before her house had totally filled up. Amber-colored beads separated the kitchen from the dining room back then, and you could still see the wall decorations in the living room, including the massive fork and spoon and Mrs. Hansen’s pretty macramé hangings. The day I was remembering, Maureen had us playing Bewitched. You’d think because it was her house and her idea that she’d choose to be Samantha, but nope. She wanted to be Endora because she was “the only fun one.” Claude was Darrin, and Maureen let me be Samantha, which meant I got to shimmy my nose and cast spells.
“Make us disappear!” she’d hollered.
I’d wiggled my nose, and her and Claude dived under a blanket, giggling so hard that Maureen snorted. When I yanked off the blanket, Claude’s hair zapped with electricity. Maureen had been white-blonde then, her hair twisted into the pretty french braids Mrs. Hansen liked to give her.
“Make me float!” Maureen yelled next.
I wiggled my nose again, delighted at the game. Maureen lay across a dining room chair, stiff as a board. “Throw the blanket over my waist,” she commanded Claude.
He did.
If you squinted, she looked like a hovering magician’s assistant.
“You’re the best witch ever,” she’d said to me, eyes closed, her smile wide.
When Maureen said things, they felt true.
I unhooked the skeleton key as I passed through the kitchen and dropped it on top of the basket of dirty clothes. I was so deep in my head that I didn’t see the person on our basement couch until my foot hit the carpeting.
CHAPTER 23
“I heard noises,” Mom said softly from her perch on the edge of the sofa.
I set down the laundry basket slowly, the back of my neck cold, blood purple-thumping in my veins. Mom never came down here, not since the accident. My hand flew to my twisted ear. She looked so fragile on the couch, her skin baby-bird white with blue veins showing through.