Page 104 of Coram House

He starts walking, slowly, bent against the wind. Toward the darkness. Toward the open water. Toward nothing.

He’s twenty feet away. Forty.

“Parker!” My voice is a sob.

The snow falls between us like a veil. And then he’s gone. There’s no crack. No splash. Just darkness. As if he was never there at all.

I have no idea how much time passes. A minute. An hour. Then voices. Shouts. The crunch of footsteps. Flashlights. My eyes don’t leave the darkness.

“Alex!” Someone calls my name over the wind, but I can’t look away. Strong hands grip my shoulders, turn me around.

I stare into Garcia’s face. I take in a ragged breath, as if I’m surfacing from underwater. Then I begin to shiver. “He’s gone,” I say through tears and chattering teeth.

“Russell Parker,” she says. It’s not a question. “On foot?”

I nod. “Out there.”

Someone drapes a blanket around my shoulders and I’m half-escorted, half-carried across the ice. I’m aware of Garcia shoutinginstructions as we go.Fan out along the shore. Set up a perimeter on the road. Crime scene. Boats. The storm.But I know they won’t find anything. Not on this side of the ice.

Garcia helps me into the back of an ambulance parked beside Coram House. Bill Campbell is already inside, a bandage taped over his forehead. He pulls down his oxygen mask. “I’m not riding with her,” he mumbles.

“Shut up,” Garcia says.

Their words are far away. I’m still out there on the ice, listening for the distant crack of the world breaking apart.

May 1, 1988—US District Courthouse

Karen Lafayette

Karen Lafayette:That’s the thing with anger—you have to figure out what to do with it. You control it or it will control you. I’m not talking about forgiveness—okay? Fuck forgiveness. I’m saying you have to make something with that rage. Do something. If you keep it inside, it will change you until you don’t even recognize yourself anymore.

July 31, 1968—Coram House

Tommy

It’s dark. Not outside. Outside there’s a full moon. The gravestones glow white on the black grass so they look like they’re floating. Some stones are so old you can barely read them. One just saysBabyon it. Like they didn’t care enough to give him a name.

Outside is noisy with summer sounds. The crickets are singing like crazy. In here, the only sound is breathing, which should be quiet, but there are too many of us. And anyways, the quiet doesn’t mean anything. Something could still be waiting in the dark. Listening for me to get out of bed just like I’m listening for it.

I pull the blanket up to my chin, even though I’m sticky with hot. But it doesn’t help. The darkness is inside already. I can feel it coming from all the scary places. Under the beds. Inside the cabinet with the door that never latches.

It’s all the new kid’s fault. He brought it in with him. The darkness. He says it’s slimy and slithery with sharp teeth. He says it lives in the lake but I can feel it breathing. It’s inside Coram House. I know it is. I try so hard not to think about it. Because I really have to pee. But I can’t put my legs down on the ground. Can’t walk through all that dark to get to the bathroom.

It’s just like today at the beach. Sister Cecile told me to get in the water with the others. I tried, but all I could think of was what was waiting in the down deep. Swimming and waiting. And I couldn’t move. I tried. I really did.There is nocan’tin the eyes of our Lord, SisterCecile said, right before she saidI’ll deal with you tomorrowin a voice that made my skin get goose bumps.

No, I wanted to say. Tomorrow, we’re going to build a fort. Deep in the woods with branches for a roof and sticky sap for glue. Or maybe burn out a hollow tree like the kid in that book. Catch one of the falcons that nests on the cliffs and teach it to hunt rabbits. It will be far away. So deep that no one will ever find us. Tomorrow we’re going to do it. Or maybe not tomorrow but a tomorrow that comes after that. One of these tomorrows, we’ll do it.

EPILOGUE

The packing tapescreams as it comes off the roll. That’s the last box, sealed shut. My suitcase is stacked at the foot of the bed and now my work is all packed away—binder organized, index cards wrapped in rubber bands, laptop zipped into its case. I’d hoped to leave yesterday, as soon as the police gave me the green light, but it was late by the time I got back from Xander’s.

He’d been waiting for me, standing outside in his driveway when I arrived. Like everyone else, he knew what had happened, wasn’t sure what to say. So we talked about the weather—cold—and about where I was going next—somewhere warm and then somewhere else.

I told Xander how, thanks to his newspaper clipping, I found Tommy’s name. Found out he was born in Port Henry, New York. He still has cousins alive, an aunt who’d come looking for him, but never found him. People who would have remembered him if given the chance.

He told me how the Coram House development is at a standstill, mired in red tape. I imagined the building years from now, standing on the hill, abandoned and half-finished, rusting steel beams sticking out like naked bones. Maybe it’s a more fitting end, but what a waste. When it was too cold to stand outside any longer, we hugged and said goodbye. I felt lighter leaving.

As I zip up my suitcase, a knock from downstairs makes me freeze, as if someone might see me up here. In the two weeks after that night on the ice, a few reporters had found my address and come knocking, but I’d ignored them. Finally, I’d taped a piece of paper to the door that said:I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation. I had read it and then cried.But they left me alone. Probably it would have petered out anyways. Another news cycle. Fresh blood somewhere else.

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