has the print of someone's lips. Amanda holds it up and sniffs it.
In the master bedroom, the blankets are thrown back from one bed but the other is still made. An old clock has wound down, dying three minutes past eleven. An oval dresser mirror leans away from the wall, its left half broken away. Rusted hairpins lie beneath. A closet door swings from one hinge. Metal hangers dangle between coats and dresses with ragged sleeves.
Michael leans over a nightstand to pick up a wallet. It's the one Mr. Macek had taken from his overalls when the police came. He flips it open. It has long ago been emptied of cash, but he grins and slips it in his pocket anyway.
"What are you doing?â asks Jeremy.
"I'm just taking a little something away, that's all. A real-life murderer's wallet."
"You can't just take that."
"It's not like he'll need it. Guy's long been executed."
The walls of the house creak as though resisting a heavy wind. Through the windows, however, the leaves hang motionless.
"Put it back.â Jeremy points, his finger shaking.
"It's like robbing a grave,â says Amanda from the doorway. âIt isn't right."
Michael laughs and steps backward. He jumps up onto a bed and spreads open his arms. âYou gonna take it from me?"
The house wishes the ceiling hadn't already collapsed above him some half a decade ago.
"Come get it, Amanda,â Michael says, swaying his hips.
Jeremy and Amanda trade glances and frown. Then they both step forward.
The bed creaks beneath Michael's weight as he bounces on his heels. The tired wooden frame finally gives way and he falls backward to the floor, crunching on broken glass. He groans though he isn't cut. The house had hoped otherwise but then it realizes that it doesn't want to carry a corpse to Florida.
Jeremy pulls the wallet from Michael's hand and sets it back into the dustless square on the nightstand while Michael staggers to his feet.
"I could be dead,â he whines. âStupid kill house."
Neither of his friends say anything. Quiet and maybe embarrassed, they return to the kitchen and climb back out through the window.
Michael stomps the faucet before slithering through.
* * * *
The hardest thing about crawling across the country is keeping plumb. Even if you're a good 1921 Craftsman-style bungalow, your beams and crosspieces will be torqued to their limits over all that terrain in all that weather.
Tornadoes hit in Georgia, some forty years after the house leaves Ohio. By now, the house is gray and its siding curls at the ends like a dead man's fingernails. The wind, green with stolen earth, blasts through the broken windows and tears the curtains away. Moss on the roof peels from the corner like a scab before tumbling into the vortex.
The hail rattles against the roof. The rain shoots sideways through the door. The newspapers dissolve. The couch bloats.
With nowhere for the wind to grab hold, the tornadoes move on to more satisfying victims. They wobble away, leaving the house bewildered in the middle of a field.
The house gathers its wits and crawls away through the broken branches, onward to Florida.
* * * *
There aren't houses like this house near Fernandina Beach, and you'd think it would be embarrassed. It isn't. The clean adobe houses in the retirement community are full of Formica and fiberglass, slathered pink and teal with concrete seashells hanging by their doors. They've never had a baby born inside. They've never seen a really good teenage argument or a night of gin spilled in the master bedroom. Their pastel walls flicker with reruns.
The house sticks to the woods on the edge of the development, circling from the north and sensing the last of the Macek family, the commander of the toy soldiers, Julian Macek.
* * * *
Of course he likes to walk still, young Julian. He always liked it back in Ohio, even in the middle of the night. He'd sneak out of his window and patrol his town like an amateur watchman. Of course he still does
In the master bedroom, the blankets are thrown back from one bed but the other is still made. An old clock has wound down, dying three minutes past eleven. An oval dresser mirror leans away from the wall, its left half broken away. Rusted hairpins lie beneath. A closet door swings from one hinge. Metal hangers dangle between coats and dresses with ragged sleeves.
Michael leans over a nightstand to pick up a wallet. It's the one Mr. Macek had taken from his overalls when the police came. He flips it open. It has long ago been emptied of cash, but he grins and slips it in his pocket anyway.
"What are you doing?â asks Jeremy.
"I'm just taking a little something away, that's all. A real-life murderer's wallet."
"You can't just take that."
"It's not like he'll need it. Guy's long been executed."
The walls of the house creak as though resisting a heavy wind. Through the windows, however, the leaves hang motionless.
"Put it back.â Jeremy points, his finger shaking.
"It's like robbing a grave,â says Amanda from the doorway. âIt isn't right."
Michael laughs and steps backward. He jumps up onto a bed and spreads open his arms. âYou gonna take it from me?"
The house wishes the ceiling hadn't already collapsed above him some half a decade ago.
"Come get it, Amanda,â Michael says, swaying his hips.
Jeremy and Amanda trade glances and frown. Then they both step forward.
The bed creaks beneath Michael's weight as he bounces on his heels. The tired wooden frame finally gives way and he falls backward to the floor, crunching on broken glass. He groans though he isn't cut. The house had hoped otherwise but then it realizes that it doesn't want to carry a corpse to Florida.
Jeremy pulls the wallet from Michael's hand and sets it back into the dustless square on the nightstand while Michael staggers to his feet.
"I could be dead,â he whines. âStupid kill house."
Neither of his friends say anything. Quiet and maybe embarrassed, they return to the kitchen and climb back out through the window.
Michael stomps the faucet before slithering through.
* * * *
The hardest thing about crawling across the country is keeping plumb. Even if you're a good 1921 Craftsman-style bungalow, your beams and crosspieces will be torqued to their limits over all that terrain in all that weather.
Tornadoes hit in Georgia, some forty years after the house leaves Ohio. By now, the house is gray and its siding curls at the ends like a dead man's fingernails. The wind, green with stolen earth, blasts through the broken windows and tears the curtains away. Moss on the roof peels from the corner like a scab before tumbling into the vortex.
The hail rattles against the roof. The rain shoots sideways through the door. The newspapers dissolve. The couch bloats.
With nowhere for the wind to grab hold, the tornadoes move on to more satisfying victims. They wobble away, leaving the house bewildered in the middle of a field.
The house gathers its wits and crawls away through the broken branches, onward to Florida.
* * * *
There aren't houses like this house near Fernandina Beach, and you'd think it would be embarrassed. It isn't. The clean adobe houses in the retirement community are full of Formica and fiberglass, slathered pink and teal with concrete seashells hanging by their doors. They've never had a baby born inside. They've never seen a really good teenage argument or a night of gin spilled in the master bedroom. Their pastel walls flicker with reruns.
The house sticks to the woods on the edge of the development, circling from the north and sensing the last of the Macek family, the commander of the toy soldiers, Julian Macek.
* * * *
Of course he likes to walk still, young Julian. He always liked it back in Ohio, even in the middle of the night. He'd sneak out of his window and patrol his town like an amateur watchman. Of course he still does
Similar Books
