Kay happens to be hanging out in the library, taking a break with a cup of tea, when her parents arrive for the tour. They made no appointment, at least none that she’s aware of, but they have brought Noah, whom Kay is genuinely overjoyed to see. They’ve spoken on the phone a handful of times, but he hasn’t exactly been talkative during these occasions. Then again, the whole situation, she would be the first to admit, is more than a little awkward.
But her folks are seemingly in much calmer spirits than usual today, not to mention genuinely somewhat curious about this place. Or something to that effect — though dutifully traipsing along for the entirety of this tour with Grace, and, she has heard, taking photos, asking some questions here and there, whenever Kay spots either of them, they’re both wearing these weird expressions. Her mother’s aura is the brisk, harried, I’m-going-to-deal-with-this-nasty-piece-of-business energy that is singular somehow to a certain brand of determined grandma. And meanwhile her father shuffles a step or two behind, arms crossed or hands in pockets, with a bemused, vaguely disbelieving smirk.
They do ask to see some of her work, however, which is something, during a moment where they’ve reached that third story work room. Lips pursed, they nod and say hmm, seeming to approve, or if nothing else to appreciate that she hasn’t just been screwing off up here the entire time. And there aren’t any scenes, or anything like that, no blowups. Although Noah is in a curiously pensive mood throughout, which Kay attributes to him missing her a great deal, and lacking an adult’s coping mechanisms for dealing with these thoughts.
This is one reason, apart from her own homesickness, and feelings of missing him, that she goes out of her way to interact with Noah for as long as she can in this library. Having finished their tour, her parents are a bit antsy to get out of here — based upon body cues, that is, Kay surmises, for they haven’t come out and said as much — but Kay is able to talk them into trying out some of the admittedly adventurous fare over in the café, while she hangs out with her son for a while.
It’s only twenty minutes, maybe, but it’s something. He still isn’t saying much, though displaying a great deal of interest in that wall of board games, just outside the library, which the doorway has been cut into. Finding for example this New Kids On The Block offering to be giggle inducing, even though he’s far too young to even know who they are, and for that matter even she almost is. Otherwise, he is either tremendously interested or making a great show of displaying tremendous interest in the dusty old tomes, the tawdry romance novels and golden era science fiction paperbacks, upon their return to this library. Eventually she just leaves him to his own devices to wander around, as she dips out for a tea, then rejoins Denise and some others, standing in a crude arc near the library’s back end, between the furniture and the back hallway entrance. They are loitering here still, rehashing the day’s events, when her parents re-emerge, drifting through that board game doorway.
“Well, I think we’re gonna pack it in,” Pamela informs Kay, before calling for Noah. During which time her dad continues to wear that semi-bewildered smirk, allowing his stares to rest on people and objects for a couple seconds longer than is customary. Although he does dip his head once in a nod and sling a little wave over to Tony, who’s thumbing through some kind of art book in an easy chair. Kay is finding that while she has said nothing to no one, not even Denise, about having an interest in Tony, that people are kind of picking up on this anyway, and rumors are beginning to swirl. Rumors which must have even reached her folks.
“Well, okay, um…I really appreciate you guys coming out!” Kay babbles. She also finds that, having set her empty tea mug down on this nearby wooden barstool, one which has been painted a soothing lime green for use as an end table, that she has no idea what to do with her hands, and is formlessly rubbing them together.
“Yeah,” Pamela snaps, somewhere halfway between agitated and bored. She casts her disapproving eyes around the room, lingering just long enough to make her point clear in case anyone was wondering. Yet this is a situation where Kay is feeling uncomfortable enough to more wish they would just get out of here, rather than working up any anger toward the woman.
“Come here, Noah!” Kay cheerfully calls out, and kneels down to hug him as he draws near. “Mommy’s gonna miss you! Well, I mean…mommy already does miss you, but…this is just something I have to do okay? I’ll be home before you know it.”
At first Noah just nods, looking vaguely pensive, while Pamela is telling Denise something about, “see ya when we see ya,” with her own little wave, and they move incrementally toward the doorway. But then Noah speaks up, asking, “have you seen your doom statue yet?”
Kay’s jaw flies open, as she takes a moment to compose herself and respond. “My doom statue? Why on earth would you ask about that, Noah?”
“You said I could come visit you at your doom statue,” Noah continues to croak, though his face is nearly expressionless.
“Noah!” she shouts.
“Yeah ’cause you will be in your doom statue soon and you said I could come visit you,” he tells her.
More rattled than she would have ever guessed possible by his strange, if characteristically childlike pronouncements, she grabs Noah with both hands, one on each arm, and fixes him with her most serious expression. “Noah! You stop talking like that right this instant! Do you hear me? I’m not going anywhere!”
By nightfall, a number of them have gathered in hers and Denise’s cabin, for an alcohol fueled recap of the day’s events. Jeremy isn’t drinking anything, only pacing endlessly along the hardwood floors, and Kay stopped drinking quite a while ago, is tucked under some heavy blankets in her bed. She isn’t trying to sleep, but is so preoccupied still by that conversation with Noah that she can’t stop replaying this scene in her head — even as it creeps her out to a progressively greater degree. By now it is well past eleven, and while some have left, Lydia, Tom and Liam remain seated around the cabin’s lone table, as the Garverick sisters lean against nearby walls, bouncing anecdotes and commentary off one another. Every light is blazing, and though many are thoroughly exhausted, this soiree shows no signs of abating.
Or it was on the verge of breaking up, maybe, at least until a breathless Grace barges onto the scene, explaining that a handful of them had just seen the tall man. She, Kathy Drucker, Marcus, Jen and Rebecca were sitting out on the roof behind the third story work room, sharing a couple bottles of wine, when Kathy noticed something glowing in this sickly greenish-blue color out by the pond.
“It was him!” Grace explains, somehow appearing shaken up and giddy all at once, offering her customary red-lipsticked smile, yet as though also on the verge of passing out. “We thought you should know.”
“You’re kidding!” Emily says, then glances around at the others to add, “so see? I’m not crazy. His face…it was all lit up, right? Almost like a…like a light shining upward from his collar, that kind of look? And what about the trench coat and top hat?”
Grace nods and replies, “yeah, he had on his trench coat and top hat, um…but yeah, I suppose you could say that about the light, it does seem to kind of shine upward…”
“It looked like a light shining up from his collar?” Denise says, dripping sarcasm, “so then, it, like, could have actually been, you know, a light shining up from his collar? AKA some dumbass kid’s fucking prank? This is one leading theory, anyway.”
“No, I don’t think so,” her sister replies, negating this with a violent series of head shakes. Then turns to Grace for confirmation, asking, “am I right?” To which Grace just uneasily smiles.
“Hey, you know what I just realized?” Jeremy says, as he continues to pace around, “we never did figure out who that William Allensworth character was, we kind of got sidetracked that day at the library.”
“Anything useful in this library? You think about that?” Tom Drucker asks, the first he’s said since Grace burst upon the seen. Otherwise he has continued to offer his standard unreadable wry half-smile, sipping at a black coffee, even at this late hour.
“Eh, I mean, no. I already looked,” Jeremy tells him, then adds, almost as if only reminding and reassuring himself, “I’m gonna check in town tomorrow. Well, no, they’re closed Sundays. Monday, though.”
“The other thing is, I’m not sure if you could tell the other night,” Grace continues explaining, “but you can hear him, like, talking, except it sounds like this staticky…I don’t know, kind of like the staticky sound from a fast food drive through speaker, you know? You can’t make out any of it.”
“Right, so what became of this…character?” Liam speaks at last, having studied their faces all this time, with chin in hand.
Grace looks his way, one side of her face again just barely raised in a shaky smile. “He just keeps pacing around the pond, and talking, and then at some point wanders off into the woods.”
Denise is fired up enough to rustle troops for an expedition out to the pond area, one which ultimately proves fruitless. Kay, feeling too weary to leave her bed, begs off of this adventure, and shuts her eyes against the bright overhead lights. Only Emily and Liam remain behind, chatting in low voices at the small round wooden table. She has no trouble falling asleep, though it’s a fitful one, as for whatever reason her jaw is just killing her now. She figures it’s probably the byproduct of talking so much today, and is eventually able to drop off for good.
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