Lancaster Green Chapter 16
They walked out of the building, but James paused before he got to the car. “Hey, I’m going to take a walk,” he said.
Bradley looked concerned, his eyes darting toward the lake. “No, I’m fine,” James said. “I just want to take a quick walk. I can get back to headquarters, you don’t have to stay.”
He wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to do that, but that was a problem to solve later. Bradley glanced at his watch and shrugged. “Alright,” he said.
James started down the sidewalk, only slightly surprised when Bradley followed him. “I’m sorry about the lake,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“And your phone. Is it fucked?”
“Yeah.”
They walked quietly, but it wasn’t the same awkward, tight silence he’d felt on the car ride back to headquarters the other day, sopping wet and unsure what to do. James walked toward the main road, then down a little ways until he reached another side street. He turned down it, muscle memory leading him. It was beautiful out today, the sun warm when it came through the patches of trees, and a slight breeze that made James suddenly realize he’d lost his blue scarf in the lake yesterday. He walked silently past familiar front yards and others that had transformed over the years. And clearly Bradley could tell that he needed that silence, because he just walked along next to him.
And then James stopped. The condo was empty, it had been for probably two years now. But unlike that house in the woods that Madelyn was still dealing with, no wildlife had gotten in here. The yard was still being cared for by the condo association that covered all five of the buildings that lined this street. It could be a home. Only, instead of being crowned with brightly colored flowers and lawn flamingoes like it always had been, there was nothing here.
The house itself had been a farmhouse for the first two hundred years of its life, and the inspiration for the design of all the other freestanding condos in this little community. But theirs had been the original.
“I grew up in that house,” James said, looking directly at the front door. The cement stairs were chipped and the paint on the door was dingy. There were a few other signs of the lack of habitation if he looked closely, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Bradley, meanwhile, stepped a little closer to it. There were no sidewalks down here and the road was silent as they stood in the front yard. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. My parents sold it a couple years ago, but apparently the new owners never moved in.”
The sides were overgrown, that was the issue. That was what stuck out so badly to James. Not the dingy paint or the closed shades. It was the vines trailing their way up the side of the house. His dad would snap if he saw that, he spent half his summer every year cutting those things down.
“It’s quiet,” Bradley said.
“Yeah,” James said with a laugh. “That was my dad’s condition for moving to Lancaster when my mom was pregnant with me. And he stood by it, he said he needed the quiet if he was going to survive Mom’s family.”
Bradley smiled wryly, then walked into the side yard. Great. James reluctantly followed. He could only hope that any neighbors peeking out their windows would recognize him so they could say his name specifically when they called the police on them for trespassing.
In the backyard, the neglect was far more noticeable. His dad’s shed was still there, but the shingles had caved in on one side of the roof and those that remained were crumbling around the jagged hole. The swing set his parents never took down was still there. It was an old wooden structure and James had basically lived on it from the age of six into his teenage years. Long after he’d outgrown it, the swing set stayed up for when the occasional other kids would come over. His dad had even maintained it to an extent. James could remember him pushing Penny on one of the swings as Celia sat in the shade nearby, heavily pregnant with Krissy.
James had a feeling his parents had tried for more kids after him, but had been unsuccessful. They never talked about it, but the fact that James had no siblings never made complete sense to him, given how much they adored children and big families.
“That’s my bedroom window,” he said, pointing up at the second floor. The shades were down and part of him wanted to see what was in there now. Probably nothing.
“Did you bring those plastic stars from there when you moved?” Bradley asked.
“Lava. Lamp.”
James looked at the old screen porch. He walked over and gave the door an experimental tug. It was locked, of course. And besides, what was he going to do if it wasn’t? They were already late getting back to headquarters. And there was no way they wouldn’t get caught breaking in. They were pushing their luck already being back here.
“When did they move out of here?” Bradley asked.
“Two years ago,” James replied. “They got an apartment while they looked for their retirement home. And then apparently found it in Ohio.”
He felt ridiculous, but if they were already back here, then so be it. He walked over to the swing set, gave the ropes on one of the swings a test tug, and when they held firm, he sat down on it. “Dad and Uncle Robby built this,” he said.
Bradley did the same with the swing next to his and sat down too. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Gabriella’s dad. He was a good guy.”
They sat for a moment, swinging slightly as James looked around. They needed to get back to headquarters, but he was hesitant to leave.
“Can I tell you something really stupid?” he asked suddenly.
“You never needed permission before.”
“Fuck off,” James said. “I, um…this is so embarrassing.”
“You don’t have to-”
“No, I need to tell someone. I have money in savings that I’ve had for emergencies since I was seventeen. And I’ve been really slowly adding to it over the years in case I need it. And it was in a, um, what do you call it, the accounts with the really good interest rates, but horrible tax penalties?”
“IRA?”
“Maybe? I don’t remember, it’s been so long and my mom helped me set it up because I was underage. I emptied it and I was going to give it all to Adele.”
Saying her name felt like drinking poison. “Amelia found it and gave it back to me. It’s still sitting in a backpack in my bedroom and I’m too embarrassed to go back to the bank and open a new account for it. But I’m fucked when I pay my taxes this year. And I know I’m going to do it wrong.”
It felt so petty to be concerned about taxes of all things, but this one had been scratching at the back of his mind as a failure among failures here.
James groaned. “I’m going to get fucking audited.”
“Join the club,” Bradley murmured, inspecting a messy star James had carved into the swing set thirty years earlier.
They needed to get back, but the air was just warm enough and even after all this time, the yard smelled exactly like it always had. He both wanted to leave immediately and stay here for the rest of his life.
Then the decision was made for him. “JAMES MCMANUS!” someone called out from the house next door.
They both jumped and James looked over to see Mrs. Applewood, his lifelong neighbor, standing out on her balcony, waving to him.
“I know you’re not supposed to be back there!” she called through a laugh. “It’s nice to see you, but get going before the Sawyers notice. They just moved in and they’re touchy, they’ll call the police on your ass.”
James laughed slightly and stood up, Bradley following. “I will!” he called over. “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Applewood!”
“Tell your parents hi for me!” she called back, then disappeared into her house.
“We should get back before anything new comes in,” James said, already feeling slightly guilty for the time they’d taken out here.
They started walking back in the direction they’d come from. “I haven’t told my parents what happened,” James said, absently dodging the sewer grate he’d tripped over just once when he was ten.
“You’re an adult, you don’t have to.”
Right, Bradley was not close at all with any of his family. And he was right, but it was more complicated than that. “But how can I not?” James asked. “How can I continue to have a relationship with them when this huge thing happened to me and I don’t tell them?”
Bradley shrugged. “Do you really think I’m the person to tell you what to do?”
He was right though. And James was sure that other people would tell him the same thing. He didn’t have to tell anyone else in the world what had happened to him if he didn’t want to. Everyone who was required to know knew. And they said it didn’t change how they felt, but this kind of thing was also a part of their everyday world.
Yeah, his parents knew about the supernatural, his mother had grown up in it. But there was a big difference between a ghost in your house and supernatural mind control that forced someone to obey every word said by or on behalf of someone else. How would you ever regain respect for that person, even if it was your own son?
