Read Online 999 by Al Sarrantonio - Free Book Online Page B

right. Once we get more electricity—”
    Graeme stabbed angrily at a key, and the E-mail vanished.
    “Maybe I am dead. Maybe we all are, and buried at Cross Hill.”
    Stephen backed off, shuddering. At such times he didn’t want to deal with his brother’s moods. He didn’t want to think He knows so much more than I do, he’s so much smarter than I am . He went to announce to the others, “Graeme’s getting weird over that computer shit. I think we should pull his plug.”
    Then there came the morning they couldn’t locate Graeme, calling for him up- and downstairs; calling for him out the windows, out the terrace doors overlooking the grove of ragged Chinese elms, and the weedy graveled lane known as Acacia Drive (though most of the acacia trees had sickened and died). Mother, her ashy-silvery hair swinging about her face, her girl’s forehead lined with vexation and worry, cupped her hands to her mouth and cried, “Gra-eme! Graeme! Where are you hiding? I insist you come here—at once.” As if it was a game of hide-and-seek she might bring to an abrupt end. Yet, like Father, who spent most of his waking hours on the third floor of the house, Mother was reluctant to venture outside; she shaded her eyes to squint toward the outbuildings, the old carriage house and the stable and barns with their rain-rotted, collapsing roofs, and in the direction of murky Crescent Pond, which was at the bottom of the hill, beyond Acacia Drive; but some timidity, or outright fear, prevented her from seeking Graeme in such likely places. After ten days at Cross Hill during which time she’d seen no one outside the family except hired help from Contracoeur, Mother was still wearing expensive, stylish city clothes; dresses, skirts and sweaters, not jeans (perhaps she owned none?) but silk slacks with matching shirts, impractical sling-back Italian sandals with prominent heels. Each morning, on even the most oppressive of mornings, she’d bravely made up her heart-shaped face into that tight, beautiful mask; though the skin of her throat was pallid, beginning to show signs of age. She wore her wedding rings, her square-cut emerald ring on her right hand, her jeweled wristwatch that sparkled on her small-boned wrist. In a breathy, almost coquettish voice Mother complained, “That boy! Graeme! He does these things to spite me.”
    We searched for Graeme all morning. By noon a fierce pale sun dominated the sky. How vast Cross Hill was, this “historic” estate that had gone to ruin; how many hiding places there were out-of-doors in the handsome old barns, in the rotting grape and wisteria arbors, in the evergreens bordering the house, and in the wild grasses, some of them as tall as five feet, in the park surrounding the house; in the derelict greenhouses through whose smashed windows black-feathered birds (starlings, grackles, crows?) rose hastily at our approach, like departing spirits of the dead. “Where is Graeme?” Rosalind shouted after them. “Where is he hiding?”
    By chance it was Rosalind who finally found Graeme squatting amid marsh grass and desiccated bamboo shoots on the far side of the Crescent Pond, staring like one hypnotized at the spider-stippled surface of the pond. “Graeme, we’ve been looking for you everywhere! Didn’t you hear us calling?” Rosalind cried in exasperation. She waved to Stephen, to call him over, wading through the thigh-high, sword-like grass. A look in Graeme’s pinched, pale face frightened Rosalind and so she continued to chide him. “Making us all look for you . Making us all worry . I hope you’re satisfied.”
    Stephen trotted over, panting. He wore a frayed T-shirt, jeans splashed with mud the color of fresh manure. Rosalind noticed a thinly bleeding scratch above his left eyebrow that must have been made by a sharp branch. “Hey, kid? You okay?” Stephen asked.
    Seeing that his hiding place had been found out, Graeme mumbled something evasive. He stood, but not very