Chapter 16 Jill
Jill
The yacht club was still closed on Tuesday.
Sailing classes had been canceled for the week, and swim practice wouldn’t resume until Wednesday at the earliest.
The missing boys had not been found, and with every passing hour, the chances of their recovery shrank.
“It’s horrible,” Jill’s mom whispered into the phone on her nightstand. She’d left her bedroom door cracked, and Jill tiptoed
close enough to overhear the one-sided conversation. “They found pieces of orange fabric on the beach this morning. From a
life jacket. No, there was nothing else. I don’t understand it, either.”
Jill pressed her cheek against the wall and remembered how Charles’s boat had been so close to the one that had capsized with
no warning.
“Tony Pulcino was Charles’s skipper, and he didn’t see anything strange,” her mom went on. “He said as soon as the other boat
separated from theirs, it fell behind and got pushed into the fog. I guess they caught the wind and got turned around.” A
pause. “Well, if what Charles said is true, they must’ve got hit by a propeller. I know. It’s awful.”
Charles told his mom about the finger, thought Jill.
“She’s doing okay,” her mother said, still speaking in a hushed tone. “Una called to ask about her, too. She wanted to know
if she could take the kids to the movies, but I told her I had plans for J.J. and Jill. She went on and on about how Jill
is super allergic to poison ivy and about the wasps she’s seen flying around the lot next door. It was bizarre.” After another
pause, she said, “No, I’m doing cold calls from home today. Stop over after you see Elaine if you want.”
Her mother hung up, and Jill slipped into the bathroom.
In the mirror, she saw a girl with a sleep-swollen face and mussed hair. She took her brush out of the top drawer and began
working through the tangles. The stiff bristles crunched as they passed over a mass of knotted hair at the nape of her neck.
She had to use her fingers to pull some of the strands apart. Jill’s scalp prickled with pain, but she kept going.
When she finished, her hair was smooth, and her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. She blinked them away and filled her cup
with water. She drank the water in three gulps and felt a little better. After wiping her mouth on the hand towel, she stared
at her reflection, wondering if she looked like someone who knew two dead boys. Boys whose bodies might have been mangled
by propellor blades. Or sharks.
Jill imagined being interviewed by a reporter. She thought of how she’d describe the fog and the shrillness of Charles’s scream.
She’d explain how it had given her goose bumps. How she’d been so scared.
The reporter would hang on her every word.
All her friends would see her on TV. They’d tell her how good she looked.
They’d admire her big hoop earrings and her full-bodied hair.
They’d tell her she looked a little like Michelle Pfeiffer.
The next time she ran into Aaron, he’d say, “I saw you on TV,” and smile at her in a way that meant he liked her back.
Then he’d take her hand, pull her behind the snack bar, and kiss her.
“Breakfast!” her mom called from the kitchen.
Jill shoved her brush into the drawer and exited the bathroom just as Justin zipped past her down the hall, Lady right on
his heels.
To Jill’s surprise, there were mini cinnamon rolls on her plate along with a small mound of scrambled eggs.
“I thought you could use a treat today,” her mother said, pouring orange juice into Jill’s empty glass.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Jill made a show of eating her eggs first. She tried not to wolf them down, even though she really wanted to bite into a cinnamon
roll while it was still warm. The moment her mother left the room to call for J.J., she grabbed one of the pastries and shoved
the whole thing into her mouth. As the sugary, buttery sweetness coated her tongue and sank into the grooves between her teeth,
her entire body tingled with pleasure.
Her mother returned to the kitchen and busied herself at the sink. A few minutes later, J.J. shuffled in.
“Why can’t I sleep in for once?” he complained. “We have the day off.”
“From the yacht club, but not from other things.”
Jill wanted to tell J.J. that Una had offered to take them to the movies, but if she said a word, her mother would know that
she’d been eavesdropping.
Why did Una mention poison ivy? And wasps?
Jill picked up the second cinnamon roll.
She wanted to eat it slowly, nibble by nibble, until only the central spiral was left.
When that was gone, she wanted to lick her icing-flecked fingers, one by one.
But she was afraid of drawing her mother’s attention, of being reminded for the umpteenth time to eat like a lady, so she took a demure bite and watched her brother’s face darken with indignation.
“All of my friends are sleeping in—probably Jill’s, too. What do we have to do today? Wait! Are we going to look for the kids
from Huntington?”
“Other people are doing that. Anyway, when something like this happens, it’s best to stay busy.”
J.J. groaned. “Lemme guess. Chores.”
“Yard work. Paid yard work.”
At this, J.J. became more alert. Jill knew he was thinking about the boom box he wanted to buy. “Here?”
“No, at Mrs. Smith’s. She’s offered to pay you and Jill ten dollars an hour.”
J.J. and Jill exchanged stupefied glances. Ten dollars an hour was a fortune. But working for Mrs. Smith? The idea was insane.
Other than the small lawn in front, her yard was an untamable, frightening place. Her house was scary. And she was a mystery—a
ghostly presence creeping around behind gray walls.
“Did you talk to her?” Jill asked when she got her breath back.
“She put a note in our mailbox. She wants you to start in the back garden. Pull weeds, cut vines, and clear the path. The
door to the garden will be unlocked. You’ll need gloves, garbage bags, clippers, and a rake. I’ll ring the bell when it’s
time for lunch.”
J.J. waved a forkful of eggs in the air. “What garden? It’s all pricker bushes and poison ivy. We’d be better off with a flamethrower.”
“Start with the vines on the fence. You’ll figure out what to do after that.”
Jill pictured the skinny windows on Mrs. Smith’s second floor. “Will she be watching us?”
Her mother scowled. “I’m sure she has better things to do with her time. Just focus on your work, and before you know it, you’ll have earned thirty dollars. If she likes what she sees, she might hire you again.”
As much as Jill wanted the money for her typewriter fund, she didn’t want to go to Mrs. Smith’s. She didn’t want to step foot
on her property.
How could her mother make them do this after what happened at the regatta? Charles’s mom would never force him to work for
their crazy neighbor. He was probably still in his pajamas, watching Star Wars or one of the other hundreds of movies he owned.
If he wanted a typewriter, he’d get it. He wouldn’t have to do a thing. No chores. No babysitting. No yard work.
J.J. finished his breakfast and pushed away from the table. “Fine. Let’s get this crap over with.”
“After you put your dishes in the dishwasher. And, Jill.” Her mother tapped her own head. “Put your hair in a ponytail so it doesn’t
hang in your face.”
Jill and J.J. didn’t speak as they collected their tools and trudged up the driveway. Jill was scared. She could sense the
house watching them. Did her brother feel it, too? How the window on the top floor was like an eye, gazing down at them?
The electric gate across Mrs. Smith’s driveway had been drawn back, leaving a gap just big enough for the garbage can. Jill
knew the door to the garden couldn’t be on the side of the house facing the Bernsteins’ or she would’ve noticed it before.
That meant it was on the side bordering the woods.
“This way,” she said, leading her brother past the front porch and over the lawn.
“There’s a door under all this shit?” J.J. dropped his tools and stared at the mass of vines covering the length of the fence.
“Let’s just cut until we see it.”
Muttering under this breath, J.J. picked up his clippers and began severing vines. It wasn’t long before he said, “Found it!”
The door was made of wood so dark that it was almost black. The metalwork was rusted. Vines had wormed furrows into its surface.
The pitted handle had a serpentine shape. Above the handle was a keyhole.
“Maybe it’ll be locked. Then we can go home.”
Jill didn’t share her brother’s wish. If the door was locked, her mother would make them ask Mrs. Smith for the key.
She stepped forward, placed her gloved hands flat against the wood, and pushed. The door moved inward by an inch at most.
“The vines are in the way,” J.J. said. “Lemme try.”
He rammed the door with his shoulder until the wood groaned and the vines shuddered. The door moved a few more inches and
then stuck fast.
Jill peered into the opening. She saw tall grass in the foreground and vine-covered bushes in the background. She told J.J.
to keep hacking away at the vines while she attempted to slice through the clumps of grass behind the door.
It took them twenty minutes to create an opening wide enough to accommodate their bodies. After hesitating a long moment,
they slipped into a wilderness that bore no resemblance to a garden.
“Holy shit,” J.J. muttered.
Spread out before them was a riot of weeds, prickly shrubs, and more vines. It seemed as impenetrable as a fairy-tale briar
patch. Every bush was festooned in thorns or draped in poison ivy.
Seeing no evidence of garden beds or ornamental plants, Jill said, “Should we make a clearing around the door?”
“I guess.”
Jill yanked out handfuls of crabgrass and pigweed while J.J. attacked the winter creeper. He wasn’t allergic to poison ivy, so he volunteered to tackle those vines as well, leaving Jill free to exhume what appeared to be a brick pathway from beneath a heavy blanket of moss.