Chapter 14 - The Tear Gets Bigger
Evelyn had both hands flat on the double door. Her maroon dress was pulled tight across her shoulders with the push. I could hear my mom crying on the other side, that thin sound through wood, and Milo on the floor by the trim trying to get his knee under him again.
Evelyn's hair had come loose from where she always pulled it back. A piece stuck to her cheek. She didn't fix it. She leaned her whole weight in and the left door moved another inch.
"Stop," Milo said. His voice cracked. He grabbed at her ankle.
She kicked back without looking down. Not hard enough to make him yell, just enough to knock his hand off. The brass handle on the right door clinked as the doors shook in the frame.
My mom called out again. "Nora? Milo?"
I was still against the wallpaper. My back was on the flowers, red and green on that light paper, and I could feel the torn edge under my shoulder blade. It itched. The air coming out of that slit smelled old and sweet and wrong, like pennies in a drawer.
Evelyn glanced at me. Just her eyes. "Stay there."
That was the moment I understood she couldn't hold both doors and hold us. She had to choose. Her hands were busy. Her eyes kept cutting from Milo to me to the gap that was still open between the doors, maybe two inches now, dark inside.
Milo looked at me too. His lip was bleeding from where he'd hit the floor. He mouthed one word. He didn't make sound. Go.
I didn't go. I turned sideways and dug my fingers into the tear.
The wallpaper was tougher than I thought. It didn't want to give. I got my nails under the loose edge where the blood had already softened it and I pulled down. A strip about as long as my hand came away with a dry ripping sound. Underneath was dark plaster and something damp. The lock of blonde hair hung out farther now, stuck to the blood. More blood welled along the edge and ran down in a fresh line over the old dried one.
Evelyn heard it. "Don't touch that."
I pulled again. This time I used both hands. I braced my thumb on the wood trim the way I'd done when I was crying that first evening, and I tore sideways. The paper split up to my eye level. Red flowers tore in half. The hole was suddenly as wide as my face. Cold air pushed out of it against my cheeks.
My mom made a noise on the other side of the double doors, like she'd heard the rip and knew what it meant.
Evelyn let go of the left door with one hand and lunged for my wrist. The left door bounced back open three inches. Light from inside — a low yellow bulb — cut out into the hallway across the dark floor.
Milo moved. He didn't get up all the way. He scrambled on his hands and knees and threw his shoulder into Evelyn's legs from behind. She stumbled forward into the doors and caught herself on the brass handles. Her nails scraped.
"Run," he told me, but he was already running. He shoved past her hip, through the space where she'd been standing, toward the end of the hallway where the stairs went down to the kitchen door.
Evelyn spun. "Milo!"
He didn't stop. I heard his socks slide on the dark wood and then his feet hit the stairs hard. He was crying and breathing loud at the same time.
Evelyn started after him two steps, then stopped. She looked back at the double doors standing open that crack, the light coming out, my mom's hand now visible in the gap, fingers white around the edge. She had to decide.
She chose the doors. She threw herself back against them and shoved them shut. This time the lock clicked.
My mom pounded once from inside. "Please!"
Evelyn turned the small brass key and pulled it out. Her hands were shaking. She pointed at me without looking fully at me. "You. Come here."
I didn't move. The blood from the wall was on my fingers now, wet and tacky. It had gotten under my nails when I tore the paper. I wiped my hand, on purpose, across the right brass handle as I stepped away from the wall.
She saw it too late. A dark red smear across the gold. I dragged my palm down and left fingerprints on the wood below it.
"What did you do," she said. It wasn't a question.
She grabbed a rag from the trim where she'd left cleaning things earlier that night and scrubbed at the handle. The blood smeared thinner but it didn't come off. It got in the grooves around the base and in the scratch where Milo had tried the lock with a nail back in the summer. She scrubbed harder and it just shined.
Downstairs a door slammed. The kitchen door to the side yard. Then nothing. No feet. He was outside.
Evelyn froze with the rag in her hand, listening. The low warm bulb in the hallway buzzed.
She grabbed my arm above the elbow. Her fingers dug in through my sleeve. She dragged me down the hallway past the torn wallpaper — I saw it as we went, wide open now, hair and blood right out in the light where nobody could pretend it wasn't there — to Milo's room.
She pushed me inside. The bed was unmade from where we'd hidden. The blanket was still on the floor.
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"Stay," she said.
She shut the door and I heard the click of the lock she wasn't supposed to have. Her steps went fast back toward the hallway. I heard water running a second later. She was trying to clean the handle before anyone else saw it.
