Treasure Box Read online

  She shook her head. "Oh, Tin, I'm not Madeleine. Not anymore. She's gone."

  He walked down the stairs toward her. "Call yourself whatever you want, you're here. I thought I had lost you."

  "You lost me years ago, Tin. When I died in that hospital. When I told you to mellow out. When I told you not to keep me tied down."

  He stopped, not believing the words coming out of Madeleine's mouth.

  "You dig, you dig, you dig?" she said.

  And then it wasn't Madeleine's mouth. There was no transformation. It had never been Madeleine.

  "Lizzy," he whispered.

  "Now you see me," she said. "But you're still not seeing me. It's your own mind putting this shape on what I am."

  "Was it you all along?" At once he remembered seeing her in the grocery store, and going into that townhouse.

  "That wasn't me," she said. "But that was part of why I came. You have the power to call me. When you thought you had seen me, your need for me brought me back here. Most of us are tied to our bodies, our relics, but I'm tied more to you. I don't mind, really I don't. Especially because when I came, I saw the danger you were in."

  "But if it's you, Lizzy, I'm not in danger."

  "It wasn't me, don't you get it? It was someone else who found my image in your mind and used it. When I came to you she was making you see that hallucination of me going into the townhouse, but I wasn't inside the thing you saw, Tin, I was with you. There in the car beside you, feeling you call to me. You're so strong when you call to me like that. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could stay away."

  "Why didn't you speak to me then, the way you're doing now?"

  "Because she was there. The dead don't have any strength compared to the living. If she wants me silent, if she's paying attention to me, then believe me, Tin, I can't speak."

  "I'm alive, Lizzy. I wanted you to speak."

  "Yes, you had the strength to call me, but, Tin, if you're strong, she's—well, she's beyond strong. When she noticed me, she saw the opportunity. She used me, kept me close by, so she could raid my memory the way she raided yours. Use me as part of that Madeleine thing she made. She's a master at manipulating the dead. I thought it was mortuary reunion week at breakfast here this morning. All last night she was rummaging through the graveyard, calling those poor saps back from wherever they were and forcing them to attend her little banquet."

  "Why? Who is she? Is she Madeleine?"

  "I told you, she made Madeleine. Out of nothing. Out of your desires. Whatever you thought was beautiful and charming, that's what Madeleine became. The way she found the perfect taste and smell and texture for every food you ate today. She also drew on me, of course, forced me into the illusion. I was like clay to her, I couldn't do anything but what she wanted as long as she watched me."

  "So I guess she's not watching now."

  "You failed her. She left raging. And for the time being, she forgot me. For the first time since you called me back, we're alone together."

  Quentin remembered how it was when he first took Madeleine home to meet Mom and Dad. How Madeleine never left them alone.

  "Yes," said Lizzy. "Like that. Because she's mortal, she has power over me. She could paste little bits of me into Madeleine. My memories of you. Little habits of mine that you would respond to without realizing it."

  "And I believed it all."

  "Of course you did. Everyone did. When you went out in public with Madeleine, she pulled me in and used me as the core of her, so the illusion could fool hundreds of people all at once."

  "That must have been hard for you."

  "Only because I hated what she was doing to you. As for me, I had no urgent appointments. The dead never do. It's not that we're apathetic, we still care about things as much as ever. We're... patient."

  "And yet you're here."

  "Because you have a deadline. Because there are worse things than death."

  "Losing Madeleine?"

  "Opening that box."

  "Why? What's in it?"

  "I don't know what it is, Tin. I only know that it's very strong and the others are all terrified of it."

  "The others?"

  "The other dead ones. The dead ones at breakfast. The only one who doesn't fear it is the one who's been using us. She hungers for it. That's why she's so angry now. Why she isn't paying attention to us. We aren't useful to her at the moment."

  "So she is human. She can only do one thing at a time."

  "She's stronger than you and definitely stronger than me, but she can't do everything. I don't think she was able to keep her true self from leaking into Madeleine. Especially today. Today she was so busy keeping her dead puppets under control that she wasn't as careful about making Madeleine act like Miss Perfect all the time. Especially when she had the servants in the room. There weren't any real people behind those servants, dead or alive. She was just making you see them. That's a lot harder than building an illusion around a real soul. Making those servants about wore her out. And while she was maintaining them, some of the others got to sneak in a few things they wanted to say to you."

  "Lizzy, I don't understand this."

  "And you think I do? It's not like they give us a manual: How to Be Dead. The answers to everything don't become clear the minute you die. I mean, now I know there's definitely a life after death, but we don't look like humans to each other. You see me like this because when you recognize that I'm Lizzy, your mind adds the rest."

  The moment she said it, he realized that she was looking a lot less definite. Wavering.

  "Don't lose me now," Lizzy cried. "I have to tell you how this works, so you aren't completely helpless against her!"

  He reached for her, but there was nothing there. She faded more. "I don't know how to hold on to you!"

  "Don't look at me! Look away, listen to my voice until you have me in your head again. The way it was when I read to you out of my favorite books."

  "That was real, then," he whispered.

  "Listen to me. I don't think she's done with you. She needed you for some reason, and she didn't get what she wants, so she still needs you, and I don't know how to fight her but at least I can tell you what I've figured out about how things work. That's something. It's all I can do."

  He nodded, not looking at her. "I'm listening."

  "Most mortals can't see us dead people, but she can. So can you, sometimes. She can also cut loose of her body without dying and go out and do stuff. You can't do that."

  "Is she here now? Is she listening to us? Would you even know?"

  "I would know, and she isn't, not right now. I can't even feel her rage, that's how far off she is. Maybe she went back to her own body, wherever that is. The point is that when she's loose and wandering, she's like us dead people. Only she's stronger because her body's alive. So let me tell you what I've figured out about souls, so you'll know what she is when she's loose. We don't even have a location, unless somebody mortal calls us the way you called me. When I'm not here with you, I'm nowhere in particular. We're still free to make choices, but without a body there aren't a lot of choices to make. We can't change anything in the physical world, and we're kind of weak in some ways. We can get tired—I'm about wiped out now. And we're still bound to our old lives, for a while at least, until the old ties dissolve away. The people she called to breakfast, they're tied to this house, to the family that holds this place. She's part of it, and she can use it to bring them and tame them. That's the list. All I Know About Death, by Lizzy the Dead Girl."

  "Lizzy, who is she?"

  "I don't know, Tin, that's what I'm trying to tell you. If I knew, do you think I'd keep it a secret from you? I only know that she's so strong she must be mortal. She's a living person. And she's so powerful that she's able to create illusions that you and everybody else can actually see and touch and—and all the other things you did with her."

  Quentin thought of all that he had done with Madeleine. "Lizzy, you said that sometimes you were pa
rt of Madeleine...." He blushed.

  "She only used me like that in crowds, Tin. And don't worry about what I saw. We don't have bodies here, we don't care about that stuff."

  "Lizzy, I loved her."

  "You loved a dream that had been made real by a person so cruel that—I hate her, Tin. She's vile. But Madeleine wasn't vile. Madeleine was wonderful."

  "If this—person—if she's vile, how could she create something as... someone like Mad?" And he was filled all over again with longing for his wife, who he now knew was gone forever, even though he needed her as much as always.

  "She didn't invent Madeleine. You did. She took Madeleine out of your head. You gave her the script and she acted it out for you. What you loved was your dream of love."

  "Why was she doing this to us?"

  "All I know is it has something to do with what's inside that box. Obviously she can't open it herself, or she wouldn't need you."

  "But if she wanted me to open it, why were Grandmother and Uncle Paul stopping me? At least, she seemed to think Grandmother was stopping me, and he blocked me the last time I tried to open it—"

  "Well, see, the Grandmother and Paul, she didn't call them. They just came. The old lady is a wanderer, like her. Not dead. Uncle Paul—I'm not sure what he is."

  "Lizzy, I'm crazy, aren't I? You've never been real and even there in the hospital I was out of my mind with grief and so I hallucinated your voice and I've been crazy ever since."

  "Listen to me, Tin! Don't get weak on me! You are not insane. Everything you saw, you were made to see. And what went on in that parlor today, that was real. She didn't choose you accidentally. Like I said, you're strong. Not like her, but strong enough that she can't just do whatever she wants to you. You see through her sometimes. Like when she was controlling Mom and Dad, you saw it, you saw there was something wrong, and it really scared her, I could feel that. She needed you for some reason but she's also just a little bit afraid of you because she can't control you. So you're not without resources."

  "Then teach me how to use them!"

  "I don't know how. I never had power like that when I was alive, and I certainly don't know anything about people like this... this user."

  "What about this Grandmother person? You said she was alive, too. And she told me to find her. Is that so she can teach me?"

  "I don't know anything except that she's in a mortal body somewhere in this world, and she and the User hate each other. Whatever it is that the User wants, Grandmother's trying to stop it. And if she said for you to find her, well, maybe you should."

  "But why doesn't she just find me? Madeleine did."

  "I don't know, Tin. I've told you everything I know."

  "What about Uncle Paul? If she didn't call him, who is he?"

  "I don't understand what he is. The User got all upset and excited when he showed up. And Grandmother hates him and fears him even more than she fears the User. He's tied to this house much more tightly than any of the others. And the User and Grandmother were both fighting him the whole time at breakfast, keeping him under control. That's what I know. That's all of it."

  "Lizzy, what am I going to do?"

  "I don't know. Maybe they'll all leave you alone now. Maybe you can pick up your bags and walk out of here and go back to your life."

  "What life? Madeleine was my life. It's like she's died, only she never lived. Lizzy, it's like losing you all over again."

  "Only you haven't lost me. And as for her—what you found in her was yourself."

  "Oh, that's great, now I don't have to write to Ann Landers or go on Oprah."

  "Don't be a snot, little brother. I'm telling you the truth. Everything you found in Madeleine is still in you. Waiting for you to love a real woman and give all that to her."

  "Yeah, well, apparently women don't come with signs announcing which ones are flesh and blood and which ones don't leave footprints in the snow."

  "I don't leave footprints, either, Tin. But I still love you. That's why you have the power to call me. And maybe this User, whoever she is, maybe while she was busy trying to control you to get you to open that box, maybe she also fell in love with you a little. If she has any spark of humanity in her, I don't see how she could help it. So maybe you have some power over her, too."

  "I don't want power." He sank down to the snowy step and buried his head in his hands. "Lizzy, I want my life back."

  "Don't we all," she whispered.

  He felt something touch him, warm and deep, like a candleburst inside his heart. Like a soft breath of joy that swept through him and brightened him, and he looked up to ask her what it was she did to him, how it was she could give him such a gift of light. But she was gone. He was alone on the front porch of an empty house.

  Empty, but not empty. A house where writing appeared on doors and rats talked and a wife more dear to you than your parents, more loved than your beloved dead sister, a wife who was the whole meaning of your life could simply disappear. Could run away without leaving a footprint in the snow.

  9. Missing

  Quentin had a lot of time for thinking as he trekked through the waning afternoon to the nearest town, which was not particularly near. He had time to think as he waited for a car to come up from New York to pick him up. And on the drive down to La Guardia, and as he flew on the shuttle to Washington, and at last when he walked into the apartment where he had lived when he fell in love with Madeleine, he had plenty of time to think.

  He thought of all kinds of things. About Grandmother. Lizzy had said she was a mortal, a living person. And she had said, once with her own mouth, or the image of her mouth, and once with the mouth of a rat in the fireplace, "Find me." Should he? Why couldn't she find him? And if he did find her, what then? Did she expect him to get involved in some kind of struggle between the kind of people who could do what had been done to him? Who could call the spirits of the dead and make them seem alive to some poor sap of an ordinary mortal? Would Grandmother make him face her again, face the User? No, he wasn't going to do it. The old lady could rot, the User could rot, they could all rot, they should all go down into that graveyard and stay there. Deep and cold under the snow. Stay there.

  He also thought of Lizzy, of what she had said about life after death. The dead still existed, with all their memories, but the way she was living didn't sound like any theology Quentin had heard of. Why didn't anybody else know about this? He couldn't be the only one who had spoken with someone from beyond the grave. He knew he wasn't. So why wasn't there some book about this? And if the dead just hung around and mortal people could call them and control them and make them do things, what sense did that make? What was it all for? And why did he have to spend so many years without Lizzy?

  The one thing he could not permit himself to do was think of Madeleine. The pile of books about sex was still on his nightstand—he hadn't been back to this apartment since they got married. He had never slept with her here. But her face was everywhere in this place. He blotted her out. She wasn't real. But he remembered the feel of her under his hand. How perfect her skin was. How cool and dry, and yet how warm when she should be warm.

  Of course she was perfect. So were the berries and the pineapple and the pears. So was the luster of the table and the dishes and the goblets. Everything was perfect because the User took it out of his head. And she knew all the right things to say and do because the User stole it out of Lizzy's memory or trapped Lizzy inside the illusion. Forced Lizzy into this hideous fantasy in which all that Quentin amounted to was a pair of hands to open up the lid of a box.

  Well, why go to all this trouble? Why him? With the kind of power the User had, why not just take some poor sap from up the road, walk him on down to the big house on the Hudson, and tell him to open the box?

  The box was the big deal. There was some kind of barrier protecting the treasure box, locking the User outside. She apparently had thought that Quentin could get past that barrier and was furious when he didn't.

 
; But what stopped him? He felt no barrier. He was about to open it when she ran out. Why did she give up so soon? Questions that had no answers.

  Who was the User? Where was she? And how much power would she have with a .45 bullet boiling through her skull?

  He lay there in the bed. Three in the morning. Trembling and cold. Check the thermostat. Already hotter than he normally kept his house. He must have taken a chill this afternoon on the road. Last night at this time he had been sleeping in a bed full of cobwebs after making love to his imagination. Last night he had slept in a stone-cold house that he only thought was warm. Why didn't he freeze to death? Did the User have the power to keep him warm? Four in the morning. He was starving. He had tried to eat the crackers in the cupboard, the only food in the apartment that hadn't passed its expiration date, but they were like dust in his mouth. He got up now and ate them anyway, and drank tap water, it felt like gallons of tap water. He showered. He took all his clothes out of his suitcases, clothes that had been put into dusty drawers and a filthy wardrobe, and laid them out to air. The clothes he had actually worn, the day he arrived at the house and today when he left, he threw them all into the garbage. He threw away the toothbrush from his kit. Five in the morning, he slipped back between the sheets and now he could sleep, still not letting himself think of Madeleine.

  But sometime in the night, his mind went where he dared not let it go, and he woke up sobbing in grief for her. Madeleine, Mad, Mad. I don't care if you were a lie, I loved you. I loved you and you left me and I didn't do anything to deserve it, I was good to you. He cried himself back to sleep.

  When he woke again it was five in the afternoon. Dark outside already. He got up and called the garage that kept his DC car. In the time it took them to bring it over, he showered again, dressed. He came out to meet the driver, tipped him, then got in the car and drove to Tysons Corner and picked up some shirts and slacks, socks and underwear. A new pair of running shoes. A new razor, new kit, two new suitcases exactly like the ones he already had. A new winter jacket. He drove home and changed into new clothes, then put everything that had been in the house on the Hudson, including the clothes he had stuffed in the garbage in the wee hours of the morning, packed them into the old suitcases, and carried them out to the Dumpster. It was nine o'clock. He drove to Lone Star and ate peanuts and steak soup and it was all ashes in his mouth but he went on and ate the salad and the filet because he was not going to let this thing kill him. He was going to go on with his life.