She had to do something—go outside and search, post flyers… something.
As Hailey pulled herself up and through the house, things in her periphery quivered. More than once a shadow budged, startling her. After seeing three shadow monsters, she’d had enough and turned on every light in her path until she found her Great Uncle Pix sitting in the living room, staring at the door.
She sat on the couch and stared with him.
Uncle Pix, whose real name was Donald (but nobody called him that), looked like a grumpy old man and insisted he now stood a full five inches shorter than he did when he stepped off the boat from Ireland fifty years ago. Toeveryone else, Pix was a grouch, but to her and Holly, he was just a big teddy bear. Hailey remembered well the night they came to stay with him after the fire. He’d fixed them hot chocolate with whipped cream before rolling out the sleeping bags and camping with them right there, on the living room floor.
“Your grandfather’s coming,” Pix said suddenly.
Right now? Hailey looked at Uncle Pix then back at the door, half-expecting it to swing open. “Oh,” she managed.
Hailey hadn’t seen her grandfather in…well, ever. He’d gone back to Ireland 30 years ago and had been living with the silent monks ever since. The only thing Hailey really knew about him was that his real name was Seamus. Pix only ever referred to him as Wimp, though, which was a misnomer. In his heyday, he was a bare-knuckles fighter in the Navy.
“Your great uncles too,” Pix added.
Uncle Pix had four brothers. In addition to Wimp, there was Dale, Skeet, and Johnny.
Hailey couldn’t force words to respond, though she did wonder if Uncle Pix was keeping vigil for Holly or waiting for his brothers. Whatever his reason, she watched the front door with him, biting her thumbnail and shaking her leg until dawn.
At seven a.m., the coffee pot turned itself on, and Uncle Pix finally blinked. He rubbed his face with both hands and sprang to his feet. Hailey got up and followed him. Though she hadn’t slept at all, she felt remarkably alert and ready to hit the pavement in search of her sister.
“I think we should call the hospitals again,” she said as she moved to the phone.
Pix grunted his usual pre-coffee grunt and pulled six mugs from the cupboard.
“When are your brothers due in?” she asked as she dialed.
“Got in last night.” He impatiently stared at the coffee pot.
“Last night?” She held the phone to her ear. “Where did they st—Yes, hello, I’m calling to find out if my sister was brought in overnight—Holly Hartley? Yes, I’ll hold.”
She placed her hand over the receiver.
“Where did they stay?”
“The pub, of course.”
“What? They slept on the fl—Yes! I’m holding for the E.R.—” Hailey listened intently for a few seconds then sighed heavily. “No, Holly’s twenty years old,” she explained, her voice half disappointed, half relieved, “—and thank you for checking,” she added before hanging up.
She put her hand on her hip and turned to her uncle, who had shoved the pot out of the way and was holding his mug directly under the coffee dispenser.
“Why didn’t they stay here?”
“Didn’t want to disturb the house.”
“We’re already disturbed,” she argued.
Just then the latch at the front door clicked.
“Holly!” Hailey sprinted to catch the door and threw it open.
Standing on the doorstep were four geriatrics, all of whom looked strikingly similar to Uncle Pix—short, gray-haired, and grumpy. Three stood solemnly, hands folded politely. One was naked, shoeless, shivering and rolled up like a burrito in a rug Hailey recognized from the pub. She couldn’t help but stare at the scrawny old man legs poking out of the bottom of the rug.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Dale,” her uncle’s voice boomed from the kitchen. “Where’s yer drawers?”
“Didn’t survive the flight,” he answered.
“And took your shoes with’em,” Pix concluded, as if these were normal casualties of commercial flight. “Well, get yerselves in here before the neighbors get an eyeful.”
