Tighter by Adele Griffin Page A

don’t come crying to me when you hear something go bump in the night.” I arched an eyebrow, as if I might have been joking with him all along. My effort to preserve my dignity mortified me. Especially when, without another word, Milo shut the door in my face.
    I slunk off, tunneled down to the subterranean family room, flipping from bad movies to nighttime talk shows to news programs. Just like home, only minus all my mild reassurances—Mom’s voice, the woolly maroon afghan. Later, dragging myself upstairs and around the long halls toward my bedroom, I tripped against the darkness. I’d left the lamp on in my bedroom, and as I opened my door, the light spilling out into the hall seemed to ignite my vision.
    The children had changed. I sensed it even before I turned to confront the portrait head-on. They were watching me now, with held breath and three sets of eyes. Two boys and their sister, posed exactly as they had always been. Navy velvet, tatted-lace collars, strawberries-and-cream complexions. Then what was different? Was it their expressions that had altered, or my perception?
    Slowly and methodically, I made myself step forward. My fingers reached out to touch the canvas, tracing lightly across the bumpy, cool surface, passing over the older boy’s cheek and up to his eye, the center of his pupil, where a tiny hole had been stabbed clean through. I could feel the rough notch of its split against my fingertips.
    I touched the other eye. Same. Both eyes of every single child had been punctured through the center. More than a pin, less than a fork. So precise as to be undetected.
    Almost undetected.
    Stepping back, I was conscious of a dull roar, as if I were holding a conch shell to each of my ears.
    It was hardly any change, and yet for all intents, it had mutilated the children. They had become eerie distortions of themselves. My heart tumbled as I stepped back to look at the portrait again. Now that I’d discovered it, there was no way not to see it.
    “You think you’re so sly, Peter,” I spoke low into the darkness, my own voice soothing me, reminding me that I was here, truly here, in a way that he was not. “But I don’t. And now I’m learning your tricks, aren’t I?”
    Of course, I wasn’t the first person who had discovered them.

ELEVEN
    Just by luck, I was able to broach the topic with Connie the very next evening. Milo had gone out with friends, while Isa had been invited by a Green Hill Beach Club family to a barbecue. Since Connie had already bought groceries, she went ahead with dinner. She liked to eat, I’d noticed, and devoted much time to shopping for, preparing and cleaning up meals. It tired me just to watch.
    But tonight I decided to help with the salad—a first—which seemed to make her happy. Or at least she was humming as she brushed a marinade onto the tuna steak that she was preparing with tomatoes and capers. When I hauled out the full trash bag to the Dumpster, she thanked me—another first.
    The Dumpster was tucked back along the hedgerows. As I yanked it open, dirty collected rainwater sloshed down my legs, and a flock of flies swooped up in my face.
    “Ecchh!” I batted them away. Connie had tucked the dead squirrel into a wastepaper bag, but she hadn’t knotted it right. I chucked it into the garbage bag and slammed down the lid, then raced back up to the house.
    Connie had set the table. She said grace. Then we ate in silence.
    “Pretty day at the beach,” I started. “They had some competitions today, and Isa placed third in her division for diving.”
    “Mmmph.” Not a great jumping-off point, so to speak. Connie wasn’t much for activities; she seemed to much prefer the Great Indoors.
    “I love how you did the zucchini,” I said, smiling, hoping I didn’t seem too not-me.
    “Wath a time Itha wouldn’t eat anything until I pureed it,” Connie remarked as she ladled me a second helping. “Thpoiled children can be a challenge and a trial. I grew up