by Penn Gates
Nix clatters down two flights of stairs and rounds the corner into the kitchen.
“Where's Brit?” she asks Margaret, who's finishing up the dishes alone.
“Outside somewhere.”
“Why isn't she helping you?”
Margaret shrugs. “It is more tiring to make her do the chore than to do it myself.”
“I'm pretty sure that's what she counts on,” Nix snaps. “You can't let her get away with it." She grabs a dish towel, and half-heartedly dries a plate. “I have a new project for you. I'm searching for a book of herbal medicines that my ancestors have kept since—well, forever. Each generation added their own research. I think it would pay to study it and figure out if they could be useful to us." She does another plate and throws the towel to one side. “That's why Brittany is going to have to get used to kitchen duty. She'll be helping Mary do the cooking while you concentrate on studying and experimenting.”
Margaret looks terrified. “I know nothing about herbs.”
“You just think you don't. I noticed you made mint tea for Peter when he had an upset stomach. That's an herbal potion.”
Nix heads for the door. “We'll talk a lot more later. Don't worry about it. It's going to be great. You'll love it.”
Martin and Peter are still tossing a beat up baseball back and forth in a lazy game of catch. The afternoon sun is low in the sky, but the day has turned out to be quite warm for April. Nix breathes deeply. Thank God the winter is over!
“Hey you guys, have either of you seen Brittany?” she calls to the boys.
“She was headed back toward the barns,” Paul smirks. “She must be cleaning the stalls.”
“Ha, ha,” Nix says. But she has a sudden sinking feeling she knows where to find Brittany.
After months of keeping an eye on Cash's behavior, Nix has finally relented and allowed him to fix up the room behind the machine shed. For the past couple of weeks, that’s where he's spent his Sundays. He'd rigged up an old cast iron stove for heat, the kind they used to call 'pot-bellied'. He's been sleeping out there, using a sheet of plywood laid over an old iron bedstead. But even with a source of heat, Nix imagines it's chilly. The room has a lot of windows, and it's possible to see daylight around some of them as well as through them.
Cash has become an important contributor to their survival in just a few short months. He not only keeps the truck and farm equipment running, but has a way with the temperamental generators. He's even managed to put an automatic timer on the one that controls the water pump, and thus the plumbing, in the house. But if she finds the two of them in bed together, they'll both have to go. It's one of the cardinal rules that can't be broken. She sighs. At least she'll be rid of the spoiled brat. Cash will protect her and see that she survives. Although, at the moment, Nix could cheerfully kill the bitch.
Nix walks through the dark shed and into the room behind it without knocking. Brittany's back is to the door, but that doesn't lessen the shock of realizing that she's naked from the waist up. Cash is shirtless, too, but he’s wearing a carpenter's apron over his jeans and has a hammer in his hand. He's standing by the windows, and when he catches sight of Nix, there seems to be a flicker of relief in his eyes. Otherwise, his face is expressionless.
”Surprise!” Nix says loudly, and Brittany jumps, but doesn't turn around. “Put your clothes on and come with me.”
The girl remains motionless, although her rigid posture suggests sheer terror.
“I'm not going to tell you again—because I might actually enjoy dragging you out of here by your long, blonde hair.”
“What about him?” Brittany whimpers. “He wanted me here. He wanted to get me alone.”
“It does seem romantic,” Nix says sarcastically. “Sort of like that old Bob Dylan song—If I Were a Carpenter and You Were My Lady." She glances around at the gritty floor and rough-sided walls to the plywood bed. “Yeah, real cozy.”
Brittany looks blank, but Cash says, “Johnny Cash's version was better.”
Nix stares at him. “Really? You wanna talk about music right now?" She holds up a hand in a stop gesture. “You and I are gonna have a serious conversation in a little while. And heads up—it ain't gonna be about pop culture.”
Nix returns her attention to Brittany, who seems to be taking forever with a few buttons. “You! With me!”
“Talk to me right now,” Cash says. “Let's get this thing straightened out.”
“I'm listening,” Nix says coolly. “Can't wait to hear what you have to say.”
“You can't really believe this was my idea.”
Brittany yelps, and Cash waves his hammer in her direction. “Shut the fuck up,” he tells her. “You had a chance to walk away with some dignity when I told you I wasn't interested, but you just couldn't take no for an answer.”
He turns back to Nix. “Do I strike you as that stupid?”
“I can't say that you do,” she says. “But guys don't always use their heads when all that blood leaves their brains.”
Cash pulls off the tool apron and tosses it on the floor. “Thanks for the vote of confidence." He looks around for his shirt. “Don't let me keep you. I know you want to get on with—whatever it is you've got planned for the Barbie doll. If it was me, by the way, I'd throw her sorry ass out. She's nothing but trouble." He begins stuffing his belongings into his backpack. “I'll be gone before dawn tomorrow.”
Nix drags Brittany, kicking and screaming, past the gaping boys, into the house and down the stairs to the cellar. As George tries to intervene, she mutters only one word—“Don’t!”
The light bulb over the work bench swings wildly when she jerks on the chain, making the shadows advance and recede, as if the place is full of half-invisible imps waiting to pounce.
“Sit!” she tells Brittany, in the tone she'd use on a dog, and points to an old nail keg.
“I can't sit on that,” Brittany squeaks. “It's all cobwebby and—”
“Sit down!” Nix roars, “Or I'll put you there!”
Brittany collapses onto the keg. “Ouch! It's got splinters.”
Nix stands glaring at her for a full minute while she waits for her pulse to get somewhere in the range of normal.
“It's time we had a little talk, Brit - as in, I talk and you listen. If you open your mouth and interrupt me, I'll slap your silly face. Do—you—understand?”
The girl has the wit to nod once and stay silent. Nix can hear her swallow hard on the words that are struggling to climb out of her throat.
“You think there's nothing I can do to you that will make you do what I want. You believe this because in your suburban, white bread world, it was physical abuse to raise a hand to a child.” Nix pauses for breath. “Hell, it was abuse to take away your Facebook privileges."
Nix waves a hand and Brittany flinches. “Look around you, Princess. Do you see any traces of that world? This, right here, is the world now and we will never get back to normal—whatever the hell that was. You either begin to accept that, or you're going to become one of those crazy people who walk around mumbling to invisible people in an imaginary world.”
Brittany scuffs her feet back and forth through the grit on the floor. It's hard to tell if she's heard one word.
“Lucky for you, I'm here to help you,” Nix announces. “From now on, you will spend every minute by my side, and you'll do exactly as I tell you, without comment or complaint." She smiles mirthlessly. “Because if you don’t—you'll spend the rest of the day in this cellar. And the next time you disobey me and my rules, you'll spend the rest of the day and the night down here.”
Brittany leaps up. “You can't treat me like that, you bitch! The rest of them won't let you!”
Nix laughs in her face. “Exactly who are you talking about? You mean the girls who do your chores because you don't feel like it? The guys you came with who muck out the barns and cut firewood even though they'd rather be back home in their bedrooms playing with themselves in front of their comput
ers? And I think Emma is too busy setting up a school for the kids to help them with their reading.”
“George won't let you! Cash won't let you!" Brittany picks up the nearest object, which happens to be a tin cup, and hurls it at Nix.
“OK, now you're getting violent,” Nix says, walking to the stairs. “You obviously need to stay here for awhile until you calm down.”
Before Brittany grasps what's happening, Nix is at the top of the stairs. “I'll check on you later,” Nix calls and slams the door.
Chapter 12
The house is deathly quiet except for Brittany's shrieks as she throws objects against stone walls. Nix doesn't know what everyone else is doing—cotton in ears, heads under pillows—but she can't stand the drama and the noise one second longer. When she steps outside into the twilight, the sky is that peculiar color that's neither rose nor yellow but some unearthly shade than can only exist in the heavens. Nix keeps trudging toward the peaceful sound of the animals settling for the night. She decides to spend the night in the barn loft with the loading doors open - so she can look up at the stars and pray to be abducted by aliens.
But horses aren't the only creatures in the barn. George is slouched on a bale of hay, and Cash is squatting in front of him, talking in a low voice. Nix can't make out what they're saying, but it's obvious that Cash is trying to get George calmed down.
Whatever line of bullshit Cash is feeding him, Nix bets it’s not what really happened. If Godly George is upset about Brittany’s confinement in the cellar, wait until he hears why she ended up down there. He'll want to build stocks for her, Nix thinks, and Cash, too. Except Mr. Fix-it won’t be around for the fun.
She strides purposefully into the dimly lit interior of the barn, ready to give George an earful, but before she can get out a word, Cash rises and turns toward her in one quick movement, gripping her arm hard.
“What the hell do you think you're doing?” she snarls at him. “Do you really want to take me on?”
“Love to,” he says, “But somebody's gotta act like a grown-up." He yanks her closer and whispers in her ear, “You and me need to talk. Now.”
“We already talked! I'm tired of hearing myself talk—because no one else is listening, that's for sure.”
He gives her arm a shake. “Somewhere private." And he exerts a steady pressure until she walks out of the barn along side him.
“Why don't we go to the bachelor pad you were so busy putting together?” Nix smirks. “Oh wait—that didn't turn out to be so private after all.”
“Jesus, lady! You make me sorry I don't hit women.”
By this time, Cash has taken her past the outbuildings to the path that runs around the west pond—where swimming is allowed if you can get past the blue gills and rock bass brushing your legs under the murky water.
“Alone at last,” she says. “Are we far enough away from eavesdropping ears?”
Cash drops her arm. “This should do it." He walks to the end of the ramshackle dock and sits down, his legs dangling over the water.
Nix remains standing. She looks down at him and wonders how hard it would be to push him in—and if he can swim.
“Tell me the truth,” he says over his shoulder. “You don't really believe I encouraged that silly bitch." He laughs. “She's just a kid, for Christ'sake. A really fucked up kid.”
And now that Nix has had a chance to cool down, she knows that she believes him. There's something about the way this kid handles himself that tells her he has a code he lives by, and it doesn't include taking shots at sitting ducks.
“You didn't need to drag me out here to say that,” she says, not yet ready to admit out loud that she might have been wrong. Suddenly she's exhausted and wonders how much longer she can stay on her feet.
“Sit down before you fall down,” Cash says, reading her mind. He slaps the deck next to him.
“What the hell—why not?”
For a few minutes there's nothing but the sound of the water gently sloshing against the dock and a few early frogs auditioning for the summer ahead.
“It would be better if you didn't tell George what happened,” Cash says suddenly, making Nix jump.
“Afraid he'll misunderstand?" She turns to see his expression, but he's still gazing down at the water.
“George has got a secret,” he says cryptically. “One he's even keeping from himself.”
“Quit speaking in code,” Nix says, annoyed. “Just say what you mean in plain English.”
“I think George has a crush on Brittany,” Cash says.
“What? You're crazy! She's everything he hates about the world out there. Well—the world that was out there.”
“The heart wants what it wants,” Cash says quietly. He turns and stares back at her. “How old is he? Seventeen? Prime time for first love. And who else is there? Besides you and Emma, Brittany is the only female on the place other than his sisters.”
Nix snorts with laughter. “Like Goldilocks—this one's too young, this one's too old, but this one is just right!”
Cash shakes his head. “You've got the empathy of a rock.”
“Hey! On a scale of one to ten, this isn't even in the running for tragedy,” Nix yelps defensively.
“Your scale isn't the only one in the universe, Nix. Other folks might measure different.”
Nix shifts restlessly and repositions herself so she can lean back against a post. The only self-knowledge Nix possesses is the awareness that she's hopeless with any kind of emotional stuff. She just doesn't get it. And now this kid has read her like a book and summarized her whole life in a couple of sentences.
“But enough about me,” she says irritably. “Do you really think you can keep something like this a secret? Even if neither of us says a word, the queen of drama must tell her tale.”
“Coercion is your specialty. Make sure she doesn't.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Nix says, trying to sound amused rather than pissed. Which is how she's feeling. Why am I the bad guy in this story, she wonders? But it's an old question, and she's known the answer for a long time. Everybody hates cops—until they need one.
“Tell you what,” she says, getting to her feet and stretching. “If you come up with a kiddy friendly version of events, I won't contradict it. That's the best I can promise.”
“Good enough,” Cash says, jumping up from the edge of the dock seemingly without effort.
It's gotten considerably darker and neither of them have a flashlight so it's tough going along the uneven track. Cash grabs Nix's arm again, this time to steady her, but she pulls away. “I'm not that old,” she says.
“You're that unstable,” he snaps back, and she knows he's not just talking about her ability to keep from tripping in the dark.
“Why don't you just—” She stops talking abruptly.
They both see it. A flashlight beam bouncing toward them.
“Hey Nix! Come quick!” Michael's voice calls. “There was a loud crash from the cellar, and now everything's real quiet.”
Nix grabs the flashlight out of Michael's hand as soon as he's close enough and takes off running. She's vaguely aware that Cash and Michael are right behind her, but she's focused on getting to the house and taking charge before mass hysteria sets in.
Halfway down the cellar stairs, Nix peers into the basement in disbelief. Somehow Brittany has managed to pull over the old wooden cupboard that stood to the right of the stairway against the front wall. It hadn't had a particular use for as long as Nix could remember, so it became a handy place on which to stow small items no one knew what to do with, but felt compelled to keep—the St Clair curse. Now it lays facedown, a very large pile of kindling.
Nix descends far enough to see the rest of the basement, sweeping the beam across the cellar and into dark corners, looking for Brittany. She hopes the teenager hasn't been stupid enough to pull the thing over on top of herself, because there's not a sound coming from beneath it.
There! Huddled
in the far corner, Brittany looks like a deer caught in the headlights, her eyes wide and vacant with shock.
Only then does Nix become aware of Cash's voice. “Holy crap! Michael, do you see that? It's a tunnel!”
He descends a couple of steps below where Nix stands and motions for the flashlight. She hands it over reluctantly. Cash shines the light into the gaping black hole in the stone wall. The beam shines into further darkness.
“You have any idea where this leads?” he asks Nix.
“Don't have a clue. I never knew it was there—and Gramps would have told me if he'd known.”
She ducks under the railing and drops the few feet to the floor. “As fascinating as the tunnel is, I'm pretty sure we should check the princess for broken bones before we go exploring.”
He looks down at her and grins. “Now who's the humanitarian?”
“I think he's upstairs hyperventilating,” Nix says. “Hey Michael, will you give Cash a hand clearing the wreckage away so I can get Brittany out of her dungeon?”
Before they get the ruins of the antique cupboard moved to one side of the hole, George is clattering downstairs to the rescue. “I will be taking her to the kitchen,” he announces. “So Margaret can care for her.”
“By all means,” Nix says. “Brittany has given herself a terrible shock. She needs lots of tea and sympathy along with the first aid.”
Now that she's sure the girl isn't dead under a cupboard, Nix wants to—what? She can't kill her. She can't kick her out. She has got to find a way to control this uncontrollable child. Emma's words echo vaguely in her mind, there was always someone to pay her attention. Didn’t I just promise her she’s going to be right beside me all day, every day? That's the carrot.
Nix smiles at Brittany. “Get some sleep. You and I have a lot to do tomorrow, sweetheart. And—“ She indicates the gaping hole in the wall, “—there’s a brand new place to lock you up if you don't behave.”
Nix sees the terror in Brittany's eyes and knows she's guessed right. The girl is claustrophobic. That's why she went bonkers. And that's the stick.
Nix watches George help a sobbing, shuddering Brittany up the stairs. He touches her like she's made of glass—or so hot she'll burn him. Maybe both. Oh George, she thinks, don’t you know how hopeless your feelings are? He probably does, she decides. He’ll never act on them—but that doesn't mean they won't eat him alive him if he isn't careful.
