Not Flesh Nor Feathers

by Cherie Priest

Page 17

 

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what. ” In the backyard, the rain came splattering down—surrounding us with curtains of water. It felt isolated and quiet, despite the drumming white noise.

  She stalled, fretting with the arm of the chair and tapping her fingers against her glass. “What do you want to hear? What are you trying to ask?”

  “Why don’t you want me moving down by the river? What’s the real reason, and why do you keep tap-dancing around it? I’m plenty old enough to get my own place, and you’ve been hinting ever since I dropped out of college that I ought to find one. So I picked this one, and it looks like a good pick. Why won’t you let me take it without giving me all this grief? What is it that you don’t like about the place?”

  “I told you the truth,” she insisted. “It’s down in the flood zone, down there by the river. One bad storm . . . ,” she gestured out at the puddle-pocked yard. “One flub-up at TVA, and you’re living underwater. ”

  “That’s true of half the city, though—even the university, I bet. Where do you want me to go?”

  “Maybe the dormitories? At least they’re farther away from the water. And what about the old buildings they converted downtown, and on MLK? There are lots of perfectly good places that would get you up on dry land and keep you near the university. ”

  “The dormitories suck, and MLK is still pretty ghetto. These apartments are nicer. What’s wrong with them that you’re not telling me?”

  She reclaimed her drink and took another swallow, and she stared out through the sheets of water that boxed us in. “Look at all this,” she said softly. “Look at all this rain. The river will rise with it, locks or no locks. ”

  “Funny you should say that. Not an hour ago I was talking to someone else about the river rising. He’s trying to tell me that the river’s edge is an unhealthy place to be; and he’s been saying that when the water’s high, bad things happen to people who frequent the banks down there. ”

  She didn’t say anything, so I kept talking.

  “Of course, he’s talking about the south banks—there at Ross’s Landing. He’s not talking about the north riverbanks. ”

  “Like it matters,” she grumbled. “Same river. ”

  “And if I told you that this friend of mine says that people are disappearing from down by the river, might you believe him?”

  “That depends on the friend. You know some real . . . pieces of work. ” How funny, that she used the same phrase as Eliza’s nurse.

  “Fair enough. ” I didn’t think she’d ever met Christ, but I couldn’t say for sure. “Let’s say he’s someone reliable, and he was ready to commit crimes to keep people away from—”

  “You know who set the fire down there?”

  “I didn’t say that. Let me finish. But say I did know—and he swore to me in front of God and everybody that he had a good reason and that everyone needed to steer clear of that place. Would you say he’s a fool, or that he’s got a good head on him?”

  “Jesus,” she whispered.

  “Practically. ”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Just talk to me. Just tell me. What are you really worried about?”

  “I can’t tell you, because I can’t say. I never saw anything. ” She sounded like she was ready to stonewall, but she was starting to talk and that was better than nothing. “Your mother, though. She saw something there—or she thought she did. She used to dream she did. ”

  “But you didn’t see anything. ”

  “I heard something. It was . . . ” She was still sorting out how much to share, and I let her. Some was better than none. “It was a long time ago. Back down on Frasier. Do you remember there used to be an armory there?”

  “Sure,” I nodded. I was too young for the big rave parties that used to happen there before they tore it down, but I knew about them. “Where Coolidge Park is now. Where they put the carousel. ”

  “That’s right. One night, I was down there with Leslie, ‘cause she wanted to see inside it. It’s a long story. The short version is, we got inside and we couldn’t get out. The river rose up behind us and flooded the place, and we were stuck in the attic all night. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. ”

  “Of what?”

  “Girl, we were just kids. It was dark, and we were trapped away from home. ”

  “And?”

  “And. ” She let the word drop like she wasn’t going to pick it up again, but then she did. “And we weren’t alone. The river . . . something came up with it. I don’t know what. But I heard it. Them. ”

  “Them?”

  The drumming hum of the steady rain backed me up and filled in the silence while she worked her way up to what she meant.

  “Them. Yeah. Jesus. I don’t know. ” She took another swig and swallow, and stared out past me into the yard where the water was accumulating into ponds instead of puddles. “I swear, there were people. Dead people. I heard them all night long, beating their fists up against the floor and trying to reach us—it’s hard to explain. I counted maybe a dozen of them, using my ears, tracking the sounds around the floor. ”

  “The floor?” I asked. “I don’t understand. ”

  “We were up in the attic, I told you. The floor underneath us was the ceiling of the main storage area. And down there, everything had filled up with water. I guess they were floating in it, trying to get up. And whatever they were, they must have been bad, because Leslie twitched and mumbled about it all night even while she dozed off and on. Sometime the next morning, after the water went down a little, we were rescued by the police. ”

  “Was there any sign of—of whatever you heard?”

  “No, of course not. No one saw a thing except for us, and who were we? Two kids who were too dumb to come in out of the rain. Even if we’d talked, no one would have believed us. Except for Momma, maybe. But we weren’t about to tell her. ” She laughed a little, and it came out hoarse, and forced. “Your mother, though. She had these nightmares for a long time—where she would kick and fuss in bed, like a dog dreaming about chasing a car. But she could see, better than I can. ”

  I knew what she meant, and I didn’t ask her to elaborate. She continued on her own, though.

  “It always was like that. She’d tell me about things she saw, and it wasn’t like I didn’t believe her, because I did. But I was jealous, a little. I wished I could see things too, like she did. Like you do. ” She nodded at me for emphasis.

  “Don’t say that,” I told her. “It’s not like you think. It makes me nuts. ”

  “That’s what Leslie used to say, too. I believe you—like I believed her. But you know how kids are, especially when there’s a set of three. Each of us wanted to stand out in some way. That’s all. But we didn’t tell Momma. We didn’t tell her anything, ever, if we could help it. She had a way of using things against you. She had a way of taking things you were proud of and making you self-conscious. I don’t know if she meant to. She was just one of those people. ”

  I mumbled some sound like I was agreeing with her, or listening, or paying attention, at least. If I’d ever met my grandmother, I didn’t remember it.

  “Well, you know how it is. Anyway. After the thing at the armory, your mother would dream and fuss about burned-up people. She used to cry that they were coming for her, or something. And when she was really out of it, in the middle of the night, she’d try to talk to them—I guess she was trying to talk to them, anyway. She’d repeat over and over again, ‘It was a mistake. ’ Like she was apologizing. ”

  “Wait,” I stopped her. “What did you say? Burned-up people?”

  “Yeah. She said they looked like someone had set them on fire. And there was a little girl there too, she had something important to do with it. I never understood it any better than Leslie did, and that wasn’t much. ”

  All burned up, just like them, Caroline had said. Her words ech
oed in my head alongside Lu’s, folding the two stories together and shuffling them like cards. It was a mistake.

  “Lu, what if—” I started, but didn’t know how to finish. How strange, if they were connected.

  “What?”

  “There’s a ghost down at the Read House,” I said. “Her name’s Caroline. And she said something like that, like what you just told me. It’s not much to go on, but they could be related. ”

  “A thirty-year-old incident and the White Lady?”

  “You know about her?”

  “Doesn’t everybody? Darling, I’ve lived here all my life. The White Lady’s name is Caroline, huh?”

  “That’s what she said. ”

  She looked interested then, and set the drink down. “You went and talked to her?”

  “With Nick, yes. That’s what we’ve been doing hanging around together for the last few days—in case you were wondering. She’s been making trouble for the new hotel owners, and Nick wanted to see if he could get a human interest story out of it. He wanted to see if she’d talk to me, so we could flesh out the mystery a little. ”

  “Did it work?”

  “Sort of. She’s mad as a hatter—same as when she was alive. Back in the twenties, her family had her institutionalized, but then they checked her out and she lived in the hotel until she killed herself a few years later. ”

  “Delightful. But she talked to you? She tried to communicate?”

  “Mostly I was the one trying to communicate, and she was the one trying to be left alone. ”

  “That’s certainly a coincidence, but maybe nothing more. There’s thirty years and several miles between our night in the armory and whatever Caroline was going on about. ”