Betty

by Tiffany McDaniel

  Branching from the staircase were two separate sitting rooms. Through the breaks in the walls, the outside crept in until real leaves grew against the printed ones on the wallpaper of old-time florals and vines. That wallpaper still comes back to me. Mint green, lilac, cream like a long spring. I imagined the woman who chose that wallpaper did so because she loved her house.

  “The story about the Peacocks is true?” Fraya touched the bullet hole in the wall that separated the living room from the dining room. “I thought it was made up.”

  The Peacock family built the house in 1904. With their wealth, they spared no expense. In 1947, they decided to update their home to modern standards. Shortly after the renovation, all eight family members mysteriously disappeared. No bodies. No blood. Just eight bullet holes found in walls throughout the house.

  Dad’s childhood friend, Cinderblock John, got the Peacock property at auction. Cinderblock John owned various rental homes, but everyone told him he had bought a curse when he acquired the Peacocks’ past. The property sat to become more ruinous with each passing year. Looters from out of town vandalized and stole what they could. They did not fear the curse as much as the townsfolk themselves did.

  When Dad wrote Cinderblock John to let him know we were coming to Breathed, Cinderblock John swiftly wrote back:

  I have a house for you, but I’ll tell ya, dear friend, it is cursed. Her owners vanished, ain’t never to be seen again. All I can say with certainty is that I ain’t seen no floating sheets. Ain’t no door closed on its own. The bullet holes (there are eight of them) have never bled in my presence. If it’s haunted, it ain’t very good at it. I reckon it’s cursed because everyone says it is. My reasons for giving you the house are selfish. I hope it’ll be something that offers you enough of a home you can’t bear to leave it. Consider me lonely all these years, dear friend.

  Dad said there was no misfortune cast on the house and that the rumors were a small town’s way of having something to talk about.

  “Besides, what’s a new curse to a family full of ’em,” Mom had said.

  Flossie twirled past as she pointed to where we could set a TV.

  “To watch American Bandstand. Please let’s get a TV.” She tugged on Dad’s shirt.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  Lint walked past me and to a carved tiger standing against the front wall. The tiger was true to size, though it was missing its back left leg and its glass eyes had been removed.

  Lint slid his thin fingers along the tiger’s stripes. His fluffy brown hair fell into his deep brown eyes while he laid his head against the tiger’s side as if listening for a heartbeat. Trustin snuck around to the other side and hid by the tiger’s mouth, where he started growling. Frightened by the sounds, Lint fell back against the wall, trying to make himself smaller as he whimpered. Dad heard and came in, scooping Lint up while scolding Trustin.

  “Geesh, I was only foolin’.” Trustin stood up.

  When Trustin saw me, he reached for his holster and removed his cap gun.

  “I’ll get me an Indian instead.” He started chasing me.

  “Leave me alone.” I tried to outrun him.

  “Can’t.” He shot his gun off in the air. “I got orders to run all savages off this land.”

  I hid behind Fraya.

  “Don’t let him get me.” I tugged at her skirt.

  Leland lunged into the room and yanked the gun out of Trustin’s hand.

  “You shouldn’t chase your sister,” Leland said, looking over the toy gun before holding it up in line with the bullet hole in the wall.

  “Bang.” His loud shout had caused Fraya to jump.

  “The army give you a gun to shoot, Leland?” Trustin asked.

  “Sure did.” Leland handed the pistol back to Trustin.

  “Bet it’s not as good as mine,” Trustin said before firing on an emerald-colored beetle crawling up the wall.

  Fraya quickly grabbed my hand and together we walked into the kitchen. On the countertop were broken mixing bowls and no fewer than a dozen wooden rolling pins, piled as if firewood. In the bottom of the large wall-mounted sink, there was a cookbook. It was opened as though a woman had recently been there, thumbing through its pages.

  “Betty.” Fraya pointed at Flossie passing through the hall. “How ’bout we go see where she’s headed? There might be treasures there.”

  Together we followed Flossie to the staircase. On the seventh step was a crudely carved heart. The random thought of a pocketknife.

  “There’s been lovers in our house,” Flossie said as she stomped on the heart on her way up the steps.

  All four bedrooms were on the second floor. I handed Fraya my box of pajamas so I could race Flossie to explore. The first bedroom was long enough to overlook both the front and back yards. Even though the door was missing, we knew the spacious room would be Mom and Dad’s.

  Across the hall was the only upstairs bathroom. It still had the cast-iron tub, which had been too heavy for anyone to steal. The toilet was there, too, but its tank lid was broken and the seat was off its hinges.

  Flossie stuck her head into the smaller bedroom facing the backyard and told Fraya it could be her room.

  “Since you get a room to yourself, you don’t need a real big one,” Flossie said, flipping her hair.

  “She gets a room to herself ’cause she’s the oldest,” I reminded Flossie.

  “She’s only seventeen. That barely makes her old enough to do anything important,” Flossie said before deciding the room where Lint and Trustin would be was by Fraya’s.

  When Flossie stepped into the front bedroom, she clapped her hands and said, “Our room, Betty, shall be this one.”

  The room smelled damp. The water spots on the ceiling looked like young bruises, yellow and pale and green on the edges. There were spiderwebs, both new and old, while a tatty jump rope was coiled in a bowl like a snake. Scattered across the floor were rocks that had been thrown through the windows to break them.

  “Gosh, you think there was nothin’ better to do in this town than break windas,” Fraya said as she came in and kicked at the rocks. “Lint will love seein’ all of these.”

  The rocks were wrapped in pieces of paper that had been bound with rubber bands, now rotting. Names were written on the papers as if the house were a wishing well visited by those bidding to inflict the curse upon others.

  In the middle of the room was a box smashed in on one side. I reached inside it and pulled out a tattered copy of Helen Hooven Santmyer’s novel Herbs and Apples, along with an empty bottle of Blue Waltz perfume. Flossie snatched the heart-shaped bottle out of my hand.

  “It’s like being kissed by a prince.” She clicked her tongue as she dabbed the bottle up her neck to her lips.

  “What else is in there?” Fraya asked as she pointed toward the box.

  I picked the box up and dumped it. A pale blue handkerchief floated out along with gold foil in the shapes of oak and maple leaves. There was a 1937 newspaper article detailing the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and several campaign buttons, including one for Alfred Landon’s 1936 race. Under Landon’s photograph was his slogan, LIFE, LIBERTY, AND LANDON.

  “He’s got the same name as Dad.” I picked up the button and held it toward my sisters.

  “Hmm” was the most Flossie said as she set the perfume bottle on the windowsill. “Oh, lookee.” Her eye caught on the pair of bullet holes in between the two windows.

  “Two holes means two people were shot in here.” Mom’s voice surrounded us.

  We turned to see her looking in with sedated curiosity from the doorway.

  “It could mean one person was shot twice,” Fraya said. “And maybe they were missed shots. There’s no bodies.”

  “They were murdered,” Flossie said. “Probably not by a gun either. The
murderer used an ax.”

  Flossie shrieked and lunged at me with her arms up. I pushed her back just as Leland poked his head into the room.

  “You gonna be stayin’ here?” Mom asked him.

  “I’m jumpin’ between a few places before I gotta go back to Uncle Sam.” He leaned against the doorframe, digging the heels of his boots in and laying his chin on his chest.

  “Well, I don’t blame ya for not stayin’ here,” Mom said. “Ain’t a house if you can see the ground through the floor and the sky through the ceilin’.” She inhaled sharply before adding, “At least we know where the demons have been playin’ this whole time.”

  She shook her head on her way out.

  Leland took the opportunity to ease farther into the room and kick at the campaign buttons while Fraya leaned back against the bullet holes.

  “You like your jewelry box, Fray?” Leland asked her. “You left it on the porch.”

  When Fraya didn’t acknowledge him, his voice dropped deeper to ask, “You rather I gotcha pajamas?”

  She hugged the box of my pajamas against her chest.

  “I was only holdin’ ’em for Betty,” she said.

  He turned to me and Flossie.

  “You two beat it,” he said.

  “But it’s our bedroom,” I told him.

  He nearly tore my arm off as he threw me out into the hall, pushing Flossie after me. He slammed the door before we could make it back in. I tried the knob, but he had his hand on the other side of it, so I hit the door with my small fists.

  “It’s not a big deal, Betty.” Flossie hooked her arm through mine. “Let’s see the rest of the house.”

  We walked across the hall. Instead of counting the dead beetles crunching beneath our steps like Flossie was, I thought about the last time we’d seen Leland. Dad had plotted a garden at a house we had been renting. In the garden were several rows of corn. Dad always told us that when an ear of corn was ripe, the silks would dry and the husk would darken.

  “Some folks will open the husk to check the kernels,” Dad would say. “Don’t ever do that because if it’s not ripe, you’ll have to leave the ear on the stalk. But since you’ve opened the husk, the bugs will be able to get in and spoil the kernels.”

  Despite this, Leland opened ears of corn he knew were not ready.

  “You’re ruinin’ the corn, son,” Dad said to Leland.

  When Leland didn’t stop, him and Dad started to argue. I didn’t know if Dad was the first to throw a punch, or if Leland was. All I did know is that the cornstalks were flattened by the time it was over and Dad had a shiner. Shortly after, Leland enlisted in the army.

  “That’s ninety-eight, ninety-nine, a hundred, a thousand beetles.” Flossie kept counting the dead bugs.

  The sliding noise down the hall caused her to stop. It was Dad pushing a mattress into his and Mom’s room. Lint and Trustin were marching behind him like they were in a parade.

  “Do you think, Betty, our brothers are perhaps the dumbest boys on the face of the earth?” Flossie asked.

  Having heard her, Trustin stopped marching. He put his hand on his holster and said it was illegal for two girls to go around barefoot.

  “Officer. Officer.” He ran over to me and Flossie, firing his cap gun off in our faces.

  “You’re barefoot, too, idiot.” My voice and Flossie’s overlapped as we pushed him back.

  “Hey, hey. No fightin’ in our new home,” Dad said, coming out into the hall with Lint on his heels.

  Dad rubbed his hands as he looked around him with a smile.

  “I feel like I can devour this whole house, I already love it so much,” he said.

  He looked toward the closed door at the end of the hall. The door had at one time been painted lavender. Remnants of the color clung like an adamant past. Its stained-glass panels had been broken, but shards of the colored glass lay on the floor as though they were gems. Dad, who was wearing his work boots, swept the sharp pieces over into the corner, making it safe for his barefooted children to walk behind him.

  “I bet this door is the portal to the heavens,” Dad said as he opened it.

  We were met with crisscrossing lines of spiderwebs and a darkness that led up a narrow staircase.

  “C-c-close door.” Lint stepped back. “N-n-now.”

  “It’s okay, son,” Dad said. “There’s nothin’ to be afraid of. It’s only an old staircase and an old attic. Nothin’ more than wood and nails.”

  Not taking any chances, Lint ran to the other end of the hall, where he peeked at us from around the corner.

  “We’ll check it out first,” Dad told him before turning back to the staircase.

  “The rest of you watch your step,” he said as he headed up first.

  The steps creaked and groaned beneath our feet. I found myself searching for a rail to grip onto. I thought I heard something scratching. A cold draft prickled my skin as my heart beat so fast I could feel it in my fingertips. Flossie walked closer to me while Trustin kept his hand on his pistol as if ready to fire.

  The farther up the stairs we got, the more a strange aroma saturated the air. The odor reminded me of the smell of a white bird feather I’d found one time laying in the moonlight.

  “I bet the Peacocks’ bodies are up here,” Flossie said just before we got to the top.

  But like the rest of the house, the attic was pretty well cleared out. What remained was a box of used combs and a jar of dirt labeled IMPORTANT.

  “It stinks up here.” Flossie held her nose as we separated to explore the large space.

  “What’s all this on the floor, Dad?” I asked as I turned my foot over to find what looked like little black worms embedded in my heel.

  Dad picked up one of the black flecks.

  “It’s time we head back downstairs,” he said.

  A squeak from above caused us to look up. Dad quickly held his hand over Flossie’s mouth before she could scream at the sight of hanging bats.

  Dad whispered for me and Trustin to be quiet as we tiptoed back toward the steps. He waited until we were downstairs before he released Flossie.

  “I can’t live in a house with bats,” she said.

  “B-b-bats?” Lint cried from down the hall.

  “They’ll suck our blood when we’re sleepin’.” Flossie shuddered as if she could feel them crawling all over her.

  “That’s right, Dad,” I added. “We’ll all become vampires. We’ll have to garden at night ’cause we won’t be able to be in the sun no more.”

  “Bats won’t harm us none.” Dad softly closed the attic door. “They’re good creatures.”

  “But we can’t live with ’em.” Flossie threw her arms up.

  “I’ll fly ’em out of the attic,” Dad said. “Then make ’em a little house and put it on a pole in the field so even though they won’t be livin’ here, they’ll still feel like they got a home with us Carpenters.”

  “How you gonna fly ’em out?” Trustin asked.

  “I’ll use blood stars.” Dad deepened his voice.

  “What’s a blood star?” I asked, imagining the sky drenched in red.

  “Stars full of the blood of our dead Cherokee elders,” Dad said. “Their blood was so revered, it rose with their spirits and became red stars that then shined wisdom down on all the people.”

  “There’s no such thing as blood stars,” Flossie was quick to say.

  “Oh, yes, there is, Flossie,” Dad said. “Before blood stars, there were no seasons. One drop of blood for spring. Two for summer. Three for autumn and four for—”

  “Silly Dad.” Flossie walked ahead, using her pinkie to pretend to put on lipstick. “Let’s go see the barn.”

  Flossie led the way while Dad picked Lint up, carrying him down the stairs as Trustin followed.

&nbs
p; I stopped in front of my bedroom. The door was now open, but the room was empty. My pajamas were on the floor, having spilled out from the box, which had gotten broken as if stepped on.

  In the next room, Mom was sitting on the mattress. As she rubbed her legs, I saw the familiar squares sandwiched between her nylons and her feet. At the time, I thought the squares were pieces of paper to keep her shoes from sliding.

  “Where’s Fraya and Leland?” I asked her.

  “Leave me alone.” She turned and began to crawl her way up the mattress. “I’m gonna take a nap before I have to make dinner.”

  “But where’d they go? Mom? Mmmommm?”

  She raised up and looked at me, both her brows arched in their sharpest points as she said, “If you keep botherin’ me, I’m gonna hang ya in a tree by that long Indian hair of yours and call for the crows to come peck your eyes out. You want that to happen, Pocahontas?”

  I darted down the steps, nearly falling from the way the staircase curved. I caught up to Dad and the others. They were standing in the yard in front of the large barn. Its tall scarred sides met under a slate roof that had “1803” painted on it, each number as long as the roof itself.

  “The date Ohio became a state,” Dad told us.

  We dropped our eyes to the faded handprints on the barn’s boards. I imagined people dipping their hands in paint of every color, then throwing their whole bodies toward the barn, landing palms first. Some of the prints were smeared as if one night everyone started dancing and tried to get the barn to join in.

  “The hands belong to the builders,” Dad said, laying his own over the top of a yellow handprint. “Or they belong to someone who could not let go.”

  He smiled at the barn as if all of life’s happiness could pivot on the ownership of one.

  “I bet I find a pony inside,” Trustin said as he and Flossie ran into the barn to explore.

  Lint followed them, but kept stopping to pick up rocks.

  “Dad?” I asked. “Do you know where Leland and Fraya went?”