by Grace Draven
As it happened, mine was easy. The first part was a loaf of banana bread, baked that morning and wrapped up neat in aluminum foil. As the oldest resident of Mulberry Street, I usually nominated myself the welcoming committee to every new family, though there hadn’t been many in recent years, to be sure. A friendly neighbor strolling up the drive with baked goods in hand… nobody’d think twice, which is exactly how I wanted it.
Second was a good apron, starched and ironed the night before. Young ladies no longer wear them, I’m told. That’s a pity. It’s not just about fashion, you understand, the plain fact is that a lady needs a place to stash her bits and bobs. Women’s clothing doesn’t always have decent pockets and there are times when a purse just won’t do. So an apron it was. Mine was a serviceable one with many deep pockets.
The last part was the tricky bit. My family comes from a long-lived line, tough as an old hickory root, my grandfather used to say. Even now, I can put in three hours in the garden before lunch and another three before supper, though it leaves my knees creaking. I had no need for a walker, and if Letitia Knox had seen me leaning on a cane as I made my way up the Singhs’ front steps, her gossipy nose would’ve twitched like a bloodhound’s. Getting on in years, poor old thing, she’d have said with a knowing sigh. Bless her heart, but it happens to us all.
Letting people think I’d finally succumbed to the weight of my years hurt my pride a little, I don’t deny that. Sometimes you need to make little sacrifices for a good cause. Besides, it was a handsome cane, lovely dark wood with an ivory handle. They don’t make them like this anymore.
Mrs. Singh’s porch ran three quarters of the way around their entire house. The front door stuck a little at the bottom and was only used for company who didn’t know any better. The one I’d always used was at the side, where the porch curved around to the kitchen door. A big, shaggy juniper bush hid it from the street and a wooden trellis covered in purple clematis gave it shade, which is why it was the best spot to sit on hot afternoons. It was also the best spot for a discreet entry with a spare key.
The kitchen was as I remembered it, only bare. A heavy trestle table stood in the breakfast nook with a single chair, but that was the only sign of the new tenants. The living room was another matter. Old fashioned pocket doors separated the kitchen from the rest of the house and time and humidity had warped them so they didn’t quite meet in the middle. Through the gap, the blacked out front windows left just enough light enough to see them: three long boxes of rough, raw pine pushed up against the walls.
Though I’d expected as much, it still hurt me a little to see them. Those hardwood floors were Mrs. Singh’s pride and joy. I knew she’d be grieved to see them now, all scuffed and gouged. She wouldn’t approve of the smell, either, ripe and reeking in that closed-off house. Even with shallow breaths, the taste of death lingered on my tongue. I covered my nose and mouth with the corner of my apron and calculated quickly in my head. The night of the moving in, I’d seen at least half a dozen boxes and I couldn’t guarantee there weren’t more. The study on the other side of the house could fit another two boxes and the three rooms upstairs could hold three or four apiece, easy. Then there was the little matter of the cellar…
No matter how you did the math, there were too many of them and not enough of me. A good general knows when he’s outflanked, and outflanked I was, even with the advantage of daylight. I eased away from the door, intending to catch my breath and have a long, hard think. Then the music began to play, faint and scratchy like an old Victrola.
It took me a moment, but I recognized the tune. It was one my father used to play, and I had a dim recollection of him and my mother waltzing around the living room, laughing as they bumped an end table or tripped over a sofa cushion. That was another lifetime ago, and I could remember the music better than I remembered their faces. When I was a younger woman, the empty space where those memories used to be hurt worse than anything. It took decades for that pain to dull, and it never quite goes away completely.
Hearing the music again now, echoing through the stillness of the house… my heart felt like a cold hand was squeezing it in two. I don’t know how long I stood there in the kitchen, feet rooted to the floor. But eventually the music slowed to an end and I heard something far, far worse: slow, deliberate footsteps, moving along the upstairs hallway.
I gripped the head of my cane. The solid weight of it was every bit as reassuring as the secret inside, and it did a fair job of keeping me upright. Last summer, I’d helped Mrs. Singh take down, dust and rehang every single picture in that upstairs hall. Every creak and groan of those floorboards were known to me, and I knew that in half a dozen steps, whoever was upstairs would soon be at the head of the staircase leading down to the foyer. A dozen steps more and he’d be standing in the living room itself. I recalled those burning eyes and how they seemed to seek me out. Something told me they’d see just as well across a darkened room as they had by the light of a waning summer moon.
I don't imagine I was too quiet about it, but I managed to let myself out the side door and lock it behind me. All the strength had gone from my hands and breathing seemed like more of a chore than it ought to. The sun felt good on my face, and better still was the humid breeze that carried away the last traces of scent from that foul mausoleum. I made my way home, only this time I needed the cane's support. The encounter had taken something out of me, and I felt like an old dishrag wrung out to dry. I needed a cold drink and a long rest in the shade. I needed my garden and the clean scent of tomato leaves on my skin. The thought of all those things helped keep me going, step by wobbling step, trying to pretend I didn't feel something watching me from the upper windows of Mrs. Singh's house.
It wasn’t an admission of defeat, mind you. It was a strategic withdrawal.
I don't hunger the way I used to. After a lifetime of dinners, I suppose I’m full up, or maybe it’s down to the fact that food doesn’t taste as good as it did when I was a girl. Nowadays I mostly eat what I grow myself, and what I needed to put the heart back into me was a good tomato sandwich. From mid July to late September, I eat them several times a week: good bread, a little mayonnaise, a little salt and pepper and thick slices of ripe Brandywine tomato. Sometimes if I’m feeling fancy, I’ll stick the bread under the broiler for a minute or two with a slice of cheese, then layer a few basil leaves on top after. But bread and a good homegrown tomato are key. Store bought won't do.
I scoured away the memories of my afternoon jaunt with a cold drink–iced tea with mint and a generous splash of bourbon. A solid hour buried up to my elbows in the tomato patch did the rest. There’s something about the smell of tomato leaves–a sharp, almost piney scent, and then there’s the little spines that prickle your skin when you tease a cherry tomato from its stem. I cut a bunch of white and lavender poppies and a handful of Queen Anne’s lace for the dinner table and admired the wild foxglove and monkshood with flowers like purple bonnets. Between the tomato sandwich and the sun and the frigid water gushing from the garden hose over my bare feet, I felt clean again.
While the potatoes boiled for supper, I got out my good notepaper.
Dear Parvati,
I hope this letter finds you and Mr. Singh well and that your hay fever this summer isn't too bad out there in California. I just wanted to write and let you know how I was doing. The garden is growing just fine, and I’ve had a bumper crop of picklers this year. Your roses look good, but I'm afraid your Mr. Lincoln isn't flourishing like it used to…
Mrs. Singh's English wasn't up to long letters, and I couldn’t tell her everything. There’s only so much you can say to prepare a friend for what was coming, anyway. Instead I caught her up on the neighborhood news and asked after her and Mr. Singh’s health and their grandchildren. There were some personal papers that her daughter Sunetra had promised to look over for me. It was time–past time, some might say–that I got my affairs in order. Like Great Uncle Mattei, I'd gotten too used to the peace and quiet
. Like him, I might have to pay for that complacency.
I tucked the letter in an envelope along with the recipe for my great aunt's lemon pound cake–a secret family recipe, but I felt she'd understand. Mrs. Singh had a lemon tree at her new house in California. I liked to think she’d be pleased to find another use for them.
Early spring frosts are the bane of tomato seedlings. The farmer’s almanac says mid-May is the last frost date here, but there are never any guarantees with something as mercurial as the weather. I’ve seen a killing frost sweep through on Memorial Day withering tender leaves on the vine and hailstones in June that crushed my runner beans flat. That’s why I always save my plastic milk jugs. Cut the bottom out, and you can pop them over a seedling for protection, easy as anything. Leave them whole and there are other uses for them, too.
Mine were stacked in the pantry next to my stock of mason jars and canning supplies, and I’d been careful to rinse out all the sour milk stink. I wouldn’t need many. One for each entrance of Mrs. Singh’s house, maybe two for the cellar door for good measure. After supper, I gathered them all and lined them up two by two on the kitchen floor. Next were clean rags, cut into strips and braided into short sections, then dipped in paraffin. Combined with the jerrycan of gas I’d bought in the next town over and paid for with cash, it’d burn like the fires of Alexandria.
I also laid in a store of more old-fashioned accoutrements of the trade, so to speak. I'd never been much of a stickler for tradition, but my grandfather liked to see things done the old way. Communion wafers and holy water weren't so easy to get in these days, not without raising an eyebrow or two. But I had a contact at Our Lady of Sorrows, a deacon smart enough to know my need was real and wise enough not to ask further questions. I felt grandfather would approve, just as he’d approve of my unearthing a few family heirlooms from the attic: a dozen sharpened ash stakes with the bark stripped off and the points hardened by fire. I hefted one in my hand. Primitive, and I couldn’t swear that I’d have the upper body strength to use them, but they felt good to hold, just as they had when I was a girl.
My preparations were nearly ready, but I wasn't fast enough. That night, a vampire came to call.
After supper and a bath, I’d been ready to retire–but only after double-checking the doors. Small town or no, I don’t hold with leaving one’s doors unlocked at night–trouble has a way of inviting itself in. Out of habit, I’d left on what my grandmother called her company lamp, a heavy brass affair with stained glass and a dangle of faceted beads. It was more ornate than tasteful, but I liked to read by its light, all soft shades of green and blue, like a peacock’s tail.
I turned it off when I saw him and stood in the dark room, feeling comfortably invisible as I watched him from the window. Like the little girl in the alley, you couldn’t tell he was a monster right away. The sun doesn’t set until eight thirty in August and it was twilight out when I saw him strolling down Mulberry Street, just as easy as you please. He was rangy and lean and his dark suit made him look even leaner, a streak of drab color with a trilby hat. He ambled up the path to my front porch, stopping right where the sidewalk ended and the flagstones began. I keep a patch of allium sativum there, mixed in with the lilies. The scapes make a pungent spring green when fried with bacon and potatoes, and maybe I didn’t scorn all the old ways even if I was skeptical of them.
Maybe the garlic was effective and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the tales about these creatures not being able to cross a threshold unless invited were true. All I knew is that my gentleman caller got no further than those flagstones. I could see the shine of his patent leather shoes from my window, and he didn’t set so much as a toe past the line. His eyes were hidden in the shadow of the trilby but his nose was long and severe with a chin to match, and silver white hair just brushed the top of his collar. He did nothing except stand there, hands tucked into his pockets and leaning back a little on his heels like he was admiring my hydrangeas.
But I could see he wasn’t human. He had the shape of one, good enough to fool most. What gave him away was how he moved. When he walked, his gait flowed like mercury over the pavement, far too easy for a man his age. When he stood still, he stood stock still the way no living thing ever did. The fireflies were out, winking now and again in their aimless flights. He whipped a hand out of his pocket and caught one, crushing it between thumb and forefinger. Almost careless like, he raised his fingers to his mouth and licked up the firefly’s luminescent insides with a quick, darting tongue, just the way a cat laps at a saucer of milk.
One of the sharpened stakes lay on the side table next to the book I’d been reading. I picked it up, grasping it so tight I felt sure my fingernails would leave indents in the wood. I wouldn’t use it–couldn’t, really. Society forgives an old woman many things, but staking a passing stranger on her own front lawn isn’t one of them; I learned long ago on a cold Chicago night that an undertaking like this demanded privacy. But all the same, I held that wooden stake to my side, the weight of it resting against my hip like a cavalryman with his saber.
Dark as the room was, the vampire shouldn’t have been able to see me, but I suspected he could. Slowly, deliberately, he reached up and touched the brim of his hat in greeting, tilting his face up to my window. In the fading light, his gaze was a flicker of fire in eye sockets as hollow as two plague pits, but it was gone in a blink–as was he. One moment he was there and the next, he’d vanished like a wisp of fog burning up in the afternoon sun.
I relaxed my grip on the ash stake, not liking how my hand trembled afterward. I’d no doubt that by coming here, he was taking my measure, just as I’d taken his. I didn’t think I’d been found wanting… but that was cold comfort, indeed.
The next day was one of those rare mornings where the air’s so cool and clear it felt more like spring than summer. I watered the garden and left the rest, even though it nagged at my mind to leave chores undone. Could be that I wouldn’t need that basket of cherry tomatoes and yellow summer squash, or that someone else would harvest the row of leeks and pluck the last of the cucumbers off their vines. I didn’t like to think of my garden left to someone else’s tender mercies, but it was a necessary risk. You have to go out on a limb, my grandfather used to say, that’s where the fruit is.
I’d slept poorly, catnapping until the wee hours and waking up with a start every so often. My gentleman caller’s eyes haunted me, red as embers. I saw them in every dark hall and shadowed doorway. Even when I knew they couldn't possibly be there, I still looked for them, straining my eyes until the vigilance exhausted me. Getting out of bed after a night like that was grim–a body needs rest, after all–but I consoled myself that they’d no longer be a concern to me after today, one way or another.
Moving half a dozen milk jugs filled with gasoline is a tricky business. I’d waited until high noon, when a drowsy hush had fallen over Mulberry Street, but I had to be cautious all the same. One of those wheeled shopping trolleys for groceries did the trick, with a bit of burlap and gardening tools to disguise the contents. I looked for all the world like a busybody going to tend her neighbor’s neglected rose garden.
First came the cellar doors. An old railroad spike jammed through the handles would keep them shut, and I let a generous slug of fuel trickle through the cracks and down the steps for good measure. It got the two milk jugs with the longest wicks, set alight with a tarnished pewter lighter that belonged to my great-grandfather. Next was the side door, which got a solid rubber doorstop jammed beneath it from the outside and a milk jug with the second longest wick.
Last but not least, I’d saved some gas for the front porch. It cut me a little to do it—pouring it out all along the length of the porch and watching the fuel splash and puddle into the worn spots in the wood. Mrs. Singh’s day-lilies would be done for, and there wasn’t time enough to dig them up and save the bulbs. I crumbled a handful of the Host and sprinkled it all around the doorway and windows for good measure. Then I stooped to light the las
t jug, clicking the silver lighter with the edge of my thumb and thinking, May the good Lord forgive me.
And that’s when my pride went before my fall.
I didn’t see him. I didn’t hear him, not at first. But I smelled him, because even though he was unassuming and a bit moony, wherever he went Max Ferdline always smelled faintly of cheap glue and old paper. He wielded a billy club like Willie Mays knocking one out of the park, and I went down like a sack of potatoes with more stars in my eyes than the Milky Way. There is nothing so devious as one’s own arrogance. I’d thought I’d had Max cowed. I thought I’d read his nature in the nervousness of his body language and the shifting of his eyes. But I’d forgotten that even the meekest dog can turn on you, given the right provocation.
Though my head ached like the devil, a small part of my brain ticked away furiously. It wasn’t time for his mail route, not for hours. He must’ve been watching me… all this time, watching. He stepped over me and fumbled a key from his pocket. The front door of Mrs. Singh’s house scraped as he shoved it open and a waft of rank air flowed out, along with the faint sounds of a scratchy Victrola. Young Mr. Ferdline’s hands closed around my wrists, and his palms were slippery with sweat.
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. H,” he whispered in my ear as he dragged me over the threshold. “But I couldn’t let you do it.”
When I was a girl, my grandparents received a small crate several times a year from my cousins in the old country: wheels of tangy sheep’s milk cheese, boxes of rahat flavored with rosewater and pistachio, and ropes of dry cured cârnați that smelled of garlic and wood smoke–all packed in straw and newspaper. At Christmas, the crate always contained several bottles of pălincă, the strong brandy my cousins distilled from plums grown in their own orchards. My grandfather had the habit of taking a shot glass full before supper, to whet the appetite, he said.
