by Andrew Nance
“Wade! Hey, Wade!” Demarius called.
It ended. I could breathe, and my heart eased with each beat.
“Leave him alone,” Millie said, annoyed.
“But something’s happening to him.”
“It’s all right.” I opened my eyes. “A little anxiety attack. It’s over.”
Millie spoke softly so that the others wouldn’t hear. “Did you try?”
I swallowed and nodded.
“Well?”
When the dizzying remnants of the attack passed, I said, “It was bad, really bad.”
“I hate holding this thing.” I clutched the Book of Daemon Hall. “Feels like skin.”
“I’m not sure what to do,” Ian Tremblin said. “Lucinda’s story is next, but we have no clue where she is.”
We had decided to stay in Daemon’s office in case Matt and Lucinda returned. I sat in Daemon’s chair and put the book on the desk so I wouldn’t have to touch it. Millie was in another chair, and Demarius sat on the floor, his back against the wall. Ian Tremblin stood at one of the windows watching the hurried progression of day and night.
I could tell that Tremblin was deep in thought. He grunted, looked at me, and asked, “Was ‘The Leaving’ easy to write as the others professed?”
This was it, my chance to come clean, to admit I didn’t have a story. No more lies, just come out and say it. Then I saw the expectation on Millie’s face—I dreaded the moment it’d be replaced with disappointment. Before I knew it, I had said, “Uh, no. Not easy at all.”
Ian Tremblin seemed surprised. “And no mention of Daemon Hall or Oaskagu?”
I felt like I was getting the third degree. “No. I told you that already.”
“I assumed from the way things are unfolding that it would tie in with Daemon Hall. I’d hoped it would have to do with the children who vanished from the English settlement here, something along those lines.”
“Sorry.” Guilt was piling on guilt. I was a lousy liar.
“Would’ve been epic, ‘The Leaving’ being about the children leaving,” Demarius said.
“So that’s true?” Millie asked. “The English settlement and vanishing children?”
“It’s history,” Ian Tremblin said. “Settlers decided to take advantage of the fear the Nanticoke had for Oaskagu and built a village there in the early seventeen hundreds. There were twenty-three children, and one night all of them vanished and were never found.”
“That would be an awesome story,” Demarius said.
Ian Tremblin sighed. “It’s a moot point now, because we’re stuck. There’s one story before ‘The Leaving,’ and that’s Lucinda’s, and like those children, she’s vanished.”
“Maybe one of us can read it,” Millie said. “I mean, look what happens in the Book of Daemon Hall when we tell our stories.”
Demarius nodded. “Yeah, we start it, the book writes it, and we can read it.”
“Worth a shot,” I said.
Millie came over to the desk and flipped through the pages of the book until she got to the empty page headed with “A Patchwork Quilt.”
“On the other hand,” I said, “we don’t even know how she starts the story.”
“Sure we do.” Millie moved the lantern next to the book. “‘A Patchwork Quilt,’ by Lucinda Taylor.”
I got a sick feeling in my stomach as I watched words scratch themselves onto the page. Millie read them a second later.
A PATCHWORK QUILT
I’m a guest of the State Department of Corrections. Sucks, huh? See, Tommy, Craig, and I were bored one night and wound up behind Flite’s, a tourist store that sells all kinds of beach wear, boogie boards, and sunblock by the gallon. Tommy started poking around inside a Dumpster full of cardboard boxes. We got to wondering whether cardboard burns, so we conducted an experiment. When the flames spread to the store, we panicked. Someone saw us run off, and the police found us in the park. I didn’t say a thing—and I thought my boys wouldn’t either. They told the cops I struck the match.
As a convicted arsonist, I’m serving a sentence at the correctional institute for juveniles. The men’s prison is next to us, and though we’re not housed together, only a couple of chain-link fences separate their yard from ours. I won’t repeat some of the stuff they yell at us. It might make your ears fall off.
My cellmate is Warren Antonio, a born-again Christian and one-time car thief. He gave me some advice when I first arrived.
“Time comes to a standstill in here. It’ll pass quicker if you get a job.”
I was lying on my cot. “Can I get one in the laundry with you?”
“You can’t pick a job. They put your name on a list and put you to work when something becomes available. Could be laundry, might be in the cafeteria or the library.”
Sounded good to me, so I signed up and then waited for an opening.
In the cell to the right of us are a couple of goofballs, Edmunds and Rafferty—assault and burglary. The really freaky-deaky one is on our other side. Jonathan Dupree is in for murdering his girlfriend’s mother.
* * *
“Hold it!” Demarius blurted out.
“That name, Jonathan Dupree, he really was a murderer,” I said.
Demarius nodded. “A maniac. That was a few years ago, right in Maplewood.”
Ian Tremblin’s black eyes narrowed in contemplation. “And somehow he ends up in Lucinda’s story.”
“Another Daemon Hall connection?” Millie asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “A Maplewood connection, yeah, but I don’t remember anything in the news having to do with Daemon Hall.”
“Keep reading,” Ian Tremblin instructed. “Perhaps the mystery will unfold.”
Millie turned her attention back to the book.
* * *
It was a pretty famous case: an out-of-control daughter whose boyfriend worships Satan and murders her protective mother. He was only fifteen and was sentenced to life, so it was juvie prison until he got old enough to join the hard cores. A small kid, he had dark hair and what they call an olive complexion. Dupree didn’t have a cellmate because he’d tried to kill his last one.
There are things you instinctively know when you get locked up. One is that it’s safer in a group, so I decided I’d find one I could hang with. At lunch one day, I approached a table of guys about my age. They stopped talking when I sat down and stared at me for a minute or so.
I broke the silence. “Hi. I’m—”
They turned away and got back to their conversation. In juvie prison, we all wear short-sleeve, bright orange jumpsuits that zip up the front. One guy, a tough Hispanic kid, was getting out in three weeks. “Jeans, baggies—I don’t care. I’ll wear anything as long as it ain’t this crappy orange color. I’ll even wear a dress before I do that!”
Everyone at the table cracked up, and no one took offense that I laughed along.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” another kid said. “Who picked this color?”
“Don’t you know?” the first guy said, tugging at his jumpsuit. “They make these out of recycled traffic cones.”
I laughed louder this time. It was turning into a regular chuckle-fest. I decided I’d cement our relationship by throwing in my own hilarious zinger. “If we ever escape, we can stand by the road whenever the cops drive by, and they’ll think we are traffic cones.”
Total silence followed. I looked from one angry stare to another.
The short-timer leaned close to me. “What are you trying to do?”
“Just juh–joking.”
“Juh–joking? Don’t you know the trouble you could get us in for juh–joking about”—he put his face right next to mine and whispered—“escape?”
“No. I mean—”
“I’m outta here soon and don’t want nothing to jinx me, especially some stupid new kid. Stay away from me.”
He left. They all did. As I sat there feeling stupid, I heard a totally insincere laugh behind me. I turned and s
aw Jonathan Dupree sitting alone at the next table.
“Traffic cones. That’s funny.” He had a feminine voice. “Name’s Jonathan Dupree.”
He held out his hand. I didn’t shake it.
“Your name’s Carlisle, right?”
I nodded.
“It’s tough when you first get here.” He leaned forward, hands clasped. “You were sucking up to those idiots because you’re looking for protection, right?” He didn’t wait for a response. “No one bothers me. They’re scared of me. I go about my business without so much as a word from the worst of them. It could be the same for you. You don’t have to be afraid of anybody.”
Not being afraid sounded really good. “How?”
Dupree smiled, unzipped his jumpsuit, and pulled it open. He had a tattoo on his chest. The art was top quality, but the subject matter was bizarre. Beginning just below the neck and extending to his belly was the image of a flaming pool of water. Amid the flames was an upside-down face, as if it were Dupree’s own face reflected in the pool. Though it was only black and white, the incredible job of shading provided amazing details and dimensionality. The eyes were oversized and shone with insanity. The mouth revealed serrated teeth that would make a shark envious. The tattoo face, in turn, looked like it had been tattooed. Hundreds of small figures, some kind of strange lettering, started at the forehead and went from side to side, all the way to the jaw.
“If I get a tattoo, they’ll leave me alone?” I said, forcing my gaze up to his face.
“No,” he chuckled. “I’m just showing you what I truly look like—my demon self.” He leaned closer, staring into my eyes. “I can show you how to give yourself to Satan, and then, as your father, He will protect you from all harm and give you everything.”
Nutcase alert! “Uh-huh.” I started to stand, but he pushed me back into my seat.
“Just hear me out. As there are churches, places where religious sheep gather to seek the light of righteousness, there are places of power for those who seek darkness. I’m from Maplewood, and outside of town there’s an old mansion people claim is haunted.”
“Is it?” I asked.
“Oh, Daemon Hall is much more than that. I went there out of curiosity.”
* * *
Millie stopped and looked at me. There it was, the Daemon Hall connection. Ian Tremblin and Demarius were as wide-eyed as I’m sure I was. As if to accentuate the newfound relationship between Lucinda’s story and Daemon Hall, the thundering roll of time slowing echoed through the halls. Millie coughed quietly and read more.
* * *
“Did you find anything?”
He smiled. “It’s more like something found me. A voice spoke to me. Each time I stepped into that place, it welcomed me back and told me secrets. It showed me things.”
“Like what?”
“Awesome, violent, perverse things. Once the voice led me to a room of mirrors where I saw my reflection as this.” Dupree rubbed his chest. “So I got my tattoo as a constant reminder. But enough about me. Do you seek protection?”
“What do I have to do for this … protection?”
Jonathan smiled. “Have fun, create chaos.” His brow knotted, and his smile turned to a sneer. “Beat the life from those who offend Him.”
“Kill?”
“I’m speaking specifically of that Jesus-loving cellmate of yours. We can make it look like an accident—or suicide.”
“Warren’s a good guy. What do you have against him?”
Dupree sneered. “He’s a Christian, for one thing. And he interrupted me as I offered a sacrifice to my dark lord. You see, my cellmate, Tony, wouldn’t join my church, so I chose to make him a sacrifice. Warren stopped me. I failed my lord, and I want you to help me make it up to Him by killing Warren.”
Get up and walk away, my rational self was thinking. But my teenage self—you know, the irrational one—decided to get smart. “You’re offering me everything?”
He nodded. “Whatever demented thing your heart desires, He will provide.”
“Like he gives you everything?”
Dupree smiled widely. “He provides me with all I want.”
“So, explain why you’re locked up.”
His smile faded and his face darkened. “A temporary setback.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, standing. “I’ll pass.” I picked up my lunch tray and walked away.
He called after me, “I only have to make good on that sacrifice and the dark lord will open all doors for me.” He shouted, “You’ll see! One sacrifice will set me free!”
After lights-out that night, as we lay in our bunks, I asked Warren, “How come you didn’t tell me that you saved Dupree’s cellmate?”
Warren was quiet for a moment. “It was a couple of months before you got here. I woke one night and heard his cellmate wheezing and stuff. I figured Dupree was doing something to him, but I couldn’t see in.” With our cells next to each other, we were blind as to what our neighbors were up to. “Tony stuck his arm out of their cell right next to ours. I reached through and got a handful of Dupree’s hair. Turns out he had cornered Tony by the bars and was strangling him. I banged his head against the bars a few times. I almost knocked him out. He let go of Tony, and by then the guards had shown up.”
“Dupree asked me to kill you.”
Warren laughed. “Yeah, he’s pissed. He went into solitary for a while. Now that he’s out I gotta keep my eyes peeled for him. He says he’s gonna make me the sacrifice. I’m not worried. Satan’s a wimp compared to God.”
* * *
I finally got my job assignment. I wasn’t happy learning I’d work in the morgue.
“I am your boss. You answer to me.” Mr. Hoptin was the mortician. He ran his hand over his nearly bald head, slicking back the few hairs that remained. He was round all over—his head, his shoulders. His belly was pudgy-round, and even the thick glasses he wore were circles. “Our job begins after the coroner has confirmed a cause of death. We prepare the body for burial, cremation, or viewing.”
His office was well lit, but because the walls and furniture were dark, it was dreary. He’d already shown me the room where the deceased, his preferred term for the dead, were prepared.
He asked if I had questions. “What’s in there?” I pointed to a door behind his desk.
“That”—he paused, giving what he said a measure of gravity—“is not your concern. That room is my inner sanctum and is always locked. Do not go in there.”
It was pretty gross working with bodies. We stayed busy because the coroner and Mr. Hoptin handled the remains of prisoners throughout the state. Every day Mr. Hoptin brought in a thermos of what he called soup. Funny how it smelled like liquor. Throughout the day he’d take sips, and the more he drank, the more he talked.
“I didn’t always work in the penal system,” he said one day as we were working on a two-hundred-fifty-pound weight lifter who’d been killed in a riot at a maximum-security prison a couple of hundred miles away. “I had a nice practice going in Ohio, but I had to give up my professional license.”
“Why?” I asked as I scrubbed at the dead man’s leg.
Mr. Hoptin opened the thermos and took a drink. He bent down and applied makeup to the convict’s face; there would be an open-casket ceremony later that day. “I lost my license because of charges that I engaged in inappropriate behavior with my corpses.”
What did that mean?
“Why should they care what I do with them? I mean, they’re dead, right?” After a moment of silence, I looked up and saw him staring at me. “Right?”
“Yeah,” I said, and began the difficult task of putting pants on a large dead person.
Mr. Hoptin sent for two more inmates, and we moved the body into a coffin on a wheeled cart.
He upended his thermos and said, “I’m going to get more soup. Clean up in here.”
I wheeled the body to the chapel, then went back and put away the soaps, makeup, brushes, and other tools of the trade. Af
ter sweeping and mopping, I went to Mr. Hoptin’s office. There was no answer when I knocked, so I went in and saw that the door to his private room—his inner sanctum—was partly open. Curiosity got the better of me, and I tiptoed across the floor and peeked inside.
Mr. Hoptin was at the far side, his back to me. The room was filled with small, round tables of varying heights. Each held a jar of clear liquid. The jars were different sizes, and each was illuminated with track lighting. Something was suspended in the liquid of each jar. Were they pieces of paper? They’d been drawn on. I concentrated on a jar on the table closest to the door. On the parchment was a picture of a heart stabbed by a dagger.
Actually, I thought, it looks more like a—a tattoo!
“Ahh, there you are, Carlisle.”
I jumped, though Mr. Hoptin didn’t seem mad.
“Come in. I don’t think you’ve seen my art gallery, have you?” he slurred.
“Uh, no sir.”
He put a finger to his lips. “Shhh, it’s a secret.” Drunker than I’d ever seen him, he staggered over and pulled me in. “It’s a one-of-a-kind collection, I can guarantee that.” We stood before the jar I’d been looking at. “That’s the classic daggered heart, definitely old school. Over here is a tribal design.” He pulled me to a larger jar in which a rectangular piece of flesh eighteen inches long and five inches high was placed. The piece was made up of wavy black lines that artistically meshed with one another. “Got that one off the biceps of a rapist. Funny thing; that tattoo helped the victim identify him.”
As he pulled me from tattoo to tattoo, I came to understand that he’d skinned these bits of flesh from dead inmates, suspending them in jars of preservative.
“This shark is by world-renowned Ted Strong.” He stumbled to another table. “A Japanese dragon,” he mumbled, pointing out a serpentine body. One purple claw held a pipe to its mouth. “It represented the deceased’s drug addiction.” Mr. Hoptin not only knew the type of tattoos, but the history and artists. “This grabby fellow”—he pointed out a piece of skin on which was tattooed a red octopus with green highlights—“is by another famous artist: Sofia Estrella, formerly Ms. Deborah, formerly Debbie Inksmith. Speaking of famous”—he seized my jumpsuit and rushed me across the room—“look, a Marty Morris,” he said reverently. It was a scene from outer space: planets, stars, and meteors on a piece of skin as long as an arm. He sighed. “Those are the gems of my collection. Sadly, most are jailhouse tattoos: poorly designed and poorly applied.”
