by Billy Coffey
But first he’d have to write it.
Huge letters for the headline. An editorial for the op-ed page too, the title of which came to him on the way back to the newspaper. And it was so perfect, so utterly wonderful, that he thought it’d been sent via heavenly messenger.
Part III
The Devil Walks in Mattingly
1
Kate slept alone that night, though this time it wasn’t because of her husband’s dreams. Jake had stayed at the office. Too tired to drive home, he’d said over the phone. Kate suspected it was something else when Jake told her of Charlie’s death and what Doc March had said was the cause. He also told her that Trevor Morgan had made an appearance. She knew what that meant. There would be one doozy of a story in the Gazette come morning.
The newspaper box was empty when Kate and Zach left the house, confirming her fears. It was early, though—just after six o’clock, and Kate soothed herself by saying the paper never came before six thirty. She had little time to worry, though. Church would start in three hours, and she had to make it across town and back before the church bells rang. She ran her errand (which turned out to be quite a nice bit of police work, if she said so herself) and pulled into First Church lot just in time.
The First Church of the Risen Christ—the marquee out front of which continually announced OUR DOORS ARE WIDE OPEN AND OUR MINDS ARE MADE UP—had stood for over a century on a stately plot of tree-lined earth three blocks from the town center. Though the Lord had His pick of spots to reside in Mattingly (there were eight churches within the town limits alone; “One for every color of the rainbow,” Kate liked to say), most were of a common accord that He dwelled in First Church most often. Reverend Reggie Goggins had both the largest congregation and the mayor’s ear, a powerful combination. The lot was expansive, but on that morning the crowd was such that Kate had to park in the grass between two blooming magnolias. That was her first clue that word had already spread; even the backsliders packed the pews when the world bared its claws.
Kate wiped a streak of strawberry Pop-Tart from the corner of Zach’s mouth and tried not to look at his black eye. A crowd had gathered at the steps leading into the sanctuary. A dozen people or so, all attired in their Sunday best. When Kate saw all those people, she wished she’d driven slower. Or stopped at the sheriff’s office to pick up Jake first. But there hadn’t been time for that, not with the quick trip to Andy’s house and the talk Kate had with a murdered boy’s brother.
“When’s Daddy comin’?” Zach asked.
“Soon, baby.”
They moved in the grassy places among old cars and dirty trucks, where the ground was peppered with blooming dandelions. Kate stepped through these as though navigating a minefield, careful not to let a single yellow flower brush against her. She knew she looked like a fool even as tremors of nausea built in her stomach. It was a running joke between Kate and Jake, the way she hated those weeds. It would remain funny until the moment near the rusty gate when she remembered true. Zach willed his body forward, trying to keep up. Kate’s blue dress ruffled in the breeze. A county police car drove by. The crowd followed it with their eyes.
The crowd hushed when they saw Kate and broke away from the stairs toward her. Reggie Goggins led the charge. Kate reached down and lifted Zach up, holding him close. He yawned and settled his face into the crook of his momma’s neck. The preacher extended both hands as he neared and took the free one Kate offered.
“Hello, Kate,” he said.
“Reverend.”
The people pressed in, friends with worried eyes and harried faces. Kate took their questions one by one, wanting to get inside but not wanting to deepen their fears by turning them away.
Yes, Andy was hurt and his friend Eric had been murdered.
Yes, Timmy was hurt too, but he was going to be fine.
Yes, Jake had gotten one of the men and the other was still loose, but he was likely far away by now.
Yes, the man Jake arrested died overnight.
Kate said all of these things, pausing for the Sweet-Jesuses and Lord-have-mercies the crowd offered, all the while knowing she wasn’t really comforting anyone and Zach was hearing it all. She cupped her boy’s head too late for him to un-hear, but it was soon enough to block the words Hollis Devereaux then spoke.
“Ol’ Jake’d never let anyone get away with somthin’ like that,” he said. “Bet he took care’a that fella afore the courts could. Prolly used Bessie to do it.”
There were nods and more than one amen to that notion, which offended the preacher at least partway and Kate completely.
“Jake did no such thing, Hollis Devereaux,” she said, “and how dare you say otherwise.”
The old man tilted his head downward, pushing his beard into his wide chest. Edith Devereaux, who was so deaf that her ears served only to hold up her thick glasses, patted her husband on the arm and asked what was wrong.
“Jake is a good man,” Kate said.
“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Hollis told her. “He’s a Barnett, Kate. That’s all.”
The bell tolled, summoning them all inside. Hollis apologized for whatever slight he’d offered. Kate took the hand that Preacher Goggins released and put it on Hollis’s back. She told him it was fine and she was sorry, that they’d all had a long night.
She and Zach sat in the Barnetts’ accustomed pew, midway along the left side of the sanctuary. Word spread from those who’d been outside with Kate to those who hadn’t. The soft sound of organ music mixed with even softer smells—the oil on the pews, the musty pages of the hymnals, the perfumes and colognes of the congregants.
The buzzing ceased when Jake stepped inside the sanctuary and removed his hat. He kept his head low and walked the outer aisle to where Kate waited. His clothes had gone unchanged since the morning before, and his hair was a tangled bird’s nest that somehow complemented the look on his face. He smiled. To Kate, it was the same nothing-to-see-here grin that had greeted her and Doc March at the office the day before. She reached up and took hold of him.
Jake settled between her and Zach, who hugged his father and said, “Didja get the bad man, Daddy?”
“I did.”
Reverend Goggins rose as the organ finished and began his welcome. Kate leaned over and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Been better.”
Heads bowed for the opening prayer. The preacher thanked the Lord for the blessing of a new day, however hard that day was, and asked for protection over the town and a healing for the broken. After that came a moment of silent reflection. Kate, having prayed herself out sometime between Jake calling about Charlie’s death and her idea of how to get in touch with Eric’s family, looked at her husband instead.
Jake’s eyes were clenched shut, lips pursed into a look of pain. He lifted his head only partway when the reverend said his amen, keeping his eyes angled down to the hymnals in the rack. Such was the way Jake Barnett always conducted himself in the presence of God. Kate believed it was her husband’s deep piety that rendered him such when in the presence of the Lord, though that particular day she gave it more to his deep exhaustion.
She leaned over and said, “I got hold of Eric’s brother.”
He turned to her. “How?”
“Came to me last night. I figured he knew Eric was with Andy, them being so close. And I figured that if Eric never came home, his brother’d call Andy’s house. I went over there with Zach this morning. Door was unlocked. There were four messages on Andy’s phone, all from him. Their last name’s Thayer.”
“You talked to him?”
Kate nodded as the preacher spoke of the week’s events—the Tuesday night softball game against Mattingly Methodist, the Bible study Wednesday night, the cookout next Saturday afternoon. All important things that now seemed unimportant to everyone, Preacher Goggins included.
“Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, Jake. We didn’t talk long. I couldn’t, what with Zach there. Eric’s brother—Jabber’s wh
at he calls himself—said he needed to get to the hospital. He wanted to know if you could meet him at the BP. Said there was something he needed to get.”
“What is it?” Jake asked.
“He wouldn’t say, but I told him you’d meet him down there after dinner. I’m sure it’s nothing Alan Martin can’t part with.”
“Okay. I’ll get down there.”
Kate said nothing for the rest of the service and moved only to scratch a spot on her left foot, where she feared a dandelion had brushed. It was enough to have Jake there, even if it felt to her like a part of him had fallen missing. They sang old hymns and passed a plate full of ones and fives, the bounty of common folk. Preacher Goggins announced that given the events of the previous night, his sermon would not be the one he’d prepared. He spoke of the pain of this world and the darkness that shrouds its every corner, even a place so peaceful and good as Mattingly. He talked of the burdens of living and the faith needed to overcome them, and Kate found her heart opened and raw. It was like cool water poured into a fresh wound.
When the final blessing was given and the congregation was sent back out into the world, two sights greeted the congregation. One was another county police car making its rounds in search of a murderer. The other was Trevor Morgan happily stuffing a thick stack of Sunday papers into the box across the street.
2
Taylor woke believing it had been a nightmare, that was all. Nothing more than the ones that had come all those times before. What told him otherwise was the lady staring at him from the table.
Memories like butterflies fluttered from his reach the more he grabbed for them, then settled as Taylor’s mind stilled. He saw the boy he’d Woke and the old man who’d tried to stop him. He remembered Charlie and the Texaco. And he remembered her—the girl with the hair of a woebegone boy. She had saved him, had sworn she was Awake and then confessed she was not but wanted to be. Taylor remembered tying her in the chair before his weariness took hold. Now the rope lay in a coiled pile upon the dusty floor.
A wan smile crossed her face. Delicate branches of smooth skin wound their way down her sullied cheeks, marking paths where tears had fallen. She wiped her nose with a hand that had sprouted a crop of brown and black bruises.
“Your knots weren’t tight enough,” she said.
Taylor eased his weight onto an elbow and winced. His lower back felt stuffed with gravel and his pulse thumped through the wound on his head. He worked his jaws loose and said, “You didn’t go.”
“No.” She turned her head toward the shotgun against the wall. “Could have. Could have killed you the same way you were going to kill me.”
“I don’t kill,” Taylor said. He rose and managed to take three wobbling steps toward her. “Killin’s a sin.” He took his book and looked through the lone window. The sun was already over the mountains. By now everyone down in town would know what had happened. As would She. “Reckon you’re hungry, Miss . . .”
“Lucy,” she said, and Taylor had a vague notion she’d told him that the night before. “Lucy Seekins. And I think I should know the name of the man who kept me last night.”
“Taylor Hathcock. Pleasure.”
He went to the stacked crates along the wall and removed the burlap sack, then unrolled it on the table in front of Lucy. Her eyes widened at the flint knife. Taylor felt the deer sinew that fastened the blade to the stag handle. All those years, and it still held true.
“Are you going to hurt me, Taylor?” Lucy asked.
He wasn’t. Taylor remembered pointing the shotgun at her, not wanting to hurt but willing to just the same. But she’d stayed. The girl had saved him and then she’d stayed.
He tucked the blade into his belt. “Left my other knife in town. Meant to keep this hidden away forever. It has power. But a man needs blade and barrel if he’s to live out here. Why didn’t you flee from this place, lady? Did fear hold you when my own binds couldn’t?”
Taylor looked into her eyes, searching. The night had changed her. Night in the Hollow often did that. It forced one’s eyes inward. Where Taylor had seen falsehoods the night before, he only saw truth now. The lady no longer cared what would be safe to say and what would be dangerous. It was truth Lucy Seekins would speak now, and Taylor saw she would follow that road where it led.
She said, “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
The morning stood bright, the sunlight glinting off what few leaves the dark forest allowed to grow. A soft breeze carried the perfume of wildflowers and earth. The day was as perfect as one could be in the Hollow. And yet Taylor closed his eyes to all that beauty upon hearing those words. He knew the hurt of having neither hope nor home.
“I won’t harm you,” he said. But knowing what he wouldn’t do to Lucy wasn’t the same as knowing what he would, and on that Taylor had no notion. He reached into the top crate for the binoculars. “We need a word. Some Twinkies somewhere in these crates, I imagine. Charlie liked to squirrel them away. Water’s in the barrel out front.”
Taylor left her and limped across the small clearing to the edge of his ridgetop. He sat on the rotten log and wrote first, spelling out as best he could what he remembered from the night before, then pointed the lenses to town. Lucy followed shortly after and sat on the far end of the log. Charlie’s spot, Taylor thought, and he thought he would always refer to it as such. He passed the binoculars over the BP first, then the Texaco. Both had been roped off by the police, the parking lots empty. Downtown looked strangely quiet as well. Tiny blobs of people moved about on their way to worship. There was no sign of Charlie. Taylor wrote that down.
“What are you looking at?” Lucy asked.
“Pain and despair, lady.” Taylor looked at her, saw the way Lucy’s eyes drooped and her mouth tilted down at the corners. Her hair stuck out like blunt spikes in some places and lay matted in others. “Seems to me you may know of such things.”
Lucy ignored that. Said, “You can’t see much through those. One of the lenses is missing.”
Taylor handed the binoculars over. “See for yourself.”
She took hold of them by the brass casing and brought the eyepieces up. Taylor watched Lucy’s bottom lip give way. She brought the binoculars down and turned them over in her hands like they were a piece of alien technology. Which, he figured, maybe wasn’t far from the truth.
“How’s that possible?” Lucy brought the lenses up again and smiled. “I can see almost everything.”
Taylor felt a sharp pang of jealousy at the way they looked stuck to her eyes. No one had ever looked through his spyglasses. Charlie had never even asked. They were Taylor’s alone, and yet he’d handed them over to this girl like something had taken his brain hostage, like
I was supposed to.
Yes, like that. Like that exactly. As though a divine hand was gaming things, arranging them and assigning meaning. Just like the cabin and the binoculars themselves. Like the rotten log upon which he sat, there at the perfect spot to gaze down over the valley and the town. Lucy looked at him, her pale smile brighter now, and Taylor gave himself over to the belief that this was perhaps the way things were supposed to unfold all along—something had to come up from the grove so Taylor would take Charlie to town so the boy could be woke so they could go to the Texaco so Charlie could be lost so Lucy Seekins could come.
“You said last night you was Awake,” he said. “Then you said no. Then you said you wanted to be. Which of them was fiction? I’d have your answer, lady, and I’d have it true.”
Lucy’s smile disappeared. She handed the binoculars back to Taylor.
“I was scared.” She looked away, down into the valley. The wind played with her hair. “I didn’t understand. The rope came off right after you fell asleep. I thought about running away.”
“Holler would’ve taken you. There’s things here that’re hungry, lady, and for more than meat.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I was going to try anyway, though. But then I thought about what yo
u said. I want to know what you meant.”
“I’ll speak to it as much as I’m able,” Taylor said. “It’s nothing I’ve spoken to afore. I believe I must, as we’ve been drawn together.” Taylor rubbed his beard, not sure where to start or how much to say. “I come to this wood as a young’un. You’ll find that hard to believe. No one comes to Happy Holler, you’d say, but I did. Ma an’ Pa’s gone then. He’s a drunk and cared not for me. She cared for any man but not the seeds they’d plant in her. I was with my aunt then, but I come here for good when I was of age. I imagine she was glad to see me go.
“I was running, you see. We all run from something, Lucy Seekins, and I remember it was a terrible thing before it turned beautiful. Sometimes I still dream of it, but in that dream all I hear’s voices in shadow. That’s when I found this place. Found that cabin. There was a fresh stack of wood in the hearth, but no ashes. Cot was made but not slept in, and there was the busted mandolin agin’ the wall. Fresh water in the barrel outside, like it’d been just poured. And these here spyglasses sitting in the middle of the floor. It was like someone put all this here just for me. Don’t know who built it all. Maybe it’s always here, waitin’. So I stayed on. I stayed and I found the truth.”
“What truth?” Lucy asked.
And so here it was.
Taylor rose from the log. When he bent down in front of Lucy, she did not flinch.
“The truth, lady, is that all you see through those spyglasses, all you know and think and feel, all you believe, is. Not. Real.”
He paused and held out his arms to catch her, lest the power of that revelation fling Lucy forward. She stared at him, trying to understand, and Taylor offered a slow nod that was both hopeful and sad. Lucy’s swollen belly jiggled beneath her shirt. A guttural sound worked its way from her lips. Then she exploded into a cackle that slid her backward rather than forward.
