by Billy Coffey
“Kate’s no such thing as kind,” he said. He kept his hand still, not wanting to break her touch. “She’s weaved a spell ’round that town. ’Round Jake. But make no mistake on what I say. I know the truth.”
“She helps people,” Lucy said. “Poor people. They say she has this notebook she carries with her all the time, and she keeps the names in there. How can someone like that kill a boy?”
“A notebook fulla names, you say?” Taylor smiled. “I envy you, Lucy Seekins.” He squeezed Lucy’s hand. “You’ve the world ahead. And though it may be a false world, it can shine fair. You bear no weight but for what’s on your bones. There’s other heaviness, and it’s more burdensome. You get some years on, you’ll see life’s a hard going, and the load placed upon you may be of our own doing and it may not. Such is my story. Jake bears that weight as well. But Kate? By the evil in her heart, she bears the weight most of all.”
Lucy nibbled at her bottom lip. “Kate wouldn’t kill anyone.”
“How’s it you know that?” Taylor asked. “You’ve yet to chance upon her.”
He kept Lucy’s hand in his own and felt the sweat pouring from her fingers. He spotted the quick heartbeat beneath her blouse and noticed the way she suddenly couldn’t look at him. There was little wisdom in Taylor Hathcock, but he was wily; no one could survive in the Hollow that long without wits. A part of him cried out that Lucy was lying and that she would be his end. Yet that voice was met by another, smaller one that pled for Taylor to no longer look for deceit in Lucy Seekins for fear of what would be found. That small voice won out. It was simply good enough that Lucy was there and had thought to bring candles. Love covers a multitude of sins. Loneliness does too.
“I carry no hate for Kate Griffith,” Taylor said. “I did once. Now I know the harm she did me turned to blessing. You say she carries a book to record her goodness. I know why. Just as I know those names add more red than black to the account she owes. And I do not carry hate for Jake. Him, I mourn.”
“Why?”
“’Cause Jake’s a killer too.”
“Taylor—”
“He is,” Taylor said. “I bore witness to it myself. You say Jake looked scared up on that stage? That’s why. Because he knows I still run free, and I know the truth of what he done. He’s a man on the outside but a boy inward. He ails, lady. Kate too. Such is why this Holler means to have an end and why there’s prints from the Hole. I’ve been called to Wake them both when the time comes. My love will set them free.”
Lucy’s eyes began to water. Taylor took a measure of pride that the beauty of his words had drawn such a reaction from her.
She said, “You told me you wouldn’t hurt them.”
“’Tis my destiny, lady.”
“What did Kate do to you, Taylor?”
Taylor lowered his gaze, telling himself no, don’t you dare. But the words were already over his lips, and in a whisper Lucy barely heard.
“She told me she loved me.”
There was no more talk of Jake or Kate that night. Lucy took the bed of boughs by the fire, Taylor the cot. He decided he would let the candles burn that night. Sometimes Taylor saw things in the dark, horrible things that frightened him because he thought they came not from the Hollow but from his own heart.
He’d nearly settled into sleep when Lucy asked, “Why can’t we just stay here together, Taylor? You and me and the grove. If this is all a dream, then nothing else matters.”
“Because I’m Awake, Lucy Seekins,” he said. “I’m Awake and in the dream both, and I am the only one. Knowing the truth yet bearing up under a lie is a burden you won’t want to bear. This Holler wants me to right a wrong. If I do, maybe he’ll free me to find what lies on the other side. My fight’s fading, lady. I grow weary of this world.”
The fire crackled. In the distance a coyote called.
“I’m not going back there,” Lucy said. “There’s nothing for me in that town.”
“And what will people say has become of you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. No one will notice anyway.”
Taylor didn’t think that right. Someone would know the lady had come up missing. Someone might even have the presence of mind to think he had something to do with that. That notion struck Taylor as useful if the time came.
“As you wish it, Lucy Seekins,” he said.
“What if you’re wrong?” Lucy asked. “What if you’re wrong about Kate and Jake? About everything?”
Taylor had thought of that often in his long years in the Hollow. He now thought of it again. Even the most devout had their doubts. The conclusion he reached this time was the same he’d reached in all the others.
“This here life can’t be real. It hurts too much.”
“But what if it is?”
The answer Taylor gave was the only one he could.
“Then I’m hellbound, lady.”
2
It was enough that most of the town believed me when I said Taylor was gone, or maybe it was because Justus was so convinced Taylor wasn’t. Whichever the case, that Tuesday Big Jim Wallis decreed life in Mattingly should return to normal. Kate knew Zach wouldn’t take this well (not only did normal mean a return to math and spelling, it meant facing up to Danny Blackwell), but she thought I’d be pleased. Normal, after all, was all I wanted. Yet I greeted the news that morning with a silent apathy. She guessed aloud that it was my nightmares, a wise enough conclusion given the way I’d tossed about in the dark. But I hadn’t dreamed the night before. Taylor and my father had kept me awake in a way that my fear of Phillip never could.
Just as quiet was the ride to school. My mind was torn in half the whole way there, seeing all those children and knowing Taylor could be waiting to pluck any one of them away. Especially Zach, who sat mute and glum in the backseat. But there was nothing I could do about that. I’d sent Alan’s men away and told the town Taylor Hathcock was long gone, and I could no more keep Zach home than I could tell everyone that Taylor was close, that he’d always been close, and now he had a smart one with him. Zach’s only words when we dropped him at school were the “Love you” he offered when I let him out and the “Okay, Mommy” to Kate when she asked that he call her later.
Thankfully Kate’s mind wasn’t on my furrowed brow as we drove the few blocks from the school. She had fallen into her notebook instead and remained there until we turned onto Main Street. My hand tightened around hers. She looked up to see a mass of men gathered at the courthouse steps, spilling out all the way to the sheriff’s office. Fifty of them, maybe more. All riveted upon Justus, who stood at the top step pointing to a map taped to one of the wide stone columns. Several of them wore knapsacks. Many wore camouflage or military jackets. All of them wore guns.
Mayor Wallis saw us park and made his way over. Sweat had already turned his white dress shirt a dull gray beneath his suit jacket. The cigar in his mouth had been chewed to a mashed nub.
“You see that?” he asked. “I can’t even get to my office. You do something about this, Sheriff. You send those men along. They’re armed, Jake. Armed. This ain’t no Wild West show, this is a proper town.”
I looked out from beneath the brim of my hat and considered this, knew it was right. I also knew there was little I could do about it. Justus divided up the men and pointed to various spots on the map like a general giving orders. It was a bad sight made worse by the approach of Trevor Morgan’s car, which slowed and then stopped where we stood.
He rolled down the window and smiled. “Morning, Uncle—Mayor. Jake.” Then a smile and, “Hello there, Kate.”
“Where you going, boy?” Big Jim asked. “Figured you’d be on that crowd like a wolf on fresh meat. Your readers need to know that man’s impedin’ the usual machinations of their town.”
Trevor leaned out the window and looked back toward the courthouse. “Figure I have plenty of time for them.” He looked at me and added, “Not like they’ll be arrested or anything. Got an errand to run in
Camden.”
My head turned at that word. “What’s in Camden?”
“Now, Sheriff, I’m the one who usually asks the questions. Chasing down a lead. All I’ll say.”
He offered his good-bye and drove off, waving his hand out the window. Kate watched Trevor go and turned back to the business at hand.
“Jake, the mayor’s right,” she said. “Can’t you do something? Tell them to gather somewhere else maybe?”
“He means to do it here,” I said. “Right here in front of everybody. Show the town he’s not afraid. They see that, maybe they won’t be afraid either.” I stood there watching Justus. “Pretty smart, really.”
“Smart?” Big Jim asked. “Now look here, Jake. I know that man’s your daddy, but he’s a wanted criminal charged with almost killing three men. I ain’t gotta stand here while my own sheriff calls him smart. Listen.” He pulled at my elbow to gain my attention, then drew back when I gave it. I might stand idle as Justus did my job for me, but I would not abide being manhandled. Every man has a line in him that won’t be crossed. “You know I didn’t approve of you being elected sheriff. How could I, given what Justus did? But you’re here, and I’ve accepted it. Now I need you to decide if you’re gonna do your job or not.”
As it turned out, Justus made my decision for me. He parted the men like Moses through the Red Sea and made for the nearest truck, which was Bobby Barnes’s old Dodge. Bobby followed as the others made for their own. The street erupted in a series of backfires and growling engines.
I turned to Kate and said, “Gonna patrol the north hills to Boone’s Pond. I’ll be back for lunch, if you have a mind to join me.”
“Okay.”
Bobby’s truck pulled to the curb where we stood. He rolled down the window and leaned back as Justus leaned forward.
“We’re bound for Riverwood,” he said. “Gonna split up there and cover the ground west to Three Peaks. Lots of places to hole up around there.”
I said nothing. Nor did Big Jim. He’d challenged Justus enough at the meeting. He had no stomach for more.
Kate said, “You shouldn’t be doing this, Justus. You’ll only stir the town.”
“Stirrin’s what this town needs, Katelyn.” Justus turned to me. “You comin’?”
“Got work,” I said.
Justus turned up his nose. Bobby offered a sad shake of his head. Do you know what that feels like, having the town drunk look on you with pity? It was one brief moment, but it was a look I knew I’d remember for the rest of my life. And yet that didn’t stop me from going north as Bobby and my father drove south.
3
Taylor had tried once to use the binoculars to peer in the direction of the rusty gate—this was some weeks after what happened along the riverbank, back when he considered every snapping twig and whispered breeze to be either a ghost or townspeople bent on justice—but what he saw was distorted and far away. Once, as an experiment, he’d taken them atop Indian Hill to look past the river bend to the cliffs beyond—as close as Taylor ever wanted to get again. The binoculars hadn’t worked there either. It was only when he panned the lenses down toward town that the images shone clear and close, so that was where Taylor had trained them since. That was where he trained them now.
Kate was down there. Lucy hadn’t seen her yet, but others had. And Kate had married Jake. That last bit of information was old to Taylor now, but it still carried a charge. He’d seen the group of men leave the center of town, but no truck or car matched what he thought Mattingly’s sheriff would drive. There had been women on the street. Taylor believed Kate was surely among them, but he couldn’t remember her face well enough to pick her out. The years had dulled his memory at the edges. Taylor had forgotten much, and what he recalled was little more than scraps of litter that blew across his mind in sporadic waves.
He had gone without a fire and breakfast that morning, leaving Lucy at peace. She’d done well the past days; sleep was what she needed now. Taylor knew the lady had much on her mind. As did he.
Because the Hole called to Lucy Seekins, and in a way it never had to him. Taylor had known that the moment her eyes beheld the grove. He’d known it more when she’d dared to go there without him the day before. And as he sat upon his log that morning (seeing the town, yes, but looking into his own heart more), Taylor thought of how anxious he’d been watching her go and how much that feeling had frightened him. He’d gone for Lucy later—just to see to her safety, he told himself, though he also told himself that was a lie—but the elation that had come upon finding her safely in the grove gave way to the shock at what she’d found.
The hands. Lucy had found the hands.
And not only that, the lady had also faced the bear. The evidence of that had been all over the field and plain enough for even a blind man to see. That she had and that she’d lived could only mean one thing.
Taylor heard her shuffles before her shadow fell upon him. Lucy sat at her place on the log. She’d exchanged the shorts and shirt she’d worn for jeans and a white camisole. They remained in silence for some time and watched the sun make its slow arc over the valley below. The mountains in the distance were a deep blue, like waves gathering to crash.
Lucy said, “I grew up in Washington, DC. That’s about as far away from here as a place can be and still lie in the world. My friends and me used to stay up all night. Carrying on, partying, you know. Usually it was at my apartment, because Dad was always gone. When morning came we’d all go up to the roof and watch the sun come up over the office buildings and warehouses. It would start out orange, then turn red in all the smog.”
Taylor considered this and said, “That sounds plain awful.”
“I didn’t used to think so. Just a couple days ago, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to get back there. But now . . . yeah. It does seem awful, doesn’t it?”
Taylor laid the binoculars on the log and turned to her. “We should have us a word, lady. About what you seen at the Hole. All else’ll wait.”
Lucy glanced down at her feet. The sun colored her cheeks like roses. Taylor looked away. “What were they?” she asked. “Those hands.”
“The Hole was here before there was a Here,” Taylor said. “We all got a middle, Lucy Seekins. World’s no different. What lies in that grove is the world’s middle. It’s a holy place in need of a Keeper. Those handprints, they’re a chronicle. That’s the best I can say. Those walls are a record of the ones this Holler’s called to itself. We answered, me and all those come before me, stretching on back generations, maybe thousands of years, and we wandered this wood and found that special place. It becomes ours to tend. The berries on that bush in the grove? That’s why they’re there. You mash them up and dip your hand in, and you put your mark upon the wall. My own hand’s upon that wall along with all the rest. It means we’re bound. We belong to this Holler and we cast all else aside. Never thought you’d find them. I never wanted to take you there, lady, but you needed proof of the things I speak. Now the Holler’s spoke. It means to make you Keeper next.”
Lucy looked at Taylor in a way he could not comprehend. He saw in her countenance joy and sadness, pain and elation.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Are you leaving?”
“I don’t know, lady. The dream’s a mystery. I told you of the burden I keep. I believe to Wake would be a fair going, and I’d oblige someone to lay me down when the time comes. But I’m not going soon. There’s too much work to do and too much for me to show you. After?” Taylor shrugged. “All I have will be yours then. But mind what I say—you’d leave all else behind, for this life and after. Those eyes you feel on this side of the rusty gate are those who’ve come to the grove before. Such is what I believe is true. Absent with the body and present with the Lord may be the rule down in the world, but not here. This Holler’s a selfish lover, Lucy Seekins, and will not abide a divided heart. Once you give yourself over to it, here’s where you stay. This will be your kingdom, but it will also be your cell.�
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Lucy’s eyes went to the wild spaces around them. She looked to town. Taylor looked at her again and saw how comely she was. Her hair had gone without a brush for two days and was jagged by sleep and wind, but she was wondrous just the same.
“My mother died when I was born,” she said. “My dad told me that I came out wrong. I think about that a lot, how I came into the world crooked. My dad used to call her Smiles. He calls me that too, because he says I smile like her. He says she always smiled. I guess that’s true. That’s what she’s doing in all the pictures I’ve ever seen of her. But sometimes I think she’s not smiling at all. Sometimes I think she’s trying to tell me something, like when those pictures were taken she knew I’d see them and she wouldn’t be here, and she wanted to tell me all the things she wanted me to know. Sometimes at night when the weather’s turned bad, I think I hear her in the rain. But I can’t make out what she’s trying to say. It’s like the pictures that way.
“My dad blames me for her dying. I can see it in him when he looks at me. I think that’s why he’s gone so much. I think he hates it that it wasn’t up to him which one of us to keep, me or her. He’d have chosen her. I can’t blame him. I never thought there was much hope for me.”
“I won’t hear that. There’s hope, lady. Always.” Taylor inched himself down the log. He took Lucy’s hand and placed it to her chest, holding it there. “What do you feel?”
“My heartbeat.”
“No, lady. I say that’s hope. As long as you feel that life in you, there’s hope still.”
Tears welled in Lucy’s eyes. She tried to pull them in and could not. Taylor put his hand to the place on her cheek the sunlight had warmed. She gripped his fingers and said, “All my life I wanted a family. What I got instead was a father who’s about to send me away and a mother who couldn’t bear to be in the same world as me.”
