Bitter Sun

by Beth Lewis

  ‘We should go,’ I said to Jenny. ‘Eric might be hurt. Momma will be panicking.’

  Jenny’s expression soured at mention of Momma. ‘Screw her. Eric is probably fine, like Rudy said. He goes for a walk every day with his lunch, right around this time.’

  ‘But …’ I tried but Jenny’s face was stone.

  Miss Eaves clapped again and shouted, ‘The buses are pulling up. Get on them and go home. Tell your parents. Hustle!’

  Rudy grinned, his eyebrows bounced on his forehead, and we all knew what he was thinking. Frank was in the church, would be for hours. Not in his office. Not at home.

  Rudy said something but I didn’t hear it.

  A horrible sound, worse than thunder, worse than rage and fists, a crash, a bang, an explosion. A piercing cry from the crowd, people dropped to their hands and knees. The sound of breaking glass everywhere. The school windows shattered. Car windows shattered. Car alarms blared. The ground shook so violently I thought it would break apart, suck us all in. I grabbed Jenny, pulled her down, made myself her shield.

  The twilight blazed orange and a pillowy mass of fire and black smoke bubbled up, up, up, impossibly high, impossibly huge. It hung for a second like Satan himself stood over our town, laughing, raising all Hell behind him. My stomach clenched, and Hell followed with him. Then the orange disappeared and fat belches of smoke joined the mass.

  Nobody moved.

  Miss Eaves held her hand over her heart, the other on the railing for support. Kids cried. The youngest screamed. Parents appeared, picking off their children and friends and whisking them away, eyes and heads sheltered from the sky, the smoke, the taste of ash.

  We were statues, not moving, not breathing. I didn’t know where to look. I’d catch the wide, white eyes of a classmate but there was nothing to say, we felt the same, we saw the same, then the contact broke in an instant. I clutched Jenny’s hand, as tight as I could. I felt her shaking. I felt the whole world shaking.

  Then Jenny turned, hugged me tight and whispered in my ear. ‘There’s no one at home for us. Momma won’t volunteer and Eric will already be there. He’s fine, John, I know he is because he has to be. He wasn’t in the mill. I can feel it. Please, this is our chance.’

  She pulled away and met my eyes, I saw the resolve. She would go to the pastor’s house with or without me.

  Gloria pulled us in close, her voice trembled as she spoke. ‘If we’re doing this we need to go now. Before Mandy gets here.’

  Jenny and Rudy nodded, then Gloria turned to me, spoke just to me.

  ‘He’s okay,’ she said, some of the power returned to her voice. Her strength transferred to me and I agreed. I didn’t know what else to do.

  We moved against the tide, away from the Easton mill, avoiding running men and women, ignoring those who tried to stop us. Feeling a stab of shame and guilt with every confused look. You’re going the wrong way, those looks said. All the way through town my head kept repeating the words, Eric is fine, Eric is safe, until, as we got to Frank’s street, I finally started to believe them.

  Frank had a small place on the south side of town on a neat road, all square lawns and family cars. It didn’t take us long to get there but, as we stood at the corner of his street, the reality hit.

  I had a knot in my throat that wouldn’t go away. Larson was bleeding, burning, and we were going the wrong way. People could be dead or dying, they could need help. Eric could need help. A needle pierced my chest. Momma’s voice spoke in my head, What in God’s good name could you do, John Royal? About all you could do is cry on them to soothe the burns but your salt would make it all the worse. She’d tell me I was soft for caring about people who called me a freak and a pervert. Eric is a grown man, she’d say, he knows not to stick around a burning building, he knows how to take care of himself. The knot in my throat unravelled. Momma was right. Momma was always right. The town could help itself, it was already, but nobody was helping Mary Ridley except us.

  ‘Are we really going to break into a house?’ I said.

  ‘If we want to find out what happened to Mary Ridley we are,’ Gloria said, firm and unwavering.

  Jenny looked toward the source of the smoke. ‘We have to help her, John. Mary doesn’t have anyone else, she needs us.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we be helping the fire department?’ I tried, anything to stop them from snooping in my friend’s house.

  ‘They have enough help,’ Rudy said. ‘We’d get in the way.’

  And the matter was resolved. We were going in.

  The street was empty, abandoned. Only an eerie quiet. The dark smoke sky made it feel like the middle of the night. It was a dream world settled down like a blanket over the real one. We shuffled closer. The pastor’s front door was mint green. The colour of hospitals, the colour you pick when you can’t decide. I felt sick just being here, this close, without his permission, his invitation.

  We walked straight past the house on Rudy’s instruction, just four kids taking a stroll.

  Rudy led us past two more identical homes, then we ducked down the side into the back yard. We crossed both yards, climbed over squat fences, and dropped into the pastor’s.

  ‘Watch and learn,’ Rudy said and opened the screen door. He took two thin metal sticks out of his back pocket and knelt. It took less than five minutes for the lock to click open.

  That wasn’t the first time we’d seen him pick a lock. He was a Buchanan and that came with certain skills. The sick feeling in my belly grew. Frank hadn’t done anything. He’d hate me for being here. Everything will be ruined.

  Still kneeling, like the handsome prince in the stories, Rudy held out his hand and ushered Gloria and Jenny inside. I followed and Rudy closed the door behind us.

  We stood in the pastor’s kitchen and none of us knew what to say.

  The dark outside made the inside feel like midnight. A single glass, single plate, single spoon and fork, beside the kitchen sink. White surfaces barely used, a floor barely walked on, a light covering of dust on everything but the sink and a square of countertop beside it. A prickle on the back of my neck. This wasn’t a home, not like any I’d been in. My house was messy, Gloria’s soft and warm, Miss Eaves’ full of stories, Rudy’s stank of engine oil. This was a copy of a home where the forger hadn’t pressed hard enough on the carbon paper.

  We were all hush and heartbeats, huddled together in the kitchen. Every throbbing pulse shook the dust, like a silent alarm. The cops know you’re in there, they’re coming for you, hell to the mill fire, you four are for the lash.

  But they didn’t come. We stood for so long, waiting, breathing in the pastor’s must, until we realised no one knew, no sirens coming to arrest intruders. The four of us loosened.

  ‘This feels so wrong. We shouldn’t be here,’ I said and folded my arms, afraid to touch anything, afraid to leave trace of myself.

  Rudy ignored me. ‘If I were a no-good, down-dirty pastor, where would I hide my stash?’

  ‘Shut up, Rudy,’ I said but he ignored me again.

  ‘Where we looking first?’ he asked.

  ‘Maddie-May lives on this street,’ Gloria said. ‘I’ve been to hers a bunch of times. All these houses are the same. There’s a family room through there.’ She pointed down the hallway. ‘Two or three bedrooms and bathroom upstairs.’

  ‘Let’s split up,’ I said. Didn’t want to be around Rudy right now, too much enthusiasm for being here, betraying the pastor who had helped him, helped me.

  ‘That’s the spirit! Gloria and Johnny, you take downstairs.’ Rudy winked at me as if he knew. Had Gloria told? A shiver went up my back.

  ‘Me and the princess will check upstairs.’

  Even in the gloom, I saw Jenny’s cheeks flush. She nudged Rudy with her shoulder and called him charming. Twirled a bright blonde curl in her fingers. I felt a twinge in my chest, remembered some of Momma’s harsher words about Jenny’s dresses and boys. Momma would say Jenny shouldn’t be looking at Rudy like that,
blushing like that, flirting away with a boy like him.

  This isn’t the time, John, put it out of your head.

  ‘Be careful,’ Gloria said, ‘put everything back exactly where you found it.’

  We’d all watched enough cop shows to know what we were doing.

  Rudy and Jenny crossed the kitchen, keeping their footsteps soft, passed through the hall and disappeared. A moment later, I heard the creak of stairs.

  Alone with Gloria for the first time in ages. A tight flutter in my chest. In the close space of the pastor’s kitchen, I smelt the smoke on her clothes mixed up with the smell of her, her skin, her hair, that underlying scent that would always be Gloria. That perfume pulled me to her like I had no choice in it. We looked at each other, smiled. Didn’t touch. Suddenly sheepish. Since that first kiss in Barks reservoir there had been one more that week. I’d walked her halfway home after our lesson and chose a route that took us down a quiet lane. I did it on purpose, I’d wanted to know if it was a one-time crazy or something real. There was an awkward moment. She blushed, I blushed, she told me she liked me, I said it back. Then the kiss. Just as perfect and kick-in-the-gut as the last. Real as the birds in the sky.

  ‘Family room?’ she said.

  I followed. This wasn’t the time for kiss number three but oh my, did I want to. Here, in the pastor’s house, with the world crumbling and burning around us, I couldn’t think of a better or worse time.

  No, John, the voice in my head said. How could you think it with Jenny and Rudy just upstairs? You and Gloria are meant to be a secret. Unless they already know. Rudy had winked at me. He knew, didn’t he?

  We entered the family room, just as empty as the kitchen. A single armchair facing the television set. Drawn curtains despite the hour. A fireplace full of display logs and dust. A Bible on the floor beside the chair. No other furniture except a lamp covered over with a thin red shawl. I switched it on and the room turned to blood.

  ‘That’s horrible,’ Gloria said, her face and hair taking on the red and black shadows of a horror movie.

  ‘Who would have this in their house?’ she said, moved past me, switched off the lamp, picked up the Bible. ‘Are you sure this is even the pastor’s place?’

  I nodded. ‘He asked me to walk home with him once after a session, said we didn’t have enough time together that day and the walk gave us extra.’

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ she opened the Bible and flicked through, page after tissue-thin page.

  A photograph fell out onto the carpet. A fuzzy Polaroid, taken in low light.

  My throat dried like I’d swallowed salt.

  It was a woman. Standing in a field or a park sometime near sunset. Smiling.

  Upstairs, Rudy and Jenny laughed. Floorboards creaked as they moved from room to room, but it was like they were in a different house, a different time, on a different mission.

  Gloria picked up the photograph and turned the lamp back on. She lifted the shawl enough to see the woman’s face.

  ‘It could be Mary Ridley,’ she said.

  ‘Doubt it.’

  I took the picture, a blurred, half-turned-away woman, but same hair colour, same length. Plenty of women with hair like that but Gloria seemed sure. Seemed to have already decided.

  ‘Pastor Jacobs told me he had a sister,’ I lied. He’d never spoken about his family, except his dead father. ‘It’s probably her.’

  I turned the picture over, half-expecting the pastor to have written the woman’s name on the back, given us a clue at least, but it was blank. She wore a pale purple cardigan, trees and sky in the background as if the photograph was taken from below. The longer I stared, squinted at the blurred lines, the more I saw Mary Ridley’s face.

  ‘Put it back,’ I said. I couldn’t look. Not another second. It could be Mary, it could be someone entirely different, but I didn’t want to know. If Frank wanted me to know who this woman was, he’d have told me. It was private and I wanted to keep it that way, especially if it meant Frank had something to do with a murder.

  Gloria stuffed the Polaroid in the back of the Bible and set it on the floor. I nudged it with my foot into the right position.

  As we stepped back toward the kitchen, I paused.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s a door,’ I said, nodding to the far side. Nobody noticed it when we came in, it was flat instead of panelled, and painted the same colour as the wall. As I reached it, my throat dried up a second time.

  ‘What?’ Gloria saw me tense. She joined me and saw it too.

  A faint light came from beneath the door.

  ‘I thought nobody was home.’ I could barely speak.

  Two voices in my head screamed open it, don’t open it, open it, don’t open it, over and over, louder and louder until my head wanted to crack apart, the sound and terror spilling out on the kitchen floor. All this sneaking around, all these accusations, all the snide remarks from Rudy, all got into my head and the guilt swept over me in great waves. It could be a light the pastor just left on when doing laundry or one on a timer to deter thieves. Or he could be down there. A knife stuck in my belly. He’s here, he’s home, he’s going to find you and catch you snooping and then he’s going to hate you, John, he’ll hate you and you’ll have lost another father. I closed my eyes and tried to count. One-one-thousand. Make the voices shut up, bring me silence.

  ‘Two-one-thousand …’ I breathed deeply. ‘Three-one-thousand. Four-one-thousand.’

  And slowly the fear and guilt faded. I felt frayed and raw around the edges and so tired of all this. I wanted to be back at the farm, trying to save what I could of the crop but no, I was here, in my friend’s house, trying to prove he killed a girl.

  ‘Five-one-thousand …’

  ‘John.’ Jenny’s voice, my touchstone. She quietened the world. She made the voices hush with just a few words.

  I opened my eyes to my sister and two confused faces. Jenny and Rudy had come to the kitchen. Jenny’s hands in mine, interlaced fingers. Gloria and Rudy stood back, watching me, their mouths wide like I was some carnival show.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Jenny said, soft in the dark house. ‘He can get a bit worked up sometimes, you know, worried. The pastor taught him this counting trick to calm him down.’

  She smiled. ‘It works real well.’

  ‘You okay, John?’ Gloria said, put her hand on my back. I felt its heat and its comfort and wanted to wrap my arms around her.

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

  ‘What happened?’ Rudy asked.

  I smoothed my hair. ‘Nothing. I’m just … We shouldn’t be in here, remember? Pastor Jacobs didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, Johnny, we all know you’ve got a stellar crush on the guy, want some time alone in his bedroom? You can cuddle his pillow or wear his jockeys,’ Rudy said, wrapped his arms around himself and made fat smooching noises.

  Something in me snapped.

  I lunged for him.

  The anger in me rose and rose and I almost got to him, almost had my hands on him, but Jenny grabbed me. Gloria grabbed me. Pulled me back. Rudy stared, back against the kitchen cabinets, over in a second. Wide-eyed rabbit boy. Rudy Buchanan shitting himself because of John Royal? Well ain’t that a turn-up, folks?

  ‘Do you boys want to go outside and cool off?’ Gloria glared at us, let me go.

  Rudy pushed away from the cabinets and his face, defiant a moment ago, softened. ‘Sorry, man, didn’t mean anything by it. I know you and Jacobs are friends, he helps you. I get it. We good?’

  I saw the sincerity in him. Saw the movie-star charm coming out. Saw the smile. Hard to stay mad at Rudy. It’s not an untrained dog’s fault if it bites, you should know better than to put your hand near its mouth. Frank would say, ‘Lord, the boy knows not what he does.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘We’re good. Sorry, man.’

  A moment of quiet and calm. Let the dust settle. Then Rudy turned to Gloria. ‘Is that a basement door
?’

  We were back on mission. Back to finding some dirt on the pastor, all because Rudy overheard a conversation or two.

  Rudy held up his hands. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  Everyone looked at everyone else. They didn’t want to say, of course, we’re waiting for John to stop freaking out and we’re waiting for you chumps to stop fighting.

  Rudy stepped past me to the door, spotted the light but didn’t comment. He grabbed the door handle.

  Turned it.

  My chest constricted.

  ‘Wait,’ he said and let the handle go. All the breath burst out of me.

  ‘Goddamn it, Rudy.’ Gloria ran her hands through her hair like she was pulling away the tension in strands.

  He smiled and said, ‘I think you two should stay up here. Me and John will go down. It could be dangerous after all.’

  Gloria deflated but Jenny quickly agreed.

  ‘Fine,’ she huffed and shot Jenny a sour look.

  ‘What do you think’s down there?’ Rudy said to me.

  ‘A pile of junk probably.’

  But that Polaroid had sent a flutter of unease through me, like my belly was full of tiny birds, all taking flight.

  Rudy took the handle and opened the basement door. Enclosed wooden stairs led down. A bulb at the bottom gave off weak yellow light. Rudy went first. He told the girls to keep a look out for the pastor, they told us to be careful. There’s nothing down there, my head told me. Junk. Storage. What else could it be? But the Polaroid. The girl. What if I was wrong?

  My heart beat like rain on the window. Blood rushed all through me. I felt its movement in my toes, up my legs, through my gut and chest, into a whirlpool in my head. I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to take step after step down the stairs but I was. I saw myself doing it like I was still standing at the top and fake John was descending into the lion’s den. Don’t go, I shouted but I was shouting through soundproof glass. He can’t hear me. He’s taking another step. You idiot. Stop. You don’t know what’s down there.

  The girls crowded the doorway like lookie-loos at a car wreck. At the bottom of the stairs, Rudy stopped dead, his attention fixed on something in the basement.