Where Darkness Dwells

by Glen Krisch

  "Hello, Coop." Sheriff Bergman removed his bowler cap. He wiped sweat from his brow. The thin strands of his hair belied his young face.

  "Afternoon, Sheriff," Cooper said. "Can I help you?"

  "Oh, just in for some browsing. Not much going on in my office. Needed to stretch my legs."

  "Need anything, just let me know."

  "Sure will."

  Bergman lowered his eyes to the nearest shelf. Cooper raised the broomstick, disrupting a spider from its web. He squashed the pest at the seam of the wall and ceiling. The sheriff was two rows over, eyes still trained on whatever was in front of him, not seeing whatever it was.

  "You sure I can't help you find anything?"

  The sheriff's face strained with indecision. He swiped a damp kerchief across his face and along the back of his neck. "Well, I'm not sure. I've been meaning, well since George…" the sheriff stopped abruptly, as if he had run out of words.

  To end an uncomfortable silence, Cooper cleared his throat. "Sheriff?"

  "Has Hank showed you how to place catalog orders?"

  "I've placed some already. Mostly odds and ends. What can I help you with?"

  "George Banyon's going to be buried tomorrow. I know it won't ship near in time, but it's got me to wondering. I don't have my own bible. Coal Hollow doesn't have a rightful preacher of any sort, hasn't in years. Dr. Thompson is the closest thing we got to a holy man, so he does most the talking graveside, but the whole ordeal… it's got me thinking is all."

  "How about I show you what's available." Cooper waved Bergman over to the counter near the cash register. A yellowed catalog was open from when he placed a fabric order for Mrs. Trumount just after he opened this morning. He swiveled the catalog on its lazy-susan until it faced him. Bergman walked over, still seeming sheepish as Cooper flipped through the voluminous catalog.

  "Seems like you have this place down pat."

  "Mr. Calder was kind enough to offer me this position; I'll do my best not to let him down."

  "That's honorable enough."

  Cooper waited for Bergman to strike. He couldn't shake the feeling the sheriff didn't just come in to order a bible. Flipping too far in the catalog, to an extensive button section, he flipped back until he found the right page. A total of five bibles descending in value.

  "Here we go." Cooper swiveled the lazy-susan until the catalog was facing Bergman right side up.

  It took the sheriff no more than two seconds to make his selection. "This one. This is it. How long will it take to get it?" He tapped his finger at the bottom, at a cheap pulp bible bound in a faux leather cover. Cooper wondered what nature of tragedy would hasten the sheriff to dole out money for real cowhide and gilt-edged pages.

  "We can get that in, let's see, two-three weeks tops."

  "Fine. Let's go with that."

  Cooper started filling out the order form, and even with his eyes lowered to the order pad, he could sense Bergman had something else on his mind.

  "Coop?"

  He looked up from the order pad.

  Here it comes, he thought. The transformation from a grieving, soul-searching small town sheriff, to spiteful brow-beater with an axe to grind.

  "I just wanted you to know, Dr. Thompson's concluded the boy didn't die maliciously, at least not at the hands of another person. After examining the body, Doc thinks an animal done that to his face."

  "An animal?"

  "He said a boar could've done something like that, could've run him down. Nothing sharp caused the gash, like a blade or nothing like that. Doc says the boy probably ran into a clearing where an animal was protecting its young. He also said a rock's hard edge could've gashed him up pretty good. If something got George spooked enough, he might've fallen while running through the swamp, and with the force of the fall, and if he hit a rock just the right way…"

  "So, you've personally come to tell me this?"

  "I didn't mean no harm by what I said the other night. I was wrong. I never thought you did anything to that boy. I would've locked you up if I had. It's just that--"

  Cooper cut him off with a waved hand. "It's all right Sheriff Bergman. I understand. You know your townsfolk. You didn't know me from Genghis Khan."

  "Gingis-Can?"

  "Never mind. Here's your receipt. By the way, how's Ellie?"

  "She's a tough one. She's with Jane Fowler, which I think is for the best, even if Charles turns up." Cooper thought back to the night he came to Coal Hollow. He'd learned that Jane used to look after Bergman when he was a child, when she was no more than a child herself. Ellie would be in safe hands.

  "So her father just up and disappeared?"

  "Charles Banyon might as well just up and disappear for good, you ask me. He done nothing for those kids. If he could just put down the bottle for a while, sober up, the man has talents like nobody I seen."

  "How's that?" Cooper asked, curious.

  "Well, for one," Bergman said, pointing to the storefront window. "That rocker? It came from Charles Banyon's hand. He can't read, don't know numbers to make an accurate measure. It's all hand-tooled, built by sight without a single measurement. The man has a talent."

  The sheriff tucked the order receipt inside his shirt pocket and replaced his sweaty bowler to his head. He nodded Cooper his thanks and made for the door.

  Before leaving, Bergman said, "Problem with men with talents… seems like they always got equal parts weakness offsetting them using it."

  6.

  "I can't go," Ellie said quietly, her voice barely carrying in the humid night air. She could have been talking to herself.

  Jacob's mom had set the girl up on the sofa in the living room, but during the first night under the Fowler's roof, Ellie had entered Jacob's bedroom, pulling a blanket in with her. As dawn neared, he'd tumbled over her as he got up to get a glass of water. She'd curled up in a ball on the floor, covered in the blanket despite the heat. She'd tried to apologize, but Jacob would have none of it. He drank his water, returned to his bed, and was soon back asleep.

  This morning, after Jacob told his mom what had happened, she moved the mattress from Jimmy's bed to his bedroom floor. Jacob hadn't said a word about it. He wasn't crazy about Ellie sleeping in his room, but didn't see any harm in it either, at least for the short term.

  "Did you say something?" Jacob asked sleepily. He wasn't tired, but didn't want to let on that he had been awake since he climbed into bed more than an hour earlier. He couldn't get his mind off things. Crazy things. Things that made him wonder about just about everyone he came across. If he didn't know his brother, then who could he know, who could he trust?

  "I just can't go. The burial. I can't see them pouring dirt on Georgie."

  He didn't know what to say. He couldn't see her face; only a narrow band of moonlight broke through the darkness of the room.

  "I'm scared he's gonna be knocking to get out, and they'll still dump dirt on him. Or maybe he can still hear and feel everything, but can't do nothing about it. Can't even move to scratch an itch from his nose."

  "Ellie--" He still didn't move, feeling helpless.

  "I can't, Jacob. I can't go."

  "Ellie, you do what you want," he said, hoping his words weren't a mistake. He paused to collect his thoughts before continuing, "You don't need to be there for George to know you love him. He's in heaven, and in heaven, they have a way of knowing what's in your heart."

  She let out a shallow, hitching breath, as if she were about to cry. Without seeing her, he knew she gripped her rag doll desperately.

  "I'll talk to my mom. I'm sure it'll be okay."

  They were quiet for a while, and he could sense her relaxing. Her breathing became deeper, heading toward sleep.

  Staring into the murky blackness of the ceiling, he listened to his own words still ringing through his head. If Jimmy was dead, then he was looking down on him from heaven right now, looking into Jacob's heart and seeing how much he missed him, and knowing that he loved him.


  That's only If. If means jumping to conclusions. If doesn't mean a damn thing.

  He shook his head, angry at himself for thinking the worst, for growing comfortable with it.

  Ellie's small hand reached out from her lower mattress and squeezed his forearm, nearly startling a scream from him.

  "Thanks, Jacob."

  "It's okay, Ellie."

  "Jacob?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Can you… can you be my brother?"

  Emotion choked the words in his throat. "I'd be happy to."

  Ellie didn't say any more, just squeezed his forearm again before pulling away. He could feel the trace heat left by her touch. Such a small hand, small as a doll's. He closed his eyes, shutting out the darkness of his bedroom, returning to the darkness of his thoughts. He flashed to the memory of George's body floating in the swamp muck and his mom clearing the debris from his face. He'd felt unexpected joy when it turned out the body hadn't been Jimmy. That momentary elation was now a pit of guilt eating away at him. Having Ellie sleep nearby sharpened his guilt. She was so young and alone. Someone had struck down the only responsible person in her life. No one deserved that. No one. He wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy. Not even a colored deserved that.

  George Banyon was dead. Jimmy was missing. Missing, he reminded himself. Only missing. Missing just means he's not here. He's somewhere else. Somewhere safe. He had to believe it. Had to.

  As Jacob's thoughts began to twist with sleep, he resolved to do whatever he could to find his brother. And though he wasn't crazy about Ellie sharing his room, he felt better knowing she was safe. And that he wasn't alone.

  7.

  Like every other night since entering town, Cooper retired to his bed above Calder's Mart, with a full stomach and a reassuring ceiling overhead. As he began to dream, it was as like every other night.

  Running through the furrowed cornfield, his heart pounding, fearing capture, adrenaline stripping his nerves raw. Finding the house, THE house. Remembering to give the knock he didn't know he knew until his knuckles hit the door, and then waiting as whoever was playing the pipe organ stops, comes over to answer the door. The screech as it opens, and the old lady with the rheumy eyes allowing entry into her house. THE house.

  She doesn't say a word, this stranger, his savior. She doesn't even look over her shoulder at him as she leads him down a narrow hall, down a flight of rickety stairs. On the landing, seeing his own reflection in a mirror, his skin uncommonly lost in shadow, slick with sweat. The old woman disappearing around a corner. His fingers touching his face, unbelieving, still staring at the reflection.

  And remembering the old woman, hurrying to catch up to her farther down the hall. When he finds her, she smiles, her two remaining teeth telling of hard life and advancing age. Someone so put upon, living an inelegant life of burden, and still she offers her home to strangers.

  She opens a door to a small, unlit room. Walks to the far corner. Feels along the wall, finds the hidden door, presses a fake panel, opens it. She smiles her two-toothed smile, and she gestures for him to enter the hidden room.

  When he enters, only rejoice, his fear subdued, not gone, not forgotten. Simply pushed aside.

  For inside this hidden room, his wife, his father-in-law, all he could ever hope for. Salvation.

  Cooper woke, the sun at an odd angle, too high in the sky. He blinked, rubbed the crust from his eyes. He checked the time. Late morning. He had slept the night through. He jumped from bed, a plan corkscrewing through his brain, ending in an unwavering conclusion. That house. Horace Blankenship's old house. He couldn't remember much of his dream. Just that he had the urge to step inside the house, to take possession of it. The feeling was overwhelming, blocking all other thoughts.

  Cooper cleaned up, and then left his rented room above Calder's Mart, heading straight for Harvard Square Bank.

  8.

  Jimmy tore a strip of fabric from his shirt and bound his bloody hands. He'd known hard work. His whole life had been hard work, his dad having died when he was three. Straight away, he'd started helping his mom around the farm. Jacob couldn't even waddle yet, but somehow, Jimmy knew from the moment their mom dried her tears that he would need to look after Jacob, and that his mom needed him, too. And he worked. Small chores at first. Cleaning up after himself. Taking his dishes to the sink. Making sure he didn't leave a mess. Soon enough, he starting sweeping the floors and feeding the animals. When he was old enough for school, he worked before and after class. He'd taken over much of the farm's responsibilities by the time he was eleven. Still, since taking up a shovel and pickaxe and working next to Benjamin and Harold, Jimmy had never worked so hard in his life. Had never come close.

  His palms had no skin. Swinging a pickaxe and wielding a shovel for hours on end rubbed away his skin to nothing. They felt coated in liquid fire, as if lit kerosene had been poured into his open palms, left to sear and bubble.

  The thought of returning to work chipping away at the "Paradise" was maddening. Knowing his captors had imprisoned Harold and his family for so long only made it worse. For the first time since entering the Underground he was both coherent and desperate enough to flirt with the idea of escape.

  "Don't bind them so tight," Benjamin said from where he slumped along the floor nearby. It was the first time the younger of the two Negro men had initiated a conversation with him. Benjamin kept to himself, occasionally speaking with his father-in-law in muted tones, always after their work was through, always with a leery eye cast in Jimmy's direction.

  "I have to stop the bleeding," he said, gritting his teeth.

  "But you wake tomorrow, you gonna rip off whatever skin you got left." Benjamin's shoulders were thick with muscle and his rough cotton shirt was a tatters strewn across them like seaweed. Jimmy wasn't sure if the uncertain light was playing tricks, but looking at Benjamin's hands, he saw no sign of bleeding, only a hint of callusing. "You intend on stopping the bleeding, but in the end, you just bring yourself more grief. Trust me, the air down here has a peculiar way with injuries."

  Jimmy loosened his makeshift bandage, just enough to get the tingling back to his numb fingers.

  "What a white boy like you doing down here, Jimmy?" Benjamin shifted his weight closer, until he could speak without fear of anyone else overhearing. Jimmy wasn't used to a colored man speaking to him so openly, especially one he had never spoken to. Just being around colored people wasn't an everyday occurrence. Their kind tended to keep to the unincorporated village of Lewiston. It was an afterthought on the map five miles away, yet their populations rarely mingled. In the aboveground world that felt so far away, if he came across a colored person, he'd feel an adrenaline surge, not from fear of danger, but more from fear of the unknown.

  He tested his bandages and found the pain lessening. "It's stupid." Jimmy was ashamed, not wanting to admit risking his life to chase after an old woman's folktale.

  "What am I gonna do, laugh at your plight?" He shook his ankle enough to rattle his shackle.

  "White Bane," Jimmy said quietly. "Ever hear of it?"

  "That big old devil fish? Sure I have. Even down here you hear tales. Most times whites ignore you like you're not there, so you hear plenty. You were trying to make something of yourself going after that legend, weren't you?"

  "I guess. We saw a light, me and my friend George. We went through a small tunnel. You know the rest."

  "Big mistake, boy. White Bane could've gotten you before you even made the other side that tunnel. Tell you the truth, you might've been better off." Benjamin sighed and stretched his arms over his head.

  "That was you, in the tunnel when they grabbed me, wasn't it?"

  "I don't recall much what happened that day."

  "What were you doing so far from the stables?"

  "What do you think?" Benjamin said.

  Was Benjamin trying to escape when they came through from the underground lake? Jimmy tucked the little nugget of information away for later considerat
ion. Benjamin wasn't a happy man. No one would be under the circumstances. The only men who seemed happy were the former miners brought Underground and put to work in exchange for their immortality. It seemed like Benjamin's personality had a hard enough edge that he might be a valuable asset if Jimmy ever figured out a way out of here.

  After a while, Jimmy spoke up. "You seen White Bane?"

  "What do you think?" he repeated.

  Their conversation lagged again. Benjamin reclined and a moment later closed his eyes. Jimmy thought he had gone to sleep. Only after his ears attuned to the cavern's quiet did Jimmy realize a couple of men had stumbled close to where they rested.

  "Where that nigger girl at?" one man said, slurring thickly.

  "Let's just get another bottle instead."

  Jimmy feigned sleep, closing his eyes to slits. He could see Benjamin wince at the mentioning of his wife, a woman Jimmy had never seen within sight of her husband. While Scully allowed for the male slaves to rest after long hours of labor, Edwina never returned.

  Thinking of Louise, and just how much he had let down both her and the baby, his stomach clenched like a fist. He couldn't have just acted responsibly. He had to go on one last adventure. Now he felt certain he'd never see the sun rise or set again.

  "Oh lord, it's been too long," one drunk said, laughing. "Gonna get me that girl." The voices were louder, closer. Jimmy recognized one of them, but couldn't quite place it.

  "That's what you get for drinking yourself 'til your willy ain't nothing more'n a keg-tap on your bladder."

  "Yeah, well she gotta be somewhere 'round here."

  "Gimme that bottle."

  "Fine, here 'tis."

  The two men entered the stables and stood staring straight at Jimmy.

  The shock of seeing the two men, and recognizing one of them clear as day, forced his eyes wide. His hand went to his ankle shackle, tracing the chain tethered to the wall. The heady odor of mule shit and hay chaff intensified. Jimmy tried backing away, but the stables were a dead end. No place to hide.