by Julia French
“Don’t get your hopes up. If she’s running around on me, I’ll deal with it myself.”
“Up to you, buddy.” The man pocketed the bills. “Pictures or just notes?”
“Just notes. I don’t want to see it.”
“Have a good flight, Mister Jeffries, and thanks for your business. Recommend me to your friends.” The detective thrust a business card at him, but he pretended not to see it. “I’ll contact you in two weeks, like we agreed.”
As the detective walked away, Mark had the urge to call after him, demand his money back, tell him that he’d made a mistake, but it was too late. The detective’s brown corduroy back was gone, swept along in the human current of the concourse out of sight.
For Mark emotional intimacy didn’t exist. Physical intimacy was all there was. His criticism, screaming, and hitting had made no difference to him and he couldn’t understand why it would make any difference to her. What he did understand was that after all he’d done for her, she was holding out on him. Of course Rachel was seeing another man. Why would she refuse her wifely duty toward her lawful husband, unless she was getting it from someone else?
He needed solid proof, but the detective would provide that. When he confronted her with the proof she would deny everything, but he would shock and shame her with his knowledge of her infidelity. Her spirit broken, she would sob, swear never to betray him again, and beg for his forgiveness-Mark hoped it would be on her knees. He would tell her that he might—might—be willing to grant her forgiveness, under certain conditions. Then he would lay down the law to her, starting with who had the rights of ownership over that part of her body between her lovely legs.
By the time his flight arrived in Schenectady Mark had recovered most of his good humor. There was definitely going to be a fresh start when he returned, one that he looked forward to, but one that Rachel might not like.
Chapter Twenty-Four
True was aware of Billy’s reputation with the ladies, but this time the boy had overstepped himself. “He follows you around?”
“I can’t go anywhere without his big, moony eyes staring at me. In church he’s always sitting next to me, even when there’s empty pews. I can’t get away from him!”
“Billy might be rude, but he doesn’t mean you any harm.”
“No harm? I found this stuck on the rose bush under my bedroom window.” The girl fished in the pocket of her dress. “It’s a love charm, isn’t it?”
True examined the ping pong-sized ball, bits of dried apple, chopped chicken feathers, and the pink petals of honeysuckle flowers rolled into a mass of paraffin. His fingers felt a roughness on one side. He turned it over and found he was stroking a curved bit of discarded toenail.
“You never bedded him,” he stated, meaning it as a question.
“No! Never.”
“Nor kissed him, nor touched him, nor promised to.”
The girl drew back the hem of her sundress as if to avoid contact with the imaginary scene. “I’d rather kiss a warthog.”
“You never asked him over to your place.”
“No! He followed me home one time but I didn’t let him in.”
It wasn’t Billy’s usual nature to stoop to such things as a love charm, but True could see why the boy had been tempted. This girl’s face was as fresh as springtime, her young body as thin as a willow wand, but it didn’t justify Billy’s following her to her own doorstep and scaring her silly. Not to mention, what if Billy decided to take matters even further?
“What if he tries to kiss me?” asked the girl, as if reading his thoughts.
True set the paraffin ball down. “I’ll take care of it, Bethie. Billy won’t bother you again.”
After the girl left, he broke up the ball with an ice pick and flushed the pieces down the toilet. Frowning, he stood some moments in thought, then took a terra cotta bowl from the cupboard and filled it with milk. Rummaging in one of the kitchen drawers he found a medicine bottle, the contents of which he had obtained from a friendly farmer. The powder inside was dried calf placenta.
He shook out a small amount of the powder into his hand and sprinkled it over the milk in the bowl. The powder clung to the surface in clumps like gelatin, and he stirred it with a finger to break it up. Then he leaned over the bowl, spat into it once, and spoke.
“Like a calf to its mama, heart to heartbeat, sixteen or sixty, all women are sweet, you’ll follow them all ‘cause you can’t help your feet.”
Poor Billy boy. However inoffensive he was, it was time for him to learn a lesson, and nothing worked like rubbing it in.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I appreciate it, Rachel.” Her boss tucked the check into the pocket of his sagging jeans. “But you don’t have to buy the cursed thing—what do you call it—the Behemoth. Given half a chance it would run over its own mother. A quarter of a chance, even. I got the thing twelve years ago from my cousin Bradley. What an asshole! I wouldn’t be on speaking terms with him if my sister weren’t such a nag. ‘But he’s family, Donny!’” he mimicked in falsetto. “As you may gather, my family is quite the dysfunctional lot. The reunion last year was a genuine three-ring circus, only without the popcorn. I wish you good luck with the van. You’ll need it.”
“It hasn’t been behaving too badly. Actually, I think we’ve reached an understanding.”
“Speaking of reaching understandings and so forth, there’s something I need to discuss with you.”
A vacant, plastic grin spread across the lower half of her face. “Something to discuss, Don?” she asked, too brightly. “Is there a problem?”
“A major one. No, don’t look at me like that! You’re doing a terrific job, but I would like to impose upon you for a favor. Honest to God, they’re leaving in droves.”
“What’s happened, Don?”
“Jenkins has deserted me for better pastures at the Sentinel-Herald, irresponsible dolt that he is. I’ll see him in hell before I give him a good reference, not that it matters to those thieving bastards at the Sentinel-Herald anyway. I hate to impose on you like this, but would you be willing to take over as our official staff photographer?”
Rachel’s mouth dropped open.
“The Regular Chronicle must go out on time, and I’m a desperate man and will stop at nothing to gain my ends. I’ll raise your salary to full time starting immediately, if you’re interested of course. I swear, if one more staff member deserts me for another paper or moves to Louisiana or joins the Peace Corps, I’ll have you doing all of the staff work, and then you’ll leave the YRC for a less demanding position with the Boston Globe. You aren’t thinking of joining the Peace Corps, are you?”
She mustered a reply. “Not after all you’ve done for me, Don, and I would be delighted to help out the Regular Chronicle.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it.” Don tugged the hem of his T-shirt farther over his expansive belly. “Do you have a digital camera? Would you like Jenkins’s?”
Rachel would now be drawing a full-time salary, and her freedom from Mark was imminent. Outside, though, as she paused to savor the sights and sounds of busy Washington Street, she didn’t feel as joyful. When Fate threw her the lifeline of Robert’s Ramblings she had been profoundly grateful. She was no less grateful today, but she felt it less keenly than before, for there was so much that had to be done. The Behemoth’s title had to be transferred to herself. She needed to locate an inexpensive apartment and put a deposit down. She had to scout around the used furniture stores for a sofa, a bed, a table and chairs, some inexpensive curtains, and a few pictures, too, for she hated bare walls. Yesterday two months had seemed like forever, but today she felt the urgency of time passing.
Her breath puffing in the chilly air, she reread the advertisement she’d clipped from the Sunday paper. One bedroom with galley kitchen, gas stove, street parking,
heat included. Laundry room in basement. No pets.
Years ago when she first moved to Yarwich she had felt cramped in the one-bedroom apartment she had rented. Now that same amount of space made her feel free. As she put the paper back in her pocket her fingers brushed against the other piece of paper there, reminding her of her next errand: giving Joshua Lambrecht’s letter to True. If the information was helpful he might forgive her for drawing Joshua’s attention to them—if she were lucky. She had never seen True angry, but her imagined picture of his furious eyes and his mouth wide open, screaming at her, made her stomach churn.
Rummage Sale. Before Rachel’s brain registered the sign she had already driven past the yard with card tables balanced upon the uneven sod, but then the contents of the tables came into her mind: dishes, a skillet, perhaps even curtains! She guided the Behemoth off the pavement onto the gravel shoulder, intending to turn around, when she saw the other thing. Minutes ago in the rear view mirror she had noticed a black sedan behind her on the highway. Pulling over should have facilitated the car’s passing—but it had never passed her by. The silver of the rear-view mirror was flaking away and the glass bloomed with whitish discolorations, but against the light gravel she made out a shiny black splinter roughly a quarter mile away from where she sat. Joshua.
Joshua wouldn’t, couldn’t, harm her in front of witnesses, but to return to the house with the rummage sale she would have to pass him, which would make it easier for him to chase her down. The nearest town was Maddington, but it was miles beyond True’s house and she knew that Joshua would never allow her get that far.
n the mirror, the black splinter hadn’t moved—obviously he was waiting for her to make a run for it. Then I’ll give him what he wants, she thought. Her palms greasy with sweat, she stood up and pressed one foot down on the brake, the other on the accelerator, slamming the transmission into gear and letting up on the brake at the same time. With a soul-chilling screech The Behemoth sprang into motion and leaped forward onto the pavement. It had never moved so fast in all its days.
She was a mile down the road before she dared to check the mirror again. To her horror the black car was close behind her, keeping pace with her mad dash. Even if she could manage to keep the Behemoth on the road around these mountainous curves it couldn’t keep up this pace for very long. She had only meant to try and lose Joshua, but if this turned into a race she knew she could never win it.
Coming up fast around the curve on her right was a junkyard piled high with broken-down school buses and ancient tractors. She had never given the place much attention, but now she breathed a silent prayer of thanks that it was there. She gripped the wheel tightly, and as the van rounded the curve she jerked it hard to the right. Scarcely slowing down, the van darted off the highway and bounded like an asthmatic cheetah onto the rutted track running between the teetering heaps of damaged vehicles.
It was a short driveway, and she soon came to the end of it. Directly in front of the van a flimsy shack of gray corrugated iron stood sentinel, blocking the way. Rachel stamped her feet hard on the brake pedal and her head jolted forward, missing the windshield by inches. At the sound of brakes the door of the shack flung open and an old man appeared in the doorway, dressed only in worn suspender pants. His silhouette was mostly hidden in the shadow of the doorway but she saw him raise a long stick to his shoulder, and she didn’t need to be an expert in pantomime to know he was aiming a shotgun at her head.
The strain of the last few weeks had exhausted her. Getting her head blown off should have been a frightening prospect, but as True might have put it, Rachel had “run clean out of fear.” Throwing the Behemoth into reverse, she waved a cheery goodbye to the frightened hermit and backed away from the shack at speed, passing back through the piles of rusted-out hulks.
Traveling in reverse gear, the Behemoth moved sluggishly out of the junkyard, as if it had found its true home at last and was reluctant to leave it, but she had grown used to its moods and had no mercy. At the edge of the road, she stopped to glance around her for Joshua, but she was completely alone on the road.
* * * *
“Shit on a shingle.”
A bored housewife out on a day trip, traveling along a lonesome highway, and he’d actually managed to lose her.
“Shit-on-a-shingle with mustard,” the detective repeated, putting his foot on the gas. He’d get a cup of coffee at the truck stop outside Maddington, then go back to Yarwich and stake out the house again. Mrs. Jeffries had to come home sometime.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I can’t find him. Somewhere in Massachusetts is all I get.” True lowered the pendulum of quartz crystal he had been using to try and locate his enemy. “Rachel, you look like you’ve run a hundred-mile race.”
“I nearly lost that race, too.” She picked her way between the maps spread out on the living room floor. “I found out where Joshua lives.”
“Who?”
“Your witch man. His name is Joshua Lambrecht and he doesn’t live very far from here. He had this horrible creature with him, and he was…I can’t tell you what he was doing, it’s too disgusting. This thing, you should have seen it, it was like an animal. No, really, it was like a bunch of animals—”
“You found the witch man?” He spoke the words slowly, as if they were hard for him to get out. “I’ve been working all night and all day, and you just go out and find him.” Something close to awe shone in his weird blue eyes, and the sight gratified Rachel immensely.
“That’s what you asked me to do, so I did a little bit of checking around. I also happened to pick this up while I was there. Do you know any witch men in Red Ridge, New York?”
Speechless, True turned the envelope over in his hands.
“Go on, open it.”
He hooked a thumb underneath the flap of the envelope, tore it open, and handed the typewritten sheet to Rachel. “You found it.”
She knew he was aflame with curiosity, and was grateful for his gesture. She read it out loud.
Joshua,
In answer to your first question, I doubt it. In 1967 a water pipe in the basement of the Yarwich Historical Society gave way and a large portion of their archives was wiped out in the resulting flood. Even assuming any of the Sea Queen’s records were stored down there, odds are that they were among those items which were ruined. I’m sure you remember that in 1967, internet archiving of public records wasn’t possible, so what was lost back then is surely lost forever.
To answer your other question, no, it would not be as before the Great Fire, because it was fleas then and you yourself would be the only vector now.
I wish you would give this up. I regret I ever told you about that ship. Your stomach was always stronger than mine, and what you contemplate doing is too much for me.
As far as locating the remains, you are on your own. I wash my hands of the whole thing, and I must request that you do not contact me any more concerning this matter.
Yours, EH
Rachel handed the letter to True and he read it through a second time, quietly. After her triumph it was a hard thing to do, but she had to tell him about what happened at the house. She waited until he was done reading.
“True…when I was there at the house, Joshua saw me.”
True smoothed the paper over one leg of his jeans.
“I tried to be careful, but it seemed like he knew I was there all along. Do you think he knew I was coming?”
He ironed the letter with one hand, back and forth.
“Say something, for Pete’s sake. Yell at me. Throw something!”
“You didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“I’m sorry, True.”
“What’s done is done. You got the letter, anyway.”
“What do you suppose it means?”
“This EH person doesn’t want to
be mixed up in something Joshua’s doing. That ship, have you ever heard tell of a ship called the Sea Queen?”
“No, never. Whatever Joshua is planning has to do with some great fire, but the only great fire I know happened in London in 1666.”
“That’s some mighty old news, then.”
The gentle joke made her feel better. “A long time ago I remember my father reading about water damage in the Yarwich Historical Society basement, but I don’t remember what year.”
“A flood, a ship, and a fire,” he stated. “That’s what we’ve got to work with.”
“And some remains, but whose?”
“Maybe Joshua’s looking for his ancestors.”
“If EH doesn’t approve of what Joshua’s doing he might be willing to help us stop him.”
“If EH is another witch man I don’t want his help. Three of us is too many.”
“Maybe this letter isn’t such a help after all.”
“You were smart to take it. I wouldn’t have thought to.”
“What do you think that animal is, True? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s a familiar, an evil servant that does its master’s bidding. Familiars are made out of whatever’s on hand, like bat wings and snake fangs and turtle feet.” Encouraged by the look of revulsion on her face, he continued. “You can make a familiar from scratch or turn any living animal into one. You have to suckle it, though, ‘cause that’s how they’re fed.”
“Oh, no! You’d better be joking.”
“Familiars are handy things. If I had one I’d make it chop wood.”
“Why don’t you make one, then?”
“Because they’re bad news. The more evil a familiar does, the more it takes pleasure from it. In the end they all go bad.” True folded the letter into a small, precise square and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “You say Joshua Lambrecht lives close by. If he’s been there all along, why would he start tormenting folks now?”
