Mooved to Murder

by CeeCee James

  “Gossip just flies around here. We don’t like strangers trying to besmirch others reputation.”

  What was he talking about?

  “Clint was a good man, you know. My dad went to school with him. They were friends.”

  I tried not to give a sarcastic sniff. After everything I’d heard, maybe it wasn’t such a brag worthy event to be his friend. But I wasn’t going to say that. Instead, I studied the gum display as if it held the key to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.

  The checker said nothing more, letting the beeps of the items going over his scanner do the talking for him. Each one sounded as disdainful as his pursed lips looked.

  I glanced behind me. Was that woman judging me as well? I crossed my arms and tried not to hunker down.

  The grocer sent the last item down the belt and then stared at me. Obviously, he had no intention of bagging it up. I stormed to the end and threw my stuff into the bags. Looping them over my arm, I smiled at him. “I’m sorry that happened to your dad’s friend. Have a good day.” Then I spun on my heel and walked out the front door with my head held high.

  The walk through the parking lot was long and lonely as I pictured the remaining customers staring at me through the window. I shoved the stuff into my trunk and tried not to fume. People obviously were confused. I needed to remember not to take it personally. I just needed to get my head in the game and head to the post office for my package after that weird nondelivery the day before. Then it was home to meet Emma.

  After another engine-clattering ride, I walked up to the entrance of the post office. On the way, I caught the scent of French fries, and my stomach growled.

  There was only one person at the counter before me. Although the post lady had friendly banter, they were quickly finished. I walked up to the counter, expecting the same smile. Instead, the post lady’s smile fell when she made eye contact with me.

  That caught me off guard. “Hi, there. I’m expecting a package, but I haven’t had any mail for the last few days.”

  Before I could even give her my name, she stiffly nodded. “One moment, please.” And then she disappeared around a shelf and through an open doorway in the back.

  That was extremely odd. She didn’t even know who I was. I could hear whispering and strained to listen.

  A moment later she came out with a stack of mail. “The mailman said it fell between the seats. Here you go.” She hesitated and then added, “If you don’t get your mail again, I suppose you better come back in here and check.”

  “Was there a box?”

  She shook her head. “Not today.” And with that she returned to the back room. No asking me if there was anything else, or if she could get me some stamps. Just up and left.

  I stormed out the door, ready to rip it from the hinges. They were freezing me out. Might as well tell me the mailman wasn’t going to be stopping at my place anymore.

  I slammed my door shut and threw the mail on the passenger seat. I didn’t start the car, I didn’t think I could trust myself to drive until I calmed down.

  But I soon discovered that sitting in the parking lot wasn’t helping. People were eyeing me as they entered the post office. I had to get out of here.

  I turned the key in the ignition, planning to search for some quiet place where I could pull over. Instead, I found myself driving out of town and along the back roads, music cranked, trying to chill out.

  I ended up on a road leading in the opposite way that I lived. Bright orange and yellow trees flew past me. Their leaves scattered behind my car. I found a fork and took it, and then took the next. I vaguely worried that I might not find my way back out to the main road, but the other part of me knew I could trust myself to figure it out.

  There was a vacant area that opened to a large parking lot that had once served a few abandoned buildings. It looked like nobody had been here for a long time, at least not without a can of spray paint, judging from the graffiti. It was attached to another lot, and this one was filled with travel trailers. There was a huge sign that screamed in giant red letters, “End of year sale!”

  The trailer lot looked like it had seen better days as well. I couldn’t help but wonder what year they meant.

  Past that was nothing but empty lots that were filled with grass. Trees started to creep up in the background, the kind that grew near a river.

  As I drove, I wondered when the road would run out. It had the look of a dead end to it, the farther I got from town. It’s funny how you can tell a dead end, even in the path of life. Experience is sometimes a tough teacher.

  Sure enough, the road petered out at a dirt parking lot, with a small shack huddled at one side. The sign attached to the roof said, “Greatest river tours ever!”

  Okay! I knew exactly where I was—Sharon’s nephew’s place. I parked in the lot, the engine clunking and rumbling before I turned it off. I climbed out and walked up to the crooked front door.

  I’ll admit I was standing with a stiff spine and shoulders back. I felt slightly nervous at how my treatment would be after my last two experiences.

  The door’s front corner dragged against the floor as I opened it. Then it gave way, and I stumbled inside.

  It was an old place, you could feel it. The wood floors were dark and scarred with age, and the same wood planked walls. A man in his forties looked up from a book he was reading at the counter.

  “Help you?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I’m Sharon’s neighbor. I think this is the place she told me about. I’m supposed to find her nephew and see if I could get a boat ride.”

  He stood, showing faded overalls and making the worn stool creak. “You found the right place. I’m Joss, her nephew. You’re the new girl out that way?”

  He was a big guy, but his age surprised me for some reason. When Sharon had mentioned her nephew I expected someone more my age. Instead, he only appeared about ten years younger than Sharon herself.

  I nodded. “Yes I am.”

  “I heard you haven’t had a very nice welcome.”

  That was the understatement of the year. “Not especially.”

  “Well, I was no friend to Clint McDaniel, and it’s not your fault the way he kicked off. So I guess you’re a friend of mine.” He held out a calloused hand. “You in the mood for a tour?”

  “I’ll have a first-grader that will be with me.”

  “That works. I have lifejackets. You like birds?” He talked with an easy cadence, as if everything about him was a human version of the slow moving river itself.

  I nodded, feeling that flicker of the same feeling that had happened with Emma’s teacher. There were good people around. I needed to hold out hope that I would find them.

  “It’s a gorgeous river. Bring your camera. We have lots of birds and wildlife.”

  And so we made plans for Saturday.

  Strawberries, and green grass, nightmares and red smears can knock off. I am worth being alive. I am worth being alive. I am worth being alive.

  Chapter 19

  It’s hot out. The sun is beating on my head as I walk. I have a long way to go. But I don’t want to turn around. I don’t want to go back. I have new shoes, and I love them. They have pink shoelaces.

  There is a road sign. So many road signs. They all say the same thing. Strawberries this way. I know the place. I’ve been there before. A lush green carpet with tiny white flowers and sweet red berries. Fairy berries. I can eat my fill and lie in the grass and watch the white clouds tromp across the azure sky.

  I’m almost there. My stomach churns in eagerness even as my sweaty hands squeeze to pick the berries. There’s a noise. An unearthly noise. Should I run?

  Don’t you always run when you hear that noise? The noise that means the end is coming.

  And so I run.

  My dream, my eight-year-old legs, the strawberries take me closer to the noise. There’s no escaping it. The rumble fills the air and grabs me through my Snoopy t-shirt, clenching deeper than skin. Clawing at my he
art, my head, trying to get in. I scream, but the noise is bigger than that.

  It’s bigger than the sky.

  It snuffs out the sunlight. I drop to my knees and cover my ears. The sun is gone, the colors are gone. There is nothing but the noise.

  But not for long.

  It never ends here. How I wish it would end here. Even in my dream I cry out, beg, plead.

  Save us! Save them!

  The noise doesn’t answer. It doesn’t care. It has no emotion. It’s only goal is to eat up the sky, bringing sulfur and fire and smoke.

  And death.

  The strawberries vibrate on their tender green stems. The flowers are hidden in the dark shadow.

  I want to go home. Home is a very long way from here.

  And then it happens. Like another world intersecting ours, another dream happening in the middle of the first one, a new scene unfolds.

  Earthquake. The entire world shakes. The ground booms.

  Everything explodes. I’m knocked off my feet, and I fly. Only it’s not like I thought flying would be. It’s not free. There is no control. I face the clouds and wonder where I’m going. The clouds can’t tell me.

  Then I hit it. A bush. It catches me in the same way a baseball player catches a ball. I’m scooped and rolled, and then I fall to the ground.

  Finally, I look up. All I see is insanity.

  Fire.

  Evil black smoke.

  My strawberries are smashed and smeared into long red watercolor splashes.

  And then I realize I’m screaming.

  And not just me.

  There is nothing I can do. I can’t help. I can only watch from a distance as the fire’s heat forces me even further away. The screams end. The fire dies to hot flickers. The watercolor splashes turn black.

  And then it’s over. I am alone. More alone than I was when I first got there. Birds are gone, insects. The tiny snakes in the grass.

  My secret place.

  It’s all buried under charred soot and the remnants of an airplane.

  I watch it for a while, shivering. I don’t know if I’m cold. I don’t know what’s wrong.

  The sun sets below the hill. I can see the shimmering fires now, orange footprints of death. And then there are more lights.

  Red. White. Blue.

  They come out of their cars and their trucks looking like Lego people. They do their job.

  They find me and gasp.

  I am passed from person to person as they touch my face, my arms, my back.

  “Did you see this happen?” they ask.

  “You are one lucky girl. So many died but you are alive.”

  I nod like I’ve heard them. I’m tired.

  They put me in the back of a car. It flashes its sirens to sound important. But I know it’s not. The sound is puny and has no power over life. I’ve seen the sound that does.

  I lean back in the seat and look at the shadowy trees flashing by outside the window. Lingering around me, like the scorched scent in my clothes, is the thought, Why me? Maybe I shouldn’t be here.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be alive.

  Twenty years later, I open my eyes in a strange room, in a strange house. Once again, I struggle to rejoin real life, even as the dream, the memory, claws at my mind to keep its hooks in me.

  The cow moos, and I am grateful. Keep me grounded, Rosy. Remind me I’m here and not there.

  I’d discovered that healing wasn’t in a straight line away from the event. Instead, it was like a spiral around a mountain. Around I go, and every time I pass the pain, I might feel the same way. But I was moving up. I was moving forward. And, bit by bit, I saw that I had changed when I came around to the memory of the event again.

  At eight, I’d been afraid I wouldn’t live to see another day. I’d even wrote goodbye letters, one to Mom and a couple to my friends.

  Then I’d gotten sick. I needed my appendix out. I was terrified when they wheeled me back for surgery. And when I woke things had become crystal clear. I needed to earn this life. I needed to live it for those who had died.

  I still didn’t feel like I deserved it.

  Mom worried so much about me after the airplane crash. It made her crazy how I tried to do everything right. How I tried to please all of my classmates and teachers. I remember when Mom called the counselor. She’d been standing still like a statue. A fly buzzed around her and she didn’t move. That’s what I remember most about that moment, that darn fly.

  It landed on her arm. She said, “I can get her there tomorrow.” It flew off and landed on her hair. She said okay. It lifted again, this time swooping around her head twice. She didn’t notice. Instead, she locked eyes with me, her face white. I didn’t see joy, I didn’t see excitement.

  I saw fear.

  I saw preparedness.

  I recognized that. Things were happening out of her control. She wanted everything to stay the same. She wanted me safe.

  She was afraid I might not be.

  I saw all this as she locked her eyes on me. I saw her fear.

  And I never wanted to see that look on her face again.

  I went to the counselor, a kind lady who listened and helped me. She was the one who had told me that I deserved happiness. That I was here for a reason. That I was good enough and didn’t need to strive to earn permission to live.

  That I was worthy of love.

  And that I was loved.

  I thank God for her.

  Rosy mooed again, the goats bleated, the dog barked. There was pounding of footsteps up the stairs and then my door was flung open.

  “Chelsea! Are you okay? Are we going on the river tour? It’s late, and I need breakfast!” Emma demanded.

  I rolled my face into the pillow and smiled despite myself. “I’m coming. Go feed your bunnies and this time don’t bring them into the house.”

  Her footsteps thumped back down the stairs. I sat up and stretched. I wasn’t living healing and truth perfectly. But I knew, the next time I came around the mountain and confronted those memories again, I’d be a little bit different than I had been.

  One day at a time.

  Chapter 20

  Slowly, I got out of bed and shuffled my way to my suitcase to find clothes. By the time I made it downstairs, Emma was at the table.

  “I fed the dog, the cat and the bunnies. And I couldn’t wait for you anymore, so I fed myself.”

  I glanced over to see what her choice of food was. Peanut butter, an apple, and a box of crackers. Well, I supposed that worked. “You want milk?”

  She shook her head.

  “You excited for the river trip today?”

  “I guess so. And tomorrow I get to see Daddy!”

  That was true. David was out of town for work a lot, but he was a good guy, and a good father. I smiled at her excitement.

  As she ate, I took care of the cow and goats. Then we both showered and headed out. This time there was no hiding the rattle of the car engine. Emma gleefully pointed it out again and again.

  Joss was waiting for us when we arrived.

  “Good morning!” I said, climbing out.

  “Morning.” He rubbed his jaw. “Your car has some knocking to it. I could hear you coming all the way down the road.”

  I tensed. Today was supposed to be about relaxing, not thinking about new problems. “I know. I need to bring it to the mechanic.”

  “I don’t think it’s a mechanic you be needing,” he said, starting over. He wiped his hands on his dirty jeans. “Pop the hood.”

  What? Was he going to dig into the engine right now? “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “Pop the hood, I said.”

  He was a little brusque, but I could tell he was just a no-nonsense guy. Kind of reminded me of Sharon’s attitude, now that I thought about it. Shrugging, I opened the door and did what he said.

  He did some digging around, and I heard the rattle again.

  “Ah. It’s what I thought,” he said grimly.

&n
bsp; I was afraid to look.

  He popped his head around the corner and beckoned. “Come here.”

  Reluctantly, I climbed out and walked around to the front. He pointed to a big metal thing, something I’d call a whatcha-ma-call-it, but he referred to as the air filter. And then he said the one word I never expected to hear.

  “Squirrels.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You’ve got squirrels hiding nuts in your engine. Those critters bury them everywhere.” With that he reached in and scooped out a handful and chucked them out into the parking lot.

  Squirrels. I shook my head. Joss dug around and found some more and then made one last inspection. “I think you’re good now,” he said. “Shut the hood and hop in.”

  I shut the hood but I was confused what we were hopping into.

  He gestured to his SUV. “Boat’s at the other end.” He opened the back passenger door and tossed in some life jackets. “River runs that away. Boat’s docked up past Carson’s corner. We’ll drive there and then float down here.

  My gaze flicked to Emma who was as happy as a clam at the new adventure. Joss walked over to the driver’s side. “Well, come on. I have another tour at two.”

  “Right.” I walked over to the open rear door and peered in. Miraculously, there was a booster seat.

  “Have them for my own kids,” he said slowly.

  I gave a brief nod and strapped Emma in. Then I climbed into the passenger side.

  We bumped down the road for a few minutes. I was actually surprised when Joss pulled over to the dock. We didn’t seem like we’d traveled far enough to even need a tour.

  Joss seemed to read my mind. As he unpacked his gear, he explained, “River kind of goes knotty here, weaving in and out of wetlands. You’ll get your money’s worth, I promise.”

  When I saw the little boat, I wasn’t sure the level of reassurance that was supposed to bring. I strapped Emma into her life jacket and shrugged on mine. It smelled of fish bait, making me wrinkle my nose.

  “Oh, is that the boat!” Emma skipped ahead to the dock. I chased after her, while Joss worked on the engine. It hardly looked more than a dinghy.